Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee

Author:Fonda Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ya, young adult, young adult fiction, young adult novel, ya fiction, teen, teen fiction, zero boxer, sci fi, sci-fi, fantasy, space, rocky
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2015-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

OUT OF ORBIT

FIFTEEN

Carr set his cuff against the entry reader and the door opened. His hand around Risha’s wrist, he tugged her along after him. “Don’t look yet,” he said. “Not yet. Okay, now.”

She opened her eyes and gasped. He grinned, and wound an arm around her waist. “What do you think?”

“The view … it’s incredible.” She walked slowly toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that filled one side of the apartment’s living room. The sun was shining across the side of the Moon, illuminating a beautiful, barren white landscape of snaking canyons and vast craters. Where the sunlight faded into darkness, there were twinkling clusters of light—the lunar stations at night. Beyond the vista, Earth shone distant in all her slowly rotating blue, green, and white magnificence.

“You can see Mars too, sometimes,” he said.

She turned in a circle to take in the rest of the apartment. It was orders of magnitude bigger and nicer than his old place, but he hadn’t gone crazy. A good chunk of his title winnings had gone toward settling bills, including some pricey nanos and brain scans (good news: no sign of chronic traumatic encephalopathy yet), as well as a payment to the best pediatric doctor in Toronto on behalf of the Loggins family. Then, with decidedly mixed feelings, he’d sent the rest to Sally.

He’d called her after the fight, like he’d promised. “My darling, my baby boy,” she’d said, sniffling with proud tears, and Carr, with the belt around his waist and flying high on endorphins, had said, “We did it, Mom. It’s okay, we did it,” and only later questioned what he’d meant. He’d only called Sally twice in the four months since then, and they’d talked about nothing important. He couldn’t figure out whether he wanted to be angry, grateful, or forgiving toward her, and trying to reconcile all three was confusing.

The influx of sponsorship money, luckily, had given him more than enough cash to play with when searching for a new place. This two-story unit in the Palisio One (Leave Earth, Come Home) was the second place he’d seen. Fantastic view, prime location, and express bus service to the Virgin Galactic Center, meaning fifteen minutes door-to-Cube. He was sold.

He tried not to think about how he could have gotten the place next door, an even larger suite with a jacuzzi, if it weren’t for the twenty percent of his earnings that disappeared whenever he made a deposit to his account. As Mr. R had promised, he’d received a message with no return coding, just simple instructions for setting up a direct transfer. He’d ignored it for a few days, and it had shown up again. The third time, it came attached to a copy of his damning genetic profile. A week before the title fight, he’d swallowed the vile taste in his mouth and done as Mr. R demanded.

Carr shoved aside the unpleasant memory. Risha was wandering through the rooms, running her fingers across the built-ins, checking out the kitchen appliances and the entertainment room, clucking with approval at the artificial intelligence upgrades.

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