Somewhere in Los Angeles someone was intently watching the fight and his dexterous hands were grappling with a joystick. He thumbed a button. It was for a bob.
Manny Pacquiao bobbed; Floyd Jr. missed. Pacman retaliated with a kidney shot. It went home. Floyd grimaced; he tasted bitter bile rising to his mouth. His re-arranged faced twisted in agony as he coughed out dark yellow-brown fluid tainted with blood. The torment spread as if it had enveloped his whole being, every fiber, every sinew, every bone. It didn’t stop there. The universe was one great swirling pain and he was in the center of it. He saw the Cleto Reyes coming to meet his face anew, but he was too enervated to avoid it. He didn’t have the energy for that split-second dodge.
“…eight! Nine! Ten!!!” was what he heard. There was no numbers before that. There was also no chanting. From one to seven, there was only peace he would have embraced like it was a comfortable blanket…
Floyd Mayweather Jr. did not attempt to get up.
Slowly, the chanting was there again, and a pin of light was intruding his eyes; the ring physician was instructing him to follow it. Yes, he could do that. Only his eyes had the vigor to move.
“How was it?” a voice queried; the huge LED TV set was shut off. It was connected to a game console.
“He’s good. No damage. He’d be able to keep the concert date,” a nerdy man replied after putting down the joystick.
“Nice to hear that,” the man was in Armani suit, smoking Cuban, a little bit on the chubby side, looking like the Manny Pacquiao when he was just the lad of 135 or so pounds, but with a mass of fats, commented.
“By this time, the PAC Man is being tested for illegal substance,” the nerdy guy stated.
The Cuban-smoking man smiled. He was certain that they won’t find anything anomalous in his system. He would take a nap. Before the sun is up, the PAC Man will be here in his Los Angeles home – in the secret underground bunker.
“Mr. Pacquiao, since you’re already here, I would like to report on the progress of the Project: Middleweight,” the nerdy guy said.
“How was it? Maybe the sleep can wait.”
“We’re right on schedule. This way, Mr. Pacquiao.”
Mr. Pacquiao need not be led to where another chamber was. He had been there many times before. He was instrumental in building it. It was where he kept his trophies.
The heavy door automatically opened when their biometrics were affirmed. “Welcome, Sir Manny, Dr. Joshua Neyra,” a pleasing recorded voice of a woman greeted them.
The two proceeded and they put on lab gowns in the anteroom. Mr. Pacquiao laid his Cuban in a gold ashtray, hang his pelt fedora on a stand. Dr. Neyra reached for another door and he let himself in, closing it after Sir Manny or Mr. Pacquiao or that 135-or-so-pounder man with traces of fats in his features. Seven sentinel men stood along by the wall, unmoving, not even breathing. They were concealed in shadows and would not be noticed if not for the glimmer that bounced back from straps on their shoulders, across their chests – the seven division belts the legendary boxer had amassed together with fame and fortune. Further on the chamber were three busy men in lab gown, tinkering; the overhead surgical lamp glowing brightly. There were all sorts of monitor with flicking digits and randomly pulsating graphs.
The tiff-tocks of the shoes of the two men stole the attention of the three. “Good day, Mr. Pacquiao, Dr. Neyra,” the leadman of the project said; he was not sure of the time of day, thus the greeting was such. The other two just acknowledged their boss with a nod, pulled down their face mask and smiled. “How was the fight?” unsure if the fight was today, he followed up the first question with, “It’s tonight, right?”
“Knockout. First seconds of the ninth,” Dr. Neyra replied. “There was no tear and wear visible.”
“As designed.” The leadman turned back to the operating table, touches some toggles. The two others gave way to reveal who was being operated on.
Mr. Pacquiao beamed a wide grin. “Almost identical to the P.A.C. Man that performed tonight.”
“Not quite so, sir. About seven pounds heavier and we had to slow down the operating system a bit to make the weight gain more realistic, commensurate to the added pounds, still faster by an eye-blink to Sergio’s top speed. But the durability of the skin had been double, the lesson from Margarito. The synthetics we had developed fit the frame like your skin comfortably wraps on your body .
Mr. Pacquiao stared intently on “himself” lying lifeless on the table, himself if he was 155 pounds or so. The similarities of their features were uncanny, almost eerie, surreal.
An open portion of an arm that was being calibrated for reflexes showed multi-colored wires, depleted arteries, inert living tissues and titanium splices that form the skeletal system; the flesh was pale, though.
“It… I’ll have my color once blood had been pumped in his veins, right?”
“Right, Mr. Pacquiao. Blood will give the coloration to the skin…”
Mr. Pacquiao touched the work; the bristles of hair brushed upon his latex-gloved hand, he swore they were true hairs because they came from him. Even the skin that was grafted was from him. A small patch of his was synthesized in a laboratory to cover the upper dermis, the second layer was synthetics, but nobody would know the difference, because that too was grown from a sample of his own and fused with a new plastic that was to be used for skin grafting on burned patients in a few years… even the tissue. All were products of an emerging science of physio-bionics. The artificial skin takes the qualities of the authentic, complete with pores and sweat glands. It can even feel. “Good job, team. We’re ready for Maravilla,” he declared.
“Yes, we are, Mr. Pacquiao. As always… since that ousted president poured a lot of resources on the first P.A.C. Man. Physio-Android Cybernetic Man.” He was referring to the former president, an actor who was a great fan of the sweet science.
“Physio-Android Cybernetic Man,” Mr. Pacquiao mumbled. He almost laughed. “They were all too close to the truth, yet a million miles away from the reality.”
Mr. Pacquiao’s eyes had adjusted to the dim. He scanned the lifeless sentinels with their belts strapped across their chests, all looking like him – the evolution of the world’s greatest fighting machine. They had once termed him as such. They didn’t know that it was the elusive reality.
//end.