They woke with a start to a knock at the door of their hotel room. Justice and Renna took stock quickly, panicking, then realizing where they were quickly rose to their feet. “Hold up. I’ll get it.” He grabbed his pants up from the floor.

“Just, wait, they gave us bathrobes, remember?” said Jenna, holding her head. She’d taken a few shots herself in the past twenty-four hours and wasn’t used to the abuse. Offering no more objections she slid back into bed, pulling the covers over her.

“Uh, sure. Butcher shop might be on display for the general public but I don’t mind if you don’t.” Sliding into the robe, an extra-large, it pulled tight at his shoulders and wouldn’t cover his chest but it did cover his lower body. “Hold up.” and he realized he could tuck a flap up between his legs. “That oughtta keep the kielbasa at bay. Coming!” he shouted in response to a repeat knock.

Opening the door he found himself faced with a young man in a weird red suit. Bellhops, they were called, and they were all over the building. Renna had threatened him with violence if he wouldn’t stop openly laughing at their outfits but she was still in bed. As such he allowed himself a little chuckle. “Heh, hey there. Mornin’ to ya.”

“Uh, yes, sir, your breakfasts? Three Americans, two Continentals? I assume you want them inside the room?” For such a skinny little monkey the kid sure had an attitude.

“Oh yeah! Breakfast. Nice. Let’s do it.” Justice was a lot hungrier than he realized. Smelling the food, especially the bacon, there was an audible gurgling from his guts. He pulled the cart right out of the kid’s hands and pulled it into the room. “We got grub!” he shouted before turning back and realizing “Whoa! You’re still here!”

Renna called out from beneath the covers “he wants a tip, Justice! I told you I put some twenties in the nightstand!” So she had; breaking one of the many large bills into many small bills.

Grabbing a twenty from the drawer Justice held it up between himself and the bellhop. “Twenty dollars. Damn. Y’know, this is about two weeks pay for a Private in the army back in the nineteenth century. You should appreciate that.”

Staring at Justice like he was an alien the bellhop took the bill without ever closing his mouth. Snapping out of it as he looked down at the bill he started for the door. “Right … well, thank you sir. Just let us know if you need anything else.” Never turning away from Justice he was clearly disturbed.

“Justice, baby, you have to watch that. Nobody talks about what things were like a hundred years ago like that. Just … all the time!” She sat up, still wearing her Anatoli shirt.

“I don’t think it’s that weird.” muttered Justice.

“It’s weirder!” came a disembodied voice, Derglabin, as he scuttled out from under the bed. “Finally! Food. They took way too long.”

Renna chuckled. “Oh, so you ordered room service, huh?”

“Of course. My body prepares to shed again and I require much protein. Seeing how this one eats I ordered much extra food. This comes with me to my den. Don’t go back to sleep! It has been light for many hours!” Derglabin disappeared again, one of the plates in his possession.

Looking at the clock Justice exclaimed “Oh!” It was after eleven. “Man, I ain’t never slept that late in my life. My mom with a switch, trumpet, alarm, somethin’ always woke me up.

“We didn’t set an alarm. We were only asleep for seven hours, Justice. Considering all that’s happened I don’t think it matters if we slept for twelve hours.” She took a plate of food extended her way by Justice. Inhaling the scent she heaved a heavy sigh and took the second plate. “We both have two plates?” she asked.

“Yeah, looks that way.” said Justice, sliding back into the bed. “Anything you got left over I can finish. Ever since I got dropped in space, shit, how many years ago is it now? Anyway, I eat about double on a normal day. Yesterday was nowhere near normal.”

“Yesterday just ended. Mm.” said Renna, cramming a whole slice of bacon in her mouth like it was bite-sized. “What next?” she asked, mouth full. Then, more clearly “we finally have our feet under us. Do we just … wait? Wait for that Rockefeller character to show himself?”

Justice pondered. Mostly he stuffed his face, but, also, he pondered. “I reckon we gotta do more than just rest and wait. I mean, shit, what if we fail? What if we gotta run?”

“We just pile into the Chrono Car, Justice. Why? What do you … oh…”

“Glen. Yeah.” Justice let himself be sad for a moment. “I’m responsible for that boy. Imagine if I took him away from his simple life as a bear cub, dragged him into the human world, into this crazy bullshit filled with gods and monsters, then let him die to brain-eating corpses. I raised that boy up from a cub, saw him, against all odds, become a grown man. What’s up with that, anyway!?”

Renna shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like I can research it here anyway. Scientific advancement slows to a crawl around now. Miniaturization makes impressive advances but, with an increasing private profit motive, every advance has to be milked for money before the next can be revealed. The genetic tools to map Glen’s condition won’t exist for almost a century.”

“The guys back at Spacefleet, in the Galactic Union, they said we evolved. That bears needed a few thousand years to develop speech and even then only if it made the bear more survivable. Shit, they said I was a step backwards. A caveman.”

Renna spoke at the same time “Caveman, right.”, shaking her head. “So how do we make contact with Glen? He’s a celebrity, getting flown back and forth across the country by that wrestling promoter.” She tugged her shirt, Anatoli, Glen’s alter ego, pictured on the front.

“I dunno. He ain’t called in a long while. We can leave him a message at their office on the east coast. No idea how long that could take.”

Renna nodded. “And we already know he doesn’t want to do … this.” As Justice sighed, looking down at his palms, Renna shot him a smile. “Y’know, he’s called me a few times.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“What!? Why didn’t he talk to me?” Justice was immediately hurt.

“Because the first few times he talked to you you pressured him to drop what he was doing and stay with us. He called, each time, middle of the day, when you’d be out, to ask about your last fight and when the next one was. He had great timing that way. Every time I’d tell him you won. Easily. He knows you had that last fight yesterday evening. So, y’know, a few days he’ll probably call. The houseline is going to be dead any time now, since it was in Chad’s name, so he’ll call the cellphone. That … giant ugly brick of yours.”

Cramming the last of his toast down his gullet Justice frowned. “I … I gotta go somewhere for a minute, baby. Walk this off. My boy don’t wanna talk to me. Dammit.”

“Oh, honey, no.” Renna put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s just, y’know, he’s grown.”

“Yeah…” sighed Justice, slipping into a pair of era appropriate track pants and an unsoiled athletic shirt. “Fuck shoes, man.” he said, confusing Renna, before slipping out the door.

“Why…?” she wondered aloud, sliding over to Justice’s side of the bed. Picking up his sneakers, bought only a month before, she found that the soles were collapsed and pushed out to the sides. They were split in two at some point in the last day. “Oh, Justice.” She had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

—

Down in the hotel gym Justice lapped the floor a few times. “Treadmill’s stupid. I’ll just jog before usin’ that. Rower. What’s that gonna do?” On his second lap he stopped at the bench press. “Is there even a point?” he wondered aloud before taking a seat.

The goal was working off nervous energy but, instead, all Justice seemed to do was work himself up more. Three-hundred pounds on the bar and nobody batted an eye. Four-hundred and people started to watch. At five-hundred pounds he had an audience. “What the hell are all y’all gawkin’ at!?” The people spread out but they didn’t leave.

It seemed like he was attracting both gym patrons and passerby who saw the bar bending from the hallway; the entirety of the gym walls were glass on two sides. As he moved up to six-hundred pounds, doing sets, he finally started to sweat. “Damned boy… Abandoned me, what he did.”

With nine plates on each side and the bar Justice was at eight-hundred and fifty-five pounds. Stalking the gym briefly he found some chains and came stalking back. Several fit young men were examining what he’d put on the bar and one was pushing on it in vain, not even able to move it enough to, doubtless, kill himself if it did move. “G’wan, kids. Look out.” The young men moved, giving space, but keeping an eye on the goings on. Justice hung the chains next to his hands, pressed the weight ten times, the press itself flexing with the weight.

Sitting up he found dozens of eyes on him. “What is wrong with you people? Man’s got a right to exercise a little!” and, satisfied by the ridiculous lift, leaving no room on the bar for anything more, most people scattered. One man, gray haired, dressed in a suit, remained. Holding a suitcase he stared at Justice, nodding. “Christ. What, man? What do you want?”

“That, what you just did, that was a world record. Did you know that?” asked the old man.

“What? Is it? People track that shit?” asked Justice, toweling off, finally building a good sweat.

“They do. I mean … I don’t, typically, but my boss is very interested in that sort of thing. Apparently there’s a man who thinks he can break seven hundred, maybe eight, in the strongman world championships this November. Here you are though, not even competing, not even trying … how much is that on the bar anyway?”

“Uh … nine-hundred. Plus the chains, I guess … not sure what they weigh. Not much. Why?” The old guy was really staring hard.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, Justice?” He cocked an eyebrow, shooting a smile.

“Can’t say as I do old-timer. I ain’t really from around here. Been in California about three months.”

“Sounds about right. About the same time as your son went off on his own, right?” he asked, nodding emphatically.

“What in the fuck did you just say?” Justice’s hackles came up anew.

“Now now, Justice, Anatoli sent me. See? He told me about your fights, every week or so, whenever they’d happen. Hell of a thing. The young man off, being a celebrity, but the father’s busting heads in real fights … real nasty fights.”

“Shit.” Justice squinted at the old guy. “You was in the ring when I busted up that Brutus guy.”

“That’s right. Name’s John, Johnny Johnson, former International Champion with Wrestling: Worldwide. Now I’m what they call a road agent. Now, normally, we don’t go looking for real fighters per se, at least not fighters who haven’t been trained in professional wrestling, but you … you’re a little different aren’t you?” John took a seat on the bench next to Justice and leaned in.

“Uh … that’s enough rest time! Gotta do a set!” blurted Justice, falling back and putting the steel up another ten times. He did it slow to milk the time then held the bar up for a few extra seconds before dropping the bar back down. Sitting up he looked over at the old guy, frowning.

“Yup. I’m still here.”

“But why, man? Shit.”

“I’m here with an offer, which I think you recognize. So why are you upset?” asked John.

“‘Cause I came down here to work off bein’ mad at my kid and here you are talkin’ about my kid.” Justice snorted.

And so did John. “That’s … that’s pretty dumb.”

“Yeah.” Justice chuckled. “I guess it is.”

Both men laughed, John stopping first. “Look, it’s a good offer. And, unlike what you’re doing now, the job is not to hurt people for real.” John opened his briefcase, digging out a clipboard. “Lucky the fight purse gave you enough to stay at this hotel so you could be here when I was checking out. I was about to go back to Connecticut empty-handed.”

“Uh, look, man, I don’t know. My boy, honestly, needs to come home, and I don’t need to be leavin’, y’know? We was just about to make contact with your home office, get a message to him. We got … family stuff. Stuff we gotta do.”

John nodded as Justice spoke. “Mm-hm. Mm-hm. And would it have anything to do with, I don’t know, a certain drug dealer going up in smoke?” asked the old man conspiratorially. “My contact told me not an hour ago that your handler was found dead, no sign of the fight purse that I know was loaded into his car by valet.”

“Uh … how you know that?” Justice asked, suddenly nervous, looking around for security cameras.”

“Like I said, I was sent for you, Justice. By your son and by my boss; he recommended you for a very special position. You’d be a star, just like your son, working with your son sometimes no doubt. But, while, as my contacts tell me, the police are actually not investigating what happened to Chad, I think it would be easier for you if you just weren’t in Los Angeles. Think about it. Please. Family reunion or stay home, a home you haven’t lived in for long, or come with me. This is the winning play, Justice.”

Staring at the old man, younger than he seemed at first, just silver-maned, trying to read the upside down contract on his clipboard, Justice felt like a rat in a trap. “Can … can I at least talk to my woman first?”

“Oh Justice, I’d be surprised if you didn’t. C’mon, I’d love to meet her.” and John stood up, motioning for Justice to go first.

Stepping out of the gymnasium Justice led John to the elevator and, as the doors slid shut, he realized that things were going to get weirder before they got better.