The first thing that hit her when she came to was the smell of mouldy dust emanating from the hard canvas under her head. Through the haze she could see a humanoid with two arms in the air strutting the canvas triumphantly. The voice of the autonomous referee punched through the muffled sound of scattered boos and jeers of the strewn crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20185! \u2026 6!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The numbers struck her like a familiar drumbeat beaten to stimulate a Pavlovian response that had become as hard-wired in her brain as the taste of ruby copper on her lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20187! \u2026 8!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She pulled one of her arms under herself to lift her body, but the weight of her age and two decades of grinding as a weekly journeywoman brutally resisted the instinct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20189! \u2026 10!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She felt the irresistible sensation of her body turning into jelly and fell back onto the canvas. The last thing she heard was the distant sound of faint applause just before she passed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The indistinct nano-fluorescent lights wrapped the cold storage room in an icy hue of blue. She trudged inside and put her large holdall on top of a stack of modular levitation pallets, then walked to an abandoned mirror on the wall and studied the bruises on her face. Steam rose from her sweaty body and surrounded her like an evasive halo seeking guidance on whether the subject of its adoration was worthy of anything at all. She stood still and stared vacantly at the human wreck that reflected back at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creaking of the door broke the silence, and a skinny man with a rugged face stepped inside. He stopped just out of range from her. The intruding light from the corridor painted a bright line over his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Jeez, that was painful to watch,\u2019 he said. His cranky voice chimed in perfect harmony with the decrepit storage room. \u2018Why are you still doing this?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She turned away from the mirror but didn\u2019t look up and continued to unwrap the bandage from her hand. She hissed when the synthetic cotton separated from the raw skin on her bruised knuckles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man watched her for a bit, waiting for a response, then continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Whatever\u2026 Here\u2019s your cut. You need to get an implant buddy, I can\u2019t keep paying you in casino chips.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She looked at the chips then looked at the skinny man. Her look made him shudder. There was no depth in her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Listen pal, that\u2019s all I can pay,\u2019 the man said quietly, and embarrassedly looked away to avert her gaze. \u2018Nobody watches this unlicensed shit any more. I lose money every time I put idiots like you on the cards.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stopped staring at the skinny man and went back to unwrapping her bandage. The man shook his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018For Pete\u2019s sake pal, you need to stop being so chatty,\u2019 he said. \u2018I can\u2019t get a word in sideways.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The little man no longer existed for her. She took off her sport bra without turning away, put on a faded black vest, then slowly put her gear inside the bag and picked up a long, oilskin overcoat. The man shook his head again and sighed in a fake tone of annoyance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Listen bud, I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m doing this, must be your charming personality, but here\u2019s a guy you could call. He does unlicensed stuff with seriously more money at stake.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She took the contact and without looking at the man, walked outside into the rain. The pavement mirrored the flickering reflections of holographic billboards. Her overcoat adjusted itself to the inclement conditions and closed all the way up to her neck. She put her hood up and trudged painfully into the night. The rain drew long lines on her coat. There was a strong headwind and the relentless cascade of water bounced unwelcomingly off her face and tightly stiff lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lights of a takeaway booth lit up the front door of a dilapidated building. She picked up some food from the booth, and walked upstairs. She stopped in front of a graffiti-laden door and looked pensively at the handle for a few moments before pushing it down. The door opened into a small flat, which was poorly lit by a single tube of pseudo-bio light on the ceiling. The walls were stained with a thick residue of neglect which made the space feel significantly smaller than its true size. The air was stagnant and heavy with oblivion. An old, stammering ventilation fan was struggling to keep the atmosphere humanly bearable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A man in a wheelchair was staring out the window and looked at her as she entered the room. The two faces bore ghastly resemblance, except their eyes. The eyes of the man in the wheelchair still had a warm twinkle, which was framed by his long, unkept hair. His muscular arms rested peacefully on the remains of the wheelchair\u2019s armrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She put the box of bio-engineered Chinese on the table, opened a cupboard to get a plate and emptied the content of the box onto it. She entered a code into the table\u2019s hologram controller and walked over to the man. The wheels of his chair squeaked as it reluctantly moved closer to the table. The table picked up the presence of the chair, and the holo-projector activated and blanketed its surrounding with a dated caption of an old restaurant. The dirt and the wear in the old projector repeatedly interfered with the quality of the image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stepped through the projected image, sat down by the table, and stared blankly at the flickering holograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Have you eaten?\u2019 the man asked with his mouth full, and she nodded gently without a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018This is good,\u2019 he pointed his fork at the food. The fork slipped out and landed on the floor with a loud clatter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She leaned down, picked it up and gave it back to the man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Thanks,\u2019 he said. \u2018I don\u2019t know how I\u2019d survive without you.\u2019 He held the fork in a jaunty angle and continued to eat. \u2018It\u2019s ironic that the little sister I raised is now the one my life depends on.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She turned her attention to her brother and silently watched him eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019d be a whole different game if I could afford an exoskeleton,\u2019 her brother said and, expectantly, half-looked at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t move. Her eyes continued to stare blankly at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018How was your fight?\u2019 he changed the topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She nodded wearily. The light cast a shadow over the fresh bruises on her face. Her brother started fiddling with the old holo-projector on the table until a video footage appeared in front of them. Two humanoids were in a ring, halfway through a fight. One of them moved naturally, but the other one was improbably fast and precise. The fast one gradually consumed the power of its opponent and finished him with a perfectly executed jab-cross-hook combination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What do you think?\u2019 he asked and looked at her. \u2018Humans v machines. It\u2019s the most popular unlicensed sport these days. The bets pay much better.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was staring at the holo-projection and her hands started fiddling with the empty takeaway box on the table. The words of the little man from the casino echoed in her mind, \u201cwith seriously more money at stake.\u201d She started slowly shaking her head and whispered something inaudible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Come on, sis. You don\u2019t have to fight. You won\u2019t ever have to fight again. I have the perfect plan. You take out an overnight loan. 100k. Then you put the money on the drone. The odds are massively skewed against the human, but on 100k, we\u2019d still get a 102k payout. Then you pay back the 100k loan plus the 1k overnight interest, and we\u2019re left with 1k, without having to do anything. We just keep doing the same thing.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She looked at her brother pensively. Her face didn\u2019t move as she was running over all eventualities trying to find a hole in her brother\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Over time\u2026\u2019 her brother continued, \u2018it would be enough for a downpayment for a refurbished exoskeleton. I could walk again,\u2019 he said and paused. \u2018I could see my son again.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She sighed, stopped playing with the takeaway box, and almost unnoticeably nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she arrived home, she went straight to bed. A loud bang from outside her window woke her in the middle of the night. Her eyes flung wide open and stared at the ceiling above her bed, where the mould painted an isoquant map as an eloquent art of decay. An unstoppable ray of holo-advertising from outside her window found its way into the small room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her brain was looping through every possible iteration of her brother’s plan and with every loop an expanding black thorn of doubt was tearing it all up. If it\u2019s so easy, how come nobody\u2019s doing it? Two decades of weekly beatings as a fading boxer, always at the bottom of the pile. Everything in the world seemed too good to be true. Her soul had become the perfect breeding ground for doubt. Doubt in her fists, the teenage prodigy, boxing’s shining bright future, swallowed by the needs and musts of survival. Doubt in her mind, her iron will, broken by the bestial acts of daily grind. Doubt in her own existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She closed her eyes. Her mind began its cautious journey to slip back into the blissful oblivion of sleep, but just before she was able to disconnect the last cords of her alertness, she felt the claws of a screaming ball of panic unforgivingly dragging her back into awareness. She opened her eyes and got up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were no humans in the room when she entered the 24\/7 loan shop. The smell of tobacco smoke was blown into the air from the concealed vents to give the timber and carpet decor a 20th century feel. Her father used to smell like this, she thought, as she walked inside and down to the end of the room, where the loan machine was. The holograph of a female humanoid was projected next to the machine. She spotted the tasers pointing at her direction as she approached the equipment and inserted her lower arm to read her ID tattoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Credit record clean\u2019 the holographic woman said with a vibrating smile on her face. ‘How much would you like to borrow today?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She moved her fingers around the projected keypad, which logged the amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Now please enter the required term,\u2019 the projection asked her patiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her fingers gesticulated again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You requested 100,000 units for 48 hours,\u2019 the holographic woman was still grinning. The blueish tone of her skin made her look vaguely irascible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018You will repay 101,050 by 3:04am on Sunday the 12th of December. Please confirm.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She nodded and allowed the machine to scan her ID-chip again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The money was loaded onto her payment card, and she could feel an uncomfortable veil of anxiety ascend on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Thank you for using our loan service. Remember, you should never run out of money.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She turned around and felt a fleeting temptation to punch the air occupied by the projection of the female assistant. She looked into the fake eyes of the assistant and waited a few seconds. The holograph didn\u2019t flicker and continued to grin at her. She relaxed her fist, slid her hand into her pockets, and walked back into the rainy night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dense holograph of a false dilapidated store front disguised the entrance to the old warehouse, which hosted the unlicensed fight-night. She walked through the projection, approached the door, and held her ID under the concealed scanner. The door slid open, and she stepped inside. The expansive interior was dimly lit by an array of flickering holographs, showing real-time odds and encrypted communication channels. The cathedral silence was only interrupted by the humming of electronic devices and the quite chattering of the few pundits who gathered for the early-bird betting rates hours before the fights started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As she walked down the main hall, she could not help cast a fleeting glance at the imposing ring in the centre. The office was in the corner of the building. She knocked and waited for a response. A bouncer opened the door and immediately scanned her face. When he finished, he nodded at her to enter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bookie was sat by his desk at the back of the room. From the screens projected around him, it seemed like he was fine-tuning hyperparameters for a humanoid fighter. His fat fingers jacked up the aggression levels in one of the drones and watched how it impacted the simulated outcome of a fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What d\u2019ya want?\u2019 the bookie said without looking at her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She didn\u2019t say a word, just swiped her card under the concealed scanner over the desk. As soon as the amount flashed up on the screen, the bookie immediately stopped what he was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018100k for the drone, yeah?\u2019 the bookie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She nodded. The bookie studied her face. He shuddered as the bluish lights from his screens cast a metallic light on her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I\u2019m afraid the odds were revised an hour ago,\u2019 he said, carefully averting her gaze. \u2018You\u2019ll get 1k if the drone wins.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her eyebrows furrowed deeply, forming a sharp, horizontal crease across her strong forehead. She shook her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018It\u2019s take it or leave it, pal,\u2019 the bookie said and turned back to his experiment. \u2018Now fuck off and stop wasting my time!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She paused for a moment then turned around and walked towards the door. The bouncer kept watching her every step. When she got to the door, she paused again, turned back, and opened her mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I\u2019ve changed my mind,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first thing she noticed when she came to was the smell of mouldy dust emanating from the hard canvas under her head. Through the haze of her vision, she could see a humanoid with two arms in the air pacing the canvas triumphantly. The voice of the autonomous referee punched through the muffled sound of scattered boos and jeers of the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20185! \u2026 6!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The picture of her brother flashed up in front of her, as he used to stand ringside, watching her teenage self graciously dancing the ring. Pride was written so clearly in his eyes that for an infinitesimally short moment that same sparkle appeared in her eyes. She sprung onto her feet and with that drive she landed a powerful left-jab on her opponent\u2019s face. The drone\u2019s head swayed back. She ducked from the incoming counter, and released a final surge of energy, flowing from the legs, through the hips, culminating into the explosive upward motion of her left fist into a precise uppercut that almost decapitated the drone. The powerless humanoid collapsed on the canvas. The large hall fell completely silent. The autonomous ref initiated the counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20181, \u2026, 2, \u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All she had to do is stay on her feet until the end of the count. She had never felt gravity pull her so powerfully to the ground. The hard, blood-laden canvas seemed like an irresistible soft bed, a place where she could finally have a long rest, a place to carry her away from her nightmares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20185, \u2026, 6\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She could hear a sporadic applause and the roars of anticipation, a precursor to a crowd ready to erupt any moment. She closed her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u20189, \u2026, 10!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last thing she heard was the redeeming chime of the bell and the muffled thud of her own body as it landed on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Who was she?\u2019 a man in a nano-tube black suit and rollneck said standing next to the bookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Some journeywoman. Never met her before.\u2019 The bookie was looking at her lifeless body as she was stretchered out of the ring. The stands were now empty, and the only noise in the room was the rhythmic whirring of cleaning drones and the relentless ticking of an old mechanical fight clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018There\u2019s something else boss,\u2019 the bookie said and took a step back. \u2018She came in last night to put 100k on the drone.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man in the suit looked quizzically at the bookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Yes, but then she changed her mind and offered to fight, and put all the money on herself.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Shit,\u2019 the man in the suit said, and kicked the inanimate drone on the ring floor. \u2018How much?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018She was the only one betting on herself,\u2019 the bookie said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018How much?\u2019 the man in suit raised his voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201910.1 million,\u2019 the bookie said and quickly climbed out of the ring to get out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man in the suit kicked into the drone again and swore something. He then regained his composure and looked at the bookie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Well, lucky we don\u2019t have to pay her now that she\u2019s dead.\u2019 He smiled cynically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bookie cleared his throat and took another step back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018I\u2019m afraid she put it all under her brother\u2019s name,\u2019 he said and quickly left the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Outside, the rain was still pouring heavily. The bookie stood under the building\u2019s canopy and lit up a neurostimulation bar. The streets were now empty, only the morgue van was parked in front of him. The warehouse doors opened, and two men came out carrying a stretcher. Through the open doors he could still hear his boss shouting indignantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Hang on there,\u2019 the bookie said to the two men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The morgue men stopped. He walked up to them and looked at the stretcher. The rain painted long lines over the heavy-duty oilskin body bag. He reached up to the zip, and opened it at the top to reveal her face. The rain immediately blanketed her lifeless, pale skin. As he studied the face, he tried to connect it to the journeywoman who came through his door earlier that day. She now looked different. There seemed to be more life in this lifeless face than when she was alive. He shuddered again and pulled the zip back up. He stepped back under the canopy, threw away his drenched neurostimulator, took out another one, and lit it. The two men finished loading the body and got inside the van. He watched the car quickly disappear into the thick dark curtain of rain. The only movement left behind was the dance of cascading water, running in rivulets down the cold, lifeless streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
PL Ormosi is a sci-fi writer (mainly philosophical sci-fi) and academic. He has been published in Sci Phi Journal, and has just finished his 110,000-word debut novel, Unwill, a story that questions the role of free will in a world of recommenders. Some of his older stories, and teasers from Unwill can be found here: https:\/\/ormosipl.wordpress.com\/\u00a0<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first thing that hit her when she came to was the smell of mouldy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":100043119,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3292],"tags":[3351,6,227,1455,3352,3296],"class_list":["post-100043115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-fiction","tag-boxing","tag-cyberpunk","tag-fiction","tag-noir","tag-pl-ormosi","tag-prose"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100043115"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100043121,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100043115\/revisions\/100043121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/100043119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100043115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100043115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neondystopia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100043115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
When he\u2019s not writing fiction, he studies the social and economic impact of AI.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n