Arena

by Logan Jacobs

“Well, that is something,” I said absently as my attention was drawn to a commotion down the street, “good for the Aetherons, really really good.”

  I walked toward the sound and as I rounded the corner of the street, I saw the entrance to a bar.

  “Marc?” Artemis followed after me. “That was my big finish. ‘The Forge of Heroes’ was meant to be, like, an ‘ooh-ahh’ moment. Marc?”

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, my attention drawn like a magnet to a building down the street. “Good finish. Ooh-ahh.”

  The building was ancient and built into the side of a what looked like an old pyramid protruding from a large granite boulder three city blocks big. The air here felt old, not stale but from another epoch in history. The pyramid was vaguely Egyptian with a smattering of Aztec flare and covered in alien writing.

  I didn’t know why, but I felt drawn to it as if it were calling me.

  “What is that place?” I asked Artemis.

  “That,” she said with awe, “how do I say this in English? Um, the closest translation I can find would be the ‘Into the Breach’ tavern.”

  “That is not just a tavern,” I muttered as I continued to walk toward the entrance. I could feel an energy thrum inside my chest like ancient war drums.

  “No, it is not,” Artemis whispered, “it is one of the oldest buildings here, since the earliest Trials. It is where the Champions go to celebrate or mourn. Outside of the actual Trials of Mayhem, it is quite possibly the single most dangerous place in the known universe.”

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered. What she had just said barely registered as I continued to walk toward the tavern.

  “Marc,” a tinge of worry was now in Artemis’ voice, “we have a very busy day tomorrow. I‘ve kept you out way too late. Let me show you to your domicile.”

  “One drink,” I said, as I walked closer and closer to the door, “that’s all.”

  “Marc,” Artemis cautioned as she grabbed my arm, “I don’t think you understand. One drink in there could get you killed.”

  “Then, I guess I’ll have to make it a tall one,” I said with a smirk as I walked into the Breach.

  Chapter Eight

  I pushed open the heavy engraved metal doors and entered the Into the Breach Tavern. I stood atop a small, raised foyer, and looked out across the crowded tavern. It was as wretched a hive of scum and villainy as I had ever seen, not that I had seen many, or any, for that matter, but I could imagine. The doors closed behind me with a thud, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim, smoke filtered light, I could just make out the layout of the place.

  The main room of the tavern was nothing more than an enlarged rectangle, set six steps down from the foyer where I stood, that was roughly sixty yards long by twenty yards wide. The walls were carved directly out of the solid granite hillside that I assumed was at one time a quarry. I could make out vertical scoring marks in the stone where ancient masons had hewn the blocks for the pyramid that was built on top. The ten-foot-tall ceiling was more of the same. For all I could tell, the room was a giant stone vault, with only the doors I had just come through, two small wooden doors built into the far right wall that I assumed were bathrooms, and another small door at the very back left corner of the room that must have led to a kitchen or storeroom as the only ways into or out of the tavern.

  The floor was made up of interconnected wooden planks that were at least two feet wide and ran the entire length of the room. They were dark maroon, like the color of dried blood, and polished to an almost mirror shine. A bar made from the same wood stood in the middle of the room. It was lined with bottles of what must have been just about every booze in the galaxy and twenty beer-tap looking devices that three bartenders who looked to be the same species as Phil worked furiously.

  The place smelled of spilled beer, old but exotic tobacco, and the sweat of a cornucopia of various alien beings. A light haze of smoke hung like a layer of smog and gave the entire inside of the tavern an out-of-time, old-world quality to it. Lanterns that glowed with an orange fire were hung from the ceiling on chains of varying lengths which gave just enough light to make the Breach feel clandestine and dangerous while still giving enough illumination for patrons to count out their money.

  Speaking of patrons, the place was full of them. They filled the round booths that were built into the walls and the long, lunchroom style tables that ran vertically down the center like laces on a football. They crowded the bar three deep and milled around the small gaming area that made up the back-right corner of the tavern playing some kind of alien darts. I’d gotten used to the sight of strange, outrageous, otherworldly beings, but every single one of these all had an air of violence about them, like the coiled spring of a hidden snare just waiting to be released.

  I was so busy checking the place out that I hadn’t noticed that it had gone dead silent and every eye, antenna, and optical stalk in the joint had turned its attention to me. This was starting to become a regular occurrence and, after the day that I had just been through, it didn’t deter me a bit.

  What did deter me was the seven-foot tall door guy who moved in front of me like a brick wall as soon as I went to take another step into the tavern. I say brick wall because he appeared to be made from actual bricks as if someone had stenciled a seven-foot-tall badass on an old chimney and willed the golem to life. He made a gravel-like crunch as he moved, his arms crossed in front of his massive square chest, his trapezoidal head bent forward so that he could look down at me. His eye, nose, and mouth glowed with an actual fire behind them, and I noticed that he had two smokestack flues on the top of his head that had lazy plumes of light gray smoke wafting out of them.

  “Champions or familiars only, flesh-bag,” Brick-Top growled, his voice like the cracking and popping of red-hot embers.

  “Look here, Acme,” I warned. I wasn’t sure if my brain had finally had enough and decided this was as good a time as any to say ‘fuck it’, if I was just tired and cranky, or if I was still high on leftover testosterone, but I was itching for a fight. “You can move your chimney ass out of my way, or I’ll huff and puff and kick it from one end of this bar to the other.”

  The look of shock on his face was priceless. His mouth moved up and down a few times as he tried to say something, but all that came out were little puffs of smoke. He was just starting to recover when Artemis popped in between us.

  “Greetings, noble Fumarian,” Artemis placated, “as fate would have it, this is actually the new Champion from Earth in the far-off Milky Way galaxy, who just today survived the calibration round.”

  “Good for him,” the Fumarian snarled, unimpressed, “he want a medal or something?”

  I stood there, silent, as I glared unflinchingly into his fireplace eyes.

  “No medal, I believe he wants a drink,” Artemis cajoled. “He did just survive an onslaught of demons on the doom moon of Seti Beta Four.”

  Once again Brick-Top was stumped, his mantle-like eyebrows scrunched in confusion as he thought through what Artemis had just told him.

  “No freaking way!” Brick-Top yelled like a little kid. “Oh, man, I’ve heard those things are terrifying. Were they scary?”

  “They are soul crushingly horrifying and will haunt my dreams forever,” I said in an attempt at levity that hit closer to home than I intended.

  “Well, come in,” Brick-Top smiled as he ushered us down the steps, “and tell the bartender your first round is on me. I’m Brek’Taup by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Brek,” I said as I patted him on his warm shoulder. “I’m Marc Havak. Sorry about a second ago, it’s been a long day.”

  “No need to apologize to me, Champion Havak,” he said almost apologetically. “Have a great time. Man, I can’t wait to tell my buddies I met a Champion who survived the doom moon of Seti Beta Four!”

  And with that, Brek’Taup thundered back to his post at the door.

  “Marc,” Artemis looked over at me as we walked through the tavern, “that was an unexpected sh
ow of aggression and dominance toward a rival male. It was ill-advised and very dangerous, and I feel very hot, and tingly, and am incredibly attracted to you at this moment.”

  We had managed to reach the bar, and I bellied up to it as I turned to look at Artemis.

  “Really?” I asked as we reached the bar and I bellied up to it. I wasn’t a big believer in the whole alpha male he-man nonsense some dudes ascribed to. I thought it was a crock of horse shit, actually.

  “Yes,” she replied, her cheeks flushed. “Hopefully my attraction levels will begin to return to normal soon. I will run a hormonal scan when I return to my domicile.”

  “Good to know,” I laughed. My attraction to her was reaching critical levels, but I kept that to myself for the moment.

  One of the Telecultus bartenders hurried over to us.

  “Hey there, folks, whaddya’ have?” He asked in a voice that sounded so much like Phil’s I did a double take.

  “Phil?” I sputtered in disbelief.

  “Nah, my name is Bill,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. “You must like Long Island cab drivers, friend. We don’t often take the same persona two times in a row, not unless our host has a strong, subconscious preference. Now, whaddya’ have?”

  “Um,” I stuttered, still stumped, which I would have thought pretty damn impossible by this point, “I’ll have whatever you got that is close to an Earth beer.”

  “I’ll have a Long Island Iced Tea,” Artemis said with finality as she nodded her head once to punctuate her order.

  “Earth beer and a Long Island Iced Tea, coming up!” Bill exclaimed as he shuffled down to pull our drinks.

  “Long Island Iced Tea?” I asked as I glanced at Artemis. “What prompted that?”

  “When the Telecultus said you like Long Island cab drivers, it jogged a memory I had stored away,” she answered. “I did quite a bit of research on Earth culture and on you, Marc, in the milliseconds I had before being downloaded into this body. I remembered it being a strange name for a drink and wanted to try one.”

  “Okay, one, how much research did you do on me?” I asked a bit nervously. Not that there were any skeletons in my past, but more that there weren’t. “And two, how the heck is Bill going to make a Long Island Iced Tea? There is no way in hell this place has the ingredients.”

  “Oh, that is easy,” she explained. “Bill will use his Telecultus abilities to extract the ingredients from your brain, and input that into the bar’s computer which will then extrapolate the formula for the drink, compound the chemicals, and make the Long Island Iced Tea.”

  She finished just as Bill set her drink down in front of her. She immediately grabbed it, popped the straw in her mouth, and sucked half of it down in three big gulps. She smiled at me as if to say ‘did I do it right?’ just as the liquor burn set in. A look of fear shot across her face.

  “Marc,” she said in a panic, “are Long Island Ice Teas poison? Why does it burn my tongue and stomach?”

  “It’s okay, Artemis,” I tried to reassure her while I attempted to keep a giggle from escaping my lips. She looked so worried, I did not want to laugh at her discomfort. “Alcohol is kind of an acquired taste.”

  “Why would anyone want to acquire a taste for – oh,” she gasped as the booze hit her bloodstream. “Oh, now I see why. This is quite enjoyable. I can feel my inhibitions disappearing!”

  Bill set my beer down in front of me on a little napkin and scurried off to serve the next customer.

  “Yeah,” I said as I moved her half-finished drink a little out of her reach, “we’re going to slow down on that for a bit. You picked one of the strongest drinks there is for your first time out, and generally speaking, you want to drink it slowly.”

  “Okay, Marc,” she slurred, “do not worry. My metabolism will work overtime to expel any toxin. I will be left as snow soon enough.”

  “Right as rain, Artemis,” I corrected her with a smile. She was drunk as a skunk and cute as hell still. I took a sip of my own drink and almost cried at how good the ice cold beer tasted. I ended up chugging three-quarters of it and felt the warm mellow feeling cascade over me as the booze in my own drink hit my brain.

  “So,” I said, finally able to relax a bit, “let’s get back to you researching me.”

  “Yes,” she answered as she held up the pointer finger on her right hand. “I tapped into your planet’s data network. By all accounts and metrics, you have led a very normal life, Marc Havak, yet I could not help but notice you do not have a long-term mate. I would think Earth females would be lining up to be your mate.”

  I nearly did a spit take of my beer.

  “Yeah,” I started to answer, not quite sure what to say, “it’s not that simple, Artemis. I’m no wall-flower, but the ladies aren’t exactly beating down my door.” I wondered for a brief second what Sabrina would have thought about all of this before I was drawn back to Artemis who sat scowling intensely at me.

  “I do not understand that,” she uttered exuberantly. “You are attractive, intelligent, funny by my limited understanding of human humor, and clearly would provide virile genetic material for strong offspring.”

  This time I did spit out the last gulp of my beer as I turned to look at her incredulously. She just looked back as if what she had said was as normal as asking someone the time. It wasn’t enough that she was freaking gorgeous, but she was funny, and adorably cute all at the same time too.

  “Well, unfortunately, the ladies of my species tend to look for more than just virile genetic material in a suitable mate,” I joked in self-deprecation.

  “Those Corflaxian River Sows!” Artemis yelled, suddenly angry. “If they were all here, I would tell them to off face their fucks!”

  I burst out laughing.

  “You mean fuck off to their face?” I asked between giggles.

  “Yes,” she answered with her fist held close to her face like she was ready to punch all Earth women in the eye. “That is indeed what I mean.”

  Artemis slammed her fist down on the bar.

  “I do believe I am drunk, Marc Havak,” she said with authority.

  “I agree with you, Artemis V-Five,” I grinned. “I didn’t think that would be possible.”

  “While my ‘personality’ is essentially a computer program,” she said as she rested her hands on the bar and laid her head on top of them, “this body is biologically human, with a few upgrades, and thus subject to a human body’s weaknesses.”

  Artemis sat up suddenly.

  “One of which is apparently a bladder full of filtered alcohol which I must immediately evacuate,” she gushed out as she got up and made a beeline for the bathroom.

  I hated seeing her go, but I sure did love watching her leave, as I gazed an inappropriately long time at her ass while she made her way to the ladies room. Once she had disappeared into the crowd near the restroom, I turned around on my barstool and looked out over the tavern.

  Unlike when I was walking in the city where most of the ‘people’ seemed like normal, everyday aliens just going about their business and living their lives, the patrons of this tavern all had an edge about them. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, just a gut feeling. A slight raising of the hairs on the back of my neck, a heightened sense of ‘be on your toes’ that I felt even when I had been out on the street. Maybe that’s part of what drew me in, I didn’t know for sure. All I knew was that ninety percent of the beings in this place were dangerous, and I had better watch my back.

  “Hey, Bill,” I called out for the bartender, “can I get another beer?”

  “I’m Paul,” the Telecultus that looked exactly like Bill and Phil chirped back, evidently annoyed. “Dude, you might seriously consider some counseling or something, this cab driver thing is out of control. Here’s your beer.”

  He set a gigantic flagon of dark brown liquid in front of me that had at least three inches of creamy, white foam on the top of it and started to walk away.

  “What is t
his?” I asked, more than a bit surprised.

  “You ordered a beer,” Paul pointed out.

  “Yeah, Earth beer,” I explained. I didn’t even know if I could pick the damn thing up, much less get it to my lips.

  “Oh,” Paul exclaimed, “you need to specify, that’s Remulack ale. If you drank that, you’d more than likely go into a coma for a decade.”

  He took the ale back and replaced it a minute later with a normal looking beer.

  “Thanks,” I said, starting to feel just a bit tired, the Blue Betty having reached the end of its effectiveness. “So, this is a place for the various champions to hang out, bring guests, that kind of thing, right?”

  “Yeah, more or less,” Paul answered as he lost a bit of his edge. I had just started to figure out that Telecultuses liked being asked questions so that they could inform their hosts on whatever subject they were an expert in. Must have been part of their genetic makeup that went hand in hand with the whole emissary, tour guide thing.

  “What keeps everyone from turning this place into a free-for-all battle royale?” I asked the question that had been bugging me since I almost got into a fight with Brek.

  “This is more or less sacred ground,” Paul answered, his voice taking on that familiar, history teacher quality that I’d enjoyed aboard Phil’s ship. “Now, I’m not saying there aren’t minor bar tussles that spring up every so often, but those are just dust-ups. Blowing off steam. A couple of punches get thrown, maybe someone takes a tentacle to the gonads, no harm no foul.”

  Paul grabbed a bar towel and absently started to polish some glassware as he looked out over the bar.

  “After a few minutes, the bouncers will grab the offenders and toss them out for the night,” he said as he nodded his head at some guys that looked just like Brek’Taup from earlier.

  “Good to know, thanks,” I said as I tipped my beer glass toward Paul before taking a sip. This one didn’t taste nearly as good as the first, and I pushed it forward without drinking anymore.

  “I, uh, saw your calibration trial today,” Paul said as nonchalantly as he could. “You did pretty well. Unconventional as hell, but fun to watch. Apparently, you got some good ratings.”