Several weeks later.
"Gus" Thorsen was the last traditional heavyweight boxing champion, and proud of it.
In the 22nd century, boxing was completely safe. On-the-spot medical aid and microscopic surgery robots had made brain injuries a thing of the past. This had also made the sport obsolete. Professional fighters could literally tear each other's limbs off without suffering pain or permanent injury; the sight of two men punching each other in the head seemed comparatively quaint.
And yet, Gus Thorsen kept fighting the remaining handful of boxing challengers in fair tournaments - no promoters existed in their sport any longer, because profits were virtually nil - while supporting himself on minimum-wage jobs. When his friends asked him when he was going to quit his outmoded hobby, Gus usually smiled and tried to change subject. Truth was, he couldn't explain why he kept fighting. He had no other ambitions in life.
Gus Thorsen was now approaching his 38th birthday.
***
"Gus! You heard the latest on the colony wars?" his trainer asked, speaking through the screen on the pugilist robot's faceplate.
Gus aimed his punches at the screen, watching the trainer's face projected on it, and kept dancing around the robot with his guard down - the classic technique of his late idol, Muhammad Ali. "What?" he asked, never standing still.
"The news, kiddo! The Kansler made Colonel Clarke volunteer to become a cyborg super-soldier - the first of a new breed of fighting men. So I was thinking..."
The trainer ceased talking, as he directed the pugilist robot to duck a rapid-fire series of jabs from Gus - probably the fastest boxer on the planet, though that didn't mean much. In the space of two seconds, one of his punches managed to hit the robot on its plastic chin. The counter on its forehead went up from 29 to 30, and rated the hit a "K.O.".
"I was thinking, maybe that's the future of fighting too. People aren't watching old-style fighting anymore, and they're getting bored with mutilation contests. With cyborgs, we could draw crowds using faster and more powerful action. As long as there's a human brain inside the body that's taking the impact, the interest will remain."
"None of my business," Gus gasped; he had been sparring for hours on end, and his feet were not as fast as two hours ago.
"It kinda is, actually... I'm thinking of moving on to training cybernetically enhanced fighters, instead of this traditional stuff. "
"Uh-huh..."
"I'm selling the gym."
"What!?"
Astonished, Gus stopped dancing about for a full second - long enough for his remote-controlled pugilist to score a hard right hook on his jaw. Gus tumbled onto the floor, dazed by the punch. The trainer shut down the pugilist and climbed up into the ring with his first-aid kit. As he applied instant remedies for the head, brain and face injuries Gus had received, he seemed more concerned than usual - not about Gus's health, but about his sullen expression.
"Gus, kiddo, don't give me that look. You knew it was gonna happen one day. Real estate prices just keep going up! This gym would just about break even, if we moved it to one of those sea platforms or the new mountain plateaus, but the air and sea conditions are not right for traditional boxing."
Gus spat out his bloodied dental protectors and replied: "Then move to another planet. I'd go to Mars or Venus, as long as I can stay in the ring."
"With the lower gravity? You're not trained for that, you'd lose your title quickly to those zippy colonists. Or get killed. The territories are much rougher than Mother Earth."
"Ali wouldn't have been scared of -"
"Here we go again!" the trainer chanted. "'Ali' this, 'Ali' that... when are you gonna stop living in the past, Gus?"
Gus replied with brooding silence, and stood up; six feet tall, he was about average height for a 22nd-century Earthman. His muscular, broad-shouldered frame stood out more than on most citizens - and rarer still, his nose was broken, a reminder of his first major fight that he refused to have fixed. Even the trainer had had all his injuries and scars removed, and looked oddly baby-faced at his age of fifty-six.
"I gotta get to work," Gus said, climbed out of the ring, and headed for the locker room.
The trainer made a half-hearted attempt to follow him, but gave up and shrugged his shoulders to the other boxers. Their attention had been alerted when Gus was knocked down - which astounded them - and now fifteen of them were approaching the trainer with ominous looks on their sweaty, red faces. The trainer began to talk faster.
"Sorry, boys and girls and shoys, I can't control the open market! In three or four months' time, The Giant Panda's Final Resting Grounds Company will turn the place into a funeral parlor for pets. Hey - calm down! Look - I'm calling the cops..."
Panicking, he injected a shot of painkillers in his own arm and cowered into a corner. Gus didn't stay around to watch the angry boxers beat up the trainer. He loathed that kind of violence - and the "victim" could easily patch himself up. He showered and dressed in his work dungarees, picked up his bucket, then walked out through the back entrance.
***
Outside, a youthful-looking woman - all women looked youthful in this city - was waiting. In the open place, she was tossing a frisbee after a large Dalmatian dog. The dog leaped up on its hind legs and caught the frisbee with its teeth. When the dog saw Gus come out, it barked and ran up to him.
"Easy now, Giddog. I gotta take it easy, I was K-O'ed."
He patted the dog behind the ears and let it lick him his slightly swollen chin. The woman made a worried face, came up closer to Gus and felt his forehead.
"You took your painkillers?" she asked.
"Why?" he replied, stooped slightly, and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Thanks for looking after him for me."
"Oh, it's just fun. I'd much rather take care of him, than watch you getting punched out in that horrible, sweaty gym."
Gus pretended he hadn't heard her remark, for what seemed to him the thousandth time. The three of them - Gus, the woman and the dog - walked together to the center plaza, where Gus's night shift was about to begin. Around them, dusk fell over the city of Kuwait - though one hardly noticed the darkness, with the holographic projections up in the sky, lights from passing zeppelins and aircraft, and the setting sun being reflected in a myriad solar panels.
Once, there had been a black substance called "crude oil" under their feet. Now those reserves were mostly drained, and solar cells were being built on every free inch of the former oil-producing countries of the Middle East. Many individuals like Gus, whose skills were not in demand, made a decent living cleaning solar panels during nighttime.
"How's your day been?" he asked her.
"Same old, same old... sometimes I wake up in the morning and think: 'I don't know if my life is going anywhere.' Then I take a shot of Pro-Pro and I feel better."
Gus tossed the frisbee, and his dog darted off to catch it.
"Gus," she said, "I want to have a baby."
He stopped in his tracks, and scratched his thick neck. "Benazir... we've talked about this before. I like you... no, I guess I love you, but... I'm not sure if we're able to raise a child together."
Benazir put a soft, bronzed hand on his large shoulder. "Who said anything about raising it? I meant I want to have a baby, not spend the better part of my life watching it grow."
Something about the way she said it made Gus feel hurt. "That's not the way I was raised," he told her, trying not to sound negative. Their relationship had lasted a record four years, and Gus had learned that Benazir avoided anything "negative" - pain, duty, aging, frustration. At least, he could satisfy her need for security - and satisfaction.
"Well, you were raised by flesh parents," she pointed out with an innocent smile. "I had a robot nanny."
Gus understood that she expected him to envy her. She remained childlike at the age of thirty-nine, but so did billions of other Terrans. He feared, deep down, that she stayed with him out of pity - pity for growing up in poverty, for being more used to relating to people than to machines.
"Don't look so glum, Gus. I was just teasing."
"It's not you. Gym's closing down. 'Not profitable anymore.' If I can't fight good opponents anymore, I'm gonna get sloppy. And even if I'm not beaten... my title has no meaning without challengers."
A red diode lit up on the woman's forehead-band. Benazir ceased listening to him; she had plugged one ear and eye into her link-implant to chat with her network of friends across the globe. She sent her replies with thought-commands that controlled the transmitter in her headband. Without turning off this line of communication, she waved at one female friend who drifted down on the street in a small heli-pod.
"Hi, Gus!" shouted the other woman as she opened the door to the transparent heli-pod. "Do you have time to join us at Plex Twenty-Four tonight?" She made a gesture that might have been a proposal, but if so it was too subtle for Gus to notice. Gus made a wave of his hand, and put the cap on his head.
"Sorry, gotta work. Catch you later, Benazir?"
She kissed him and entered the heli-pod's cockpit-bubble, which began to ascend with a muffled noise. Gus waved after them, and folded out the mop handle he kept in the pocket of his dungarees. The synthetic voice of his wrist-watch told him he was late, and he began to hurry. Giddog barked happily, running ahead of Gus, looking behind him at his master. From high above their heads, the rumble of aircraft traffic began to increase...
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