01-21-2015, 12:13 PM
Prologue: Trading Up
Japan, outside Narita Airport, on the outskirts of Tokyo
SIMON LYSTER, "THE SPINE TWISTER" stands in a long, low barracks-type building, a simple structure of cinderblocks and drywall, nearly devoid of furnishings. Before him kneels a woman: Japanese, naked, exquisite, with a dancer's build. Her hair is dyed red, her body covered in tattoos and piercings that in Japan, and especially in women, are still stigmatized as characteristic of criminals and outcasts. On her back, crisscrossing her tattoos, are marks clearly left from a whip.
"Say your name," LYSTER commands. "For the final time."
"YAMAGUCHI SACH--SACHIKO YAMAGUCHI," she corrects herself to the Western form.
"No longer. You are #3 now."
"As it pleases the Master," she says in acceptable English.
"The OYABUN said that in addition to the usual skills and proclivities I require in my valets, you had certain other capabilities. Please demonstrate."
"As it pleases the Master." SUBMISSIVE #3 rises, crosses to a low cardstock table. On the table are two Glock G30Ss, each with a full clip.
She turns, looks down the barracks. At the end is a firing range, complete with paper targets.
SUBMISSIVE #3 advances to the 25-yard line, begins firing John Woo style, gun in each hand, at the targets, effortlessly compensating for recoil.
A thunderous crash of gunfire reverberates through the building. Neither LYSTER nor SUBMISSIVE #3 acknowledges it, despite their lack of earplugs.
She empties both clips, not pausing between shots. Each shot is a center-of-mass hit or headshot. The nitroglycerin smell of gunpowder fills the barracks.
LYSTER nods approvingly.
"And hand-to-hand as well?"
"This humble slave is a black belt in Kodokan judo like the Master. And Shotokan karate. As it pleases the Master."
A cold smile crawls across LYSTER's face.
"It pleases the Master very much indeed."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XWF TV Studio. Interview Setting.
STEVE SAYORS, wearing his typical cheap off-the-rack suit, sits in one of two plush chairs, a small table between, a pitcher of water and five cups on the table. Cameras face the set.
“Our guest at this time, making his pay-per-view debut at Turning Point, a self-proclaimed ‘submission specialist’ competing in a submission match, SIMON LYSTER, “THE SPINE TWISTER.”
LYSTER enters from stage left. He is dressed in a tailored Versace suit and shirt with matching pocket handkerchief. His SUBMISSIVE valets, three once more, accompany him, all dressed in identical black dresses. They almost look classy.
SIMON sits facing SAYORS, the SUBMISSIVES taking their positions standing behind and to the side, leaning on the chair back and armrests, gazing predatorily at SAYORS.
SAYORS tries to meet the SUBMISSIVES’ stares, can’t quite do so, gulps. He turns back to the camera.
"Mr. LYSTER, thank you for taking the time to join us."
"Anything for you, Mr. SAYORS. Let's get on with it, shall we?"
“First off: ‘Spine Twister’?”
“What do you mean?”
“The nickname.”
LYSTER sighs. "I was given the sobriquet when I earned my black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. You know how 85-IQ MMA meatheads are. It stuck. Could be worse: 'Muscle Shark.' 'Axe Murderer.' 'Iceman.'
"Oh, wait: There's an Iceman about in this federation, isn't there? Has Chuck Liddell sued for copyright infringement?
"Oh, wait, again: That's the one who interfered in my triple threat match. As a parenthetical note, Mr. Iceman: I haven't forgotten. There will be a receipt for your temerity, and at the worst possible moment for you.
“That said, while puerile, ‘Spine Twister’ is a fundamentally accurate moniker given what happens to opponents locked in the Paralyzer.
"And speaking of 85 IQ: Back to your questions, Mr. SAYORS."
"You're on film inflicting…”
“Yes?”
“…ummm… horrific abuse on your valet."
LYSTER rolls his eyes. "Men of your clearly limited sexual experience, Mr. SAYORS, do not comprehend the exotic power dynamics present in more rarefied circles. The SUBMISSIVES are clinically diagnosed masochists who willingly engage in a BDSM relationship with me. Kids: That means 'bondage & discipline/domination & submission/sadism & masochism.' Ask your parents about it.
“At any rate, my valets take pleasure in receiving pain and are expert at inflicting it.”
SUBMISSIVE: #1: “We like it.”
SUBMISSIVE #2: “We... we like it....”
SUBMISSIVE #3: “We like it.”
SUBMISSIVES [all]: “We like it.”
“You should drop by my establishment sometime. If Mr. VINNIE LANE is to be believed, you’re more perverse than you let on, Mr. SAYORS. I'll give you a complimentary pass. You’re on your own for airfare. It'd be the best... and worst... night of your life.”
SUBMISSIVE #1: “Violation.”
SUBMISSIVE #2: “...domination...”
SUBMISSIVE #3: “Excruciation.”
SUBMISSIVES [all]: “STEVE SAYORS: Like all the rest.”
SAYORS eyeballs the SUBMISSIVES from the neck down and almost seems enthusiastic, then looks into their eyes and flinches.
“Ooooookay.”
“Regarding your specific allegation: Note that the camera shut off before anything was seen. Like I've said before: plausible deniability. No body, no crime.”
SUBMISSIVE #2 can be seen to flinch, ever so slightly, in the background.
“When I break you, Mr. SAYORS, I shall be sure to afford you the same anonymous end.”
SAYORS opens and closes his mouth once, twice.
“Mmmmm… moving on. To the match…”
“We’re going to talk about the actual match? How refreshing. By all means continue.”
“Finisher versus finisher: The Hollywood Hills versus the Paralyzer.”
“The Hollywood Hills is a gator roll. A nicely executed one, to be sure, but I learned it as a white belt. Any amateur wrestler can counter it. The Paralyzer, by contrast, is my innovation: two distinct moves spliced together in one simultaneous, brutal, glacial grind. If you defend against the neck crank, I tighten the spine lock. Or vice versa. There's no more counter to it than there is to a car crash.
“My only suggestion, not only to Mr. HOLLYWOOD but to all future opponents: Defend against the neck crank portion if you can. Paraplegia is less onerous than quadriplegia. Ask Christopher Reeve.
“Oh, wait, he's dead.”
“Your opponent is by no means unskilled in submission wrestling.”
“Your assessment is correct. I’ve never disparaged Mr. HOLLYWOOD’s skills, only his bad poetry.”
SAYORS pauses a second, then: “Ummm… well… this from the person who went into a monologue on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the end of the universe.”
LYSTER shrugs. “Well, when one is dancing with oneself all week, a bit of self-indulgence is to be expected. When Mr. HOLLYWOOD deigns to descend from his lofty clouds of pot smoke and grace me with actual content, then we’ll address it. Until then, I sell the match as best I can. Contrast my nihilism against his aspiration to foment dramatic tension. Invert the few scraps of dialogue he’s given me into a workable metaphor.
“Or, as RIC FLAIR might put it: Carry a broom.
“Anyway, you had a point, yes?”
“Given your opponent’s admitted skill, do you give your opponent a chance to beat you in your specialty match?”
“Yes. 2.4%.”
“Precisely 2.4%?”
“More or less. I minored in statistics at Cambridge. I compiled our respective footage into as close to a standard sample size as I could, ran a regression analysis at a 95% confidence interval, and… never mind, I can see I’m going over your head. Suffice to say I estimate my win probability at 97.6%.
“That’s in Denver, by the way. At that altitude, my opponent’s smaller size gives him arguably superior aerobic capacity and thus an additional .2% edge. At sea level, I win 97.8% of the time.”
“Should you win...”
“When I win.”
“...what next? A win catapults you into title contention for the Prophetic Title. The current champion, HYSTERIA, faces MORBID ANGEL for the belt at Turning Point.”
“I focus on one opponent at a time.
“Given that, my assessment of my theoretical future opponents is as follows: One's a piece of meat. One's a larger piece of meat. Arguably I'd prefer the larger one since, as with CAIN ARKHAM, his size makes him more resilient and thus last longer in the Paralyzer before breaking. More pleasure for me. But it's of no great consequence to me.
“The title? Irrelevant. To be candid, when I win it, I intend to break the belt, not to hold it. To vacate the Prophetic Title and leave it in shards on the mat. SHANE DOUGLAS 1994. Other slugs can crawl for its scraps if they like.”
“What about other titles? Television, say? Or Universal?”
“My exact words from prior: A man cares little for the reverence of worms. Titles are the slime worms secrete to adorn themselves and fancy themselves men. Are you almost through crawling, Mr. SAYORS?”
“Do you have any goals here?”
“The next victim. And the next. And, in good time, all the rest.
“Remember the Cambodian killing fields? The mounds of skulls? I want to sit on a throne of spines and survey the broken world.”
“That's it? No titles? No glory? No rankings? Just one victim after the other?”
“That's all there is. You're the ones who insist on setting structure atop savagery. On trying to suture the world's shards into something of meaning. In shattering the Prophetic Title belt, I merely intend to make the title a more accurate microcosm of the world. The map should mimic the territory.”
“Well, given that… career path, then… any... umm... standout victims in your crosshairs?”
“The hobbit. And the shark.”
“Why them?”
“The hobbit, for two reasons. One, he placed a ludicrous joke of a submission hold on me at Shove-It. I found it undignified. Plus, I've been wondering something: If a regularly sized human has 33 vertebrae, does that mean a hobbit has 17? My scientific curiosity is piqued.”
“And... I take it you mean JAWS?”
“Normal sharks' skeletons are made of cartilage. Is his? Again: scientific curiosity.”
“You say you’re above it all….”
“Below it all, actually.”
“And yet...”
LYSTER's voice drops dangerously. “And yet, Mr. SAYORS?”
“There are suggestions that you've...” SAYORS pauses, fidgets.
“Yes?” LYSTER rolls his fingers in an impatient gesture. “Go on, Mr. SAYORS. It's not your turn to break today.”
“That there's more at stake for you in your Turning Point match. That if C.C. HOLLYWOOD loses, it's just a loss, but if you lose your debut submission match, well...”
SIMON glares at SAYORS, making the interviewer visibly wilt. Then he looks toward the ceiling and finally nods in approval.
“That's actually rather perceptive, Mr. SAYORS. Your point, I take it: If I lock down HOLLYWOOD in the Paralyzer... and if the referees dislodge me before I inflict permanent damage... that his shame is limited to a simple loss. The ruin of his self-proclaimed undefeated streak, but in the end just a mark on a piece of paper. Whereas if the SPINE TWISTER, the submission specialist, loses his first submission match... the match he's pleaded for since arrival... that it's a career-killing loss of credibility.”
LYSTER shrugs.
“You are correct, Mr. SAYORS.
“We British have a saying, though: No way out but forward go. When I first arrived, I consulted Sun Tzu’s The Art of War as part of my match preparation. The worst ground on which to fight is, according to the book, desperate ground. Since my debut in this federation it's been nothing but desperate ground. Elimination match: lost, but submitted one opponent before I fell. Triple threat: Beat two other competitors. Battle royal: My worst match, yet outlasted four other competitors to tie for first. Numerically I'm well ahead of the curve here.
“I think I'm getting my footing rather nicely on desperate ground.
“HOLLYWOOD's the sentimental favorite, of course. He's the mongoose who's cornered the cobra in its hole. Worked in Kipling.
“In real life, the cobra usually wins.”
“Any closing thoughts?”
“I’ll let the ladies have the last word. It’s a word you’ll hear at Turning Point. It’s a word all of you need to get used to.”
SUBMISSIVE #1: “Submit.”
SUBMISSIVE #2: “Submit.”
SUBMISSIVE #3: “Submit.”
SUBMISSIVES [all]: “SUBMIT.”
[fade to commercial]
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