Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  Jaden didn’t even have time to sit up before another soldier shoved a knee between his shoulder blades, yanked his arms behind him, and zip tied Jaden’s hands to his ankles.

  “Hostile neutralized, sir!”

  “Copy that, Seargent.” The soldier I had bumped into turned to face me. I could just make out an Army Ranger insignia on the sleeve of his uniform as well as a pair of Lieutenant bars. At one point in my youth, I was convinced I was going to be a professional Call of Duty player. I may have even familiarized myself with just about every insignia, weapon, vehicle, and Special Forces unit in the game.

  “Sir, are you Marcus Caleb Havak?” he asked in a deep, stern, I-get-more-done-before-breakfast-than-you-do-all-day, voice.

  “Um, yes,” I uttered.

  “Son, this is a matter of national security,” the Ranger barked. “I need you to come with us. Now!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, somewhat afraid of what the answer was going to be. I got stony silence in return as the six Rangers huddled around me, M4s held at shoulder height as they moved toward the Blackhawk helicopter that had landed at the back of the truck yard.

  The door of the Blackhawk slid open, and I climbed in at the urging of my escort. The interior glowed green from the chopper’s running lights. I was ushered into a canvas drop seat, strapped in, and given a headset with a built-in microphone.

  The Ranger I had originally stumbled into yelled out to his squad as a black Humvee roared into the entrance of the truck yard.

  “Excellent work, gentleman,” he yelled. “Regroup at rendezvous zeta. And Billingsly, no stopping to trick or treat, you copy that.”

  Billingsly gave a half-hearted “Copy,” as he shuffled his feet.

  He closed the door of the helicopter and sat down in a drop seat across from me.

  The Lieutenant banged the bulkhead with his fist twice, and the blades of the Blackhawk whirred with power as we lifted off. The chopper banked hard as it spun around to avoid some high tension wires at the south end of the truck yard, and I could see the Rangers down below toss Jaden into the back of the Humvee. We were still close enough to the ground that I could see the tears streaming down his stupid face as he craned his neck to look up at the Blackhawk.

  “Who bitches more than your fourteen-year-old step-sister now, you dildo?” I said as I flipped him double-barreled middle fingers.

  “Oh, a fabulous burn,” a distinctive and familiar voice said from a dark corner of the cabin across from me. “Very, very, good burn. I know burns, and that was a top shelf, exclusive deluxe burn.”

  I turned my head back slowly just as the owner of the voice leaned forward into the light. Of all the weird shit that had happened on this very strange Halloween, this one took the jack-o'-lantern.

  The President of the United States of America took my hand in his, pulled me close, and looked me dead in the eye.

  “Marc Havak, I need you to save the world.”

  Chapter Two

  “Um, I’m sorry, Mr. President, but what did you just say?” I asked incredulously, not quite sure I’d heard him correctly. I mean, there was no way he could have said what I thought he’d said.

  “Honor to meet you, Marc,” the President replied like he hadn’t heard me. His voice was grave and serious as he clasped my hand in his vice-like grip.

  “Nice to meet you as well, sir, but am I hearing things, or did you say just now that you needed me to save the world?” I asked again. I didn’t quite realize how insane the words sounded until they’d come out of my mouth. Then again, I was in a Blackhawk helicopter as it zoomed over BFE Delaware. I didn’t know sanity from a hole in the ground at that moment.

  “You heard right, son,” he answered as he let go of my hand though he stayed close to me, his eyes locked on mine. “Of all the important things I have ever said, and I’ve said a lot. Really, a lot. Probably said more important things than any other human being on the planet. It’s a fact. You can look it up.” His voice was mesmerizing.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. President. I will make sure to look it up.” I nodded emphatically.

  “Good. Where was I? Yes, of all the many important things I have said, what I said a few minutes ago is the most important. The thing about you saving the world. That was important.” He gave me a sincere, earnest look that took me by surprise.

  “Okay,” I said slowly. “Yes. Right. So that is what you said. Sir, I’m a truck driver from Delaware. I’m not sure I’m qualified for world saving. I technically don’t even have my class C driver’s license yet.” I gave him a shrug and a sheepish grin. “Are you sure you got the right Marc Havak?”

  “Very sure, Marc. Very, very sure.” With that, he sat back in his seat and disappeared into the shadow as if to say, “conversation over.”

  I looked over at the Lieutenant who had been quiet since we took off. He glanced over at me and gave me the slightest your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine shrug. I shrugged back in acknowledgment then looked out of the window at the snowy weather.

  We were about five hundred feet in the air, and I could barely see the outline of the terrain below speeding by. I had no idea what the top speed for an Army Blackhawk was, but I guessed we were close to it, if not slightly over. I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

  The events of this Hallow-birth-o-ween flashed through my brain at a breakneck pace. Part of me wondered why the rest of me wasn’t freaking the ever-loving fuck out. Any normal, rational individual probably would have thrown-up, passed out, then maybe thrown-up again if they’d been thrown in a helicopter with the president by a squad of Rangers.

  I mean, I was pretty damn excited, that was for sure. I could feel my heart as it hammered in my chest like a Skrillex song, and my hands were a little numb even though I’d been in the warm helicopter for about twenty minutes. Or maybe it was five minutes, I couldn’t really tell because time was all funky at the moment. Since the Rangers dropped from the sky, the whole thing felt like it had taken forever and no time at all.

  It wasn’t until my vision started to tunnel while I looked out the window that I realized I might just be freaking out a bit. I leaned back against the bulkhead and took a few deep breaths.

  “You’re okay, kid,” the Lieutenant said in a conversational tone that was the exact opposite of how he had been earlier. “It’s an adrenaline dump. It can feel pretty freaky if you’re not used to it. Steady your breathing, and it’ll pass in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks,” I croaked out as I tried to slow my breathing.

  It was a technique my Great Uncle Joe had taught me when I was little and had a case of bronchitis. I’d been home from school for two days with it but had gotten to feeling better and decided it was okay to run around the house playing Power Rangers again. I got winded in two seconds, couldn’t catch my breath, and started to panic.

  Great Uncle Joe grabbed me up and sat me down on the couch and taught me that if I inhaled for a slow count of four, held my breath for a count of two, then exhaled for a count of four, I could get more air into my lungs and slow down my heart. At the time, I was convinced I was going to die, so I was pretty skeptical, but I tried it anyway. After three rounds, my breathing was back to normal, and after three more rounds, I’m pretty sure I must have fallen asleep in his lap because that’s where my memory ended.

  I’d managed to get through five rounds before I heard the pilot’s voice through the headset. “Pentagon, dead ahead. Prepare for landing. Touchdown in thirty seconds.” He had that calm pilot voice they must teach in every flight academy in the world.

  I looked out the window just as the Blackhawk banked to circle in for a landing. Yup, there was the Pentagon. The five-sided building was huge and seemed to be surrounded by hundreds of news vans and scurrying reporters who all pointed up at the helicopter in unison. Something really big must be going on to get what looked like every news crew in the country all in one place.

  “Better view from the other side, Marc,” the
President said from the darkness of his seat. “Trust me.”

  I unbuckled myself and shuffled over to the other window. “Huh, son of a bitch,” I said softly. “Is that what I think it is, Mr. President?” I asked in a slow, incredulous voice.

  “Yes,” the President replied, his voice matching my own. “That is a spaceship.”

  The teardrop-shaped craft was maybe two hundred feet long and was made out of a metal that looked like melted chrome. It hung in the sky about a hundred feet above the white marble of the Lincoln Memorial. The surrounding air shimmered like heat mirages off blacktop asphalt on a one-hundred-and-ten-degree day in Phoenix.

  Porcupine quills of static electricity crackled with power around the rear of the craft even though there didn’t seem to be any exhaust ports for an engine. Every five seconds, the whole thing would ripple as if it was the surface of a lake, and some kid had tossed a stone into it, breaking the serene surface with undulating ripples.

  It was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life, and I would have stared at it for at least an hour, but before I could do that, the Lieutenant grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me back down into my seat just seconds before the helicopter touched down. The door flung open, and a detachment of Marines in full formal dress blues greeted us. They helped the President out of the helicopter, then reached in for me.

  As soon as my feet hit the ground, we were on the move. I was huddled over from the force of the rotor blade wash, but the President stood tall as we walked toward an open door in the side of the Pentagon.

  I realized we’d landed in the small, open courtyard at the very center of the Pentagon, what I had always thought of as the pentagon within the Pentagon. I almost said that out loud, but my mouth closed of its own accord when I saw the very stern faces of the Marines escorting us.

  We covered the distance to the door quickly, and the Marines gave way to black-suit-wearing Secret Service agents complete with flesh-colored headphones in their left ears right down to the squiggly cords running down their necks into their starched shirt collars and menacing gun-shaped bulges under their jackets at their right hips. The door led to a long, narrow hallway with a polished linoleum floor and bright fluorescent lights running the length of the ceiling. The hall ended ahead of us in an elevator, and there were no other doors on either side for the entire length.

  Our shoes beat a staccato rhythm on the floor as the door behind us shut with a loud click. I glanced back and realized that I couldn’t even see the outline of the door. It was like we were in a long, white rectangle that led to only one place. The elevator.

  It had large painted black doors and a single call button recessed into the stainless steel frame. Two camouflage wearing Marines, one with an M4 held at the alert ready, and the other on his stomach sighting down the barrel of an M249 squad automatic weapon were stationed on either side of the hallway.

  I glanced around. No one seemed the least bit bothered that there were two highly trained Marines with guns pointed at us. It took me a second for the shock to wear off before I realized that they were probably aiming past us, at the door, in case…

  Well, I didn’t know what the ‘in case’ was, but I knew it couldn’t possibly be good. At that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Barney the Purple Dinosaur burst through the wall with a flamethrower in each hand.

  We reached the end of the hallway, and the Secret Service agents who were on point backed out of the way to let the President step forward and press his thumb on the call button. A light bar inside the button scanned up and down like an old school xerox machine. A second later, the black doors slid silently apart to reveal a very normal looking elevator that just happened to have a tall, stunning, blonde woman in the center of it.

  She was as statuesque as a supermodel, and had the bone structure to match, with full sensuous lips and perfect pearl white teeth. The woman wore a form-fitting, dark gray, designer power suit with a cigarette skirt that came all the way down to her ankles. Her brown eyes sparkled with shrewd intelligence that seemed to size me up the second they landed on me.

  “This is him?” she uttered in a decidedly more New York accent than she had ever let show on TV.

  “Yes, sweetie, my darling daughter, this is the guy,” the President replied as the two on-point Secret Service agents walked into the elevator and stood at the back corners. The President glanced back at me and made the “after you” gesture with his right hand.

  I walked into the elevator, turned around to face the doors next to the President’s daughter, and put my hands in my pockets. The President did the same.

  “Sanctuary,” he said, his voice low like a whisper.

  With barely a noticeable shudder, the elevator began to descend. There was no readout, so I had no idea how many floors down we were going. I thought I could barely make out the very faint notes of a Muzak version of Give Me Something to Believe In by Poison coming from invisible speakers. I shot a look over to the President. He smiled faintly.

  “Bret Michaels is a national treasure,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Tremendous talent.”

  “Dad, you are positive this is the guy, right?” She glanced over at me, and our eyes locked. The tiniest smirk pulled at one corner of her mouth as she bit her bottom lip ever so slightly. Then she looked away as if nothing had happened. I wouldn’t bet my life on it, but I was pretty sure the president’s daughter had just tried to “eye grope” me.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied. “This is the guy. He’s going to be great. Tremendous. Marc, meet my daughter,” he said as if this were a PTA meeting.

  “Yeah, um, hi.” I gave her a small wave and a smile.

  “Hello,” she uttered, then absently licked her deep maroon coated lips. “Pleasure to meet you, Marc.”

  She held out her hand. I looked at it for a beat before I realized that she wanted to shake hands. I grabbed her slender but not delicate hand and shook it just a touch too eagerly.

  “That is quite the handshake you have, Marc,” she said in an overtly sensual voice. “Strong. Firm. Even a bit forceful. All things I admire in a man.”

  She held onto my hand even though the shake part of the customary greeting was definitely over. Her middle finger traced a slow line down my palm as she withdrew her hand from mine.

  “All things I admire in a man as well,” I sputtered. “I mean, I am a man who has those traits that you can admire.”

  I was pretty sure I saw the twinge of a smile in the corner of one of the Secret Service agent’s mouth that told me that my reply was indeed as clunky as I thought it had been.

  And we still kept descending. By my completely based-in-zero-fact-whatsoever computations, we should have been in the sixth concentric circle of Dante’s Hell, next stop ladies’ lingerie. I was about to ask if this was a big joke, and if we were just going to get out at the same place we got on, when the elevator came to a slow, smooth, gentle stop.

  The President adjusted his hair slightly and put on his patented “I Mean Business With A Capital B” scowl. His daughter took a deep breath and flashed her patented “I’m Sexy as Fuck and I Will Destroy You” smile. The Secret Service agents actually put on matching Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses.

  The President must have noticed how uncomfortable I was then because he looked over at me and smiled. “Don’t worry, kid. You’re going to do great. Really, really great.” He smacked me lightly on the back. “Be confident and remember. Never, ever apologize.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, trying to swallow down my nerves and just be confident, which was really freaking difficult, given the current situation. Still, being a whiny douche wouldn’t be cool, and if I’d ever needed to be cool, it was now.

  “You’re welcome,” he said as his scowl settled back on his face, and he turned back toward the elevator doors as they opened with a hiss.

  A huge, circular Situation Room spread out from where the elevator opened on its circumference. Huge, flat screen, LCD displays formed a h
i-def halo around the room that showed every conceivable angle on the spacecraft outside, as well as thermal images, infrared, x-ray, gamma-ray, radar, sonar, wireframe, and a bunch I didn’t even know how to describe.

  Computer techs tapped furiously at their computers that sat in small, clustered workstations spread about the room. Marines dressed in the same urban camouflage pattern fatigues as their buddies up top stood around the perimeter of the room, their M4s slung across their bodies on tactical slings, ready to fight their country’s battles at a moment’s notice.

  A large round table that could seat probably twenty people took up the center of the room and looked to be almost full. Men in every military uniform the United States owned were seated at the table and attended to by an army of military and civilian support staff. I almost did a double take when I noticed an incredibly attractive woman sitting off by herself at the large round table.

  For a second I thought it was actually Sabrina, that she had been a plant this entire time to gauge my worthiness, the resemblance was so strong. Then someone walked in front of me and as they passed, I could tell it definitely wasn’t Sabrina. One, no gender-bent Jack Sparrow costume, and two, this woman could have been her sexier cousin. She had shoulder length dirty blond hair streaked with tasteful blonde highlights. Her flawless, pale skin suggested that she could count more than a few Slavic ancestors in her family tree, and she had high cheekbones that sat below large, wide-set green eyes that sparkled from the overhead lights of the situation room. Her ridiculously full, ripe-strawberry-colored lips were pulled into the most unconsciously sexy smirk I had ever seen.

  That’s when I noticed that she was, and had been, staring at me the entire time.

  Her eyes had never left me.

  She had on a white button-up shirt, open one button too much, with a very tight navy-blue suit jacket on top. A pair of chunky but highly complementary black glasses sat on her nose which she kept fidgeting with every few seconds. The woman didn’t have anything in front of her, no paperwork, no pen, nothing, nor did she have a name placard or assistance. She was an island to herself and she seemed completely fine with that. I had just started to wonder if she was a secret spy when the President ushered me further inside.