Ted Kosmatka - The Games

“Charming practice,” Vidonia said.

“And a dangerous occupation, it turns out. If the dog’s hold slipped, it faced the bull’s hooves, so the dogs with the strongest bites tended to survive the longest, leave the most offspring, you get the picture.”

Vidonia nodded.

“Multiply that by a few hundred years, and you get some pretty tough dogs. They’d hang on until the bull was a bloody mess.”

“Disgusting.”

“Maybe, but a lot of practices were disgusting before modern refrigeration. At one time, it was the preferred method of slaughter.”

“What on earth for?”

“The adrenaline altered the meat. Some thought a baited bull tasted better, and they believed the meat lasted longer before spoilage set in.”

“Did it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you have a point?”

“Bull-baiters were aggressive but only toward livestock. They couldn’t care less about people or other dogs. This wasn’t true of the earliest terriers. These dogs were territorial and protective. They were basically mean-bastard little dogs, but they were too small to do much damage.”

“Okay.”

“The accidental crosses between these two breeds proved as worthless to butchers as they were unstoppable in the fighting pits. These so-called pit bulls had the vise grip jaws of their baiting ancestors, but the new hybrids ignored cattle in favor of other dogs. Like the bull-baiters, if they got their teeth in, you couldn’t shake them loose. The early pit bulls actually brought about the extinction of several other ancient strains of fighting dog in Western Europe. Classic Darwinism; no other dog could compete.”

“I’m supposed to be impressed by this?”

“In the archives here at the compound, there is an old recording of an illegal pit fight. The handlers in this fight had trouble keeping the dogs apart long enough to start the contest. The dogs craved it. They lived for it. It was barbaric. It was grisly. But no more so than what happens between the lion and the gazelle. Or between the wolf and the deer. Nature, red of tooth and claw. Animals have always had to fight for survival.”

“But not for sport.”

“Sport was their survival. Without that sport, eventually, there were no pit bulls. Sport was their ecological niche.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

He continued, “Without the gladiator competition, this specimen you seem so impressed by would not exist, because the funding behind it would not exist. I was in college when the gladiator competition first became a regular part of the Olympics, so I’m old enough to remember what the field of genetics used to be like. This competition is the best thing that could have happened. When you combine scientists with capitalists, great leaps forward are made, always. Throw in a healthy dose of national pride, and anything can happen.”

Just then, a wasp fell out of the air and landed in her hair. She hardly reacted, turning her head slowly from side to side to try and free it from the dark windblown tangle. It crawled down a wayward curl onto her cheek, and he expected her to yelp and flinch away. But instead she gently swept the wasp to the table with the side of her hand. It sat, throwing its legs up for a moment, before righting itself and buzzing back into the air above them.

“You say you’ve seen video footage of these dogfights?” she said. “Well, I’ve seen the blood with my own eyes. I may not know what a pit bull is, but I’ve seen the boys and their fighting dogs in the back alleys where I grew up. And more significantly, I’ve seen these dogs a few days later with their faces so swollen with infection that their eyes look like little peas stuffed in puffy dough. What you do is still just back-alley dogfighting to me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Tell me good comes out of it somehow. Fine. Tell me it’s a necessary evil. So be it. But don’t you dare tell me how much the animals enjoy it.”

She looked up into the sky above them, watching the wasps. “I don’t see how the gladiator contest is even legal, given all the laws against animal cruelty.”

“Back-alley dogfights don’t funnel money into research for genetic diseases. The United States has many self-serving laws. Why not question why cigarettes are banned while alcohol remains legal?”

“So what do you get out of this, then? Is it the money? The fame?” Her eyes flashed with anger.

His own temper was rising now. He fought against it and decided to take the conversation in another direction. “You’ve seen Michelangelo’s statue of David, right?”

“Pictures.”

“I saw it twenty years ago when I was in Florence. I’m not going to tell you it changed my life, but it did change my perspective. I’d seen pictures, too, but when I saw it with my own eyes … words can’t even describe. I’ve never considered myself to be artistically inclined, but looking at that statue, I knew I was witnessing creative perfection. Michelangelo took a lump of stone and found the human form inside. When he was finished, it looked soft; it looked warm.”

“It’s a statue.”

“If you ever get a chance to see David in person, you’ll understand. No one could ever hope to surpass it. At least not in that medium. Michelangelo found the truth in stone, and that truth is the commonality between art and science.”

“Truth?”

“Each of us looks for it in the ways that are available to us.”

“So that’s what you are looking for, the truth in your medium?”

“It is what we are all looking for.”

“And you think Michelangelo would have approved?”

“If he were alive today, Michelangelo wouldn’t bother with stone. He would be a geneticist.”

“You’re serious.”

Silas nodded. “I wouldn’t want to face Italy’s gladiator in the arena.”

SILAS WAS tired. Bone tired. He lay on the long couch in his office, legs propped up and over the armrest, hands thrown back behind his head. He had grown accustomed to the long hours at the lab, but the initial cycle of pre-competition press conferences had begun today, and his energy reserves were depleted. There was nothing left, and the bad part was that he knew it would get worse before it got better. How do you explain to a room full of reporters that you can’t answer their questions? No pictures of the gladiator available. No information available. Why are you all here, then, you ask? Because the Olympic Commission wants you running those special-interest stories that turn the public’s eye toward the coming games. That’s why. No, I can’t tell you a damned thing to make your job easier. No, I can’t tell you what the gladiator looks like, or how it was designed, or anything at all, really, but hey, the United States won’t disappoint. I’m supposed to tell you that. Quote me on that .

He was a better scientist than he was a PR man, or at least he hoped to God he was, or he wasn’t much of a scientist at all. His eyes closed, and he willed his mind blank. For a moment, sleep seemed possible.

The knock on his door was not welcome. He waited.

The knock came again.

“Damn.” Silas climbed to his feet.

Tay Sawyer’s grinning face met him through the cracked door. Internally, Silas cringed, but he swung the door wide and let the trainer in anyway. He liked the man but wasn’t in the mood to deal with his restless energy this particular afternoon.

Tay Sawyer was one of those men whose activity level seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in preadolescence. He was a force never at rest, but his hyperkinetic agitations didn’t distract from the fact that he was the best trainer in the business. He was a short, thick man, baby-faced, slightly bowlegged, and prematurely balding. The top of his head was shiny and tanned.