He adjusted the collar of his jacket. It was plain, unadorned by team colors or other identifiers.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Like a playboy with more ego than talent,” Cait said, her lips quirking up at the corners.
He grunted, not bothering to deign the comment with an answer. She’d called him that before, so he’d checked the human definition of the word and hadn’t liked it.
If the boot fits, the voice murmured. He ignored it again.
“Then let’s go.”
He’d activated the scrambler before they left the ship, but he still wasn’t used to the hum against his skin, and it itched like mad. His reflection in the polished floor panels looked… wrong. Not different, exactly, just difficult to focus on. His features seemed to shift when he tried to examine them, sliding away from his gaze like water off heated metal.
The registration hall occupied a converted cargo bay near the civilian docking ring… Unlike the spectacle of the stadium, which was designed to impress, this was functional and efficient. Fluorescent strips cast harsh light over rows of processing stations where clerks in League uniforms handled the endless stream of participants, support staff, and media personnel, all clamoring to register for the event.
He paused in the doorway. It had been a long time since he’d had to register in person for any event, and for a moment, he let the chaos wash over him.
The smell hit him first. The sweat of too many bodies packed together in one area mingled with the scent of antiseptic and heat oils that hung around any group of professional athletes like cologne. Over it all was the particular electrical tang of high-powered holo-projectors. He closed his eyes and breathed in.
“Wildcard registration is station twelve,” Cait said in a low voice, consulting the directory display. “I’ll wait by the refreshment kiosk.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
Station twelve sat at the far end of the row, separated from the main team registrations by a stretch of empty floor that felt like a statement all in itself. The clerk behind the desk was young, barely out of training halls, and obviously bored. His eyes flicked to Raaze without interest, then back to his display.
“Name?”
“Kavaan Vott.” The false identity Cait had constructed came complete with a fabricated competition history and a homeworld in a system remote enough that no one would bother to verify. Not unless they had a week to wait for the return ping.
The clerk’s fingers moved across the console. “Species?”
“Latharian.”
“Experience?”
“Local leagues,” Raaze said, the lie sliding from his tongue easily.
That earned him a brief glance, a flicker of dismissal in the clerk’s eyes before he returned to his screen. “Position?”
“Striker.”
The clerk snorted. Every player wanted to be a striker. It was the glory position on a team, the one where you scored the most points, got the most attention, and made the highlight reels.
But Wildcards had no position. There were no positions on a team of one.
“Entry fee is two thousand credits,” the clerk said in a bored voice, already flicking his screen back to what he had been watching before Raaze had walked up to the booth. He clearly expected Raaze to balk at the entry fee and wander off.
Instead, he slid a credit chip across the counter. “All present and correct.”
The clerk’s eyebrow rose in surprise, and he snapped the porn on the display off.
“You understand that wildcards enter the tournament at the preliminary round and must win three consecutive matches to advance to the main bracket?”
“I understand.”
“Medical clearance?”
Raaze slid him a data chip this time, containing his forged medical docs. The clerk passed it over the scanner. Raaze held his breath as it was uploading, but no alarms started blaring. He breathed a sigh of relief.
