Arena Book 7

by Logan Jacobs

  “As enticing as a holiday in Cambodia sounds, I think I’ll pass,” the Brit said. “We need to show them your body or they won’t believe you’re really dead. Hmm, that does rule out the elevator shaft scheme.”

  “You didn’t have your execution planned out ahead of time?” The President’s daughter sounded disgusted. “Amateur.”

  “Do bear with me, my dear,” the Brit said. “This is my first time planning an act of terrorism of this caliber. I imagine you’ve been kidnapped by some real professionals in your time.”

  “Don’t expect any funny stories about it,” the President’s daughter said. “It’s not exactly one of my favorite topics of conversation to pull out at dinner parties.”

  “People actually ask you about that?” The British voice sounded amused.

  “I’m changing the subject right now,” the President’s daughter said. “Did you know that human blood looks just like ketchup? It’s one of our most popular condiments, and they definitely have bottles and bottles of it in the cafeteria.”

  “How fascinating,” the British voice said. “And did you know that we have approximately five minutes before your life is scheduled to end?” He pronounced “schedule” with a hard “k” sound after the S, the way Americans do.

  I knew for sure that was one of the words people from England pronounced differently. Something was up, but I didn’t know what. Spreading tactical misinformation to get us off our guard made sense, but what difference did pretending to be from England make? Was it another Rickman reference from a movie I hadn’t seen, or did the Skalle just really want to fuck with me?

  I turned back to Thomas and Olivia. “It sounds like they’re holding her on the next floor down,” I whispered.

  “They must have moved her when they figured out that we knew where they were holding her,” Olivia whispered back.

  “Good thing they didn’t move her far,” I whispered. “We’ll just have to go down the shaft.”

  “As the actress said to the bishop,” Thomas quipped quietly. “There are combatants in the vents, don’t forget. We’ll have to pry the elevator doors open.”

  “And we’ll have to do it very quickly,” Olivia added, “or they’ll really have the advantage.”

  Thomas hefted the tactical flashlight in his hand. “I think we can make that happen,” he said. “I’ve forced an elevator door or two open in my day.”

  Olivia held up a black metallic cord that was coiled into an oblong. Two carabiner hooks dangled from each end. “Rappelling ropes,” she said. “Check the pocket right over your left abdomen.”

  We clipped our ropes to the red metal railing and started down the elevator shaft with Thomas in the middle so he could apply his expertise in forcing elevator doors open.

  I could hear deep metallic thumps in the walls around us as the Skalle moved through the ventilation shafts, and I wondered if that meant they’d finally discovered the Skalle bodies in the helicopter and drawn the correct conclusions. The ends of some cables had curled up from the force of the blast and the sudden release of material stress, and I felt a couple of the ends scrape against the back of my neck even through the mesh of the body armor.

  We passed the first set of elevator doors and a metal bracket that ran around the perimeter of the elevator shaft. I stopped descending at the second set of elevator doors.

  Thomas slid a long metal knife out of one of the pockets on his Skalle uniform. “I’ll get the doors open,” he whispered. “Be ready to--”

  “Not even going to knock like a civilized chap?” a now familiar British voice interrupted. “It’s rather rude of you, but I won’t leave you hanging. My men won’t shoot as long as you don’t forget to wipe your feet.”

  The elevator doors slid open onto the thirty-fourth floor. It looked a lot like it had in Die Hard, but I was a little disappointed to see that the cool suits of samurai armor were all gone. Now the room resembled a typical corporate boardroom. The only differences were the framed movie posters, the balloon dog office chairs, and the President’s daughter tied to one of those chairs and surrounded by Skalle Furia in the center of the room.

  “Marc!” the President’s daughter cried. “Please, he’s going to kill me!” She lifted her chin, and I could see the glint of the knife that a Skalle held to her throat.

  “I suggest you refrain from discharging your firearms,” the Brit said. “It would be very easy for me to slit this girl’s throat. Oh, and masks off for all the heroes, please--I’d like to see who I’m dealing with.”

  I landed on the floor and unclipped my carabiner, then yanked off my mask. I heard Thomas and Olivia land next to me as I lowered the barrel of my rifle.

  “Your monologue had better be pretty fucking amazing for all the shit you put me and my team through today,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” The Brit actually sounded a little surprised.

  “Yeah, you know, your big villain monologue?” I rattled as I let my combat mods figure out a strategy in the back of my brain. “It always happens at the final standoff with the bad guy. You gloat about how clever your plan is and how there’s no possible way we could stop you now and all that stuff, maybe throw in a tragic childhood story or a little ‘we’re the same, you and I’ if you really want to get an emotional reaction.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t prepare a soliloquy,” the Brit said. “But I do have a list of demands. Would that be acceptable?”

  “Let’s hear ‘em,” I replied.

  My combat mods pushed the Ar’Gwyn to the front of my brain. I knew that the clustered Skalle Furia would be easy to take out, but the tricky part would be landing a shot on the Skalle who held the knife to the President’s daughter’s throat before he used the blade on her.

  The Brit cleared his throat. “Our list of demands for the President is as follows: Hold a press conference in which he announces Earth’s intent to withdraw from the Crucible and preparation to roll back technology to pre-Crucible levels. Earth will return to...”

  I aimed for the elbow on the Brit’s knife arm and pulled the trigger of my rifle.

  The Brit’s elbow exploded in a shower of sparks. He dropped to the ground as his knife arm dropped into the lap of the President’s daughter, who screamed.

  A few of the Skalle Furia leapt to attend to their injured leader and their hostage, but the rest aimed their rifles at us and began to shoot.

  I raised my own rifle to return the favor and dodged the bullets that whistled by my head as I aimed.

  Thomas stumbled backward. His back hit the wall, and his knees buckled as his rifle dropped from his hand. Blood dripped from a tiny hole in his left breastplate.

  “NOOO!” I screamed. My vision took on a blood-red tint and time seemed to slow down. The Skalle Furia had shot my long-lost father, and now they had to pay. I scooped up the rifle my father had dropped as he fell, and then I let the Ar’Gwyn guide my hand as I mowed down the bastards responsible.

  One of my bullets hit a Skalle in the face. Pink and gray matter sprayed out through his mask as he toppled backwards. Another bullet hit a Skalle in the neck, and he went down in a gush of bright fuschia arterial blood. Skalle after Skalle fell to the ground accompanied by gore in shades of pink as I sent bullet after bullet through their bodies.

  Soon the ground was littered with Skalle Furia bodies, and the bullets that had been whizzing by my head had ceased. The room was nearly silent, but I knew that didn’t mean we were safe yet.

  A movement caught my eye from under the zigzag table. A Skalle Furia crept across the floor flat on his belly, and he used one arm to drag himself over the surface of the floor, but the other stopped at the elbow. Frayed wires stuck out of the ragged end of his arm.

  Olivia raised her gun and aimed at the Skalle.

  “I have some questions to ask this guy,” I said to her quietly.

  “Then I’ll aim for the limbs,” Olivia responded. “Androids can usually function well until you start to damage their head.” She sque
ezed the trigger of her rifle.

  The Skalle’s working shoulder exploded in a shower of sparks. The casing around his shoulder shattered to reveal a tangle of wires and metal inside, and his arm dropped from his shoulder and dangled by a thin red wire. The arm twitched and spasmed on the ground as the Skalle’s head whipped around to face us.

  “Thanks for the tip, Rick Deckard,” I said. I raised my rifle again and unloaded a few bullets into the Skalle’s legs at the knee, both of which emitted a satisfying shower of sparks.

  One of the Skalle’s legs hung limp from his knee, and the other shook and kicked wildly. The Skalle twisted and writhed on the ground. His torso rocked from one side to the other, like a tortoise on its back trying to right itself.

  I shot the misbehaving knee again, and this time it laid still.

  “Well done,” the Skalle said. “You’ve quite effectively immobilized me. May I be allowed to die now?”

  “Not so fucking fast,” I said, and I went over and knelt by the android Skalle. I put my fingers under the rim of the back of his helmet and levered it off his head.

  The alien skull printed on the mask warped as it slid over the bumps of his features to reveal a face I’d seen before, on a planet far, far away.

  “Wow,” I said, “your British accent is really, really close.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I stared into the familiar brick-red face of Dolos, Artemis’s twin brother and Tyche’s golden child. No wonder he’d lied about being British. I doubted Dolos had enough backbone or initiative to ally with the Skalle Furia himself. He’d made it sound like the Skalle Furia wanted to end the Crucible games in order to seize the Aetheron’s technology for the masses, but that had to have been just another red herring. Tyche didn’t care about the Skalle Furia’s agenda, he was simply manipulating them as a disposable tool to eliminate the enemies of his that he couldn’t eliminate inside the Crucible. And I was definitely the fly in his ointment, the monkey in his wrench, and the pain in his ass all rolled into one. What I didn’t know was what his ultimate agenda was. As far as I could tell he was already really powerful, so what more did he want?

  It fit with what I knew of Tyche’s slimy character that he would send his second-in-command to keep order in the middle of the really dangerous part of their plan while Tyche probably sat in safety somewhere and directed the whole operation from wherever his lair was. He might even be back in Valiance City talking through an ansible. Maybe he’d even faked the Midwestern voice to throw us off the track.

  “Anything you want to say to your sister before you go to jail for the rest of your miserable life?” I asked Dolos. “Maybe an apology for treating her like shit for her entire life, when you’re actually the piece of shit?” Maybe not the cleverest line, but I was too angry to think of anything better.

  “Before we can repent, we have to sin,” Dolos answered. “As I hate Hell, all Team Havak, and thee--”

  Before Dolos could finish his Shakespeare quote, his head fell to the side and hung there. His eyes went blank.

  I didn’t have time to check his eyelids for the signs of Drustam gas Olivia had taught us about, so I just slung his body over my shoulder and headed towards the open doors that led to the empty elevator shaft. His head bounced between my shoulder blades as I ran.

  I hurled Dolos’s limp body down the elevator shaft. It bounced against the far wall. I didn’t have time to make sure the booby-trapped corpse made it all the way down the elevator shaft, so I whipped around on my heel toward the President’s daughter and ran. I hoped I could make it to the dais where she lay on her back in the office chair in time to shield her from the blast.

  I extended my arms so that I would land in a shield position on the floor and not crush the President’s daughter. Her turquoise and brown eyes gazed into mine, and I could have sworn that I felt the heat of her body even through my Skalle Furia armor. I took a deep breath. She smelled like sweat, which wasn’t surprising because she had been tied up and terrified for hours, but somehow she still smelled a little flowery and fruity too.

  I clasped her in my arms and waited for the Earth-shattering kaboom.

  I heard a muffled boom that seemed to come from far under us. The building shook slightly, and I heard tinkling sounds from my right as glassware collided and cracked. I held the President’s daughter in my arms until the vibrations stopped, and I savored the scent of her skin and the heat of her breath against my face.

  “Is that you, Marc?” the President’s daughter asked with a little giggle. “Why don’t you get up and untie me, silly?”

  “Sure, sure,” I stammered. I climbed to my feet and shook myself out to make sure that I hadn’t gotten injured without noticing it during the adrenaline rush of the fight. Nothing hurt too badly, aside from a few spots that felt bruised and the general ache in my muscles after such intense exertion, but I knew the regeneration mod would take care of those soon. I pushed the chair back up onto four legs, then bent over to start on the black cord that wound around the President’s daughter’s body.

  “I knew you’d come to save me,” the President’s daughter breathed as I untied the tangle of cords that had been knotted at the center of her back.

  I moved around to the front and started to free her slim, manicured hands. Her nails didn’t quite match her bangles, but they did match the color of her aquamarine go-go boots.

  The President’s daughter pulled her hands free of the black cords as I knelt before her to free her legs. As she ran her hands through my hair, she took plenty of opportunities to brush her delicate fingers against my neck, my chin, my cheek, my forehead. By the time I had freed her feet, she’d gotten the helmet all the way off, and I was pretty sure I was almost as red as Dolos.

  She dropped the helmet on the floor. “My hero,” she murmured. Her scarlet lips parted as she leaned forward.

  I stayed on one knee like a medieval knight plighting his troth to his damsel as her eyelids fluttered closed and opened my own mouth to receive her kiss. Her lips were slick and a little tacky under mine, and I could feel the waxy lipstick rubbing off onto my teeth as she slid her soft tongue between my lips. Her mouth tasted like champagne and curry.

  I heard the chuf-chuf-chuf of helicopter blades to my left, where the windows were, and I pulled away from my damsel’s soft lips. “Looks like our ride’s here,” I said.

  A huge military helicopter hovered outside the broken window. As I watched, the chopper disgorged a handful of Marines in full combat gear, followed by the familiar boxy and orange form of the President. I wondered how they’d known to land on the thirty-fourth floor instead of the thirty-fifth, but it probably hadn’t been that hard to figure out once they’d seen the Skalle Furia hanging out in the penthouse.

  “Marc!” The President raised his hand in greeting. “I’m glad you could make it. So good to see that face.”

  Something bright flashed behind the President’s shoulder. I ducked on reflex, but it was only the flash of a camera.

  The photographer raised the camera again, and the President flashed a quick, toothy smile as he put his arm around my shoulder.

  “Your daughter’s fine, sir,” I responded as another bright flash went off in my face. It wasn’t the most enthusiastic greeting I’d ever given the President, but I still felt a little numb from the shock of seeing my own father get shot. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at the dais where the President’s daughter stood brushing the dust from her skirt.

  “Good, good, thank you very much.” The President went over to his daughter and put his arms around her. She gave me a sultry look over his shoulder.

  “You look amazing, sweetie,” he said to her. “Too bad you didn’t go with that purple sheath today instead. It would’ve looked great for the pictures.”

  “Well, we can’t always choose where we’re held hostage, can we?” the President’s daughter asked a little sarcastically.

  “Ah, it doesn’t matter.” The President kissed her on the cheek
and released her. “Tremendous timing, absolutely tremendous. This’ll really get everyone’s attention off that impairment thing. Oh, the aides think I don’t hear them whisper, but I know what they’re talking about. Ears everywhere.”

  “Impairment?” The President’s daughter frowned. “Are you okay, Daddy? They can’t still be talking about that silly test you had to take.”

  “No, Daddy’s just fine, sweetheart,” the President assured her. “I’ll check my notes about it when we get back to Washington. Peach, pear, plum, whatever. You know I’m not a fruit guy. The important thing is that my approval ratings are through the roof right now.”

  Once I was satisfied that the President’s daughter was safe, I turned to check on Thomas.

  A group of field medics had already swarmed around my father, and Olivia stood guard. They’d taken off his mask and had started to strip away his Skalle Furia armor as they checked his vital signs. His eyes were closed, and I couldn’t tell if his chest was moving, but the bustle of activity around him suggested that the medics still believed he had a chance to survive.

  The pain in my heart told me to run to him, to push through the medics and see for myself if he was still alive, to put my ear to his mouth and hear his last breath and last words. My field medic mod told me sternly that the Marine medics were doing everything right to stabilize him, that interrupting their work would only reduce his chances of survival, and that he wasn’t exactly going to whisper any last words into my ear when he was clearly unconscious.

  I started towards the President. I was going to tell him about finding Dolos under the mask and explain about the Skalle Furia, but then I wondered what the President’s response would actually be. He might want to confront Tyche about it directly, and I had a very strong suspicion that the survival of Team Havak and possibly the entire planet would depend on Tyche not knowing that I knew his secret.