Turned out a Park of the Tranquil Eye sand raker had called the CPA the minute the fight broke out. The agents spent the morning working on booking us all, one by one.

  Bodhi started crying about an hour into the process. The diaper bag had been confiscated when they brought us in, but our arresting agent, who was actually just one dude with a Cloning Spirit, took Bodhi up front and changed and fed him for us.

  I spent the morning watching for any hostile movements from the Body Cult hooligans on the opposite side of the holding cell. Like the CPA cuffs, the cell had been equipped with a Spirit suppression script, so I didn’t have Dead Reckoning to warn me. If somebody made a move for Warcry, I planned to summon the Lunar Scythe. Jumping straight to the enormous blade nobody but Warcry knew I had smuggled in would be a major escalation, but I was hoping it would serve as a deterrent. If it didn’t, then I would just have to deal with the consequences the next time I pulled Wrathblade.

  While I was coming up with probably some of the worst plans of my life, Warcry was obsessively checking the time on his HUD.

  “You’ve got two and a half hours,” I said.

  “Warcry Thompson has never lost a bout on an absence!” he growled.

  “Take it easy. Kest said she was on her way.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll bleeding kick my way outta here if I have to. Whoever I’m fighting today knew they couldn’t take me in the ring, that’s why they tried this bollix.”

  I didn’t tell Warcry that he was probably right. His opponent that afternoon was supposed to be Ivalya’s champ. The guy hadn’t been in with the Body Cult hit squad and wasn’t rotting in holding with us. He was probably already in the kokugikan, gearing up to accept his forfeit win.

  We were still waiting for our turn in booking an hour later when the tired-looking Clone agent stalked down the hall. He looked us over, then nodded at a dragonfly drone.

  A buzzer went off. The bars rolled open.

  “You two are free to go. Self-defense and defense of a minor. If your attorneys can figure out which one of them gets to take credit for springing you.”

  I blinked. “Attorneys?”

  “Oi, I came in here with a little scag!” Warcry snapped. “Where’d you leave him?”

  “Relax.” The desk agent nodded toward the front of the hub. “Your candidate’s holding him.”

  Out in the desk pool, Kest rocked baby Bodhi while she argued with a pantsuit-wearing Selken who was busy filling out forms on a clipboard-style tablet.

  “I handle all our legal affairs,” Kest said. “It’s none of the Chairman’s business, which means it’s none of yours.”

  The attorney didn’t raise her eyes from the tablet. “You’ll have to take that up with him. The Chairman asked me to assure that your electoral champion left CPA custody healthy and in fighting shape with plenty of time for your bout this afternoon.”

  “He told you to leave Hake in here to rot, didn’t he?”

  “No second party was specified.”

  I saw Donnie Four-Eyes over in the corner, working in front of a wall of monitors, but he didn’t look up when I passed. A handful of agents stood guard over the doors. Every now and then outside, a paparazzi drone bobbed into the window frame.

  Kest spotted us following the Clone agent out.

  “Tell the Chairman that my boyfriend left the hub in one piece at the same time my champion did,” she told the attorney. Then Kest turned to us. “Hake, Warcry, are you guys ready to go?”

  “Uh, before you all leave,” a Selken agent said, awkwardly holding out his HUD. Black capillaries darkened in the tops of his cheeks and his ears. “Do you think I could get a picture with you, Mr. Thompson? I’m a huge fan.”

  ***

  After Warcry took a dozen pictures with his CPA fanclub, we booked it across town to the kokugikan. Kest headed straight upstairs to the skybox with the baby, while Warcry and I sprinted through more screaming Warcry Thompson fanatics to the locker rooms.

  “Five minute warning, Mr. Thompson!” a staffer yelled as we sprinted past.

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  “He’ll be there,” I told the guy.

  In the locker room, I sent Dead Reckoning searching for threats while Warcry speed-swapped his street clothes with his fight gear and wrapped his hands and foot.

  Out in the arena, the PA system cut through the jock jams. “Candidate Iye Skal Irakest’s champion, Warcry Thompson, fighting Candidate Zhishon Xi Ivalya’s champion, Ryunyuu!”

  The crowd went nuts out there.

  Warcry whipped the last round of tape around his foot and ripped it off.

  “That picture show broad shoulda cut me throat herself if she wanted to stop me showing for a tournament,” he said, chucking the empty tape roll at the trashcan.

  “What happened to Ivalya having ‘proper class’?” I asked.

  He knelt in the middle of the floor.

  “This is war, grav. She had to do what she had to do, didn’t she? Don’t change nothing, just means she shoulda hired a better quality of mercs.” He shut his eyes and planted his fists on his hips, slowing and deepening his breathing. “Give us a kick when there’s one minute left, yeah?”

  ***

  The combination of the ambush, stewing in the holding cell, and all that condensing must’ve really pumped Warcry up. His walk to the cage lasted longer than his fight.

  One second, Warcry was bowing to the starlet’s Holy Body Cult fighter Ryunyuu, then the ref was raising Warcry’s hand and yelling “Victor!” Nearby, Ryunyuu lolled around the cage floor trying to get both his eyes pointing the same direction again.

  The crowd went insane. Seating cushions wheeled through the air, landing in and around the cage. Warcry stayed standing to bow to his opponent this time, then with an ugly smirk on his face, he bowed to the skybox, a move obviously meant for Ivalya. Meanwhile, the deluge of cushions continued, and the PA system demanded that spectators politely refrain from throwing them. No one listened. The uproar went on and on.

  I kept an eye out for anything more dangerous than raining cushions as I followed Warcry to the tunnel, but once we were safely enclosed in the hallway to the locker rooms, I checked the replay timestamp on my HUD.

  One-point-nine seconds.

  A tenth of a second slower than Sedrick Nameless’s championship victory at Van Diemann’s Wilderness Territorial. But only because Warcry had waited for the ref to get his hand out of the way before he attacked.

  “Dude, you finished that in—”

  Dead Reckoning went off as Warcry opened his locker room door.

  There wasn’t time to warn him. I hit the Ki-speed and slammed into his side, knocking him out of the way and shoving Death Metal into the path of the threat.

  The attack stopped an eyelash from my shield.

  A tall Ylef with green hair stood on the threshold, fists raised in kicking guard, one foot planted, her other knee cocked back and ready to stomp somebody’s teeth out the back of their head.

  “Where’d you stash my baby, you steaming redheaded craik?” Hyla growled.

  I braced for Warcry to go nuclear, but for once he did the exact opposite.

  “Your baby?” He crossed his arms and looked down his sweaty broken nose at her. “Didn’t call him Bodhi Nameless, did ya.”

  “Nameless don’t inherit factory magnate fortunes. Your name’s fair lucrative, even if you aren’t. Ask Ma’s estate lawyers.”

  “Nothing more beautiful than an opponent on the back foot, is there?” Warcry smirked. “I already contacted ’em. They sent me the blood factors, the genetic divinings, the Spirit affinity. His bleedin’ birthdate.”

  “He was born a month early.”

  “Was he, yeah? Am I supposed to beg you to tell me who me replacement was? Weep me eyes out and say somethin’ like, ‘But I did time for that night!’ You already invented some bloke for when I ask, and two backstories besides.”

  “I didn’t need to invent anything. You weren’t the first rich prat on Qaspar-7 to go slumming, and you weren’t the last.”

  “May do, but Bodhi’s my son.”

  “Wrong. He’s my ticket to a title run.”

  “Save us some time and pull this leg.” Warcry slapped his prosthetic. “You had Fight Month on a platter, Hangman, and where are you now? Raising the cup? Spending the credits? No, you’re here spouting your lies because you can’t stop for one second, even when you’re looking for our son.”

  Warcry shook his head. His stance shifted subtly, almost like he was pulling himself back from the rage.

  “I know you’re sick of this twist-about, Hyla,” he said in a softer voice. “The grav and me both saw the fan in your locker back on Ryu.”

  Hyla’s catlike green eyes scraped across my face.

  Being called attention to in the middle of someone else’s messed-up relationship arguments will really ramp up the awkward factor. I tried to stick my hands in my back pockets, realized suit pants don’t have those, and stuck them in my front pockets instead.

  She turned back to Warcry. “Of course I kept it. No pawn broker in the galaxy would waste a credit on it. I take it out when I need a laugh at the planker who thought he was special just because I told him which factory orphanage I came out of.”

  That did it. Flames fwooshed, and Warcry slammed his fist into the wall. The cinderblock cracked, raining paint chips.

  Just then, Kest came around the corner, carrying the baby.

  “Sorry, guys, I got hung up listening to supporters gush about the fight. Apparently Warcry set a…”

  She let the thought trail off as Hyla streaked to intercept her. The Nameless Ylef lifted Bodhi off Kest’s shoulder and nestled him under her chin.

  “You must be Hyla.” Kest bowed over her hands. Next to Hyla, she looked tiny. The Nameless had to be at least six feet tall. “Iye Skal Irakest. It’s my pleasure to meet you.”

  Eyes flat, Hyla sized up the Selken who had just handed over her son. “I thought your tastes ran to less class, Thompson. Obviously you’re not the only one who likes slumming.”

  “Oh, Warcry and I aren’t together,” Kest said. “Hake is my boyfriend. Warcry is just my candidate for the electoral tournament.”

  Hyla gave her a tight smile. “Then I’ll save you the warning.”

  The whir of paparazzi bots echoed down the hall, reminding me way late that I was supposed to be the bodyguard here.

  “Guys, we should probably move this discussion to somewhere more private. Let’s head back to the hotel.”

  “Warcry’s got to do some interviews,” Kest said. “That’s what I was saying before—he broke all sorts of electoral tournament records with that victory. The press is going wild.”

  The bots zoomed around the corner, already yelling for Mr. Thompson.

  Warcry nodded at Hyla. “Be a tart and throw us a towel, Hangman. And don’t go anywhere with my son.”

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