Free The Tower by J.S. Frankel

quickly, then smirked and rose from her seat. “No, it’s work. Do your job and the date part comes later,” and sauntered out. That bit about the “date” got everyone’s attention; even the other Ultras in the room looked at her with surprise on their faces. John came over and wore a “you-did-okay” expression on his lined face. “Been here just a short time and making time with them?”
    â€œDid I do something wrong?”
    â€œNah,” he answered. “They always hang with their own. Not every day they up and hang with us.” And with that, he started wiping down the main counter.
    Not mixing? That figured; why settle for someone who was ordinary? Oriana seemed to have it all: She was beautiful, skilled, looked really great in her costume, and had every other guy on board practically drooling over her. So, the question of why she’d want to hang out with someone who wasn’t anything special kept repeating itself in my mind.
    * * *
    This time, we’d landed in Met City, a very different place from Portland. It was much larger, newer, more high-tech. The city was clean, and in the fading sunlight everything gleamed. No litter, no homeless people I could see, no evidence of crime. I told that to Oriana as we buzzed along the street on her motorcycle.
    â€œYou must’ve led a sheltered life,” she yelled back, over the roar of the engine. “Just trying to keep out of trouble,” I replied.
    â€œI was born of trouble!” she said. “I lost my parents when I was little; they both died of cancer.” This story was different from the comics…but whatever. I told her I’d also lost my mother when I was younger. My eyes started to tear up when I told her that. Oriana looked over her shoulder, caught the look on my face, and then pulled the bike over and killed the engine.
    â€œDeath sucks,” she said softly, and squeezed my shoulder gently. Wow; it felt like a jolt of electricity coursing through me. She smiled a bit and said, “Listen, K won’t be here; we’ll go back to Portland another time. Wanna do something stupid instead?”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œGet into trouble.”
    Oh, what now? Oriana turned around and gunned the motor to life.
    â€œTrouble—what kind of trouble are we talking about?” I asked.
    â€œYou’ll see,” she said over her shoulder.
    I’d heard that before.
    * * *
    An hour later, we’d been driving downtown and the area had gotten progressively seedier-looking, just like the place in Portland we’d gone to the other night, only worse. And I’d thought that all of Met City was an urban paradise.
    We’d parked on the opposite side of an old building, and then walked into a crowded underground parking lot. Going over to an old and unused-looking door, I saw that it had a small keypad. Entering a code, she pressed the button on it. It beeped loudly, then opened up and she led me downstairs to a cellar.
    â€œThis used to be a warehouse,” she told me. Now, as we walked into the area, I could see what it had been turned into. “Take a look.”
    It was set up for cage matches. She had to be kidding, although I knew she wasn’t. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of bills and handed it over to a little man inside a small cage. “He pays off the winning customers,” she whispered in my ear. “Hang on to the cash, Frank,” she told the guy. “I’ll be getting it all back later on, anyway.” She then looked at me: “Neat, huh?”
    â€œNeat.” I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or not, but there was no time. Striding down to where a large, octagon-like cage had been set up in the center of the warehouse, the yells of the spectators, 500 or so, greeted her. Mainly young guys in their twenties; half of them looked like they could eat iron for breakfast and the other half