These walls, this whole structure has to be made at least in part of orichalcum. And I know the sequence to heat up and cool down objects made of orichalcum.
I take a deep breath of scalding unbearable air and I sing the complicated notes to cool the metal alloy.
“What the hell are you doing?” Brie exclaims, which cuts me off mid-phrase.
But Zaap interrupts her with a hush. “Let her sing! She is a Vocalist, yes? She’s doing something.”
“Huh? Oh. . . .” Brie frowns and continues to glare at me, but is now silent.
I take a deep breath, barely able to inhale the scalding air, and try again. My voice is clear but strained. This time I complete the full sequence of notes, uninterrupted. And then I pause to wait for results.
But there’s no change. The walls continue radiating heat.
Damn, no!
They must be specially keyed somehow, possibly with an Aural Block set on them.
This is not just some kiddie-level Qualification trick, I think, this is the real deal. Atlantean masters of voice control are behind this sequence! If all it took was using standard voice commands—even relatively advanced ones—then any reasonably well-versed Vocalist Contender could deprogram the Hot Zone.
“What’s happening?” Brie gasps, starting to saw the bars again. Her fingers are shaking.
“Nothing. Nothing happened,” Chihar pants out with difficulty.
“Not working!” Zaap barely manages to say.
A wave of deepest hopelessness passes through me. In the warping air I glance at all their red faces. . . . In seconds, our skin will begin to blister.
I’ve failed. It’s only Stage One, with just a few hours in, and I’m already done. . . .
Think Gwen, think! You’ve only got seconds until you pass out, and all of you in this oven will fry.
And then it comes to me.
Aeson used a very difficult, very advanced command to fry orichalcum—to fundamentally change it on the molecular and quantum level. And after many weeks of effort and endless trying on my part, he finally got through and taught it to me.
I may not know what intricate sound commands to use to override this deadly program, but I can try the brute force method. Something that will cut through whatever programming is involved.
And I only have one chance, one breath left. . . .
I blink, then just close my eyes because it’s no longer bearable to keep them open, and focus all my concentration on the breath remaining to me, the deep breath of fire.
My lungs expand, and there is scalding pain, but I ignore it and I force my vocal cords into perfect control.
I sing the hard fierce guttural sequence, starting in a low alto and then rising high into soprano range, and then exploding downward, in a tearing middle note of perfect destruction.
The sound command I make issues out of me like the predatory scream of a bird.
Not a pretty song of a lark, but the ugly screech of a vulture.
When it’s over, I allow a beat of silence. And even with my eyelids shut, I can feel it. I open my eyes and . . . the heat and light is fading.
The pink walls are turning dark red, and then the red is gone, and the walls are black as coals.
I place my palm against the wall and it’s still hot to the touch, but cooling rapidly.
In addition, the beacon sconce lights have gone out. Not only have I quantum-fried the orichalcum walls, but apparently I fried the beacons too. The whole shelter has gone dead.
There’s a pause of silence as my stricken companions stand, raggedly breathing the hot, no longer lethal air in a dark room.
The only light is the bright-white natural sunlight coming from the one doorway that leads outside, through the bars. Out there, there’s the arena, the stadium, the noise of the crowd. . . .
“Ah! You did it!” Zaap says with a happy snort. In the shadowed darkness, I can only see his silhouette and the excited glinting eyes. This is the first time I’ve heard a happy tone from this kid.
And he’s not the only one happy to be alive. “Very nice vocal work,” Chihar says to me, as he wipes sweat from his face, from what I can tell in this faint twilight. “You are a very powerful Vocalist, this is advanced tone work.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’m glad it worked.”
Meanwhile, Brie Walton is examining me silently. I can’t see her expression, but I can feel the unspoken evaluation happening, from the thoughtful stance she’s taken. “So . . . interesting work. . . . I’m impressed, Lark. What exactly did you do there? I haven’t heard singing commands like that before. Something your fancy royal loverboy taught you?”
“Yeah, something like that,” I retort, ignoring her verbal jab. “Had some special lessons, since I’m supposed to be a Vocalist after all.”
Brie’s silhouette nods. “Great.” She turns to face the doorway to the outside. “So now, how do we get out of here?” She tests her grip on the bars which now appear loose and rattle in place.
“Like this,” Zaap says. And he pulls up the bars easily. Apparently the spring-lock mechanism holding them in place is no longer active, and the bars retract upward effortlessly, back up into the ceiling, but don’t stay up, and dangle loosely halfway, neither here nor there.
While Zaap holds up the row of bars with one hand, we all bend our heads to pass underneath, and exit the deathtrap shelter structure, as swiftly and carefully as possible.
We emerge outside from the opposite direction in which we came in, and it looks like we’re closer to the middle of the arena. The yellow shelter is behind us, and just ahead, across a small clearing, a series of other similar box-like structures begins, painted white, blue, and green. Each one of them serves as the base for more scaffolding and upper levels growing skyward into a network of high-rise posts supporting walkways.
“What next? Where to?” Zaap says, as we all look around warily for other hostile Contenders in our vicinity.
Brie immediately points up. “Anywhere up there is better than down here.”
“How so?” I say. “Won’t we be more exposed?”
Without looking at me Brie shakes her head. “Not if we take that Safe Base—see up there, the blue treehouse thing? See the safe symbol on the wall?”
I stare upward into a sea of scaffolding and note the small box-shaped shelter up on the fifth-level shelf. There is a large round placard painted in four different color wedges of the Quadrants with a four-color beacon sconce attached in the middle, burning clearly even in the sunlight. The placard sits over the Safe Base entrance which has a proper door. The door appears to be partly open inward, which means it could be occupied.
“Someone is probably already inside,” I say.
“So? We go up there and take it from them.” Brie flicks her left wrist and reveals a small knife hidden in the folds of her sleeve. Meanwhile her other hand reaches in her equipment bag, coming up with a mid-size gun which she holds ready.
“Could be a trap.” I’m still uncertain as I stand, considering.
“Of course it is,” Brie says, then starts walking carefully through the clearing toward the closest structures.
“Let’s go!” Zaap follows her, taking out his own gun, a small basic model that, even I can tell, is on the cheap side. This confirms my suspicions that Zaap doesn’t have the resources to own better equipment.
Chihar and I take out our own favored firearms—yes, I’m still using a non-lethal stun gun—and we carefully follow, glancing around and behind us constantly. I flip open my transparent shield and keep it before my face as I move.
The structures are only about fifty feet from us, but every step is wrought with potential danger. After all, we’re still in a Hot Zone, as far as we know, and anything can happen. The visibility of this section of the arena is further limited by the proximity of various structures in every direction—it’s a kind of dystopian microcosm, a creepy funhouse village of bright primary colors, industrial scaffolding, and tiers—which m
eans, there could be hostile Contenders lying in wait around every corner. There’s no immediate sound of gunfire nearby, but it means nothing.
A sudden swell of stadium audience noise rises from all around us, and the various giant screens light up, but it’s impossible to see what’s happening on them because of the sea of scaffolding that now blocks our view. With every step in our present direction we’re drawing closer to the heart of the arena. The only clues we have to the main action are the various announcer voices as they provide running commentary. Apparently, Hedj Kukkait presently has the top score for Kills, and oh, now someone’s making a move to take the Red Grail away from Sarpanit Latao. . . .
Just as Brie Walton reaches the foot of the structure, we hear the zing of nearby shots. It’s coming from overhead.
Yeah, the silence was too good to be true.
“Quickly! Run!” Chihar exclaims, as we all sprint to the nearest shelter overhang that’s part of a white box shelter structure. To get to the Safe Base we need to start climbing this thing, or the box painted blue next to it. Then, several levels of scaffolding await. . . .
The shots from above continue, and I crouch next to Brie and Zaap, holding my transparent shield over my head like an umbrella, as I stare through it, trying to make out our enemy. Chihar has his bulletproof helmet on, so he can look up also, and take a few careful shots.
“Can you see the shooter?” Zaap says, keeping tight to the wall.
“Not yet,” Chihar responds calmly, and shoots a volley in the general direction.
“There, I can see him!” Brie points at the third level scaffolding where we see two Contenders, a Red and a Green, perched in the shadow of a small overhang. They are in the process of climbing up toward the Safe Base, and they have a head start on us. One of them, the Green, shoots periodically down in our direction, while the other begins to climb up to the next level.
“Lark, you have a nice shield.” Brie taps me on the shoulder. “Want me to take out that Green bastard fast? Lend it to me, for a sec. Just keep your head down here, near the ledge, and I’ll take care of him.”
I hesitate. Brie did save my life, but how well can I really trust her?
“Oh, come on,” she says, giving me a hard stare. “Just for a sec. I get it, you don’t trust me, which is just peachy, but—”
Before she can finish the sentence, we hear more shots, this time coming from our own ground level.
“Ah, bashtooh,” Zaap cusses under his breath, as we see three more Contenders come running into our small clearing, two Reds and a Green. They are firing guns at something behind them as they run.
In a split second, they see us. One of the Reds decides we’re not worth it and keeps going past us, disappearing into a narrow alley between structures, unharmed despite the sniper shots still coming from above. The second Red, with an Athlete logo, sees our secure overhang, and runs straight for our safe spot.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” the Athlete cries, waving one hand up in a gesture of surrender, as he zigzags across the clearing, to avoid the sniper. “Share your shelter!”
We pause, watching him. I keep my stun weapon pointed but wait, giving him the seconds.
But the moment the Athlete is about five feet away, he points his other hand, and I see the small gun coming up. . . .
Brie lunges forward and grabs the wrist of my hand holding the shield, and forces me to move the shield downward in a split second, to block. This close, the discharge from that gun would’ve struck me point-blank at chest level, and who knows if my body armor would’ve held. . . .
Instead it hits the bulletproof shield and, except for a ricochet zing, the energy dissipates harmlessly.
Just as I realize I need to thank Brie, there isn’t even time to blink. . . . I hear another shot fired—this one coming from behind the Athlete. The Green immediately following him, here on ground level, shoots the Athlete in the back, even before Chihar next to me has time to carefully aim and discharge his gun into the Athlete’s front.
“Stupid and treacherous,” the Green spits out. His voice is melodious and expressive, a little high on drama and disgust.
The double-crossing Red falls dead, five feet from us.
“Stop! On my dear mother’s liver, don’t shoot!” the Green cries, raising both hands. Unlike the other guy, he’s still holding a gun in each, but pointing skyward, and manages to strike an elegant pause even as he freezes in place before us. He is tall, willow-long, and slim, with three even longer braids that have strands tinted in different colors. His skin is golden-brown, his face beautifully androgynous, with arched dark brows, kohl-lined eyes and henna-tinted lips. On the front of his uniform I see the Entertainer logo.
“Drop both guns, and we’ll consider,” Chihar says calmly. I notice none of us are firing at the Green—at least not yet.
“Agreed,” says the Green Entertainer, immediately opening his fingers and letting the guns fall. “Truce for shelter! But quickly, before the blind shar-ta-haak overhead finally lands a hit at an actual target.”
I don’t recognize the Atlantean term, but figure it’s not complimentary.
“Come closer, slowly,” Brie says in passable Atlanteo to the Entertainer who begins to cross the five feet of space between us, gracefully stepping over the dead body.
“You all have weapons pointing at me,” the Entertainer says. “I would be stupid and dead just like that one if I tried anything.”
The sniper overhead fires multiple shots which manage to strike the floor of the arena at the Entertainer’s feet and ricochet off the overhang that’s protecting us.
The Entertainer makes a high-pitched scream and takes the last step quicker than we’d like him to move. He ends up crouching underneath the overhang next to Brie who immediately shoves her gun into the exposed side of his neck. “Don’t even think about reaching for a weapon.”
“Oh, I can think about it, dear, but doesn’t mean I’ll do it,” says the Green with a quick grin revealing very nice teeth. “Love the purple hair tints, by the way. Did you get it done at Faroh’s downtown?”
“Shut up!” Brie leans in to him. And then makes a grimace. “Ick! You stink of floral—too much!”
“There’s never too much when it comes to fine Scents, dear,” the Entertainer says. “But you’re definitely too close. So feel free to give me some room, amrevet, and my Scents will cease to overpower your nostrils.”
“Damn Goldilocks. . . .” Brie hisses under her breath in English, without taking the gun from his neck. Then adds more loudly, in Atlanteo: “Sorry. Can’t risk anything, not knowing your abilities. Or your level of bullcrap.”
The Atlantean term she uses translates roughly to mean “male cow dung,” and it’s unclear if the connotation comes across. Honestly, my linguistic mind immediately wanders off on a tangent as I try to recall if Atlanteans have the equivalent of Earth cows . . . or if they maybe don’t have cows on Atlantis . . . except for the ones recently brought with us . . . but wait, what about dung? After all, the Ancient Egyptian scarab is the dung beetle, so they had to have dung, and hence, cows—oh dear lord, it’s the killer Games, focus already, stupid idiot, Gwen numbskull Lark! In any case, Brie’s hard tone seems to be convincing enough to the Entertainer.
“Indeed,” Chihar says. “Some people in this arena are so lethal they can kill all of us from a position of seeming weakness, even if we all had our weapons out and they had only their bare hands.”
Zaap nods. “Exactly. This one could be planning a series of moves to kill us all and get the AG points.”
“You can be sure I’m not one of such people,” the Entertainer says with a bitter snort. “Because I’d have done it already. Ah, to be Hedj Kukkait! Now he’s a true artist, that one, even though he’s registered as Warrior—”
“Enough! Shut it already!” Brie snarls. “If you want to be helpful, tell us who’s behind you? Who were you all running from just now?”
Before the Entertainer can re
ply, as if on cue, there’s more sounds of gunfire, this time coming from ground level, and a strange high-pitched whine. . . . Two new Contenders appear in the clearing, coming from the same direction as did the others. The Yellow woman in front is running at breakneck speed, and right behind her comes a Blue.
As they approach, the high-pitched whine gets louder.
“No! That’s him—the Blue Technician!” the Entertainer whimpers in his dramatic voice that I’m beginning to think is an affectation in his line of trade. “No, mother, no! We are dead!”
And in that instant I somehow recognize the whining sound, or its variation. . . . Where have I heard it before?
Back on Earth, during Qualification Semi-Finals.
Drones.
Chapter 39
“We’re dead! No escape from him!” the Entertainer cries, as we all stare in new alarm at what’s coming at us.
The Blue Technician is a wiry man of average build, with longish dark hair that has faded gold streaks, possibly the result of a careless dye job. He holds guns in both hands, but that’s not what any of us are worried about, right this moment. . . .
His primary weapon is a hive of miniature drones. It’s circling in the air all around him like angry bees. Compared to the almost four-foot diameter manhole cover-sized plates I rode during Semi-Finals, these drones are tiny like drink coasters, no bigger than four inches in diameter.
However, there’s possibly a hundred of them, buzzing and humming like angry hornets, filling the air over the clearing and marking the Technician’s perimeter in a wide defensive circle of fifty feet.
“Each of those little evil things is a remote-controlled gun,” the Entertainer tells us, glancing frantically from one to another of us. “They are heat-seeking, or maybe it is motion sensors, or ID tracking tech—I don’t know! But once he targets you, that’s it. You’re dead.”
“How does the targeting work?” I ask.
“Proximity. Once you get close to him—a certain distance, I don’t know—the defense perimeter activates. It’s like a personal force field. Just like that—” And he points at the Yellow Contender who is maneuvering in futility as she tries to dodge the rain of laser volleys from five small drones directly overhead. She’s using a protective buckler similar to my own shield to keep her head covered.
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