Mortal Lock (40 page)

CANDY

So what if they could tell; who would they tell it to? Gambling on Traxyl fights is against the Rules, so if anyone complained to the Rulers about cheating, they’d be telling on themselves, right?

ACE

Gambling is only a Minor Violation. If they catch you, all you do is pay a fine. That’s part of the cost of doing business; it doesn’t bother me. But there’s other rules, too. Player’s Rules. If anyone got caught fixing a fight, it would be … very bad.

I saw that happen once. A Handler cut his Traxyl’s eye with a razor ring just before he sent him out. Traxyls can’t smell; I don’t know if they can hear too good, either. But they need their eyes. Big, huge eyes, so they can see in the dark when they go after the Zone Rats. The other Traxyl locked on to the one with the cut eye and it was over quick. I wasn’t the only one who saw what the Handler had done. The other players just threw him into the pit.

CANDY

The Traxyl who won …

ACE

Traxyls don’t feed on other Traxyls. They kill each other, but the winner never eats the loser. They kill for territory, like hunting space. Any time one Traxyl enters another’s space, they fight. That’s how the pit fights started, I guess. No human
would have a chance against a Traxyl if he came into their space. And when a Traxyl wins a fight, the pit
is
his space, see?

CANDY

I don’t feel bad for that Handler. He got what he deserved, doing that to his own—

ACE

Nobody
felt sorry for him. Traxyls aren’t that big; even the largest ones are only about thirty kilos. But they’re armor-plated, and once their jaws lock, there’s no way to open them. Every once in a while, one breaks loose, and the Police have to kill it. Traxyls don’t feel electricity, and shooting doesn’t stop them, either. The Police are so scared of them, they always blow them up. Whenever they do that, everyone around the area gets killed, too.

CANDY

Even if it’s not their fault the Traxyl got loose?

ACE

It’s a Rule that no Traxyls can run loose. So killing people to stop one, that would be sanctioned. Besides, you know the Rule: if the Police do it, it’s never against the Rules.

CANDY

They don’t have any choice, the Traxyls. It’s not like they … get paid or anything.

ACE

(glances at Candy, sees she identifies with the Traxyls)

Well, it’s not going to go on much longer. When a Traxyl gets loose, it just keeps killing until they blow it up. A Traxyl doesn’t care about the Rules. So the places where they hold the fights keep getting moved farther and farther away from the Central Tunnels. Now almost all the fights happen near the Border, just this side of the Uncharted Zone. Some are so far away that you need to hire one of the Guides to take you there and bring you back.

CANDY

The Guides? Are they a crew? I never heard of them.

ACE

More like a spray, I think. Every one I’ve ever seen is a skin/shade 40+, almost a reddish color. That’s weird, right? I mean, you’d think they’d be real pale from spending so much time in the Deep Tunnels, but they’re not.

CANDY

Do Guides capture the Traxyls?

ACE

No. Only Trappers do that. Traxyls live in the Uncharted Zone. A good fighting Traxyl is worth enough credits to live on for a few years. Live
nice
, not just get by. Most of the Trappers don’t succeed; that’s why Traxyls are so rare.

CANDY

What if they go out and never catch a Traxyl?

ACE

(flat, unsympathetic)

In a way, they’re gamblers, too. Some go into the Uncharted Zone and never come back; some go in a few times and bring back a Traxyl. But if you go in too many times, the odds shift. Shift way down.

If you believe the whisper-stream, there’s people in the Uncharted Zone.
Living
there, not just going in and coming out. I even heard that the Traxyls guard those people from the rats, but that sounds so crazy … I mean, what’re the odds on
that?
But, one time, I was walking to a fight, and the Guide showed me a Book Boys sign:

SURVIVE, STAY ALIVE
BREED WHAT YOU NEED

ACE

And it was the real thing, too. In their blue and everything. I didn’t think the Book Boys ever went back that far—the only way you could even see what they wrote was with a flash … I can’t figure out how the Guide saw it.

One of the girls who lived in the Sex Tunnels (Ace
stops and steals a glance at Candy, who gives him a “What?” look—meaning she never thought
Ace had been celibate, and no-emotion sex would be exactly what she would have expected him to engage in)
 … she told me that the people who live in the Uncharted Zone bred the Traxyls themselves. Like … 
created
them, to protect them from the rats. But girls in the Sex Tunnels say anything.
(This brings him another “Tell me something I don’t know” look from Candy)
Anyway, she said she was going to go out to the Uncharted Zone herself one day. To join them, she said. I asked her what she meant, but then her buzzer went off, and she just got up and left.

CANDY

Did you ever—?

ACE

I never saw her again. The next time I was there, I even asked for her, ’cause I wanted her to tell me what she meant. But they said she was gone. That could mean anything, so I just … I don’t know, forgot about it, I guess.

CANDY

Yeah. What’s another missing whore?

ACE

What do you want to put that on me for, girl? I was just … Look, you
asked
me, remember?

CANDY

(contrite
and
worried)

I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry for real. Didn’t you ever have something just … slip up on you? So many years of … wearing my shell, I guess. I … don’t know what to say. I did a wrong thing. I mean, I wronged you. I asked you to tell me your secret, and I had to be a goddamn wise-ass when you did. I’m just a—

ACE

Remember what you said before? About how food was nothing but fuel to me? What do you think changed that?

CANDY

Changed
that? Nothing changed that. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be eating whatever damn—

ACE

If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be having sex with whores, too, you stupid bitch. Now just shut your big mouth and listen, okay?

CANDY

(sunburst-grinning)

Yes, sir!

ACE

The only thing I ever
really
paid any attention to was the Traxyl sheet. It’s fifteen credits; comes out about ten 24’s before the fight card.

CANDY

I’ve seen those, but I never looked close. It, like, tells you which of them won and stuff?

ACE

That wouldn’t be worth anything. The loser always dies, so any Traxyl on the sheet never lost. What the sheet tells you is how many fights each Traxyl had before, their weight and height, any permanent injuries—they fight Traxyls even if they’re crippled, and some of them win that way for a while, too—the name of the Handler, stuff like that. Every fighting Traxyl has an alphanumeric burned into its side. It doesn’t hurt them, just makes a mark on their armor. The hardest thing to guess is when a new one’s going to be good. You can’t train Traxyls. A Trapper brings one in, a Backer buys it, then he turns it over to a Handler … that’s the guy who actually puts it into the pit to fight.

You can’t tell anything about how good a Traxyl’s going to fight just by looking at it. I had to learn that for myself. See, what I wanted was what every Gambler is always looking for.…

CANDY

(knowledgeably)

Sure. That one big score, right?

ACE

Yeah. But that was before I knew the difference. Gamblers … gamble. A
player
uses a
system
. That
means you have to be … disciplined, I guess. What good is an edge if you can’t cut with it?

CANDY

I don’t get it. The losers who spend every day in the place I work, they never stop talking about their “systems.” But they don’t seem to win much.

ACE

Those aren’t real systems, girl. They’re just habits. I studied that, too.

CANDY

Habits?

ACE

(gets out of bed, stands up, and pulls a book from a shelf)

No, honey—studying habits wouldn’t be any good. Habits are … personal. Different ones for different people. Like when you see one of them hunch-betting. Or betting based on stupid stuff, like which Traxyl is the biggest. But the
odds
, that’s more like … numbers, okay? Numbers don’t have feelings. (Ace holds up the book so Candy can see the cover: STATISTICS I.) This is where I started.

CANDY

Wow! That’s an
old
one. Like it came from Outside.

ACE

Cost
like it did, too. But it was worth it.

CANDY

But if it came from Outside, it couldn’t be about Traxyls.…

ACE

I didn’t want to learn about Traxyls; I wanted to learn about odds. Come here; I’ll show you.
(Candy walks over to where Ace is holding the book open on the desk)
Say a Gambler sees a Traxyl with a limp. The odds are big against that Traxyl, but the Gambler plays a hunch. And he wins. What does that mean?

CANDY

That he got lucky.

ACE

(pleased)

That’s
exactly
what happened. Luck.
Just
luck. That gambler, he had an idea that a Traxyl with a limp
meant
something … like an omen. He bet, and he won. He had what this book calls a hypothesis.
(Pointing to a page in the book)
His was that a Traxyl with a limp is a better fighter. When he won, the hypothesis was what they call “valid.” That means it proved true … 
once
. But if
every
Traxyl with a limp won, then his hypothesis wouldn’t just be valid, it would be what they call “reliable.” Otherwise what happened that one
time was just a coincidence … that’s the word this book uses for “luck.”

CANDY

And that’s what a system … a
real
system is? Reliable?

ACE

Sure thing. Only, see,
nothing
is ever a sure thing;
that’s
the part you can rely on. You know what Gamblers call a sure thing? A “mortal lock.” I guess that comes from what happens when a Traxyl clamps down … the fight’s over, then.

I tried all kinds of things until I figured it out: But you can’t tell
anything
about a Traxyl. There was one—I still remember him, M6MSY—who won eleven in a row. That was a record—no Traxyl had ever done that before. When I came to the fights that night, I saw M6MSY was matched against a Traxyl that had fought only one time before. The odds on the one-win Traxyl were about 50 to 1. But I waited until just before it went off, and I found a Taker who was offering 75 to 1. I put up two hundred credits. And my Traxyl won. I’m probably the only one who
did
win that night.

CANDY

How is that any different from just getting lucky?

ACE

Don’t you see? I was testing
my
hypothesis: that any Traxyl can kill another, no matter what their records are. The first time, it was valid. Lucky, fair enough. But, by now, I know it’s reliable. So if the odds are crazy enough, I play. See, I’m not betting on a Traxyl; I’m betting
against
everyone else. The Takers each set their own odds, but they do it from the way the betting is going. The more money on one Traxyl, the longer the odds on the other.

CANDY

But if you don’t win—

ACE

I don’t have to win every time, girl. I just have to win more often than the
odds
, see?

CANDY

(nodding in understanding)

So, if the odds are 50 to 1, and you win only two out of every fifty bets, you’re still ahead.

ACE

(admiringly)

You are the quickest girl—the quickest
person
—I ever met in my life. Yeah, that’s it. In one sentence. My system. It’s not Traxyls; it’s people.

All Gamblers are always looking for a system. When M6MSY got killed, a lot of them figured eleven wins was the maximum. So, the more a Traxyl won, the more they’d bet on it … until
it got close to eleven, and then they’d back off. But when J44B8 won thirteen fights before
it
was killed, that theory got killed too.

The Takers love those Gamblers, because the Takers have a system of their own. That’s why I have to bet on every single match. Otherwise the Takers would catch on that I’m working a
real
system, and I couldn’t get any action. One of the hardest things about being a professional is to look like an amateur.

CANDY

(nodding to herself)

That’s why you never wear any flash.