The venue was an abandoned warehouse. In a city filled with such structures it was a lock that no police would come sniffing around. In fact, chances were a few crooked cops would be acting as security for the event. There was an open garage door leading to an indoor lot that would keep the vehicles of high rollers and bigshots’ out of sight since what was happening was, technically, illegal. Justice looked at the over-long cars they called Limos, thinking of how the Chrono Car looked to him the first time he saw it. Ridiculous. These were all just carriages to him and their horses were under the hood.

The excitement was palpable from the driver’s seat. “Got a few fights before you, my man. Maybe get a few drinks in before you go on; you seem tense. Don’t want you to lose your grip, end things too soon.” said Chad.

Justice stared forward, trying not to grit his teeth. “Yeah, well, liquor don’t do shit for me nowadays so I don’t know.” He was feeling controlled, something he was really sick of feeling. It didn’t help that he knew about something coming in five years that he’d much rather focus on, something nobody else knew.

“Look, our drinks are all comped, okay? I want it to look like the odds are against you. If that means you throw back a bottle and fake being drunk then you do it.” Chad’s energy stayed high but it was clearly a nervous energy, not anger, not joy but capable of becoming anything at the drop of a hat.

Justice wondered what sort of substance his manager was on. “Christ. I know this shit is underground and illegal but do you really gotta cheat the system this much? How you know people will bet against me anyway? Four months undefeated, fifteen men busted up in as many minutes. It’s too late to fool anybody.”

“Okay! Okay, look at it this way; you’ll get half, no, forty percent of the winnings. That enough incentive? I don’t care how, play drunk, play weak, but play the damned game and we’ll both come out okay at the end of the day.” Chad slapped the steering wheel for emphasis. “Get your papers forged, get you out of my basement, real jobs for you and your girl, reach for the stars! That’s what you want, right?”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Yeah, man. Yeah…” Justice wasn’t really comfortable with any of this. “What’s the deal with this guy I’m whoopin’ tonight anyway?”

Outside the driver’s door a burly gentleman dressed in black stood, opening it for Chad then taking his keys. “Careful.” he said to the valet. “She’s a Camaro. Cherry. Less than a hundred miles on her. She might be too much woman for ya so idle her easy into the space, okay, big man?” Chad grinned at the oversized valet who didn’t so much as smile in reply. He then turned to Justice who had come around to join him. “Big guy, bigger than you, bigger than chuckles here.” The Camaro jerked forward, the valet having trouble with the clutch or something. “Watch it! That thing costs as much as your house, man!”

“How big?” asked Justice as he started to walk towards the entrance that was labelled “talent only”.

Chad made an expansive gesture with both arms. “Big. His name is McVeigh. Hair short of seven foot but no basketball player. British. Former boxer who lost a step, turned powerlifter but got blackballed for steroids and then stopped doing cardio entirely. Long story short he’s about four-hundred and fifty pounds.”

Justice scoffed. “And I’m supposed to make that look good? Some slow, has-been fat guy?”

“No! He’ll look like crap no matter what you do. He is an ugly man. Dmitri, the guy who brought him over from Blackpool, is sure he can take you because you don’t worry about avoiding hits and McVeigh is a knockout artist with reach. This guy, he’s never hit anybody in these underground fights that didn’t go down. The fight’s usually a smaller man evading then, boom, knockout after a single punch lands. That’s why, when you take it on the chin … you have to fall down.”

Justice did a double-take. “What? Fuck no!” he was horrified.

“Shhh! Keep it quiet. And fuck yes. Haven’t you ever acted before?” Chad took off his sunglasses to show the huge pupils in his bloodshot green eyes. “You’ll still do your thing at the end just play it up like he’s a fucking challenge! Get it?”

Justice knew what it took to put him down, cybernetic strength, energy blasters, and the thought of a right cross putting him down at all bothered him. “I get it. I get it! Let’s just get this over with.”

“Oh no, no sir. You’re putting on a show tonight. A performance. Not just getting it ‘over with’. That’s the whole point. Bareknuckle, no holds barred, these fights are too brutal for the government. They’ll let boxers crack each other’s skulls but this … no liberal asshole could ever suffer to exist. And rich fucks, the kind of loons who own islands, keep harems of young girls and order off-menu so they can eat human meat bet on it, Justice!”

“Cannibals? Are you fucking serious?” hissed Justice. “And what about girls!?”

“That’s what they say. And, hey, he isn’t slow. You will be getting hit for sure.”

“Forget about that! Were those high rollers at my other fights? Or … shit, this is the first one in a place like this.” Justice was thrown by the nature of the building. The windows were all boarded up blocking the interior lights from reaching the outside. “First bunch were outside. Barrel fires for light.”

“Some of them were, yeah. That first fight, where we met, you got my attention and I bet on you. I took ten grand off a hedge fund manager when you floored that bum. The second fight, yes, outside but with many more people including a bunch of slumming rich assholes. This event, this is where the illegal underground combat league comes up from the slums.”

“Great. Anything else I should know?” asked Justice, feeling miserable. He’d been dancing for the scum of the earth and he had to do it at least one more time. Worse, he’d have to show weakness when he had more strength to give.

The pair entered into a vast room that was, no doubt, originally a large office divided into a few hundred cubicles. Now there was a bar in one corner, a bookie in another and a pair of entrances for the crowd in the far wall. Many had already come in, filling an area surrounding the cage in which Justice would later fight. “Yeah. The odds are currently ten-to-one in your favor. I want that to be ten to one against you. Look, here’s the arena. Go to that bar and drink enough to make them all believe you’re smashed. I don’t want to hear from you until it’s time for the fight to start. Connie! You bitch, get over here!” Chad ran into the crowd, grabbing a redhead.

Surly, sad, Justice sidled up to the bar, plopping down on a stool. “Hey, barkeep!” he shouted at a slim, effeminate young man.

Walking over the bartender raised an eyebrow. “What can I do ya for, Hercules?” he asked, tracing Justice’s chest and shoulders with his eyes.

Justice squirmed anew. He was already being treated by livestock by rich assholes and now some random guy was looking at him like a slab of meat. “I’m fightin’ in the main event and I don’t wanna fuckin’ be here. My drinks are free, right?”

The young man gave a fetching smile that Justice had no interest in. “Well, yeah. Always. What you want?” he asked, cleaning a glass.

Justice looked hard at the bartender who, though a man, wore makeup and a tube top. Then he looked around him and pointed. “Yeah, uh, I’ll take that bottle of Macallan single malt.”

“Oh?” he turned around, pointed, got a nod from Justice and picked it up. “Oh wow. Twenty-five years aged … from nineteen-sixty-two. Oh boy. I’m … I’m supposed to charge four hundred dollars per shot of this. And it’s half full.” He seemed terrified.

“But my drinks are free.” stated Justice matter-of-factly.

“They sure are!” and the bartender smiled a rictus grin, grabbed a shot glass and tried to set both bottle and glass before Justice.

“Take that little bastard glass away right now. I’ll just be taking the bottle. Expect to see more of me.” With that, Justice walked away and assumed a position against a boarded window, watching the festivities as the bartender huffed and worried about the liquid gold that had just flowed away from him.

Justice stared at the cage. He didn’t mind fighting, maybe because his record was as good as it was. Just about the only loss he could recall was the ambush by his future self and, even then, he got back up and, in the end, was the only survivor. Still felt like a loss because of the dead kid and still felt like yesterday, even though it was actually far past tomorrow and may not happen at all. Timespace was weird.

So inwardly focused was Justice that he failed to notice someone approach until that person brushed his whiskey hand with a few fingers. “Hey there, tiger; what’s a girl got to do to get a shot of that bottle?”

Justice turned, eyebrow cocked, to see a porcelain-skinned redhead with an hourglass figure, half dressed and staring at him like he was a cut of prime rib. This was less unwelcome as looking at this lady, unlike looking at the bartender, actually did something for him. “Well, I reckon the best way is to travel back in time and get to the bottle before me.” Justice winked but took a swig of the liquor to emphasize that he was going to bogart the bottle.

“Oh, poo.” she pouted, actually sticking out her lower and very red lip to illustrate her disappointment.

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Justice couldn’t have that disappointment on his conscience. Besides, he was bored. “My drinks are comped though so, y’know, I could get you somethin’ no problem.”

“That would be wonderful, thank you. I swear, you’re the first gentleman I’ve encountered in this place.” She leaned back against the wall next to Justice, as if to wait.

Making sure the bartender wasn’t looking first Justice tucked the bottle he had up under his arm and under his Hawaiian shirt. Making his approach he held up his finger and started to speak to the man as a patron walked away with his drink. “Hey, gar-soan, need me another bottle, por favor.”

“Oh no, forget about it. Comped or no if I hand you another bottle of the good stuff they will murder me. That isn’t play, buddy, if you know these people then you know it’s true.”

“Whoa, whoa now. That’s fine. It can be a little bit of rotgut. Cheap stuff’s fine. Last time was just, y’know, a treat. Just, y’know, top me off with whatever…”

“Okay…” The bartender eyed Justice suspiciously. “And it has to be a bottle again?”

“Yeah, man. No offense but I don’t wanna be askin’ for a shot every five seconds.”

“Fair enough. How about a bottle of Jack from last year? Not even opened.” He extended it towards Justice. “Take it or leave it. You look tough but I’d rather get roughed up by you than get dragged to death by my own intestines.”

“Fuck, man. I was gonna say yes anyway. Dragged by your guts?” Justice clearly found this appalling.

“Oh, so you don’t know… It’s a real den of vipers here, buddy. I mean … you’re taking part in the human equivalent of dogfighting. Watch yourself.” Raising the bottle and pressing it into Justice’s palm he went on “to your health, hopefully. And please don’t come back. Two bottles in five minutes? I serve you again they’ll accuse me of fixing your fight.”

“Uh, yeah. Yours too and fine, I won’t be back.” Justice swaggered back towards the lady.

“Again no tip. He really doesn’t know how this place works.” said the bartender, cleaning a glass.

“There ya go, lady.” Justice called out, handing the redhead her nice new bottle before withdrawing his own from his shirt.

Somewhere in the distance a voice was heard to call “Really!?” Yes, it was the bartender.

“Why thank you, sir. Um…” She looked at the top of the bottle.

“You okay? It’s a twist-off. No cork.” Justice took a swig of the old, well-aged stuff. He was actually starting to feel a little bit of a buzz. He’d almost forgotten that happy feeling he’d get when pleasantly blitzed.

“Well, you are a big, strong man and I, well…” she held up her hand, revealing a literal velvet glove.

“Oh, don’t wanna take off your gloves huh? I get it. Why you wanna wear gloves that’re over a foot long anyway?” Justice took the bottle from her, twisted, and with a “tink” sound the entire top broke off. “Whoops…”

“You … you didn’t remove the seal. The cap couldn’t come off because of the seal. So … you ripped the top off the bottle?” She was beyond amazed.

“Oh, uh, must’ve been defective. Look; it ain’t even sharp.”

Examining it closely she took the bottle back, touched it to her lips (again, gloves, couldn’t feel the edge with her fingers), decided that it was okay and so took a swig. Coughing, she extended her hand. “I’m Scarlett.”

Her hand disappeared utterly into Justice’s and he shook it heartily, not as a gentleman to a lady but more just like a loose dude who wasn’t thinking much. “I’m Justice Haymaker, Union soldier and Lieutenant Commander in Spacefleet. Pleased to meet ya.” He took another pull on the bottle of good stuff.

Scarlett laughed uproariously at this while also flexing the hand that withstood the handshake. “Really!? Well it’s nice to meet you, spaceman.” she said, apparently missing the part about the Union. “You’re really hitting that bottle hard.”

“Oh hell yeah, Macallan? This sumbitch was aged twenty-five years before it was bottled which means it’s about fifty now. I needed something strong to take my mind off the bullshit situation I’m in. It’s workin’, too. Feelin’ happy. Ain’t felt shit from the liquor in years now.”

“Well that’s good at least. Hey, hold on … the first fight is starting.”

She was right. Justice looked at the cage. A man with a microphone started shouting. After a bunch of nonsense about the event’s benefactors, naming some high-rollers and a reminder to tell no one about these proceedings he moved on to introducing the first fighters. “In the red corner, standing three-foot-four, ‘Mighty Mini’ Max Muscles!”

The cage was raised up or Justice would’ve totally missed the fighter in question. “It’s a little fella! Holy shit!” Both he and Scarlett laughed.

“And his opponent, in the blue corner, “Little Boy” Nuke Connors!” A second little person did some flips to the joy of the crowd.

“They’re gonna fight! I ain’t never seen no midget before! Now I see two and they’re gonna fight! Holy shit!”

What followed was a surprisingly brutal encounter wherein the little men wailed on each other mercilessly. Neither had the equipment to knock the other unconscious in a stand up fight so, when one would be stunned, the other would jump up and down on him with both feet or climb the cage to smash him from above. The end came when Muscle, the bigger of the two, attempted to combine these tactics with a top-of-the-cage stomp that Nuke avoided. Then, when Max got up hobbling, Nuke grappled him and started biting his Achilles tendon. Having his injury get chewed on by human teeth was enough for Max to give up, crying for his mother after.

Justice didn’t seem to hear the announcer any more after this. More contests passed by. First there were two obvious martial artists, the kind that trained to fight in the Olympics, looking for a payday. Back and forth they slugged it out, hand and foot, before one managed to hit a brutal hip toss followed by an axe kick across the temple of the downed man.

At this point Scarlett suggested they “...get out of here? I saw an old office just outside the talent entrance that would be just perfect for us to have a little fun in.” She reached up under Justice’s muscle shirt, her hand no longer encased in a glove, her eyes getting big as she reached his chest. “You’re … just chiseled out of marble, aren’t you?”

It felt amazing. Like, it didn’t make sense how good it felt. No human had touched Justice there and caused pleasure, ever, let alone with just their hand. “Now you, hm, you look here, little missy. Don’t go gettin’ no ideas. I got a little lady at home I plan on marryin’. She wouldn’t take too kindly to me havin’ no naked fun with no strange ladies here on this planet.”

Scarlett was clearly annoyed by the rejection but mouthed the word “planet?” and laughed uproariously for the second time that night.

The next contest, ironically (in Justice’s mind), was a jello wrestling match between two women in string bikinis. A child’s pool was quickly inflated in the cage, filled with gelatin and the girls got to work. Justice laughed quite a bit until the girls ripped each other’s tops off, started using their fingernails and teeth. The match ended much like the first except, in this case, one naked girl bit the nipple of the other one to get the submission.

“I … I gotta be honest, I did not see that fight gettin’ bloody. I mean, their titties came out like in a burlesque show but then … did that girl’s nipple come off? It didn’t, did it?”

Scarlett shook her head at Justice, eyes narrowed at his innocence. “Really? Everything you’ve seen and you’re surprised that the ladies are as brutal as the men?”

“Uh, well, truth be told I ain’t never seen no ladies really fight. Not like that. Trainin’ at the Academy, maybe pullin’ hair over a man but … damn.”

One last contest went on and it was a couple of heavyweights, men Justice’s size. Neither one was a trained fighter, that much was clear, as they slammed fists into man meat madly. It was as if a pair of viking beserks had found each other on the battlefield and torn each other apart. One found the other leaning against a corner support of the cage and swung an obvious cudgel he’d gotten from a man outside the cage. The victim went down as if shot and didn’t move again, his head sandwiched between the weapon and the steel of the cage support.

“Shit! Ref, man, he’s got a weapon!” but Justice couldn’t possibly be heard over the crowd.

Scarlett grabbed ahold of Justice, a jolt of pleasure arcing his spine. “There aren’t any rules, Justice. If someone pulled a gun he’d be filled full of lead before he could use it but anything else is fair game. If whatever happens in the cage can’t touch anyone outside of the cage they do not care.”

Justice thrown by the brutality. “Man … and I gotta dance for my dinner later. Ain’t that some shit?”

Avoiding eye contact Scarlett seemed upset. “Justice?”

“Yeah darlin’? Hey, thanks for keepin’ me company while I wait. My girl, she’s been down, like way down lately. Chad, my manager, he’s just scum, y’know? Left me to wait with nothin’.”

“Please, Justice. They’re going to call your name any minute. I have to tell you something.”

“Well I’m listenin’, lady. Why so grim?” Justice grinned bigger than he ever remembered grinning before.

“Justice, I haven’t met anyone like you since I came to California. I … I came up in Kentucky–”

“My mom’s from West Virginia! Dad’s from New York City if you can believe it.”

“Stop! Listen. You seem so decent! I thought for sure that when I asked you to have sex with me earlier you’d jump at the chance but you just talked about your woman instead.”

“I know and I’m sorry about that. Rejection ain’t no fun–”

“Shut up, dammit! I drugged you, you idiot!” She was tearing up. “MDMA! Extacy!”

“I don’t understand.” He laughed. “You didn’t give me shit, lady. How you drug me?”

“Pills. Three of them. In your bottle. I did it right when I walked up and touched you on the hand.”

Suddenly Justice remembered the initial touch and how he was so focused on the fights that she was able to approach without him noticing. Alcohol, which hadn’t affected him since his transformation, giving him a happy feeling after maybe a half hour, which intensified as he drank. He looked at his bottle. Empty. He looked at Scarlett, eyes huge, in horror. “Why!? People kill each other here! Everybody says so! Now I’m … my whole skin’s like a fuckin’ foreskin!”

“You don’t understand! It’s my boyfriend! He’s a monster! I had to!”

“I have to win tonight! Chad’s got me fucking enslaved! If I lose I might be homeless!” Justice paused. He was incredibly tough but, really, if this giant of a man started laying into him in this state with a weapon, could he survive?

Suddenly, in the distance, more distant than it first sounded when he heard it, the announcer’s voice rang out. “And now, ladies and gentleman … are you ready for the main event!” The crowd erupted in cheers.

“I’m sorry!” Scarlett cried again.

“I’m a dead man…” Justice muttered, waiting for his name to be called and the end to begin.