by Paul Tassi
“Fuck you,” Mark said through clenched teeth, trying to detach himself from the pain. The guards hauled him toward the door, and Crayton turned to the windows. They became totally transparent, and he looked sternly across the crowd toward the torture video, which was still playing on the screen.
“Lieutenant … Marcus … O’Connor,” the dying man choked out. “United States … Army. Please …”
In the video, the uniformed Mark looked to his right. Zhou nodded, and Mark drove the knife into the man’s heart. The Colosseum crowd lost their minds.
44
MARK RETREATED INTO HIMSELF as far as he could, trying to mentally flee from the pain radiating through his body. It was a technique he’d learned in China. But this poison, this nuravine was diabolical. He was dragged in cuffs through back tunnels and down to the arena floor. The Glasshammer CMI guards finally unshackled him at the wide-mouth entrance to the sand, where Ethan and the audience waited outside. The Muses were lining the tunnel as they always did, and Mark saw them all staring at him with wide eyes. Shyla was there too, leaning stiffly against the wall right before the sand, and she looked at Mark like a total stranger. Worse, like a monster. He kept quiet, and strode out into the light.
Mark had been booed before, but this was something else entirely. After that video outing him as a spy and apparent traitor, the crowd was in a complete frenzy. Mark heard every possible curse word and insult and racial slur all wrapped up in one droning torrent of hate. Mark looked at those closest to the edge of the wall, those who had paid tens of thousands to be there, and saw the disgust and rage on their faces. Those higher up were starting to throw trash at him, but security was moving in to prevent that. Many in the crowd held signs of Soren Vanderhaven, giant posters showing the beaming blonde, before his blade had split her skull. Others held signs of Cassidy or Tagami. No one seemed to be mourning Jordan, Blackwood, or Rusakov, the vile men whom Ethan had slain.
Crayton had delivered them a villain, alright. Christ, Mark still couldn’t believe everything the man had just said and done. How Gideon had sold him out from the beginning. How Ethan had lied to his face the entire time. Now this video. His worst moment, broadcast to the entire world. It was unthinkable, impossible, and yet here he was. This was happening. He was marching toward his execution, a rogue agent at best, a traitor at worst. But above all else, he was an idiot for ever getting involved with the Crucible in the first place. For trusting anyone.
Mark walked toward an object in the sand and saw that it was his sword, planted blade-first in the earth. Lord knew they weren’t going to let him touch it near Crayton. He picked it up and found that even gripping it made his forearm burn with amplified pain, and his face was still throbbing intensely.
He wanted to just lay down and die. The pain was overwhelming, and this entire nightmarish journey had been for nothing. But he couldn’t. Carlo and Brooke were still in harm’s way, and Ethan, his handsome face full of pretend shock and betrayal as he regarded Mark, needed to die. So did Crayton, of course, but that was out of his hands now. Mark couldn’t believe he’d saved Crayton on the road from the MSS assault. How stupid. How monumentally stupid.
The mogul stood sternly at his box window with his arms crossed, and when he spoke, his voice was projected all throughout the stadium.
“I’m heartbroken by what my research team has discovered about one of our fiercest competitors, Mark Wei. We were unaware of his dark past and un-American allegiances. But now that the truth has come to light, it’s hard to understate just how horrible I feel about turning this man into an icon. Giving him a place in our beloved Crucible. In the wake of this information, I’ve come to believe Mark Wei has orchestrated several attempts on my life, one recent and public, and a few others before that, which I’ve kept private. Trying to assassinate someone like me is all the fallen Chinese states can hope to achieve in their weakened form. And they have failed!”
The crowd cheered wildly for a moment before returning to booing Mark.
“The proper thing to do would be to turn Mark over to the authorities. To end the Crucible now, and declare Ethan champion. But I ask you, my beloved audience, should we do that?”
An earthquake of “No!” shook the arena.
“I didn’t think so. I think we should keep Mark Wei around just a few minutes longer to face justice here, on the sand. Provided you are willing to be our instrument, Mr. Callaghan. Victory is never guaranteed in the Crucible, after all, and you still risk your life here today if we press on.”
“As a veteran, as a patriot, I would be honored!” Ethan shouted from the sands, and the crowd roared its approval.
“And you, Mark. Have you anything to say in your defense? Any possible justification for your horrific actions?”
Mark almost laughed. What was he supposed to do now? Tell the world Crayton was a Chinese plant, supported by nothing but a bunch of wild accusations that would come off as insane? Explain how he was a spy and did kill that soldier, but it was in service of dismantling China in a secret mission both Beijing and the CIA would deny ever existed? And if he did speak the truth, Mark knew Crayton might go after Carlo and Brooke before he even finished the statement.
So he stood there in silence, glowering at Crayton, who masked his glee with a caricature of anger and disappointment. The crowd continued to scream obscenities at him relentlessly. “Fucks” and “chinks” peppered him like rocks. He stood tall and took it, saying nothing, twitching involuntarily from unceasing pain. He looked toward his box and could see only the tiniest glimpse of Brooke and Carlo’s faces in the glass, their expressions unreadable. At this point, Brooke would understand what was happening. At least most of it. Lord only knew what she was saying to Carlo about all this.
“Very well,” Crayton said, raising his arms. “Then it’s time to begin. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to witness history.”
The crowd chanted “USA! USA!” as the countdown began. Ethan clanged his shield with his sword, and let a small smile escape his lips just as he flipped the visor of his helmet down.
Mark winced as he slid his own helmet down over his mangled, burning skin beneath his eyepatch, and took the sword from his back.
He could do this. He could at least derail Crayton’s master plan. This glorious US victory over the evil Chinese rogue. All he had to do was kill Ethan, the psychopath who had been training for this moment for years. And he had to do it while he was racked with constant, infernal pain that he hadn’t felt since Zhou’s knives. His only saving grace was that whoever Ethan was, who he really was, had never been to hell and back like Mark. He could push through. He would win. He had to.
He had to.
Two.
One.
“You were my friend!” Ethan yelled into his armor mic as he leapt at Mark with his shortsword. “I trusted you!” Mark deflected the blows, wincing each time. Ethan’s voice boomed all around the stadium, and he was saying what Mark himself wanted to say to the stranger before him. Could he have known about Ethan? Should he have known?
There wasn’t time to dwell on any of it further. Mark was one wrong move away from death, and though he’d sparred with Ethan many times, the man was on another level now. It was indeed more than just natural talent with the sword and shield. It was years of training, when his competitors had only had months at best. Mark frantically scrambled to keep his sword up to block Ethan’s strikes, not only fighting through the pain, but totally unused to having one eye. He made one feeble stab forward, but Ethan batted it away with his shield, and Mark felt painful tremors race through his arm from the impact. His face was burning, a hundred different points of pain blurring into one giant blob of misery.
Ethan feinted forward, and Mark rushed to block, but found Ethan ducking and spinning with a metal kick that caught him in the midsection, something he couldn’t see coming thanks to the black blotch that would have normally been visible through his left eye. Mark doubled over, and Ethan brought the grip of his
sword down on Mark’s head, the pommel strike sending him to one knee. Mark leapt back, avoiding a slower, third strike with the blade, but only barely.
Mark quickly realized that his only saving grace was that Ethan was trying to put on a show for the crowd, and his father. He probably could have gored Mark three times already, but he was holding himself back. Showing off instead of going for the quick kill.
But it was hard to feel like that mattered. Mark was a shell of his former self, lurching forward with uncoordinated strikes that were either deflected, or countered into stiff shield slams that rattled his entire body. Finally, Ethan stabbed forward with a pointed strike that slid in between the folds of Mark’s wolf chestplate, and pierced his skin. It was a relatively shallow cut, judging by the volume of red on the blade when it was retracted, but it felt like it had gored Mark through and through, the pain indescribable. The nuravine was making a mockery of his nervous system, telling his brain that a small slice was a horrifying mortal wound. The crowd cheered the sight of his blood, and immediately demanded more.
Ethan went in for another strike, but this time Mark was better prepared. He dodged left, and managed to spin and rip his bastard sword up the side of Ethan’s outer arm plating near his tricep. He drew blood from a gap in the armor, but if Ethan even flinched, it wasn’t noticeable. His blood was thick with drexophine, no doubt, and nothing short of a killing or crippling blow was going to stop him.
Mark desperately tried to lunge at Ethan’s heart, but was deflected by the kite shield, which caused him to teeter off balance. Ethan followed up with a hard slash to his back that didn’t pierce the armor but sent Mark tumbling forward into the sand as the crowd jeered and laughed. Ethan didn’t pursue him, and Mark was able to slowly pick himself up, cringing with every movement.
Was this really how it ended? Betrayed and alone, publicly humiliated and executed in front of millions? But he wasn’t alone. Not yet. Mark cast a glance to his box, where something caught his eye. Black shapes were moving, struggling. Suddenly a large body went crashing into the glass, which splintered, but didn’t shatter. No one in the crowd noticed.
It’s Brooke. She understands. She’s fighting back. She can get Carlo and his family to safety.
Mark had to get through this. He had to help them, whatever was happening up there. With renewed determination, he pushed past the pain, fracturing his mind to escape it, like he’d done with Zhou in the hole. He sprinted toward the waiting Ethan and lunged with a two-handed thrust directly at his neckline.
He could see Ethan’s eyes through the slits in his helmet. They widened. Mark was faster than Ethan imagined he could be. This was not how things were supposed to go.
But it didn’t matter.
Ethan flung his shield upward, and Mark’s sword bounced harmlessly off the metal eagle stretched across it. Off-balance, Ethan hit him with a gut-punch with his sword hand, then righted Mark with a knee to his helmeted head. Mark stumbled back, not seeing the blade coming around in a diagonal arc from the left until it was too late. He strained to bring his sword around with one hand but—
Ethan’s blade crunched as it ripped through the visor of Mark’s helmet. It lodged itself there, millimeters from his lone remaining eye, barely cutting into his cheek and his brow. Mark blinked, stunned for a half second that he wasn’t dead, then, on instinct, drove his forearm into Ethan’s, and the sword was ripped out of the helmet. Mark followed up with a flailing kick that drove Ethan away.
The entire fishbowl visor was splintered, and Mark could only see through the crack the sword had made across the blank-faced visor, as if he needed any more vision problems. The crowd was still cheering, and they only became louder as he ripped the entire helmet off and threw it into the sand. The fresh cuts on his face, however superficial, burned furiously. He could feel Ethan’s sneer under his helmet. The man clanged on his shield with his sword, taunting Mark to attack.
Mark looked back up at his box. The cracked glass was still there, but there were no figures in the window. What had happened? Where were Brooke and Carlo? Mark would have traded anything for an S-lens at that moment.
Ethan was hitting his sword on his shield in a rhythm now. Clang clang clang. Clang clang clang. It had the desired effect, and now the crowd was joining in with another “USA! USA!” chant to match.
“I’ll make this more fair,” Ethan said as he slowly removed his own helmet. “And I want to look you in the eyes when I put you down.”
More fair, as Mark was flooded with pain, set against a man who had been training for this moment for nearly a decade. Ethan’s gesture was for the crowd and the cameras, nothing more, but it worked. The “USA!” chants immediately turned into “Let’s go E-than!” complete with requisite clapping and foot-stomping.
Look at him.
His armor was spotless, shining bright in the Vegas sun. His blond hair blew in the hot breeze, and he’d barely broken a sweat. He was handsome, brave, determined, and white. The perfect hero. And Mark knew what he must look like, bloody, black-clad, and broken, scars raked over a missing eye. Face seething with hatred. The spy. The traitor. Crayton’s game was working. This is precisely what he wanted. America would never forget this moment.
Mark looked around at the crowd, swelling as an amorphous mass of faces and voices. Guards lined the rim of the arena floor, preventing the insane from trying to make the two story leap down into the sand. Snipers stood watchful on the upper outer wall, mere specks from this distance. Mark turned back to Ethan. He couldn’t lose focus.
By taking his helmet off, the kid had showed that he was getting cocky. Even if he had every reason to be, that could be exploited. Mark summoned a boost of adrenaline and lunged forward to try and slash Ethan’s newly exposed face, but it was predictable, and parried instantly. Ethan unleashed a series of quick cuts, shield thrusts, and front kicks that propelled Mark backward across the sand, absorbing blows and struggling to keep his feet. The shield smashed into his armor, and it felt like he had rebroken one of his ribs. The blade then caught him in the side, and fresh blood flowed from another hyper-painful wound. Ethan attacked until Mark was nearly at the outer wall. He looked to his left, and saw the long crack in the stone where Rusakov had pinned Aria with his greataxe. The blood had been washed away, but the deep gash remained, the lone marker of her death.
Mark was simply exhausted. The pain was creeping back into sharp focus, and he was simply unable to get past it. Ethan was indestructible, impossible to strike effectively thanks to years of training, and immune to pain through drexophine. Mark never had a prayer, just like Crayton said. No amount of willpower would get him out of this game alive.
Unless.
Unless he broke the rules. Unless he broke all the rules.
Ethan slashed again, and Mark deflected with his sword and sent a sharp kick into the man’s chest, which had him skidding across the sand along the wall. Blood was pooling rapidly at Mark’s feet, and Ethan barely seemed winded.
“It’s time,” Ethan said, his armor mic now muted, his lips barely moving. “The big finish. Come at me, and I promise I’ll make it quick. I promise I’ll get him to let your friends live.”
“You’re a liar,” Mark said, heaving. His armor mic didn’t work at all, unsurprisingly. “You’re as bad as him. Worse, even. Do you even understand what you’re doing here? What you’ve created? You will destroy this country.”
“Said the peasant to the Caesar,” Ethan sneered. “We will make it strong. Stronger than it’s ever been. The people want it, Mark. Don’t you see? They want strength. They want justice. They want heroes and gods.”
“They’re wrong!” Mark yelled.
Mark leapt forward, not at Ethan, but toward the outer wall. With one hand on his blade, he put his foot in the crack made by Rusakov’s axe and launched himself upward as Ethan looked on in amazement.
MARK SUMMONED ALL HIS remaining strength and brought his sword around in mid-air, jamming it straight into the stone wa
ll eight feet above the crack. He held on to the handle and used his burning arms to haul himself up so he could stand precariously on the crossguard and blade.
Again, he jumped. Toward the edge, toward the rim. His armored feet dug chunks out of the wall as he scrambled toward the very top. Finally, when gravity would let him rise no more, he flung out his arm, and grabbed the lip with his right hand. He froze there, hanging.
“He’s running!” someone in the crowd shouted, and the Glasshammer guards raced to the point of the wall where he was dangling. Those without masks looked confused and yelled into their comms for instructions.
I’m not running.
One guard drew close and aimed his submachine gun at Mark’s exposed head.
“Get down!” he barked. “Get off the wall!”
Mark used his free hand and slid the hidden knife out of its sheath in his shinplate. He wrenched himself upward, over the lip, and grabbed the barrel of the guard’s gun with his hand, pointing it away from his head. In one swift motion, he brought his other hand around and sliced cleanly through the strap anchoring the weapon to the guard’s body. All of Mark’s weight pulled on the SMG, and it was enough to rip it out of the man’s hands.
Time seemed to slow as Mark slid down the wall, adjusting his grip to get his finger on the trigger of the weapon. He crashed into his sword on the way down, knocking it loose from the wall, and Mark pushed off the stone to leap toward Ethan, taking aim with the weapon.
“Holy shi—” Ethan began before disappearing behind his shield.
Mark fired, and shots ricocheted off the metal, sparking as the rounds were deflected in a half dozen different directions. He was firing actual lead, not riot rubber, just what he was counting on.
Mark hit the ground with a crunch, pain shooting through his legs and spine, but the armor had absorbed enough of the fall. And now there was more adrenaline surging through his system than poison.