by Paul Tassi
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
The crowd was silent, not knowing what to make of the poem. Aria was moved to uncharacteristic tears, and Mark felt a lump in his throat.
The blaring fanfare of the Crucible’s orchestral theme played as the countdown ticked to zero. Mark watched Soren’s face slowly morph from a carefree smile to a hard sneer in a matter of seconds. Moses, for his part, didn’t look nervous either. His brow furrowed in concentration, and he bent low with his massive maul in a defensive position.
As soon as the timer hit zero, Soren sprang at him like a coiled snake, gripping the bottom of her spear with one hand and sending all seven feet of it racing right toward Moses’s throat while still holding onto the end. Her horizontal leap was unearthly, and the length of her weapon brought the tip of her spear within a few inches of Moses almost as quickly as the knives Easton had flung at Aria in their match’s opening moments.
But Moses wasn’t like the other armored tanks that lumbered around in full-plate suits. He was surprisingly mobile, and spun out of the way of the spear, which glanced off his shoulder plating. He choked down on the grip of his maul, and whirling around, swung it like a gigantic bat toward Soren, who was now sailing through the air, unable to dodge what came next.
“Yes!” Mark shouted, leaping to his feet alongside Aria a millisecond after Moses’s maul slammed into Soren’s side. It threw her a solid dozen feet to the right. The crowd was stunned. She landed hard and rolled on the sand, her spear spiraling out of her grasp, her body too pulverized for her to even form a scream.
He had actually listened. No holding back.
She had to be done. Mark always suspected if Moses could land a single blow with that metal oak tree he called a maul, someone Soren’s size would be dead on the spot. And yet, he watched in horror as the gymnast picked herself up off the ground.
“Are you kidding?” Mark said out loud. “She has to have half her ribs broken.”
A large bruise was already forming on her side, and the minimal gold and black plating she wore had spiderweb cracks running through it, but she was standing. Breathing hard, she stared venomously at Moses, who looked as stunned as Mark felt.
Soren was the first to move again, none of her mobility gone, even after the potentially catastrophic blow. She dove and tumbled forward, picking up her spear from the sand, and coming back with it fast, swinging in a wide arc, which made Moses jump backward.
She began thrusting and lunging with the spear so quickly it was hard for Mark to even track it from his coveted close seat. The spearhead was just a blur, Moses having to back away from it, occasionally swatting the point with his maul or the back of his forearm plating, something Mark knew was a dangerous proposition.
But try as he might, the exposed parts of Moses’s barrel torso were bloodied as a few light stabs managed to breach his defenses. He roared, seemingly to push past the pain, and pressed forward with a fresh assault. He slammed the maul left and right, forcing Soren to relent and roll out of the way as the metal cratered the earth where she’d stood only moments before. He was hoping to catch her with another haymaker, the maul built for single kill-shots, not rapid attacks. But Moses was making do, attacking more ferociously than Mark would have thought possible holding something of that size. He was expertly trained in a weapon most humans couldn’t even hope to lift.
Soren tried to counter-spear him after he lunged toward her, but Moses twisted left and drove his bear-headed helmet straight into her. It bowled her over, but she had retained enough of her senses to keep her balance, rolling back and flipping up to a standing position while keeping ahold of her spear the whole time. Mark was searching her for hidden weapons like the ones he and Cassidy had, but there weren’t many places to hide them, given her outfit.
Soren tried a move Mark had seen her use on Hagelund, sticking the butt of her spear behind Moses to try and trip him, but Moses had nearly a hundred pounds on her last opponent, and it was like trying to knock over a redwood. Moses went nowhere, an immovable object, and she wasn’t quite the unstoppable force she needed to be. Moses took advantage of her failure and sent the handle of his maul into her face, which momentarily stunned her. He swung it around for what would have been a devastating blow, but she managed to duck under it just in time. Her nose was bleeding, possibly broken, and she did not look pleased about it.
Her next counter was more effective as Moses swung again. She jammed the spear upward and it caught Moses’s bicep where there was just a leather support strap instead of metal plating. He winced as the spearhead dug into his flesh and blood poured out. Thankfully he was able to rip his arm away before she could twist the shaft and do any further damage.
The drone cams panned to various crowd shots which showed people cheering wildly at the fresh spray of blood. They were clearly hungry for more.
Soren obliged. She arced over a sweeping swing from Moses with a no-handed cartwheel, and thrust the spear behind her when she landed so it sliced through the wound on his abdomen he’d sustained in his fight with Mendez, reopening it. Moses howled, and Mark was thankful that he wasn’t in the same room as Nolan, who was no doubt losing his mind, just then.
“He will die weeping.”
Mark convulsed with an unwanted chill, and Aria put her hand on his shoulder.
Moses was starting to stagger now, his swings getting slower, his footwork slipping. He tried a lunging uppercut with the maul, but it missed Soren completely, and she responded by whipping the spear around so that it cracked against the metal of his helmet just under the bear’s jawline. Thankfully, Mark couldn’t see any more blood.
“He’s still in it,” Aria said, though Mark didn’t know if she was trying to convince him or herself. All it would really take was one more solid blow, the kind he landed in the beginning. With the right strike, she could be dead before she hit the ground.
Moses kept swinging for her tanned collar and abdomen, but Soren was quick to dodge and deflect with her spear. Her exposed skin seemed like an easy target, but one that was impossible to hit.
Moses swung the maul hard right, and Soren went airborne yet again to dodge it, this time, launching herself off his shoulder pauldrons, and landing behind him before he could turn. Mark’s heart caught in his throat as he saw her spear racing toward his exposed quadriceps, but he managed to fling his gauntlet back and sent the spear grazing off his calf instead, which drew a fresh line of red, but wasn’t as crippling as it could have been.
Soren danced back, keeping him at bay with the spear like she was hunting an actual live bear. The bruise was darkening on her side now, but if she was in any pain, Mark couldn’t see it on her face. Her look was feral and ferocious, blood streaming from her nose and smeared across her lips. Meanwhile, Moses looked like he was about to black out. The sand was stained with his blood from a half dozen major and minor wounds. The one on his side was flowing steadily, which worried Mark. He’d have to end this quickly. One decisive blow. That’s all it would take.
Moses went in for the same maul sweep he’d just tried moments earlier, and once again, Soren left her feet, arcing over his back. Mark didn’t understand why the man would try the exact same thing twice.
Because she’ll do the exact same thing twice, Mark realized as Soren flew upward once more.
Moses stopped the swing short and twisted his right arm behind him. Just as an airborne Soren was bringing the spear around to try and plant it in the small of his back, he grabbed her by the leg with a meaty hand.
He slammed her down so forcefully, Mark swore he felt the box shake, though it was probably just his nervous system going haywire as he was on his feet yelling and screaming. The entire arena was a non-stop thunderclap.
Soren’s eyes were unfocused as the drone zoomed in from above. She had no earthly idea where she was. Her spear was out of her grasp on the sand beside her, and Moses
was already starting to bring the maul around for a crushing overhand swing.
“Yes!” Mark cheered, having never been so eager to see something so pretty smashed to a pulp.
As he pulled the maul up behind him and started to muster the last of his strength to slam it down, a screech rang out from the sand.
“Wait!” Soren screamed. Her face was bloody, tears were streaming out of her eyes. She was covered in dust and blood, her armor cracked, her bruise spreading endlessly.
“Please!” she begged.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Mark yelled so loudly his voice cracked. He pressed himself to the glass of the box, and slammed it with his hand over and over. “Moses, don’t listen—”
Moses paused. Only for half a second. Only to consider the pitiful, broken, beautiful creature before him. Mark watched his heart break as he resumed the swing.
But a half-second’s hesitation was all Soren had needed.
From the ground, she lunged left and grabbed the very end of her spear. As Moses’s maul came down over his head, she twisted right, and in one fluid motion brought the spear around just before the maul smashed into vacant ground.
Mark watched as the razor tip opened up Moses’s throat, showering Soren in a spray of blood. He dropped to his knees, choking, gasping, his armor mic picking up every horrible gurgle.
Mark screamed until his lungs burned and his ears were ringing so loudly he couldn’t even hear the obscenities Aria was shouting next to him. The roar of the crowd was a volcanic eruption.
Moses’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the red earth below. Soren’s expression shifted from a cruel stare into a wide smile. She thrust her bloody spear into the sky, the wind tearing at her long blonde locks. The air was suddenly thick with a million yellow rose petals, flung by celebrating fans from every corner of the arena. She blew a kiss to the closest camera drone, an image beamed directly to the box’s enormous TV to Aria’s left.
Mark screamed a scream he couldn’t even hear, and he flung a champagne bottle through the screen. Soren’s beaming, blood-soaked face shattered into a thousand jagged edges.
34
THERE WASN’T TIME TO grieve. There wasn’t time to do anything, really. Mark’s fight with Shin Tagami, Iman Hirota, whatever the hell his name was, was in nineteen hours.
He’d barely known Moses for a few months, and still the loss was crippling, like it had blown a hole straight through him. He ignored calls from Carlo, offering condolences, Gideon, demanding mission updates, and Brooke, probably ringing him with some combination of the two.
He couldn’t bring himself to go back to Crayton’s compound. Not yet. He told the autolimo to drive in circles around Vegas indefinitely, and he just stared at the lights outside. Every so often, a screen would show the highlights of the evening’s fight. By the third lap of the city, he’d seen Moses’s throat slit a half dozen more times.
“I saw Nolan on the way out.” Aria was sitting next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She was idly flicking through the pages of a flexscreen. “His eyes were red and his voice was cracking, but other than that, he seemed oddly … okay.”
Mark raised his eyebrow.
“Because of the money?” That didn’t seem like Nolan, from what he’d learned about the man the last few weeks.
Aria shook her head.
“He said that Moses had never seemed more alive than he had the past few months. That he’d never made friends like us. He said it was the first time Moses had been truly happy in years.”
Mark didn’t know Moses as well as Nolan, obviously, but he thought back to training. Moses did seem like he loved every second of it, albeit outside of the brief pit of regret he fell into following Mendez’s death.
“That’s a little bit insane,” Mark said.
“This was sort of heaven for him,” Aria said. “You have to remember that.”
“I know,” Mark sighed. “But this still sucks.”
“We should go back,” Aria said. “You need to sleep.”
Mark kept staring out at the neon. The city was just coming to life as midnight approached. He thought about stopping the car and throwing himself down a well of drinks at the nearest casino. But he supposed he’d learned a lesson from when Carlo was injured. Tagami would kill him outright if he was even a fraction off his game. Especially with what Mark had planned for the following day.
It’s a stupid idea, he thought, and he’d been wrestling with it for days. But it just seemed right to him, and after so much wrongness, he felt like he needed it. He’d figure out whether it was noble or idiotic the following day. He’d told no one about it. Not Crayton’s people, not even Ethan or Aria. They’d all see tomorrow.
It’s too much of a risk.
Mark pushed the thoughts from his mind, though part of him wondered if he wanted Tagami to kill him. To end this miserable tournament and mission that never seemed to stop going off the rails.
Mark heard Aria let out a tiny gasp.
“What is it?” he asked, and turned away from the window to look down at her flexscreen. He saw a familiar face he couldn’t quite place. A young girl, pretty, Asian. Above her head was the word MISSING in block text.
“Oh god,” Aria said. “It’s her.”
The maid. The one Easton had killed in front of her. The one he’d harassed in the park when Tagami put him in his place. The one Crayton had swept under the rug, and no one noticed but her family, it seemed.
“Her father posted it. It says she just didn’t come home from work one day. He says CMI reported that she left, and nothing else. Her autocar is gone, too.”
“Thorough,” Mark said, wondering what Wyatt Axton had done with her body and vehicle. They were likely in a scrapyard somewhere, both crushed into a two-by-two cube.
“Christ,” Aria said. “I should … I should have—”
“It’s just your word against his, isn’t it?” Mark said.
Aria paused hard for a minute.
“Yeah.”
“Nothing will stick to him, and he’ll probably put you in a soundproof room until your fight,” Mark said. “You avenged her, it’s all you can do.”
“It’s not,” she said. “And Crayton needs to pay.”
Mark wanted to tell her. Wanted to tell her everything, and explain how there was a very calculated plan of how Crayton would pay, and how hearsay about a murder/cover-up in his compound would probably only serve to derail that. The right thing for her to do probably would be to go to the cops or press, but Mark was worried that it would only complicate his own task even further. He was being selfish, letting her struggle with the guilt, but he told himself he didn’t have a choice.
“He scares me,” Aria whispered. “More than that goddamn giant Russian I’m supposed to fight in two days. I don’t know why, but he does.”
“Power comes in many forms,” Mark said. “Beware the evil behind smiling eyes.”
He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that before.
“Why do you just believe me?” Aria said, sitting up to look at him. “What have you seen?”
Mark stared blankly out the window.
“I’ve seen a man bring a country to its feet, cheering the televised deaths of men and women. Anyone who can do that is capable of anything.”
“Who are you really, Mark?” Aria said as they reached the edge of town and the blooming lights started to fade.
“I’m someone who will make him pay.”
It was raining by the time they finally pulled up to the compound and made their way through the entryway, surrounded by the underlit towering statues Moses had loved so much. When they pulled up to the rounded edge of the driveway in front of the main manor, another limo was already there. Mark saw a blonde woman get out and for a moment clenched his teeth.
Soren.
But it wasn’t her. Their headlights lit her up, and Mark’s eyebrows raised as he saw that it was none other than Brooke.
Aria saw her
too, and punched in a command to the autolimo to have her take her to her own manor.
“Come by later,” she said. “Or not, if you’d … rather stay here tonight.”
“I told you—” Mark said, before Aria shushed him.
“I know, I know. I’m just saying, it could be your last night on earth, so spend it wherever you want.” She smiled weakly.
Mark opened the door and the rain started blowing inside.
“I’ll be there soon,” he said.
MARK AND BROOKE DID retreat to his room, the only safe place to talk, both drenched even in the short window of time it took them to climb the stairs to the door.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” Mark said as he toweled off his hair and threw Brooke a spare hoodie emblazoned with the Crucible logo. She changed quickly in the bathroom, and came out with her wet blonde curls spilling down her shoulders.
“Check your damn messages,” she said. “Or answer your phone. One of the two. I’m here for your fight, obviously. Crayton’s people reached out with airfare and a hotel offer like three times. It would raise flags if I kept turning them down.”
“And I’m guessing you wanted to check on me to see if I was going to go off the deep end after Moses died,” Mark said flatly.
“There … were concerns after the city qualifiers and Carlo, yes.”
“Gideon’s concerns?”
“Yes, and also mine. I watched that butcher Burton Drescher almost kill you because you were fighting drunk.”
He could feel her sizing him up. She was standing close enough to smell the alcohol on his breath, but for once, there was none.
“Satisfied?” he said, holding his arms out.
She nodded, and then stood around awkwardly with her hands in her back pockets.
“Alright, well I’m sure you weren’t in that limo alone, and there’s a certain gorgeous gladiator waiting for you somewhere in this complex, so I’m going to head to the hotel. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”
Mark looked at Brooke with wet hair, no makeup, and in a lumpy hoodie, and the only thing that crossed his mind was how goddamn beautiful she was. He said nothing. He did nothing. She’d said her piece in this very room weeks ago about why nothing was going to happen. He understood, and respected her enough not to be an asshole.