Spikay Two was mostly undeveloped, except for a few cities. The city they were going to was called Vikla, and it looked like an industrial park, except for the market streets where people sold things outdoors. Which was weird because it didn’t stop raining. 

Jenna had arranged to be there the day before the boxing match. She and Crimp got a hotel room that surprised both of them when they entered because it was cleaner and nicer than the pictures Ixy had provided of the hotel. It was the nicest she could find in Vikla, but it was still aging. What was once white was now yellow and what was once yellow was now brown. 

Jenna slept on the bed and Crimp slept on the couch. They didn’t go out to eat. Smoothie had sent them with meal replacements and told them firmly that they were not to eat anything. Any foreign food would surely mess with their digestion. They’d be puking or crying on the toilet if they ate a single bite of anything.

When they woke up in the morning after their arrival, Jenna put on the brimmed knit hat Misha had given her to cover her crown and she and Crimp went to look at the market. Jenna bought a belt with a fabulous silver buckle at one of the stands right off the bat. It made her feel like a local, even though she didn’t look anything like a local.

She and Crimp stood out like sore thumbs. Crimp had pink hair and Jenna had a streak of pink that had grown out so much since that fateful day when Excelyn had fed her the liplo fruit, it was visible even with a hat on.

At Jenna’s insistence, Crimp bought a hat and covered her hair too. It instantly made them look more normal, though not completely. Everyone they saw looked like they were covered in dust, like everyone had been left on a shelf. Except that it rained constantly. It made no sense.

When night came, the hazy streets came alive with neon. There were neon signs of all colors advertising everything. Drinks this way. Sex that way. Entertainment up here. Drugs down there.

“This is kind of a low-brow place, eh?” Jenna commented.

“Where did you think we were going to watch bare-knuckle boxing? The really big casinos have fights in their arenas, but those are far from this system and the guys who fight are millionaires several times over. Besides, Sardius would be a fool to send you anywhere where you could be recognized. A dusty mothball like this place is perfect. Everyone thinks you’re a whore anyway,” Crimp sniffed.

“Do they?” Jenna asked in alarm.

“Oh, they think we’re both whores. Don’t let it get under your skin. It’s better for them to think that than anything else. Though I am surprised no one has tried to hire you. They must think your rates are as high as lotto winnings.”

Jenna nodded, eager to change the subject. “There’s one thing I don’t get. If Sardius could send me a package, why not include the earpiece in that package?”

“I think it’s because he’s going to be here and he wants to surprise you,” Crimp replied.

Jenna looked around the street on the way to the boxing arena. She hadn’t dared to hope for that. Slowly, quietly, she said to Crimp, “I don’t know what he looks like.”

Crimp’s face became a mangled jungle of annoyed lines. “You might have mentioned that before. Let’s see if we can figure out who he is by piecing together what you do know about him. What race is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was your personal assistant. Would you recognize his voice if you heard it?” Crimp asked, vexed to her collarbone.

“I’m not sure. Sometimes I wondered if he was using digital enhancements to make himself sound better. I don’t know if I would recognize his voice.”

Crimp stopped. “Wait. You don’t know anything about him, do you?”

“Not really,” Jenna said hopelessly. 

Crimp didn’t blame Jenna. Instead, she rolled her left shoulder like she needed a good stretch and said, “This match should be interesting. These people you work for are incredible. They set you up with someone who gets to keep all their info private when everything about you is public. We need to change the system, Jenna.”

“I could have found out more about him if I hadn’t been so busy… or self-obsessed,” Jenna finished without Crimp needing to say it for her. 

Crimp glanced at her. It was the perfect time to take a dig at her, but Crimp didn’t. Instead, she moved them along and continued doing arm stretches all the way into the arena. They presented their tickets at the counter and got their hands stamped. 

“Third row, numbers six and seven. Don’t mess it up,” the ticket master ordered.

They stepped in.

“This place is heckin’ nasty,” Crimp said with a huge grin plastered to her face. “I thought I’d never see another place like this in all my life. I love this. How did I land a job where I get to hang out with respectable beauty queens and come to places like this? I can’t believe you’re paying me.”

Actually, both Excelyn and Jenna were paying her for her services for that trip. 

Together, they found their seats and sat down.

“Did you read up on our fighters?” Crimp asked.

“Yeah. I didn’t know there was such a thing as an ogre from outer space, but I mostly read about the other fighter, Ryatt,” Jenna confessed.

“He’s hot, eh?” Crimp said with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

“Yeah, he is,” Jenna confessed. “It’s because he’s a Calcumicas.”

“Shh… don’t say words like that here. They’ll kill ya. They are not politically correct here. Say Boneman.”

“Boneman,” Jenna said obediently before whispering under her breath, “Excelyn told me it was the other way around.” 

“Officially, she’s right, but it’s fine. The tough types like it. Some races get offended by their snarky nickname, but the Bonemen like it. It turns them on… or something.” Crimp offered a wicked little grin. “Why were you so interested in Ryatt, the Gambler?”

“I was sort of hoping that Sardius was the same race as him.”

“Makes sense,” Crimp said, really having to speak up to be heard over the rapidly increasing crowd. “Who wouldn’t want a man with a body like that?”

Jenna could not tell Crimp that the reason she hoped Sardius was the same race had nothing to do with Ryatt’s rampantly obvious sexual appeal. It was because the Bonemen, like cockroaches and fruit flies, were less affected by radiation than other Adamis. Even if Sardius died in the prison riot, Jenna still hoped he was a Boneman because he would have been less sick during his time in the Xypher Zone. She had studied what happened to the people there from horrible chemical burns on their skin to their insides wanting to be on their outsides. Jenna didn’t want any of that for Sardius. Maybe he was a Boneman so he didn’t have those problems… or maybe he didn’t complain.

The fight was about to start and the crowd was getting wilder. The MC appeared above the stage. Jenna had been expecting the MC to be a man in a cheap tux talking into a microphone. Instead, an Octavian was lowered in a fishbowl from the ceiling. He pulled himself out of the bowl and placed two of his tentacles like elbows over the edge of the bowl, he began his announcements. 

“Tonight, two fierce fighters are going to take the ring. The Gypsy Ogre versus Ryatt, the Gambler. Our Gypsy has been all over the universe. He’s never lost a match to anyone other than another ogre. He smashed the Hyper Bastion. He ate the Forton Battleship. He bit the head off the Mighty Rocket! Now…” the MC paused for emphasis. “What will he do to the Boneman, Ryatt, the Gambler?”

A curtain on the other side of the arena opened and the green-skinned ogre came out. He looked like the personification of the action figures Jenna had seen as a child. He had a large jaw and an underbite. His skin was slightly mottled, like the back of a frog, and he wore a pair of black briefs so shiny they looked like they were made of a black garbage bag. It was every bit as cheesy as Jenna remembered wrestling being when she was a kid and she watched whatever was on TV.

“Do you think this is choreographed?” Jenna hissed to Crimp.

“No. I think these boys are going to get bloodied up. That’s why I’m here.”

Jenna stared at her.

“Oh, and to protect you. I’m here to protect you,” Crimp amended, but her eyes were already moving back to the stage as she finished her thought with the words, “or whatever.”

Jenna scowled.

 The MC continued. “Ryatt, the Gambler, really lives up to his name. Since his debut three months ago, he has fought Reptilemen and won. He’s fought Scorpionmen and won. He’s fought other Bonemen and won. Tonight he faces an opponent in a heavyweight class when he’s only a mid-weight fighter. It’s a gamble, but that’s what HE DOES!”

The spotlight went up the aisle closest to Jenna and Crimp. Jenna could not believe what she was seeing. The ogre had come out of his side with a robe over his shoulders that he had promptly dropped to show his imposing physique. Ryatt came out like he was an ordinary guy, dressed for a night out. He wore a black collared shirt, a long tailored coat, black trousers, and heavy boots. The front of his hair was spiked and blond, while the back was cedar brown. That was how he had looked in his promotional pictures, but Jenna hadn’t expected him to appear to fight dressed that way. 

Besides, the way he dressed wasn’t what made him so appealing. 

With his hands in his pockets, he strolled down the aisle toward the ring, pausing here and there to allow photographs. The flashes that went off indicated there were quite a few people in the stands who wanted his photograph before he got bloodied up.

When he was a step closer to the ring than Jenna and Crimp, he stopped and looked right at Jenna.

Granted, Jenna had not had much experience facing down male sex icons, but she kept her head heroically by not allowing her stomach to flip or her face to show the slightest pleasure that he had singled her out for that moment. 

He favored her with a twitch in his eye that was almost a wink but managed to be far sexier than a wink, before leaking an amused smile and finishing his descent to the ring.

Crimp clutched at Jenna’s arm. “He looked right at you!”