Death Cultivator by eden Hudson (knowledgeable books to read .txt) 📗

“Okay, just a sec.” I started toward a niche in the wall where we hopefully wouldn’t get stepped on by all the spectators flooding in to watch the last few rounds of the day. I was about to ease Warcry to the ground when I caught sight of a familiar bowler hat and pair of huge gray ghost arms.

“Crap,” I whispered, pulling him back up.

Warcry grunted in pain. “You busted in the head, grav? What’re you doing?”

I turned us toward the far exit. “It’s the Bailiff.”

Luckily, the Bailiff was headed in the opposite direction. I recognized a few familiar backs beside him—Ripper and the other OSS hooligans he’d been training for the small gang riot.

Warcry choked, then cleared his throat and spat a wad of blood onto the tile floor. People shot him dirty looks as we passed.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Are bowler hats and ghost arms pretty common in this world?”

He let out a string of cuss words that I agreed with.

“New plan,” I said. “We’ll get outside, then I’ll message the twins to let them know to get out of the building. Straight back to the hotel, then lay low and figure out what to do about tomorrow.”

We beelined out the south exit and waited for the twins there.

Warcry turned his HUD notifications on loud and kept checking his messages in spite of the fact that he could barely lift his arm off the concrete beside him. The thing was beeping like crazy, a new message every five seconds.

I glanced down at the screen as he scrolled through messages. They were everything from people drooling over his fights to trash-talking him for losing.

He let out a wet exhale, disgusted. “Now’d be the perfect time for a Big Five offer to pop up. Get the Bailiff off our backs.”

“Yours, anyway,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “I’d have some sway, wouldn’t I. We’d negotiate something for you three.”

Kest showed up a few minutes later and, without even asking, went to work repairing Warcry’s mangled prosthetic.

“I can get it functional, but you won’t be fighting on it anymore,” she said. “You really need a newer model. I could build you a new one, but that’ll take time. Or I know a smuggler who could get you a quality improvement from off-planet.”

Warcry scowled down at the crushed knee joint. “This hunk of trash got me through two age divisions in the IFC.”

“You can be sentimental or you can equip yourself to win,” Kest said. “I don’t think you can do both.”

“Kest, where’s Rali?” I asked. “We need to get moving.”

“He had me order from the concession stand on my way out, then went to pick it up. He should be here soon. The lines weren’t that long.”

I scrubbed my hand down my face and prayed he’d hurry up. We had to get out of there.

I couldn’t sit still with the Bailiff so close, so I paced and kept an eye out while Kest heated and hammered and welded. Warcry’s constant HUD beeps grated on my nerves, but he kept checking the messages and cussing every time they still weren’t from one of the Big Five.

Finally Rali came around the corner with a bag of flower-shaped sugar candies. He gave the bag a shake, then tossed it to Warcry.

“These should move the script healing along enough to stop the worst of—” He gestured to Warcry’s shredded middle section and grimaced. “—that. I can’t promise you’ll ever be a father, though.”

“Cheers.” Warcry upended the bag into his mouth. When the healing boost kicked in, he flopped back against the building and shut his eyes in relief. “I knew I liked you, big man.”

Rali chuckled. “I knew you did, too.”

“That’s as good as it’s going to get,” Kest said, sitting back on her heels. “It won’t bend, but it should support your weight.”

Rali and I each grabbed one of Warcry’s hands and helped him up. The repairs held, and we limped the heck out of there.

When we made it back to the room, everybody collapsed—Rali across the twins’ bed, Warcry on his, and me on the couch. A little electric charge shot through me when Kest dropped onto the couch beside me. Not close enough that we were touching, but not all the way down at the other end, either. If not for the Bailiff, I probably could’ve spent the whole night trying to decipher whether that meant she like-liked me or I was just her friend she didn’t mind sitting next to. Unfortunately, I couldn’t, which gave me one more reason to hate that brush-toothed jerk.

“We need to figure out what to do about tomorrow,” I said. “The Bailiff will know Warcry and I were in the individual tournament, and they’ll see the three of us in the riot bracket.” A new thought occurred to me. “They’ll be in it. That’s what Ripper’s crew has been training for this whole time.”

Kest’s hair swished against the back of the couch as she shook her head.

“They’re not on the list of competitors,” she said. “I’ve been watching it all day. Riot bracket registration closed last night at the same time individual registration did.”

I stared up at the ceiling. “So, did they come in too late to sign up...”

“Or are they just here to kill us and leave?” Warcry finished.

“They can’t do anything while we’re in Jade City,” Kest said. “At least not until the tournament’s over. Remember the Technol Shogun’s warning? We’re registered as Hake’s gang, so an attack would be considered rival gang violence.”

“For some of us,” Rali said, looking pointedly at Warcry.

I sat forward and leaned my elbows on my knees.

“Stay at the hotel tomorrow,” I told Warcry. “You don’t have any more fights, so as long as you don’t leave or take off that script-bracer, they won’t be able to find you.”

He threw up his hands. “You lot’re acting like this blighter cares about warnings. He don’t give a bleedin’ piss because he knows the Technols can only execute