Five Years in the Past

Earth: Yukon City

1332 AA

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Vincent Torino looked up from the ledgers sitting on the table in front of him. A momentary narrowing of his eyes was the only expression visible on his face. Sitting across the table from Vincent, a short, skinny man looked around nervously. The small man was Vincent's accountant.

It was late afternoon, still, more than four hours before the fight club opened for business, and Vincent was not normally in the club at that hour. The only reason that Vincent was present was to review the books with his accountant. There was only a single set of paper ledgers, which were kept locked in a concealed safe on the premises. The fight club was extralegal, and Vincent did not allow any financial documents or records related to it to electronic format. Computers could be hacked remotely, but to acquire paper ledgers, one would have to enter the club and crack the safe.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"That's not the Enforcement Bureau, is it?" The account's thin face revealed an expression of near terror.

"Relax, Sal. The slags never come out here. They know better." Vincent's calm monotone matched his near emotionless countenance.

Vincent looked in the direction of his bodyguards, who were seated at a table some twenty meters away. "Tony, bring up the outside cameras on the tablet."

"Yes, Boss." Tony, a big man in his early forties, picked up a briefcase from the floor, and putting it on the table, he took out a tablet computer. Frowning at the image on the tablet, he brought it to Vincent.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Displayed on the screen, a hugely obese man was staring at the door to the fight club, and the prostrate forms of two of Vincent's men could be seen. One had his forearm bent at an unnatural angle, and a needle gun was lying on the ground next to him.

Raising his left arm to pound on the door again, the fat man paused and looked at the blood staining his sleeve. Rolling up his sleeve, he poked at the hole going through his arm, without any signs of discomfort.

Looking at the guard with the broken arm, the fat man kicked him from his side onto his back and squatted next to him.

Without any expression, Vincent watched the fat man tear off the front of the guard's white dress shirt and bandage his forearm.

Turning back to the door, the fat man pounded on it once again.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"Do you recognize him?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, Boss. I've seen that fat ass hanging around the club, watching the fights, fer a couple weeks now. Hard to miss a two-meter mountain of fat like him."

"Take all the men and find out what that person wants."

Tony looked at Vincent in surprise. "All the men? He's just one fat guy."

"That 'just one fat guy' took out two armed men by himself, and apparently, Lars only managed to get off a single shot."

Glancing at the tablet, Tony frowned. "Right, Boss."

While Tony and the rest of his men headed toward the front of his former manufacturing plant fight club, Vincent dragged the seek bar back to the start of the fat man's confrontation with his guards.

The fat man approached the guards, but when the guards appeared to be hostile, he stopped about four meters away.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

"That is too close."

Hearing Vincent's words, Sal frowned. "Mr. Torino?"

Realizing he had spoken out loud, Vincent glanced at Sal. "Lars and Paul were stupid. They let the fat man get too close. A gun is only dangerous if you are in front of the barrel. It cannot shoot to the side or behind."

Looking at the video, Sal saw the fat man was still in front of the guards. With a look of incomprehension in his eyes, he nodded. "Oh."

Vincent continued to watch the video, where the fat man and the guards were arguing. The guards were showing steadily angrier expressions, but the fat man appeared calm. Despite the fat man's lack of expression due to the layers of fat on his face, Vincent thought that the fat man was being condescending toward the guards.

As Paul started to pull his needle gun, the fat man moved to his side like a ghost and knocked him unconscious with a single blow to the temple. Paul's body fell to the ground, with the needle gun still only halfway out of its holster.

Barely a second behind Paul, Lars pulled his own needle gun and fired, but the tight burst of metal slivers only hit the fat man's forearm. The rest of his body was already outside the line of fire.

Grabbing Lars' wrist, the fat man snapped the bones in Lars' forearm with a twist of his own wrist and knocked him unconscious with another blow to the temple.

Taking out his pocket assistant, Vincent hit the speed dial for Tony, who was almost at the door.

"Yeah, Boss?" Tony voice was audible over the speaker.

"Do not provoke that man, Tony. None of you are his equal and numbers will not matter in a fight."

There was a pause of a few seconds, then Tony's nonplussed reply was audible from the speaker. "Okay, Boss. Got it."

Seeing Sal's pale face from the corner of his eye, Vincent looked at him. "Do you understand, now?"

Sal nodded his head emphatically. "Yes, Mr. Torino. I understand. He's not human."

Vincent almost frowned, but his stoic lack of expression remained in place. "He is quite human, but his level of skill is representative of a body trained to the absolute peak of human capability. It is amazing that he can move at that speed without injuring himself, and his tolerance for pain must be frightening."

"Right, Boss. I get it." Tony's disbelieving tone of voice did not match his words.

"Leave the connection open. I want to hear the conversation."

"Yes, Boss."

The static-like sound of Tony putting his pocket assistant in his pocket emanated from the speaker on Vincent's pocket assistant.

While Tony opened the steel door of the abandoned manufacturing plant, Vincent continued to watch the fat man on the tablet display.

The fat man's lips separated in an expression that could have been a snarl or a grin. Vincent was not sure what to make of it.

"I'm here to see Vinny Torino. I have a business proposition for him." The fat man had a deep bass voice that was brimming with arrogance.

"Mister Torino is busy. Make an appointment if you want to see him." Tony's irritation was audible in his tone as he stressed the word 'Mister'. As an employee of Vincent Torino, Tony was used to receiving respect from everyone.

In the underside of Yukon City, Vincent Torino was both respected and feared. His enemies tended to become his subordinates or disappear, and as long as things were done quietly, the city government never interfered with him. He was regularly seen at public events with City Councilmen and the Yukon City Civil Penal Code Enforcement Bureau Commandant.

There were numerous rumors about his origins, but after he was filmed killing several of the terrorist gunmen during an attack at the dedication of a new Yukon City Civil Penal Code Enforcement Bureau station, very few people had the courage to go against him directly.

"Like I was saying, I'm here with a business proposition for Vinny. If he wasn't here, his accountant wouldn't be here."

Hearing the fat man's words, Vincent suppressed his inclination frown. The fat on the fat man's face made it nearly impossible to discern his expression, but Vincent had the distinct impression that the fat man was smirking at his guards.

Is this a strange scam to get close to me? Is he just arrogant? Does he really have a way to make money that might interest me? Vincent could not decide on the fat man's motives for his actions, and it bothered him. He was very experienced at reading people, but he could not discern the fat man's intentions.

The way he moved, when he took out Lars and Paul, he could go through all the men I have here in less than thirty seconds. I do not know if I could stop him, myself. Vincent's stony expression was replaced with a very slight frown.

Tapping on his pocket assistant's screen, Vincent killed the connection to Tony's pocket assistant and called him again.

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Bring the fat man up here."

There was a few seconds of silence from Tony, before he responded. "Right, Boss. We're coming."

The connection to Tony's pocket assistant went dead, so Vincent could not hear what was said, but the fat man stepped through the door and out of the camera's field of vision.

A couple minutes later, the fat man followed Tony up the stairs to the second-floor lounge area that was normally used for VIP seating at the fights.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Once again, seated at the table with his accountant, Vincent listened to the fat man's steps on the metal treads of the stairs. How much does that monster weigh?

As he stepped onto the floor of the VIP section, the fat man paused and looked around, but whatever thoughts might have crossed his mind were not reflected in his eyes. Fixing his stare on Vincent, the fat man walked toward him.

Grabbing a chair from the table next to Vincent's, the fat man straddled it and sat gingerly, with his arms crossed on the back. "Shitty chair. This thing's ready to collapse under my fat ass."

The VIPs at Vincent's fight club were nothing more than those with a lot of money and an addiction to gambling. They were the suckers that provided him with the real income from this club. The single to double-digit bets, by the masses, were a good, stable take from every fight night, but the big money bets, made by the people who came to the VIP section, were the real payoff. Despite the rough layout of the ground floor, the tables and chairs were all high quality products, meant to cater to the well-off suckers.

With a blank expression, Vincent nodded. "I might think about taking your opinion into consideration."

The fat man released a bark of noise that might have been a laugh and exposed big white teeth in what might have been a grin. "You should. My fat ass is a precision chair quality analyzer."

Vincent's blank expression did not change in the least. "You did not come here to talk about my 'shitty' chairs."

"Nope. I'm here about both of us making money. You're the house in this place. How much money can you make off a fighter that will never lose and can guarantee to drop a fighter within five seconds of a cue?"

"Since a fighter like that does not exist, the question is pointless."

"I'm sitting right here."

Vincent restrained an urge to frown. "This joke has gone far enough."

The fat man closed his mouth. "I'm not joking. Set up a private fight with ten of the best fighters you have, and I'll take each of them down in five seconds based on your cues."

For more than a minute, Vincent stared at the fat man without saying anything, but the fat man did not flinch or look away.

"What is your name?"

The fat man grinned again. "You can call me Wild Boar."

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