He's dangerous, yet, Alix. There was no blackness this time, just the blood red. There was no cross. But a voice? "In the sky, in the sky--" Silence. Get up, Alix. For the black and brown and red and yellow who are watching you, around the world, get up. You're their hope, you're their WORD. Up, to one knee, and up just under the wire. Nick didn't charge, this time. Wary and careful, he was, after the pasting he'd been taking. Let Alix make the mistakes, like the one he just had. Nick only needed one more. Manny said, "Can you hit him, now? Still mourning for him, are you?" Alix said, "I'm a machine, Manny. He can't hurt me. I can hurt him, but he can't hurt me." "That's my boy." Manny said. "I'm glad you know what side of the fence you're on, finally." "I know my place," Alix said. "I know my job." "That you do. Get him." He got him. They don't quit, these men. Not while they're conscious. Not while they're alive. Alix hit him everywhere there was room to hit, with both hands, knocking him down four times in the seventh round. Each time, Nick got up. And in the eighth, he came out to meet Alix, walking into his doom, not flinching, not hiding, putting his crown on the line. Supremacy? Nick had it, bastard though he was. But for how long? How long could he stay that dumb and still live? Nick came out, his low hands a farce of a defense. How long could he hold the animosity down with his arrogance and his brutality and his shoddiness? How much time did he have? Alix knew. Nick came out for the eighth, and Alix hit him with a solid right hand. He didn't set it up, or feint Nick into the spot, or hesitate. There wasn't any need to. He put all his weight and most of his bitterness into the button-shot that made him middleweight champion of the world. Silence, a shocked silence at the history before them, and then, from the far seats, from the cheap seats, acclamation. The video cameras covered the ring, the crowd; the lights went on all over the huge bowl. Manny hugged him, Joe Nettleton hugged him, and others. In the far seats, no one moved. In the near seats, no one moved. Joe said, "The word, Alix." They were bringing the banked microphones over, the microphones that would carry the word all over the world. The cameras trained on him. The word. He looked at Joe, and Manny. He brought the mikes to mouth level, and moved back a bit. He said, "I won, tonight. I've no message for you. But someone has. It's in the sky." Craning necks, a murmur, the cameras leaving Alix as the operators swung the huge machines toward the red letters in the sky. Beside him, Manny gasped. Joe Nettleton stared, unbelieving, his mouth slack. Red letters? Something like red, but luminous and miles high, and definite. The cameras were trained directly on it, now. _FIND YOUR GOD._ Manny said, "Alix--how--Are you, did you--? Alix, what in hell are you?"