"You should be dead!"

Mickey"s voice broke Crank from his reverie.

Those days are gone... I"m Crank now.

They were still alone in the locker room. There was only one entrance, and that was back to the auditorium and octagon. A m.u.f.fled roar from the crowd rose for some reason. Crank spread his fingers and saw his hands and forearms were almost healed, but he couldn"t stop trembling.

"Too much crack, boy." Mickey shook his head and wiped a tear from his eye. "Did the same thing to your opponent. He was a soldier, before the STC found out about them experimenting on Marines. One-Eye pressured Shredder with crank or meth or crack-whatever tempted him into trouble in the first place-and then set *em in the octagon."

"So why did One-Eye just... kidnap me? Just to fight?"

"Word is he fell into debt. This whole complex cost a bunch of out-of-pocket cash, and One-Eye likes to gamble. Sold Shredder to the compet.i.tion. Lost money on fighters he thought could take down Shredder."

"So the b.a.s.t.a.r.d brought me back to... pay off gambling debts?" Crank shook his head and hammered his fist into his hand. "He ruined my life and kidnapped Natasha and William... for this?"

"He"s on the s.h.i.t, too, kid. Don"t matter who you are, whether you"re a dealer or user; you do the s.h.i.t, it jacks you up and fills you with stupidity."

Crank looked at the crusted razor wire littering the floor. It looked like pieces of nanotechnology that had fallen from his body. Mickey had had One-Eye send down vials of rocks. They rested on the blood splattered bench. Although Crank felt the burning need, the thought of smoking those rocks sickened him.

"Remember when we used to talk about death, Mickey? Back in prison?"

"You ain"t dying anytime soon, boy."

"No, I ain"t worried about that."

"What then?" Mickey looked worried. "What"s on your mind?"

"I wonder what happens to someone like us when we die."

"Did you see your opponent in the ring, boy?" Mickey spat into the corner. "That"s what happens when we die. That nanotechnology is in our bloodstream, and once the blood bleeds out-"

"But I was told the nanonites worked their way into the flesh after a time, which was how we heal so rapidly."

The locked door burst open. The m.u.f.fled roar of the crowd went up a decibel, and a woman screamed. One-Eye ran inside with three guards brandishing M-16s.

"Lock that door," One-Eye yelled, then ordered a guard to train his weapon on Crank.

"What-?" Crank began to say, but a loud noise at the locked door echoed.

The metal door bent inward.

"That"s either a policeman"s battering ram," Mickey said, "or you have a p.i.s.sed off Nano-Prisoner."

That"s what the Press called them: Nano-Prisoners. Those who were no longer in prison were called Nano-Civilians.

"It"s Shredder," One-Eye said, adjusting his eye patch. "He"s gone mad."

"Shredder"s dead," Crank said. "I killed him."

The metal door burst open. Crank stood gaping at Shredder, the hole in Shredder"s leg still there, but filling in with flesh. The behemoth"s eyes were glazed. The three guards fired short bursts into Shredder"s chest. He stepped back and growled. When he took a step forward, the guards unloaded their weapons into the giant.

Shredder ran at them screaming.

"Oh, the s.h.i.t"s. .h.i.tting the fan now, boy," Mickey yelled, when the M-16s ran out of ammo.

Shredder ripped the head off the first guard to cross his path, and he tore the throat from the second guard. One-Eye grabbed a fallen M-16 and pushed the third guard, screaming for him to kill Shredder. Shredder tore the guard"s body into two pieces before he could react.

Crank sucker punched Shredder from the side, then shoved Shredder"s head into the wall. Perhaps if he knocked Shredder out, he could escape through the open door.

"Come on, Mickey!"

Through the pain, Shredder crawled toward One-Eye, backing the fat man into a corner and shaking his head. Shredder grabbed One-Eye"s ankle and squeezed. Bone splintered and One-Eye dropped the M-16. It skittered across the floor where Mickey picked it up. Crank sighed with relief when Mickey walked toward him, readying the weapon with a c.o.c.ky grin.

"Let"s find your family, boy."

Crank screamed when Shredder, still decorated with h.e.l.lish razor wire at his hands and feet, stood and sent his fist through Mickey"s back. When he pulled his hand out, he pulled an a.s.sortment of organs from the old man-a heart and what could have been a pale lung-and Mickey collapsed, wheezing in a hoa.r.s.e voice, "Oh, c.r.a.p." He fell on his face, and Shredder glared at Crank with his one whole eye, the other an empty socket.

At that moment, Crank realized Shredder was no longer human.

Shredder moved with the grace of a rhino, but his arms and feet were weapons. Each time Crank blocked his blows, razor wire ripped through his flesh. Suddenly, he was backed against the wall, his forearms shredded down to the bone from Shredder"s relentless hammering.

Somewhere in this G.o.dforsaken s.h.i.thole are Natasha and William, Mickey had told him yesterday, before he"d fought the Oriental fighter. You fight for them.

Shredder struck Crank in the abdomen, and Crank felt the razor-gauntlet penetrate his stomach. Shredder picked him up and looked him in the eye.

"I ain"t gonna" make it, Mickey." Crank"s voice quivered. "I"m... s-sorry."

"Don"t let me down, boy," came Mickey"s wavering voice.

"You"re alive?"

"Told you-too ornery to die."

Mickey lay on his stomach, head turned to the side. The hole in his back swam with blood, but Mickey still moved, impossibly, crawling toward them, still full of fight-still alive! Crank thought of Shredder rising, of Mickey still alive, and he knew... he knew!

We can"t die!

The thought revitalized him. While hanging from Shredder"s arm-while the behemoth hesitated between attacking Mickey or finishing Crank off-Crank reached out and grabbed Shredder"s head, one hand on his chin and one on the top of his head. Nausea pulsed through him, and he would have vomited, but Shredder"s fist occupied the s.p.a.ce where Crank"s stomach had been.

"f.u.c.k you-" Crank screamed and twisted, snapping Shredder"s neck in two. "-and die!"

Shredder fell to the floor. Crank was still stuck to Shredder"s fist, and went down with him. He pushed up with his hands and feet, rising, feeling razor wire catch and slice along his inner organs. Searing razor-points scratched against the undercarriage of his ribs, and he dry heaved the air that blew through his open cavity like icy winds, shooting up into his esophagus. With a scream that sent globs of b.l.o.o.d.y spittle flying, he freed his stomach from the dead man"s gory gauntlet.

Crank collapsed next to Shredder who was already twitching, as nanonites in his body began to heal.

Can the nanonites make appendages grow back, Mickey? he had asked Mickey once. Like a lizard"s tail?

They can repair, but they can"t replicate tissue or regenerate blood loss.

Obviously the old man had been wrong.

"You did phenomenal, boy."

Crank gasped for breath and rolled to his knees.

"f.u.c.k you, old man. I ain"t done yet."

"What"chu gonna" do? f.u.c.k him to death?"

Crank couldn"t catch his breath for a retort. Instead, he crawled for the bolt cutters, his intestines sliding from his body like hot noodles, but already drawing back inside. When he returned to Shredder, the behemoth was beginning to twitch his head from side-to-side.

"You gonna" circ.u.mcise him?" Mickey wheezed.

"I"m gonna" cut off this b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s head."

Somewhere on the complex, Natasha and William were waiting to be released. That thought kept Crank functioning. That and his friend Mickey, who helped steady his hands on the bolt cutters.

They worked side-by-side, holding the big man down as he squirmed. They took turns cutting and kicking and sometimes biting. When the head came off with a loud popping noise, they stuffed it in a locker.

"Grow that back, f.u.c.ker."

Afterwards, they grabbed M-16s and searched for Mack"s family.

A year later, Natasha and Mack sat at a picnic table and watched Mickey playing with William in the park near a weeping willow. Mack held Natasha"s scarred hand, the one that read R.U.T.H. carved into her knuckles. Her other hand finished the word. They had tortured her while Mack fought in the octagon, and she didn"t have nanonites to mend the scars.

Natasha smiled as if she hadn"t a care, as if she hadn"t gone through h.e.l.l the previous year. She always was the stronger one. Watching Mickey play with William, sitting next to her-it was almost too much.

"What"s wrong, baby?" She wiped a tear from Mack"s cheek. "I thought you were tough."

"Pollen."

"Bulls.h.i.t."

"You are so... "

"Ruthless?" she interjected.

Mack flinched, but her smile set him at ease. She placed her hand on his forearm then turned to their son. Mack watched Mickey teaching William footwork in the shade of the weeping willow.

"Bob and jab, you lazy b.u.m," Mickey hollered.

They all laughed when William snuck one in, sending Mickey"s head back.

"Just like your old man, kid."

Birthday Song.

by Thornton Austen.

Carl Hampton celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday with a dead dog. No one ever accused Hampton of being too bright, but one thing he knew to the root of his soul, he hated Scott Sutton. Carl didn"t loathe Scott. He didn"t merely despise Scott. He wanted him gone, with Scott dead if it had to be that way.

As Carl drug his burden through the thicket toward Scott"s house, he mused to himself, Maybe this trick will finally get the kid to move on.

Behind him, he dragged the carca.s.s of Digger, Fibber McClain"s big white German shepherd, by its collar. Carl hated Digger almost as much as he hated Scott. A little antifreeze took care of the dog. Too bad it couldn"t be that simple with the boy.

The mutt"s carca.s.s weighed a ton and snagged every stub, sapling, and brier in the thicket. Carl tired of kicking it loose every few steps. Even though frost coated the ground that morning, beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.

"I"m getting too old for this s.h.i.t," he murmured and spat out a plume of fog that hung dead in front of his face. He gave a heavy tug and pulled the dog loose from another tangle. As Digger pulled free, Carl lost his balance and fell into a nest of waiting briers. They gnawed through his overalls and bit his flesh.

This is your last chance, kid.

Maybe Scott wouldn"t take a hint this time either. If he didn"t, Carl could just knock the boy in the head and burn the house down around his ears. Maybe instead, he"d tie Scott up along with his r.e.t.a.r.d baby and they could watch what he would do with Brenda. Scott"s wife was an uppity little b.i.t.c.h. Carl would enjoy doing her tight a.s.s. At the thought, he could feel Brenda"s flesh give way beneath him and felt himself stiffen. The sudden vigor surprised him, but no time for wishing now.

Closer now, he could see the house and out into Sutton"s yard. Not only did Carl hate Scott, but the house as well. Local legend said the old Banks place was haunted. He knew better than anyone else why. Thinking of the time he spent there sickened him. The first time he went as a kid, he"d looked for old Captain Murphy"s buried gold. Carl was six then. He"d put on airs just to be allowed around long enough to search. That pathetic water head, Johnny Banks, was five.

Johnny"s mother, Missy Banks, welcomed the company and thought it was good for little Johnny, but Carl despised the little freak. Johnny wallowed through life, nothing more than a snot driveling little animal. Missy Banks was just as warped and pathetic for giving that monster life. Even more so for keeping it alive.

Carl saw that nothing stirred around the house. Good. No one but that little terrier mutt of Sutton"s ought to be around. He couldn"t see the dog, but no problem. He would just wring its neck, put it with Digger, and add to the stink.

Carl towed Digger out into the yard. He"d done this before with a dead possum. That odor must not have been strong enough. The German shepherd sure ought to raise a stink under the house. The same low sinkhole below the kitchen would be the spot. Digger was getting stiff and hard to drag. He was much bigger than a possum, but the dog would still be hard to see in that hole. Scott would never find him unless he crawled under the house blind and stuck a hand in Digger"s rotting carca.s.s.

Carl hated patiently, but even a patient hate only went so far. His patience with Scott had reached its end long ago.

Carl pretended to be Johnny Banks" playmate until he couldn"t stand it anymore. He never really played with r.e.t.a.r.d Johnny, but hung around to torment him when Missy wasn"t looking.

He poked Johnny with straight pins to start. He just wanted to make Johnny cry, but the boy never cried. Carl soon learned Johnny couldn"t cry. Pumpkinhead Johnny only made two sounds. He either grunted a loud buck-deer snort or he laughed. Oh, Pumpkinhead Johnny could laugh. The sound made the bile swarm inside Carl and rise in his throat. When Johnny laughed his huge, deformed head swung back and forth like a clock pendulum. His crooked mouth gaped wide showing its jagged bat teeth. The sight made Carl want to puke.

Finally, he made it to the back porch. Digger was too heavy to drag much further. Scott"s mutt still showed no sign of himself. Please let the mutt show. Carl would enjoy choking the life out of the furry little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It would do Sutton good to know a little loss.

The gray sky opened a light drizzle. The air felt cold enough to freeze rain on the trees and power lines. Just what he wanted on his birthday, an ice storm. As Carl opened the plywood hatch to the crawls.p.a.ce, a few stray pellets of sleet bounced off the faded sleeve of his canvas work coat. Ancient musty air rolled out of the hatch and squirmed around his body as he wormed his way through. As Carl"s eyes adjusted to the moonscape below the old Banks house, he remembered how many times he"d been in the rear bedroom just above that spot.

The latest time was during the Sutton"s house warming party four months ago. When he got home from work, Carl snuck through the thicket the same way he"d came today. No one at the party saw him. Everyone was too busy kissing Brenda"s pert a.s.s. Instead of going under the house like he did now, he climbed in through the bedroom window. There, he fired up Scott"s computer and tried to delete the files for that book Scott always worked on. Scott hid the files well or he kept them on a disk, because Carl couldn"t find them. He thought about formatting the hard drive, but there wasn"t time. Any minute, some party guest might bounce through the door and catch him. The best he could do was open the word processor and type a bunch of obscenities and gibberish. Then, an idea popped into his head. He deleted his previous work and in a large fifty-point font he typed, "LEAVE WHITE TRASH LEAVE WHITE TRASH LEAVE WHITE TRASH...," until he filled the page. Carl made sure there was enough paper in the tray and ordered the computer to print 100 copies.

His work done, he climbed back out the window. As he closed the window, a breeze pulled the curtains out around him. The bedroom door swung and slammed like a gunshot. He heard a commotion inside the house and lit out. He knew that Scott, or even better, Brenda, was coming to find his poltergeist activity.

Perfect.