Arena Mode (23 page)

“I’m not sure I really understand,” I replied, scratching the back of my head.

She shrugged. “Me neither. It’s one of the reasons I’m here. With the prize money I’m going to get some scientists to figure this shit out so I can control it. Sometimes I’m solid, sometimes I’m this ghost thing ... it’s a pain in the ass.”

“You seem pretty confident,” I said. “How do you know you’re gonna last until the final four?”

“How do
you
?” she replied brashly. “You don’t even have a superpower.”

While playing poker, I had an uncanny ability to mask my ‘tells’. Under normal circumstances, I could hide all the expressions and involuntary ticks that give someone away when they’re bluffing; standing there, looking into Brynja’s eyes, I realized that lying was pointless. She wasn’t just guessing that I was powerless – she
knew.
And if she didn’t know before, my stunned silence had all but confirmed it.

“You can’t get the fear out of your mind,” she explained. “You’re terrified someone might figure out that you’re just a regular dude, and that you snuck in here. I can practically see it floating above your head like a big cartoon thought bubble.”

Another mind-reader. Awesome.

She smiled awkwardly and bit her lip, tugging gently at her bracelets. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a snooper. I usually can’t read people this clearly, but you’re ... different. It’s like your brain is functioning on a different level. I’ve never felt anything like it.” She turned her head and looked around the abandoned alley. “Don’t worry,” she said in a slightly hushed tone, “there aren’t any cameras in here – at least not at the moment. And I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

She was being particularly friendly, and it was disconcerting. In a death match, I didn’t expect so much casual banter with people I was supposed to be killing. “Why aren’t you trying to eliminate me?” I asked.

“I couldn’t, even if I wanted to,” she replied. “As far as superpowers go, being a ghost isn’t the most kick-ass ability to have. I suppose if someone had a bad heart, I could sneak up behind them and shout ‘boo’, but killing people that way seems like a bit of a long shot.” Brynja swallowed hard and her expression hardened. “And since we’re teammates, offing you would be sorta counter-productive.”

Trying to separate reality from my waking dreams was proving to be more difficult as the day wore on. I was starting to think that maybe I was losing time; having experiences that I was later forgetting. “Did we have a conversation earlier in the day that I forgot about?”

“It was Kenneth,” she said quietly. “He made me promise to take care of you.”

It was written across her face; her eyes focused, lips pressed together in a thin line. This time I knew she wasn’t joking.

I listened attentively as she explained the situation: she had met with The Living Eye early in the competition. Sensing his gentle nature she immediately trusted him, forming a partnership; they agreed to split the money from first prize, or whatever places they were able to finish in. He had already committed to form an alliance with me, and refused to break that trust – it made her want to be a part of our group even more. Brynja agreed to a three-way division of the winnings, and a small alliance was formed. I had acquired a new teammate without even knowing it.

The longer she remained in close proximity with someone, the stronger her psychic bond became. After a few hours together, she was able to send Kenneth messages, and clearly read his thoughts – even at a distance. They agreed to fan out in an attempt to locate me, and rendezvous later by the Empire State Building.

When Kenneth was stabbed by Fudō, his final thought
wasn’t
about my cowardice, or my betrayal: it was about my preservation. “Find Mox and help him,” he shouted in his mind. “Make sure he gets out of The Arena alive.” Over a mile away, she received the message. He was on his knees, breathing his last painful breath with a piece of cold steel piercing his lungs, and his dying wish was for
me
to be taken care of.

Kenneth upheld the promise that I’d failed to keep; he was watching my back, right to the very end. In turn, Brynja was doing the same. My entire perspective shifted. It was easy to see Arena Mode as a soulless spectacle, emblematic of our country’s downward spiral. It brought out the worst in people ... that much I’d already seen. What I’d yet to see, until that moment, was how the brutal nature of the tournament brought out the best in some, showing the human spirit at its finest.

My priorities changed. As much as I wanted to escape The Arena after making the final four – and that was, of course, still the plan – I also needed to honor Kenneth’s memory. I could never completely right the wrong that I was responsible for, but it was the very least I could do. Brynja and I were linked, and I’d protect her to the end.

Formulating a survival strategy seemed like a good idea, but my newfound partner and I needed to get moving. She had ditched her epidermal implant in the first few minutes of the competition; they’re tamper-proof, but evidently it’s difficult to plan for someone who can simply make their hand disappear from around the tracking device. And since mine was fried after being electrocuted, we no longer needed to worry about being caught camping. Regardless, our current location wasn’t the best place to remain for a drawn out period of time. We were bottlenecked into a narrow alley with only one escape route, and not a single weapon to defend ourselves with.

Security and satellite cameras weren’t our only concern – there were remote cams hovering around The Arena, and if one tracked us and broadcasted our location, we’d be cannon fodder for a stronger superhuman.

Before making our way to the main streets, we opened the casket, hoping to discover something powerful to use in case of an emergency.

“A bullet?” Brynja shouted, crouching down to pluck a silver projectile from the otherwise empty chest. She rotated the slug between her thumb and index finger, squinting to read the small text engraved in the casing. “It says Green Scorpion, 7.62. Okay, so what does
that
mean?”

I kneeled next to her. “It’s an acid-filled bullet,” I explained, running my finger along the edge of the smooth metallic casing. “High quality, military grade. This one is sized to fit a sniper rifle.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “So what are we supposed to do with
one
of them? And without a freaking gun to fire it from?” She leaped to her feet and kicked the casket, denting it with a loud ping. “Damn it! This is all part of the conspiracy. I’m
sick
of this shit.”

“Part of
what
?”

“What do you think is going on inside this Arena?” She asked, throwing her hands to her sides. “The caskets are all marked with a gold or silver emblem. It’s right there, out in the open. Gold is safe, silver is booby-trapped.”

“Sure,” I replied, raising my eyebrows. “I noticed it too. A test by Frost.”

“A
test
? That doesn’t make any sense, Mox. If you’re running a sporting competition, why risk blowing up your athletes? We’re supposed to
think
it’s just for shock value – some added carnage to boost simulcast ratings – but what if it’s to let
certain
competitors know where the good weapons are? I’ve only found one chest so far, and you know what was in it? A
grappling hook.
What am I going to do, take a break from the tournament and do some mountain climbing?”

“So you’re saying that Cameron Frost has ringers: superhumans that he
wants
to win, and that he’s somehow helping them out.” I couldn’t imagine that was possible.

Brynja began to pace back and forth, snapping off her words. “Isn’t it a little convenient that Fontaine
immediately
finds this long, double-bladed weapon – a weapon that he not only knows
how
to use, but suits his abilities perfectly? I saw the replays. It looked like the medics were tossed into a wood chipper.”

I folded my arms, shaking my head slightly. “Coincidence. Maybe he just opened a gold casket first and got lucky. And he could have noticed the silver and gold pattern, too, just like we did.”

Brynja clenched her fists, and her voice raised several octaves. “What about Fudō? At the beginning, I saw him on a holo-screen, flying around with a replica of Cameron Frost’s sword. It’s probably one of the best weapons in the game, and that oversized toaster finds it in five minutes.”

She was growing more agitated, and I didn’t want to upset her further, but I was still unconvinced. “I hear what you’re saying,” I said in a slightly hushed tone, “but two points make a straight line, not a pattern. Plus you’re missing a key element of any good conspiracy theory: a motive.”

“Are you kidding me? There are a million motives. What about the government? Superhumans have been hiding out for years, and all of a sudden Cameron Frost offers a fortune to gather us all in one place. Why do you think the prize money is so ridiculously high? Because he knew that for ten billion dollars it would be almost impossible to refuse.”

I’d never considered that possibility, although the multi-billion dollar purse always seemed excessive. I just assumed it was a publicity stunt. “So what, this is an elaborate plan to get
rid
of superhumans? Wipe them all out?”

“Maybe,” she replied without missing a beat. “Or,” she added, pointing a finger in my direction as her eyes widened, “it
could
be about research. Just think about it for a minute: imagine if the military could get access to even
one
of our abilities, clone it, and apply it to all of their soldiers? Can you imagine ten thousand troops invading a country if they could
all
fly? Or shoot lasers from their eyes? Maybe we’re like a bunch of test subjects, and they want to observe us before cutting us open to see what makes us tick.”

Her hypothesis was far from conclusive, but I couldn’t completely dismiss it. I had a couple questions of my own before this tournament even started, but I had pushed them to the back of my mind; like how Frost could have convinced the city of New York to allow him to use a residential area – home to some of the wealthiest people on America’s East Coast – for his dangerous fighting tournament. He was rich and influential, but pulling that off would have required a
lot
of political sway. Surely the damage done to Manhattan would be extraordinary, regardless of the outcome.

Frost could’ve chosen anywhere for the battleground. He could have easily purchased his own tropical island, or used one of the post-apocalyptic hellholes in the Dark Zone where the destruction would go largely unnoticed – but he had chosen The City. There was no logical reason he needed to hold it here. And yet, for whatever reason, he must have insisted.

I shared some of my own reservations with Brynja, although I couldn’t help but think that even if the deck
were
stacked against us, there would be little we could do about it. I had no option but to compete. If I left the tournament, tapping out before placing in the final four, it would be the equivalent of suicide. I had no choice but to continue – fair or not.

“The weapons are just one problem,” Brynja continued. “I was staked out in front of a monitor for a while, and saw a couple of really gnarly eliminations. Vitesse made both of them ... sort of.”

I explained what I had already learned from watching Fontaine kill the medics, and how I’d noted his diminished vision when he was in a full sprint. It would have been helpful to review what she saw as it unfolded live – I might have been able to discover something new. A weakness, possibly. Maybe if we were able to locate another holo-screen, we could wait for a replay, and re-watch the footage.

“I can do better than that,” Brynja said with a smile. She approached and extended her hands, attempting to make contact with my chest. Her fingertips faded through me. “Looks like I’m gonna need your help, though.”

“All right,” I replied, cocking an eyebrow. “What are you thinking?”

“It’s not what I’m thinking, it’s what
you’re
thinking. Focus on me, touching you.” She cupped her hands and extended them a few inches from my cheeks.

I tried, but her hands continued to pass through me.

“You can’t just want it, Mox. You have to
need
it. Like you’re suffocating, and my hands pressing on your skin will give you oxygen.” She gazed at me and offered a quick, reassuring nod.

My eyes fell shut, lids heavy with sedation. The sensation of her hands warmed my face. She made contact. Brynja transmitted every sight and sound that she had experienced into my consciousness, and I observed it like a perfectly lucid dream.

From what I could tell, it looked like the West Village
: an affluent neighborhood lined with red brick walkways and decorative wrought-iron gates. But the cameras, in an attempt to keep pace with the blistering action, panned and zoomed so quickly that it was difficult to be certain about the location.

The fight between Ayumi Ozaki and Cassandra Cole spilled from the narrow street into a small enclosed park. That’s where the battle continued to rage, and each moment was captured in crystal-clear detail.