Read Futureland - Nine Stories of an Imminent World for Free Online Page A
Authors: Walter Mosley
get him," Fera declared. "All I need is one shot and he'll cave in." Each round she went out streaming sweat and oozing confidence, but at the bell she came back another point down on the scorecards.
In the seventh Konkon let loose. It was toward the end of the round and Fera was breathing hard. She'd thrown her full artillery at the slippery Fijian. If she had connected with anything, the announcers were certain that Mathias would have wound up in the hospital. But the shorter boxer had figured out just the right crouch to avoid a haymaker. When he saw that his opponent was temporarily winded, he threw a full-fledged attack at her head.
"Jones is in trouble!" Atkinson exclaimed at ringside.
"He'd do better to attack the body," Bonner added conservatively. "Kill the body and the head will fall." At that moment, Mathias connected to Fera's jaw with a jolting right cross. Fera Jones sprawled out on her back, unconscious from every indication. But while the referee was waving the exultant Konkon back to his corner, Fera Jones opened her eyes and willed herself to her feet.
"She's cut!" Bonner yelled. "She's cut over her right eye!" The blood was cascading down the right side of her face. But Fera Jones didn't even dab at it with her glove.
The referee asked her did she want to go on.
She nodded.
He asked her another question.
She answered to his satisfaction.
He waved for the fight to continue, but the bell rang before another blow could be thrown. Doc Blevins was in the corner with his steel compressor and cotton sticks, ready for his charge. His bald head was painted black and red for the colors of Jones's trunks. There was a bright green stripe painted across his forehead for his Irish mother.
The ring doctor stood at the side, watching the procedure closely. Pell stood over his fighter, his fists clenched as if he wanted to hit her himself.
Instead he pinched the flesh at the tip of her chin, hard. Her eyes, vacant until then, cleared.
"He's gonna beat you, you stupid cow. He's gonna beat you 'cause you out there fightin' like a girl. Like a fuckin' girl." Every word was broadcast around the globe on VIN, Video International Network. "You're the best fighter that ever lived and you're throwin' it away 'cause you don't want to do what you're supposed to do."
"I can get him," she said.
"Not if you don't jab. He's got you so girly out there that you forgot how to box. He's made a fool outta you, and look at you. All blooded up and ugly. It's over. I'm throwin' in the towel." Pell reached for the towel. He picked it up.
"No, don't," Fera said, more like a child than a machine of destruction. "I can do it. I can do it." Pell paused, towel in midair there between him and his fighter. Over a hundred million people around the globe watched.
"One round, Fera. One round to prove that you can do what's necessary." The bleeding had been stemmed. Certainty returned to Fera's eyes. She nodded and fifty million women around the world felt their hearts thrum and galvanize. Groucho T, the Internet philosopher, later said,
"The whole world changed between the seventh and eighth rounds." Konkon never had a chance after the seventh. In rounds eight and nine Fera's left jab turned his face into hamburger. In round ten she knocked him to the canvas six times before the referee gave her the win.
"I want to thank Diana for my victory," Fera said to the Eclipse, "with a nod to Legba for sending me his trickster friend, Pell Lightner."
The Radical Feminist Separatist Party of Massachusetts declared that the next day would be a floating holiday, called Fierce Woman Day, and closed down the state. Women around the world bought T-shirts with the images of Fera and Pell on them. The president came to visit Fera in her suite at the Fifth Business, and Time magazine named her Woman of the Century.
Leon Jones had been hospitalized, and was undergoing deep neuronal therapy for severe reaction to Pulse. But he left his bed to come to the
In the seventh Konkon let loose. It was toward the end of the round and Fera was breathing hard. She'd thrown her full artillery at the slippery Fijian. If she had connected with anything, the announcers were certain that Mathias would have wound up in the hospital. But the shorter boxer had figured out just the right crouch to avoid a haymaker. When he saw that his opponent was temporarily winded, he threw a full-fledged attack at her head.
"Jones is in trouble!" Atkinson exclaimed at ringside.
"He'd do better to attack the body," Bonner added conservatively. "Kill the body and the head will fall." At that moment, Mathias connected to Fera's jaw with a jolting right cross. Fera Jones sprawled out on her back, unconscious from every indication. But while the referee was waving the exultant Konkon back to his corner, Fera Jones opened her eyes and willed herself to her feet.
"She's cut!" Bonner yelled. "She's cut over her right eye!" The blood was cascading down the right side of her face. But Fera Jones didn't even dab at it with her glove.
The referee asked her did she want to go on.
She nodded.
He asked her another question.
She answered to his satisfaction.
He waved for the fight to continue, but the bell rang before another blow could be thrown. Doc Blevins was in the corner with his steel compressor and cotton sticks, ready for his charge. His bald head was painted black and red for the colors of Jones's trunks. There was a bright green stripe painted across his forehead for his Irish mother.
The ring doctor stood at the side, watching the procedure closely. Pell stood over his fighter, his fists clenched as if he wanted to hit her himself.
Instead he pinched the flesh at the tip of her chin, hard. Her eyes, vacant until then, cleared.
"He's gonna beat you, you stupid cow. He's gonna beat you 'cause you out there fightin' like a girl. Like a fuckin' girl." Every word was broadcast around the globe on VIN, Video International Network. "You're the best fighter that ever lived and you're throwin' it away 'cause you don't want to do what you're supposed to do."
"I can get him," she said.
"Not if you don't jab. He's got you so girly out there that you forgot how to box. He's made a fool outta you, and look at you. All blooded up and ugly. It's over. I'm throwin' in the towel." Pell reached for the towel. He picked it up.
"No, don't," Fera said, more like a child than a machine of destruction. "I can do it. I can do it." Pell paused, towel in midair there between him and his fighter. Over a hundred million people around the globe watched.
"One round, Fera. One round to prove that you can do what's necessary." The bleeding had been stemmed. Certainty returned to Fera's eyes. She nodded and fifty million women around the world felt their hearts thrum and galvanize. Groucho T, the Internet philosopher, later said,
"The whole world changed between the seventh and eighth rounds." Konkon never had a chance after the seventh. In rounds eight and nine Fera's left jab turned his face into hamburger. In round ten she knocked him to the canvas six times before the referee gave her the win.
"I want to thank Diana for my victory," Fera said to the Eclipse, "with a nod to Legba for sending me his trickster friend, Pell Lightner."
The Radical Feminist Separatist Party of Massachusetts declared that the next day would be a floating holiday, called Fierce Woman Day, and closed down the state. Women around the world bought T-shirts with the images of Fera and Pell on them. The president came to visit Fera in her suite at the Fifth Business, and Time magazine named her Woman of the Century.
Leon Jones had been hospitalized, and was undergoing deep neuronal therapy for severe reaction to Pulse. But he left his bed to come to the