Carnival-SA by Elizabeth Bear Read Free Book Online

“action.”
    Kusanagi-Jones stepped aside to let her take the lead again. It wasn’t far: a few dozen yards and they could hear cheering, jeering, the almost inorganic noise of a crowd.
    There must have been other concealed side passages, because this one led them directly to the Pretoria house box. They emerged through another irising door and among comfortable seats halfway up the wall of an oblong arena. The galleries were severely raked, vertiginous, and one of the security agents reached out as if to steady him when he marched up to the edge. He stepped away from her hand, and she let it fall.
    When he leaned out, he looked down on the heads of the group seated immediately below. And Vincent was just as unprotected from anybody watching from the next tier above. While the immediate security concerns distracted Kusanagi-Jones, Vincent touched his elbow. He didn’t need to be told to follow Vincent’s line of sight; he did it automatically, his alerted interest becoming a startle and a reflexive step closer as another cheer went up.
    The floor of the arena was divided into long ovals, each one bounded by white walls that were thick, but not higher than a man’s waist. And in each of the pits were men.
    Young men, judging from the distance, paired off and engaged in contests of martial arts, each pair attended by an older man and a woman—referees or adjutants. Kusanagi-Jones, his hands tightening on the railing, had the expertise to know what he was seeing. These were men trained in a sort of barbaric amalgam of styles, and they were not fighting for points. He saw blood on the white walls, saw at least one individual fall and try to rise while his opponent continued kicking him, saw another absorb a punishing roundhouse and go down like a dropped handkerchief.
    Beside him, Miss Pretoria cleared her throat. “There are screens,” she said, and touched the wall he leaned against. “Please sit.”
    Vincent did, back to the wall, and Kusanagi-Jones was comforted when he saw Vincent surreptitiously dial his wardrobe higher. Kusanagi-Jones wasn’t the only one feeling exposed. Miss Pretoria continued fussing with the wall, and images blossomed under her hands. These were the same combats being carried out below, close-up, in real time. Nothing here was faked, or even as ritualized as the pre-Diaspora bloodsports that had masqueraded as contests of athletic prowess. It was a public display of barbarism that Kusanagi-Jones should have found shocking if he were at all well socialized.
    Vincent shifted slightly, leaning back in his chair, but Kusanagi-Jones wouldn’t allow himself to give away so much. Instead, he placed himself in the seat before Vincent, beside Miss Pretoria, and leaned forward to speak into her ear as another roar went up from the galleries and—on the sand, on the monitors—another man fell. Medics came to him, capable women checking his airway and securing him to a back board, and the view on the monitor shifted to the weary champion feted by the referees. Around them, Kusanagi-Jones saw women consulting datacarts and bending in close conversation.
    “What’s the prize?”
    Miss Pretoria considered him for a moment. “Status. To the victors go a choice of contracts; households with more status will bid for preferred males. Which benefits both them, and their mothers and sisters—”
    Kusanagi-Jones didn’t need to turn to see Vincent’s expression. He hadn’t let his fisheye drop since they set foot planetside.
    Vincent reached past him, leaning forward, and indicated the monitor. “You’re selecting for aggressive men?”
    Miss Pretoria showed her teeth. “We’re not docile, Miss Katherinessen. And we’re not interested in forcing males to conform to standards that ignore what nature intended for them.”
    She said it easily, without apparent irony. But the look Vincent shot the back of Kusanagi-Jones’s head had enough of that for all three of them and the self-effacing security