Naked, Mindy sat on the bench with one foot propped up, lacing up the fairly complicated sandals the participants in the games wore. Stephanie had not before realized how specialized these were; the foot consisted of what amounted to a part of a sneaker, while long straps crossed back and forth across the lower leg almost to the knee. As she had said earlier, Mindy was a definite Class-B. Her legs were sleekly muscled, her stomach totally flat and hard, and her breasts were shapely but fairly small.

Beside her, working on her own sandals, was another girl Mindy had introduced Stephanie to after Jackson and Turkin had left. Elaine Snow had a similar body; her hair was light brown and somewhat longer than Mindy's, and her eyes were startlingly bright blue. She had already put on the only other major piece of clothing the contestants wore, a sort of a G-string, deep violet in color, which left her buttocks completely bare. Elaine, as she had told Stephanie earlier, had been a decathlon athlete before she'd signed up for the games. Outside, those games had already started; at regular intervals they could hear, through the open doors leading to the tunnels, roars of approval from the stands, which were, as usual, packed.

Elaine's story was what Stephanie might have thought was typical. In a fit of depression over a failed romance and a poor performance at a track meet, she'd signed in as a contestant. Later, she'd tried to extract herself; but that had proved impossible. The games were run by the government, the contracts were with the government, and the government had passed laws making the willful breaking of government contracts a felony--punishable, as was so very usual these days, by death. Elaine's only choices were to "win out"--contestants were allowed to retire, wealthy and honored, if they won ten matches--or to take a trip to the preserve at Isla de la Muerta and try her luck against the hunters for ten years.

"I have heard of people winning out, though..." Stephanie ventured.

Elaine laughed. "Yes, it does happen. It isn't really very common but it does happen; if it didn't, if people like you were to be able to say that they'd never heard of anyone winning out and retiring, they'd never get enough straightforward signups like me. But you haven't heard all of it, Stephanie! You haven't heard Mindy's story yet."

She turned to the other woman. "No... I haven't..."

Mindy had just finished lacing up her sandals. She patted them to be sure they were tight, then stood up. "Well," she said, "I didn't go in and sign a contract. I was perfectly happy playing pro tennis, being here was the furthest thing from my mind. But one day some government agents showed up and changed it for me."

"Let me guess--you were framed for some crime."

Mindy gave her an odd look. "No, but I know some who were. Well, fuck, in my case I guess you'd have to say it was yes and no." She shook her head. "I really don't understand it all myself, even now. Aaaanyway... what got me was failing to pay my taxes." Reaching into her locker, she took out a G-string similar to the one Elaine was wearing except that hers was green. She slipped it on.

Stephanie frowned. "We don't have taxes any more..."

"No income tax, right. No sales taxes, nothing like that. No domestic taxes. You may not know it--I sure as fuck didn't--but income made in a foreign country is still taxable. I didn't know that, and then they came hitting me up for millions--I mean millions--of dollars based on what I'd won in tennis matches overseas."

"Oh... no, I didn't know..."

"Well, now you do. It's funny, I've known other people who've made money overseas and nobody's even asked them for any taxes--but the laws are there, on the books. Anyway, I couldn't even come close to paying what they were demanding. So I got dragged into court."

"And let me guess--not being able to pay carries the death penalty, and--"

"Oh, no," Mindy interrupted. "Not at all. It isn't even a crime. Now trying to evade it, that's a crime, and that carries the fucking death penalty. But they didn't accuse me of trying to evade. They just wanted me to pay my bill."

"And you couldn't."

"And I couldn't. And in that case, the government can take control of you and send you wherever they want so you can make money for them for a while. They can send you to the brothels, for instance. They can force you into the military."

"Or they can send you here."

She nodded. "Or they can send you here. And so here I am. If I run away, I become a criminal and I end up at the hunting preserve, pretty damn certainly. If I refuse to compete, same. If I don't follow the rules during a match, same."

"Christ," Stephanie murmured. "Can't you--break a leg or something?"

Mindy didn't answer immediately. Almost simultaneously, she and Elaine reached into their lockers and took out belts; hanging from them were sheaths containing daggers. "Sure you can," Elaine answered as she snapped the belt around her upper thigh. "And a lot of girls do things like that. I watched a girl, right here in this room, deliberately shatter her kneecap with a hammer. You could hear her scream all over this arena."

"And what happened? I mean, obviously she couldn't compete!"

"No," Mindy said. "Not that night. They took her to the hospital, and several months later she was back, in the lineup again."

"But she wouldn't be at full speed! I mean..."

"No. But you don't know about the balancing, do you?" Reaching into her locker again, Mindy took out a lethal-looking short sword and a whetstone. Sitting down again, she started working the edge.

"Balancing?"

Both women nodded. "The contests are often 'balanced,'" Elaine said as she removed a trident from her locker. Like Mindy, she began working the bladed tips with a whetstone, sharpening them to razor edges. "We all get a ranking as we move through the combats. Then, sometimes, some of us are given drugs to 'balance' the contests. When I first came in, we had a black woman here, an Olympic athlete like me, who was really big, really strong, really fast, and really a smart fighter. She'd won through a finals, and she had a total of eight wins. So, when she got to another finals, she was matched against a girl who used to be a pro golfer and had a ranking of one, or something like that. The scale is up to 10, and Shonda--the black girl--had a ranking of 9.7. They gave her so much drug she could hardly see her way out onto the field. Naturally, she lost."

"And that was in a finals?"

Elaine nodded. "That was in a finals. We think that sometimes the drugs aren't used to make things even. We think they're used to fix fights." She nodded toward Jenna, now alone, who was busy working on her own sandals. "Most of the time, when some bigwig like your boss comes to see a girl, she wins out or injury-lists. She's in finals tonight; in fact it's almost time for them to start. If you can, bet on her. I'd bet she walks out."

Stephanie wasn't thinking about Jenna and Jackson. She looked from one of the two women to the other. Neither had moved while the earlier matches, the prelims--which were fought with electrical "stun rods" and were nonlethal--were taking place. "You two... tonight..."

Elaine nodded again. "We're both in finals tonight."

"And what truly sucks," Mindy put in, "is that we've become good friends over the time we've been here. I've won four matches, Elaine has three wins, but neither of us has ever been to a finals before. And now here we are, and the fucking shits that do the pairings have matched us against each other."

Stephanie stared. "And that means..."

Mindy nodded. "That means at least one of us will be going out of here in a fucking body bag."

"Oh, no..."

"'Fraid so. At least we both rank around seven-oh, so we get no drugs."

"Isn't there anything you can do?"

"I have," Elaine observed archly, "suggested a solution."

"Yeah, and I told you to fuck that shit."

"What's the suggestion?" Stephanie asked.

"Elaine," Mindy said, "has it in her head that because I have one more win than her, I should be the winner. She's been offering to throw the fight."

"But that means..."

"Means I have to kill her. Yeah. If I don't, if I have her down and she gets a thumbs-down and I refuse to off her, a hired goon comes out and 'does the will of the crowd' and I get shipped off to the happy hunting ground. And if you've ever been to these games before, you know that pretty young girls almost never get a thumbs-up from the crowd. Fucked up, isn't it?"

More than fucked up, Stephanie thought, shaking her head. Just unbelievable. She started to say something else, but just then the bell rang announcing that the scheduled fighters should come out.

Mindy reached into the locker and took out a small shield; Elaine took a net from hers. "We gotta go," she said. "One of us will probably be back, unless we screw up royally and kill each other. You can watch from the tunnel, it'll give you a better view of the fight." She turned to the taller Elaine, who was getting a highflex steel net from her own. "And Elaine is not going to throw it!"

"Oh, I don't want to watch, I--"

Mindy turned to her quickly. "But we want you to. I want you to. I'm not sure why. It's like you're one of us, but you're not... I don't know. A feeling. Watch. Remember. Talk about it."

The two girls ran through the tunnel; Stephanie hesitated, sighed, took a step to follow them, then hesitated again. Finally, shaking her head--there seemed to be no escape from this sort of thing for her--she trudged down the tunnel to a point near the entrance. A guard was stationed there; he seemed to be expecting her, and he motioned toward a folding chair like the one he was sitting in. Stephanie sat down.

Mindy and Elaine ran on into the center of the arena. Their almost-naked bodies were illuminated by reddish flickering lights meant to emulate the torchlight of the Roman arena, but which were much brighter. The colors of their g-strings stood out brightly, and the straps around their calves gleamed in the light. On each side, Stephanie could see a number of cameramen, all ready to record the coming battle. Stopping at the center, the two girls raised their weapons--sword and trident--to the wildly cheering crowd. A bell rang; they looked at each other, then retreated to opposite corners of the arena. The bell rang again, and they rushed forward to confront each other.

As if to assure Mindy that she was not going to throw the fight, Elaine rushed to the attack. She swung her net from the left and at the same time sent the trident thrusting forward toward Mindy's body. The ex-tennis player jumped back to avoid the entangling net and deflected the trident with her sword. Before Elaine could get the net up off the ground she counterattacked, surging forward with her sword ready for a thrust and getting inside of the working range of the trident. Elaine was up to the challenge, however; she raised the net quickly, forcing Mindy to hold her thrust and back off, lest her sword be entangled in the net and snatched from her hand.

Warily, with a few feints, they circled each other, looking for an opening. The trident shot out and Mindy caught it on her shield; her sword came up and under, forcing Elaine to back off. Only for an instant, though; she then swung the steel trident as if it were a sword, sweeping it around in a wide arc. Mindy was forced to back up; Elaine pressed her advantage, and she pressed it hard. The smaller girl tried to catch the swinging trident on her shield, but instead she got it entangled in Elaine's net. The tall girl yanked hard and the shield went flying.

The ex-tennis player was now at a real disadvantage. Holding her sword out in front of her, she backed away and tried to start circling toward the shield, which was lying on the ground fifteen feet away. Stephanie wondered if, in light of their friendship, Elaine would allow her to reach it; she did not, she deliberately moved in front of it, cutting the other girl off. They were at that point quite close to the tunnel where Stephanie was sitting; she could see the gleam of sweat on their bodies, hear their ragged breathing, see the fear and desperation in their eyes.

And Elaine attacked, lashing downward with the net across Mindy's right side, almost catching her sword, and raising the trident high to thrust downward from over the top of it. Mindy turned halfway to the side to avoid having her sword caught by the net, but that left her defenseless against the trident. It came down toward her left side at her waistline; she twisted her body to avoid it, but one of the outside tines struck her and went in deep.

Then, in a move Stephanie did not expect--and, apparently, neither did Elaine--Mindy grabbed the trident with her hand. Elaine tried to jerk it back, and Mindy allowed herself to be jerked closer to the taller girl. Taking advantage of Elaine's instant of indecision, she twisted back, heedless of the razor-sharp tine piercing her side, and, ducking under the net and almost kneeling; drove the point of the sword forward.

It struck Elaine's belly alongside her navel, it went right in, and the point popped out of her back above her hips.

Elaine froze. The net fell from her hand; she let go of the trident, as well, and the pole banged on the ground. As if disbelieving it, she stared down at the sword piercing her. Mindy jerked it back and free; blood spurted out. While Elaine slowly collapsed to her knees, Mindy pulled the trident out of her own side and tossed it away. Blood streamed down Mindy's leg. She turned, looked up at the crowd, and raised her sword. She was greeted with a huge roar--and an equally huge mass of downturned thumbs. On the giant viewscreens hanging over the stands, a hand with a thumb turned sideways was being shown. Then, in a quick animation, it turned down.

Mindy turned back to the kneeling Elaine. "I'm sorry, Mindy," Stephanie heard Elaine say. "If I'd known I wouldn't have touched you with the trident. I thought... I could win..."

"Don't worry about it," Mindy answered. "It's just part of the game." She leaned over and kissed her friend's forehead. "Like we planned it?"

"Like... we planned it, Mindy."

The taller girl, with an effort, pulled herself up straight; Mindy took a step back. Elaine lifted her chin and closed her eyes; Mindy drew her sword back.

Then she swung it, hard, and it sliced cleanly through the taller girl's neck. Her head popped up, then fell back to earth; her legs kicked out, sending her decapitated body, which was spraying blood, flying. Mindy stepped back a bit further as the crowd screamed approval. Elaine's body, twitching and jerking without coordination, pumped seeming gallons of blood onto the sand. Once it became still--it seemed to jerk and bounce for a very long time--Mindy saluted the crowd again, then turned and walked back to the tunnel. As she went a deep-throated electronic tone, bell-like, sounded three times to signify the end of the match.

Not until she was just inside did her face show her pain. She doubled over, grabbing at her side. Stephanie jumped up from her chair and grabbed her, then helped her in to the dressing room.

"You're hurt..." Stephanie said unnecessarily.

"Yeah," Mindy groaned. "You are fucking well right about that. But it won't matter, Stephanie. The doctors'll be here in a minute, they'll fix me right up. I have another final to do week after next, and by then you won't even be able to see a scar. I'll be fine." Her eyes welled up with tears. "But Elaine... did you watch, did you see..."

Stephanie bit her lip. "Yes," she answered. "I watched the whole thing. It was very clean, Mindy. She didn't suffer. You did the best you could do under the circumstances."

"Yeah, well, she was my friend and I still killed her." She looked up; she looked tortured. "I have to fight in the mixed finals in two weeks," she said. "Be here, please? Please?"

Stephanie nodded and pulled the girl's head down on her shoulder. "I will," she assured her. "One way or another, I'll be here." The medical team was rushing in by then; they took the wounded girl from her, put her on a stretcher, and carried her out. By that time the grounds crews had cleaned the arena, and Jenna--along with a solidly-built black girl--were running out through the tunnel.

Feeling dazed, unconscious of the bloodstains on her dress, Stephanie left the locker room and made her way back to Jackson's box. As she went she kept reminding herself that she did not know how long Jenna's match might last and she could not afford to be late. Jackson would expect a blowjob from her in the limo on the way home.

He always did.