The Counterfeit

The Weight of Glory

Chapter 13: The Counterfeit

Kwame met them outside The Forge with a grin on his face and a camera crew behind him.

Not a proper crew. Two content lads with stabilizers and branded hoodies, the kind of men who could turn a warm-up into a story about destiny if the lighting helped them. They orbited Kwame as he came down the steps, laughing at something he had said, catching him from the angle that made his jaw look sharper and his shoulders broader and his future inevitable.

Marcus hated how normal it all looked.

The Forge itself was unchanged in the physical world - glass, steel, Canary Wharf money trying very hard to smell like discipline instead of capital. But in the Sight the hairline crack Marcus had opened in Agon's hold on the room had not healed. It had widened. And the space around it was busy now, not with fighters feeding a principality by accident but with something more sophisticated.

Imitation.

Proto-wraps had become false wraps. Not on everyone. Not even on most people. On the chosen few. The camera-facing ones. The men being framed, lit, sold.

Kwame dismissed the crew with a joke and came over, hands open.

"You actually came."

His voice was the same. That was the worst part.

"Marcus, bruv -" He glanced at the wheelchair, then stopped himself before pity could finish the sentence. Kwame had always been quick that way. "You good?"

"You tell me," Marcus said.

Kwame laughed.

"I am, actually. Better than good." He looked at Dez, then at Naomi. "Didn't know you were bringing elders."

"She's not my elder," Marcus said.

"Yet," Naomi said.

Kwame's eyes lingered on her for half a second, taking in authority he did not have language for. Then he shrugged it off.

"Listen, I can't stay long. Media day. But you saw the news, yeah? O2 on Saturday. Luca Moretti's old opponent pulled out, the matchmakers needed a body who could actually fight, and apparently the universe still rates me."

In the physical world, he looked alive. On the edge of the thing he had been training for his whole life.

In the Sight, dark wraps climbed from his hands to mid-forearm.

They were beautiful if you didn't know the Source had never spoken them.

"Who made that happen?" Marcus asked.

"The Forge." Kwame spread his arms, indicating the building behind him. "They've got people everywhere now. Promotions, managers, sponsors. Since I came over, everything's opened up." His grin widened. "Told you, innit. Best move I ever made."

Marcus remembered the pub on Rye Lane. Kwame across from him, talking about The Forge like a convert.

Naomi stepped slightly to Marcus's left. "What's your mental-performance staff called?"

Kwame blinked. "What?"

"The programme behind your recent acceleration. The one that taught you how to carry attention without being crushed by it."

He laughed again, but less naturally.

"You from a newspaper or something?"

"Answer her," Dez said.

Kwame's expression hardened by one degree.

"They've got a consultant. That's all. Visualisation, breathing, state work. Same stuff top-level athletes use."

Marcus let the Sight sharpen.

The false wraps on Kwame's arms tightened when he said visualisation. Tightened again at top-level athletes. Not possession. Agreement. The counterfeit brightened wherever Kwame touched the language willingly.

"Kwame," Marcus said quietly, "what have they been having you look at?"

The grin disappeared.

"What is this?"

"I'm asking you a question."

"And I'm asking you one. Why'd you really come? To congratulate me, or to do what injured fighters do when somebody they used to beat starts moving without them?"

It had enough truth in it to hurt.

Marcus had once been the fixed point in Kwame's fight world. Injury had not erased that. It had only made it ugly.

"I came because something is using you," Marcus said.

Kwame stared at him.

Then he looked at Dez, looking for sanity by association.

"Coach."

Dez's jaw shifted. "Listen to him."

"You're serious." Kwame took a step back. The camera boys, sensing friction, had drifted closer again. "This is what you've all decided? Proper church madness?"

Marcus wheeled forward.

"Saturday night isn't just a fight."

"It's the biggest opportunity of my life."

"That's what I said."

For one second - less than one second - something behind Kwame looked out through him.

Not full manifestation. Not face. Just attention sliding forward to the glass.

Marcus felt his own wraps answer like muscles bracing before impact.

Then the content lads called Kwame's name and the moment shut.

Kwame looked at Marcus the way men look at someone they loved once and no longer know how to respect.

"You should stay away from this one, bruv," he said. "If you can't stand watching somebody else take the room, don't come."

He turned and walked back toward The Forge.

The camera boys fell into orbit around him again.

In the Sight, the counterfeit wraps gleamed under the lights, all promise and no gift.

---

Dusk had settled over Brixton by the time Abena called.

"Come back," she said. "There's someone here asking for you."

Grace Tabernacle smelled like rain and old hymnbooks. The sanctuary lights were on, but the room was dim anyway. A woman Marcus recognized from the second row was standing by the front pew with a child in a school blazer and trainers, one hand resting on the girl's shoulder hard enough to mean fear and not affection.

The girl was maybe thirteen. Small. Braids pulled back. Serious face made sharper by lack of sleep.

She looked straight at Marcus's arms before she looked at Marcus.

Not where his arms were.

At the wraps.

Her eyes widened.

"Those are writing," she said.

No one in the room spoke for a beat.

Then Mother Ama, very softly, said, "What is your name, child?"

"Esi."

She did not take her eyes off Marcus.

"And the woman behind the screen," Esi said, "she was looking at him again today."