Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
R. H. Watson
There were thirty-seven buns in the oven and one was about ready
to drop. Mary sat at the console in the Monitor Room. She pulled
a card from her deck and was making a play when the birth alarm
went off. The monitor showed that the womb with the bun named
Lucy Star had broken its water and was chugging away with con-
tractions. The girl’s head was emerging.
A gurney was parked outside the Monitor Room that Mary
had prepared when she came on duty for the night shift. She
picked up the big, fluffy towel from its mattress and hung it
around her neck. Vesper, one of her matron’s aids, came out of
the Recovery Ward. “I got it,” she said to Mary and headed to the
Memory Vault to collect the girl’s placenta jar. Mary pushed the
gurney into the Womb Room.
Rows of bulky, mostly organic contraptions stood down both
sides of the room. They were big, corpulent, fleshy things with
fittings at the top to feed in nutrients. Other tubes lower in the
back removed waste. In the lower front, each had a vulva big
enough to pass a grown woman. About two-thirds of the way
down the room, one had done just that. A limp, naked girl, wet
with amniotic fluid, was lying in a soft, squishy birth basin. Her
umbilical cord trailed back into the womb where her foot was
caught in the birth canal.
4 R. H. Watson
Mary pulled the girl’s foot out, cleared her mouth, and
listened to her take her first gargling breath in over two weeks. It
sounded healthy.
She cut the girl’s umbilical cord, and sealed the ends, then lif-
ted the girl onto the gurney, swaddled her in the big fluffy towel,
and pressed a rubber teat into her mouth. The girl suckled, and
her mouth and stomach re-awoke to the delights of digestion.
Mary pushed the gurney out of the Womb Room and into the
Recovery Ward. She gave the girl a gentle bath, dried her off,
and tucked her into a postnatal bed with soft protective sides.
She let her sleep.
Vesper arrived at the womb with the girl’s placenta jar. She
popped its lid and put it under the womb’s vulva. The jar was
lined with a membrane that was a genetic match to the girl’s own
uterus and was filled with synthetic amniotic fluid. She put the
stringy placenta end of the umbilical cord in the jar. A few
minutes later the placenta itself followed, plopping into the fluid.
Vesper closed the lid and return it to the Memory Vault where it
would sit in blissful silence, remembering the latest version of
the girl’s life, over and over and over.
“And you were nearly cut all the way in half yourself.” She patted
the invisible line. “But don’t worry, not a scratch on you now.”
Lucy leaned back, supporting herself with her arms. This was
the best part of dying: she felt weak and a little dizzy, but she
also felt brand new and as clean as it was possible to feel—like
she had only, just now, touched the world for the first time. The
simple act of breathing was intoxicating.
Mary handed her a glass of rebirth formula. “Drink it all.”
Later, after convincing Mary her dizziness was gone and she
was strong enough to walk on her own, Lucy got dressed. She
finished by adjusting her hat in front of the dressing room mirror.
This outfit was a bit bold and a bit cute. It made her look like an
anime artist’s idea of a matador. She slung her bag over her
shoulder and picked up her sword. One of the club’s assistant
equipment managers would have cleaned it and delivered it to
the Laughing Cherub. Lucy pulled the blade part way out of its
scabbard to check the edge. It looked good, but the surface was
dull. She would polish it properly in the morning.
Lucy found Mary in the Monitor Room, back at her card game.
“Could I take a look at my girl before I leave?” Lucy said.
Mary played her card. “Of course you can.” She led the way
to the Memory Vault.
Its walls were lined with racks filled with placenta jars. Each
was fed a trickle of nutrition and oxygenated artificial blood. The
amniotic fluid was cycled and filtered to remove waste. The light
was dim, and the room was kept at body temperature.
Lucy knew where her jar was. She walked over and touched
its smooth, warm side. A display above the jar confirmed that the
little world inside was lovely. “You take care,” Lucy said. She
kissed her fingers and pressed them against the side of the jar.
It was two o’clock when Lucy left the Laughing Cherub. The air
was cool. Autumn was settling in. The street lights were dimmed,
and glare shields kept waste light out of the sky. The night was
6 R. H. Watson
awash with stars; Lucy could even make out the dim fog of the
Milky Way.
Mary had insisted on calling a cab. “Complements of the
Cherub.” In fact, it wasn’t. Mary paid for the late night cabs out
of her own pocket. The cab pulled up. Lucy got in and gave the
driver Brody’s address. He peddled them away and used the
electric motor for an assist up the hill to Wicker Lane.
“Try not to think about it,” Charlotte said. “Come over here.
You can stay with me until we get this sorted out. I’ll put on
some tea. See you soon?”
“Yeah, soon. Thanks,” Lucy said. The sky had clouded over; it
started to rain. “Fuck!”
“Brody, that stupid son of a bitch!” Lucy said. She was talking
and clenching her teeth at the same time. “Fuck! Why tonight? I
feel like a . . . such a . . . used!”
“We’ll take care of him tomorrow. Now you need to calm
down and get some rest.” Charlotte took Lucy’s tea and put both
cups in the kitchenette sink, then sat on the bed. Lucy curled up,
laid her head in Charlotte’s lap, and closed her eyes. “We come
out of those wombs physically mature women,” Charlotte said
while stroking Lucy’s hair, “but for days or weeks, our bodies
and minds are tricked into believing we’re babies again. It takes
a while to get ourselves sorted out.” She continued to comb
Lucy’s hair until her breathing settled into the steady rhythm of
deep sleep, then she slipped off the bed and tucked in her friend.
Chapter 2
Burning Desire
around each one, turning the old parking lot into a collection of
oblong patios with the curved winnebago skylights poking
through. The denizens had covered their patios with potted
plants, cast iron chairs, flags, whirligigs, and whatnots. Char-
lotte’s patio was bare.
“Good morning.”
Lucy turned around. A man, maybe in his mid-forties, had
come out of the neighboring winnebago and was standing on his
patio. “Wicks,” he said, “Dudley Wicks.” He tapped his finger to
his hat. He was wearing heavy gloves and coveralls.
“Lucy Star,” Lucy said. “I’ll be staying with Charlotte for
a while.”
“Ah,” Dudley said.
“I’m a friend of hers,” Lucy said. Dudley didn’t react. “A
friend, friend? From way back? We met at the Academy.”
Still no reaction. “The Concepción Academy of Rebirth
Athletics?”
“Ah!” he said and glanced at her sword. “Nasty business.” He
took off his glove and extended his hand. “Welcome to the
Graveyard.”
“Thanks.” Lucy shook his hand. She had to reach up. “But it’s
not nasty.”
“What’s that?”
“What we do.”
“Ah,” he said.
“Do you know where I could get something to eat? A cafe,
lunch counter?”
“There’s a sandwich shop about, oh, one hundred paces past
the public car kiosk.” He pointed to the south.
“Thanks,” Lucy said. “It was nice meeting you, Dudley.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Goodbye.” He picked up a crate of
gardening supplies and carried it to a collection of box gardens
that covered the back half of his patio.
***
Gladiator Girl 15
After eating, Lucy took a public car to the Burning Desire train-
ing complex and had it drop her at the player entrance. There
was a score of fans behind the security fence. “Hey, Lucy!”
“Lucy Star!” “Good game Lucy!” She walked over to them. A
girl pushed a match program and pen through the fence. “Can
you sign this, please?”
“Sure.” Lucy signed her name, replacing the ‘t’ in ‘Star’ with
a five pointed star. She handed the pen and program back
through the fence.
“You were brilliant against Bright Savanna,” the girl said.
“What you did to defended the Goddess, it was so audacious—”
She grinned and blinked back a tear.
“Thanks,” Lucy said. “I expect my coach will have a different
opinion.” She signed a few more programs, a souvenir wooden
sword, and a picture of herself.
“Can I see your sword?” the boy with the picture said.
“Sorry, no. It only gets unsheathed for cleaning, practice, and
for a game.” And for threatening to cut off my cheating boy
friend’s penis.
She waived and walked back to the player entrance. Frank, the
security guard, held the door for her. “Where’d they all come
from?” Lucy said.
“They knew you’d be here this afternoon. Started collecting
about an hour ago.”
“Really?”
“Better get used to it while you’re still a rookie. It’ll only get
worse, or better, depending on how you look at it.”
“I suppose.” She went in and headed down the corridor to
Coach Kai’s office. She could hear the team in the practice arena
and wanted to be there with them, but Coach was expecting her
at fourteen o’clock.
This was Coach Kai’s first season with Burning Desire, and her
first season as a head coach. She was old for blood battle—Lucy
guessed sixty, or something—her League bio didn’t say, but it did
16 R. H. Watson
say she was ex-army and had applied to coach in the BB League
after retiring from the military. Lucy knocked on her door.
“Come in. Sit down.” Coach Kai held out her hand to an old
wooden office chair in front of her desk. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine. How else would I be?” Lucy sat in the chair, it was
solid and comfortable. She rested her sword between her left leg
and the armrest.
“I don’t mean physically,” Coach Kai said. “I mean emotion-
ally, considering what happened this morning.”
“How do you know about that?”
“The rumor that you tried to cut off your boyfriend’s jizzum
stick has been rolling through the local BB locker rooms like a
drunken katamari ball.”
“Who talked?”
“Apparently, it was your boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“Yes, well, you scared the Mother’s load out of him. He told a
friend about the scheme, who told a friend—”
“Scheme?”
“Turns out Emily Stone set the whole thing up. She was trying
to provoke you into violating League rules.”
“Why?”
Coach Kai picked up a pencil and twiddled it between her fin-
gers. “How about we get back to her after reviewing your game.
What’s the last thing you recall?”
“Hmm, I saw their guardian take out Bridgett . . . I never saw
Grenada after she went through the hedge. Our forwards were
singing that Savanna’s guards had killed her before she reached
their temple. With Han and Kelcie already dead, we were out of
chargers. Our only chance to win was an attrition fight down in
the grass which we were, well, already losing, and they still had
two chargers.
“In our arena, two of Savanna’s forwards were dead, but we
had lost Fausta, Hildegard, and Chiyo. Because of that, our
Gladiator Girl 17
guards lost control of the center paths. Then the forwards sang an
alert that the two Savanna chargers were skating for the
hedge . . . That’s when it gets garbled, so I guess I didn’t last
much longer.”
Coach Kai invoked the game review. “Here’s the start of your
last several seconds.” An overhead view of the blood battle field
blurred into focus on the animation board under her desktop
glass. It was zoomed in to show only Burning Desire’s arena.
She pushed a loose stack of papers out of the way. For ex-milit-
ary, her office was kind of cluttered.
Coach Kai started playing the review. “Their forwards took
down Mim and drew Cinnamon to the right,” She pointed with
her pencil, “clearing the way for their chargers to reach your
temple at full speed.”
Lucy watched the chargers skate out of the hedge, race along
the narrow paths that were partly hidden by the tall field grass,
and jump the lowland stream. They arrived at the plaza, kicked
off their skates, and with the forward momentum gained from
skating the length of the field, they leapt up the tiers of the
temple pyramid, one from the left, one from the right. Coach Kai
paused the replay.
“Wow,” Lucy said. “Their timing is perfect. Whichever one I
attack I expose myself to the other. I’m dead. Fuck!”
“Language,” Coach Kai said.
“Sorry.”
Coach Kai zoomed in to the top of the temple. The girl repres-
enting the Goddess sat on her heels on the altar wearing her
simple white vestment. Her back was straight; her head was held
high. She was serene and indifferent to the furious fight for her
neck about to erupt just behind her. Coach Kai set the replay go-
ing in slow motion. Lucy watched herself take a step closer to
the Goddess. Coach Kai paused again. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. This is way into the short term memory
shadow. I don’t remember any of this.”
18 R. H. Watson
“The Savannas tried to claim you caused the foul since you set it
up, but by the rules, the moment you lost motor control from a mor-
tal wound it became Emily’s responsibility to prevent the error.
“Xaun was the senior surviving offensive player. With no
chargers left, it fell to her to performed the penalty beheading of
Savanna’s goddess. She made a good, precise cut, not easy to do
with a forward’s field sword. Would you like to see it?” Coach
Kai reached to advance the review to the next tabbed event.
“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh? Yes, of course.” She relaxed her finger, picked up her
pencil, and tapped the desk. “You were credited with the win and
named M.V.P. Better be ready for a cold shower tomorrow.” She
pointed the pencil eraser at Lucy. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Lucy sat back and let it go straight to her head, but not for
long. “So I tricked Emily into losing the game. That’s what her
revenge scheme was about?”
“No. The latest blood test for Lilly Aguilar, the top charger for
Diana’s Glory, came back with a red flag. She’ll age-out within
six months, and she’s not even twenty-five. They tried to keep it
quiet, but had to pull her from their active player list and
scramble to find a replacement in the farm clubs. The word was,
Emily would get the nod, then you tricked her into committing a
match losing foul, and the Glories passed her over―for our own
Segune, as it turned out.”
“Huh,” Lucy said. “What do you know.”
“She tried to get you expelled from the League. I spent all
morning arguing your case with the Propriety Board. Eventually,
they agreed your judgement was impaired because of your just
concluded rebirth, and Emily was admonished for not being more
sensitive to your situation. You were lucky. Do you understand?”
Lucy nodded.
“Good. Be ready to work yourself hard starting tomorrow. You’re
on the roster for the next match against Beauty Incarnate. Your ap-
pointment at Pete’s Tattoo is in fifteen minutes, better get going.”
20 R. H. Watson
They stood and Coach Kai held out her hand. “Good to have
you back.”
Lucy shook it. “Thanks Coach.”
“One more thing,” Coach Kai said. “If you ever again draw
your sword in the presence of an unprotected person, I’ll be the
one throwing you out of the League.”
Pete’s Tattoo was close enough for Lucy to make her appoint-
ment with a brisk walk east through the Seafront Park in the Old
Harbor District. The fans had dispersed so she slipped out the
player entrance, unnoticed.
“Hey, Lucy,” Second Pete said when she walked in.
“Hey, Second Pete.”
“The kid is just finishing up with another client.”
“Hi, Lucy,” Todd said from his work station. He was leaning
over a client’s back, working on a major project. The reference
drawing on the wall showed a grizzly bear biting off the head
of a horse.
“Hi, Todd.”
“We’ve been seeing quite a few of the girls from your last
match,” Second Pete said. “Great save, by the way.”
“Thanks. I do what I can.” Lucy glanced at the pictures
hanging on the wall. There were six group pictures of Burning
Desire players; Lucy was in the back, top row of the newest one,
lined up with the other guardians. Everyone was sporting their
team tattoos; some were fresh, done the day of the picture.
“You make a killing off of us, don’t you,” Lucy said.
“It helps,” Second Pete said. “But we had to put in two extra
work stations and we bring in freelance artists every two weeks
to handle the work.” He flipped his thumb at the back of the
room where a couple of artists were setting up. “Hildegard and
Fausta are coming in later.”
Lucy moved to another set of pictures showing the best work
from the three generation history of the shop. “This is your dad,
Gladiator Girl 21
***
Charlotte took Lucy to a local pub called the Pony ’n Pony. Lucy
pointed to a high table against the wall; one with stools. “How
about there? These tattoos are too itchy for a backrest.”
“Sure,” Charlotte said. She signaled the barman with two fin-
gers. He drew a couple of draughts and sent them over via the
bar-boy.
Lucy studied the menu. “What do you recommend?”
“I usually have the lentil stew.”
“Usually? Have you ever tried anything else?”
“No.”
“I’ll have the couscous,” Lucy said to the bar-boy. “She’ll
have the lentil―”
“Two couscous,” Charlotte said. “You only live so many
times, right?”
The bar-boy trotted off with their order.
A couple stopped next to their table. “Hey Charlotte. Who’s
your friend?”
“Hi,” Charlotte said to them. “This is Lucy, my new room-
mate. Lucy, meet Toni-I and Tony-Y.”
“Eye and Why? Oh.” Lucy laughed. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Do you also fence?” Tony-Y said.
“Nope, I play blood battle.”
“Really?” Toni-I said. “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you. Are
you with Diana’s Glory?”
“She’s a big fan of the Glories,” Tony-Y said.
“I play for Burning Desire.”
“What position?” Toni-I said.
“Guardian.” Lucy held up her sword.
“Oh. Oh! Are you Lucy Star?”
“When is this Brody rumor going away?” Lucy said to
Charlotte.
“What rumor?” Toni-I said.
“It’s nothing,” Charlotte said.
24 R. H. Watson
“I mean,” Toni-I said, “are you the Lucy Star who pulled off
that amazing game save two weeks ago?”
“I guess,” Lucy said.
“Yes,” Charlotte said.
“The whole League was talking about it. Everybody’s got
their eye on you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Too bad about Emily Stone though, losing her chance at
the big leagues.”
“That fu―”
“Yes, too bad,” Charlotte said.
The Pony ’n Pony was getting crowded. The bar-boy wedged
himself between Toni-I and Tony-Y to deliver their couscous.
“It was great meeting you,” Toni-I said. The Tonies, I and Y,
continued to the back of the pub.
Charlotte picked up a bit of couscous on her fork and tasted it.
“The main thing we have to figure out,” she said, “is who gets
the shower room first and how do we handle sex.”
“Sex? What about that?” Lucy pointed at Charlotte’s plate.
“It’s good.”
“Better than lentil stew?”
“Different.” Charlotte took another taste.
“Humph,” Lucy said. “You’ve always been an early riser, so
why don’t you go first. As long as I’m in the shower by seven
fifteen, I’ll be fine.”
“Would you mind getting up and making coffee and toast?”
“Do you really, only eat toast every morning?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll make coffee and toast. Would you mind if I bought
some actual food and cooked it now and then?”
“As long as you don’t stink up the place.”
“Some people think cooking makes a house smell better.”
“We’ll see.” Charlotte ate a fork-full of couscous. “I’ve got a
bedroom, so you’ll only have to deal with my lovers when they
Gladiator Girl 25
walk back and forth to the toilet, but you’re essentially going to
be having sex on the dining room table. Will that be OK?”
“Fine with me,” Lucy said, “if you don’t mind eating your
toast off that same table.” She tapped her plate with her fork.
“This is really good.”
They finished eating. The bar-boy cleared away their dishes
and they ordered another round of beer.
“I need to ask you to do something for me,” Charlotte said. “I
have a fencing bout Saturday night. I’d like you to be there.”
“You know you don’t have to ask. Who are you fighting?”
“Winnie Chaturvedi.”
“Wow. She’s ranked number one,” Lucy said. “That’s a cham-
pionship event.”
“Yes it is, that’s why I want you there.”
“Sure, when and where?”
“It’s a sanctioned event, but private. Very exclusive―no fam-
ily and friends box. The only way I can get you in is to make you
my second.”
“I’m not qualified. Isn’t a second supposed to take your place
if you can’t fight?”
“In theory, but that never happens, and if it did, you would
formally forfeit the bout. I’d lose my ranking, but that would
also happen if you fought and lost. The second is really an assist-
ant. You help me prepare for the bout, and when we go out to the
fencing strip, you play the second’s part in the bout rituals. If I
lose, you collect my things, supervise my recovery team, and
make sure my body arrives at the womb-atorium and is safely in-
terred in a womb.”
“I expect I’ll need permission from the Blood Battle League.
I’m not licensed to participate in another blood sport.”
“You won’t be fencing, so your life won’t be at risk. This sort
of thing happens more often than you might think. It just needs
to be a contract between clubs. Your club will be lending you to
my club to temporarily fill a non-hazardous support role. It won’t
26 R. H. Watson
take any time away from your practice, and Burning Desire
makes extra money by lending you out for an evening.”
“So I’m being traded around for money?”
“You get paid, too.”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
The next day, the day after she was reborn; Lucy walked into the
locker room at seven fifty.
“Look who finally dropped,” Mim said.
“Hey, Mim,” Lucy said. She ambled over to her locker, and
girls started collecting. She opened the door, stuffed her bag in,
set her long-sword in its cradle next to her short-sword, took off
her sweater, hung it inside, emptied her pockets, and put
everything on the top shelf. She closed the door and turned
around. “Okay,” she said, “you ready to do this?”
The girls relaxed. Cinnamon was next to Lucy and Fausta
was on the other side of the bench that ran down the middle of
the locker row. Cinnamon reached out to take Lucy’s arm. Lucy
slipped her foot behind Cinnamon’s heel, planted her forearm
under her clavicles, and stepped into her, tripping her back
against the lockers. She bent low, reached under Fausta’s arm
and around to her back, grabbed a handful of t-shirt, and pulled,
twisting her around and toppling her over the bench. Lucy
jumped onto the bench and ran down the row. Everyone trying to
follow was tripping over Cinnamon and Fausta. At the end of the
row, she leapt off and collided with Bridgett. They tumbled to
the floor. Bridgett tangled herself up with Lucy’s arms and legs
long enough for the others to catch up. They grabbed her and lif-
28 R. H. Watson
ted her over their heads. The players who had died along with
Lucy in her last game were given the privilege of hauling her ass
to the shower. The water was already running. Tanneth stood just
outside the spray, reaching in and waving her hand in front of the
sensor to keep it going.
They tossed Lucy in. She landed on her feet, stood up, put her
hands on her hips, and let the water splash off her head and soak
her clothes. “Happy now? Can I come out?”
“Turn around,” Chiyo said, making a pirouette twirl with her fin-
ger. Lucy turned all the way around. She was thoroughly soaked.
“You can come out.”
Lucy stepped out from under the spray. “That was nice,” she
said. “You should try it.” She reached for Chiyo and everyone
backed up. The shower shut off. Lucy clamped her teeth together
to keep them from chattering and flashed a satisfied smile. She
walked back to the locker room past her club mates, stripped out
of her wet clothes, and hung them to dry on the coat rack by the
door. Meanwhile, the other girls trickled to their lockers and the
gossip gate opened:
“I finally had one.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yes!”
“Have you heard about the boy gladiators?”
“It’s an urban legend.”
“So, what kind was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe it.”
“Yeah, that story’s been going around for years.”
“But it was in the news. They found bodies.”
“There was no warning. Ollie went down on me, and was
doing his thing with his other finger, when all of a
sudden―I’m not sure what happened―but I hit him in the
mouth with my pubic bone; he cut his lip on a tooth!”
“No shit? Hahaha!”
Gladiator Girl 29
“Boy gangs have been killing each other forever, but ever since
blood sports started, somebody’s always trying to blame it on us.”
“Yeah, ‘They’re over compensating.’ ‘They think they have to
die to prove they’re better than us.’ What bullshit.”
“Then I started shaking. My legs were jerking so much, I
was afraid I was going to kick his candy sack! It went away
and came back at least three more time, and then it was over.”
“It would be sad if it was true though, don’t you think?”
“If it was true, maybe.”
“I’d hate to think my Quentin feels inadequate because of me.”
“That camp follower you’re shacked up with? You should
drop his ass.”
“That was a Rodeo in a Box. No doubt about it.”
“I’m jealous. I want one, too.”
“You haven’t been chopped up enough yet. You need to be
in a womb for at least a week and a half. Two is better.”
“Yeah, Lucy fell for one of those guys and look how that
turned out―oh, sorry Lucy.”
Lucy put on her athletic suit jacket over her t-shirt and shorts,
then closed her locker door harder that she needed to.
“Time to get busy.” Angela Sáez, the defensive coach, was
standing at the locker room entrance. “Lucy. You, Hildegard, and
Fausta, report to physical therapy. Nice to have you back, by the
way—all three of you.”
sword. “You work with me, and work hard; and in a couple of
days, you’ll be immune to jinxing. Ready?” Lucy nodded. “Good,
let’s check you muscle tone, see where we’re starting from.”
Parisa pushed the girls hard. By eleven o’clock Lucy was sweat-
ing, and her muscles were hurting, but she was feeling stronger
and more precise in her movement.
Donna Quinn, the head of the club’s security office, opened
the Physical Therapy door and motioned to Lucy. “Outside,
please,” she said. “It’ll just be a minute,” she said to Parisa.
Lucy followed Donna into the corridor. “What is it?” She was
breathing hard from the workout.
“We’ve got someone at the front desk who claims to be your
brother, Zachary Knole. Do you know anything about this?”
“No,” Lucy said. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with
the hem of her t-shirt. “Are you sure?”
“That’s what he says. We’re checking on him right now. Your
background, before you arrived at the Academy, is pretty
sketchy. Do you even have a brother?”
Lucy didn’t say anything. Her fingers curled into her palms.
“It’s a simple question,” Donna said.
“Yes, and that was his name.”
Donna took a picture out of her folder. “This is the guy. Does
he look familiar?”
She looked at it, but didn’t touch it. “That’s sharp, for a
security camera.”
“No it’s not.”
“That could be him. He was ten the last time I saw him.” She
looked away from the picture and away from Donna.
“So, he’d be . . . sixteen now?” Donna said.
“I guess.”
“You’ve been estranged from your family and legally eman-
cipated since you were fourteen. Do you have any idea why your
brother would be here today, without any warning?”
32 R. H. Watson
Lucy had her lunch tray, her short-sword, and her cleaning kit.
She sat next to Frankie at the guardian table in the cafeteria.
“You gonna clean that thing here?” Frankie said.
“Sword training’s next. I don’t want Bimini turning up her
nose at my imperfectly maintained blade. I haven’t had a chance
to clean it until now. Yesterday was busier than I expected.”
“Hah! So I heard.”
Serendipity put her tray on the table and sat on Lucy’s other
side. “Was Brody’s penis erect or flaccid when you considered
cutting it off?” she said.
“What the fuck?” Frankie said. “That’s the first thing you
thought of to say? How about, ‘Hi Lucy. Welcome back?’”
“You didn’t say, welcome back,” Lucy said. She wiped her
short-sword blade with a dry cloth.
“It’s still a fucking weird question,” Frankie said.
“If I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t know whether to be impressed or
not,” Serendipity said.
“It was flaccid,” Lucy said.
“See? Now I’m impressed.”
“My ‘What the Fuck,’ still stands,” Frankie said.
Gladiator Girl 33
***
After lunch they headed to the Sword Practice room.
“What’s Bimini Tanaka like?” Liha said.
“She’s nice, but old,” Serendipity said.
“She’ll cut you a new dung hole with one word,” Frankie said.
“She’s the smartest swordswoman I’ve ever met,” Lucy said.
Bimini walked into the room and closed the door. “Good af-
ternoon,” she said. “Welcome back,” she said to Lucy. “Liliha, I
look forward to working with you. To clarify, I am fifty-two
years old; my skill is adequate for teaching; and Frankie is the
only one in need of an additional anus. Please put on your short-
sword practice harnesses. You three,” she pointed at everyone
except Lucy, “warm up.”
She took Lucy to the side. “Simple exercises today. You chose.
Move at the speed of competence, nothing faster. No risks.” She
held up her index finger for emphasis. “You are womb weak, and
your coordination is compromised. Your ex-boyfriend is lucky. If
you had attempted a penis emasculation you would likely have
shaved off his quadriceps along with all of his genitalia.”
Bimini left Lucy alone for most of the afternoon, but once in a
while she came by and put her hand on Lucy to redirect her
movement. At sixteen o’clock Bimini said, “Very good.” Practice
was over.
Lucy took a shower, put on her street clothes (by now they were
dry), and picked up her long-sword and bag. She walked into the
corridor and turned toward the player entrance. Donna was wait-
ing. “Did you forget?” she said.
“No, not really,” Lucy said. “Is he still here?”
“He is.”
“I guess I was hoping—”
“I know,” Donna said.
Lucy adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “Okay, what did you
find out?”
Gladiator Girl 35
Alice’s Tea Shop was one block away and around the corner
from the club. Lucy kept up a quick pace and didn’t say any-
thing. Zack was winded when they arrived.
The little bell hanging above the door jingled twice when Lucy
and a young man walked in. Mr. Fredrick was handing a take-
away cup of tea to one of the club’s goddesses.
“Thank you,” the goddess said and paid for her tea, adding a
tip and a kiss on the cheek.
“Always at your service,” he said.
The goddess glanced at Lucy and smiled. Lucy noticed,
caught herself, and looked away. The goddess bit her lip. She
watched Lucy lead the young man to a table, then she turned and
went out the door, jingling the doorbell.
“Two house teas, please,” Lucy said. Mr. Fredrick shook him-
self out of the reverie the goddesses always put him in and set
about preparing the infusions.
Lucy couldn’t think of anything to say. She was feeling dumber every
moment for trying to go along with whatever it was Zack wanted.
“How have you been?” Zack said.
Small talk!
“I’ve been fine,” Lucy said. “How about you? Did Dad hit
you lately?” She didn’t know she was going to say that! Lucy
realized she was squeezing the scabbard of her sword. She re-
laxed her hand.
“He never hit me like he did you,” Zack said. “And he
stopped all that, after you left.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He did. He joined a group. You changed him.”
Don’t you dare say that! Lucy’s eyes settled on the best place
to strike Zack’s neck for a clean decapitation. “What about
your . . . our mother?”
“She caught the flu last month.”
38 R. H. Watson
store. They’ll put you up and help you find work.” Lucy leaned
forward and tried to make eye contact, but Zack kept his eyes
down. “Take care,” she said. “I hope things work out for you,
but . . . I don’t want to see you again. Do you understand?”
He nodded, then looked up. “Goodbye Deb―Lucy.” He stood
up with his backpack and walked out. The doorbell jingled.
Lucy picked up her tea and carried it to the counter. “Can I get
this in a take-away?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Fredrick said. Lucy took out her coin
purse to pay.
“This one’s on the house.”
“Thanks.” She took the cup from Mr. Fredrick, pulled open
the door, and left. The bell jingled.
She headed to the public car kiosk by the club. Donna came up
and walked beside her. “Your story’s as old as the hills,” she said.
“I know,” Lucy said. “What a fucking cliché.”
“Until you’re caught in it, then it’s personal.”
They reached the lobby entrance to the club. “Are you going
to keep an eye on him?” Lucy said.
“For a while.”
“Make sure he’s okay.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good night,” Lucy said, “and thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Donna pulled open the front door of the
club and went in.
While Lucy waited at the kiosk for a car, she thought it might
be fun to surprise Charlotte with a home-cooked meal.
Chapter 4
Duel à Mort
Pete’s wall of heros was more colorful, but these formal poses
made the same point: we’ve been here longer than you’ve been
alive. Duel à Mort fencing was merely the newest form of the
sport. This long tradition was so different from blood battle,
which had been created brand new by Gunda Thorstenson just
twelve years ago.
Charlotte came into the lobby wearing fencing protective gear.
“I see you’ve been checking out our wall of renown.”
“You’re not on it,” Lucy said.
“They’re waiting until I age-out to see if I’m good enough to
be an august member. Come on back. I’ll show you around the
place.” She led Lucy through the door she had entered the lobby
by, and they turned down a hall.
An august fellow walking in the opposite direction didn’t
quite stop as he passed, but said to Charlotte, “Let’s talk tomor-
row. Need to clear up a few last minutes before Saturday even-
ing.” As he swept by, he gave Lucy a quick up-down look.
“I’ve got to warn you,” Charlotte said, “there’s a significant
amount of snobbery here toward blood battle.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already run into it at your bouts, and the re-
ceptionist looked like he wanted to put me out with the trash.”
“I’ll have a word with him.”
“Don’t. I like knowing where I stand with people.”
They cut through a room of fencing strips that were in use by
a junior league. A girl of about fourteen ran up to them. “Char-
lotte,” she said. “Guess what, I’ve got my appointment to tryout
for the Academy next month!”
“That’s great, Tiffany,” Charlotte said. “I know you can do it!”
Tiffany grinned, then noticed Lucy. “Who’s your friend?” she said.
A younger girl ran over to join Tiffany. “Is that a blood battle
sword?” she said with some yuck in her voice.
“This is my friend, Lucy,” Charlotte said. “That is, indeed, a
blood battle guardian’s sword, and if you’re not nice, she’ll cut
your head off with it.”
Gladiator Girl 45
One time, at the Academy, while visiting Charlotte in her dorm room,
Lucy picked up her fighting foil, wiggled it, and watched the tip whip
around out of control. “How can you do anything with this?”
“Give me that,” Charlotte said, “before you poke your eye
out.” She stood up and took the foil from Lucy’s hand. It stopped
wiggling. She reached over to her desk and used the tip to flip
open a book and turn the pages, one at a time.
Lucy blew air out her nose. “Show off.”
“Don’t worry,” Charlotte said, “When you get your blades
next year, I’m sure you’ll be able to do fancy tricks too.” She lif-
ted the foil and lunged at an invisible opponent. “Of course, nov-
elty tricks don’t win bouts.”
48 R. H. Watson
the ribcage, or down through the neck.” She demonstrated the at-
tacks, then retreated. She brought the foil up to her nose, then down
and to her side. “Foil fencing is a remarkably non-bloody blood
sport. The foils poke tiny holes through the skin, and most of the
bleeding is internal, except for the brain. The brain is messy.”
Charlotte twisted on her heel to face Lucy. “Exactly how
horny are you?”
The cabin door slid open, and the chauffeur offered his hand
for assistance. “Watch your step,” he said. Lucy tickled his palm
on her way in.
“That wasn’t proper,” Charlotte said after the door closed.
“But he’s so cute,” Lucy said.
“We’re stepping into a more striated society than you’re used
to. Flirting and power get confounded, especially between strata.”
“Sounds complicated, and not fun.”
“Just make sure you flirt up, not down. You’re a guest, so flirt-
ing with the staff caries an implied threat. Flirting with the other
guests is, at worst, merely inappropriate.”
The limousine whisked them northwest to the Verbeek Man-
sion, where they were escorted from a garage, down hallways,
up an elevator, and into a suite of rooms that belonged in a fairy
tale. Every wall was painted with a mural.
Charlotte handed Lucy her practice padding and mask. “Get
ready, I need to warm up.”
There was a partial fencing strip on the floor long enough to
include the two en guarde positions. Lucy suited up in her pad-
ded jacket and breeches. Charlotte wore an old athletic suit. She
picked up her fighting foil and tossed Lucy the practice foil.
“You don’t need to fence, just strike the poses I tell you, and
I’ll do the rest.”
Lucy looked at the sewing needle sharp tip of Charlotte’s foil.
“I thought this was a non-hazardous job?”
“Don’t worry, I won’t even touch you.”
“Then why am I wearing all this?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Just in case. Put on your mask.”
They worked for half an hour, then someone knocked on the
door opposite to the one they had entered through. “Come in,”
Charlotte said.
The august fellow from Thursday popped in. “One hour to the
bout.” He gave Lucy another once over. “Is everything OK?”
“Thanks Perry, we’re doing fine,” Charlotte said.
Gladiator Girl 51
They arrived at their end of the strip. Charlotte put her case on
the foil stand, and Lucy put the womb-atorium bag on a table
provided for that purpose. Charlotte unzipped, untied, and re-
moved her East Slope athletic suit and matching slippers. She
handed them to Lucy who folded the suit, and laid it and the slip-
pers next to the womb-atorium bag.
Charlotte opened her foil case and took out her weapon. While
she stepped through a few practice moves, Lucy shook some of
her chalk mix into the chalk pan. Charlotte tapped her feet in the
chalk and tested her foot work.
The evening’s entertainment was one bout which meant it
would be over within seconds of starting. To extend the event,
Madame Verbeek had been regaling the assembled deep pockets
with a history of the art of fencing. As the projection faded, the
Master of the Bout stepped to the center of the strip.
“Gentle friends, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this Re-
public Fencing Society sanctioned bout between the top rank-
ing Duel à Mort foil fencers in the North Coast region. To my
right, I present Charlotte Isabel Marceau representing the East
Slope Fencing Club. She has remained undefeated for fifty-one
weeks, having silenced twenty-seven opponents in succession.
She is currently the number-two ranked foil fencer in the re-
gion.” Charlotte walked out to her en guarde line and saluted
the audience.
“To my left, I present Winifred Sandpiper Chaturvedi rep-
resenting the Crystal Hill Fencing Club. She has remained
undefeated for fifty-nine weeks, having silenced thirty-three
opponents in succession. She is currently the number-one
ranked foil fencer in the region.” Winnie stepped forward
and saluted.
The referee was introduced and saluted. He faced the fencing
strip, held up his arms, and flicked his fingers. “Seconds, you
may inspect the weapons.”
Lucy walked along the right side of the strip, passing Winnie’s
Gladiator Girl 53
“Ready? Fence!”
Lucy watched Charlotte advance and retreat. Winnie lunged—
twice. Charlotte moved in for a strike. Winnie stepped back and to
the side—the tip of her foil was against Charlotte’s ribs! Charlotte
leapt; stabbed down several times. Winnie collapsed. It was over.
The referee called, “Halt.” He moved up and felt Winnie’s
neck for a pulse, then motioned to the captain of her recovery
team. She came forward, checked Winnie’s vitals, and nodded.
Winnie’s team moved in with a stretcher, picked up her body,
and retreated from the ballroom.
“The match is complete,” the referee said. “The winner is Ma-
dame Marceau.”
The spectators―many of them were already on their
feet―applauded, some cheered. From their faces, Lucy was sure
at least half of them had never seen a live blood sport event and
had just discovered the visceral thrill of watching a duel to the
death, right there, in the flesh. Lucy looked for the handsome
princely guy. She found him and made eye contact. He winked;
she smiled back.
But she had duties. Charlotte was bleeding from Winnie’s
failed attack. The referee held up crossed index fingers. She
picked up the first-aid kit and some blood wipes, ran out to the
center of the strip, and handed the wipes to Charlotte. While
Charlotte cleaned Winnie’s blood off her foil and wiped her
hands to remove any blood splatter, Lucy used the first-aid kit to
clean and disinfect the wound. It didn’t look bad—just a big
scratch. She pealed the backing off a bandage and pressed it in
place. Charlotte handed her the used blood wipes; she took them
and jogged back to the end of the strip.
Gladiator Girl 55
Now that her blade and hands were clean, Charlotte shook
hands with the referee and the Master of the Bout, saluted the
audience one more time, and walked to her end of the fencing
strip. She put her foil away, dressed in the athletic suit and slip-
pers, and picked up her foil case. Lucy slung the womb-atorium
bag over her shoulder, picked up the chalk dispenser, and led
Charlotte out of the ballroom, walking three paces ahead of her.
Chapter 5
Lucy and the Princely Guy
released her, and took a deep breath. She wiped her eyes, then
shook her fists in the air, “YES!” Charlotte unzipped her jacket,
peeled the bandage off her ribs, and held it up. “She almost got
me.” A line of blood had soaked into the gauze. She lifted her
jacket away from her side. Blood was dribbling from the end of
the wound where Winnie’s foil had dug in. She wiped it up with
her finger and sucked it off. “But I’m the one who can still
bleed!” Her grin was fierce.
Someone knocked on the door. “Yes?” Charlotte said.
Amy stuck he head in. “I need to check your wound.”
“Sure, come in. Lucy, this is Amy—oh, right. You already met.”
Amy set her bag on the makeup table and pulled out the chair.
Charlotte took off her jacket and sat.
“The chair’s for me,” Amy said. “Stand up and lift your arm.”
“You’re not putting me in a womb,” Charlotte said. “I want to
feel this win now, in real time, not when I’m waking up and try-
ing to remember how to chew my food. I’m due for a three
month conjoining a week from now anyway. Surely, we can wait
until then.”
Amy pulled on sterile gloves and cleaned the wound. “Lucy,
you did a good job. Was that your first time dressing a
wound? . . . Lucy?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Lucy said.
Amy put on magnifying spectacles and broke the seal on a
pair of forceps. She leaned close and poked them in the wound.
“My concern is the point where Winnie punctured your skin. If
her foil penetrated your chest cavity, even with a pinhole, the
danger of infection goes way up, and we’ll want you in a womb
ASAP. Hmm, doesn’t look too bad. She got into the muscle tis-
sue, but not by much.” Amy put down the forceps, cracked open
a sampling swab, and stuck it in the wound. “If this tests clean,
you should be OK.” She sealed the sample, opened a bottle,
cracked open another swab, and dipped it in the bottle. “In the
mean time, I’m going to cauterize the puncture. Ready?”
58 R. H. Watson
She took off her jacket. “The dressers will be here in less than
an hour. I need a shower, and my adrenaline is just about sapped;
I could use a nap before they arrive.”
Lucy nodded toward the garment bags. “We need help putting
those on?”
“Yes we do.” Charlotte smiled, but fatigue had taken over. She
went into the shower room.
“Ah,” he said.
“You sound disappointed I’m not a fencer.”
“I’ve been training recently with an épée. I was hoping I could
get some pointers.”
“Even if I were a fencer, I doubt I could have helped,” Lucy
said. “Conventional fencing has all sorts of rules to let contestants
score points without getting hurt. The blood sport versions pretty
much throw out all those rules for the only one that matters—the
duelist left standing wins. I’m not sure I could have given you any
pointers that would have been useful for touch scoring.”
“You do know something about the blood sports then?”
“I do. I’m a blood battle guardian.”
“That would be for . . . Diana’s Glory?”
“No, Burning Desire.” She pointed at her chest tattoo.
“Lovely. A rose, is it?”
“A Burning Desire rose,” Lucy said.
Jayzen smiled polite indifference.
“You don’t know much about blood battle, do you.”
“I apologize, no,” he said.
“The clubs are named after breeds of roses. This is an official
club tattoo. There’s another one on my right shoulder, see?” She
turned to show him. “And my player number is here,” she turned
the other way to show him her left shoulder, “and on my back.”
She held up her index finger in front of his face. “And here, just
below the finger nail, see it? It’s tiny and almost matches my
skin color.”
“Ah, I believe I do . . . ?”
“That’s my club ID and player number. They’re tattooed all over
my body. Makes it easier to sort out everyone’s parts after a game.”
“Where’s your sword?” He looked at her hip. “I thought you
blood battle girls never went anywhere without them.”
“Thats just for guardians, like me, and chargers. But you’re
right. Since I’m representing Charlotte’s fencing club tonight, I
had to leave it behind.”
Gladiator Girl 63
Jayzen led Lucy out a side door. They took a marble stairway
down two flights, walked through an enclosed courtyard garden
with a fountain and skylight ceiling, and into a gymnasium. The
lights came up when they entered.
“What do you think?” Jayzen said. He spread his arms wide
and walked backward into the center of the space.
“Not bad for a home gym.”
“This isn’t a home. No one actually lives here except for the
staff. This is the Verbeek Family Club House. It’s used for entertain-
ing and making deals, like tonight.” He walked to cabinets in the
opposite wall and opened a set of doors revealing samurai practice
gear. He opened another door, took off his tuxedo coat and tie, and
hung them inside. He started removing his shirt. “You’re not going
to fight in that are you?” he nodded at Lucy’s gown.
“I don’t want to, but it took three people to get me into it. I
don’t know how they did it, or how to get it off.”
Jayzen finished removing his shirt and came over. “Turn
around. It uses molecular zippers that seal the gown around you.
There are pressure points that release the bonds.” He slid his fin-
gers behind the bodice and between her shoulder blades. It split
down the back and fell to the floor. “See?” Lucy stepped out of
the gown. Jayzen picked it up and hung it in the cabinet. He re-
64 R. H. Watson
Her mouth was next to his ear. “You’re dead,” she said. “If
this was real, I would have cut through your pectoral muscles
and sliced the top off your ribcage. Pointer number two.”
“Let’s go again,” Jayzen said.
This time he attacked her right side, below the ribs. She ig-
nored his attack, brought her stick up into his groin, stopped be-
fore hitting him, pulled back to block, then stabbed up, just be-
low his sternum.
“You’re dead,” she said. “If this was real, I would have split
your pubic bone, then slid my blade out of the wound to block
your attack, but before that I would have used the leverage I had
while my sword was still in you groin to twist you around,
killing your momentum. And then I would have finished you
off.” She tapped the tip of her stick against his xiphoid process,
where it had stopped. “Pointer number three.
“Also,” she said, “you’ve been keeping a secret from me.”
“I have?”
“Someone’s been teaching you killing moves. That wasn’t
competition samurai, you’ve been learning cutting patterns.”
“Maybe your skills and mine aren’t so different after all,” he
said, then attacked. Lucy stabbed at his heart while blocking his
leading sword arm with her left hand. If she had her short-sword,
she would have drawn it and cut off his hands. Jayzen didn’t pull
his punch, and he hit her on the shoulder.
“Ouch! Fuck! That hurt!” she said.
He tried again, but left himself wide open. Samurai practice
helmets had heavy neck padding. Lucy brought her stick
around and hit him on the side of the neck. The blow sent him
staggering several paces, but he came back with another at-
tack. He was so inept that she didn’t even consider blocking.
She hit him in the ribs, and he stumbled to the floor, gasping
for breath.
Lucy planted her practice stick on the floor and put her left
hand on her hip. She looked down at Jayzen. “I don’t know what
Gladiator Girl 67
your deal is, but I’m tired of it. I came down here to get laid. Are
you up for it, or should I leave?”
Jayzen took off his helmet and pulled himself to his feet using
his practice sword like a cane. “One more time.” Lucy didn’t
move. “If you don’t want to . . .” he said.
“Okay,” she said, “but this is it. Pick up your helmet.”
“No. You take yours off. I want to look in your eyes.” He
pointed at his own eyes with his index and middle fingers. “The
eyes are the tell.” Then he pointed at her eyes. “The eyes keep
the match honest.”
Lucy took off her helmet and tossed it to the side. “Did your
sensei tell you that?”
Jayzen assumed his fighting stance. Lucy stayed put: one hand
on her hip; her practice stick planted on the floor. “Come on,”
she said, “it’s your show. I’m waiting. My eyes are waiting.”
Jayzen faked an attack toward her sword hand. She rolled her
eyes. He reversed his attack. It looked like he was expecting her
to move in and block his stick. Instead, Lucy cracked him on the
inside of his advancing knee. He began falling and brought his
arms down to catch himself on the floor. Lucy flicked her stick
up and hit his wrists. The move knocked his stick out of his
hands, and he sprawled to the floor. She stepped over to his prac-
tice stick, hooked its hilt guard with the tip of her own stick and
flicked, sending it skittering across the gym floor to clatter
against the far wall. She pointed at it with her practice stick. “If
you say, ‘one more time,’ one more time, that’s where your
testicles are going to end up.”
Jayzen’s breathing was heavy and he was holding himself up
with his hands and sore wrists. She hunkered down in front of
him and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m concerned the mood
has been ruined, but if you’re willing to give it a try, there’s a
nice stack of exercise mats over there.”
Jayzen struggled to his feet. Lucy put his arm across her
shoulders, held him around the waist, and helped him limp to the
68 R. H. Watson
mats. “Here’s pointer number four,” she said. “This is the big
one. The problem with all that mystical sensei bullshit is, it’s lost
its edge. It used to be that the master’s training either kept his
students alive or it got them killed. A sensei who got his students
killed pretty much lost his sensei license. A sensei who kept his
students alive did it by being practical and paying attention to
what kept them alive and what didn’t. He had to constantly re-
vise his methods to pass that simple test.” They arrived at the
mats; Lucy flopped Jayzen onto the stack. “My sword coach
doesn’t have any fancy ratings or pretty belts, but she’s a better
sword master than any of your how-to-score-points senseis, even
the ones that teach you nasty little killing tricks, because for us,
once again, bad training gets us killed.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jayzen said from his flipped turtle position.
Lucy crawled on top of him. He grimaced when she brushed
his sore ribs. “Work through the pain, it’ll be worth it.”
She kissed him, then buried her nose in his neck. She had
worked him hard enough that his sweat was overpowering his
cologne. He smelled good.
Jayzen rolled onto his side. “Ah!”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Lucy said.
“Don’t be so smug.” He pressed his hand against her shoulder
and she rolled onto her back. Jayzen orbited a breast with his
hand, then circled the nipple with his thumb. She felt a sympath-
etic tingle deep in her groin.
She pressed her hands against his pectorals, pinched his
nipples, pulled him down, and kissed him. She felt his penis
grow against her thigh.
He moved down and kissed her throat. She dug into his scalp,
pushing her hands up against the lay of his hair, covering them
with sweat and oil, then she rubbed her palms across his
shoulders and into his armpits. Jayzen kissed his way down her
belly, across her hip to the inside of her thigh, and up to her la-
Gladiator Girl 69
bia. Lucy sat up on her elbows and watched him while walking
her heals up and down his back, kneading the bundles of his
erector spinae muscles.
Jayzen wrapped his lips around her hood and sucked with a
light pressure. She closed her eyes and hung her head back. He
eased two fingers into her vagina, pressed his tongue against her
clitoris, and nudged her tissue back and forth. She slipped off her
elbows, reached down, collected two handfuls of his hair in her
fists, and rolled her hips to his rhythm. Her sweat, trapped
between her back and the mat, was turning into a viscus slick;
she was oozing off the crest of the mat pile. She slipped her feet
off Jayzen’s back, and pressed them on the matt to push herself
back up, then worked them under his pelvis and took hold of his
penis with her toes. “Ah!” he said, and to her surprise, his puff of
hot breath against her genitals was the thing that set her on the
physiological cascade to orgasm.
Lucy let herself sink into the sensation, then felt herself collapse
against someone. She opened her eyes and saw the point of
Emily’s sword sticking out of her ribs. She watched it cut into
the Goddess’s back. Blood soaked into her white vestment, and
the girl, not the Goddess, turned to Lucy, but it wasn’t her. Lucy
was looking into her brother’s six year old face—puffy, running
with tears, and full of uncomprehending fear and betrayal.
Lucy opened her eyes. “What the fuck?” She grabbed Jayzen’s
ears, and pulled. As his groin came up to hers, she guided his penis
into her vagina, then kissed him hard on the mouth, wrapped her
legs around his thighs, and pumped her pelvis against his.
The orgasm flooded up her spine, across her belly, down her
legs. It ebbed, then welled up again, and again, like a thunder
storm walking off to the horizon, and washing everything away.
One onethousand, two onethousand, “Ahuungh!” One one
thousand, two onethousand, three onethousand . . .
70 R. H. Watson
Jayzen and Lucy slipped into the ballroom. Lucy spotted Char-
lotte, still in the company of Madame Verbeek. They were
strolling the room and stopping at various groups to chat. Char-
lotte was being shown off. She was the misdirection while M.
Verbeek picked her guests’ pockets for charity.
Jayzen motioned to a young woman, maybe three or four
years younger than Lucy. She seemed out of place. It took a mo-
ment to see why. She was actually dressed appropriately for the
fairy tale room which meant she was dressed entirely inappropri-
ately for the soirée. She came over, but took her time.
72 R. H. Watson
“Yes, I snuck in dressed like, them.” She kept her hand close to
her chest and poked her finger at the milling guests. “Compared to
blood battle, it was . . . personal, not spiritual. I found it upsetting.”
Aldan leaned in. “Who’s being disrespectful now?”
“Not disrespectful,” Francine said, “honest.”
“I appreciate that,” Lucy’s Charlotte said, “and I agree. Des-
pite it’s civilized trimmings, Duel à Mort is primal, no meaning-
of-everything metaphors, just two people trying to kill each other
for no other reason than to see who lives. No muss, no fuss.”
“It was great meeting you,” Lucy said to the group. “Thanks
France.”
They all waived, and Charlotte and Lucy walked out the
gilded doors.
Francine saw her brother watch them leave. She got a bad feeling,
but this was hardly the first time her family made her uneasy.
“We should go to Lucy’s next match,” Beth said.
“Burning Desire is playing Beauty Incarnate next Saturday.”
Gilbert was consulting a match schedule. “It’s an away match in
Appalachi City.”
“We can use one of my family’s cross-country cabins for the
trip,” Francine said.
“That was an experience and a half.” Lucy flopped into the lim-
ousine seat. Charlotte sat next to her. They were dressed in their
club slacks and blazers.
“You disappeared for a while,” Charlotte said, “with Jayzen
Verbeek, the son of our host, the woman who paid for us to be at
her soirée this evening, the woman who might be concerned that
her son came back with a limp.”
“He should be fine by morning,” Lucy said. Without her
sword she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
“Did you get a proper lay?”
“Oh yes.”
Gladiator Girl 75
IMMEDIATE DELIVERY
DATE: Sunday, Delta, 2nd 15th ’47
TIME: 9:00
ITEM: Burning Desire Roses
QUANTITY: 1 Score
DELIVERED TO: Lucinda Star
CARE OF: Charlotte Marceau; Canister 17; Sunshine Village
(A.K.A. informal: Winnebago Graveyard)
SENDER SAYS: “Dear Lucy, Thank you for a charming and
enlightening evening. I would be honored if, at your pleasure,
you would consider sharing company some evening, without
crossed swords. Always at your service, Jayzen Verbeek”
RECIPIENT REPLIES: “Dear Jay, thanks for the roses, but
you shouldn’t have, really. You should have donated the
money to your mother’s charity. I appreciate your offer of a
less confrontational evening. I’ll think about it, but . . .”
Francine
She walked into the breakfast parlor in the main house of the
Verbeek Estate and heard the tail end of a message: “. . . but for
now, I don’t have the time. Best wishes―” Jayzen cut it off.
Gladiator Girl 77
“Who was that from?” She sat and poured a cup of coffee.
“No one,” Jayzen said.
“It sounded like Lucy Star. Did she just turn you down?”
“She’s busy,” he said.
“Honey please,” Francine said. Jayzen handed her the honey
pot. She stirred some into her coffee. “How’s your knee?”
“What about it?”
“You were limping last night.”
“It’s better.”
“Lucy said she was giving you some pointers. You’re not going to
pass that limp off as a side effect of your sexual prowess, are you?”
Jayzen shrugged. “I asked her to give me some tips.”
“Whatever possessed you to do that?”
“The party was boring.”
“The fencing match got you excited, didn’t it?” Francine said.
“It was interesting.”
“I know you, dear brother, you’re a raving romantic. You were
jealous. You wanted to be the one killing a rival in a duel. You
wanted to get as close to that experience as a boy can get.”
Jayzen ate a spoonful of oatmeal and sipped some coffee. “I
thought it would be interesting to test myself against one of those
blood sport girls. The second seemed like a good choice.
Someone who wasn’t of championship quality.”
“Lucy Star isn’t a fencer. She’s a blood battle guardian.”
“On a beta team,” Jayzen said. “I’ve been trained in the sword
arts since I was six. It seemed like a better opportunity to test my
mettle than fencing.”
“You poor boy.” Francine reached over and patted his cheek.
“She might be with a Beta League club now, but next year she’ll
be eligible to move to the Alpha League. If Diana’s Glory
doesn’t take their option on her, another club will. She’s known
for never―ever―giving up. The rule for any team going against
her is to not consider her out of the game until her head is at least
three meters away from her body.”
78 R. H. Watson
it, never have. Something that complicated and it just works, yet
no one understands why? Somebody’s hiding something.”
The other breakfasters ignored him. “The Verbeek Fund has
spent billions on research to figure it out, and all those scientists can
say is, ‘It’s complicated. Give us five more years and we should
have something.’ They’ve been saying that for twenty years!”
“It is complicated,” Francine said. “Dr. Amanda Azulai is
the only one who ever understood it, and old fools like you
put her in prison.”
“She committed murder.”
“And two weeks later, her victim was walking around
and talking.”
“At the time, it was murder.”
“That didn’t stop the army from using her work to make girls
into bomb disposal experts and Special Operations soldiers.”
“The law was changed and she was pardoned.”
“She was an autistic genius, by then she’d crawled back into
her shell. She hasn’t said a word since.”
“Someone should make her talk,” Mister Verbeek said.
“Good luck with that. It’s likely she couldn’t explain how her
code works even if she did talk. It wasn’t concocted, it was one
of those insights that springs whole from a genius’s head.”
“Poppycock,” Mister Verbeek said. “Gene therapy has been
around for years.”
“Sure, we can read the raw code, but its expression is too
chaotic to follow. We cured a few cancers, fixed some heart
problems, made a handful of genetic disorders go away, learned
to make blue eyes brown, and a few other parlor tricks, but that’s
it. Gene therapy hasn’t led to the breakthroughs you expected.”
Madam Verbeek tapped Jayzen’s arm and pointed at the plate
of toast. He handed it to her.
“The only big breakthrough was rebirth,” Francine said, “and
you certainly didn’t expect that. Dr. Azulai woke up one day, saw
a clear path through the chaos and wrote the genetic code that
80 R. H. Watson
to keep going? The Verbeek girls are using your wombs for re-
creation and attention dramas.”
Mister Verbeek and Francine stared each other down, until he
blinked and turned to Jayzen. “Be a good boy and pass the jam.”
Francine finished her coffee. “If you will excuse me, I have a
museum date with my friends.” She stood and left.
“I’m off too,” Jayzen said. He caught up to Francine at the
central elevator. “France, you and your friends actually follow
blood battle, don’t you?”
Francine turned around. “We do. It’s exciting, and contrary to
what most people think, quite spiritual, and as I suspect you
learned last night, requires significant skill.”
“Do you know when Lucy is playing her next game?”
“It’s called a match.”
“Whatever, do you know when the next one is?”
“Are you smitten?” Francine said. “Has Lucy Star stolen
your heart?”
Jayzen gave her an impatient scowl.
“You better not do anything stupid,” Francine said.
“I have no desire to cause her distress, quite the contrary.”
“You weren’t listening earlier. I’m not worried about her.”
“Thanks for your concern, little sister.”
“It’s this Saturday at nineteen o’clock, in Appalachi City,
against Beauty Incarnate. I’m going with my friends, and you
can’t join us.”
Jayzen turned and walked off.
The elevator settled into place and the gate folded open. Fran-
cine stepped through. “Down,” she said. “All the way.”
She walked off the elevator onto the house car dock. “Good
morning, Ned.” She smiled at the security dispatcher. “How are
you today?” Her family drove her crazy; the house staff was
friendly, but careful to say the right thing; and her teachers were
pompous, brilliant asses. Ned was the antithesis to them all:
82 R. H. Watson
Zack
“Hangs out at the old guys table in the cafeteria. Sits in the
park drinking coffee and talking to people. Watches the sun come
up in the morning. Visits a tea shop over that way, behind Burn-
ing Desire. Hey, did you know we got a blood battle club in the
neighborhood? How fantastic is that?” Neil waited for a reaction,
didn’t get one.
“If he’s got a choice, why is he here?” Zack said.
“Why are you here? We all have a choice. None of us has to
be here.”
“I, ah . . .”
“That was rhetorical. You don’t have to answer,” Neil said. He
dumped the basket contents into the trash wagon. “So why are
you here?”
“I, ah . . .”
“Never mind. you don’t have to answer. Did you see your
counselor yet?”
“My first session is this morning, when we’re done working.”
“It’s a good thing you landed at the Hand. They really try to
help. The last place I was at was shit. We were just an excuse for
them to get charity money. Here, they got me in school. I’m
learning to be a structural topiary engineering assistant, so I can
help grow the city. We’re making a new world, and I’m gonna be
part of it. I’m taking a night class too, after our evening
shift―they don’t know about that one. Martial arts. I’m doing it
on my own―taking the initiative. Train the mind and the body,
you know?” Neil noticed he was holding an empty basket. He
put it back in its holder. “Who’s your counselor?”
“Huh? Ah, Wilhelmina Mazur.” Zack said.
“Wow, you must be fucked up, no offense. She always takes
the tough cases. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”
Zack dumped the last basket for this section of the park into
the trash wagon. They sat on their saddles, and peddled past Max
to the next section. The sun broke the horizon.
***
Gladiator Girl 85
Jayzen
He changed into his training gear, entered the dojo, and bowed to
Hashimoto Sensei.
“What were you thinking?” said Hashimoto Sensei, whose
real name was Bob.
“What?” Jayzen stood upright.
“You tried using the sword arts with one of those blood
sport girls.”
“How do you know?”
Bob waggled his thumb at Eduardo and Faustus who were at
the other end of the dojo, looking sheepish. “Your friends snitched
on you. I had a word with them about honor.”
“I was curious how useful your training would be,” Jayzen
said, “if I ever had cause to use it in a real fight.”
“A real fight? This isn’t feudal Africa! We don’t have real
fights. That’s what your two ninjas are for.” He nodded at
Jayzen’s bodyguards standing discretely to the side of the dojo
floor looking, in fact, like ninjas. They were dressed head to toe
in matte black bodysuits that covered everything except their
faces. They wore loose, black jackets with lots of pockets con-
cealing who-knows-what scary weapons. Their faces were decor-
ated with makeup, eyeliner and red lipstick. Jayzen was particu-
lar about their appearance. They were identical twins.
“I couldn’t even touch her,” Jayzen said.
“Of course not. From what I heard, you weren’t even using a
proper weapon. You were using a practice stick. How could you
expect to perform properly?”
“She was using one, too.”
Bob folded his arms to indicate frustration.
“She said your sword training was nothing but a collection of
tricks,” Jayzen said. “She said you’ve lost your edge, you’re en-
cumbered by rules for scoring points, you’ve forgotten how to kill.
After seeing her perform, I’m inclined to agree.”
86 R. H. Watson
Wilhelmina
She wrote her notes on the session with Zachary Tang while they
were fresh in her memory. He was hiding just about everything.
She suspected he had given a false name. He seemed like a de-
cent kid, but deeply troubled.
Gladiator Girl 87
“Who is she?”
“Somebody who changed her name after leaving home and
doesn’t want anything to do with her family. Her brother, some-
how, figured out who she was and showed up last week. We
don’t know why. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with
him. We want him to stay away. He’s living in your shelter.
That’s all I can tell you.”
“We’re not an extension of your security operation, but
thanks, this will help.” Wilhelmina ended the contact. “So,
Zachary Tang né Knole, you have a sister living in Heritage
City.” She eased back in her desk chair until the springs creaked.
“. . . and the thought of working in our store frightened you.”
She sat forward and sent a request to the Helping Hand
thrift store.
“Hi, Mina, how are you?” Zemar, the store manager, said.
“I’m Fine. Do you know if any of your customers are Burning
Desire players?”
“I expect some are, but there’s only one I know of for sure.”
“How can you tell?”
“She always has a sword with her.”
“Really? Do you know her name?”
“Lucy Star. She’s a sweet girl.”
“That’s a curious name,” Wilhelmina said. “It sounds made up.”
“I guess it does, now that you mention it. Is there a problem?”
“No, nothing to worry about,” Wilhelmina said. “Thank you.”
Samantha
She approached the scene wearing full body armor, including her
face mask. She wasn’t obviously armed, but she had a small ar-
senal of mostly non-lethal weapons tucked into her jacket and
holstered around her hips. She circled, lurked in the background,
and watched for anything, or anyone, suspicious. Her job was to
stay back, not interfere, observe, and only act to protect lives.
Gladiator Girl 89
Whoever had put the body here, had laid it on its back with
the arms and legs spread to display the wounds. Samantha
crouched to look at the big cut on the body’s left side. It started
in the ribcage and sliced down through the abdomen into the pel-
vis, nearly cutting off the left a leg. She stood and stepped over
the legs to the body’s right side. “These aren’t blood battle
wounds,” she said. “That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
“You seem sure.”
“Blood battle has two types of weapons. Guards and forwards
use a field sword. It has a short, wide blade with a sharp point
and two sharpened edges: good for stabbing and hacking; not
good for making long, deep cuts like this one.” She pointed at
the wound on the body’s left side.
“The other main weapon is the long-sword. It’s handled by
chargers and guardians. It’s long, obviously, straight and thin,
sharpened on one edge. It would be capable of making that cut.
“Guardians have a second sword, a short-sword. It’s pretty
much the same as the long-sword, but about half the length. This
stab wound in the right armpit,” she pointed, “would be typical
for a guardian’s short-sword.”
“So, they could be blood battle wounds?”
“No. The girls who wield BB swords are highly trained
swordswomen before they’re ever allowed to hold real blades.
Whoever did this doesn’t have that level of skill, but may have
used guardian style swords.”
The detective was listening in. The examiner said to her, “You
think maybe we have boys trying to play girl blood sports?”
“Not in the urban legend sense,” the detective said. “A secret
sports league would be too complicated to hide. I think we’re still
looking for a killer who fancies himself to be a swordsman, and he’s
using these kids for practice. Practice for what? I don’t know.”
They both looked at Samantha. “I don’t know either,” she
said, “but he needs more practice.”
Chapter 7
Less Than a Week
Monday — 5 Days to Go
cutesy little ass out of the club. Fuck! Why do I care?” Lucy
walked through the gate in the security fence and ran into Frank,
the security guard. She splashed tea on his jacket. “Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Frank said. “You seem preoccupied
this morning.”
“It’s Monday,” Lucy said.
“Pre-match jitters?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Frank opened the door to the building. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. You’re right. Jitters. That’s all.” She headed to the
locker room.
She sipped some tea, put the rest aside for lunch, and changed
into shorts and a t-shirt. She slammed the locker door on her fin-
ger. “Ow! Shit!”
During calisthenics she kept drifting off the rhythm of the ex-
ercises and was called on it, twice. While running, Serendipity
came up along side her and said, “Hey.” Lucy stumbled.
On their way to the weight room, Frankie dragged her to the
side of the corridor. “What’s wrong with you today?” Frankie said.
“You’re acting like you’ve gone off your drugs or something.”
“Are you sick?” Serendipity said.
“No, and I’m not on anything to go off of. What are you
talking about?”
“You’ve got the coordination of a drunken monkey and the fo-
cus of backward eyeglasses,” Frankie said. “There’s no way I’m
letting you spot me in the weight room. You’ll drop a barbell on
my neck and not even notice.”
“Are you upset about something?” Serendipity said.
“I’m fine,” Lucy said.
“Is it your brother?”
“How do you know about that?”
Frankie pinned her against the wall. “Out with it!”
“It’s nothing.”
Frankie pointed a finger at her nose.
94 R. H. Watson
“All right, it’s the goddesses,” Lucy said. “There was a bunch
of them at Mr. Fredrick’s this morning, and one of them tried to
make small talk with me.”
“You’ve got your head turned inside-out over that?” Frankie
slapped her.
“Ow!” Lucy said.
“Snap out of it!” Frankie said.
Lucy glared.
“Hit her again,” Serendipity said.
“What the fuck?” Lucy said.
“Just trying to help.”
“Why do you give a shit about that pack of vac-heads?”
Frankie said.
Lucy stared back at her. Frankie flicked her eyes down and
adjusted her footing. Lucy grabbed her finger. “You know
what?” She patted Frankie’s cheek, smiled, then slapped her—
hard. “You’re right. Thanks. I feel better.” She poked her finger
at Frankie’s nose. “You spot me first.” She turned and strode off
to the weight room. Frankie and Serendipity jogged to catch up.
When Lucy woke up, Charlotte was making coffee and toast.
“Felix is in the shower,” she said. “He seems nice.”
Lucy heard the shower turn off and the fans turn on. “Who?”
Gladiator Girl 97
“I think you just said the same thing. How about an example.”
“Well, we’re currently studying rebirth, ‘The Cruel Joke that
Changed the World.’ That’s the book my professor wrote.”
“A joke?” Lucy said.
“Sure. At first, it looked like it might be the mythical trans-
formative medical miracle; the one that would allow everyone to
live potentially, endlessly long lives without sacrificing their
youth. But one,” he held up his thumb, “it doesn’t slow
aging―at all. Two,” he flipped up his index finger, “it’s so intim-
ately tied to the female reproductive system, that half the popula-
tion is immediately excluded. Three,” he held up his middle fin-
ger, “it only works between puberty and the end of physical
growth at around twenty-five. And Four,” his ring finger went
up, “it’s ridiculously complicated and expensive to support. To
afford the treatment, a girl’s family has to be beyond rich, or she
needs to be sponsored by a government, or a wealthy private en-
tity. Hence, cruel joke.”
“So, what’s that joke got to do with social philosophy?”
“Because the joke’s on the joke! Rebirth is transformative,
just not in the way people had hoped. Think about it, in the last
twenty years we handed over our most dangerous jobs, including
jobs that protect the very nature of our civilization, to a handful
of young women. Jobs that have traditionally fallen within the
male compass. This raises big ethical and social dissonances, and
the way those are resolved, or ignored, defines how rebirth is
changing our society.”
“Okay . . . ?” Lucy said.
“Take something as trivial as sports. They’re just entertain-
ment, right? Wrong!” He poked the table top with his finger so
hard, the toast plate rattled. “Sports are our most popular rights
of passage, which among other things, define and assign gender
roles. Granted, in our modern versions, most of us participate
vicariously; we appoint just a few elite athletes to actually per -
form the rituals.
Gladiator Girl 99
Felix opened his mouth and closed it, then his eyes flared.
“You’re Charlotte Marceau!”
“Before you go gaga over my roommate,” Lucy said, “remem-
ber who you had sex with last night, and remember who’s sword
this is, lying right here, in front of you.”
Felix looked from Charlotte to the sword, and to Lucy. “See?”
he said. “That’s just the sort of thing we study! Not the implied
threat to cut off my balls―that’s nothing new―but the casual
understanding that it would be a trivial act, given your experi-
ence and capabilities―experience and capabilities that no one
has been able to acquire before rebirth. That’s new!”
Lucy leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “If I knew you
well enough to know I liked you, I’d say, ‘that’s what I like about
you.’” She sat back and regarded him. “How many implied
threats to cut your balls off do you get?”
“I, ah . . . what?”
“Never mind.”
Felix bit a corner of his toast, picked up his cup to drink, then
put it down without drinking.
“I think, you think you have a dumb question,” Charlotte said.
“Go ahead; ask it.”
“But be careful,” Lucy said. “You only get one dumb ques-
tion. Don’t waist it on something smart.”
“What’s it like to die?” Felix said. “You must hear this all the time,
and I’ve read about the experience, but still, I can’t imagine it.”
“First,” Lucy said. “Obviously, we don’t die.”
“Yes, but physiologically, your bodies go through a series of
traumas that no one else can survive. You recover from a state far
beyond where I would be declared irrevocably dead.”
“If you’ve read about it then you know we don’t remember
dying,” Lucy said. “The process of converting short term
memory to long term is disrupted. The closer a memory is to the
time of death the less coherent it is, and anything within about a
minute of death is lost entirely.”
Gladiator Girl 101
him a quick kiss, put her sword away in the closet, and ran into
the shower room. “Leave your talk-to address, mine’s on the
message board.”
hind on the third tier. That impressed Lucy so much, she almost
got clipped by Liha’s long-sword when she recovered them.
“Please finish,” Bimini said.
They stopped, and found they had returned to the temple-top.
“You have potential,” Bimini said to Liha. “Let us continue.
Lucy, swords. Frankie, practice sticks.”
Twice Frankie tried to hit Lucy, but each time Lucy dodged
out of the way. She was pretty sure she had setup Frankie to have
a little fun, but that’s the thing about kinesthetic intelligence; she
didn’t always know why she did what she did.
When they finished, Bimini said to Lucy, “Very good.”
“I know,” Lucy said. This was a good day to feel cocky, and
you have to go with how you feel. She hopped down the tiers
and off the pyramid.
Saturday — Ø Day
Lucy woke up at six. At six forty-five she climbed out the hatch
with her overnight bag, her long-sword, a cup of coffee, and a
slice of toast. At seven, she arrived at Burning Desire's team en-
trance to wait in the chilly morning air with the other club mem-
bers who were making the trip to Appalachi City.
Chapter 8
Who is Chrysanthemum?
“Good morning, Lucy,” Mathilda said. She was one of the assist-
ant equipment managers, but for now, she was managing the cabin
assignments for the outbound trip. Coach Kai had the players and
staff assigned randomly to cabins so they would have an opportun-
ity to meet people outside their usual circles of skills and friend-
ships. “You’ll be in cabin five with Glenna, Esmerelda, Jana, Beth-
any, Toshi, and Chrysanthemum. They’re collecting over there.”
“Who were the last two on the list?” Lucy said.
“Toshi Sanchez, she’s a prep team intern, nice girl, and Chrys-
anthemum—her real name—Story. She’s a goddess.”
“That’s a mistake. Goddesses aren’t supposed to be traveling
with other team members and especially not with a guardian.”
“That’s what it says.” Mathilda held out the seating list for
Lucy to see.
“Where are the other goddesses sitting?”
Mathilda flipped through the list pages. “Here they are,” she
said, “in cabin twelve.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“See? It’s a mistake. Carnation should be there, too.”
“Chrysanthemum,” Mathilda said.
“Huh?”
Gladiator Girl 107
girl you’re defending, and when you have to make that decision
to withhold your protection to win a game, you should be willing
to accept the responsibility that a real person will feel, and may
remember, real pain because of your decision. Accepting that
makes you whole, and I want a whole Lucy Star standing on the
temple, not one with a chunk of herself boxed away.”
“This is one of your radical ideas, isn’t it?”
“I trust you can handle it.”
“Crap.”
“Go on, get to know Chrysanthemum.”
Lucy walked back to where the cabin five passengers were
gathering.
Who the fuck is Chrysanthemum?
Why the fuck did Zack come to see me?
I like my boxes closed . . .
and bent back, then she stretched to the left and to the right. She
looked at the book Bethany was reading. “That’s a good one.”
Bethany looked up. “Last year I read his, Saved by the Pi
geons, so I thought I’d give this a try.”
Chrysanthemum sat on the floor in front of Bethany. She put
the soles of her shoes together, grabbed her feet, and bent forward
while still looking up at Bethany. “Pigeons was good,” she said,
“but that one’s much deeper. It looks like you got to the part where
Harradonnus has to choose between Peppermint and Rosemary?”
“Oh yes, fantastic, wasn’t it?” Bethany slid down and sat on
the floor facing Chrysanthemum.
Lucy walked over to the kitchenette and drew a cup of coffee.
Specially blended for me and millions of other people’s taste. She
moved her seat next to Toshi who was watching the forests,
fields, and small towns zoom by. “First away match?” Lucy said.
“Yes,” Toshi said. “Isn’t this great? But, you’re probably
used to it.”
“Not yet,” Lucy said.
Chrysanthemum glanced over at her, then continued discuss-
ing Bethany’s book.
After lunch Lucy collected the pasta eaters’ plates and utensils,
and started washing them. Chrysanthemum came over and
picked up a towel to dry.
“So what’s your deal?” Lucy said.
“What do you mean?”
“I understand going through the gene therapy, giving birth
to a memory placenta, and betting your life that this crazy
scheme will work if it let’s you do something exciting or im -
portant that would be impossible otherwise, but you sit on
your butt and meditate. It’s not dangerous. It doesn’t kill you
if you do it wrong.”
“No, but now I get paid for it.”
“You’re doing it for the money?”
“You’ve got to admit, the money’s good. When we age-out
and get our League stipends, we’ll both be almost rich. But
you’re right. That was a disingenuous answer. You play blood
battle because it’s exciting, right?”
“More than that,” Lucy said, “but you first.”
“My point is, it’s similar for me. Nothing challenges my abil-
ity to, ‘just be,’ like the prospect of imminent death.”
“But it’s not imminent.”
“Yes, we’re reborn—quite reliably. But we still die.”
“Maybe, by some conventional definition,” Lucy said. “My
friend would say the medical definition of death is pushed fur-
114 R. H. Watson
ther out for us than for other people, and as long as our memory
placentas exist, we can’t be considered dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they’re part of us. Genetically they are us. Their brain
tissue specifically organizes itself to hold us: our memories, our
experiences, our emotions. It might be in a kind of suspension,
but we are very much alive in them.”
“Yes, I see what you mean, and my tiny rational mind might
know this, but all the rest of me doesn’t, and doesn’t want to die.
Who’s your friend?”
“Charlotte, Charlotte Marceau. You might have heard of her.
She’s the number one ranked Duel à Mort foil fencer for the
North Coast. She’s my roommate.”
“You’re proud of her.”
“She’s my best friend.”
“I know Charlotte,” Chrysanthemum said.
“You do?”
“Yes. Tall. Hair down to here.” She reached around to the small
of her back. “Light skinned—almost Old Epoch European.”
“How do you know her?”
“We sit together in the East Slope Xen Center.”
“Fuck,” Lucy said.
“What?”
“I hate that small world shit.”
“Why?”
Lucy didn’t say anything. She re-washed the clean plate she
was holding.
“Are you OK?” Chrysanthemum said.
Lucy stopped washing and looked straight ahead at the
shelf of cleaning supplies above the sink. “There are
people . . . people I don’t want to run into, ever again. I want
the world to be big enough so I can be sure I never will, so I
can put them behind me, for good.” She held up the plate
and watched the suds bubbles drip off. “Small world shit re -
Gladiator Girl 115
It was fifteen thirty. The centipede cabins were arriving one after
the other in the order they had departed. Elizabeth, the other as-
118 R. H. Watson
After the meal everyone stayed in the cafeteria while the coaches
reviewed the match plan for the last time. Frankie would play the
first game. The Incarnate guardian opposing her was a new girl
promoted from the reserves in mid-season. She didn’t have much
of a performance history to build a strategy around, so they
would play a classic game to feel her out.
Serendipity would play the second game. Sky Molina, the
offensive coach, had noticed the Incarnate guardian her team
would be facing tended to step back when she moved to con -
front an attack from her right. Sky had put together a strategy
to take advantage of that foible and attack her hard on the
right side.
122 R. H. Watson
Francine and her friends shuffled into their seats on the south
side of the stadium. They overlooked the west arena, the one
Burning Desire would be defending. Francine handed a couple of
tickets to her bodyguards. “You have the two seats behind mine.”
“Thanks, we have our own,” the bodyguard in the brown coat
said. Francine didn’t know their names. She insisted her body-
guards dress like her friends, so they weren’t wearing their grey
124 R. H. Watson
body armor. She suspected what they were wearing would stop
bullets just fine.
“Is my brother here?” Francine said.
Brown Coat ignored her while discreetly inspecting her seat-
ing area and the surrounding spectators.
“You must know if you have colleagues here with Jayzen.”
“That’s privileged information,” Brown Coat said.
“Then you can tell me. After all, I am a daughter of privilege.”
“We’ll be nearby,” Brown Coat said. She and Dark Green
Coat slipped off in different directions to blend into the crowd.
As Brown Coat scanned the stadium, she regularly took in the
other two girls from her agency standing behind Jayzen in his
private box on the north side of the stadium. “Bitches,” she
mumbled to herself.
Frankie’s Game
Lucy watched Burning Desire’s goddess climb the stairs, and for
the first time, looked to see who it was. She was relieved it wasn’t
Chrysanthemum. Then she hoped this goddess would survive the
game, then she wondered what her name was, and then she real-
ized she didn’t know how goddesses were assigned to games. Was
it one for each game, like guardians, or if there was a third game,
did the surviving goddess reprise her role? She decided it would
have to be one per game since, like guardians, it was possible for a
goddess to die or be wounded even when her team won.
The reverberations of the start horns faded, and Lucy was on
her feet moving back and forth to watch the game develop in
each arena. The forwards for both sides advanced through their
six, thorn-enforced one-way paths in the midfield hedge. Each
path had a kink to block sight lines, making it impossible for
players to see what was happening in the other arena. Even
guardians could only see the top half of the opposition’s temple.
The coded message songs—a large collection of short vocaliza-
tions based on yodeling, overtone singing, pig calling, and whist-
ling—were the only way to coordinate strategy and send warn-
ings between a team’s guards in their own arena and their
forwards in the opposition’s arena.
The guards and forwards fought hard, but neither team was
having much success with their game plans. Then Burning De-
sire opened a charger path. Bridgett and Vanora took off, skating
in tandem. Not the best plan―a temple fight between a guardian
and two chargers required near flawless execution on the char-
gers’ part to give them the advantage―but the forwards’ mes-
sage songs indicated the branching paths near the temple were
clear, giving them room to maneuver and set up an attack from
different directions.
Incarnate’s untested guardian waited patiently behind the
Goddess until Bridgett and Vanora reached the top of the temple.
Gladiator Girl 127
She ducked under Bridgett’s sword, cut off both her legs, spun
and kicked Vanora off the temple-top, then jumped after her and
stabbed her in the chest when she bounced off the second tier.
She bounded back up, leapt over the temple-top, cut off Brid-
gett’s sword arm, then finished her off with her short-sword. It
might have seemed an overreaction: Bridgett was fast bleeding
to death and could only crawl with her arms, but Lucy under-
stood. Neutralize the immediate threats, then cleanup all possible
loose ends—leave nothing to chance.
“You’re a feisty little hornet,” Lucy said. “I like you!”
While the spectators were distracted by the fight on Incarn -
ate’s temple, their forwards cleared two paths and three of
their chargers headed for the hedge to attack Frankie. Lucy
ran along the sideline to follow them. A three charger attack
was harder to pull off, but was considered an even fight when
done well. This one wasn’t; one of the chargers was lagging
behind the other two.
“You screwed up, you fucking bitch!” Lucy averted her eyes from the
sight of the goddess’s head tumbling down the front of the temple.
A piercing horn blew, signaling a temporary halt to the game.
Everyone stood their ground. Three officials wearing purple
gloves ran out to check the goddess’s head. They lifted it with
care, handling it by its braided topknot, and inspected the cut. It
had to be respectful, entering between the mid-points of the
fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae and exiting just below the
larynx—a clean, single stroke causing instant death and minimal
damage. They approved the cut, and signaled their decision by
placing a purple satin pillow on the spot where the head had
come to rest. They closed its eyes, and laid it on the pillow, rest-
ing on its cheek as though asleep. The fake monks blew their
thrumming horns, and the first game was over.
The charger who had cut off the goddess’s head stood guard
over it while collection teams for each club ran onto the field
with body bags to pick up the dead and their parts. They were
directed by spotters high up in booths, who had been keeping
track of the injured players and their dismemberments. The sur-
viving players stayed on the field and helped point out the loca-
tion of bits they had cut off. The spectators got into the spirit,
cheering when a finger that had been trodden into the muck of
the marsh was finally retrieved.
The collectors finished and ran off the field laden with with
their bags of fallen players. The steps extruded from the front of
the temples. The spectators hushed themselves and rose. Burning
Desire sent out a special collection team with a purple body bag
to claim their goddess’s body and head. After they cleared the
field, the Beauty Incarnate goddess stood, descended her stairs,
Gladiator Girl 129
and walked off. The surviving players ran to their sidelines, end-
ing the post-game rituals.
There was a forty-five minute break until the next game. On
the field, gardeners touched up the flora, and cleaners scrubbed
dirt, blood, and waste off the temples, plazas, and charger paths.
Serendipity’s Game
Lucy prowled the sideline for a while and inspected the field.
The basic layout of all BB fields was the same, but the soil
and vegetation varied with the local environment. Lucy didn’t
have to worry about running and fighting down in the grass,
but she was the team’s lookout until she had to engage char -
gers on the temple. It helped if she had a feel for what made
this arena unique.
When she’d seen enough, she trotted down the tunnel to the
locker room. The players on the second game team were pumping
up each other’s emotions. The survivors of the first game had re-
treated to the showers to avoid infecting the second team with
their loser’s energy. Coach Molina was huddling with her char-
gers, getting them psyched for the attack she had planned for the
Incarnate guardian. Lucy turned the corner to the guardian lockers.
“Hi, Lucy,” Serendipity said. She was putting on her helmet
and collecting her hair into a curly red fireworks burst to stick
out the back.
“Hey, Dippy,” Lucy said. She walked behind Serendipity and
ran her fingers along the new indentation in her own locker door.
She turned to Serendipity and opened her mouth.
“You want to play so bad you can taste it,” Serendipity said.
“You want to psych me up, so I’ll win, right?”
“Fuck yes.” Lucy said.
“Don’t worry.”
“That sounds insanely confident. You know something
Angela doesn’t?”
130 R. H. Watson
This time Lucy avoided looking at the goddesses for either team.
The horns sounded and the game began. There were four narrow
charger paths through the hedge. Like the forwards’ paths, they
curved enough to prevent players from seeing through to the other
arena. Between the hedge and the plaza, those paths branched into a
dozen interconnected routes. Sky Molina’s plan was to quickly gain
dominant plaza to plaza control over the two north charger paths
and their branches, and not worry about the south paths. All four
chargers were waiting on Burning Desire’s north plaza.
Burning Desire sent their forwards through the three northern-
most one-way paths. Incarnate launched a symmetrical flanking
attack designed to control the north and south charger routes and
force Burning Desire’s guards into the center of the field.
The message singing started. Serendipity reported on In-
carnate’s attack strategy, and knew the Incarnate guardian was
alerting her forwards to Burning Desire’s asymmetrical attack,
but they were already in the hedge and committed to their
opening moves.
Gladiator Girl 131
the guard closest to the temple and killed her. They were trying
to flank Burning Desire along the back end of the field, but
pulled back when they realized all four chargers were on the
north plaza. Chargers normally stay out of the defense, but with
only six forwards left, Incarnate didn’t want to risk drawing them
into the fight.
Esmerelda and the other guards had done their job and taken
control of the two north paths in Burning Desire’s arena.
Serendipity was regularly singing out, “Two north paths open.”
What was taking the forwards so long on the other side of
the hedge?
When the chargers took off, Lucy hustled to the west end of the
sideline to watch the looming temple fight. Of her fellow guardi-
ans, Serendipity was the one she most enjoyed watching. The
girl had a deceptive way of moving so you never saw what was
Gladiator Girl 133
coming next. Off the field, she was a ditz, but Lucy was begin-
ning to suspect that was all an act to trick people into not seeing
the wrath she was bringing their way.
One of the Incarnate chargers tried to flank Serendipity, but
Chiyo and Mim blocked the branch path she was angling toward,
forcing all three chargers to approach the temple on Serendipity’s
right. Serendipity didn’t have a right-handed foible to exploit.
They were skating straight into her wrath.
The two chargers on the inside route arrived first, the leader
angled to the rear of the south side of the pyramid, the other to-
ward the front. They kicked off their skates and leapt to the first
tier. Serendipity skipped down like a naïve fairy about to be
caught between them, then she slipped to the rear of the pyramid.
Her long-sword flickered like gossamer and the sword arm,
shoulder, and head of the rearward charger flew off her body.
The charger at the front of the pyramid leaped off the second
tier on her way to the Goddess. Serendipity reversed direction
with such a light touch of her foot, Lucy couldn’t see how it had
the force to so completely change her direction and momentum.
The charger reached the fourth tier, one vault away from the
sweet spot and the Goddess’s head. Serendipity flew by and
slipped her short-sword into the charger’s spine. The girl’s legs
stopped working, and she fell on her face.
Serendipity again completely changed direction with a
slight kick and dove head first down the pyramid with her
long-sword extended. She impaled the third charger just as
she reached the temple, then curled, tumbled off the pyramid
while extracting her sword, and landed on her feet at ground
level. She removed the arms and legs from a forward who
happened to be standing too close, turned, and flitted back up
the temple. (For a weird moment Lucy thought she had
sprouted wings.) She dragged her long-sword through the
back of the paralyzed charger as she breezed by.
Lucy pounded the glass with her fist. “Yeah! Wow!”
134 R. H. Watson
***
By the time Serendipity reached the temple-top, Burning De-
sire’s forwards had opened both north routes; all four chargers
were on the move through the hedge, skating in tandem, two on
each path. Bethany and Nara arrived first and ascended the
temple, staying slightly to the rear of the guardian. The guardian
stepped back to meet Nara and blocked her sword with a cross-
handed twist that brought the tip of her blade up through Nara’s
ribs and heart. She again stepped back, swinging her long-sword
at Bethany. Bethany deflected the sword, but the guardian had
her short-sword out and stuck it up under Bethany’s jaw and into
her atlanto-occipital joint, damaging her spinal cord just below
its exit point from her skull. Bethany collapsed in full paralysis;
not dead, not yet.
They had succeeded in pulling the guardian to the rear, away
from the Goddess. Grenada was on the temple leaping for the
sweet spot. The guardian swung around, and with two running
steps, closed on Grenada and stuck her long-sword under her
shoulder blade. For a moment the guardian’s right side was ex-
posed. Kelcie jumped for the temple-top and stabbed up through
the guardian’s ribs, but she wasn’t sure if she had scored the
heart. She wrenched her blade around, twisted the guardian off
balance, and kicked her feet out from under her. The guardian
and Grenada tumbled down the pyramid.
Erdoza, Florence, and Candice had been holding the fourth In-
carnate charger at bay in the northeast corner of the plaza. When
she saw all four Burning Desire chargers burst through the
hedge, she fought her way out, killing Erdoza and the already
wounded Florence. She pushed Florence’s body into Candice,
looked at the temple and saw her guardian sliding down the pyr-
amid tiers with the limp articulation of the raggedy dead. She
kicked off her skates and ran for the temple to replace the guard-
ian as the Goddess’s defender.
Gladiator Girl 135
***
Kelcie didn’t hesitate after flinging the guardian off the tem -
ple-top. She ran for the altar, starting to swing her sword. As
she ran through the sweet spot, her blade entered and exited
the goddess’s neck. The Incarnate charger reached the top a
moment too late.
Lucy’s Game
There was an hour break between the second and third games to
give the second game survivors time to cleanup and prepare to
play again.
Lucy cornered Serendipity on her way to the shower. “You did
a swan dive off the pyramid! Where did that come from?”
“Not a swan dive—a swimmer’s dive: low, long, get in the
water fast. A swan dive would have taken too long. I like to
swim, and win, during the off season; strictly amateur. You
should try it; it’s fun.”
Angela, the defensive coach, came over. “Nice move with the
dive,” she said. “That’ll muddle up everybody’s plans for attack-
ing you in the next few games. Keep ’em guessing.”
For the tiniest moment, a slight, non-ditzy smile crossed
Serendipity’s lips, then she tapped the tip of Lucy’s nose with her
finger. “See? Your turn to win. You really shouldn’t have wor-
ried.” She disappeared into the shower room.
couple of times to be sure her arm knew where it was. She pulled
on her helmet and picked up her long-sword.
The casualties in the first two games had been high. Lucy’s
team would be short two guards and one charger. Incarnate could
field a full team.
Angela Strong came over to talk strategy. “What do you
think?” she said.
“Anybody who steps on my temple dies,” Lucy said.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less, but so you know, with seven
guards, we’re going to concentrate on holding one charger path
open. The forwards will try to open up as many branches in In-
carnate’s arena as they can. We’ll concentrate on the south most
path so we can keep our backs against the side-wall. Incarnate’s
going to expect this; they just don’t know if we’ll defend north
or south. They might try a flanking attack again, but if I were
them, I wouldn’t worry about our one path, I’d come right up the
middle to get control of the other three.
“It will be entirely up to our forwards to block those paths in
Incarnate’s arena, so there’s a better-than-usual chance you could
get hit with a full, four-charger attack.”
“Doesn’t change my plan,” Lucy said.
“I didn’t think it would.”
The warning gong sounded. Lucy butted helmets with every-
one around her, then slapped butts and backs as the team headed
up the tunnel. She let everyone go ahead of her since she would
be the last player on the field. She was about to head up the tun-
nel when Coach Kai came over.
“Everybody thinks I’ve gone crazy,” Lucy said. “They’re wor-
ried I’m going to screw up.”
“I’m not worried,” Coach Kai said.
“I’m going to kill anyone who sets foot on my temple.”
“Except the Goddess.”
“Yup, except her.” Lucy whooped and ran up the tunnel.
Screw Coach Kai’s plan!
Gladiator Girl 137
With his stadium glasses, Jayzen watched Lucy lope up the pyr-
amid tiers and couldn’t stop thinking about the previous Saturday
night on the exercise mats.
Lucy turned forward and assumed her relaxed stance with the tip
of her long-sword resting on the temple surface in front of her.
She waited while the other team was announced.
Then the goddesses came out. The stadium fell silent. Lucy
felt a vibration in her feet as the steps extruded from the front of
the pyramid. She kept her eyes on the other temple and watched
the Incarnate goddess climb the steps. This is crazy. I can’t de
fend the Goddess and avoid looking at her. Coach Kai's experi-
ment was only half finished. She gave in and looked at the front
edge of the altar. The Goddess's face came into view.
Chrysanthemum stepped onto the altar, looked up, and
winked! Lucy’s mouth gaped. She closed it immediately, then
didn’t quite suppress a grin, and then . . . winked back. Chrysan-
themum smiled a sly little smile, wiped it from her face, turned
while spreading her vestment, and settled in place on the altar, in
perfect coordination with the Beauty Incarnate goddess.
***
Jayzen sat forward with the stadium glasses pressed to his eyes.
He felt jealous, but he didn’t know why.
pushing harder on the south to open the south charger path. The
Incarnate guards were pressing back on the north side to get at
least two paths open for their chargers.
Burning Desire’s guards couldn’t sustain a long fight: two
were dead; one was wounded. They were falling back and get-
ting pushed up against the south path―they were losing. The
fight deteriorated until only two guards remained alive against
six healthy Incarnate forwards and the wounded one. Incarnate’s
forwards controlled all four paths in Burning Desire’s arena.
Burning Desire’s forwards sang an alarm, “Four chargers on
four paths!” On learning that Burning Desire’s guards had lost,
Incarnate’s guards attacked hard on the other side of the hedge.
They took heavy losses, but cleared all four paths long enough
for their chargers to get through.
Four chargers on four paths gave them every advantage. They
skated out of the hedge, traveling fast and unhindered. Lucy saw
Han, one of Burning Desire’s chargers, move to intercept part of
the attack. She sang out a warning, calling Han off. She had seen
one of Incarnate’s chargers stumble; it wasn't a big stumble, just
enough to make her arrive late―that evened the odds. Lucy
didn’t want her chargers risking injury by playing defense. She
shifted her attention to the first three Incarnate chargers.
They arrived: two on the left, one on the right. For Lucy, time
began passing in hundredths of a second. Bimini’s kinesthetic
training was in charge―thinking took too long.
There was something odd about the charger coming up the
forward end of the pyramid on the left side; she should have
been the biggest threat, but instead Lucy turned, took a step
down toward the charger on the right, and handed her long-
sword off to her left hand. She reached out and stabbed the
charger through her eye―brain blood sprayed out. Lucy contin-
ued turning and handed the long-sword back to her right hand.
She pulled out her short-sword and leapt across the temple to
meet the charger arriving from the left rear. She caught the
140 R. H. Watson
Despite the sword in her armpit, the front charger was trying
to swing her blade at Lucy’s shoulder. Lucy stepped inside her
reach, shoved her short-sword through her neck, and pressed it
back against her cervical vertebrae, cutting all the blood vessels
to her brain. She wedged her foot up against the girl’s chest and
pushed out, sending her backward. Off my temple!
The girl’s body fell onto one of Incarnate’s forwards. Lucy
looked around. Incarnate had sent their remaining healthy for-
wards onto the temple to backup their chargers, leaving all the
charger paths open in Burning Desire’s arena. They had bet
everything on their trick either killing Lucy or wounding her
enough so their forwards could finish her off.
Oopsie!
Lucy sang out, “All paths open, three chargers ready.” She
looked down at her chargers. They looked back in disbelief. Four
Incarnate chargers had just swarmed up the temple. A couple of
seconds later, they were all dead and Lucy was dripping with
their blood, grinning like she had just received the best present
ever, and she wasn’t at all concerned about six forwards scram-
bling up the sides of the temple.
The song came back from the other side of the hedge, “Two
center paths open!” Lucy tipped her head toward the Incarnate
temple. Bethany and Kelcie nodded back. The rookie, Andrea, was
staring at Lucy, then her face lit up; she grinned back and all three
took off. Andrea had to be careful not to out-skate her teammates.
Lucy assumed her relaxed waiting stance: short-sword
sheathed at her back, arms at her sides, long-sword tip resting on
the temple-top in front of her feet. Forwards were almost as
heavily armored on their front upper bodies as guards, but their
necks, upper arms, thighs, and abdomens were all available,
more than she needed. Lucy waited a full second for the first for-
ward to reach the penultimate pyramid tier . . .
As the last dying forward tumbled off the temple, she
scanned around the field. The only Incarnate player left alive in
142 R. H. Watson
“Did you see that?” Francine said. She and her friends were
standing and cheering.
“I sure did!” Aldan was looking at Andrea who was guarding
the head of Beauty Incarnate’s goddess.
“I mean over here. Lucy touched the Goddess. They looked at
each other!”
“You must have been seeing things again.”
“No, look. You can see Lucy’s bloody hand print on the god-
dess’s shoulder.”
“That’s just some blood that splashed on her from the fight. It
happens all the time.”
“No, it’s not,” Francine said. “I think . . .”
Gladiator Girl 143
“Think what?”
“I think you wouldn’t understand.”
Andrea was the newest rookie. She had been pulled out of the re-
serve squad just four weeks ago, so she was only now hearing
the club stories and trying to figure out which were true, which
were fables, and which were bullshit. One story, new to this sea-
son, told of Lucy’s first game as a rookie guardian.
There aren’t many rules in blood battle, but the penalty for vi-
olating any of them is the same. The game is halted and a mem-
ber of the opposing team is offered a free swing at the neck of
the violator’s goddess. One rule stipulates that only one defender
146 R. H. Watson
“The only exception is when she has to face that crucial de-
cision, when a game can be won by allowing the other team to kill
or injure the Goddess with a bad stroke.” Coach Kai looked at
Lucy. “Why did you stop the charger from committing a foul?”
“I didn’t want to stop her, but my instincts, Bimini’s kines-
thetic intelligence, did. Sorry if I messed up your experiment, but
you saw it was a trick, right?”
“You didn’t, and yes, I did. See you both at the game review
tomorrow.” She walked away to talk to Chiyo and Mim.
“Coach Kai is kind of weird,” Andrea said.
“Some people say she’s a smart lady,” Lucy said.
“What do you think?”
“I hope they’re right.”
Lucy’s swords were now pristine, polished, and oiled. She
took her short-sword scabbard apart for cleaning. It always got
so full of blood.
After each game, the dead and wounded players were taped and
stapled back together, packed into refrigerated caskets, flooded
with almost freezing artificial amniotic fluid, and shipped to the
Laughing Cherub by express transport. Elizabeth and her interns
would spend the night cleaning and packing their equipment,
swords, and personal belongings, then ship everything back to
Burning Desire, but for now she was back on the car dock sort-
ing the living into their assigned cabins for the return trip. Des-
pite the casualties, it would still take several cabins to get the
surviving players and the staff home. “You’re sharing cabin three
with Glenna, Katixa, Chiyo, Toshi, and Chrysanthemum,” Eliza-
beth said to Lucy.
This time Chrysanthemum was already waiting—with a fresh
cup of hot tea. “Where did you get that?” Lucy said.
“Mr. Fredrick prepared a tea bag and sent it to the Euphoria
House. It’s five streets over, that way.” She pointed. “They
brewed a cup and ran it over.”
148 R. H. Watson
She lifted a wooden spoon to her lips for a taste of the soup. It
needed more salt. She took a knife from her apron, cut open the
end of her thumb, and let blood dribble into the soup while she
stirred. She staunched the blood flow with her index finger, and
tried another sample. Much better. She put her thumb in her
Gladiator Girl 151
mouth and bit down hard on the cut. She bit so hard the pain
made her eyes tear up. She stopped biting and pulled out her
thumb. It was healed but the nail was missing. She felt around
inside her mouth with her tongue and found it. She stuck her
thumb back in her mouth and used her tongue to push the nail in
place. She tried the soup again. What was missing now? She dug
a grater out of the drawer next to the stove, held her arm over the
pot and used the grater to shave slivers of flesh off her forearm
and into the soup. She stirred and tried it again. Perfect! Blood
welled up in the shallow gouges the grater left behind. She licked
her other hand several times from the heel of her palm to the tips
of her fingers until it was wet and shiny with saliva. She pressed
her hand against the bleeding forearm and squeezed the saliva
into the wounds. When she took her hand away, her arm was
healed, but some of the blood was now on her palm. She licked it
off and dried her hand on her apron. She reduced the heat under
the pot to simmer the soup, then set the wooden spoon to the side
and noticed that it was made of bone.
She walked out of the kitchen onto her porch. The grass in the
yard was green, but worn down to dry mud in spots. The sky was
blue and scudding with cumulous clouds. The air was warm and
it was snowing, just a few flakes. Her daughter was running
around in the yard wearing a grass stained cotton dress and try-
ing to catch the flakes in her mouth. Lucy sat on the porch steps
to watch. She still couldn’t believe she had made this wonderful,
sometimes incredibly frustrating, little person. Her daughter
plopped to the ground and sat in one of those impossible pos-
tures only a child can manage. She pointed at the sky and started
naming the shapes she was seeing in the clouds. Lucy realized
her daughter was Toshi. She didn’t know how that was possible.
She looked up. Toshi was not naming the things she saw; the
clouds were assuming the shapes of the things she named. Toshi
was the creator, and Lucy watched her make the world into
something new.
152 R. H. Watson
“Honey, that’s wonderful.” She felt her love flow into Toshi
like a stream of energy powering her cloud sculpting fingers.
She needed to share this feeling and turned to the only person
she knew who would understand: her husband and co-creator
of this marvel. Until now, she hadn’t noticed him standing
next to her with his hand on her shoulder. He was holding a
smoking rifle in the crook of his other arm. Lucy looked
around the side of the house. A dead monster was slumped in
the road. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Both of you will always be
safe as long as I’m here.”
Lucy looked up into his face. The world tipped and shifted.
When it settled, it was the middle of the night. They were lying
in bed, naked. “I forgot to tell you what our daughter did today.”
“Tell me,” Chrysanthemum said. She wrapped her arms
around Lucy.
“She commanded the clouds. I was so proud of her.”
“We made an amazing girl, didn’t we?” Chrysanthemum said.
Lucy nodded. Chrysanthemum kissed her forehead and the tip of
her nose. “She takes after her mother.” She kissed her lips. Lucy
returned the kiss, reached under Chrysanthemum’s arm and
around her back. She loved the feel of her back muscles flexing
and relaxing under her hand. Chrysanthemum pressed her hips
against Lucy. Lucy buried her face in her neck and said, “Yes.”
Chrysanthemum slid her hand down Lucy’s side and around to
the inside of her thigh. Lucy licked her fingers and caressed
Chrysanthemum’s nipple. As Chrysanthemum tickled her fingers
up and down Lucy’s vulva, something washed over her: an erotic
mix of craving, selflessness, desire, danger, trust, and love―al-
ways familiar, always new. She pushed her hips against Chrysan-
themum’s hand. Then she needed to pee. No!
Lucy woke up . . .
In the next bed, Chrysanthemum was leaning on her elbow,
looking at her. “You were having quite a dream.”
Gladiator Girl 153
By the time Toshi returned from the toilet, the impromptu camp-
fire meeting had broken up. Everyone was back in their own
beds and falling asleep. Toshi crawled into bed and was soon
busy finding food for her giant pet chipmunk.
The cabin gong sounded several times, and the beds nudged their
occupants awake. The eastern horizon was bright from the ap-
proaching sun. They unmade their beds, scheduled toilet time,
got dressed, and settled in for the last stretch of the trip.
The cabin arrived at seven fifteen. They disembarked; Mathilda
checked them off her list and reminded everyone they were due
back at noon for the game review.
“It was nice to finally talk to you.” Chrysanthemum said to
Lucy. She waived goodbye to her cabin mates and walked off to
Mr. Fredrick’s for her next shot of tea. Lucy half expected her to
skip away.
“So I found out. But she tried to tell me. I encouraged her. I
was curious and selfish, and now, I think, it was a mistake.”
Mr. Fredrick set Chrysanthemum’s tea on the counter and slid
it across to her. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said, “but what’s been
cast on the wind can’t be snatched back. My advice is, for what
it’s worth, if you want to help Lucy Star, you need to find out
whom she couldn’t die trying to save.”
Chrysanthemum watched Mr. Fredrick’s face through the
steam rising off her cup, then leaned across the counter and
kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered.
She put on her hat and gloves, slung her bag over her
shoulder, and turned for the door, raising her cup in a salute. The
bell jingled.
The public car dropped Lucy off at eight fifteen, and she hurried
through the Winnebago Graveyard.
“Fantastic game!” Charlotte said when Lucy came down the
stairs. She hugged her when she got to the dinette, the first place
there was room for a hug. Charlotte touched the shoulder of an-
other woman who was in the winnebago. “This is Jessica. Jes-
sica, Lucy. We watched her match last night.”
“Hi Jessica,” Lucy said.
“Call me Jessie. I never saw a whole blood battle match be-
fore. It was . . . not what I expected.”
“That good?”
“I didn’t realize there was so much ceremony involved.”
“We make people wait for the blood and guts.”
“Jessie’s an artist,” Charlotte said. “I think you’d like her work.”
“I’ll have to see it sometime.” Lucy tried not to sound like she
couldn’t care less.
“I’m going in for a three month synchronization this morning,”
Charlotte said. “I’ll finally be rid of Winnie’s damn scratch. So the
canister’s yours until Tuesday.”
“Oh.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I, ah . . . was hoping to talk.”
162 R. H. Watson
Ten minutes later they walked back down the stairs. “We’ll talk
more on Tuesday,” Charlotte said, “just―”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Lucy said.
“Just relax. OK?”
Lucy nodded.
“Now, I have a favor to ask. Jessie wants to come along and
observe my enwombment. Do you think―”
“Sure,” Lucy said. “I’ve got to be back at the club by noon for
the match review, but I’m free until then.”
“Great.” Charlotte picked up her womb-atorium bag. “Jessie,
you first.” She stood back so Jessica could go through the narrow
vestibule leading to the hatch stairway.
Lucy grabbed coffee and toast off the counter and followed
Charlotte out. “You cut your hair!”
“I was ready for a change,” Charlotte said. “What do you
think?”
“I like it.”
The East Slope Fencing Club used the Long Life womb-atorium.
It was the newest one in the city, built with modern techniques of
structural topiary: all wood and evergreen on the outside and
broad leaves, grass, and ceramic on the inside.
Charlotte took a shower and put on a simple white cotton
smock. “Are you sure about this?” she said to Jessica. “Enwomb-
ment can be difficult to watch.”
Jessica nodded.
Gladiator Girl 163
especially, our love making last night.” She placed her fingers
under Jessica’s chin, tipped her head back and kissed her.
“Ready to get started?” Charlotte said.
Lucy thought Jessica handled it well. She didn’t look away, and
only flinched once from a short spurt of blood when Tez poked
the needle into Charlotte’s neck. After Charlotte was safely in
her womb, Lucy and Jessica took their leave and walked to the
public car kiosk.
“You have to do that every three months?” Jessica said.
“Not exactly, we have to do it if it’s been three months since
our last rebirth.”
“So you don’t risk losing too much of your memory, in case of
brain damage?”
“Yes, but that’s a side benefit. Memory placentas start to die
after four or five months if they haven’t been rejoined to the girls
who created them. No one knows why, it’s one of the many mys-
teries surrounding rebirth. Some people think they get lonely, or
they go insane.”
“Really?”
“The only outside stimulation they get is through absorbing
our experiences. If that source dries up, who knows? I think
they’re in love with us and they die of heartache.”
“Isn’t that the same thing as going insane?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said, “maybe it’s just my own feelings,
but how can you not get emotionally attached to something that
regularly saves your life?”
“You don’t strike me as the romantic type.”
Lucy shrugged. “Anyway, to allow a safety buffer, no more
than three months are allowed to pass between conjoinings.”
“It’s a strange life,” Jessica said.
They reached the kiosk. “When did you and Charlotte
meet?” Lucy said.
“She came to my show opening at the gallery last week.”
166 R. H. Watson
“Ah.”
“You’ve been in this position before, haven’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Having to make small talk with Charlotte’s lovers.”
“No, I’m just not good with people I don’t know.”
“I’m one in a long line, aren’t I?” Jessica said.
Oh crap. “Charlotte is my best friend,” Lucy said. “I mean
that in every possible, nontrivial way. That means I don’t speak
for her. You seem nice. Obviously, she likes you. Enjoy the mo-
ment.” A car arrived indicating it was there to pick up Lucy.
“I’ve got to go. It was nice meeting you.” Lucy got in the car.
“Come by the gallery,” Jessica said. “My work will be there
for the next two weeks.”
After their morning shift, Zack and Neil had breakfast in the
Helping Hand cafeteria.
“Hey, want to see my tattoo?” Neil pulled up his sleeve. There
was a fox tattooed on his shoulder. “There’s a tattoo shop not far
from here. The girls from Burning Desire go there. They’ve got
to get their tattoos redone each time they pop out of a womb. If
you pick the right day, girls are coming in, one after the other, all
day long. I’ll take you over there if you want.”
“No!” Zack said. “Thanks anyway.”
“Hey, it’s OK. I know what you mean, those girls can be in-
timidating. Do you think it’s fair? They get to fight with real
swords and we don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you wish you could do that?” He mimed swinging his
butter knife at an opponent. “Shook! Cut somebody’s head off.”
He swung the butter knife back, coming in low with a two
handed grip. “Shlerk! Spill somebody’s guts on the floor. Don’t
you want to know what it feels like to do that?”
Neil loaded up his knife in the oleo dish, spread it on his toast,
and spooned a huge dollop of strawberry jam on top.
Gladiator Girl 167
“Those girls get all the fun. Did you know they can’t get
pregnant until they’re twenty-five? They can’t even get sick, or
not for long. They go into those wombs and when they come
out, everything’s fixed. No injuries, no diseases. They’re all put
back together, even if they got chopped to pieces. They can
fuck anybody they want and not worry about catching any-
thing! It’s not fair.”
Zack fidgeted with his spoon.
“Hey, sorry,” Neil said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncom-
fortable or anything.”
“My sister . . . ” Zack said.
“Yeah?”
“This is a secret, okay?”
“Sure.”
“My sister plays for Burning Desire.”
“No shit! Who is she?”
“Debbie, but now she calls herself Lucy.”
“What position does she play?”
“The one on top.”
“I like ’em on top,” Neil said. “Oh, your sister, sorry.”
“I mean, on top of the building.”
“On the temple? Guardian or goddess?”
“The one with the swords.”
“Your sister’s a guardian? Guardians are the deadliest
bitches on the planet! Hey, don’t tell her what I said about, you
know, liking ’em on top. Shit, she might cut my balls off! Wait,
Lucy? Your sister’s Lucy Star? If shit were honey! Did you see
her game last night? Did she ever show you any of her moves?
Can I meet her?”
“No! She― We don’t talk. She ran away when . . . a long time
ago, to be one of those blood girls. I came here to see her, but she
told me to go away.”
“Rough. Still, WOW! I’ve got to tell my teacher about this.”
“I told you, it’s a secret. Forget I said anything!”
168 R. H. Watson
“It’s OK. Look, you told me a secret, it’s only fair I tell you
one. You know that martial arts class I go to? We learn to fight
with swords just like blood battle girls, because one day they’re
going to figure out how to make that rebirth shit work for guys,
and when they do, we’re going to be ready.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Zack said. “What if you get hurt?”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? All guys can say is, ‘Oh, what if
I get hurt?’” Neil raised his hands and mimed fear. “You know
what happens if you get hurt? The same thing that always hap-
pens―you get hurt. Tough shit!
“But, hey. We’re not crazy, we use practice weapons, and we
wear padded suits. You know what, though? So do the blood
battle girls. When they’re practicing, they use the same practice
sticks and wear the same padding we do. That’s why we can
learn to be just as good as them, even better. Shit, don’t tell your
sister that!”
“I told you, we don’t talk.”
Later, while discussing the events that led to the collapse of the
defense in Lucy’s game, Chrysanthemum raised her hand. “Yes
Chrissy?” Coach Kai said. There was a commotion when every-
one turned to see who Chrissy was, and then more commotion
when they realized she was a goddess.
“Lucy saw an opportunity for the defense to remove two of
Beauty Incarnate’s forwards.”
“Did the two of you discuss this after the match?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“She fidgets, all the guardians fidget while they’re standing
behind us, except Serendipity. I hear their feet and the tips of
their swords moving on the surface of the temple, and I hear
them breathe. I could tell by the way Lucy stopped fidgeting that
she saw something. From her breathing, I could tell she was
about to sing an alert, but changed her mind, and just now, I saw
what it was.”
“Lucy?” Coach Kai said.
“I think I know what she’s talking about.”
“Backup the replay,” Chrysanthemum said. “I’ll show you.
Stop. See? Right there. That forward, the second one in from
Gladiator Girl 171
the hedge, she’s turning to her left, exposing her side to our
guard, number thirty-two―sorry I don’t know her name―but
thirty-two is paying attention to the third forward in, and she
doesn’t see it. If she had killed that forward, the second one
in, then the forward right next to the hedge would have been
isolated and she and, ah, twenty-five could have ganged up on
her and possibly killed her, too.”
“That’s interesting,” Coach Kai said, “but games are full of mo-
ments when a slight change of fortune could have affected the out-
come. They’re not something we can build a strategy around.”
“This wasn’t one of those,” Chrysanthemum said, “This was
an exploitable opportunity. If acted upon, it would have preven-
ted Lucy and me from being put in such extreme jeopardy a few
minutes later.”
Lucy sat up. “I remember seeing this and realizing that, by the
time I sang an alert, it would have been too late. Like Chrissy
said, I took a breath to sing, then changed my mind.”
“Exactly,” Chrysanthemum said. “The problem is in the mes-
sage singing. The semantics are designed to carry strategic alerts,
not imminent warnings. I was wondering if we could reserve a
class of communication, very simple but precise, made up of the
most basic song phonemes. In this case it would have said, ‘thirty-
two look right.’ Presently, those simple phonemes are wasted on
maneuvers that aren’t dependent on fast communication.”
“What do you think, George?” Coach Kai said to the Message
Singing Coach.
“It’s an interesting idea.”
“Great. We’ll discuss it tomorrow. Thank you, Chrissy, excel-
lent observation.”
“Ah, that’s my goddess,” Lucy said. She sat back and
grinned at Uvan.
make the most of what was left of their Sunday. Lucy went down
to the podium.
“Why me?” she said to Coach Kai. “Why yesterday?”
“Let’s go someplace quieter.” Coach Kai led Lucy through the
stage-side doors into the practice arena. “What did you think of Sky’s
plan for attacking Beauty Incarnate’s guardian in the second game?”
“Pretty elaborate, maybe too elaborate considering it was all
based on a minor quirk of the guardian’s.”
“That’s a legitimate criticism, but it worked.”
“It gave Incarnate a wide open shot at Serendipity.”
“That was a risk we thought worth taking. You guardians are
formidable, you’re not easy to kill.”
They were walking near the hedge. Coach Kai stopped and
looked across the lowland stream at the temple. “Did you know,
the first blood battle teams only had two chargers; can you be-
lieve that? Gunda’s people didn’t realize how deadly they had
made the guardians; those two chargers didn’t have a chance.
The temple fights were meant to be the climactic moments of a
game, but instead, they became foregone conclusions. With rare
exceptions, the guardians always won. Games were won and lost
by attrition down in the grass.
“The first guardians wore body armor, so they took that away.
It made the guardians more maneuverable and even more deadly.
They took away your short-swords and that helped, but the fans
hated it. They loved their fearless little guardians and they didn’t
want you looking weak. Finally, Gunda’s choreographer added
two more chargers, and the temple fights became real fights. The
fans were happy because now, when you die, you die a hero’s
death, fighting against insurmountable odds.”
Lucy swished the end of her scabbard through the knee high
field grass and wild flowers.
“My point is,” Coach Kai said, “you wouldn’t believe how
much time coaching staffs spend trying to figure out how to kill
guardians. We ran out of general strategies a few years ago; now
Gladiator Girl 173
“You evil little bitch!” He grabbed her by the back of the neck and
pushed her down to the floor. She heard the belt come out and
tried to crawl away, but he stepped on her hand. The belt slashed
174 R. H. Watson
across her back. She pressed her face into the carpet and breathed
in the years of dry dust that had been ground into its fibers.
When she was younger, she thought the dust was all that was
left of other kids who had been beaten into the carpet. She
thought they must have cried until they were all dried up like
corn husks, then with one last lashing, they exploded into dust,
like hitting a bag of flour with a rolling pin. She didn’t believe
that anymore, but she was still afraid she would die if she cried.
The belt came down again. She buried her face in the carpet,
gritted her teeth, and growled.
games, and mingle with the players and guardians? I don’t see
the value.”
“We’re part of the club, we should be club mates.”
“Like waving at your guardian?”
“Her name is Lucy.”
“I hear she’s scary.”
“Not in the least.”
The doors to the practice arena banged open, Lucy ran into the
auditorium, up the aisle, and out the back door. Several girls had
to jump out of her way.
“Not scary in the least?” Chenina said.
Coach Kai ran through the doors and up the aisle. She was
slower than Lucy. Chrysanthemum followed. Lucy wasn’t in the
corridor. They went to the player entrance.
“Haven’t seen her,” Frank said.
“The front entrance,” Chrysanthemum said. They ran to the
lobby and out to the street. There was no sign of Lucy except for
a puddle of vomit in the gutter. Chrysanthemum put her finger in
it. “It’s still hot, body temperature. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Coach Kai said.
“Yes.”
“Did you read my report last week, about her brother?”
“Just the summary.”
“So you know Lucy grew up in a dysfunctional family, with a
father who beat her?”
“Yes.”
“I talked to some of your players to see if anyone could shed
any additional light on her history.”
“And?”
“Nothing, but I kept hearing how she was real sweet, a real
nice girl. She looks out for her club mates, takes care of them,
and as far as I can tell, unintentionally intimidates every one of
them, except Serendipity―I can’t figure her out at all. Some of
them told me about the growl. Apparently, when Lucy gets seri-
ously upset, she doesn’t cry, she growls. I’m told it’s not loud,
but it scares the crap out of anyone who hears it.”
“It does,” Coach Kai said.
“What happened next?”
“I asked her if she was OK. She seemed to come out of
whatever state she was in. Then, I think she had a panic attack,
couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe. She ran out of the facility. By the
time we reached the street she was gone.”
“Betty, you’re a great coach, and a smart lady, but now and
then you can be as stupid as a happy dog in a barrel.”
“What do you mean?”
“She used the BB League’s emancipation program to escape her
family. She slammed the door on her childhood, everything from
before she was fourteen. She doesn’t want to remember it, doesn’t
want to think about it. Last week part of that past, her brother,
walked back into her life―we don’t know why. And today, you’ve
got her trying to remember when she was once a happy ten year old.
That memory never existed. My guess is, she tried to conjure it up,
and all she found was the hell she wants to forget.”
“What do we do?” Coach Kai said.
Gladiator Girl 177
“I’ll have someone shadow her. She won’t be hard to find; she’s
hiding from herself, not from us. She’s had a lot of practice shutting
the door to her past. If she shows up tomorrow, she should be
OK―as long as you let her keep that door closed. You could get her
a shrink, but her friend Charlotte is worth ten shrinks and she’s free.
Oh, and let her keep cutting up girls into little pieces, does wonders
for all that suppressed anger, and for your winning record.”
“That won’t happen. There will always be one, and only one,
you don’t like.” Mr. Fredrick selected a jar from under the
counter, removed its lid, and held it under her nose. “Don’t tell
me what you think until you have experienced all three, but do
tell me when to move to the next one.”
Lucy took a deep sniff. “Okay,” she said.
Mr. Fredrick put the cover back on the jar and placed it under
the counter, then picked up the same jar, removed the lid, and
held it under Lucy’s nose. She sniffed and he repeated the same
steps a third time with the same jar. “Well?”
“I think―”
“Don’t think, react.”
“I liked the second one the best and didn’t like the first.”
“Good.” Mr. Fredrick set the jar on the counter, selected a new
jar, and repeated the test.
“First one best, didn’t like the third.” Mr. Fredrick set that jar
back under the counter.
About half way through his samples, Mr. Fredrick saw Chrys-
anthemum watching through the front window. He mouthed the
words, “She’s OK.” Chrysanthemum mouthed back, “Thank
you,” blew him a kiss, and left. He continued the tests until Lucy
had sampled all the jars, then he removed her blindfold. Seven
jars were lined up on the counter.
“Here is the Lucy Star infusion,” Mr. Fredrick said. He began
scooping and pinching the ingredients into a pot. More of some,
less of others.
When the pot chimed, Mr. Fredrick poured the tea through a
strainer into a cup and handed it to her. She blew on it, then
took a sip. It tasted like tree bark, then like watermelon with a
bitter edge, and then a mild flavor of sweetened fall leaves that
seemed to linger into the first snowfall of winter. “This is me?”
Lucy said.
“It may take a while to taste the full essence.”
“How much do I owe you?”
Gladiator Girl 179
“The first one is free, then the normal price for a cup of tea.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said. The doorbell jingled on her way out.
She walked to the Old Harbor’s Seafront Park and sat on a bench
to sip her tea. She tried to figure out what it said about her, then
felt stupid. She took a big gulp and sputtered. It was still hot. She
sipped and watched the sails of cargo carriers arriving and de-
parting the new harbor out in the sound.
Someone was standing beside her. “That looks good,” he said.
“Could you spare some change for an old man, so I can have
some for myself?”
“Sure.” Lucy handed him a couple of coins.
“Nice view,” he said.
“It’s kind of boring, but sometimes boring is just right. Do
you want to sit?”
“Thank you.” He was neatly dressed in worn, but clean
clothes.
The sun was setting opposite the harbor, casting the city’s
shadows out to the horizon. The sails winked between light and
dark as they eased from shadow to sunlight to shadow.
“Had a difficult day?” the man said.
“A difficult afternoon. What gave it away?”
“‘Sometimes boring is just right.’”
Lucy laughed. “What brings you down here? It couldn’t be for
the panhandling.”
“Why do you say that?”
She swung her cup through a wide arc. There was hardly any-
one in the park except for two city employees emptying the trash
baskets. “Not many touches,” she said.
“I think the view is anything but boring.”
“I suppose so,” she said. The sky had turned dark blue; stars
were popping out and beginning to twinkle. The gibbous moon
was asserting itself half way up the eastern sky.
“You got your tea from Mr. Fredrick,” he said.
180 R. H. Watson
“Is this some kind of guessing game? Because if it is, you just
cheated.” Lucy turned the cup’s label to face him.
“Maybe it is. Want to play some more?”
“Why not.”
“That is one of Mr. Fredrick’s personal infusions.” He nodded
at the cup.
“How can you tell?”
“I watched you sample it. You weren’t savoring the flavor; you
were trying to understand what it meant. May I have a taste?”
Lucy looked him over.
“I sleep in the Helping Hand shelter right over there.” He
pointed. “I am healthy. I bathe every day and brush my teeth, and
I do my laundry once a week. Just yesterday, in fact.”
Lucy handed him her cup. He poured a dollop into his mouth,
not touching the cup with his lips. He swished the tea around,
savored, and swallowed. “You are a remarkable young lady.” He
handed the cup back.
“What did the magic tea tell you?”
“That’s between me and the tea.”
“Humph,” Lucy said.
“You think I’m humoring you?”
“I think it’s just tea.”
“And this is play acting to indulge Mr. Fredrick’s vanity? It
doesn’t matter. The illusion of magical tea is more powerful than
any real magic could ever be.
“I tasted your tea. It’s only fare you taste mine. Next time
you’re at Alice’s Tea Shop ask for Maxton’s infusion. See what it
tells you about me.”
It was now dark. “I’d better be going,” Maxton said. “I appre-
ciate you did not react to me with fear or suspicion.”
“Why would I?” Lucy shifted her position and moved her sword.
“I see. You have nothing to fear from an old man, and I have
everything to fear from you.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Lucy said.
Gladiator Girl 181
She replied:
Lucy sent the message, then she looked around the empty can-
ister. She went into Charlotte’s bedroom and lay face down on
the bed. She smelled her friend each time she breathed in.
Later, Charlotte put her hand on Lucy’s back. “Just relax,” she
whispered. Then dream Charlotte hummed a lullaby until dream
Lucy fell asleep.
Chapter 12
Grizzly
“We all have code names,” Neil was saying. “The teacher is
Grizzly. I’m Fox. That’s why I got this fox on my shoulder. The
class is five nights a week at twenty-one, from Sunday to
Thursday. You should join us, I’ll bet Grizzly would love to
meet you.”
“Why?” Zack said. He picked up a trash basket. “If he wants to
meet me because of my sister, I don’t know anything about her.
She left when I was ten.” It was getting dark. Every evening it was
getting dark earlier than the day before. Zack wanted it to keep
getting darker and never stop. But Year Day was approaching, and
that meant the nights would reverse and get shorter; they’d go
back to summer. He wished everything would go back with them.
Zack watched the old guy, Max. He was talking to a girl. (For a
moment, Zack thought the girl might be Debbie.) He sat next to
her on her bench, and she let him have a taste of her hot chocolate.
“If you join, maybe you can make her talk to you.”
“Yeah, sure. What?” Zack turned back to Neil.
“I said, maybe you can be better than her. That’s what Grizzly
says. If we get to be as good as them, we’ll be better, because
guys are naturally stronger than girls. He says guys are the
proper defenders of the Earth Mother, rebirth upset the natural
order of things.”
Gladiator Girl 183
“Why do you use code names? It’s not illegal to practice with
fake swords.”
“Grizzly’s got a secret patron. The guy wants us to keep this
quiet until we’re really good. If people saw us now, they’d laugh.
When he shows us to the world, he wants people to be im-
pressed. He wants to challenge some blood battle girls, and he
wants us to kick their asses.”
“You’ll all die.”
“We’re going to do it with practice swords and padded suits.
We’re not crazy. It’s to make a point.”
“What point? All you’ll prove is you’re a bunch of pansies
with sticks and padding. Everybody will know, if it was real,
you’d all get killed.”
“No! Everybody will know, we’d win!” Neil dumped his trash
basket, banging it hard on the edge of the collection wagon. “Just
come to a class. See for yourself.”
“Okay,” Zack said. He watched Max get up and say some-
thing to the girl, probably something classy, and walk away.
“Great!” Neil said. “I’ll tell Grizzly about you tonight.”
Neil changed and left for the rendezvous. The class location was
a secret. After each session the students were given a new pickup
spot. Neil was the last one to arrive. In a few minutes, the big
limo pulled up. The two scary ninja girls with the red lipstick got
out and waited while the students got in; the door closed, and
they moved off. The windows were always opaque.
The ninja girls handed out the hoods. Neil and the other stu-
dents put them on. After a long ride, Neil heard the limo door
open. The ninjas led them through halls and down stairs. They
always seemed to take a different route. Finally, Neil heard
Grizzly say, “Gentlemen, you may remove your hoods.” Neil
pulled his off. They were back in the fancy gym.
Everybody put on padded suits. Grizzly had three assistants,
Walrus, Catamount, and Wolf. Neil and the others warmed up.
184 R. H. Watson
in blood battle. She was denied her dream, but thanks to a pros-
perous and benevolent father, she was gifted with rebirth. It is
time for this girl to make her three month return to a womb. She
wishes to experience a little of the dream denied her. To make
that possible, she will generously grant one of you the privilege
of performing a real Goddess beheading.”
An antsy shuffle spread through the students.
“We try to be egalitarian in all our training, but this offer re-
quires us to put forward our best student. Lynx, will you accept
this honor?”
“Ah, sure,” Lynx said.
“Then gear up, charger armor and boots, but leave the skates
off.” Lynx went over to the portable wardrobe. He took off his
practice suit and put on the helmet, forearm and foreleg shields,
and the shoes, less skates, of a charger. When he returned,
Grizzly took a charger long-sword from the class armory, un-
sheathed it, and handed it to him.
Grizzly walked over to the girl, held her hand, and led her to
the altar box. She banged the side of the box with her toe, then
stepped onto it and turned. When she was facing the front,
Grizzly said, “That’s it.”
She started to kneel, but she was standing on a corner of her
vestment. It was wrapped around her knee and pulled on her
shoulder. She almost fell off the box. Grizzly steadied her. She
stood up and tried again. Grizzly held her vestment so it
wouldn’t get caught. She knelt and sat on her heels. Grizzly con-
tinued fussing with the vestment until it was settled properly
around her. The girl looked to the front with her blindfolded
eyes. Her breathing was shallow. She was nervous.
Grizzly stepped back, extending his hand in a magnanimous
gesture. “If you please,” he said to Lynx.
Lynx stepped up to the sweet spot. Grizzly motioned him
back, indicating just-a-little with his thumb and index finger.
Lynx shuffled back. He was having a hard time getting his hands
Gladiator Girl 187
Lucy looked at herself in the mirror. “Just relax,” she said, then
brushed her teeth. Brush. Spit. Gargle. Spit.
She dressed and poured a cup of coffee. The coffee came out
of the pot too fast and splashed on the counter. “Crap!” She had
made the usual pot, but Charlotte wasn’t there to take the first
cup. She wiped the counter and filled her cup, pouring slowly.
She picked up a piece of toast (she had made too much) and
headed up the stairs.
The air was full of mist. A delivery agent peddled his parcel
wagon through the Graveyard and stopped in front of her hatch.
“Packages for Lucinda Star. Canister seventeen.”
“That’s me,” Lucy said.
“Two boxes.” He opened the wagon and lifted them out. One
was an obvious flower box, the other was big, wide, and flat.
“Who are they from?”
“Jayzen Verbeek.”
She carried the boxes down the stairs, filled a pitcher with wa-
ter for the roses, put them in, and set them on the kitchenette
counter next to the plate of too much toast. She held one of the
flowers under her nose and inhaled. When Emanuel Jhadav cre-
ated the Burning Desire rose, he did a great job on the smell.
She put the other box on the dinette table and opened it. It con-
tained a dress: incredibly beautiful, incredibly red. It also con-
tained a necklace, earrings, shoes, hosiery, panties, white gloves,
and a matching overcoat. There was a note. “Was at your match,
Gladiator Girl 191
After the morning shift, Zack changed out of his work coveralls, put
on a clean t-shirt and jeans, and went to the administration office.
Christopher looked up from his paperwork. “Good morning,
Zachary,” he said. “Mina’s ready for you.”
“Morning,” Zack said. He knocked on Wilhelmina’s door.
“Come in. Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Zack sat in the same stuffed chair he sat
in last week.
***
192 R. H. Watson
Wilhelmina stepped around her desk and sat in the other stuffed
chair. “Call me Mina,” she said. “It’s the most comfortable nick-
name I can pull out of Wilhelmina.”
“Yes ma’am.”
She settled into her chair and took a minute to observe Zack.
His fingernails were chewed to the quick. He tried to relax, but
he was stiff and symmetrical. He sat in the middle of the cush-
ion, knees a little apart, feet parallel, fingers knitted together in
his lap. He made eye contact with her chin. “You’ve been with us
for a week. How are you getting along?” she said.
“Okay.”
“How’s work?”
“Fine.”
“Are you getting along with Neil?”
“Yes. He . . .” Zack looked away.
“He what?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Why don’t you tell me anyway. I see you’re nervous. Talking
about something unimportant can help you relax.”
“He wants me to go to his class.” He unclasped his hands to
scratch his right leg.
Wilhelmina consulted some papers in a folder on her lap. “His
topiary class?”
“No. His martial arts class.”
“I haven’t heard about that.”
“I guess it’s not . . . It’s kind of a . . . He doesn’t tell many
people about it.” He crossed his arms tight around his chest and
stuck his hands in his armpits. He started tapping his right leg.
“Is martial arts something you’re interested in?”
“Not really.”
“Are you going to go?”
“I guess. His teacher wants to meet me.”
“Do you know why?”
Zack looked for something on the wall behind Wilhelmina.
Gladiator Girl 193
***
At the end of the meeting, Wilhelmina opened the door for Zack.
“If you’re feeling pressured into going to Neil’s class, you don’t
have to. Let me know, and I’ll talk to him.”
“It’s okay,” Zack said. “I want to go. Thanks ma’am.”
Wilhelmina closed the door, sat behind her desk, and stared
through her office window into the outer office. She made a de-
cision and put in a talk-to request to Donna Quinn, then started
writing her notes on Zack’s session.
“Hi, Mina,” Donna said. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you recall that boy, the brother of your player, Lucy Star?”
“I do, but I don’t remember mentioning her name. Did he
tell you?”
“No,” Wilhelmina said, “and how I know is beside the point.
I’m concerned the boy, Zack, is getting mixed up in something.
Something that may involve his sister.”
“Oh?”
“One of our residents, another boy he works with, is pressur-
ing him to attend some sort of martial arts class. It sounds like
the teacher is interested in Zack because of his sister. Something
feels wrong. I was wondering if you could follow the boys to the
class―maybe find out what’s going on?”
“Do you know when and where it meets?”
“Not yet. It sounds secretive, but I’ll ask around and let you
know what I find.”
“Good,” Donna said. “Make sure you don’t spook him. And
Mina, if you want my cooperation, you have to tell me
everything you know and everything you suspect. Deal?”
“Deal. As long as it’s reciprocal.”
“Deal,” Donna said and broke the contact.
Helping Hand’s policy was to not invade their clients’ privacy.
Wilhelmina had just taken a big step across that line. She hoped
it was the right thing to do, and not too late.
***
Gladiator Girl 195
Jayzen arrived in a private car. “Who are they?” Lucy stuck out
her chin at the two girls in ninja outfits and red lipstick.
“These are the Bonnies,” Jayzen said. “They’re my bodyguards.”
“The Bonnies?”
“They’re identical twins who’ve both received rebirth gene
therapy. The security agency thinks twins make a superior team.
Better nonverbal communication skills, that sort of thing.”
“I’m not planning on attacking you,” Lucy said.
196 R. H. Watson
swords, not to use them, or even draw them.” The Brody incident
flickered for a moment. She pushed it away. “But maybe . . . if I
had no choice.”
“When would that be? It would be difficult for someone to
threaten your life. You can’t be killed, not easily, at least not until
you’re twenty-five.”
“I don’t know. I guess I might, if it was to protect someone else.”
“You’re being evasive.”
“I haven’t thought about it. I don’t know if I could fight
someone who might actually die at my hand.”
“You could wound them.”
She gave Jayzen a teasing smirk. “As you know, my skills are
very nuanced in the ways of killing, not in the whether-or-not of
killing. I don’t think I’d be good at wounding.”
“You wounded my heart,” Jayzen said.
“I’ll take credit for wounding your pride. I don’t know yet if you
even have a heart.” She poked him in the chest with her scabbard.
“You know, thanks to my girls here,” he tipped his head to-
ward the Bonnies, “I’m harder to kill than you.”
“Really? Right now, if I decided to poke you in the
heart―your fleshy physical heart,” she poked him again, “they
would be quick enough to stop me?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss their means, but yes, you
wouldn’t have a chance. I’m better protected than you, I don’t
have to spend time in an incubator, and there is no expiration
date on my protection.”
A chime sounded. The car was approaching Rude Red’s.
Jandeet was a junior member of the agency, but their best city
tracker. He pulled the assignment to follow Zack. The kids were
working the trash detail in the Seafront Park when he picked
them up. The other boy, Neil, looked jumpy.
Their shift ended and the boys hurried to the Helping Hand.
Ten minutes later they emerged wearing nondescript street
clothes. They picked up a public car at the local kiosk. Jandeet
noted the car ID, then requested a car to pair with it. His car hur -
ried to catch up to the one sporting the ID he had provided. By
the time Zack and Neil reached their destination, Jandeet was
right behind them. He had to be careful to remain inconspicuous
exiting his car this close to his subjects.
Zack and Neil walked for fifteen minutes to an abandoned sid-
ing on an old, unmanaged street where several other boys had col-
lected. Over the next five minutes a few more boys arrived, then a
large private limousine slid down the street and stopped. Two se-
curity guards stepped out. These were exclusive, top-of-the-line
bodyguards wearing full body armor and jackets that, Jandeet had
no doubt, contained enough surveillance devices, and lethal and
nonlethal weapons to spot, and stop, multiple assassination at-
tempts. He slipped deep into the surrounding shadows, pulled
down his hat, and flipped up his collar to trap as much body heat
as he could, lest it give him away. The guards’ body armor and
jackets were black, but in contradiction to the usual strategy of re-
maining inconspicuous, they wore red lipstick.
The boys filed into the limousine, then it drove off. Jandeet re-
quested its ID; he got back a high pitched squeal that would have
left him temporarily deaf if his dampeners hadn’t filtered it out.
Now he was angry.
He didn’t think he had been spotted. This was most likely a
simple trick used to mask the limousine’s ID while it was on its
own. When it moved into managed traffic at the end of the street,
it would have to identify itself, but if he ran after it to try and
catch the ID, the guards would spot him.
Gladiator Girl 199
painted hand. Lucy stood and reached up. He took her hand,
stretched her arm up, and bent so low he was teetering on the
verge of toppling over. He kissed her hand, then reared up and
strutted away.
“You didn’t tell me you were a celebrity here,” Jayzen said.
“I’m not, or I wasn’t before.” She looked at the red lipstick
smudged on her hand. “Do you or the Bonnies have something I
can use to clean this off?”
They ordered, drank, and talked about nothing much, then the
burlesque show started. The lights didn’t dim. Rude Red wanted
his performers to demand the attention of his raucous customers
by the force of their performance.
The piano player knocked out an anthem. The first act, Beth
and Billy, strutted onto the stage and along the runway.
“Gentle friends and lovers, from near and far, I am here to tell
you, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’” Despite his small size, Billy’s
voice boomed across the room.
Beth was the original fat lady. She wore the white robes and
horned helmet of the Razzmatazz era opera singer. Billy was the
skinny runt Viking warrior. But that wasn’t enough; they needed
an assistant from the audience. Billy strutted up and down the
runway looking for tonight’s victim. His eyes fell on one of the
Bonnies, and he pointed with his wooden sword. “Him! Umm,
her! Umm―” he raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders.”
The Bonnie looked at Jayzen and shook her head. “Do it,”
Jayzen said, “I’ll be safe. I have my own personal warrior to pro-
tect me tonight.” He put his arm around Lucy’s waist.
Beth charged up, grabbed the Bonnie by her upper arm and
hauled her onto the runway.
Billy pulled a huge strap-on vulva and a huge strap-on dildo
from a box of props. He held each up to the ‘volunteer’ for audi-
ence approval. The dildo won and he strapped her into it.
It was a classic burlesque show. Beth ordered Billy around.
He in turn ordered the volunteer to help Beth remove robes and
202 R. H. Watson
replace them with big feathery boas while the piano player beat
out a grinding sexual rhythm. Billy tried to seduce Beth, who
tried to seduce the volunteer.
Lucy watched the Bonnie. She had to be highly trained, but on
stage she was flustered. Lucy’s guardian hindbrain realized she
was vulnerable; this was the time to take her down. She looked
at the other Bonnie, her twin; even though she wasn’t on stage,
she seemed equally flustered.
Gotcha, gotcha both.
At the end of the performance there was a big reveal. Beth
was a man, Billy was a woman, and the volunteer was revealed
to be a man, no, a woman, no, a man . . . Billy gave up and
mugged another shrug to the audience.
The performance was over. Billy helped the Bonnie to the
edge of the runway, then the piano player played Beth and Billy
off the stage.
“Good show!” Lucy said and slapped the Bonnie’s ass as she
stepped off the runway. She turned to retaliate.
“Whoa there.” Lucy held up her hands.
The limo stopped. Zack heard the other boys shuffle to the door.
He reached up to the elastic band that held the hood around his
neck. Someone slapped his hand. “Leave it on,” a girl’s voice said.
He was the last one out. “Neil?” he said.
“Shh!” several of the boys said. Zack heard them walk away
and started to follow. He thought it was one of the ninja girls; she
took him by his upper arm and put a hand over his mouth. The
sounds of the other boys faded. The ninja girl pushed him in a
different direction. They went through a door and another one.
She pushed him into a chair and pulled off his hood.
A man sat, facing him. He was big and looked strong.
“Hello Zachary.”
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t say.
Gladiator Girl 203
“Oh my!” Grizzly said. Zack heard the ninja girl snicker.
Grizzly looked at her, angry.
“How badly did he hurt her?”
“Pretty bad. Sometimes they had to bring her to the hospital.
They’d lie about what happened and they made me lie too.”
“What did you lie about?”
“She had bruises. A broken jaw from the time he punched her
face. Another time he stepped on her hand and broke her fingers.
He broke her ribs with the broom handle―more than once. And
the studs in his belt left scars on her back, those were the hardest
to lie about.”
“Interesting.” Grizzly crossed his legs, clasped his hands be-
hind his head, and leaned back. He looked comfortable in his
chair. “And now the scars, and those broken bones that are never
quite the same after they heal, all that evidence of her past is
gone, so completely wiped away it might as well have never
been there, thanks to rebirth.”
Grizzly sat upright, planted his elbows on his knees, knit his
fingers together and pointed at Zack. “Your sister doesn’t want
anything to do with you because you’re part of the childhood
she hates, the childhood she’s been able to scrub completely out
of her life using those rebirth wombs. You remind her of it. I
imagine she hates you more now than she ever did then for
coming here and making her remember. I imagine she wishes
you were dead.”
Grizzly seemed to think on that, keeping time with his fingers
to something in his head. “Did she ever hurt you?”
Zack looked around for the door.
“Zack!”
Zack twisted back, and by accident, looked into Grizzly’s
eyes―caught. “Yes. When Mom and Dad were gone, or weren’t
looking, she’d punish me. She said if I ever told, she’d break my
fingers.” He rushed through the words so he could look away.
“Did you ever tell?”
206 R. H. Watson
“No.”
“Because you were afraid of her.”
“Yes . . . but that’s not why.”
“Oh? Then why?”
“Because I was afraid, if Dad ever found out . . . I was afraid
he’d get so mad, he might kill her.”
“You were protecting her?”
“I guess.”
“I’ll be damned.” Grizzly mulled this over. “Do you love
your sister?”
Zack was silent again.
“Zachary,” Grizzly said. “Answer my question.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father ever hit you, back when he wasn’t good?”
“Some.”
“Like he hit Debbie?”
“No.” Zack looked down.
“No broken bones or scars for you?”
“No.” Zack’s head was bowed. He held the sides of his chair
seat and pressed down on it. His elbows squeezed against his
ribs. “He made her hate me.” The words were quiet.
Grizzly sat back. “Well . . . thank you Zachary, you’ve helped
me understand Debbie, your real sister, not that sham, Lucy Star.
“But we still don’t know why you’re here. You spent five days
bumping along from town to town all the way from nowhere,
Moraineia to Heritage City because you wanted to tell your sister
something, your sister who hates you, despite what you did for
her. What did you want to tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, not nothing. You said your father tried to be a good man?”
“Yes. After Debbie left, he changed. He got better.”
“But something sent him back to his old ways.”
“Yes.” Zack started crying, but his head was bent so low
Grizzly didn’t realize it until he saw tears drip onto his jeans.
Gladiator Girl 207
“What happened?”
“We saw Debbie in the news, it was something about how she
won a game. They called her Lucy, but we recognized her. Mom
cried. Dad didn’t say anything, but I could see he was getting
angry, then he left. When he came back he was drunk, and like
he was before she ran away.”
Grizzly leaned forward. In the most compassionate voice he
could muster, he said, “Zachary, did someone get hurt?”
Zack released a gush of air; he had been holding his breath.
“Was it your mother?”
“Yes,” Zack said.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Grizzly said. “How badly is
she hurt?”
Zack said something.
“Could you speak up?”
“She’s dead.”
Grizzly mouthed, “Wow!” to the ninja girl, then said to Zack,
“Tell me what happened.”
“It was in the kitchen. When he came home, they had a
fight and he pushed her. There were knives in the drying rack.
And one . . .
“Yes? Then what?”
“I hit him with the rolling pin, knocked him down. I grabbed
one of the other knives, from the drawer, and I cut him. I didn’t
stop until . . .”
“Go on. Until?”
“Until I couldn’t recognize his face any more.”
Grizzly moved off his chair, knelt on one knee next to
Zack, and put his arms around him. Zack grabbed Grizzly’s
shirt and buried his face in it. “Then I cut his head off, just like
Debbie would do it.”
Grizzly held him. “Sons have killed their fathers throughout
history. You’re not alone.”
“I want to die,” Zack said.
208 R. H. Watson
She pinched the top seam of his pants and ran her fingers from
back to front. Nothing. She tried front to back, his pants loosened.
She slid them down his legs with her feet. Then wedged her foot
against the seat and pushed his shoulders to heave him onto his
back. She rolled with him and straddled his hips.
She pulled his shirt away and realized he was naked. “No un-
derwear? Or are they built into your fancy pants?”
“The latter,” he said.
Lucy reached around to the back of her neckline and pinched
the pressure points to release her dress. She tried to pull it over
her head and remembered the belt. More pressure points. She
threw the belt to the side and pulled off the dress. “Do you want
to release the magic panties, or should I?”
“You can.”
She stood up, removed them, laid down on his body, and
kissed his lips, then his nipples. She bit the skin covering his ab-
dominal muscles, kissed the soft bulge of his mons pubis. She
pulled back his foreskin and kissed his glans, then twiddled his
testicles in her palm and squeezed them enough to scare him.
She straddled his belly and studied his face. “Who are
you?” she said. He seemed as unknown to her as the girl in the
blue evening gown she had seen in the mirror on the night of
Charlotte’s Duel à Mort soirée.
Jayzen tried to roll her over, but she wouldn’t let him. She slid
her hips down his abdomen and slipped his penis into her vagina.
She closed her eyes and listened to the wet syncopating sounds
as they each hunted for their orgasms. Jayzen came, then the
blood ebbed from his erectile tissue. Lucy reached down and
massaged her clitoris. Jayzen tried to help, but she pushed his
hand away. She leaned forward, grabbed the back of his neck,
and pulled his head close until she could kiss him. She sucked at
his mouth to distract him, and maybe herself. Her contractions
were quick and sharp; she relaxed.
After a little bit, Lucy rolled off Jayzen and lay next to him
210 R. H. Watson
with her head on his arm. She looked up and out of the car’s
skylight. A question tickled her consciousness. “Where are we
going?”
“To the family summer home on Seagull Island. We’re al-
most there.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have you back in time for your morning
practice.”
“It’s not that.” She sat up. “This is too far from the Laughing
Cherub!”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a safety issue and an obligation to my club. I can’t be this
far away without a refrigerated casket and a prep team. If we had
an accident, if I were killed, emergency services out here aren’t
prepared to handle a rebirth body. We’ve got to go back, now!”
“Relax,” Jayzen said. He spoke up. “The Bonnies are in the
same situation. Isn’t that right?”
“What’s that, sir?” said the voice of one of the Bonnies.
“If anything happened to you or Lucy, the security company
would be here within a half hour and they’ll be prepared to
handle her body along with yours.”
“That’s true, sir,” the Bonnie said. “The girl needn’t worry.”
“See?” he said.
“I still don’t like it. You should have told me before we left
the city.” She stood up and started dressing. “Are you just going
to lie there?”
“I was thinking I would,” he said, but sat up and began pulling
his clothes on. Lucy picked up her sword, pulled it part way out
of its scabbard to inspect the blade, then slid it in, letting it make
a loud clack when the hilt guard hit the scabbard throat.
Two and a half hours after the limousine arrived at the mansion, it
reemerged. Jandeet confirmed the ID. He jogged a street over to the
siding where he had left his exclusive-use car. His public car couldn’t
Gladiator Girl 211
follow the limousine into the underground transit tunnels, but now
that he had its ID, he could find its exit point and pick it up there.
Twenty minutes later the limousine exited the tunnel. Jandeet
was waiting.
Car pairing was a handy way for large groups to stay together,
but it wasn’t designed for stalking. If he paired with the limousine,
his car would catch up and follow just centimeters behind. Zack
and Neil wouldn’t have noticed the difference between pairing and
a centipede, but the Twin Security bodyguards would. Jandeet had
to constantly give his car new destinations that would trick it into
following the limousine at a discreet distance. This wasn’t easy.
He needed a detailed knowledge of the streets and a subtle feel for
the dynamic routing system used by the autonomous traffic. If he
made a mistake, his car would veer off on an unexpected, but op-
timal route to the latest destination, and he would lose sight of the
limousine. He could have the car find it again with the ID, but that
would risk calling attention to himself.
The limousine worked its way through several lesser road-
ways, then turned onto another unmanaged street. Jandeet
jumped out of his car and sent it to wait in an empty siding. He
peeked around the corner. The limousine stopped halfway down
the street. Several boys exited the cabin, not as many as had
entered earlier―four were missing. The limousine departed.
The sidewalks weren’t lit. Jandeet snuck through the shadows
until he was close enough to look for Zack and Neil―they
weren’t with the other boys.
Now what? He wasn’t sure if it was intentional or bad luck,
but he’d been tricked. He could pick up his car and follow the
limousine again, but he suspected he’d end up waiting back at
the mansion. Instead, he dismissed the car, randomly picked one
of the boys, and followed him.
The boy ended up at a city shelter. Jandeet bribed the clerk to
give him the boy’s name, then headed back to the mansion to
spend the night waiting and watching.
212 R. H. Watson
The Verbeek family summer home was big and empty. Jayzen
made a couple of hot toddies. They sat together in the dark on a
veranda that looked across a wide beach to the ocean. The ver-
anda was sealed and warmed against the cold autumn night, but
there was still comfort in sharing body heat.
“Is there anything that’s yours?” Lucy said. “Everything
seems to belong to your family.”
“Family is everything,” Jayzen said.
“It is?”
“You don’t agree?”
“I don’t talk about it. I’m sure your security service did a
background check on me, read it sometime. Now, let’s change
the subject.”
“To what?”
“Do you really need bodyguards all the time? Is someone out
to get you?”
“Probably. Most likely. I don’t keep up on the threats―they do.”
“Doesn’t seem like a pleasant way to live, having them con-
stantly around. Were they watching us fuck in the car? Are they
listening right now?”
“Yes, they watched us make love. No, they are not listening. If
I raise my voice in a certain way, like in the car, they will hear,
but otherwise, no.” Jayzen shifted to see the side of her face.
“What about you? Your womb-atoriums are guarded against fan-
atics, and don’t you have fans that get over enthusiastic?”
“Your sister seems to be my biggest fan. How over enthusi-
astic is she?”
“I’ll ask when she gets out of her womb.”
“She received rebirth therapy?”
“Along with every Verbeek girl in the extended family.”
Gladiator Girl 213
The sun came up glorious and white over the ocean horizon.
Jayzen wanted to make love again.
“Sure,” Lucy said. She let herself drift in the hypnogogic state
between dreaming and waking, not wanting to let go of her last
Gladiator Girl 215
This part of the summer home was built like an old vacation
hotel. There were several suites off the veranda, each was self
contained with a bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, and bath.
Jayzen and Lucy occupied one of the suites.
By the time Lucy was fully awake, Jayzen was in the kitchen.
She swung her legs off the bed, sat up, reached for her sword,
and stopped. She had left it propped between the wall and the
night table. It was still there, but it wasn’t sitting the way she had
left it. It was twisted more toward the wall and the scabbard tip
was further out from the night table.
Jayzen came out of the kitchen wearing an apron and nothing
else. “Breakfast?” he said.
“Just coffee,” Lucy said, “and toast. I want to get going.”
“It won’t take long.”
“I want to get going, now.”
She got up and dressed, then picked up her sword and checked
the blade. There was something wrong about the way it was
seated in the scabbard. She pulled it all the way out and looked
over the full length of its edge, then re-sheathed it. “Don’t ever
play with my sword again,” she said. “Let’s go.” She tossed
Jayzen his clothes. “You can dress in the car. Tell your Bonnies
we’re leaving.”
“They’re the Veronicas this morning,” Jayzen said. “They
changed shifts during the night.” He followed her out to the car
and said, “Who’s Chrissy?”
Chapter 14
A Busy Morning
“Thanks.” Lucy kissed him on the cheek. “Now, get going. And
don’t forget to have the dress picked up. I’m leaving by eight.”
“Well, there you go,” Jayzen said. “I’m presenting you with
just such an unexpected situation. I would like to try my sister’s
guards. Perhaps they can tell me why they allowed France to be
injured on the way to her womb.”
“These guards weren’t covering Francine during that incident.”
“I want them,” Jayzen said. “I insist.”
Ned gestured for the Veronicas to return to the standby room.
“Katrinas, you’re covering Jayzen today. Let’s go.” The Katrinas
were wearing the standard grey armored body suits and jackets.
They followed Jayzen into the car.
“To the mansion,” Jayzen said after the door closed. He turned to
the Katrinas. “Who was guarding my sister on Sunday evening?”
“That’s privileged―”
“Do you know what I could do to ruin your lives? Starting today?”
The Katrinas exchanged a glance. “The Noreens,” the one on
the right said.
“Do you know what really happened?”
“We only know what’s in the report.”
“Which is?”
“As Francine approached the landing on the stairway descend-
ing into the courtyard garden, she turned to speak to the womb-
atorium matron who was escorting her from the car dock. Her
foot slipped off the stair tread, she lost her balance, and fell,
striking the back of her head on the nosing of a step.”
“Do you believe that injury is consistent with a two week stay
in a womb?”
The Katrinas looked at each other. The one on the left said,
“We suspect such a lengthy gestation would require a more
severe injury than the one described in the report, but your
friend, the blood battle guardian, would know more about the ef-
fects of injury on gestation time than we do.”
“My friend agrees with you.”
The Katrinas looked at each other again. “Would you stop do-
ing that?” Jayzen said.
220 R. H. Watson
“Sorry sir,” the right Katrina said. “We like your sister and
have our own suspicions about the truth of the report.”
The left Katrina said, “We normally cover France on the even-
ing shift, but Sunday we were replaced by the Noreens, and as you
see, we remain on the day shift. Last minute schedule changes are
not uncommon, but considering the apparent deceit surrounding
Francine’s injury, we do not currently trust the Noreens.”
“Is my sister safe in her womb?”
“There has never been a report of a catastrophic womb failure,”
the left Katrina said. “There are multiple levels of redundancy and
safeguards built into the system, including bacteriological, viral, and
toxin counter measures. Yet, although difficult, it is possible to sab-
otage a womb. However, in light of their current safety record, such
an act would draw a full investigation by the Health and Safety
Board, and be counter productive to maintaining a coverup.”
“We think your sister is safe,” the right Katrina said.
“As long as the conspirators do not feel forced into a desper-
ate situation,” the left one said.
“I suppose visiting the mansion womb-atorium and asking
questions could make them nervous?”
“That seems likely.”
“Change of destination,” Jayzen said to the car.
“Wait,” the left Katrina said. “We should exit this car at the
next siding, and send it to the summer house as a diversion. Then
use public transport.”
Lucy stripped off the red dress and packed it in its box with the
jewelry and all the other accessories. She considered whether she
should donate the panties without washing them, then tossed
them in the box. The delivery service arrived at seven forty and
took Jayzen’s gift away.
When the dress was gone, Lucy showered, dressed in her real
clothes, and at the kiosk, requested a public car to the Long Life
womb-atorium. Charlotte was due around eight. With such a
Gladiator Girl 221
***
Donna read the tracking report from Esposito & Associates, then
contacted Wilhelmina at the Helping Hand. “Did Zachary and
Neil get back there last night?”
“Shouldn’t you already know?” Wilhelmina said.
“Our tracker followed them to the apparent location of their
class, but couldn’t confirm if they left.”
“Just a minute.” Donna walked to Christopher’s desk in the
outer office and picked up the bed report.
“It doesn’t look like either one slept here. Where are they?”
“Have you heard of the Verbeek family?”
“Yes.” She walked back to her office.
“Zack and Neil rendezvoused with a group of boys. They
were picked up by a limousine and delivered to the Verbeek
Mansion. Three hours later it dropped off the boys at a different
location. Four were missing, including Zack and Neil.”
“What do you think that means?”
“It means we’re at a dead end,” Donna said. “I can’t afford to
keep that mansion under surveillance and the police won’t care if
a couple of your transients have disappeared. The only thing we
can do is wait, see if they show up.”
“What do your instincts tell you?”
“Our tracker followed one of the boys who was dropped off.
He went to a city shelter. The one in Gurney Hills.”
“I know it,” Wilhelmina said. “It’s adequate, keeps them out
of the rain, and fed. No real supervision or support beyond that.”
“My instincts,” Donna said, “wonder what sort of martial
arts class meets in secret at the Verbeek Mansion and caters to
transient boys.”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing, like I said. I’m going to tag Zack and Neil as poten-
tial security risks. That’ll go out to all the local blood sport clubs
and womb-atoriums. Beyond that I can’t do anything unless they
show up.”
224 R. H. Watson
Lucy was back at the club earlier than she had planned. Rather
than catch the end of calisthenics, she warmed up on her own in
the locker room. When the team came in to change for practice,
Uvan swaggered over. “Where have you been?”
“I took some personal time.”
“Slept late?”
“Yeah. Is Sandeep back?”
“She’s in Physical Therapy,” Serendipity said.
“Learning to wiggle her fingers again.” Uvan imitated one of
Parisa Cartwright’s dexterity exercises.
“There’s still time to get in on her innie-outie pool,”
Serendipity said.
Everyone changed into shorts and t-shirts, and strapped on
their practice short-sword harnesses, then headed out for sword
practice. Liha and the other two guardians from the reserve
squad were waiting outside the locker room.
“Hey, Liha, what’s up?” Lucy said.
“Don’t know. They sent us over from the Reserve’s Annex to
join your practice today.”
Lucy shot Uvan a quizzical eye.
“Got me,” Uvan said. “Whatever Bimini’s up to, it looks like
she needs more guardians.”
Gladiator Girl 229
They strode around the curve of the corridor and saw the god-
desses entering the Sword Practice room.
“This can’t be good,” Uvan said.
Chrysanthemum hung back and took Lucy’s hand. “I was
looking for you at Mr. Fredrick’s the last two days.”
“Oh?” Lucy said.
“I was worried about you.”
“I’m fine.” Lucy slipped her hand loose. “I was busy, didn’t
have time for tea.” She tipped her head at the practice room door.
“Looks like you goddesses are joining us today?”
Chrysanthemum tightened her lips, touched Lucy’s elbow for
a moment, then looked away and walked into the practice room.
Uvan shook her head. “You’re such a jerk.” She followed
Chrysanthemum in.
Serendipity walked by. “I warned you about your eyes,” she
said. Lucy was last in, behind the reserve girls.
Bimini was waiting in the room along with the goddess
trainer? coach? wrangler? “We’re going to try something
new,” she said.
“Big surprise,” Uvan said. Bimini waggled a finger at her.
“That’s a Bimini-Uvan thing,” Serendipity said to the god-
desses. “They actually like each other.”
“Thank you for the commentary,” Bimini said. She addressed
the whole group. “First, some introductions. This is Monica
Karanzinski, the goddess supervisor. Ah, supervisor. “I am
Bimini Tanaka, the guardian sword coach. Everyone, please in-
troduce yourselves.” The guardians and goddesses shuffled
around making introductions. Uvan introduced herself with en-
thusiasm: “Uvan Marek, how you doin’?” She repeated all the
goddess’s names as they were told to her. Serendipity had her
impeccable naïve persona in place: “Serendipity Banerjee, and
you are? What a pretty name.” Lucy greeted everyone with, “Hi,
Lucy, nice to meet you.” She avoided Chrysanthemum. They
already knew each other, right?
230 R. H. Watson
“Who’s the one person you can’t die trying to save?” Chrysan-
themum said.
“Huh?” Lucy said.
“You can’t die― Trying. To save. Yourself!” Chrysanthemum
poked Lucy in the sternum three times as she spoke, harder each
time, until the last poke forced Lucy to take a step back. “You’re
so busy taking care of everybody else, you can’t see that you’re
the one who needs a champion! You can’t fight this alone!”
“Fight what?”
“Back to work,” Bimini said. Lucy backed away from Chrys-
anthemum, then walked to the sword rack, but it felt like won-
dering. She was distracted. This is bad.
She picked up her long-sword and waited a moment to clear
her head, then took a deep breath, let it out, and drew the blade
from its scabbard. Things aligned; they always did. She was now
holding an exposed, deadly weapon. The only way to keep her-
self and those around her safe was to maintain an attitude of re-
spect and confidence. That had been impressed upon her and
every girl in the Academy blood battle program since the first
day of training. She reached around her back, pulled out her
short-sword, and slipped it back into its scabbard to remind her
left arm where it was. She walked to the section of floor that had
informally been designated for Chenina and her.
“Goddesses, please take your starting positions,” Bimini said.
Here it comes. The goddesses stepped into the exercise space
and faced the guardians. “Guardians, you will perform the ad-
vanced improvisation, confining your scope to a rectangle the size
and shape of the temple-top. The goddesses will perform their
own exercise within the same space. They will move in reaction
to, and in anticipation of, your own actions. Yet, neither their ac-
tions nor yours will be predictable. Move at the speed of confid-
ence. Begin when you are ready, and stop in your own time.”
Lucy looked for Chrysanthemum. She was paired with
Serendipity. Good.
232 R. H. Watson
She stepped over to Chenina. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“You didn’t hurt me at all,” Chenina said. “I’ve never felt so
safe in my whole life, not even in a womb.”
“So, that’s good, right?”
Chenina opened her eyes, wiped them with her hands, and
smiled at Lucy. “Yes, it is.”
Chrysanthemum was watching alongside Serendipity. “That’s
my guardian,” she said under her breath. Serendipity gave her a
shrewd glance.
“Thanks everybody,” Bimini said. “That went well.” She
looked at Monica.
“Yes, very impressive,” Monica said. She began clapping
her hands and the goddesses joined in. The guardians didn’t
know what to do. Serendipity started to clap and the other
guardians followed her example. Lucy grinned at Chenina and
she smiled back. Monica stopped clapping and motioned
everyone to quiet down.
“That is all for today,” Bimini said. “We will be doing more of
these combined exercises. Not every day, of course. We may
even have the guardians learn the goddess tea ceremony.”
Uvan laughed. “That’s a joke, right? Right?”
Lucy and the guardians sheathed their swords. Everyone
filtered into the corridor. Chrysanthemum came over and
squeezed Lucy’s hand again. “How are you feeling?”
“Great . . . and fucked up,” Lucy said. “The thing is, I can’t
tell which one feels better.”
Chrysanthemum kissed her on the cheek, then followed after
the other goddesses.
“How’s that sweater project going?” Lucy said.
“It’s done.” Chrysanthemum turned and walked backwards. “I
gave it to Thad to celebrate his finishing the Human Anatomy
course. He’s taking me to a mystery restaurant tonight for the
sweater’s public debut. I wish you could be there.”
***
234 R. H. Watson
pect she understands Lucy’s situation better than any of us. And
she is worried.
“Lucy has the potential to define the role of guardian for a
generation of players if she doesn’t destroy herself first. Fortu-
nately she has acquired a powerful ally in the Goddess Chrysan-
themum. Was that your intention?”
“No. That was luck. I was trying to win a match.”
“A happy accident,” Bimini said.
“I suppose so,” Coach Kai said. “I hope so.”
“As do I.”
Bimini opened her office door and held it for Coach Kai.
“Now, I have to go. An old student from the Academy, who is
now on the police force, asked me to consult on a matter of
murder by sword.”
“Does it have anything to do with those rumors of blood
boy leagues?”
“I’ll let you know.” Bimini showed Coach Kai out.
“Our killer’s style looks enough like the blood boy urban le-
gends to be dismissed as rumor.”
“Samantha, could you help me?” Bimini said. “I would like to
rearrange the tables.”
The investigation team pressed themselves against the wall.
Bimini and Samantha wheeled three of the tables out of the way
against another wall to make some maneuvering room.
“Please continue,” Bimini said.
Natashia cleared her throat. “The victims are young.” She
sucked in her stomach so Samantha could swing a table past
her. “Approximately sixteen to eighteen years old. The
weapon fits the profile of a blood battle long-sword, and tests
of metal residue from the blade are consistent with a long-
sword’s composition. This led some of us to suspect an indi -
vidual involved with the BB League, but Lieutenant Vil-
lanueva disagreed.”
Bimini and Samantha finished moving the tables. The bodies
were now arranged in four groups of three, one group of two,
and one body by itself.
“Samantha is correct,” Bimini said. “These wounds were not
made with blood battle swords, they were facsimiles. Decent am-
ateur blades made using the proper alloys, but the manufacturing
is hurried, the edges lack precision. You can see here,” she poin-
ted at the end of a cut. “The blade pulled minute bits of bone and
flesh out of the wound when it was removed. A properly made
sword would not have done that.
“These bodies were cut with imitation guardian weapons, both
long and short-swords. See the difference here, and here, and this
stab wound here?”
“The lieutenant pointed that out on a body we found last
week,” said Olia. “Natashia wasn’t convinced.”
Bimini nodded. “Understandable. The differences between
the two types of wounds are easier to discern if you understand
the strategy involved. Samantha always had a sharp eye and a
238 R. H. Watson
The matron checked the transport queue. “I see it,” she said,
and signed its access request.
“Thank you,” Maxton said. “Now, You have one chance to
explain this.” He pointed at Francine’s echo picture.
“It was an accident,” she said.
“My niece did not hit her head!”
“I know. It was still an accident, but he wanted it kept quiet.
He didn’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
“Who? The wrong idea about what?”
“Him,” she said, nodding toward the monitoring station door.
“Jayzen.”
Maxton took her by the arm and pushed her through the door,
into the Womb Room. The door to the transport dock was open at
the other end of the room; Maxton could see the wagon. Miriam
and Jayzen had the womb maneuvered onto a transfer pallet.
Miriam was disconnecting the womb from the local circulatory
system and hooking it to the self contained system on the pallet.
“Him?” Maxton said, pointing at Jayzen.
“What?” Jayzen looked up.
“She says you’re behind all this.”
“That’s crazy!”
“We’re ready to move the womb onto the wagon,” Miriam said.
“You help her,” Maxton said to the Katrina guarding the
womb. They pushed the transfer pallet to the wagon.
“Tell me what my nephew wanted kept quiet.”
“I wanted what?”
“Quiet!”
“It’s the charity program for the disadvantaged boys. The one
to build self esteem.”
“How did self esteem lead to my niece being attacked with a sword?”
“They teach boys to be like blood battle girls. They wanted to
demonstrate a goddess beheading. Francine agreed to play the
part since she was due for her synchronization. There was an ac-
cident. The boy who performed the deed missed.”
244 R. H. Watson
“Missed?”
“Yes, they do miss sometimes,” she said.
Miriam was back, pushing a second, smaller transfer pallet. “I
need to move the girl’s placenta jar.”
“Ask the Katrina in the Memory Vault to help you,” Maxton said.
Miriam pushed the pallet into the Vault.
“Jayzen?” Maxton said.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“You signed the papers,” the matron said. “We, the womb-at-
orium staff, only agreed to help because it was one of your
mother’s projects.”
“Well, I guess, I could have,” Jayzen said. “Mother made me
administrator for some of her funds. She said she wanted me to
learn the virtue of helping others. I signed some papers, ap-
proved some projects. I didn’t pay much attention.”
Miriam and the other Katrina came out of the Memory Vault
pushing the pallet with Francine’s placenta jar.
“It’s a good thing we had our own portable circulatory
system,” Miriam said. “The two Memory Vault standby units are
out for maintenance. That’s pretty irresponsible on their part.”
She nodded at the matron.
“Hmm,” Maxton said, then to the matron, “Who actually ran
this program?”
“Mister Grizzly,” she said.
“Mister Grizzly?”
“Teaching boys to play blood battle could be controversial
with all those rumors about secret boys leagues. They wanted to
keep it quiet until they had some success stories to tell, so they
used code names. The only real name was Jayzen’s”
“Where do they run this program?”
“I don’t know, but Sunday evening they met here in the gym-
nasium so Francine would be close to the womb-atorium. Jayzen
signed the approval.”
“I didn’t know,” Jayzen said.
Gladiator Girl 245
“He was a lonely old guy who wanted somebody to talk to.”
“He wanted to get in your pants.”
“What did he want to talk about?” Serendipity said.
“He asked me about my tea.”
“He was a lame lecher.”
“It wasn’t just tea. Mr. Fredrick made me one of his special
infusions.”
“That tea that’s supposed to taste like your soul?” Uvan said.
“You don’t believe that bullshit, do you?”
“Mr. Fredrick likes the spiritual nuance of things,” Serendipity
said. “Not everything is what is seems, we’re all part of the God-
dess, that sort of stuff.”
“I once got a part of the Goddess in my eye.” Uvan said. She
mimed digging a piece of meat out of the corner of her eye.
“Not funny,” Serendipity said. “Especially after meeting
them today.”
“Not funny at all. I had an allergic reaction. My eye swelled
shut for two hours!”
“What does your tea taste like?” Serendipity said.
“Why don’t you try it? I gather you can order some if you want.”
“Only if you give me permission or if you’ve had some of mine.”
“Some of yours?” Uvan said.
Serendipity kept speaking to Lucy, “You can have some of
mine, if I can have some of yours.”
“Get a room, you two!” Uvan said. “Hey, Lucy, does the
lecher have a tea?”
“He said he did. He told me I could try it.”
“Sure he did, it’s the best thing since lollipops for picking up
little girls. Are you going to have some?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“You’ve got to.”
“I think you should,” Serendipity said.
Lucy got up and went to the counter. Mr. Fredrick was deliv-
ering tea to a table at the front.
Gladiator Girl 247
bad,” Lucy said. “Sweet and syrupy, just like you.” She winked
at Serendipity. Serendipity maintained a poker face.
“I don’t need tea to figure that out,” Uvan said.
Serendipity finished swirling Lucy’s tea around and swal-
lowed. She leaned over and whispered in Lucy’s ear, “No child
should ever have to go through that.”
“What? It couldn’t possibly―”
“Lucy’s tea is complicated, but nice,” Serendipity said to Uvan.
“I should get me some of that special tea,” Uvan said.
“Your tea would taste like butt,” Serendipity said.
“Now we’re talking like we’re eight?” Uvan said. “Tea time’s over,
kids. It’s Guardians’ Night Out. How about some bar crawling?”
“Sorry,” Lucy said. “I’ve got a date.” Uvan opened her mouth
to speak. “Not with the old guy,” Lucy said. “With a cute boy I
met during last week’s Guardians’ Night Out.”
“I remember,” Serendipity said. “He was sweet, like a lost
puppy. You took him home.”
Lucy stopped at the counter on her way out. “Maxton’s not a
bum. Who is he?”
“He prefers his anonymity,” Mr. Fredrick said.
“Who’s he hiding from?”
“More ‘what,’ than ‘who.’ Something I think you’re familiar
with . . . his past.”
“Oh Yeah? Mine’s catching up with me lately. How about his?”
“The same.”
Lucy said to Carl, “You two work together? What do you do?”
“We’re with the police.”
“Special Operations?”
Carl gave her a wary look. “That’s right. How could you tell?”
“Her eyes. She has guardian eyes. It’s what she looks at, what
she notices. The first thing she wants to know when she meets
someone is how to neutralize them. It’s unconscious, but always
there. And she has a kind of confidence that comes with rebirth.
She knows she has an edge, but knows its limitations. She’s not a
guardian though, if she was I’d know her, or at least know of her,
and well, she doesn’t have a sword. That leaves military or po-
lice Special Operations.”
“What about private security?” Carl said.
“I had a chance to meet a couple of those girls recently. They
were highly trained, very capable, but they lacked commitment.
They were in it for the money. Without their jackets full of tricks
they’re not formidable. I’ll bet Sam could take them, easy.”
“What about you?”
“My training is narrow and completely focused on the
sport, but if I had to fight them, I’d try to exploit their lack of
commitment.”
Samantha came back, looking on edge. She motioned to Carl
to join her away from the table. They talked by the bar.
then, and not just forget it, but literally, make it never have
happened. The first time I came out of a womb at the Academy, I
wanted to be brand new, with a new name and everything―Lucy
Star, born―not reborn―no past, nothing to tell. And it worked,
for four years, until now.
“You’re right, what happened on Sunday, after the match re-
view, it’s not over. Everything I’ve made, everything I love.
I’m . . .” She looked at the polished, dark wood surface of the
bar. “I’m scared. I’m afraid of losing it. I haven’t felt like this
since . . .” She clenched her teeth. “But he’s not going to win. I
made this life. It’s mine!”
“You’re growling.”
“I’m what?”
“It’s nothing. What happened outside?”
“Fuck, sorry,” Lucy said. Someone opened the Potato Bar
door, and she caught a glimpse of Samantha on the sidewalk, still
in conversation. “I just found out somebody hurt this girl, Fran-
cine, who was naïve enough to be my fan. You saw her Saturday
night after the match, by the security fence.”
“I remember,” Chrysanthemum said.
“The police won’t say shit. But somehow, I’m involved. I
know it. She’s hurt because of me.” Lucy was gripping her
sword hilt.
Chrysanthemum reached toward Lucy’s hand, but hesitated
and pulled back. “You told me there was no chaos on your
temple. What did you mean?”
“I mean I’m ready for anything. I don’t have a plan, that would
be stupid. The other team has plans, they run up the pyramid with
all sorts of clever schemes for killing me, and I take those schemes
apart. I don’t need to know what they are, I don’t want to know. I
attack weaknesses―all plans have them. You don’t need to know
the plan to see the weak spots. In fact, it’s better not to know. It’s
not something I think about. Sensing a weak point and attacking it
are pretty much the same thing.”
264 R. H. Watson
Everyone was eating dessert. Lucy side stepped past Thad, sat,
and laid her sword across the table between her and Samantha.
“Whatever your case is,” Lucy said, “I’m involved, and it got
Francine hurt. I like France. I’m going to find out what happened
to her. You can help or not, it’s your decision.” She turned away
to talk to her friends.
Felix was speaking to Thad. “Human Anatomy? Are you
studying medicine?”
“I want to be a surgeon,” Thad said.
Chrysanthemum shifted her attention away from Samantha
and said, “We met at the medical school.”
“Are you studying medicine, too?” Felix said. “When you’re
not being a goddess?”
“No, Thad and I met last winter. We have to synchronize with
our placentas at least once during the BB off season. Some of us
coordinate that with volunteering to be practice patients for the
surgery labs. The students get to cut on living people, and when
they’re done, we go in a womb, and all the incisions and mis-
takes are wiped away. The medical school has to pay the extra
womb-atorium costs since it means a longer gestation, but not by
266 R. H. Watson
much. After all, they are doctors. Their goal is, ‘do no harm,’ or
as little harm as possible, for surgeons.
“You’ll be taking your first surgery lab during the next
quarter,” she said to Thad. “Maybe you’ll get to practice on me.
Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“I never thought . . .” Thad said. “I don’t think I could do
that!”
Chrissy took his hand. “It would be good for your concentra-
tion. It would make you a better surgeon.”
“How?”
“It’s like what Coach Kai is doing with her guardians and god-
desses. We used to avoid each other so guardians could maintain
the illusion that we were abstractions―symbols of the Goddess.
The notion was, this would allow guardians to make better, more
objective decisions if they weren’t emotionally invested in pro-
tecting a real person.
“However, the best guardians,” she glanced at Lucy, “derive
their strength from their ability to empathize, at a deep level,
with those they protect. Asking them to treat a goddess as an ab-
straction forces them to treat themselves as something less than
they are. It creates more emotional dissonance, not less.
“Coach Kai thinks a fully empathic guardian is better at mak-
ing hard decisions because she’s willing to face, and accept, the
consequences her actions have, both for the girl sitting on the al-
tar, and for the whole team.
“Wouldn’t that also be true of the best surgeons? I think, if
you walk into your surgery lab and find me lying on the table,
you’ll perform with a skill that will amaze your instructors and
be the envy of your fellow students.”
“I don’t know,” Thad said, he pulled his hand away. “I think
I’d be too nervous to hold the scalpel steady.” He picked up a
piece of dessert on his fork and it fell off. “See? Even thinking
about it makes me nervous.”
Chrysanthemum watched Thad stab the piece of dessert. She
Gladiator Girl 267
turned to Samantha. “What about you? Lucy says you have the
eyes of a guardian.”
Samantha’s fork was half way to her mouth. She put it down. “I
actually received my rebirth gene therapy at the Concepción
Academy.” She looked at Lucy’s sword for a moment. “I wanted to
be a blood battle guardian and stand on that temple every two weeks
to save my little part of the world, but the more I trained, the more I
felt boxed in. My friends and I would go into town on the weekend,
and I’d realize, no matter how good I was, the moment I stepped off
the Academy grounds, my skills were worthless.
“Before I turned seventeen, just before I was to receive my
swords, I switched to the Police Academy. By then those swords
had begun to seem like handcuffs. If I had accepted them, I
would have committed myself to an illusion. I’d be a guardian,
but guarding what? It wasn’t real, just a big show. At least in the
police, I’m doing some good for real people. Of course, I spend
most of my time training, cleaning my weapons and filling out
paperwork. Perhaps if I had met your coach back then, I would
have taken the swords and stayed.”
Samantha glanced at Carl, then took a token out of her pocket
and handed it to Lucy. “This will send a priority request directly
to me. Don’t take any unnecessary risks, let me know everything
you find out, and remember, I’m the police―you’re not. Leave
the police work to us. Contact me tomorrow morning; I’ll tell
you what I can, but most of my information has to remain con-
fidential. Agreed?”
Lucy took the token. “Agreed,” she said.
Samantha looked down at Lucy’s sword. “May I?”
“Yes.”
She picked up the sword, weighed it in her hands, then pulled
it part way out of its scabbard and inspected the blade. She
breathed on the polished metal and watched the condensation
from her breath evaporate. She slid the sword back in and set it
down. “It suits you,” she said.
268 R. H. Watson
Lucy pocketed the token and tried her dessert. “This is fant-
astic! What is it?”
“Potato fudge cake,” Felix said.
The back third of the Potato Bar had a dance floor and small
stage. After dessert, a band set up and started to play.
“What’s that?” Lucy said.
“Polka,” Felix said. “It started in Europe, but caught on big in
the African Coalition. It’s just now showing up here. I didn’t
know the Potato Bar was this avant-garde.”
“How do you dance to it?”
“Watch,” Felix said. A few people were moving onto the
dance floor.
“That’s crazy. Show me.”
“I don’t know how,” Felix said. “I didn’t expect a polka band.”
Carl leaned over. “Come on.” Hanna let Carl out and Thad let
Lucy out. She slipped her scabbard behind her belt.”
“I’ll lead to start with,” Carl said. “Put your left hand on my
shoulder, and take my right hand. OK, on the beat, follow me.”
“Where did you learn?” Lucy said as they started sashaying
across the floor.
“My daughter taught me.”
By the third song Lucy was leading and picking up some ad-
vanced steps from the other dancers. After the fourth song Carl
needed a break. They walked over to a couple of empty chairs at
the edge of the dance floor. “Quite a coincidence, you, your girl-
friend, and Sam all showing up here tonight,” Carl said, “and all
sitting at the same table.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, we’re club mates.” Lucy said. “And it’s
not a coincidence, remember?” Lucy pulled her sword out of her belt
and rested it against her thigh. “Do you think someone planned this?”
“No, I think it’s one of your girl― I mean, Chrissy’s inscrut-
able mysteries. Yes, I remember. But I don’t believe in inscrut-
able; all mysteries have answers.”
Gladiator Girl 269
They listened to the music and watched the dancers. Thad and
Chrysanthemum were getting the hang of the basic steps. Sam-
antha was leading Felix around the dance floor. Hanna and Finn
were still sitting at the table.
“On my date with Jayzen, he said if I were to try attacking
him, his bodyguards could neutralize me so fast that my training
was irrelevant. Do you know what he was talking about?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I’m not going to attack him, but I’d feel more comfortable if
I knew how to take down his bodyguards. I’ve seen them lose fo-
cus. I know they can be vulnerable, now I need to know how to
take advantage of it. You can understand, right?”
Carl laughed and shook his head. “Of all the dating issues that
came up with my kids, we never covered how to neutralize their
dates’ bodyguards.”
“My life has been pretty crazy lately.”
“OK,” Carl said. “Their means aren’t going to be significantly
different than Sam’s. Their jackets will be loaded with small, light-
weight weapons: guns―the lethal kind, dart pistols with drugged
darts, electric stunners, and knives―some of them will be throw-
ing knives. The key point is, they have stand off weapons and you
don’t. If you were to engage them, you couldn’t give them any
warning until they were within your range of attack.
“Their body suits have an embedded layer of carbon-based ar-
mor that can stop bullets and will certainly stop your sword. The
armor is thinnest over their hands so it won’t adversely affect
their dexterity. You might be able to cut through it there, not that
you would, right?” Lucy shrugged. “You could still twist their
arms, legs, and necks to break bones, but I suspect you don’t
have much hand to hand training.”
“Actually, I do. Bimini, my sword coach, likes to say, ‘Your
body is your third sword.’ Everyone sees the flashing blades, but
next time you watch a game, pay close attention. You’ll be sur-
prised how much punching, kicking, and flipping goes on.
270 R. H. Watson
Like the main room, the washroom had been build out of old
stuff by craftspeople using hand tools. It was all scrubbed tile,
dead wood, and stone. Lucy went into the middle stall, dropped
her pants and underwear, and sat on the toilet. She rested her
sword diagonally across her lap, put her elbows on her thighs,
and rested her chin on the heels of her hands. There was a bou-
quet of flowers painted on the back of the wooden stall door. It
seemed to spin, yet remain upright. “I’m getting drunk.”
Her bladder was filled to aching, but she hesitated to let it go.
A memory swam into her head . . .
She looked at the hook on the toilet room door. She liked the
way it settled into the eye that was screwed into the door jam. It
was the closest thing to a lock in the house. It made her feel safe.
For a few minutes, she could be alone and happy. She looked
down at her feet swinging above the floor, her underpants were
hanging from her shoes. She tapped her heels against the toilet
bowl and watched them bounce off. She held her pee to make her
time in the toilet room last as long as possible. She imagined her
bladder was a yellow water balloon with a happy face painted on
it, only now it was a grimace because it was ready to burst and it
really, really, wanted to go!
She gave in. Her pee flooded into the toilet. The balloon rolled
its eyes in ecstasy; its mouth opened and a big cartoon dialog
bubble came out saying, “Ahhhhhhhhhhh . . .”
Her pee slowed to a dribble, then a drop, and stopped. Her
balloon bladder had shriveled down to an empty little tongue of
happy, yellow rubber.
The crying and laughing dwindled away until she was just
breathing. She leaned back against the toilet cover and accident-
ally pressed the flush lever. The toilet flushed and churned up a
cool breeze that swirled around her butt. “Oh, that feels good.”
She was limp. She felt like she was fresh out of a womb: weak
but clean, inside and out.
She waited a couple of minutes to be sure she was cried out.
She stood, pulled up her underwear and pants, then had to put
her hand on the top of the door because her legs were shaking.
When she felt steady, she opened the stall door, stepped out, and
almost ran into Chrysanthemum who was rushing to the next stall
over. “Don’t go anywhere,” Chrysanthemum said. She turned around
and pointed at Lucy as she backed into the stall. “Stay right there.”
Lucy slipped her sword under her belt, and washed and dried
her hands, pacing herself to the sounds from Chrysanthemum’s
stall. There were two potted flowers on the wash basin counter.
She leaned over, smelled one, and kissed it.
Chrysanthemum came out. While she was washing her hands
she looked at Lucy. “Have you been crying?”
“Yes,” Lucy was still weak. She put her hand on the counter to
steady herself.
“What happened?”
“I’m fine,” Lucy said. “I really am. I’m not lying. I re-
membered something from when I was little. It was a moment
when I was really, genuinely happy.” She felt tears beginning to
puddle in her eyes again. “I tried so hard to forget, I even forgot
that, sometimes, I was happy.” A tear ran out of her eye.
Chrysanthemum picked up a hand towel, and wiped it away.
She folded the towel and hung it back on the towel bar. She put
her hands on Lucy’s shoulders, stepped close and looked in her
eyes. “I’d like to kiss you, if that’s all right.”
“Ah, sure,” Lucy said.
Chrysanthemum cupped Lucy’s cheeks in her hands―they
were still damp from washing and felt cool against her skin―then
Gladiator Girl 273
“Thanks for waiting,” Lucy said, “but I’ve got to pass on an-
other dance.” She walked over to Samantha and Felix. Samantha
handed him off and walked over to Carl.
Lucy gathered Felix up. They started shuffling around the
floor. She rested her head on his shoulder and wished she could
fall asleep.
The night spun along. Felix picked up the dance steps. Lucy
made two more uneventful trips to the washroom.
Eventually Felix begged to leave due to exhaustion. “Just a
minute,” Lucy said. She worked her way across the dance floor to
Thad and Chrysanthemum, threw her arms over their shoulders,
and yelled above the music, “We’re leaving. It was great meeting
you, Thad!”
“It was nice to meet one of Chrissy’s teammates!” he said.
“Club mates,” Lucy said. “Teammates are―”
“I’ll see you tomorrow at the club,” Chrysanthemum said.
“Yes. See you then!” Lucy patted them on their backs. She
worked her way back to Felix. Samantha and Carl were sitting
together. Lucy waved. Samantha smiled, and Carl gave her a
thumbs up.
It was after midnight and cold on the sidewalk. Their breath was
condensing. Lucy stuffed her hands in her pockets. “When we
started the night, I wanted to invite you back to the Winnebago
Graveyard, but too much has happened. I wouldn’t be a good
partner, I’m sorry. But I’ll take you back to your dorm.”
“You don’t have to,” Felix said. “I’ll catch a cab.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Lucy said. Felix held up his hand to protest;
she cut him off. “I can afford it, you can’t.” She looked up the
street and raised her arm to hail a cab.
Felix turned her around. “You’re a great girl. I can’t believe I
met you, and that I’m with you tonight, but . . .”
“I like you too,” Lucy said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“But I saw what was going on between you and Chrissy.”
Gladiator Girl 275
Lucy sipped her tea, and put her head back against the sofa.
Charlotte put her arm around Lucy’s shoulder. Lucy lifted her
head to accommodate. “What is it?” Charlotte said.
“She’s back.”
Charlotte kissed the top of Lucy’s head. “I know.”
Lucy rolled her head to see Charlotte. “How?”
“I saw her in your face on Sunday. How is she?”
“Fucked up. Lonely. Mad at the world. Frightened.”
Charlotte waited.
“This is going to sound stupid, but can we just sit and drink
our tea, and not talk?”
“Of course.”
After a minute Lucy said, “Do you know any lullabies?”
“Do you want me to sing you one?”
“Not for me, for her.”
Charlotte ran the back of her toes along the sole of Lucy’s
foot. “This is called, The Dream Ocean. My Dad used to sing it
to me, every night.”
***
They finished their tea. Lucy took the cups. “I’ll wash up.”
“See you in the morning?” Charlotte said.
“Yes. Thanks.”
Back in bed, Jessica said, “How is she?”
“I don’t know. She’s tough, but I don’t know.”
They laid together listening to Lucy wash the tea cups, rustle
her sheets and blanket, and get into bed. A few minutes later she
rifled through her drawer and they heard a muffled, bzzzz.
Chapter 17
What’s Next?
Lucy turned off her alarm a minute before it was set to nudge her
awake. She listened to Charlotte in the shower, then got up and
put on her blue and orange frog robe. The bedroom door was
open. Jessica was asleep on the bed, wrapped in a sheet. Lucy
closed the door and ground enough coffee to make three cups.
She started the coffee, cut three generous slices of bread, and
made toast, then undressed her bed, raised the dinette table, and
washed and dried the surface.
Charlotte came out, brushing her hair. “Mmm, the coffee
smells good.”
Lucy took her shower, brushed her teeth, and got dressed in
her anime toreador outfit. By then, Jessica was up, and having
coffee and toast with Charlotte.
“How are you feeling?” Jessica said.
“About what?” Lucy took her sword and cleaning kit out of
the broom closet.
“Last night, you―”
“Last night didn’t involve you.” Lucy sat at the dinette,
pulled her sword out of its scabbard and wiped the blade with
a dry cloth.
“I was just―”
“Stop,” Charlotte said. She put down her coffee, pushed Jes-
Gladiator Girl 279
sica into the bedroom, and closed the door. “Don’t confuse last
night’s emotional stress with a delicate personality,” she said.
“I was just concerned―”
“You were being disingenuous. You don’t know her well
enough to be concerned. She doesn’t just attack with swords;
you’re this close to a verbal disemboweling you may never re-
cover from. Whether it’s swords or words, guardians don’t fence,
they slaughter.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “I’ll apologize.” She turned to open
the door, but Charlotte pulled her back.
“This house is tiny,” Charlotte said. “It can give you a false
sense of intimacy. It’s an easy mistake to make.”
“I get it,” Jessica said, “It’s just, last night, she seemed so
vulnerable.”
Charlotte laughed. “That’s her secret weapon. It works be-
cause it’s true, but like I said, not to be confused with fragility,
quite the opposite, in fact. Now, let’s go back out there, and don’t
apologize. For your own good, you should either not say any-
thing or stick to small talk.”
Lucy finished wiping her sword with an oiled cloth. She
sighted along the blade and twisted it, using the reflected hi-
lights to check the edge. She slid the sword back into its scab-
bard and picked up her gym bag. “See you this evening,” she
said to Charlotte. “Nice meeting you again,” she said to Jessica.
“Why don’t we go out for dinner?” Charlotte said.
Lucy glanced at Jessica.
“Just you and me.”
“Sure.” Lucy took her coffee and toast, jogged up the stairs,
and out the hatch.
her eyes with open mouthed wonder. Bold letters proclaimed, “The
Guardian and the Goddess: A Love Bound by Blood.”
“Oh, Lucy, this is so romantic!” The girl rolled up the poster
to stick it through the fence for Lucy to sign. Lucy stepped back.
“Good morning,” Samantha said.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said to the girl. “I have to take this contact.”
She walked away from the fence.
“What’s that noise?” Samantha said.
“Fans.”
“You shouldn’t be near them. You’ve been briefed on the se-
curity situation by now, haven’t you?”
“Yes, and after last night, it’s not a surprise. Some mystery
group wants to kill guardians, your inspector asked me if Jayzen
mentioned a class that teaches blood battle techniques to boys,
and Jayzen’s sister, Francine, a sweet, romantic BB fan is in a
womb with a head injury. That injury wouldn’t look like a god-
dess decapitation would it?”
“I can’t discuss the details of the case,” Samantha said,
“but Francine is safe. She’s at the Laughing Cherub, and for
now, all the womb-atoriums are operating under enhanced se-
curity protocols.”
“She wasn’t safe at the Verbeek mansion? You can’t tell me
the Laughing Cherub has better security. Is Jayzen behind this?
Should I go kick his fucking ass?”
“We don’t know the source of the threat. I doubt it’s Jayzen.
Don’t kick anybody’s ass.”
“What about Maxton?”
“Same answer.”
“You’re not telling me much,” Lucy said. “Why did you
bother giving me your token?”
“Because I once wanted to be you, remember?” Samantha
said. “I know your type: headstrong and arrogant. I don’t want
you running around like some junior police patrol mucking up
six months of Inspector Fournier’s work. I expect you to go live
Gladiator Girl 283
your normal life, but since that life seems to be tangled up with
some of the subjects of our inquiries, I am asking you to let me
know if you hear or see anything suspicious, and I am telling you
to not take any action. Leave that to us.”
“At our security meeting, I asked about the BB boy’s class. Donna
Quinn, our head of security, didn’t know anything about it, but my
sword coach, Bimini Tanaka, was surprised by the question. I think
she knows more than Donna. Did you know she used to teach at the
Academy? It might even have been when you were there.”
Lucy heard Samantha sigh.
“Yes,” Samantha said. “I asked Bimini to consult, unofficially,
on the investigation. Do not ask her about it. She’s under a confid-
entiality agreement.” Samantha lowered her voice. “But between
you and me, she spent ten minutes looking at the bodies and told
us more than we learned in the last six months.”
“Bodies?” Lucy said.
“Oh shit! I didn’t say that.”
“They’ve already murdered someone? Who was it?”
“No one you know. They haven’t tried attacking a guardian,
yet. But we found several bodies, boys―late teens. They look
like practice killings. So you see, this is very serious. Will you
promise to leave the police work to us?”
“Yes,” Lucy said.
“And please. Don’t take any chances.”
“Okay.” Lucy closed the contact and looked at the fans. She
was glad they were on the other side of the security fence.
Sandeep attacked with her long-stick and pulled out her short-
stick as she moved in. It was a classic guardian maneuver: dis-
tract with the long-sword, then move in and disembowel with the
short-sword. It can work great against a charger. Lucy pulled out
her own short-stick and hit Sandeep’s wrist. Sandeep dropped
her short-stick acknowledging that her hand had just been cut
off. Lucy followed through and disemboweled her.
Next, Lucy attacked. Sandeep had learned a lesson. Guardians
like to move in as they counter to bring their short-swords into
play, but that doesn’t work so well if your opponent also has a
short-sword. Sandeep countered Lucy’s attack but stayed back.
Before she could even think about it, Lucy performed one of
Charlotte’s graceful and aggressive forward leaps: arms and legs
spread wide, long-stick aimed at Sandeep’s heart. She crossed
the space so fast and hit so hard, that Sandeep couldn’t react and
was knocked on her ass.
“You okay?” Lucy said.
“Fuck you.” Sandeep took Lucy’s offered hand to get up.
This time, when Sandeep attacked, Lucy stayed back and
blocked the attack with her short-stick while cutting up through
Sandeep’s abdomen with her long-stick. “I think I’m getting the
hang of this,” Lucy said. “Having fun yet?”
Sandeep was smoldering. She blocked Lucy’s next attack and
twisted her short-stick out of play just long enough to close in
and stab her in the side with her own short-stick. “Now, I’m hav-
ing fun,” Sandeep said.
“Switch partners,” Bimini said.
Lucy worked with Serendipity and experienced her inscrut-
able presence from an opponent’s point of view. She found there
was no value watching for subtle emotional cues, or trying to
pick up unconscious anticipatory gestures; they weren’t there. At
first Lucy tried to match her detachment and misdirection, but
Serendipity took her apart whether she was attacking or defend-
ing. Enough of this shit. Lucy stopped trying to disguise her ac-
286 R. H. Watson
tions. She let her emotions loose and went after Serendipity head
on, and relentlessly, no matter which of them was initiating the
attack. She started winning.
Once, for an instant, Lucy was sure she saw the real Serendip-
ity flash with anger. “Yeah! You’re in there! I saw you!” Lucy
said, trying to shake her, but it didn’t work; Serendipity’s per-
sona went back up, intact.
“Good work,” Bimini said at the end of the session.
Uvan sat at the guardian’s table in the cafeteria. “Would you look
at that?” She said. “They’re eating with the rest of us now.” Sev-
eral goddesses sat at a table across the room.
“I’ll be right back.” Lucy got up and walked over to them.
“Hi, Lucy,” a goddess said.
“Hi, ah―”
“Winona,” she said.
“Hi, Winona. Is Chrissy going to be eating with you today?”
Winona shrugged. “She’s not here.”
“Is she sick?”
“We don’t know. Monica sent her a request, but she hasn’t
responded.”
“What about Thad, her boyfriend?”
“Sorry,” Winona said.
“If she shows up, can you tell her I’d like to talk to her?”
“Sure.” The goddesses exchanged smiles and a couple of
mouth-covered giggles.
“Thanks.” Lucy rejoined the guardians.
“Looking for your lover?” Uvan said.
“Would you leave it alone?” Lucy said.
“A love bound in blood? Sorry, can’t.”
“Oh, crap. You’ve seen those?”
“They showed up late yesterday,” Uvan said. “You’re lucky.
The guy across the street was sold out this morning or they
would’ve been stuck up all over the locker room.”
Gladiator Girl 287
stay calm. He’s going to ask why you changed your name. To
him, you’re still Deborah Knole living under an assumed name.
Are you ready?”
Lucy nodded.
“Stay here.” Donna left the office and Inspector Malaki came
in. He didn’t sit behind Donna’s desk. He pulled up another
wooden armchair to face her.
“Hello, Lucinda, may I call you Lucy?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Jonas Malaki, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He
waited for a reply. When he didn’t get one, he crossed one leg
over the other and held his notebook on his knee. “You were
once known as Deborah Knole?”
“Yes.”
“You have a brother named, Zachary?”
“Yes.”
“He visited you exactly two weeks ago to the day.” Lucy said
nothing. “Well?” he said.
“You didn’t ask a question,” Lucy said. He started tapping his
foot in the air. “Yes,” she said. “Next time, if you want an an-
swer, ask a question.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing.”
Malaki frowned. “There’s no need to make this difficult.”
“I’m not. He sat in his chair, like a lump, and didn’t tell me
anything.”
He continued tapping his foot in the air. Lucy slid her scab-
bard back to bring the sword hilt in position to draw. She didn’t
move, but mentally she walked her muscles through a finessed
attack: draw, fan the blade around its center of gravity while
twisting the edge to bear, and strike his tibia with just enough
force to cleanly cut off that fucking tapping foot at mid calf, yet
stop before touching his other leg. She was sure she could do it,
without even getting out of her chair.
290 R. H. Watson
“I know my parents are dead,” she said. “Donna told me. You
think Zack did it, so let’s get this over with. I left that house and
those people when I was fourteen. I legally changed my name
because I didn’t want anything to do with them, ever again. I
could show you why, but the scars are gone. I never saw Zack
again until two weeks ago. I told him to go away and I haven’t
seen him since. Do you have any more questions?”
“You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?” Malaki cracked a condes-
cending grin.
“Feisty doesn’t begin to describe me,” Lucy said.
“Yes, well.” He lost his grin. “Do you know your brother’s
friend, Neil?”
“I don’t know him. Why would I know his friends?”
“Your head of security had Zack followed when he went to
some sort of a class with this boy.”
“What sort of class?”
Malaki flipped note pages. “A self-defense class?”
“What kind?”
He shifted to sit a little straighter in his chair, “I can’t divulge that.”
“Because you don’t know.”
“I told you, I can’t―”
“That wasn’t a question,” Lucy said. “Are we done?”
“I have a few more―”
“You already know I don’t know anything.”
Malaki stopped tapping the air. He uncrossed his leg, put his
notebook away, and stood up. “I may be questioning you again.”
Lucy watched him through the window in Donna’s office. He
talked to Donna, they shook hands, he looked back for a moment
and saw Lucy watching him, then he left the outer office. Lucy
hustled out to Donna. “Back in your office,” she said.
Donna sat behind her desk; Lucy remained standing. She laid
her sword across the desk and leaned in. “Tell me about this class
Zack went to.”
“How do you know?”
Gladiator Girl 291
“We don’t know that,” Samantha said. “Lucy, the last two vic-
tims were found the morning after your brother disappeared. You
need to be prepared―”
“No I don’t,” Lucy said. She looked down at her sword. “He
was just a little kid.”
“What was that?” Samantha said.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about me.”
“OK, thanks, both of you. Lucy, remember what I said. Let us
handle this.”
Lucy wiped her eyes quickly and then looked up. “I’ve got to
go,” she said to Donna. “I’m late for field practice. I’m late for
everything.”
At the end of the day, one of the ‘Bound by Blood’ posters was
stuck to Lucy’s locker door.
Uvan started to say something, but before she could speak,
Lucy reached over and pressed a finger against her lips. “Don’t,”
she said. Uvan closed her mouth. Lucy turned back to the poster.
Look at that naïve, stupid girl. She took it down (careful not to
tear the corners), rolled it up, and put it in her locker.
She took a long shower. By the time she was dressed, she
was one of the last girls in the locker room. She picked up her
long-sword and was ready to leave, but didn’t. She set her long-
sword on the bench and took off her shirt. She applied an ad -
hesive pad to the saddle of her short-sword harness, reached
around, pressed, and held it against her back until the glue set.
She put her shirt on and slipped her short-sword behind her
belt; for now, it would be easier to manage there. She put on
her jacket, picked up her long-sword, and walked out to the
player entrance.
“Nice evening,” Frank said. The sky had cleared and dusk was
closing in.
“Yes it is,” Lucy said. “Can you call a car please?”
“Sure thing.”
Gladiator Girl 293
Lucy stepped over to the car siding. This was another new rule:
no walking to the public car kiosk. She sent a request to Jayzen
with an attached message. “I need your help. My brother is miss-
ing. I think he’s in that family club house of yours, and I’ll bet you
know why I think that. I need you to get me inside. Tonight. Keep
it quiet, don’t tell anyone. Leave your bodyguards behind.”
A public car slid through the security gate and pulled up to the
siding; she got in and directed it to the Winnebago Graveyard.
She had a dinner date with Charlotte and needed to go over a few
things with her.
Chapter 18
Back to the Mansion
drop it.” She crouched down. Her eyes were on the first body-
guard. She kept the second in her field of view.
“She has both swords!” the second bodyguard said. “Put both
of them on the ground. Now!”
Lucy set her long-sword and gym bag on the pavement. “I’ve
got to stand up to take the other one out of my belt.” She stood,
pulled her short-sword scabbard out from behind her belt, then
placed it next to her long-sword.
“What’s going on?” She stood up.
A private car rolled into the siding; its door slid open. “No
questions,” the first bodyguard said. She backed into the car.
“Please get in. Keep your hands visible at all times.”
Lucy followed her in. She glanced back and saw the second
bodyguard pick up her swords and bag.
“Sit there.” The first body guard pointed to the seat farthest from
the door. The second one sat in the seat farthest from Lucy. She
wedged the swords between herself and the side of the cabin. The
bag was gone, probably stowed in the luggage compartment. The
door closed, and the car accelerated. The windows were opaqued.
“Slide off your seat and onto your knees,” the first bodyguard
said. “Turn around, knees and ankles together, hips against the
seat. Lean forward and put your hands on the seat back.” Lucy
did so. The guard reached forward. Lucy felt an electric shock.
“What was that?”
“I shorted out your talk-to. You can sit again, slowly. Hands
always visible, remember?”
Lucy sat and put her hands in her lap. “How many different
pairs of bodyguards does Jay have? I’ve met the Bonnies and the
Veronicas.”
“We move around, we don’t always protect the same subject.”
“The people you protect are subjects, not people?”
“It preserves objectivity and avoids the complications of per-
sonal entanglement.”
“What are your names?”
296 R. H. Watson
The car stopped. The door opened. They were in a garage, but not the
one used by the limousine on the night of Charlotte’s fencing bout.
“Keep your hands above your head,” the first Noreen said.
The second Noreen picked up Lucy’s swords and stepped out.
“Please exit the car.”
The first Noreen followed Lucy out. She gestured with her
pistol to keep walking. Lucy crabbed sideways so she could
Gladiator Girl 299
watch both bodyguards. When she was ten meters from the car,
the second Noreen put her swords back in. The door closed.
Lucy heard the whisper of its lock engaging. The car stayed at
the dock. With her swords locked away, the Noreens relaxed.
Lucy lowered her arms.
“Stop!” the first Noreen said.
“I don’t have my swords,” Lucy said, “and I don’t think Jay
will be very happy if you shoot me. He likes my banter.”
The Noreens glanced at each other. “You can lower your
hands, but keep them visible.”
The first Noreen walked around Lucy, keeping her distance.
“This way.” She led them deep into the mansion. They climbed two
flights of stairs, walked along unadorned hallways meant for staff
use, and ended up in a familiar room: the fairy tale locker room
where Lucy had helped Charlotte prepare for her fencing bout.
The ecstatic girl on the swing was still frozen on the far wall.
Lucy turned around. The mural above the door they had just
come through was of a hunting party armed with old muskets.
Each hunter was followed by a servant holding dead pheasants.
Several dogs milled around, attentive and uncomprehending.
Lucy found herself able to identify with everyone in the picture,
human and animal, alive and dead.
The second Noreen was standing under the hunting mural
pointing her dart gun at Lucy. “Get changed.” She tipped her
head toward the dressing table. A short-sword harness and a pair
of guardian shoes sat on its mostly-empty top.
“Where’s the helmet?”
“You won’t need it.”
“And my swords?”
“You’ll find out. Change, now.”
“No. That’s amateur junk. A real harness has a saddle custom
made for each guardian, and the shoes look too big.”
Neither Noreen spoke. They looked at each other for a mo-
ment. The first Noreen opened the door under the girl on the
300 R. H. Watson
The ballroom was even more fairy tale than the night of the fen-
cing bout soirée. Unicorn piñatas hung from the ceiling. Other
party decorations had been pushed against one side of the room:
balloon trees anchored by fake rocks, tables and chairs shaped
like mushrooms, and foam hills covered in fake grass and decor-
ated with hundreds of pinwheel flowers. The pinwheels waved
back and forth on thin wire stems; some slowly spinning in vent-
ilation driven air currents.
The decorations weren’t finished. A pile of pinwheels lay on
the floor next to a nude fake hill, and something was hidden un-
der a tarp.
A soda fountain had been set up on the opposite side of the
room, complete with counter, stools, soda dispensers, and an ice
cream cooler.
A second naked man stood in the middle of the floor, nearer
the opposite set of double doors.
Lucy walked toward the middle of the room and stopped
when she felt a comfortable buffer of space all around. “Who’s
having a party?”
“Eustace Verbeek,” the other man said. He was muscular and
nearly two meters tall. “Tomorrow is her birthday; she’ll be eight
years old. Six years from now, if all goes well, she’ll receive her
gene therapy and get to play at being immortal for the next el-
even years.”
“You’re not Jayzen,” Lucy said.
“Call me Grizzly. The boy who let you in is Fox, and the
guardian who escorted you from the dressing room is Walrus.”
“The what?”
“I’m back,” someone yelled from the other side of the double
doors behind Lucy. “Hurry up!”
Fox opened the door; a new guy ran in. He was wearing an
athletic suit and carrying Lucy’s swords. “There’s someone com-
ing!” He jogged across the room toward Grizzly.
Grizzly motioned him to the side. “Keep those away from her!”
302 R. H. Watson
“Sorry,” the new guy said and jogged through a long arc
around Lucy. “Another car came into the garage just as I was
leaving,” he said.
“Who was it?” Grizzly said.
“I don’t know. I saw a couple of your bodyguards get out, then
I ran here as fast as I could.”
Grizzly was angry. He nodded to the Noreens. The first
Noreen signed Walrus’s palm with her finger, handed her dart
pistol to him, and pointed at Lucy; the second Noreen put hers in
her jacket. They both pulled out small, real guns and slipped
through the doors, not making a sound.
These have to be the people the police warned us about, but
they’re kind of incompetent.
“Is there anything happening?” Grizzly said.
Walrus listened at the door while aiming his pistol roughly in
Lucy’s direction. He shook his head, then they heard two
muffled shots. Walrus jumped away from the doors. A minute
later there was a knock, “Open up! It’s us!” Walrus and the kid,
Fox, opened the doors. The Noreens pushed Jayzen and Char-
lotte into the fairy tale ballroom. “He had the Katrinas working
for him. Did you know that?” one of the Noreens said. Lucy
didn’t know which was which anymore.
“No I didn’t,” Grizzly said. “Where are they?”
“Down the hall―dead―for now. We shorted out their death
alarms so there shouldn’t be a recovery team response.”
“Who’s that?” Grizzly pointed at Charlotte.
“Hi, Jayzen,” Lucy said, “I see you’ve gone back to pretty, but
stupid for your girlfriends.”
“Huh? what?” Jayzen said.
Charlotte collected his arm in hers. “What’s going on?”
“Ned?” Jayzen stared at Grizzly.
“Who’s Ned?” Lucy said.
“He’s one of the security dispatchers at the estate.”
“Hello, Jayzen,” Grizzly, now Ned, said. “Why are you here?”
Gladiator Girl 303
“And you.” She turned around to the kid who was standing
by the double doors. He was frightened and shaking. “You’re
not a part of this . . .” His eyes darted back and forth. “Are
you Neil? Are you Zack’s friend?” She turned on Ned.
“Where’s my brother!” She took a step forward, a gun fired
and the bullet ricocheted off the floor in front of her foot,
splintering the wood tile. She stopped. One of the Noreens
was pointing a real gun at her.
“Be careful,” Ned said. “You don’t know the stakes. Do some-
thing reckless and people you know will die.
“Catamount, give me her long-sword.” Catamount handed
it over. “Give Walrus the short-sword and then get ready.”
Catamount handed over Lucy’s short-sword, then jogged over
to a portable wardrobe that was against the wall, behind the
soda fountain. He pulled off his athletic suit, tied on guardian
shoes, and mounted one of the amateur short-sword harnesses
to his back.
Ned made a show of admiring Lucy’s sword. He went through
all the proper motions: weighing it in his hands, rolling the scab-
bard from palm to fingertips and back. He pulled the blade out,
handed the scabbard to Walrus, then sighted along the edge. He
stepped through a warmup maneuver, manipulating the blade
with confidence.
He knew what he was doing, but wasn’t used to her sword.
The League contracted one bladesmith to custom build guard-
ian swords. Each was handmade and balanced specifically for
the girl who would wield it. He’d never held a real guardian
sword.
Catamount came back from the wardrobe carrying an un-
sheathed, look-alike long-sword. A short-sword was in his
harness.
Ned slid Lucy’s sword back in its scabbard. He stopped to look
at the symbol Lucy had had etched into the blade collar. “The
Northern Guide Star. How quaint. Just the sort of thing an abused
Gladiator Girl 305
ern senseis have lost their edge because they no longer under-
stand what it takes to kill. I thought you were just another silly
blood battle girl playing warrior dress up, but when I read
Jayzen’s security transcript for that night, I knew you were a
kindred spirit.”
“Kindred spirit? Jay was being an asshole. I was messing
with him.”
“I think the heart of a true warrior beats in your breast, and it
yearns to test its mettle in a real death match. If I’m wrong,
you’ll die, if I’m right, you may live.
“Fox!” Ned yelled. “Let’s get started!”
Neil was startled. He ran the length of the ballroom from one
set of double doors to the other, staying far away from Lucy. He
went out and a minute later came in with Zack. They were carry-
ing something―no―someone between them.
“Zack!” Lucy called. “Are you alright?” Then she realized
who they were carrying. “Chrissy?”
Chrysanthemum’s feet and knees were bound together, and
her wrists were strapped together behind her back. She was
dressed in a goddess vestment, but the straps binding her
made it look like a sack. Zack and Neil carried her to the very
center of the ballroom, between Lucy and Ned. They set her
on the floor so she was sitting on her heels in a distorted cari -
cature of the goddess sitting position. “Out of the way, Fox,”
Ned said. Neil backed away, then ran to the far corner of the
room behind the soda fountain. Zack knelt on one knee behind
Chrysanthemum.
“I’m sorry,” Chrysanthemum said. “Those bodyguards
took me this morning, on my way to the club. They think
they can use me to force you to fight. I told them it wouldn’t
work.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Zack,” Lucy said. “What’s going on?”
Gladiator Girl 307
themum’s jaw and bent her head back; he was shaking but held
tight. He pulled out a knife from the back of his jeans.
“Don’t Zack! Please!” Lucy took a step. Out of the corner of
her eye, she saw the Noreen raise her gun. She stopped and
spoke quietly. “I know what happened . . . back at the house. It
wasn’t your fault. It was his.”
Zack looked up at her.
“Zack!” Ned said. “Don’t listen to her! Do it! Like I showed
you.”
Zack looked away from Lucy. He put the knife against Chrys-
anthemum’s neck, and cut her throat. Her body spasmed from the
shock. Blood soaked into her vestment and pumped onto the
floor. Lucy watched Chrysanthemum’s eyes until the blood
stopped, and the tension went out of her body. She watched until
Chrysanthemum’s eyes stopped looking back.
Her body slumped. Zack lost his grip, and she collapsed into
the puddle of her own blood. Zack sat on his heels, transfixed by
the dull red pool spreading around his knees.
“You shouldn’t have made him do that,” Lucy said.
“It looks like a tragic death,” Ned said, “but she’s just another
humpty-dumptied rebirth girl who can be put back together
again, as good as new.” Ned pointed at the placenta jars. “You
will fight us for her life and yours. If you lose, both placentas
will be destroyed. You and your lover will be dead, for real,
forever.” Ned was trying to be dramatic, but he seemed distrac-
ted. “What’s that noise?” he said.
“I think it’s her,” Walrus said. “She’s growling!”
“You want me to kill you?” Lucy said. “Fine, let’s do it. In the
flesh, like it’s supposed to be.” She undressed and carefully fol-
ded her anime toreador clothes into a neat stack.
“Spread out,” Ned said. Catamount moved toward the fake
hills and Walrus toward the soda fountain.
“I like these clothes.” Lucy held them up. “Mind if I put them
in your wardrobe so they don’t get bloody?” Walrus was stand-
Gladiator Girl 309
knee snapped. She crabbed around his torso, keeping his bulk
between her and the Noreen’s gun. She pressed her mouth next
to his ear. “It’s not that I know how to take people apart with
swords, it’s that I know how to take people apart.”
Walrus bared his teeth.
“Don’t even think about trying to bite me. You really don’t
want to know what I could do to your jaw.”
Lucy looked up ready to dodge and distract the Noreens, Ned,
and what’s-his-name. She was counting on Ned not wanting the
Noreen to actually shoot her, but what she saw stopped her cold.
The best way in was along the inside edge of the socket, and the
best angle was achieved if your opponent was looking a little
away from your attack. As she leapt toward the second guard,
Charlotte reached to the side with her right arm, and wiggling
her hand with fingers spread. This was one of the first tricks be-
ginners discovered and one of the first tricks beginners learned to
not be fooled by. The guard turned her head toward Charlotte’s
hand. Amateur! She reached out with the end of the pinwheel
stem, and let her leap carry it into the guard’s eye, along the in-
side of her eye socket, through the superior orbital fissure and
into her brain.
Charlotte stirred the wire once for good measure, then side
stepped into a run over to the guy called Catamount. She stuck
the end of the pinwheel stem against his neck. “Don’t move,” she
said. “If you even twitch without my permission, you’re dead.
Drop your swords.” He hesitated. Charlotte poked his neck
enough to make him bleed. He threw both swords away.
Charlotte took a quick look past Catamount toward Lucy.
Walrus’s body was obviously broken and useless. Lucy was
crouched behind him.
termination. Take your pick. “You brought Chrissy into this be-
cause you think that poster has some deep meaning?”
Ned watched her.
“It does.” Lucy crouched and placed her left palm in Chrysan-
themum’s blood, then stood and held it up. Blood ran down her
forearm. “It means I killed four chargers in less than two seconds.
Four girls who were a lot better trained than you.”
Lucy walked over to the soda fountain. She leaned over the
counter, found a towel, and wiped the blood off her hand. Zack
was right, Chrysanthemum’s blood was making her feet slippery.
The shoes Ned had provided were too big, they would be worse
than no shoes. She elected to go barefoot, but took her time
while waiting for her feet to dry. She didn’t wipe them off. She
was leaving bloody foot prints everywhere she walked, and she
wanted Ned to notice, to think about them, and be distracted. She
attached her short-sword scabbard to the harness in the middle of
her back, then unsheathed her long-sword and walked back to
the center of the room.
She stepped through the same warmup maneuver Ned had
used, but performed it with elegance and flow beyond his skill.
Then she pulled her short-sword and segued into one of Bimini’s
advanced exercises. She picked a short one, but one that made
the air around her shimmer with death. She stopped and sheathed
her short-sword. “I’m ready. How about you?”
“She’s your friend, the fencer, isn’t she?” Ned said.
“Yes she is. Next time you hold a champion foil fencer host-
age I recommend you don’t back her up to a whole forest of long
bendy pieces of sharp metal.”
“I don’t think she’ll kill Catamount. None of you girls know
what it’s like to really kill. We do. You had a chance to kill Wal-
rus―you could have broken his neck and been done with
him―but you didn’t. You took extra time to maim and humiliate
him. You should have killed him, and let him die with some
honor. I thought you had a warrior in you; I guess I was wrong.
314 R. H. Watson
She didn’t want to run into his defense; it would reduce her
options. She slowed to a walk, kept her eyes on him, and pointed
her long-sword back at Catamount. “Zack and Neil, bring your
straps to Charlotte. Stay clear of Ned. Charlotte―”
“Tourniquets,” Charlotte said.
“When I’m done with Ned, whatever happens, throw that
guy’s hands and his foot in the ice cream cooler. We’re not here
for vengeance. They should be able to put him back together, al
most as good as new.”
Lucy stopped three meters in front of Ned. “Are you still go-
ing to do this?”
“You arrogant little bitch!” he said. “We practiced for this,
guardian on guardian. It’s not the same, you know, fighting
an opponent armed just like you. You don’t know what
you’re in for.”
Lucy shook her head and let out a short laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Ned said.
“You’ve never had a sword coach like Bimini Tanaka.” Lucy
watched him get ready for the fight of his life. “You’re no guard-
ian,” she said. “Guardians protect. You’re nothing but a fucking
murderer.” She took up her relaxed temple waiting stance with
the tip of her long-sword resting on the floor ahead of her feet.
Ned held his long-sword up, ready to fend off her attack.
“Guardians don’t attack,” Lucy said. “We defend. It’s your move.”
He adjusted his grip, then attacked. It was an all-power two
handed attack taking full advantage of his strength and mass. He
swung at her laterally, aiming for the soft muscle above her pel-
vis. He meant to cut her in two.
Lucy’s instincts took over. She brought her short-sword out
and braced the collar of her long-sword against the back of it’s
blade. She would take the force of his strike between her hands.
Just as his blade connected, she hopped to take most of her
weight off her feet, and she bent her arms to absorb the impact.
He pushed her, but she was in control. She spread her feet apart
316 R. H. Watson
and bent her knees as she slid, turning her block into a push up
with her short-sword.
Ned reached around for his own short-sword, but with his
long-sword pushed up and out of the way, he was wide open for
Lucy to slash through his ribcage with her long-sword. His eyes
were wide with fear, but her faster than thought kinesthetic in-
stincts wouldn’t do it. Instead, she pulled her long-sword up and
across the inside of his right forearm, cutting the flexor muscles
that allowed his fingers to grip. He dropped his long-sword, but he
was bringing his short-sword around to stab through her chest.
Wounding, rather than killing, had left her right side exposed. She
couldn’t avoid his attack. She jumped, making him hit her low and
miss her heart. She felt his blade stab into her lower ribcage. He
struck with so much force, he buried his short-sword up to its hilt
guard. The point came out between her ribs on her left side.
She was still alive. To kill her instantly, he had to pull the
point of the blade out from between her ribs and jam it up
through her viscera, into her heart. She dropped her long-sword,
grabbed his forearm, and used her elbow to press his hand and
his short-sword hilt guard against her ribs, preventing him from
backing it out. She brought her own short-sword around and cut
through his bicep. He lost control of his arm. Lucy’s weight
turned his blade down and she started to slide off onto the floor.
He still had some control of the sword with his forearm muscles.
She felt him trying to twist it. She hacked at his elbow joint. It
took two strikes to cut off his forearm. She fell on the floor and
pulled his sword out of her torso.
Ned looked at the blood spraying out of his elbow, then down
at her. He grinned. “You’re dying!” He turned and ran for the
placenta jars.
His arms were disabled, but he could still kick. Lucy saw
Charlotte pick up Catamount’s long-sword and start running, but
Ned would get to the pumps first. Lucy scrambled up, grabbed
her long-sword and ran after him. He had made a mess of her in-
Gladiator Girl 317
Lucy was bleeding all over the ringleader, Ned. Her mouth was
moving, but all that came out was blood and spittle. There wasn’t
enough air left in her lungs to cough. She looked up at Charlotte,
made eye contact, and died.
Ned’s glutei maximi were cut so deep he couldn’t control his
hip joints, but he was still kicking at Chrysanthemum’s pump
with his forelegs and pushing himself closer with what was left
of his arms. Charlotte rolled Lucy’s body off of Ned, then used
Catamount’s sword to cut his hamstrings.
“Jayzen! Contact your womb-atorium and get a recovery team
up here. Tell them to bring a portable placenta pump. And tell
them it’s an emergency.”
She crouched down next to Ned and pulled a strap from the
collection she had tucked behind her belt.
“What are you doing?” Ned said.
“I’m going to put tourniquets on your arms.”
“Leave me alone!” He started jerking his shoulders and flail-
ing his right elbow joint.
Charlotte held her sword in front of his face. “If you don’t
settle down, I’ll keep cutting muscles and tendons until you do.”
He stopped. She cinched up his arms with the tourniquets,
then pulled him away from the placenta jars.
322 R. H. Watson
Lucy’s body. “These two bodies and that placenta over there,”
she pointed at Lucy’s placenta jar, “ship them to the Laughing
Cherub as fast as you can, and make arrangements to transfer the
injured placenta to the Cherub as soon as possible.”
“We’re not authorized―”
“Jayzen,” Charlotte said.
“Do what she says,” Jayzen said.
“I want them on their way, or at least out of this room, before
the police arrive to arrest everyone and bog everything down
with paperwork. Once that’s accomplished, you’ll find two dead
bodyguards in the gallery out those doors.” She pointed at the
doors at the other end of the ballroom. “Pack them in the other
two caskets. I don’t know where they go. They work for Maxton
Verbeek, so you better do a good job.”
“And those two?” The matron’s aid pointed at the Noreens.
“They’re Twin Security’s problem.”
There was a distant boom from somewhere beyond the double
doors Charlotte and Jayzen had originally entered through.
“Sounds like the police. Hurry up.”
Charlotte looked around. That should do it.
Four weeks later, Lucy touched the stitches that held together the
cut across the bridge of her nose. “Ouch!” She was standing in
front of a mirror in Burning Desire’s locker room. She had
pealed the bandage back to look at the stitches. Both her eyes
were black and blue with a bruise that spread from her nose,
across the top of her cheeks, and up into her eye sockets.
“That’s too superficial for a womb stay,” Dita Hwang, the
club nurse, had said when she examined Lucy after her game in
Saturday’s match. She had snapped on her rubber gloves and dug
out her suture kit. “Do you want a local anesthetic?”
“No,” Lucy had said. A minute later she regretted her de-
cision, but not as much as Dita did.
“Stop whining,” Dita had said as she stitched up Lucy’s nose.
324 R. H. Watson
The day after Lucy was reborn, thirteen days after the incident in
the Verbeek Mansion, she took a car from Pete’s Tattoo to the
Magistrate’s jail.
The jail was almost as cheery as a womb-atorium. The visita-
Gladiator Girl 325
tion lounge was filled with comfortable chairs and sofas ar-
ranged around low tables. Lucy was shown to an armchair sitting
across a table from another armchair. A guard brought in Zack.
He didn’t seem as reserved as when he had shown up at the club.
“You’re all better.” He sat in the other chair.
“That’s the way rebirth works.”
“They’re worried I’m going to kill myself. They took my belt
and my shoe laces. They watch me eat so I don’t steal the knife
and fork.”
“Are you going to kill yourself?”
“If I was like you I couldn’t. If I tried, they’d stick me in one
of those wombs, whether I wanted them to or not.”
“You’re not like me,” Lucy said. “I don’t want to die.”
“You didn’t have to fight Grizzly, you could have run away.” He
started tapping his foot. “When you did fight, you could have killed
him, but you didn’t. Instead, he almost killed you, for good.”
“I don’t remember. We never remember the last minute or two
before we die.”
“You said you weren’t a killer,” Zack said. “I am.”
“No, you are not.”
“Yes I am. I killed Dad. You would have broken his arms and
legs and then called the police, but you weren’t there. You ran
away.” His foot stopped. “How come you ran away and left us,
but you didn’t run away from Grizzly?”
“It wasn’t the same. I wasn’t the same.”
“I know. You really are Lucy Star. You’re not my sister,
not anymore.”
“She’s not gone. I want her to come back, it’s just . . . I
can’t trust her.”
Zack laughed. “You’re crazier than me.”
“I guess I am. Zack, you are my brother.”
“No I’m not. I’m Debbie’s brother. If I’m going to be yours, I
need a new name, just like you. I want to be Ace.”
“What?”
326 R. H. Watson
“Ace Star.”
“That sounds kind of cornball.”
“So says Lucy Star.”
“I was ten years old when I made up my name. I guess it shows.”
Lucy could see Zack’s jaw muscles bulging and relaxing. He
was nervous. “Are you serious about this?” she said.
“Yes.”
She leaned forward. “Does Ace want to kill himself?”
“No.”
She glanced at the guard, then spoke quietly. “You’re going to
have to impersonate Zack for a while.”
“I can do that.”
“Crazy Zack.”
“That’s the only kind there is.”
Lucy stood up. “Can we hug?” she said to the guard. He
nodded. She stepped around the table. Zack stood up, and she
wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tight. She
stretched up on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek. “This isn’t
going to be easy. You’re either going to be in prison or an in-
stitution for a long time.”
“I can do it.”
“We can do it,” Lucy said. “I have to go and meet with
your advocate, but I’ll be back in a couple of days. See you
then, Ace Star.”
“See you,” Ace said.
She went out the front entrance of the club. It was deep autumn,
and the evenings were cold. The first hit of chilly air usually
cleared her head, but this evening it made her cut nose and
bruised eye sockets ache. She walked to Alice’s Tea Shop.
At the counter, Mr. Fredrick nodded toward the back table.
Lucy looked and saw Maxton.
“He’s been waiting for you.”
“Why?”
Mr. Fredrick shrugged.
Lucy tapped the counter. “Cook up a demitasse of his infu-
sion, please.”
Lucy walked over to Maxton’s table and sat across from him.
“Hello,” she said. “Guess who’s not who they seem to be?”
“It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Maxton said. He pointed at
her nose and raised his eyebrows.
“I screwed up in my last game. The nurse wants it to heal the
old fashioned way.”
“It looks painful.”
330 R. H. Watson
“It feels a lot more painful than it looks.” She folded her arms
and studied him. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve had to temporarily take over management of some Ver-
beek interests. As you know, it’s impossible to completely walk
away from your family.”
“Do you want my sympathy?”
“Some understanding, perhaps.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand you people at all.” Lucy spilled
sugar onto the table from the shaker, then drew a five pointed
star in it, messed it up, and drew a smiley face. She brushed the
sugar off the table into her hand, unfolded a napkin from the dis-
penser, and brushed the sugar from her hand onto the napkin.
She folded it up, tight. “The news calls them, ‘the Blood Boys
Club.’ What really happened?”
“The police are still investigating.”
“But they’re not going to find anything more, are they? Ned
conned Madam Verbeek and tricked Jayzen. With Jayzen’s signa-
ture, he had access to the mansion, use of its facilities, and best
of all, anything he did fell under the Verbeek ‘no peeking al-
lowed’ blanket of protection. Ned is a sociopathic mastermind
with a death wish. Case closed.”
“That’s where the evidence points.”
“He wasn’t smart enough to pull it off.”
“He was convincing and dedicated. Often, that is enough.”
“Enough to be manipulated,” Lucy said. “Was Jayzen as inno-
cent as he claims?”
“He’s a naïve, self-centered boy, but thanks to you, he may fi-
nally be growing up.”
“I’m not sure growing up as a Verbeek is a good thing.”
“He was innocent, but none of us are ever as innocent as we
claim. Except you.”
“Fuck you,” Lucy said. “Who was pulling Ned’s strings?”
Maxton shrugged his shoulders.
“Was it you?”
Gladiator Girl 331
Year Day was less than a week away. Heritage City was hosting
the North Coast Championships: The Beta League match in the
morning, and the Alpha League match in the afternoon.
On Tuesday, Coach Kai watched the guardian sword practice
from the safety of the Observation Theater. She called Bimini in
when the session ended.
“Can she play?”
“Her rote sword handling is as good as it has ever been,”
Bimini said, “but she has lost her instincts. She attempts to think
through everything. Her blades are always where they should
have been, never where they need to be. I won’t allow her to per-
form complex improvisations with a partner, or even alone. She
would likely kill her partner or injure herself. She is not capable
of playing a match game.”
Betty Kai looked into the empty Sword Practice room. “Did
we lose her?”
“I recommended you not play her in the last match. The res-
ults were disastrous.”
“You think it’s my fault?”
“We have to accept the consequences of our decisions,”
Bimini said. “I should have resigned in protest, but I held out
hope I was wrong.”
336 R. H. Watson
rived with the placenta jar. Mary broke the sterilization seal on
an excision knife and opened the large blade; its shape allowed
her to cut through the fleshy wall of the womb without harming
Chrysanthemum’s amniotic sac. She cut the womb wide open
with three quick incisions, then flipped open the small blade and
cut the sac. Chrysanthemum spilled into her arms. Mary lowered
her to the birth basin and clamped off her umbilical to stop the
blood loss. She stuck a rubber gasket between her teeth to pre-
vent her from biting, then reached into her mouth and cleared the
mucous plug out of the back of her throat.
Everyone held their breath . . .
Mary was about to call for resuscitation when Chrysan-
themum sucked in air and coughed.
“I’m very dizzy!” The matron helped her sit up on the recovery
bed. “Oh!” she started to tip over despite trying to hold herself
up with her arms. “And weak. Did something go wrong?”
The matron held her up. “Do you remember what happened
before you died?”
“Yes. I think I do. There was a big room. The most beautiful
room I’ve ever seen. It was like something out of a fairy tale. I re-
member those men who wanted to use me to force her to fight them.
I told them it would never work. And there were unicorns―”
“Unicorns?”
“Papier mâché unicorns. One of the last things I remember is
looking up at them, they were hanging from the ceiling. And I re-
member her eyes.”
“Who’s eyes?”
“My guardian’s. She must have saved me. Did she? I’m here,
so she must have. What happened to her? Is she all right?”
“Lucy’s fine. She was reborn three weeks ago.”
“Who?”
“Lucy, Lucy Star. That’s who you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“I . . . Yes, Lucy.”
338 R. H. Watson
The matron moved in front of her. “Do you know who I am?”
“Of course I do.”
“Do you know my name?”
“No, should I?”
“I’m Mary. Do you know my name now?”
“You just told me.”
“What’s my name?” Mary said and got back a playful smirk.
“Humor me.”
“Mary.”
“Now tell me your name,” Mary said.
“Why would I need a name?”
“Your name is Chrysanthemum. Your friends call you Chrissy.”
“Now that you mention it, why wouldn’t I have a name?”
Chrysanthemum said. “Wait, something did go wrong. You think
my memory is damaged. You said my guardian, Lucy, was re-
born almost a month ago? How long was I gestating?”
“Thirty-four days, five hours, forty-eight minutes.”
“What happened to me?”
“It’s not what happened to you, it’s what happened to your
placenta. The night you died, it was badly injured.”
“How is it now?”
“It wasn’t able to heal both you and itself,” Mary said. “It
failed this morning. Your memory synchronization was almost
complete. We had to pull you out of the womb or you would
have died. We put your placenta back in a womb to give it a
chance to revive, but it was too late.”
“That’s it then?” Chrysanthemum said. “This was my last re-
birth? I have damaged memories, and my poor little dopple-girl
is dead?”
“There are experts here from The Rebirth Institute.”
“To see what they can learn from the holes in my mind and
from my dead placenta? I think I need you to give me a hug.”
Mary enveloped her. “Lucy did everything she could to save
you both.”
Gladiator Girl 339
Saturday, the day before the championship match, was all about man-
aging the players’ emotions so they peaked on the field the next day.
The butterfly bruise across Lucy’s nose and eyes had disap-
peared; the stitches were gone, and a thin pink line of scar tissue
was all that was left of the cut across the bridge of her nose.
The guardians walked to the cafeteria after sword practice.
Chenina was lingering by the swinging doors. She intercepted
Lucy. “She’ll catch up in a minute,” she said to the other guardi-
ans and pulled her around the corner.
“Chrissy was reborn this morning, early,” Chenina said.
“How is she?” That should have been a dumb question. The
only answer ought to be, “Fine.”
“No one knows. There are all kinds of rumors. You shouldn’t
believe any of them.”
“What are they saying?”
“That her placenta died. That she had to be cut out of her
womb. That she was born with only part of her memory, or with
none at all. That the scientists from the Rebirth Institute want to
take her back to their laboratories.”
“Is any of it true?”
“I can’t say for sure, but this morning, before practice, I over-
heard Monica, our supervisor. She was talking to Coach Kai. She
340 R. H. Watson
said they would have to treat Chrissy like any other goddess who
aged-out.”
“It’s not much to go on,” Lucy said.
“I know. The main thing is, don’t get upset about the talk.”
“Thanks. You know, when I walk in that cafeteria, they’ll all
be watching to see if I’m finally going to crack. One of these
days I should, just to watch them squeal and run.”
“I wouldn’t run,” Chenina said.
“I know you wouldn’t.”
Lucy put the loaner swords in her locker. After the throwing in-
cident, she decided to treat them with respect. After all, they had
been made for a guardian and bore a personal mark etched into
their blade collars.
Lucy left through the front lobby to avoid fans, or so she told her-
self, but really, to avoid her club mates. It was dark out and cold. She
pushed open the door and almost collided with Chrysanthemum.
“Howdy stranger,” Chrysanthemum said. She was dressed in a
combination of colorful handmade knitwear and second hand
frump. She acknowledged the season with a warm coat that had
an unkempt wool collar and with rainbow colored knit mittens
instead of gloves. She held out a cup of tea from Alice’s Tea
Shop. “Here.”
Lucy took the cup.
“That’s my infusion,” Chrysanthemum said. She lifted another
cup, “and this is yours. I still haven’t tried it. I wanted to look
into your eyes when I did.” She took a drink and watched Lucy
while she held the tea in her mouth, then she closed her eyes and
swallowed. She opened her eyes wide. “What have you been do-
ing to yourself?”
“You’re okay!” Lucy wanted to grab Chrysanthemum, but she
had this fucking cup of Chrissy tea in her hand. “They said your
memory was gone, your placenta was dead, you had to be cut out
of your womb!”
Gladiator Girl 341
“Huh? Oh.” Lucy took a drink. The flavor didn’t sneak up like
the first time. It was immediate, tasting exactly like Chrissy, just
like the scent Lucy had inhaled in the washroom of the Potato
Bar. She was about to swallow, when the taste shifted to a dark
unsweetened licorice. It was bitter, but compelling. She was sure
this was what Chrissy’s vagina would taste like, at this very mo-
ment. A coppery flavor of blood slid in. Not the bloody metaphor
of power and violence that dominated Maxton’s tea. This was
something else, a difficult flavor to accept, an important one to
cultivate a taste for. Chrissy had lost her ability to be reborn.
Within six months her menstrual cycle would return. Lucy rolled
her tongue around in the tea and wanted to be there when it
happened. She swallowed.
“Well?”
“Not at all like the first time I tried it,” Lucy said. “I really
want to give you a hug.”
“Please.”
She took Chrysanthemum’s cup, set it and hers on the pave-
ment, and held her close. Some of the wool from Chrysan-
themum’s coat got in Lucy’s mouth; she didn’t care.
“We’ll be burying her next week, in the orchard at the
Academy,” Chrysanthemum said. “I’d like you to be there.”
“Of course.” Lucy hugged her tighter. “I’m sorry I let this
happen to you.”
Chrysanthemum pushed back and took Lucy’s face in her hands.
“Stop that. This isn’t your fault. And look at me—there are issues,
yes—but I’m mostly healed.” She wrapped her arms around Lucy’s
neck and spoke into her ear. “However, you’re not.”
“Huh?”
“I talked to Charlotte. You’re fucked up.”
“I’m off, a bit, sure,” Lucy said. “The police confiscated my
swords, and the loaners Bimini gave me don’t feel right, but . . .
Did Charlotte really say that?”
“No, she never would. I could hear the worry in her voice.
Gladiator Girl 343
Everyone was gone. The Burning Desire training facility was si-
lent except for the whisper of ventilation and the random, ‘ting,’
of the building adjusting to the dropping outside temperature.
Bimini always stayed late to attend to her own skills; a cham-
pionship match the next day didn’t make any difference. She
walked around the curve of the corridor and saw the door to the
Sword Practice room close. She opened it enough to see in.
Chrysanthemum was standing face-to-face with Lucy: eyes
closed, hands pressed together. Lucy was holding her swords,
unsheathed. She held her short-sword to the side and tapped
Chrysanthemum’s shoulder with her long-sword. They began the
guardian-goddess improvisation.
This was incredibly dangerous. The morning report from the
Laughing Cherub had said Chrysanthemum’s placenta was dead.
Bimini hesitated, then backed out of the door, closing it without
a sound. She walked around to the Observation Theater and
watched through the oneway window.
Lucy pulled the practice room door closed. “This is crazy,” she
said. “You’re womb weak. Your reflexes will be off.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Chrysanthemum said. She walked to the
center of the wooden floor. “The guardian-goddess exercise is
Gladiator Girl 345
Sensing is knowing is doing. It’s all one thing, like not recogniz-
ing a weakness until you attack it.”
They were moving fast enough to play with the tempo. They
slowed down, sped up, came to a stop, and then picked up again
with a burst of activity. With only two of them in the room, they
used the whole space. Sometimes running; sometimes spiraling
around each other, and moving in and out of sword range.
Chrysanthemum slipped between Lucy’s blades and around to
her back. She opened her eyes and spoke over Lucy’s shoulder,
next to her ear. “Charlotte told me what happened after I died.”
“I almost got you killed is what happened. You said you trus-
ted me with your life, and I almost got you really killed.”
“You almost got yourself ‘really’ killed too. If you had col-
lapsed a second earlier, you wouldn’t have stopped Ned, and he
would have destroyed both our placentas.”
“I should have killed him. I do it all the time. He didn’t have
anywhere near the skill he thought he had. He’s a serial killer. He
deserved to die.”
Chrysanthemum circled back into the fury of Lucy’s swords.
“You don’t do anything of the sort all the time. You’ve never
killed anyone, ever.”
“I should have,” Lucy said. She wasn’t looking at Chrysan-
themum. Her swords sped up. They made the surrounding air
deadly, while carving a safe space around Chrysanthemum.
“Who should you have killed?”
“Him,” Lucy said.
“Your father?”
“Yes.” Lucy swung her long-sword horizontally just above
Chrysanthemum’s head while cutting the air in the opposite dir-
ection with her short-sword just in front of her belly. The sword
nicked a loose fold of her t-shirt. “Instead, I ran away and made
my brother do it.”
“That’s not what you told him―your brother. You told him it
was your father’s fault. I’m sorry, what’s your brother’s name?”
Gladiator Girl 347
“Ace.”
“No it’s not.”
Lucy laughed. “It is now. He says if he’s going to be my
brother, he wants to change his name to Ace Star.”
“Ace Star. I like it,” Chrysanthemum said. “His name was Zack,
huh. Telling me his new name fixed my memory of his old name.
My cognitive psych will want to hear about that. Where was I?”
“I think you were going to tell me to stop feeling guilty. That’s
what the shrinks always say. We try to do the best we can, but
everything we do has consequences, right?
“Those consequences are the scars we live with for the rest of
our lives. Wombs don’t heal them. Guilt is a kind of wishful
thinking―if only we had done something different, things would
have turned out better, but we didn’t, and they didn’t. You trusted
me and I fucked up. I can’t wish that away.”
“Charlotte remembers me saying I trusted you with my
whole life.”
“I don’t see the difference,” Lucy said.
Chrysanthemum walked up to Lucy through the swirl of her
swords. “It means I knew my whole life might have ended that
night.” She pushed Lucy, forcing her to step back. “It means I
knew you were going to do everything you could, including dy-
ing, to try and save me and everyone else―which you did.” She
pushed Lucy again. “It means I understood you might not suc-
ceed, because you’re not some fantasy fucking super girl. You’re
Lucy Star―an amazing girl, but still, a girl, and not a killer.” She
pushed Lucy so hard she nearly lost her footing. “You couldn’t
bring yourself to kill Ned. Because of that, I almost died.” She
pushed Lucy again. “And you almost died.” She pushed her
again, then stepped right up to Lucy’s face. “You almost screwed
everything up!” She hooked her foot behind Lucy’s leg and
pushed, tripping her so they both fell. Chrysanthemum landed on
top of Lucy. “I don’t know about you, but I can live with that,
because I’m still alive, you’re still alive, and I want my life to
348 R. H. Watson
have you in it.” She kissed Lucy, then stopped and looked at her.
Lucy nodded. Chrysanthemum undid the buckles on Lucy’s
sword harness, then pushed her t-shirt over her head and along
her arms. “This is where you either lose the swords or use them
to cut off our clothes.”
Lucy cut off their clothes with her short-sword, then pushed both
weapons as far away as she could reach. Chrysanthemum kissed
her forehead, the tip of her nose, and her mouth.
“Oh, wow,” Lucy said.
“What is it?”
“Do you remember that dream I had, on the overnight return
from the Beauty Incarnate match?”
“Of course, it only seems like a few days ago to me.”
“This is it.”
350 R. H. Watson
She shut off her alarm a minute before it was scheduled to shake
her awake, then rolled out of the dinette bed and went into the
shower room. When she came out, she put on her blue and or-
ange frog robe and knocked on the bedroom door. There was no
response. She opened the door and whispered, “Are you awake?”
“Um, Yes,” Charlotte said.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Lucy went in and sat on the bed.
“Did you see who’s out there?”
“More heard than saw.” Charlotte was waking up.
“Sorry about that. So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About her.” Lucy looked at the bedroom wall in the direction
of the dinette bed. “She says she’s in love with me.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“But what do I do about it?”
Charlotte laughed.
“This isn’t funny,” Lucy said.
Gladiator Girl 353
bed and opened the door, but stopped and turned. “Oh, guess
what? I’m playing in the championship today.”
“That’s fantastic. What happened?”
Lucy looked out the door at Chrysanthemum. She was
asleep, wrapped in the bed sheet and blanket; her leg was
twitching in sympathy to a dream. “I thought I’d lost her. I
thought I’d lost everything. I gave up. I tried not to, but I
couldn’t fight it.” She blinked, and a tear edged its way down
her cheek, around the corner of her mouth, and hung on tena-
ciously at her jaw line. “And then, last night . . . She made me
want to live again.”
Charlotte slipped off the bed and put her arm around Lucy’s
shoulder. “He almost won,” Lucy said.
“Ned?”
She shook her head. “My father. Octavius. Octavius Butler
Knole. What a dopey name.” Lucy looked up at Charlotte, hugged
her, then left the bedroom. Charlotte closed the door.
Lucy rolled onto the dinette bed and rested on her elbow.
“What time is it?” Chrysanthemum stretched herself awake.
“Seven fifteen.” There was a bit of dried crust in the corner of
Chrysanthemum’s eye. Lucy bent down and licked it out.
Chrysanthemum squinted up. “Can anyone see in through
that?” She pointed at the skylight.
“Nope, it’s one-way. Frosted on the outside.”
“Mmm, one-way frosting, sounds yummy.”
Lucy lay back and looked out the skylight. Chrysanthemum
pulled Lucy’s robe open and rested her head on her shoulder. She
licked her finger and drew a slick of saliva around Lucy’s nipple
making the areola shiny for a few seconds.
“I’ve been thinking,” Lucy said, “about how our girls work.
How they absorb all our memories, keep them safe, and put them
back if we lose some of them. It’s beyond amazing that they can
do that, but all those memories—they’re not us. They’re our
Gladiator Girl 355
stuff. We can loose a lot of stuff and still be us. Your poor dam-
aged girl lost some of your stuff, and you’re worried she may
have lost some of who you are along with it. I don’t think that’s
possible, because I don’t think she ever had . . . you.
“I think, when we’re with them, they learn who we are, and
when they fix us, they remind us who that is and help us find the
person they remember us to be.
“Our girls are in love with us, and while we’re in a womb
with them, we’re lovers. Like that thing you said. ‘We’re their
center and they’re our existence.’”
“I said that?” Chrysanthemum said.
“It was in a book you read. Ask Bethany about it. She’s a
charger who was in our cabin for the outbound trip to Appala-
chi City. The thing is, your girl must have known she was dy-
ing. I think she made sure you could finish fixing yourself, if
she couldn’t.” Lucy licked her finger and drew her own shiny
circle around the stub of Chrysanthemum’s umbilical. “Believe
in your girl, and if some of you is lost, you’ll get it back. It’s
spread among everyone who knows you.”
Chrysanthemum reached up and cupped Lucy’s cheek. “How
do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You hand out courage like it’s the most common thing.”
“I don’t know what―”
Chrysanthemum put her finger on Lucy’s lips. “Shh,” she
whispered.
Not too much later, Lucy sat up. “I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Championship match, you know?”
Chrysanthemum sat up, too. “I’d like to see it. I’ve never actu-
ally watched a whole match.”
“Really?”
“We were encouraged to remain aloof and not become in-
volved in the fortunes of the club; sound familiar?”
356 R. H. Watson
crazy, as in, “Did you see her take those chargers apart?
She’s fucking crazy!”
Lucy stepped out of the public car and walked over to her
team. She was carrying her swords―both of them.
“I thought you weren’t going to carry those off the field any-
more,” Kelcie said.
“I didn’t have a choice. The locker equipment had already
been sent to the stadium by the time I was put back on the team,
so I’ve got bring everything with me, like I was still on standby.”
She patted her stuffed gym bag.
“Did you get your new swords?” Esmerelda said.
“No. I told Coach Kai to cancel the order.” She held up her
long-sword. “These are good weapons. They were made for a
guardian and deserve to be used.”
“Those are Bimini’s blades,” Frankie said. She was travel-
ing with the club, but as standby guardian, she couldn’t enter
the locker room. She would be sitting in the club’s stadium
seats waiting for Lucy to trip and accidentally stab herself to
death, or something. Lucy could see Frankie wishing for just
that.
“I talked to Bimini,” Lucy said. “She officially handed them
to me last night, with the blessing of the guardian they were ori-
ginally commissioned for.”
“Oh yeah? Just what happened last night?” Frankie said.
Lucy leaned close. “I got laid. Turns out, that’s all I needed.”
Serendipity walked over from the first game team. “I heard
Chrysanthemum was here yesterday, after practice. How is she?”
“Apparently, pretty fucking good,” Frankie said.
“She’s doing well,” Lucy said.
The team was moving in to listen for details.
“Have you looked at Sublime Harmony’s game roster?”
Serendipity said.
“Nope. I never do. It doesn’t make any difference to me who
I’m playing against.”
358 R. H. Watson
Charlotte’s eyes wouldn’t focus. Her arms and legs felt limp.
When she tried to move, she heard wet slapping and sucking
sounds. A fuzzy outline came into view, leaning over her. Who?
Matron? A hard rubber something was pushed into her mouth,
forcing her jaw open. A finger dug down into her throat. She
gagged. The finger and rubber thing were pulled out, and she
breathed. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t breathing, and she
hadn’t realized she was beginning to suffocate. Once she started
breathing in, she didn’t want to stop. She filled her lungs until
she couldn’t get another milliliter of air in, then she forced the air
out so she could breathe in again. The air was rich and cool. It
made her dizzy.
There was a sharp tug at her belly, then a chewy rubber nipple
was pressed into her mouth. She bit down and sucked. The flesh
under her tongue erupted in an ecstatic rush, filling her mouth
with a slurry of saliva and the milky liquid from the nipple. She
swallowed. Her stomach convulsed and secreted. Her whole
body shuddered.
Yes! I remember! This is being alive!
She woke up from her postnatal nap wrapped in the big terrycloth
towel and surrounded by the soft padded sides of the postnatal
362 R. H. Watson
bed. She rolled her head to the side. There was a girl on the bed
next to her. She had lowered the side of her bed and was sitting up,
dangling her feet above the floor.
“Hi, I’m Charlotte.”
The girl looked at her, but didn’t say anything.
“What’s your name?” Charlotte said.
“Lucy,” the girl said. “Ah, Lucy Star.”
“How many rebirths have you had?” Charlotte said. “This is
my tenth.”
“Why do you want to know?” Lucy said.
“It’s just one of those things people ask each other, like,
‘How old are you?’”
“I’m fifteen. This is my first.”
“Really? Congratulations!” Charlotte lifted her head to look
around. “Who’s here with you?”
“No one.”
“What about your parents?”
Lucy looked away.
Matron came in with one of the Academy’s tutelary proctors.
“You’re up,” Matron said to Lucy, with disapproval, “and you
found the latch for the bed side. You should have pressed the
call button before sitting up. We want to be here, just in case.
Oh, but look at you; your first rebirth! Congratulations!” Mat-
ron hugged her. “Proctor, what do you say?”
“Yes, congratulations, Deborah.” Lucy flinched when the
proctor said “Deborah.”
Matron saw that Charlotte was awake. “Welcome back,
Charlotte,” she said. “Have you met our new girl, Debbie?”
Lucy winced again at the name.
“Yes,” Charlotte said, “Lucy and I have, indeed, met.”
“You and that silly name,” Matron said. “I guess we had better
get used to it.”
The proctor cleared her throat. “Yes, that’s why I’m here.
There was a delay in submitting the application to change your
Gladiator Girl 363
Four hours later they were both discharged from the Academy’s
womb-atorium.
“Goodbye,” Lucy said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Wait. This was your first rebirth. That’s a big deal. What are
you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. I was gonna go to the dorm. Study. I’m starting
almost six months behind most of the girls, I’ve got to catch up.”
“No. You can study later. Now, we’re going to the commons
to celebrate. You were just reborn. That’s a gift and a privilege.
There are only a handful of girls in the whole world who get
this ability.”
“I don’t want a party,” Lucy said.
“Just you and me then. Come on. You can’t go and study. This is
an occasion. Throw down a marker. You want to remember this day.”
“Okay,” Lucy said.
Gladiator Girl 365