The Mind-Riders. Brian Stableford

face of what you know to be inevitable.

      I cared. I knew I was going to be disappointed.

      In a hypocritical moment, I could tell myself that I wanted Herrera to lose because I disapproved of what he did for the vamps. I could tell myself that I was disgusted by the way they fed on him. And maybe that was true. The thought of countless emotional voyeurs enjoying orgasms every time Herrera threw a K.O. punch was pretty sickening. But in slightly less self-congratulatory moments I had to admit that there was more to it than that. I bore Paul Herrera a grudge.

      And in the beginning of the eleventh, I was charging up—not, like the vamps, on the fighters’ emotion, but on my own. I was getting excited, getting involved. Curled up on the edge of the bed I was tensing my muscles in sympathy. I had my fists clenched and held rigid. I wasn’t waving them or pushing them, just holding them. But if Angeli had landed a good punch I would be able to feel it in one of those fists. I would get the tingling in the nerves as he hit Herrera hard.

      Only he didn’t.

      Under my breath, I was urging Angeli on.

      But he was going to pieces.

      Herrera, with a burst of sheer power, came through Angeli’s guard like a knife and landed a superb combination—left to the temple, right just above the heart.

      Angeli went reeling. His arms went wild, and a third punch, which only glanced off him, put him down. He came up at seven, backed on to the ropes, tried to shield himself and pull Herrera into a clinch. He didn’t make it, and went down to one knee to take eight, still wanting to come back and mix it.

      Back he came, but without all the things which had made him into a contender, kept him going for so long. He couldn’t keep the champ out, couldn’t put together his own punches.

      The bell came, and Angeli went to his corner to be brought back to life, but it was all over. The tally counter no longer mattered, and the link meter was swinging.

      Angeli had held his thirty right to the bitter end, but they were gone now. No one believed in him any more, and most weren’t going to take what Angeli was going to take when he went back to be slaughtered in the twelfth. They were running—flopping back into their chairs in a blind, black drunk, overcharged and ready to let themselves sink. Only the real gluttons would switch to Herrera so late.

      When the twelfth began, Angeli was holding just six percent, and even that seemed high. Old ladies hoping for miracles and groovers who lapped up suffering as well as—or instead of—exultation.

      While Herrera took him apart, knocking him down for a full count half a minute before the end, I trudged down from the sorry heights of forlorn hope. I didn’t want to watch what was left—I wanted to think about something else, but you can’t switch off your eyes and somehow I couldn’t move towards the controls. I saw it all happen.

      There was no real backlash. After it was over, I knew it had always been the same way. I didn’t feel disturbed. I was calm. My unclenched fists were resting easy on the blanket. I just shrugged off the sad adrenalin draining through my bloodstream, and instructed myself not to care.

      Herrera had won again. So what.

      I finally switched off the holo. Herrera would stay with his sim awhile yet so that the vamps could gorge themselves on his triumph a little time longer. It would slide away from its peak very slowly, ebbing away gently rather than plunging down. The connoisseurs reckoned that a better charge than the best of erotic spasms. Chacun à son goût.

      I went to sort through some cassettes, looking for something to take my mind away. Somehow, everything I looked at struck me as being insipid. I found it difficult to choose one.

      Then I tested the cut on my little finger, to see if it still hurt.