Max Arena (44 page)

‘Seamless blades held together by reversible
magnets,’ Abdullah said. ‘Depress the touchpad and the magnets
switch poles to separate the weapons. Bring both weapons back
together and the magnets will automatically reverse again to rejoin
them. You asked for two swords and now you have them.’

Max inspected both blades and
found they truly were
identical, both in weight and appearance. He smiled and looked up
at Abdullah, only to find Abdullah smiling back.

‘Now you have no excuses,’ Abdullah said.

Max nodded back and then turned to face his
instructors again, his swords held wide. Abdullah’s smile widened.
A few moments later, the clash and ring of steel refilled the
morning air.

12:30pm, 14
^th
October (1 day later).
Everything

The walls of
the studio green room stood plastered with posters of Sally
Sainsbury, her sparkling green eyes glittering above a faultless,
iridescent smile that blistered out of her artificially tanned
face. Sally might just as well have had the word “fake” tattooed on
her forehead, but there she was, the undeniable megastar and queen
of day time television; the goddess adored by hundreds of millions
of stimulus poor humans around the world.

Max decided to
simply look at the ground. After all, he was just about to go out
on stage and meet the woman in front of a live studio audience and
countless viewers. He didn’t feel a need to overdose on her visage
before experiencing her for real up close. Max was tempted to
scratch his nose, but resisted. The make-up on his face had begun
to dry and constrict making it feel like he had just emerged from
one of Kris’ mud-saturated obstacle courses. It was fair to say, he
was not enjoying himself. Not one little bit.

Elsa had
convinced him that the best way to keep up his public relations
profile and maintain the wild momentum of Team Max, was for him to
do the occasional television interview. So, here he was dressed in
apparently the most aptly styled blue jeans and fitted, white,
short sleeve shirt and of course his trademark orange shoes,
waiting to be summoned out into the limelight and exhibited like a
prize trophy. At least it genuinely was for a good cause

The door
opened.

‘Hi, Max!’
sounded a mousey little voice.

Max turned
looked up. There in the door stood a tiny, doll-like figure, doing
her best to be a miniature, Sally Sainsbury, right down to the
glitter infused make-up and unnatural tan. A microphone headset and
wired ear plugs graced her features, clearly indicating her to be
some sort of stage assistant.

‘Sally’s
waiting,’ she said, all chirpy like.

Max nodded and
without a word, followed the miniature Sally out the door and down
a corridor towards a pair of large, non-descript double doors.
There the assistant stopped, holding a hand up like some sort of
army platoon leader, instructing Max to come to a halt behind her.
Cocking her head, she listened to instructions in her headset. Max
took the pause as an opportunity to again go over the questions he
had been briefed on earlier, that Sally would be asking. He had
winced then and he winced again now. This was not going to be a
pleasant experience and in all honesty, he was struggling deeply
with how this affair was going to support his public relations.
Getting interviewed on international television by an animated,
beauty pageant doll with an IQ of single figures was in no way
going to help him.

Then the
assistant’s hand came down and she stepped to the side.

‘You’re on,’
she said with infinite glee and a dazzling smile worthy of any
toothpaste advertisement.

Again Max
nodded. The double doors swung automatically open and instantly he
was assaulted by a cacophony of crowd delirium and the Team Max
anthem blasting out. Holding his discomfort in place, Max walked
out and the assault intensified. Lights flared overhead. Cameras
rolled all around him. Looking at the crowd, they were all on their
feet, clapping overhead and stamping their feet in time to the
anthem. It was a madhouse and for a moment, he had to pause to take
it all in.

Letting his
senses settle, Max absorbed the chaos and resumed his walk to the
stage. Turning, he stepped up and came face to face with the
undisputed champion of day time television.

Sally Sainsbury
stood in front of him like a wax figure sculpted from perfect
inorganic materials. She was faultless, if you liked heavily
bronzed, intricately manicured and fulsomely figured blondes that
is. Barbie was a poor representation of the perfect woman against
this creature. Love or hate Sally Sainsbury, up close she was a
sight to see and now that Max had seen her, all he wanted to do was
turn and leave, quickly.

Remembering his
offstage coaching from the support staff, Max accepted Sally’s
proffered hand, but deliberately held off on kissing it. Instead he
shook it briefly and then turned away to make sure his seat was
behind him. Sally stood for a split second watching Max turn away,
displaying her slight irritation at not getting the greeting she so
clearly desired, but then shrugged and settled into her ludicrously
oversized, leather chair, shuffling her notes. Max followed suit
and lowered himself down into his own jumping castle sized chair,
looking as comfortable as a man sitting in an electric chair. The
crowd slowly settled as the anthem trailed off, having a couple of
false starts at silence before eventually the chants of Max and
Sally trailed off. The quiet that followed was as loaded as a gun
and so Max waited for whatever came next and then the Sally
Sainsbury onslaught began.

It started with
the most remarkable, unblemished and blinding smile Max could ever
have imagined. Sally’s glittering make-up set her features flashing
beneath the stage lights and then she opened her mouth to speak.
Before a single syllable passed her full, glossy lips, the crowd
erupted again. The Max and Sally chants immediately reached fever
pitch and Max noticed a dozen burly men appear from nowhere to
stand along the front edge of the stage. A protection detail. Max
wondered if they carried Peter’s skill sets and immediately doubted
it, but at least now he had a little bit of comedy to put himself
at ease. The crowd again simmered down and this time Sally actually
managed to speak.

‘Maximilian
Augustus Dyson,’ Sally started off, her voice crisp, clear and
every shred of every word so sharply enunciated it was impossible
to not listen to her voice. ‘You are without a doubt the most
famous person to ever grace my stage.’

The crowd made
a solid attempt to reclaim the airspace, but Sally waved them
down.

‘Please,
everyone? Please? I know it’s exciting,’ she said, gaining control
again. ‘Gee, even I’m excited and I’ve interviewed the President,
but as they say here in TV Land, the show must go on. So, let’s
show a little Sally Sainsbury hospitality and hold the applause for
just a little bit.’

The crowd
obliged. Max waited his turn, wondering what on Earth Sally
Sainsbury hospitality was.

‘Now, Max,’
Sally said, ‘as I said, you are the most famous person to ever
grace my stage and I have to say, I hope that we can have an encore
performance in January to not only celebrate the New year, but the
saving of the world?’

It took Max a
few seconds to realise it was his cue to speak. ‘Ah, yeah. That
would be nice.’

‘Yes, it would
because at the moment my January calendar is wide open, for obvious
reasons.’

Max just
nodded, dumbly.

‘So, you are
something of a recluse, Max and I can understand that. Saving the
world is not a vocation that would weigh easily on anyone’s mind.
In fact it has to be the biggest responsibility anyone in the world
has ever had to bear. How does it sit with you, knowing the entire
world is looking to you to save their lives and the lives of their
children?’

Max paused. He
had been briefed before the show about the questions Sally was
going to ask, so he had time to prepare answers, but here, now on
the stage and in front of millions, his doubts about the purpose of
this so called public relations exercise returned.

‘Um,
it’s...it’s not really...’ and he trailed off, not comfortable with
the answer he had crafted earlier.

‘Max, you can
tell us the truth. It’s all we want,’ Sally said, her famous
“mothering” face and tone appearing in full bloom. Despite its
obvious falsity, Max chose to take the advice literally and simply
tell her the truth. Suddenly, he was at ease.

‘I don’t wear
the weight of the world on my shoulders,’ he said. ‘I don’t know
how to because it has no meaning to me.’

‘I don’t
understand, Max,’ Sally replied. ‘When you walk down the street,
all eyes turn to you, not because you cut a striking figure, but
because you are the world’s saviour. We all
need
you to
win.’

Max paused
before he replied. ‘Sally, the truth is I don’t know everyone in
the world and I never will. I know everyone is putting their faith
in me, I get that. How can I not, but that’s too much for me. It’s
not tangible. It’s outside my reasoning.’

‘So then let me
ask the question a different way,’ Sally said. ‘If you’re not
saving the world for all of
us
, then
why
are you
doing it? To save
yourself
?’

‘No,’ Max said
abruptly, leaving a loud pause afterwards to hammer home his
feeling. ‘I’m not afraid of dying.’

‘Then why are
you doing it?’

‘For those that
I care about.’

‘And who are
they? Your wife and children?’

‘Yes, first and
foremost, but they’re not the only ones?’

‘Who else?’

‘That doesn’t
matter, but they know who they are because I’ve told them. What I
will say though is that I only know them because of this
whole...affair,’ Max said, waving his arm. ‘It’s crazy, but before
I got singled out to go into the arena, I had only my family and to
be honest, they were all I needed to be happy, but now with the
fate of the world in the balance, I’ve had some of the finest
people anyone could ever know come into my life and for that I
consider myself blessed, so when I say I’m doing this for those
that I care about, they’re on that list too and like I said, they
know who they are.’

‘Thank you for
sharing, Max,’ Sally said, with a tone Max could almost believe was
genuine, ‘but don’t forget about us too okay?’

Max nodded
while the crowd let a few stray cheers and whistles out.

‘What about
your chances in the arena?’ Sally asked. ‘We’ve all seen you train
and I have to tell you, Max, when you put on those orange sneakers,
I get as giddy as any school girl watching you hurl yourself
around. No one can deny your physical prowess. I particularly
enjoyed watching you smash through that ice block challenge
yesterday and you were so, so close to the one hundred metre world
record. It has to be said that everything you do seems superhuman,
but is it enough? Do you really think you can defeat all the alien
opponents that will be placed in front of you in the arena? Do you
really think you can win?’

Max glanced out
at the audience hidden behind the lights and the cameras and then
down at the stage. Then he answered.

‘I know you’d
all like to hear me say something like, “hell yes, I’m going to
kick those aliens right back into outer space” or “those aliens
better have a God to pray to because they’re going to need all the
help they can get against me”, but I’m not. I won’t say that
because I can’t.’

‘Why can’t you?
You don’t think you can win?’

‘I don’t know,
Sally. It’s as simple as that. I have no clue who or what is going
to drop out of the sky to try and tear me apart on New Year’s Eve.
I don’t even know if they’re going to play by the rules. Instead of
one alien per bout, they might drop two or three or ten and they
might all have six arms or maybe they’ll all be clones of me and
that’s not a good thought. I know for sure I wouldn’t want to fight
me, let alone two or more of me, so do I think I’ll win? I don’t
know. I really don’t, but before anyone thinks I’m giving up,
forget that. I’ve never backed away from anything in my life and
when someone, some alien threatens the ones I love, they better
believe they’ve got the fight of their lives in front of them. If I
lose, it won’t be because I didn’t use every shred, every ounce,
every fibre of my being to beat them. I will absolutely not let my
life leave my body without giving up all that I have to win, but if
I die, so be it. I’m not afraid of dying. If I have to die to save
those that I love, it’s game on. I know my wife is at home right
now struggling to hear me say this, but she knows it as much as I
do. I will lay
everything
down.
Everything
, even if
it means running headlong into Death. That’s what I’ll do. That’s
what I’ll do.’

Silence
engulfed the entire studio. Sally sat as still as a doll in a toy
chair. The stage hands all stood motionless and the audience was
paralysed. Even the air hung heavy with shock, but then a lone
voice shouted out from behind the stage lights.

‘Team Max! Team
Max!’

And then
another shout followed and quickly the silence was smashed out of
the studio by the audience regaining its composure. Max had stunned
them for a moment, but now they were back. Sally however, was
visibly moved. She gingerly placed her fingers over her mouth and
looked about her, startled, like coming out of a deep daydream. A
glisten in her eyes even betrayed brimming tears. The queen of
daytime television had been brought undone.

Then quickly
shuffling in her chair, Sally clenched her hands and wiggled her
head to reclaim her self confidence. Looking down at her notes, she
cleared her throat and looked back up as the audience again settled
down.