Splice Fight

In the fight ring they called him Cougar Rex, which was funny to Rex, because he'd never spliced his genome with the dna of a cougar, not even once. Rex could hear the crowd that filled the dank warehouse outside chanting "Rex", "Rex", "Rex". As the "juice" ran through his system, modifying his genome, the chanting began to fade into the background of his mind where all thoughts would live for the next forty minutes while he would run on pure adrenalin charged instinct.

The room he'd been assigned tonight was little more than four temporary walls without a roof of its own. The stench of the crowd, their perfumes, food, sex, and sweat, assaulted him. Rex knew that the "Splice Fight" would start in a couple minutes and he'd be thrown into a ring with another like him, turned into god knows what, for the crowd to get their fill of the blood lust that would surely fill the room.

Out of this room there would be no referee, no trainer, not even an announcer for this fight. The crowd would decide who the winner was, declaring one combatant champion once his opponent hit the bloody cement for good. The winner getting a commerce blast of credits to his personal com. Which, in Rex's experience, should be spent on the quick unless you wanted to allow ever pimp, whore, and hacker in the crowed tonight to begin to siphon it off from the chintzy rss feed used for the cover charge pool.

Rex heard a "jreep" from his bag. He fought through the surge of chemicals that imploded inside of him and spread like fire ants all over his body in order to understand where he was. Hopping off the desk top he fought open his bag with over sized clawed hands and rummaged for his comm, the face of it pulsed with a cool blue glow.

"Play message." He gruffed, knowing that he couldn't use any of the coms tiny buttons.

"Rex? You there boy?" On the screen of the comm was a portly man with a thick goatee. His name was Quailin.

"You there, you shit?" Quailin adjusted the comm camera on his end of the line, a big meaty hand slapping at the crystal lens, leaving a thick greasy smudge behind.

"You and I've got business and I'm tired of waiting around for you to die. I've been nice up to this point, but no more. You. In my office. Win or loose tonight. Be there in the morning with what you owe me or so help me I'll see to it you're spliced with a school of lice you fuck!" Quailin slammed his hand down on his desk and the message blinked out.

Not a minute later, the door to the make shift office opened and a spliced rat-boy named Whip held open the door as he twitched. Rex shoved past him with a flesh rippling ROAR as he left the office and headed into the blackness.