Void Star: A Novel by Mason Zachary

Author:Mason, Zachary [Mason, Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

36

Usually in Trouble

Vola pushes his way out of the cage past a scrum of officials and nurses running in with bags of plasma and an emcee who shoves a microphone in his face only to have it swatted away and then he’s mobbed by his elated entourage. Everyone in the audience is rising from their seats and crowding up the stairs, and the doctors have Tadao on his back now, the blood-wet sword to one side, and with the first defibrillation Tadao’s back arches but Kern sees the eyes of a lady doctor over her white surgical mask and knows it’s over.

He jumps down the steps to the floor by the cage in time to see Akemi’s back framed in the mouth of a service tunnel as she blows past the guard in his Final Sword blazer under the RESTRICTED ACCESS sign, and Vola is right behind her, yanking off his glove and throwing it blindly over his shoulder, his entourage following, and even though they’re talking in Italian Kern mostly understands them as they say, “What did I tell you—kendoka are weak against change of tempo with an indirect attack,” and “Fuck the press conference, look at him, we need to get him to the hotel,” and he remembers that Italian and Spanish are almost the same, which reminds him that the Japanese are said to think all westerners look alike, so he snatches up Vola’s glove—damp with sweat, held together with tape, speckled with Tadao’s blood—and trots after the Italians, like he’s some flunky with a small share in the team’s euphoria. The guard ignores him as he hastens into the tunnel.

In the tunnel there’s a door open onto a surgery, the one from the video, abandoned now except for a nurse wearing latex gloves and blue scrubs standing rigidly by a tray of gleaming surgical tools. Vola shoves through the next door, his team pouring in after, and over their shoulders Kern sees a table covered with blunt-tipped practice swords, mesh fencing masks, bottles of wine and little plates of food; Vola sweeps the wine from the table, and Kern hears the bottles shattering as he walks on, alone now, trying to look like he knows where he’s going. He remembers the glove, lets it fall to the floor.

The next door opens and Akemi comes out, now wrapped in a blue-white fur so brilliant in the light that it looks like falling snow. Angry, staccato Japanese from inside but Akemi shrugs and says, “Can’t be helped!” and it’s thrilling to hear her voice, though she sounds different, maybe younger now; also thrilling that she was lost somewhere out in the world but now is close enough to touch.

“Hey!” he says, as she turns and walks away.

She looks back blankly, takes him in and then smiles. Her beauty is remarkable, so much so she almost seems to glow, which didn’t come through in the photographs.

“Well, come on then,” she says. “As it happens I’m in need of company,”

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