Arena 4

by Logan Jacobs

  Artemis and I were barraged with, “Champion Havak! Over here! Artemis V-Five you look stunning! Over here!” As the alien paparazzi snapped picture after picture. We posed with and without the President and his Daughter as we made our way down the red carpet. Near the end, just as we were about to go into the building, my least favorite intergalactic TV personality darted onto the carpet.

  “Champion Havak, would you care to comment on today’s lackluster performance?” Trillium Vou said. Her voice practically dripped with venom disguised as professionalism.

  “No,” I said simply, and Artemis and I walked past her and inside.

  “Oh, wow, Marc, that was impressive,” Artemis said as she looked back at Vou, who stood somewhat dumbfounded that I hadn’t even given her the time of day.

  “Not really,” I said while we walked. “The best way to deal with people like her is to not react at all. They like it when you fight them. Makes them feel important. Ignoring them completely drives them freaking nuts.”

  “I don’t see why everyone is saying you did bad,” The President commented over the din of the crowd. “You saved those cute alien kids and their parents. That’s what we Americans do. You made us proud.”

  “Uhh, wow, thank you, sir.” I found myself blinking a few times as the man’s words hit me in my chest.

  We were led into a magnificent ballroom that was filled with tables. Chandeliers that looked like they were made out of nothing but floating lights hung from the ceiling and the walls looked like swirling tendrils of dark blue, mauve, and yellow. Every thirty feet there were large, square pillars that ran from floor to ceiling that had elaborate, brass light sconces on each of their four sides.

  The room was packed with what I assumed was a who's who of Valience City's high society. Every color, creed, and genetic soup of alien was in attendance. And they were dressed to the nines in all kinds of suits, gowns, drapes, robes, and some even wore space-age armor. It was like every alien from The Phantom Menace, Guardians of the Galaxy Volumes One and Two, Jupiter Ascending, Flash Gordon, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy were all in invited and all said yes.

  Another of the lime-green long-necked aliens showed us to a table at the front of the room. The President and his Daughter were brought to a long table that stretched horizontally in front of a large mural depicting some kind of space battle and were seated next to very important aliens, including Captain Har’Gitay.

  The Captain had on formal police wear, but she somehow still managed to make it look sexy. She nodded in my direction, and I gave her a little wave. I wanted to go talk to her, but there were about thirty muckety-mucks between us, and I didn’t feel like having to navigate that sea of self-importance.

  The POTUS and DOTUS glad-handed their way across the raised platform and then took seats next to a podium in the middle of the table. The President waved down at me and gave me a double thumbs up. For what, I had no idea.

  As soon as we were seated waiter-bots began to float around and set down glasses full of fluorescent orange liquid. I picked up one up and sniffed it. The smell was reminiscent of juniper and arm-pits. I wrinkled my nose and set it back down.

  “Probably for the best, Marc,” Artemis said as she pushed her own glass into the middle of the table. “Xanthian Celebration Liquor, it would probably make you hallucinate.”

  “This room is like a walking hallucination, so yeah, I’m good,” I agreed and then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You look beautiful.”

  “Stop it,” she blushed.

  “I will not,” I smiled and pulled her chair a little closer to mine.

  Something tickled my ear, and I spun around thinking it might be a bug and looked right into the practically bare chest of none other than Fallon Otaku. Her tawny fur shimmered in the prismatic light from the chandeliers. She had on an almost identical dress as Artemis’.

  Her tail swished lazily around my head.

  “Champion Havak, how nice to see you,” she purred formally. It wasn’t common knowledge that we were friends outside of the criminal underworld, and I played along and stood up.

  “Nice to see you as well, Ms. Otaku,” I echoed and shook her outstretched hand. “You look lovely this evening.”

  “Good taste is contagious,” she joked as she nodded to Artemis. On Earth, this might have caused a catfight… pun intended. But neither of them seemed upset by the fact that they wore practically the same outfit.

  “Any new info?” I asked as I leaned in to give her a formal kiss on each cheek.

  “Strangely quiet since the snafu in the Red Light District,” she whispered. “The rumors seemed to have dried up completely.”

  “Huh,” I muttered. Something about that made my Spidey senses tingle. “That might have me more worried.”

  “Me too,” she agreed as we pulled apart and smiled like new acquaintances. “Baba-Tadao is here, and I have some of my soldiers working in the kitchen.”

  “Hopefully this will just be a pompous dog and pony show and nothing more,” I said under my breath. “Pleasure to meet you formally, Fallon.”

  “Have a good evening,” she grinned and walked off toward her own table which was about fifty feet away. Baba-Tadao, dressed in a dashing tuxedo, pulled out her chair and then sat next to her.

  I was just about to sit when I heard a voice from behind me.

  “Havak, hell of a match today, huh?” Hann-Abel gloated.

  I turned, and sure as shit there he was. He had on a formal looking military-inspired suit. His chest was littered with medals and ribbons. Behind him, I saw that the rest of his crew were two tables over. All but Vex.

  “Sure was,” I grinned with gritted teeth. I wanted to punch the stupid foul smelling pipe from his smug face but I refrained.

  “Try not to steal too much of our tactics,” he said and puffed on the pipe. Green smoke wafted from the charred bowl in lazy ribbons that irritated my nose and eyes.

  “Ah, don’t worry, I’ll only steal the stuff that worked,” I shot back. “We’ll leave the welding torches at home I think.”

  Hann-Abel smiled but I could tell the minor insult annoyed him. Someone who felt the need to show off all his accomplishments like a box of crayons puked on his jacket didn’t like when someone pointed out his foibles. No matter how slight.

  “You do that,” he practically snarled.

  “Hello, Artemis,” Dolos said as he appeared from behind Hann-Abel like a ghost. “Commendable job today.”

  “Thank you, Dolos,” Artie said and stood. If she had hackles, they would have been standing at attention.

  “Did you enjoy my little comm jamming game?” he asked. “I figured you would want to finally participate in the Crucible after all this time, so I wanted to make it interesting for you.”

  “Oh, Dolos,” she smirked through a fake smile of her own, “if only you had hidden the jamming array it might have proved more useful.”

  “Ah, yes,” he hissed. “Thank you for the constructive feedback. I shall make sure to take it under advisement for the next round.”

  “You do that,” she spat back. They had moved close to one another and were practically bumping chests.

  “Whoa,” Hann-Abel chuckled. “Why don’t you head back to the table, Dolos.”

  Dolos bowed his head and did as he was told.

  “Sibling rivalry,” Hann-Abel said before following Dolos. “Am I right?”

  “I’m an only child,” I smiled, but it was too late. He’d already made it halfway back to his table. “Damnit, that was a good one, too. Come on, Artie, let’s not let those jackasses ruin our night.”

  We sat back down and tried to let the anger pass.

  “He’s such a nincompoop visage,” she blurted out as she snapped her napkin and put it on her lap as waiter-bots started to arrive with the appetizer.

  “They are both jerk faces,” I agreed. I glanced back over my shoulder to Hann-Abel’s table. Barrakus and Muerdock laughed at some joke while Hann-Abel s
tudied the room. Tempest sipped a glass of water and picked absently at her food. She sat away from the others and must have felt my gaze as it lingered on her because she looked up and met my eyes.

  Tempest stared at me for a long moment and then gave me the barest hint of a smile. I returned it. While we’d fought and I’d stunned a bunch of her replicas, she was very different from the rest of her crew. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but she just didn’t seem to fit.

  She also looked sexy as hell. Instead of the combat fatigue pants and tank top with web-belt full of gadgets and weapons she’d had on during the match, she now wore a bright red taffeta A-line dress with a completely open back and a slit up the side that almost reached her hip. I couldn't make out all of it while she was seated and hoped that she’d have to get up at some point because I was betting that it looked spectacular.

  Artemis poked at her food absently and looked decidedly forlorn.

  “Hey, penny for your thoughts,” I said and leaned in.

  “Why would you give a penny for something as ephemeral as thoughts,” she sighed. This was not the normally ebullient and effervescent Artemis that I knew and loved.

  “Just an expression, Artie,” I said. “What’s up, kiddo? You seem down.”

  “Is that what this heavy feeling is in my chest?” She asked. “I do not like this. It is hard to breathe, and I cannot seem to muster any positive thoughts at all. Dolos has made me feel… I don’t know… like I am somehow not good enough even though I know I am very very good at what I do.”

  “Yeah, he’s a dick,” I said simply. “He’s trying to make you feel bad about yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it makes him feel better about himself,” I answered. I’d dealt with enough assholes, most notably Jaden, my former boss's douche canoe of a son, over the years to recognize the behavior. “Try not to let him get to you. He’s full of shit.”

  “That is a funny image,” she giggled just a bit. “I have just… I don’t know, like, Tyche has always gushed over Dolos, even when I was clearly better at something.”

  “Well, Dolos learned that shitty behavior from someone,” I said harshly. “I can’t begin to fathom what kind of weird computer circuit childhood you had, but I sure as shit can recognize a raving narcissist when I see one.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look, I hate the way Tyche treats you,” I admitted, finally being able to put words to the thoughts that had been running around in my head since first meeting the holographic jerk. “It’s abusive. He likes making you work for his affection.”

  “I don’t understand that at all,” she said, her face screwed up in confusion. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone do that?”

  “It doesn’t have to make sense, Artie,” I continued. “In fact, the more you try to make sense of it, the less sense it makes. It’s crazy making. I’m not explaining this very well at all. See, you feel for other people, Artemis. You recognize when someone is happy or sad, right?”

  “Sometimes too much, it seems,” she nodded her head.

  “Yeah, that’s called being an empath,” I said as I tried to remember the internet articles I’d read about it. “Empathy is at the core of being human. Tyche, well, he doesn't have that. At all. So, he goes about his existence treating people like they're things that are there only to please him. And if you displease him, he makes you pay for it.”

  “Oh my god,” she gasped as the thoughts all coalesced in her head. “That is… fucking horrible.”

  “Yup, it sure as shit--”

  Whatever I was about to say got completely drowned out by an explosion somewhere outside the building and then the room went black as machine gun fire began to blaze like hell’s percussion.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The whole place broke out into panic, pandemonium, and the pounding of feet as people tried to get out. Red emergency flood lights bathed the room in light the color of an abattoir which really didn’t help matters much. In fact, it made it much, much worse.

  There was screaming and the sound of lots of glass breaking as all the aliens in attendance rushed for the doors. Artemis and I immediately ducked for cover.

  I looked around and saw the two security-bots that had been assigned to the President lay in flaming heaps near the back wall. Thick smoke poured out of them to clog the air with the smell of burned plastic and fried silicone.

  “Oh, shit,” I said and whipped my head up to the big table at the front. My hunch had been correct. The President and the First Daughter were gone. The table was broken in half, and the bodies of a few of the important aliens lay like deflated balloons across the platform, their blood leaking out of them in tiny rivers.

  A fresh round of screaming brought my head around to the back of the ballroom where most of the patrons had gathered in a big crowd as they tried to escape. Long rips of machine-gun fire ripped through the air as ten Skull-Goons, just like the ones from the Red Light District, shot their assault rifles into the air. They weren’t killing people indiscriminately but were instead trying to stoke the already raging fires of panic in the room.

  They were a diversion.

  My right hand shot back, flung my jacket out of the way, and came back up in front of me with the reassuring weight of the Glock 34 in my palm.

  “Artemis, I’m going to need you to--” I started to say, but the words died out as I looked over at her just as her hand came out of her clutch bag with a short barrelled pistol gripped tight. It was a sub-compact SunFlare which shot pinball sized spheres of superheated atoms that looked like tiny suns and could burn through inch thick plate steel in half a second. A full charge held forty shots. She brought the gun up in a two-handed combat grip as her eyes scanned the room in front of us. “Why Artemis, was that a SunFlare in your purse or were you just happy to see me?”

  She shot a grin over at me then a look of pure determination came across her face.

  “I couldn’t let you be the only one packing tonight,” she said. “Especially after that night at Club Zaa when we first met Irrus. If I’d had this little baby with me that night we wouldn’t have had to jump out a window.”

  “Good point,” I said. “We need to find the President.”

  “Agreed,” she yelled over the chaos. “I thought I saw some movement near the fire exit just after the dung hit the propeller.”

  I looked over at the fire exit which was just behind the raised platform and next to the big mural. It was maybe a hundred feet away. I gathered myself up to head that direction when a bunch more Skull-Goons poured out of the door and began to spread out into the room. They all held fancy futuristic assault rifles that were like AR-15s on meth with tricked out laser sights and powerful flashlights attached under the barrels.

  “Balls,” Artemis sighed.

  “Big hairy ones,” I added. “I’m going to approach from the left. You try to angle from the right, and I’ll meet you at that door. Sound good?”

  “Let’s do this,” she said, set her jaw, and took off in a low crouch with her gun in a modified high-fire position.

  “God, I love that woman,” I said to myself and copied her actions.

  Adrenaline jacked into my bloodstream like a familiar friend and there was a brief second of time-slowed calm while my senses seemed to take in every detail of the surrounding room. The acrid smell of the smoke. The flickering green blue flames from the destroyed security bots. The thick, blanketing claustrophobic pressure of fear as it seeped from the pores of the terrified patrons. The quick, concise, coordinated movements of the Skull-Goons. All of it flooded my synapses in a tsunami of stimuli.

  Then the second was over and it was time to kick ass.

  I walked quickly and with determined purpose toward the fire exit door. One of the Skull-Goons took notice and started to turn to bring his rifle up to bear, but a quick double-tap from the Glock opened up fist-sized chunks of gore out of the back of the head and chest.

  Before his body hit the
floor, I pivoted to the left, squeezed off two more quick shots that hit another Skull-Goon in the thigh and groin. He fell screaming to the ground. I put another shot in the back of his head as I stepped over the body.

  I desperately wanted to reach down and grab one of the assault rifles but I’d drawn too much attention and needed to stay on the move. Movement was key. Always move forward, the Ar’Gwyn bellowed in my brain.

  A Skull-Goon popped up from around a pillar not a foot away from me. I slapped his rifle down and away with my left hand and then kicked out my right foot that connected with his shin. His leg slid back from the impact, and he grunted in pain, but he didn’t have long to think about how bad it hurt because as he was off balance I fired my pistol from the hip and put two rounds into his chest.

  The Glock came back up into a two-handed combat grip, and I began to track for my next target. All of my senses were on fire. My brain hummed with my combat mods.

  From across the room bullets tore into the pillar I was beside. I ducked, spun, and snuck around the other side of the thick, square, polished marble pillar to put it between myself and whoever the hell was shooting at me. Chunks of marble dust flew around my head. There was the sound of heavy footfalls as whoever shot at me rushed my position. I dropped into a crouch and then darted out from cover. The Skull-Goon was ten feet away and coming at me like a linebacker, only if linebackers carried nasty looking automatic rifles. My hands pushed out horizontally and the Glock spat 9mm Hydra-Shok destruction. I put one bullet in his knee, and the Skull-Goon’s leg went out from under him. As he fell, I put another one in the top of his head and he stopped moving all together.

  On the other side of the room, I caught a glimpse of a bright yellow pinball as bright as the sun as it tore through the chest of a Skull-Goon. A second later Artemis, who had torn most of her frilly dress’ skirt away, sprinted past the smoking body, her SunFlare up and ready and unleashing hell.

  I stood and turned to continue my advance toward the door when a thick, muscled arm came from out of nowhere and knocked my gun from my hand. A Skull-Goon grabbed me by the lapels of my jacket and tried to toss me aside. My arms came around his and then down as hard as my leverage would allow. He didn’t let go of me, but it put him off balance, and I used the opening to box his ears, or where I assumed his ears were since most of his head was covered by the skull mask, which stunned him and sent him stumbling. I pivoted, grabbed his left hand, shot a hard elbow into his gut, and then flipped him over my shoulder. Before letting go of his arm I twisted it hard and felt his shoulder pop out of its joint.