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on. Kelly almost fell and hoots and catcalls came at him like spears out of the din. Kelly felt the canvas give slightly under his feet and then Pole pushed the stool against the back of his legs and he sat down a little too jerkily.
    â€œHey, get that derrick out o’ here!” shouted a man in the second row. Laughter and hoots. “Scrap iron!” yelled some people.
    Then Pole drew off the covering and put it down on the ring apron.
    Kelly sat there staring at the Maynard Flash.
    The B-seven was motionless, its gloved hands hanging across its legs. There was imitation blond hair, crew cut, growing out of its skull pores. Its face was that of an impassive Adonis. The simulation of muscle curve on its body and limbs was almost perfect. For a moment Kelly almost thought that years had been peeled away and he was in the business again, facing a young contender. He swallowed carefully. Pole crouched beside him, pretending to fiddle with an arm plate.
    â€œSteel, don’t ,” he muttered again.
    Kelly didn’t answer. He felt a desperate desire to suck in a lungful of air and bellow his chest. He drew in small patches of air through his nose and let them trickle out. He kept staring at the Maynard Flash, thinking of the array of instant-reaction centers inside that smooth arch of chest. The drawing sensation reached his stomach. It was like a cold hand pulling in at strands of muscle and ligament.
    A red-faced man in a white suit climbed into the ring and reached up for the microphone which was swinging down to him.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” he announced, “the opening bout of the evening. A ten-round light heavyweight bout. From Philadelphia, the B-two, Battling Maxo. ”
    The crowd booed and hissed. They threw up paper airplanes and shouted “ Scrap iron! ”
    â€œHis opponent, our own B-seven, the Maynard Flash! ”
    Cheers and wild clapping. The Flash’s mechanic touched a button under the left armpit and the B-seven jumped up and held his arms over his head in the victory gesture. The crowd laughed happily.
    â€œJesus,” Pole muttered, “I never saw that. Must be a new gimmick.”
    Kelly blinked to relieve his eyes.
    â€œThree more bouts to follow,” said the red-faced man and then the microphone drew up and he left the ring. There was no referee. B-fighters never clinched—their machinery rejected it—and there was no knock-down count. A felled B-fighter stayed down. The new B-nine, it was claimed by the Mawling publicity staff, would be able to get up, which would make for livelier and longer bouts.
    Pole pretended to check over Kelly.
    â€œSteel, it’s your last chance,” he begged.
    â€œ Get out ,” said Kelly without moving his lips.
    Pole looked at Kelly’s immobile eyes a moment, then sucked in a ragged breath and straightened up.
    â€œStay away from him,” he warned as he started through the ropes.
    Across the ring, the Flash was standing in its corner, hitting its gloves together as if it were a real young fighter anxious to get the fight started. Kelly stood up and Pole drew the stool away. Kelly stood watching the B-seven, seeing how its eye centers were zeroing in on him. There was a cold sinking in his stomach.
    The bell rang.
    The B-seven moved out smoothly from its corner with a mechanical glide, its arms raised in the traditional way, gloved hands wavering in tiny circles in front of it. It moved quickly toward Kelly who edged out of his corner automatically, his mind feeling, abruptly, frozen. He felt his own hands rise as if someone else had lifted them and his legs were like dead wood under him. He kept his gaze on the bright unmoving eyes of the Maynard Flash.
    They came together. The B-seven’s left flicked out and Kelly blocked it, feeling the rock-hard fist of the Flash even through his glove. The fist moved out again. Kelly drew back his head and felt a warm breeze across his mouth. His own