Chapter 2

It was a two mile walk from the Los Angeles bus station to Danny's second story efficiency apartment. Danny had only been living there for two months, ever since he'd gotten a new job, delivering parts for an independent auto parts store based in the neighborhood.

The owner of the auto parts store was a big fight fan, and had offered Danny a job when he found out that Danny was looking for some part time work. The two had first met in a neighborhood bar, one that Danny had just begun frequenting. It wasn't a great job, but the owner let Danny have a few hours off, during the day, so he could go to the gym and train.

Danny's training mostly consisted of working at his other job, being a sparring partner for the boxing gym he frequented. He usually made from twenty-five to thirty dollars for a half hour's sparring session, and he usually had anywhere from five to eight sessions during any given week.

Most of the people he sparred with were strictly amateur boxers, men who liked to go back to their regular lives, bragging that they had sparred with a real, professional, boxer.

Danny knew better than to ever hit one of these men. This knowing not to hit back, coupled with the fact that he was always willing to let them slip a punch or two through his guard, made Danny a very popular sparring partner.

Occasionally, Sal, the owner of the gym, got him some work as a real sparring partner. This had been happening less and less though, over the past year or so, as Danny's credibility as a boxer had diminished among fight handlers and trainers.

Now, whenever he did get some work as a real sparring partner, he was mostly being used as a confidence builder for some young fighter who'd just lost his last fight.

Some boxers were a little head shy, especially right after a loss. Being afraid to get hit made training them much more difficult, especially in the live practice sparring sessions. Left untreated, this would hinder any chance for further skill development.

Danny could have easily beaten most of these young boxers, had he been allowed to try, but his orders were to serve as a live punching bag for them. A half hour of a tame sparring session with Danny would usually be all that was needed to get them over being head shy.

Caleb of the KAL took one look at Danny's hovel and groaned to himself in dismay. The place was a filthy dump. The paint was peeling off the walls and ceiling, and there was the smell of mildew from years of leaking faucets and faulty roofing. Danny's lack of care in picking up after himself was also in evidence. Caleb knew he couldn't live with so much disarray and contamination. He also was aware that he could fix the place up in no time, but it required another small expenditure of his precious energy resources.

"Human, how could you stand living in such squalor? Have you no pride?"

"Fuck you! I sleep here, that's about it. I was going to pick things up before I left, but I was afraid I'd miss my bus. I can clean it now, if it upsets you so much."

"You can't do anything, except cause me trouble. Desist, in all your feeble attempts to do anything."

There was a flash of energy, one that lit up all three rooms of the apartment. The windows and the door flew open, and a host of unwanted matter started moving quickly through the air. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Left in it's place was a completely renovated, spotlessly cleaned, thoroughly sanitized, efficiency apartment. Caleb sat down on one of the newly cleaned and repaired dinette chairs, looking around, casually admiring his work.

It had required the expenditure of thirty seven and a half yotta joules of Caleb's stored energy, but now, he thought he would be able to inhabit the dwelling. His quiet admiration of the change was interrupted by Danny's voice.

"I need to get over to the gym, and pay Sal his cut from the fight. Plus, I need to stop off, to let Ron know I'll be back to work tomorrow."

Caleb wanted to argue, to explain the lack of any necessity for him to work, or to have any further need for Sal and his gym. He knew his words would be wasted on his parasitic construct. Danny was nothing, if not single minded, and all he really cared about was staying active as a boxer.

To Caleb, an agreement was in place. Distasteful as the need for that agreement might be to him, he would honor it. He would assist Danny in furthering his goals, and in return, Danny would allow Caleb to complete his mission, without any interference, when the time finally came for him to do so.

He was aware of the disparity in perception they had on the relative amount of time still left on that agreement. This was a good thing for Caleb. If their time sense had been reversed, and Caleb saw fifty years like Danny viewed it, no agreement would have ever been possible. Fifty years, to someone of the Kal, was nothing more than a few hours would seem to a human organism.

"Are you truly desiring to persist in this senseless quest of yours?"

"Fuck yes! You said it yourself. Since you fixed me, I've got what it takes to go all the way. I've been thinking things through though, and there really isn't as much money or glory in being the champ as a light heavyweight. How much trouble do you think it would be if we bulked me up a bit, to around two ten, or, even better, two twenty?"

"I didn't fix you. I repaired, and then re-animated a dead organism. You are mere flotsam left unjettisoned in my haste. I allow you to exist, such as that existence may be, but I didn't fix you. As for your other query, if you're referring to your body mass, the answer is, yes. That would be easily accomplished. Would one hundred kilos of mass be sufficient to your needs?"

"Is that around two hundred and twenty pounds?"

"Very close to that. Is there anything else you require?"

"How are you going to do it? If it happens too quickly, people will think I'm on steroids."

Caleb had taken the trouble to filter through all of Danny's past memories. He had learned, in a few brief seconds, everything Danny had acquired in a half lifetime of experience and training. He knew all of Danny's past strengths, and all of his many weaknesses.

He knew that Danny had never managed to hold onto any of his boxing earnings. He had lived from one fight to the next, the money having been spent almost as quickly as it had been earned. Danny liked young and pretty girls, casino gambling, and all types of fancy living.

Over the past five or six years, circumstances, caused primarily by the decline of his earnings, had severely limited Danny's exposure to any of these activities. He also knew that Danny desperately longed to get back into the limelight he'd once had shining brightly on him. He was desperately anxious to once again experience, as a certainty, the belief that the whole world revolved around him, that his pleasure was what people enjoyed striving to enhance. He had gone without that knowledge or conviction for far too many years.

"I hear what you're thinking, dude, and I'm all for anything that will help to put me back on top. If you have a better way to make it happen, or a quicker way, I'm willing to listen. Anything you come up with has to include having me getting to be the world champion. That is the goal I've been training and working for ever since I was twelve years old. That's my dream. It's all that keeps me going."

"We need to take off some time then. We'll get away for awhile, and you can add on this new mass gradually. We'll go to Las Vegas, and you can train during the day there, while I make us some money at night."

"You never sleep. I noticed that already. I'm a boxer, rest is important if I'm to be at my peak."

"Forgive my saying this, but, in case you haven't already noticed it, I'm in charge of operating this body now. If it needs anything, I'll attend to it. I can assure you that it has never been operated at anything even approaching the efficiency that I've been able to bring to it."

"I still get tired. I'm already tired, and I'll need to sleep. How can I be sure you won't decide to try to fuck me over in some way, while I'm resting? You're good at doing that. You would have never gotten into my head in the first place, if I'd been awake and alert."

"If you'd been alive, you must mean? That's what you weren't, human. That might account for why you weren't very awake or alert. You were most assuredly dead when I came to invest my energy into your corpse. This matters not at all though, as I've made this bargain with you, and the KAL always honor any agreements they've entered into freely."

They walked over to the gym. Danny handed over the two hundred dollars he owed to Sal, for his cut of the Visalia purse, and for the money Sal had loaned him to get up to Visalia in the first place. This was one hundred fifty for the manager's fee, and fifty for the advance money Sal had loaned him to take the bus up to the fight.

"Sal, I'm going out of town for awhile, to take some time to think about my future."

"That's a good idea, kid. Maybe it's time you give this racket up. It isn't treating you so good anymore. What's that, five out of the past six fights where you came out of it on the wrong end? Could be it's time to look into doing something else with your life."

"No, I've been thinking about putting on some more weight, trying out my luck as a legitimate heavyweight. You said yourself, they're always looking for a big fighter to spar with. I can stand to get bigger, I've got the frame for it."