Owen dropped his gym bag near the front door and went straight for the shower. The day’s training grime rolled off his body under a torrent of scalding hot water he couldn’t get enough of. There was never enough hot water in the communal shower in the residential tower, and he didn’t need to wear slippers in his home shower. Home shower!

  The thought was still as foreign to him as his bedroom and his kitchen and his couch and screen. He had so much space to himself he didn’t know what to do with it all.

  And the toilet! The toilet was a marvel of modern technology. No more super saver toilet paper bought at low prices. Sandpaper was softer on his ass cheeks. His toilet blasted him with water so clean he could drink it and it even dried him with a warm burst of air. Life was good and getting better with each day. He couldn’t have dreamed something so fantastic.

  But he was still beholden to the mission. He checked the cuts on his arms and legs. They were healing nicely, but they’d scar. He’d have permanent reminders of Mei Chen etched on his flesh. And for what? Owen didn’t even know what information Tuck requested from her. It had to be something to do with the explosives. But what?

  Owen made himself a simple dinner by following instructions Coach Wilson sent him. No more instant meals and he didn’t miss them or flavor spray. He was on a fighter’s diet of pure protein and high fiber. Chicken and fish were the main course with rice on the side. He cooked and ate only the allotted amounts on the instructions. Amber suggested he get a personal cook, but Coach Wilson denied that. He said Owen wasn’t too good to cook his own meals.

  “This is a pathetic meal,” Sensei Dan said as Owen sat at the small round dinner table with his chicken breast and rice. “You survived a real duel. You need a rack of ribs slathered in the sweet sauce to celebrate your victory. That’s how a Hardknuckle karateka celebrates.” His fight with Mei was three days past and he wanted to forget it.

  “Coach Wilson says this is what I should eat.” Chicken, real chicken. Not Daddy Mulligan’s fried chicken that was only legally allowed to be called chicken. No, he could afford real chicken raised on farms outside of the city’s walls. Authentic meat. Not lab grown shit. Fresh, never frozen. Owen didn’t know food came in never frozen. “I like it.”

  “Fine, but when you win your first pro fight we’re doing ribs. It’s a Hardknuckle tradition. What’s that?” Dan nodded at a folded envelope tucked into the flower centerpiece.

  “I don’t know. From Amber maybe. She has a passcode.” Owen grabbed the envelope and opened it. Several pieces of paper were folded inside along with a data card.

  “Owen,” the letter said. “This is everything I could find on that thing in your head. It wasn’t much. Pre-collapse info is hard to come by. Hope it’s enough. Good luck. Burn this letter.”

  “Looks like Ed came through,” Sensei Dan said. “Was he in here?”

  Owen sorted through the papers. They were documents detailing Dan’s life from before the collapse. One featured Sensei Dan standing in front of a large movie theatre with a beautiful woman on each arm. The next talked about the fall of a famed movie star after the failure of his karate training program. The last talked about his death.

  “I died?” Dan asked. He looked over Owen’s shoulder. “How?”

  “It says you were shot dead. I think this is an early City Seven story. Year three. Shit this is old. You were killed rescuing victims of human trafficking from the Warlord of West Georgia. I don’t know who that is.” Owen kept reading. The story was told by some of the citizens Dan rescued. He fought the warlord's militia to free dozens of their prisoners. Dan killed the warlord but took three shots to his chest in the encounter. Everyone agreed they wouldn’t have made it to City Seven without him.

  “A fitting end.” Sensei Dan stood with pride. "I guess that makes me a ghost. Cool!"

  “Oh shit!” Owen said as he looked at the accompanying picture. It featured a teenager holding the fucking CTD.

  “He gave this to me before he died,” the article quoted the teen, Enrique Gonzalez, fifteen. “He said it was his legacy. But it’s broken. Maybe someone here can fix it.”

  “It came from you,” Owen said. He laughed. “From your hands all the way to mine. I can’t believe it.”

  “I’m glad the CTD found its way to your hands, Owen.” Dan patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve made a fine disciple.”

  “I try,” Owen said. Owen read the last article slowly. It detailed the failure of the Cranial Transfer Device in the commercial market. Exorbitant costs prohibited a large consumer base and the inherent danger of the CTD led to mass recalls. Sensei Dan Hardknuckle and the developers of the CTD were facing litigation and criminal charges for several deaths related to their product. “What the fuck?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This thing killed people?” The article ended without telling Owen anything else. “Sensei, why would the CTD kill someone?”

  “It doesn’t,” Sensei Dan said. “The Cranial Transfer Device is perfectly safe. All perceived harm is simulated by your brain. When I touch you the CTD tricks your nerves into thinking you’re being touched. Pain works the same way. There’s no way for it to kill you.”

  “This article says people died.”

  “The article is wrong. Tabloid nonsense. I wouldn’t lie to you, Owen. I’m your sensei and you’re my disciple. We walk a street named honesty together. I promise you the CTD is safe. Maybe they had accidents and tried to blame it on the CTD. That’s gotta be it. People in my time loved litigation. What’s on the card?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “I don’t know.” Owen slid it in his scratchpad and saw a single file inside. “Looks like a movie. Hardknuckle Strikes Twice. Is this your movie?”

  “My second film,” Dan said with a grin. “Pop it on the big screen and maybe you’ll learn something.”

  Owen shrugged and put the movie on his screen. It looked ancient, and cheap. Just as Owen sat down there was a knock at the door. He used his scratchpad to access the exterior camera and saw Amber Callahan waving at him.

  “I didn’t know you were stopping by,” Owen said as he opened the door. “Did I miss a message? Come in. What are you doing here?”

  “It’s smaller than I thought it would be,” Amber said. She took off her sweater and hung it on a hook by the door. She wore a backless halter top that caught Owen’s gaze stronger than any Star Quest capture beam. She pulled off her black wig and shook out her blonde locks before giving herself a tour of the apartment.

  “Is it big enough for you?” She asked “We can talk about upgrading.”

  “It’s plenty big enough,” Owen said. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He traced the curved of her figure starting at her shoulders and down to her hips clad in skin tight jeans. “Did I forget to talk to you at the gym?” Amber was always at the gym when she wasn’t filming episodes of Star Quest, though she’d been keeping her distance from Owen since that day at the Commerce Dome. His own house was the last place he expected a reunion.

  “No. I was bored and thought I’d see how my number one fighter is doing.”

  “I thought I was your only fighter.”

  “You are.” She glanced at his screen, the opening of Dan’s movie paused. “What are we watching?” She plopped down on the couch.

  “Hardknuckle strikes twice,” Owen said. “It’s a pre-collapse movie.” He took a deep breath as she stretched out and her toned belly peeked out of her top. “I was just starting it.”

  “Do you have anything to drink?” Amber asked.

  “Water and more water.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Be careful, Owen,” Sensei Dan said as Owen took a cold bottle of water out of the fridge. “You’re alone with the princess of the city. Stay on guard.” Dan patted his back and disappeared.

  “Are you just going to stand there?” Amber asked after Owen gave her the water. “Sit down, make yourself at home.” She smiled sweetly. “That was a joke.”

  “Right,” Owen said. He started the movie again and sat a respectable distance away from Amber. In-between the gratuitous action scenes and long monologues, Owen stole glances at his patron. Sitting in the dark with nothing but screen light illuminating her features, Amber was stunning. She was more than a princess, she was a goddess gracing a peasant like him with her presence. He didn’t belong in the same world as someone like her.

  She was the result of perfect bio-crafting in the womb. Her features were symmetrical save for a beauty mark beside her mouth. She’d age slower than a regular citizen and she’d still be beautiful long after her peers succumbed to wrinkles. She wasn’t too tall, nor was she too short. Her voice had a song-like quality. Yet even with all high life bio engineering, they couldn’t remove the snort when she laughed. Owen thought it was one of the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard.

  “This is kind of awful,” Amber said. She took off her shoes and pulled her feet onto the couch. “The worst episode of Star Quest is better produced than this.”

  “I know,” Owen said. She wasn’t wrong about the low quality nature of Sensei Dan’s second movie, but there was a certain charm to amateur film making. It was raw in a way no studio produced movies were. Sensei Dan was his usual charismatic self and the action was flawless. It was a red, white, and blue spectacle of fist fights and overflowing machismo. “Do you do your own stunts?”

  “The simple ones.” Amber scooted a bit closer to him. “I have a double that does the complicated stuff. She’s a real pro.” Amber sighed. “She could take my place and no one would notice. You know Star Quest was going to be cancelled before I came on. Hartley and my mom said it would be good for me to be seen by the people. We needed to keep my face on the screen and what better way than a weekly sci-fi show where I wear a skintight space suit? Do you know why I spend so much time at the gym? It’s so I can keep fitting in that suit so teenage boys can jerk off thinking about me.” She mined the vulgar motion and stuck her tongue out.

  “I like the spaceships,” Owen said after a moment of silence. It was all he could think of.

  “Me too.” Amber giggled. She stared at him for a moment. “I hate that fucking show. That’s why I wanted to sponsor you so badly. Jake is a fighter, and Lucas has his game shows. I need something of my own that isn’t tied to my tits and ass. Do you understand that?”

  “My tits and ass have never been my best features.” Owen smiled awkwardly. He still didn’t know how to behave or what he could get away with saying.

  “And mine are?” Amber moved closer to him and took his hand. “I don’t know, Owen. I think you look good from behind.” Owen swallowed. “What was that? Are you getting scared?” She looked him in the eyes. “I remember you standing up to ten men at the transit station all by yourself, and now you’re scared of me?” She climbed on his lap and straddled him.

  “What are you doing, Amber?” He didn’t know if his luck was getting better or worse. He had fist fights with gang members and brawls with security agents. But he was sure underneath Amber Callahan was by far the most dangerous place in the city.

  “Do you really think I sat here and watched that shitty movie because I thought it was interesting? I’ve been dropping hints for weeks. I guess you need something a little more direct.” She kissed him. It was sudden and quick. He froze worse than when Tuck forced him to work for the Liberation Brigade under threat of death. “I saw you sneaking peeks at me.”

  “This is a terrible idea,” Owen said. He could taste her cherry lip gloss. He never liked the flavor before he tasted it on her.

  “I know.” She kissed him again. “But I like you. I’ve liked you since that first day we met in the Low City. You’re brave. You’re strong. You aren’t after my family’s money. You didn’t even recognize me when we met. You were ready to die for strangers. There’s something different about you.” She moved Owen’s hands to her hips. “It’s alright. You don’t need to be afraid of me.” He wasn’t sure he believed her. She wasn’t just from another social sphere. She was the princess of City Seven.

  “We don’t need to tell anyone,” she said. “It’ll be our secret. We can go on lunches, and dinners. It’ll look like business, but we’ll know the truth.” She purred the words in his ear. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “I can,” Owen said. He was better at keeping them than she knew.

  He kissed her this time, refusing to hold back any longer. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her tight. She was so hot she could’ve burned him. Her tongue found his and she pressed into him. Time melted away. The movie was long over and Owen disappeared into the world of Amber Callahan.

  She wasn’t the woman on screen. She wasn’t an untouchable goddess above mere mortals. She was a real woman. She wanted him. And like an idiot he almost denied her. There was nothing in the Hardknuckle Style to prepare him for this.

  Against all his better instincts, Owen began his clandestine relationship with Amber Callahan.