by Paul Tassi
The giant wrenched the axe out of the ground and whipped it around toward her. His fresh wound made his grip slip, so when it hit Aria, the flat of the axe smacked into her chest plating, flinging her against the stone wall that made up the edge of the arena, when it could have easily cut her in two.
Mark winced, but in his peripheral, saw the guards now pointing in his direction, and beginning to charge up the stairs, tasers out.
Shit shit shit.
He balled his hands into fists. His eyes kept darting between the screen and the men racing up the stairs.
Aria was reeling on the wall. Her armor had actually cracked the curved stone. But she was still standing.
The first man made it to within six steps of Mark.
“Mr. Wei, I need you to come—”
Mark lashed out with a front kick that sent the man flying into the other guards behind him.
Aria leapt forward with a desperate swing at Rusakov, but he dodged it, and landed a hard hook with his mallet fist that sent her hurling back into the wall.
The tumbling guard took two others with him, but that meant the other ones were done being polite. The next two came with tasers, crackling blue with the promise of pain and unconscious ignorance.
No.
As a drone veered in to get a better shot of Aria lodged up against the wall, Rusakov actually jumped. With such a massive wingspan, he grabbed the flying metal annoyance and hurled it at a still-recovering Aria. The three-foot drone plowed into her chest and the crowd just about lost their mind. The feed it was broadcasting cut to black until another drone looped in for a new shot. Aria was reeling, barely able to stand, her armor marred with deep scrapes and gouges.
Mark let the first taser inside, but turned his chest so it sailed right past him. His elbow met the guard’s helmeted face, and he tumbled into a confused bunch of onlookers who were just starting to realize what was happening around them. The second taser bit into his abdomen and he clenched his jaw so hard he thought he heard something crack. He broke the man’s wrist with a quick twist of his own, and shattered his visor with a headbutt, managing to keep his footing.
Rusakov lumbered toward Aria, who held up her sword, which now looked no more threatening than a knitting needle. Mustering her last bit of strength, Aria leapt at the hulking black monstrosity, and drove the blade into a slim gap near his ribs.
More guards arrived. The air was now thick with stinging pepper. He could barely see the screen anymore, and more tasers buzzed all around him.
Rusakov cross-checked Aria with the handle of the massive axe, sending her one more time toward the wall, stumbling over the downed drone as she went. As she hit the stone, his axe was only milliseconds behind her.
The last thing Mark saw before the voltage of the tasers shut his brain off was Aria two feet in the air, pinned to the wall with the axehead running straight from her right shoulder to her left hip. Her head hung limp. Her hair blew softly in the desert wind.
He tried to scream. Instead he gurgled through clenched teeth, and a gloved hand shoved his head into the concrete stairs.
MAYBE THAT SHOT IN the head from Shin Tagami gave you brain damage, and this is what insanity looks like.
Maybe Chase Cassidy put that katana through your throat instead of your arm, and these are the last spasms of your mind before oblivion.
Maybe Burton Drescher put you in a coma, too. Maybe this is a lucid dream.
Maybe it was you who blew up in that car, not Riko and Asami, karma for the thousands killed by the Red Death.
Maybe you died on the Hóngsè Fēng. Maybe this is purgatory, as you wait for the devil to make more room in hell.
Maybe you’re still in China. Still in that hole. Maybe Zhou broke your mind, and this is your descent into madness.
Maybe not.
Maybe you’re alive. And sane. And that’s even worse.
IT WAS A FULL day before CMI lifted Mark’s security detail and let him go to the morgue. His head was still pounding, and he had a new collection of fresh bruises, but Crayton had no interest in escalating things further with him, it seemed. With the quarterfinals over, Mark was no longer under lock and key.
The morgue was freezing. It was a part of Crayton’s great gleaming Colosseum that no one ever talked about, and most probably didn’t know existed at all. It was half a dozen floors underground, far from the hot Vegas air. It kept the bodies of the fallen competitors on ice until the conclusion of the tournament.
At first, Mark didn’t even realize they were doing this, but it was in the fine print of the paperwork he’d signed. Bodies were held until the conclusion of the Crucible, and no funeral services, sans coffin or otherwise, were to take place until then. Presumably it was about not killing the “mood,” as since the tournament started, there would have been a dozen very public memorials broadcast all over the country with how many combatants had lost their lives. Their loved ones had to wait to mourn. Wait until the country was done cheering for the winner.
Mark walked past the labeled storage lockers of the bodies as he entered the room, the mortician agreeing to wait out in the hall. All were familiar.
C. CASSIDY
M. M. EASTON
S. TAGAMI
K. BRADFORD
A. MENDEZ
M. VARKAS
N. WILKINSON
J. JORDAN
D. HAGELUND
R. BLACKWOOD
M. MORTON
And there on the table, covered by a sheet to the neck, was A. ROSETTI.
She was pale. Just a shell. Just a shadow of her former self. How could something so perfect be sacrificed like this? Offered up on an altar, for what? A memorable Thursday night for a hundred million viewers at home?
Mark lifted the sheet. Even clean and loosely stitched, the wound was horrific, slashing diagonally across her body to the point where it was a miracle she hadn’t been fully cut in half. Mark still didn’t even understand her fight. She’d stabbed Drago Rusakov so many times, in so many seemingly vital places. How was she the one laying here? Granted they called the man “The Undying” for a reason, but Christ.
Mark checked his phone, which was lit up with news alerts.
WEI INVOLVED IN YET ANOTHER ARENA BRAWL read one, as his fight in the stands with security had gone viral just like his altercation with Rusakov before that. He was exhausted trying to deal with the press. He was exhausted from everything.
He looked around the room. These corpses represented $160 million of the nearly billion-and-a-half prize pool. He never asked Aria what she was planning on doing with the money. She never asked him either. In the end, Mark thought she knew who he was. Who he really was. Or some version of that, anyway. And he always knew it was never about the money for her. She had a death wish, and now here it was, granted.
Mark wanted to believe in some kind of afterlife. That Aria and her sister were now dancing in harmony in the clouds somewhere. But it was hard to delude himself like that, standing there in the frigid room of the dead, looking at the body in front of him. The last time he was in a place like this, there was an unrecognizable scattering of ashes and black bone fragments on the table that was supposed to be a woman and her child. At least Aria still resembled her former self, even if her soul had fled.
Moses’s death had hit him hard, but after Aria, now he was just numb. He didn’t weep or wail over her body. He simply stared.
Rusakov was a monster and clearly needed to die, but Mark didn’t really even blame him for any of this. It was like throwing someone into a lion’s den and expecting them not to be eaten. But the person who bred the lion, starved the lion and sent the person in to die? That’s who you would blame. And there was only one person who met that description.
“TELL ME WHERE WE are,” Mark growled, shifting the ice around in his empty glass. The bar was dingy and deserted, way off-Strip in Vegas, and he’d had to slip his Glasshammer shadows to get there. Brooke was drinking water and wore a leather jacket with her
hair pulled back into a curly ponytail.
“Mark, I’m sorry about Aria. I know—”
Mark waved her off.
“Do you really think I want to go there right now? Do you really think I want to talk about any of this shit for one second longer than I have to at this point? I need to know the plan. I need to know when and how this ends.”
Brooke shifted nervously in her seat. She stared past him to the muted TV on the wall. Like every TV in the city, it was tuned to CMI’s Crucible coverage. They were already plugging Mark’s upcoming fight with Soren in the first semi-final match. The subtitle: VANDERHAVEN: “I’LL GET JUSTICE FOR CHASE.”
“Did you know some companies are actually letting employees go home early to watch fight pre-coverage?” Brooke said. “I heard there’s even a petition to make the finals a federal holiday. Bet Crayton floated that himself.”
“Stop changing the subject. There will only be a final if we keep fucking this up,” Mark said coldly. “Tell me where we are.”
Brooke sighed.
“The early investment case is the strongest. I have almost a dozen cases where start-ups Crayton invested in had their competition decimated by something that traces back to China.
“We can place Crayton in Beijing at a young age, but we have little actual proof that he’s ‘Joseph Olsson Jr.,’ and we don’t know what actually happened over there.
“We have Crayton’s head of security on tape executing a woman we believe to be an MSS agent, but we have no way of tying her directly to that organization. We have found nothing on Crayton giving the order to possibly kill Justice Wright, and that feels like something that would never have been documented if it did happen.”
“And?” Mark said.
“And I’m going to write all of it up for Gideon to send up the chain. He’s flying out to Vegas as we speak, actually, and will want to meet up. But we still don’t have what the Agency and Homeland are looking for.”
“Chinese confirmation of Crayton’s status as a plant. Or former plant, I guess, seeing as they’re apparently trying to kill him,” Mark said.
“That’s what I’m guessing they’ll say,” Brooke said, taking a drink.
“This is bullshit. We can extract the rest out of him once we have him. This is not just something he’s going to let slip in casual conversation or have written down in some stray email. We have more than enough to book him as is. If we dug into this Easton murder on his grounds, that could be rolled up in it, too.”
“That’s completely unconnected.”
“It’s accessory after the fucking fact.”
“That’s not the mission.”
“If I hear that one more time I’m going to lose it.”
“Sorry,” Brooke said, and she looked like she meant it. “But I’m just trying to make sure everything you’ve gone through so far actually ends up being worth it. Otherwise …”
“I don’t think Gideon, McAdams or any of them understand the position they’ve put me in here. My life is effectively over after this. If I don’t die in the tournament or get outright murdered by Crayton’s security, this thing has made me so goddamn high profile I’ll never be able to show my face in public again, no matter how this shakes out.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying if they don’t greenlight this, I’ll kill him. I have nothing to lose, and I’m not going to sit around and watch poor Ethan Callaghan get sacrificed to Drago Rusakov next. I will kill Crayton, and Axton, and Rusakov, and maybe Vanderhaven just for good measure. And then I will disappear and you will spend the next thirty years trying to find me. I am done with this shit.”
Mark’s chest was heaving, and the look on Brooke’s face said that she was considering launching into yet another ‘talk Mark off a ledge speech’ that he was in no mood to hear. Instead, she surprised him.
“I understand,” she said. “I’ll make sure they get the message.”
“See that you do,” Mark said. “Or I will burn this whole goddamn thing to the ground.”
38
IT WAS A STRANGE feeling, that Crayton’s desert estate now felt more like home than anything else. It was the only place Mark could exist free from the prying questions of the press. He’d take patrols of armed guards any day over vultures with camera drones and thumbnail mics. Security had been beefed up yet again, and though Mark always seemed to have eyes on him, it was as if Crayton was almost gearing up for war. Whatever the issue with Mark and Rusakov had been, it seemed far from Crayton’s mind now. The winds were changing.
Outside of the guards and the staff, the population of fighters had now been reduced from sixteen to four, and as such they rarely ran into one another. Mark had seen precious little of Ethan, who had gone quiet after Aria’s death, knowing that he was next on Rusakov’s hitlist in the semi-final, and mostly spent time with his family. The hulking Russian lumbered around the compound, occasionally visited by other hulking Russians, but he seemed to have no further desire to push Mark’s buttons. Mark’s blood hadn’t stopped boiling since Aria’s death, but taking on Rusakov here in the middle of Crayton’s private army would do nobody any favors.
Mark checked his phone and S-lens incessantly, waiting for any information from Brooke. If the higher-ups didn’t greenlight Crayton for take-down, Mark was determined to put him down. And that wasn’t a bluff. He might die trying, or have to spend the rest of his life on the run, but goddamn did he truly believe he’d be doing the world a favor.
Still, these days Crayton’s compound made Admiral Huang’s aircraft carrier look like day care. He was so high profile he turned every guard’s head from a hundred yards or more. And besides, Crayton was almost never on the estate anymore. Like Soren, he spent most of his time in Vegas itself. Mark saw him frequently on TV meeting with the execs of Crucible sponsors (“Odor Destroyer, the official deodorant of the Crucible!”) or giving interviews to hype up what was still to come. And Mark’s fight was next.
“Mark is a dangerous fighter,” Crayton said to the silver-haired man across from him. He only gave interviews to streams he owned, ensuring Crucible viewership remained his sole property, in the arena and out.
“I don’t think anyone underestimates him at this point, much less Miss Vanderhaven. She of all people knows what he’s capable of.”
“Do you think that she can match him?” the interviewer pressed.
“Soren has surprised us all with her brilliance in the arena. I absolutely think the two are evenly matched, and she is out for revenge, after all.”
“Did you get to spend much time with them during Heroes and Legends filming?”
“Chase and Soren? I did, and they really were wonderful together. The gossip streams aren’t exaggerating. I did not plan for love to blossom among Crucible combatants, but you can’t control the human heart.”
What would you know about the human heart? Mark thought. Naturally, the interviewer didn’t say a word about Mark and Aria.
“And what of young Ethan and Drago Rusakov? It’s your old champion versus the young upstart. Is it even possible for anyone to take down Rusakov?”
“Sure, it’s a bit of a David versus Goliath situation, as is clear to anyone, and yet we know how that turned out. Young Ethan has been a hero both on the battlefield and for his family these past few years with his wife’s illness. While Drago is a force of nature, anything is possible when you step out onto the sands, as we’ve seen already.”
“So can we get your official picks for the fights?”
“Hah, Tom, you know my friends taking bets in Vegas wouldn’t much appreciate me anointing one fighter over another. Suffice to say, I am hoping for exciting, entertaining matches, and for the best competitors to emerge victorious.”
Shortly after that last interview, Mark had an unexpected visitor at his door, a young Glasshammer guard. One who had been on his personal detail a few times.
“Mr. Crayton would like to apologize for the business between you and
Mr. Rusakov, and for the ordeal that took place in the stands during Miss Rosetti’s match.”
Mark leaned against the doorframe.
“That it?”
The guard shook his head.
“No, sir. He’d like to issue this apology in person, which is why he will be escorting you personally to your Crucible match with Miss Vanderhaven on Friday. You’ll take his private car to the Colosseum.”
Mark shrugged, though something clicked in the back of his brain.
“Alright. He’s the boss.”
ON THURSDAY NIGHT, MARK kept blinking to refresh his S-lens inbox. There was nothing. Still no word from Brooke. He knew she’d already gotten the answer, but one of two things was happening. Either they were mapping out a plan to bring Crayton in, or she was pleading with them to reconsider, relaying Mark’s threats.
The newscast was replaying reports that Ethan’s wife, Lily, had slipped into a coma. He’d fled the compound to go to the hospital before Mark could even wish him well. He tried calling a few times, but with no luck.
With little else to do, Mark had kept up training during the week. But there would be no more fights. Either Crayton would come in and this would be over, or he would be dead, and Mark would either flee or die in the attempt.
Are those really the only two options you’re leaving yourself?
Mark shrugged off the notion. He could tolerate another fight, especially if it meant killing Soren, but he was not going to let Ethan get slaughtered by Rusakov the way Aria had. And with Crayton riding with him to his fight tomorrow, he may never get another shot like this anyhow.
Finally, the indicator in the corner of Mark’s eye lit up. It was Brooke, and she was actually calling. He answered, and didn’t even need to hear her speak. It was written all over her face.
“They said no. They need a Chinese source. But Mark, if you try to do anything to Crayton, they will—”
Mark didn’t say anything. He closed the call, and ignored Brooke’s frantic attempts to redial him. Soon she switched to written messages that all started with “MARK PLEASE, DO NOT …” followed by all the ways the CIA would dismantle him if he went rogue. Mark wondered if they’d actually try to take him out, but ironically they’d made him too famous, and too well-guarded, thanks to planting him in Crayton’s camp.