Johnny Quick Knuckles #1 — Tales from the Rails

Last time I boxed Strike was two years ago. We went for 10 rounds. Bloodied each other up real good. Swear I would’da won, too, if he hadn’t cheated.

Ref didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout the jab below the belt.

I crumpled and Strike won the match. Won the whole damn championship.

It was the last match of both our careers, so of course it was this huge media circus. Hundreds of thousands of people got to watch Wesley Strike steal his place in boxing history, while I lay on the mat, barely breathing, watching my legacy go down the drain. I didn’t box for a year after that. Couldn’t bring myself to. But it ate at me, the way he cheated. I called Strike and challenged him to a rematch, to settle things once and for all, and surprisingly the dummy accepted.

This was supposed to be the fight where I could finally get even.

Y’know, we didn’t always hate each other. Before we were screamin’ obscenities at each other on pay-per-view promos, we were friends. Strike was my neighbor when we were kids. We went to the same school; both joined the wrestlin’ team; helped each other cheat on tests… Hell, we even asked twin sisters to the friggin’ senior prom.

Yeah, we were close. Life just took us down different paths, y’know? I mean, the paths were side-by-side — we both ended up fighters, for cryin’ out loud — but just different enough.

“Maybe once I beat him, we’ll be even. Maybe we can start again.” That’s what I thought before the match. Stupid…

…

The match was at the Centuryville Event Center. Huge arena — 80,000 seats, jumbotron, TV cameras, the whole shebang. It was the same venue as my last fight with Strike, and this time I would leave the champion.

We didn’t talk before the match. The MC riled the crowd into a frenzy with the usual fanfare, introduced me, introduced Strike, and the match began. Even though I’d been training for six months, I felt rusty. Strike seemed rusty, too. But as the match wore on, I felt my muscles waking up, remembering how to jab, slip, roll, and pivot.

Round one: left jab, left jab, cross, slip. Right jab into a left uppercut, then roll. Bell.

A clap of thunder booms outside, loud enough to hear over the roar of the crowd.

Round two: right jab, cross, right hook. Pivot then telegraph a left jab, but throw right. Bell.

A second clap of thunder rumbles outside the arena.

Round three: Slip and prepare for an uppercut…

And then the power goes out.

The audience shouts in surprise. I stand up straight, frustrated that I didn’t get to surprise Strike with my uppercut.

A third clap of thunder shakes the building, but this time it sounds like it’s coming from inside the arena. It’s the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. I closed my eyes and covered my ears, but only for a second, because in that second two things happened.

First, the lights came back on.

Then a wave of static — like TV static, I can’t make this up — moves across the arena. When it’s gone, it’s like I’m in a different place. I mean, I wasn’t, it was the same arena, but suddenly the audience was quiet and Strike wasn’t in the ring with me.

Instead of Strike, there was this big, plain guy. That’s the only way to describe him. You’ve never seen a guy this plain. It was like someone had gone into his DNA and erased his skin tone and hair color and hit reset on his face.

“Who the hell’re you?” I asked the guy. He turned his whole body to look at me. Remember, during all of this the audience is dead quiet.

“Jonathan Lombardi,” the guy said, in the plainest voice you ever heard. But that was my name.

“The hell you are,” I said. I cocked my fist, ready to land one right between his eyes. “Tell me who you are, and exactly what is going on here.”

“Jonathan Lombardi,” he said again. “Alias Johnny Quick Knuckles.” He took a step toward me and looked down at me. Jeez, this guy was at least twice my size. “We have good news!” The words were friendly, but with him towering over me, they sounded like a threat.

“We?” I asked. “Who’s with ya? You gotta a turd in your pocket?” The guy didn’t laugh. He didn’t respond at all. But I did hear his voice coming from outside the ring, from where my coach was standing. It wasn’t my coach: it was another completely plain…person. If these guys were even human…

And then I heard the voice again, teeny-tiny, like it was far away. It had to be coming from the stands.

“Jonathan Lombardi,” said 80,000 of the same voice from every seat in the stands.

“What the hell is this?” I screamed at the big guy towering over me. I threw a left hook at him, and he grabbed my fist with lightning-fast reflexes.

“Greetings from the Johnson Group Research Foundation,” he said, calm as the dead. With his free hand, he punched me in the gut, sending me flying into the ropes.

A wave of cheers came from the crowd of clones. The brute slowly walked toward me.

“Wes — ” I spluttered. I could taste blood. “What did you… Where’s Wesley?” The big guy grabbed my arm and pulled me up.

“Ms. Fletcher would like to offer you a career opportunity,” he said. Then he punched me in the face, harder than I’ve ever been hit. He dropped me, and I crumpled to a heap on the mat. Memories of my defeat during my last match with Strike flooded my brain. The room was spinning. I was starting to get tunnel vision.

I could hear the thunder again, but when I found the strength to look up, I saw it wasn’t thunder. The clones in the crowd were climbing out of their seats, falling over the rows in front of them, scrambling toward the ring.

“S-somebody…help,” I croaked. The clones were starting to crawl under and over the ropes.

“My colleagues and I would be happy to assist you,” said the big guy. “You’ll be escorted to the Research Bay, where Ms. Fletcher will — ”

And then everything went black.