Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  “Oh, Marc,” the President continued, “oh, you are in for a treat. Let me tell you, Marc. Yes, winning technology that will advance mankind a thousand years into the future is great. Really really spectacular, but I’m here to tell you, what is even better than that is being famous.”

  “It’s amazing,” his daughter added. I gave them an unsure smile.

  “No, seriously, it is truly the best,” the President assured me. “I love it. My daughter loves it. My clones- I mean, sons love it. Nothing better than being famous.”

  “So,” I asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “where are we headed now? Some kind of training? Are you going to give me some kind of cool spy gadget?”

  “Oh, no,” the President replied. “We’re on our way to drop you off at the alien ship. They’ll be taking you to, well, wherever in the cosmos they are going to take you.”

  “I’m sorry, did you say I’m going today?” I said, incredulous, my face scrunched up into a ‘say what’ scowl.

  “Yes, I did,” the President answered, “to infinity and beyond.”

  “Boldly go where no man has gone before,” the gorgeous First Daughter, who was sitting just a bit too close, added.

  I opened my mouth to say something witty and self-assured, but nothing came out. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. So, I closed my mouth with an audible click and stared straight ahead. My brain had clearly left the building for the time being.

  The SUV turned into a garage entrance that was actually an access tunnel that went underground. The halogen lights embedded in the roof of the tunnel flicked by one after the other, almost hypnotizing, as we sped under the Potomac.

  It seemed like only a second had passed, and we emerged from the other end of the tunnel not three blocks from the cordoned off Lincoln Memorial. Soldier in Humvees saluted as we drove by.

  The SUV stopped right at the base of the memorial.

  “Okay, this is it,” the President said when I made no effort to move. “Time to seize the day, Marc.” He leaned over and opened the door.

  “You’re going to do really great things, my boy,” the President of the United States reassured me as he pushed me out of the SUV. “Just really great. Super great.”

  I climbed over his daughter, who grabbed onto my arm before I got out and whispered in my ear, “I like winners. Make sure you come back a winner. Good luck.”

  I stepped out in the freezing air.

  “Don’t get fired,” the President shouted just before the door closed and the SUV sped away into the night.

  I turned around and looked up at the spaceship.

  A small disk separated from the hull of the ship and floated down, getting larger and larger, until it stood five feet in front of me. The alien creature from the message stood on the disk. It was five feet tall, its humanoid body covered in a shimmering space suit with flashing lights and some sort of organic-looking breathing apparatus attached to its back, a large dome covering its green-blue face.

  “Marc Caleb Havak, you have been chosen,” its strange voice rumbled. “Please, step aboard.”

  I looked around to take in my surroundings one last time, making sure this wasn’t some elaborate hoax, took a deep breath, and stepped on to the disk.

  We began to ascend slowly, and I could see all of DC’s lights twinkling below as they got farther and farther away.

  As we were about to disappear into the belly of the alien craft, the creature turned to me.

  “Enjoy the peace, Human, for it may well be your last respite,” the alien's voice darkened as it slithered its greasy way into my soul. “Death or glory is all that awaits you in the Crucible of Carnage.”

  Chapter Three

  I could feel myself breathing in slack-jawed astonishment as the disk finished sliding up into the ship with a hydraulic hiss. Partly at what the alien creature had just said to me, and partly because I was now inside the hull of an honest-to-God alien spacecraft.

  The alien stepped off the disk into what looked like the cargo bay of the ship, took off the cumbersome helmet and breathing apparatus, and put its eye up against a stalk-like protrusion from a console on the edge of the disk. It spoke in some high-pitched alien tongue as bright lime-green light blasted the thing in its left eye. Thick, cotton candy pink gas poured from vents that were recessed in various nooks and crannies of the oval-shaped cargo bay covering the floor like insulation. The whole room looked like Salvador Dali had gotten high on peyote and decided melted clocks were too mainstream. The walls, doorways, and light fixtures were all curved, organic shapes in muted earth tones that flowed from one thing to the next, while the machinery that filled the room was hard-angled and technocratic. Garish primary colors thrummed and glowed with unseen power inside their alien designed innards.

  The alien stepped away from the stalk thing, looked at me and spoke with what seemed like, to my well-traveled ear, a Long Island cab driver accent.

  “Jesus, that thing was freakin’ killin’ me, you know?” the creature said, the ominous tone completely gone. “Come on in, you stand too long in the gas, an’ you’ll start seeing into other dimensions.”

  “How can I understand you?” I asked with a bit of confusion, “And why do you sound like mom’s second cousin Jimmy Bucci from Long Island?”

  “I’m a Telecultus. Our breath produces a chemical that allows us to pull familiar images, languages, sounds, cultural idioms, and stuff like that from other creatures’ brains, and mimic them,” it said as if this was information I should have learned in the second grade. “Makes us naturally gifted transportation drivers, interpreters, envoys, emissaries, that kind of thing,” he said, and the word “thing” came out as “ting”.

  “Oh, yeah, makes sense.” I slurred and followed him down a long hallway with spinning, crop circle looking shapes undulating in the walls. “What’s your name?”

  “Ah, yeah, it’s physically unpronounceable for humans,” he answered with what looked like a smile, “unless you guys developed five more tongues.” He chuckled, the noise wet and flapping as if he’d tried to deflate a balloon in a tub of lube. “Why don’t you just call me Phil?” He looked down at himself. “I feel like I’d be a Phil.”

  “Right, okay. I, oddly enough, totally get that,” I slurred, my lone, solitary tongue feeling thick and heavy, “It’s very nice to meet you. My name is Marc.” I continued as well as I could, “I think I am starting to get very, very, very high as a kite, Phil.” I wasn’t having any trouble walking but my brain felt floozy and woozy.

  “Yeah, I gotta adjust the serotonin enhancer in that stuff,” he said as we reached the end of the hallway and walked into a passenger area. “You humans love your serotonin, boy. Gets you all lovey-dovey.”

  The passenger section held twelve small, individual-sized seat-pod looking contraptions. I’d never flown first class in my life, but I’d had to walk through the first-class cabin once or twice and these chairs looked like the specialized airline recliners that the folks with the big money get to occupy when traveling coast to coast or overseas.

  The recliner chairs were made from some kind of light gray foam that seemed to undulate as if it were alive and could go from sitting upright to laying completely horizontal. The walls of the pod were curved, almost the shape of an elongated eggshell or almond, shiny, and the darkest black I had ever seen in my entire life, like highly polished volcanic glass. A small “entertainment” screen sat at chest level and had a repeating geometric shape floating across it as some sort of screen saver I assumed. A small, Phil-sized portal was at the front of the room and led into what looked like a cockpit.

  “Here we go,” Phil said, “take any seat you’d like and relax.” Phil gestured with his arm to the rows of seats like the oddest flight attendant I’d ever seen.

  “We’ll be ready to make the quantum gate in a bit, gotta make sure the gas prepares your brain for the mind-expanding experience known as Higgs-Boson quantum tunneling,” Phil said as he continued to walk toward th
e front of the room, “plus the warp drive has to warm up. If you need to use the restroom, make sure you go in the door on the right, or you could get dematerialized.”

  “Yeah, and totally don’t wander off, touch anything, or get into a staring contest with something that looks like a houseplant on three legs,” a slightly husky, yet bubbly and full of boundless energy, feminine voice said from behind me.

  I turned in my seat and saw Artemis as she walked into the passenger compartment from another hallway. The garish silver space princess attire had been replaced with a military-inspired, almost-skintight, blue-gray jumpsuit that clung to her in all the right places as she pulled back her hair with both hands into a loose ponytail. For some reason, her jumpsuit was unzipped to the top of her navel, and as she pulled back her hair, the front opened enough for me to glimpse her very round, very full, very amazing breasts barely held captive by a purple lace bra.

  “You’ve already met Artemis,” Phil said as he was about to walk into the cockpit. “Nice touch with the ‘bring him at once’ bit, Artie. I busted a gut so hard I almost fell out of my chair.”

  “Aw, thank you,” she replied, slightly embarrassed at the compliment, “not sure where it came from. My programming is still getting used to operating in this human brain. Let me tell you, Phil, hormones are more than just chemicals, they are very real.”

  “Good to know,” Phil said with a smile, or what passed for one on his alien face, anyway. “Keep our passenger company while we plot a course for the gateway.”

  And with that, Phil disappeared into the portal.

  Artemis walked over until she was right in front of me. I wanted to stand, but the foam of my chair didn’t seem to want to let go of me.

  “Oh my goodness,” she blurted, her eyes wide, “I totally forgot to introduce myself.” She stood almost at attention, a forced formal look on her face as if this were rehearsed. She thrust out her hand which landed about three inches from my face.

  “Greeting, Marcus Caleb Havak of Seaford, Delaware, the United States of America, planet Earth.” The words rushed out of her like a runaway train: fast, chaotic, and all bunched together. “Welcome to the Crucible of Carnage. My name is Artemis V-Five, and it is my duty, honor, and privilege to serve as your personal assistant, fitness consultant, masseuse, and all-around attaché for your time here as a Champion during the Trials.”

  I reached up and awkwardly shook her hand directly in front of my face. Her shake was firm as she vigorously pumped my hand up and down several times, almost as if she had never done it before. After a few pumps, I reached up with my other hand to stop the motion which had made me a bit cross-eyed and removed my hand from hers. Her skin was very smooth and very warm.

  “Very nice to meet you, Artemis,” I said as I felt a very goofy grin make its way across my face. Whatever else this gas was doing to me, it had completely removed my inhibitions and my thoughts became words without a governor. “You are very pretty and very scary.”

  “Oh, my,” Artemis said with a worried expression, “Was that too much? Did I overwork my foot?”

  “Huh?” I grunted as an answer.

  “The flying and the ‘enough’ and the ‘bring him to me’ was it all too much?” She inquired nervously. It took my pink cloud infused brain a second to compute all the information that had just flown at me.

  “No,” I finally responded with a not insignificant amount of concentration, “It was not too much. Very well done.”

  “Whew, thank you,” she said with evident relief in her voice.

  “And I think the expression you are looking for is ‘overplayed your hand,’” I said as she sat down in the seat next to mine, her recliner was angled in the opposite direction so that we faced each other.

  “Yes,” she said as she pointed her finger at me with a flick of her wrist, “that makes much more sense. I am familiar with over four thousand seven hundred and ninety languages, spoken, written, and programmed and Earth English is by far the most difficult.”

  “Truth,” I concurred. I was about to add a pithy one-liner to the end of that but then I saw a ten-foot-long, two-foot-tall millipede skitter into the room.

  Thousands of tiny, feet-like appendages clitter-clattered on the floor, the sound reminded me of an old electric typewriter I’d found in uncle Joe’s attic as a little kid, as it snaked its way through the chairs toward the cockpit portal. The chitinous armor that made up its sectional exoskeleton alternated between bright, fluorescent orange and day-glow blue, and was covered in what looked like bumper stickers. A pair of arm-length antenna protruded from the big bugs head and wiggled around as if sniffing the air. It stopped right next to my chair, one of the antennae swayed over and touched the side of my face with a zap of static electricity.

  “Hey, Phil,” I called out in a super calm and definitely manly way, “there is a large, brightly colored bug touching my face.”

  Phil popped his head out of the portal and made a series of fast-paced noises.

  “Ack, aaack, ack ack ack ack, ack,” Phil seemed to say to the millipede. The sound was a mix of a car horn blare and the clicking sound a gas cap makes when it's over tightened.

  “Aaaaaaaack, ack, ack?” The millipede seemed to ask, a bit impatiently.

  “Acccccaaaaaackkkkk. Ack.” Phil said, and the two started laughing. The sound was a cacophony of surreal proportions, a mix of loud clicking and wet gurgling in some offbeat staccato rhythm.

  For some unknown reason, I started laughing too, loudly and with great enthusiasm. I had no idea what was in that pink gas, but I was stoned out of my ever-living gourd. Artemis looked on somewhat bemused and then she burst out laughing as well.

  The antenna retracted back from my face, and the millipede chitter-chitter-chittered the rest of the way through the compartment and disappeared into the cockpit.

  “Sorry about that,” Phil said a bit apologetically. “That’s Poda, my navigator. Most passengers are sacked out by now which is why she came up. She’s shy and doesn’t like the reaction she gets from most beings. I don’t care if you’re from Jenga Thirteen or the venom pits of Tarzor, folks tend to freak the hell out when they see a ten-foot-long, bright orange millipede headed their way.”

  “Makes sense,” I said and shrugged.

  “Yeah, but it wears on her.” Phil’s voice got surprisingly caring. “She’s super cool, and she comes from a planet of pacifists, she hates that she scares the crap out of folks.”

  “It was very nice to meet you, Poda!” I yelled as loud as I could toward the cockpit. Poda’s bright orange head slid down from the top of the portal, and her antenna flicked about excitedly.

  “Ack, ack ack ack ack,” she clacked and then disappeared.

  “She said nice to meet you too, or as close to that as her language allows,” Phil said as he walked out of the cockpit and over to a control panel embedded in the wall. He tapped a few buttons, and the pink fog suddenly had swirls of navy blue running through it like marbling. By the time Phil had walked back to the cockpit, I was no longer tripping balls. I still felt great, just not as profoundly touchy-feely-I-love-everyone as I had been a few minutes before.

  “Okay, Artie,” Phil said to Artemis, “I’ll let you entertain him for a bit, I gotta get back to the grind.”

  I heard Poda ‘ack’ from inside the cockpit. “I do too help fly this ship!” He rolled his eyes and shrugged before he disappeared into the portal.

  Artemis and I just smiled at each other for a very long, uncomfortable, if I wasn’t stoned to the bejesus belt, time. Finally, a question popped into my head.

  “Okay, I have to ask,” I said, “were you abducted by aliens as a baby or are you half-human half-alien raised by your alien mom or something? Because you don’t seem like you grew up on Earth.”

  “Huh?” She uttered confusedly, “Oh! No, I am not from Earth. I’m not even technically human.”

  “Really?” I asked, my turn to be confused, “The way you sound and everything, I co
uld have sworn you grew up at least Earth adjacent.”

  “Marc Havak, I am Artemis V-Five, a fully sentient, two-thousand one-hundred and twelve hexabit, quantum matrix, adaptive learning artificial intelligence program,” she said as if reciting her address, “my body is genetically engineered from a sample of human DNA taken when we arrived on your planet, organically printed and hyper-incubated to roughly twenty-five human years old, fitted with cybernetic nano strands in my cerebral cortex where my ‘consciousness’ was then downloaded and activated fifteen minutes before you arrived on this ship. I am thirty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds old.”

  I was pretty sure my mouth wasn’t open, but I was absolutely sure I had the dumbest look in the galaxy on my face right then.

  “Well,” I said, my voice unsure as I tried to shake off the shock of her revelation, “you don’t look a second over twenty-nine minutes old.” The joke was a stretch, but it was better than saying nothing.

  “Ha, that joke I understand,” she giggled. “Earth females have societal issues with aging, and you are saying I look young, thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” I smiled. “Jokes are always better when they are explained.”

  “Really?” she said eagerly. “That is good to know.”

  “Artemis, I was just being self-deprecating, jokes are most definitely not better when they are explained.”

  She nodded her head and bit her lower lip absently as her AI brain took furious mental notes as if in preparation for some future quiz. It was so unconsciously dorky and sexy at the same time I almost couldn’t stand it.

  “So, if you were 'born' just before I got on the ship, what was that in the Pentagon?” I asked as I thought back to how hot she looked with the suit and glasses.

  “Oh, ha!” she exclaimed. “Yes, that was a fully rendered three-dimensional holographic image projected from a nano-sphere embedded in a button on the President's suit jacket. It also activated the magnetic burst that disarmed everyone in the room. Pretty neat, huh?”