“Now what?” Zaap says, as he folds himself down in his favorite crouch, resting his rear end on the balls of his feet, so that he looks ready to bolt at any second.
“Now we wait for the enemy to come knocking at this Safe House,” Brie says. “And we do our best to defend it.”
Chapter 41
“Just four days,” Zaap says, chewing a small bar of some kind of dried protein. “All we need to do is last four days here.”
“Only four days? In Games time that’s an eternity.” Kokayi Jeet, the Entertainer, rubs his calf muscles, flexes his knees, then folds his legs and feet in a lotus position, resting his back against the wall.
The rest of us are watching the six screen windows, while Lolu fiddles with the control panels, cycling through different views of the arena.
“At least we’ll see them coming,” Brie says cheerfully, as she digs around in her equipment bag.
I open my own bag and reach for one of the small high-calorie food bars that Aeson had insisted I pack.
Aeson. . . .
My thoughts flash to him, and I imagine him, seated at the Imperial balcony seats. After all these hours, is he still out there, in the audience? Is he watching me on one of the huge stadium screens, or maybe on a small personal device? What about the Imperator? And my siblings and friends? Are they still watching? Or did they leave the venue to return home?
I start to wonder out loud. “Do any of you know how the audience deals with the long hours of watching the Games?” I ask. “I mean, I realize they have different types of tickets and passes for the fans, but do people actually stay up all night to watch? Do they take a break to go home to sleep, rest and then come back? How does that work?”
Zaap snorts. “You really don’t know?”
“No, I really don’t.”
Lolu pauses her occupation with the surveillance screens and turns to look at me.
“Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I’m new to Atlantis and your customs.” I speak in an even tone, seeing all the other Atlanteans examine me curiously.
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Brie says. “In case you forgot, Lark and I are both from Earth, and this Games junk is all new for us. So, please feel free to explain as if we’re newborns. Or, you know, space aliens. Because that’s exactly what we are.”
“From Earth? Oh—you are the Imperial Bride?” Lolu widens her eyes, apparently only now making the connection.
Kokayi the Entertainer makes a small exclamation also. “Imperial Lady! My apologies for not recognizing you,” he says in a hurry, and makes an attempt to rise.
“Yeah, well, that’s me,” I say with a little smile and a hasty motion of my hand for him to stay seated, just in case he’s planning to bow or salute or something. “Please, relax. Right now I’m just another Contender . . . and a clueless Earth refugee.”
Lolu continues to stare at me, and her eyes are very intense. “Why did you enter the Games, Imperial Lady Gwen Lark? You have everything.”
“Just Gwen, please,” I say to her. “And as for why, that’s too long to explain. Let’s just say it ended up being an unusual gift from the Imperator. . . . Truly, an honor . . . that cannot be refused.”
I say this carefully, knowing that the nano-cameras are everywhere, and we are being observed, and I cannot say anything negative against my future Father-in-Law.
“So, hey—back to the original question,” Brie interrupts me in timely fashion, before I dig myself in too deep. “We want to know how the fans watch the Games, considering each Stage lasts four days nonstop.”
Zaap looks at me and Brie, then at his fellow Atlanteans. “Officially, people can leave their seats to rest anytime, and can return later, maybe even go in shifts where their friends or relatives take their seats while they go home. No one says you have to watch every moment for four days. But—”
He pauses, as though also extremely aware of the fact that we are being observed by hundreds of cameras from every angle. “Unofficially,” he continues, “Most people take AG Runner to stay up.”
“AG what?” Brie says.
“AG Runner,” Lolu says. “It’s illegal. A street drug that lets you stay up for days—so you don’t have to sleep.”
“Seriously?” I raise my brows.
“Yes, unfortunately,” Chihar elaborates. “AG Runner is a stimulant with some very harmful side effects, and it is mildly addictive. Its use and possession is punishable by law. It is also expensive and hard to obtain, but almost undetectable while in use, so people take it, mostly during the Atlantis Grail Games season, which allows them to ‘run’ awake and not miss a moment of the action. Nearly everybody stays up all night, for three nights straight, and sleeps only between each Stage.”
“Yeah, nearly all those people in the stadium audience are going to be high on Runner by the end of today,” Zaap finishes. “You can even buy it in the concession area if you know where to look. But mostly you buy it in advance, in the city, and bring it with you to the Games.”
“Okay, you people are officially crazy.” Brie wipes her forehead and starts to brush fingers through her tinted purple hair. “I thought Earth sports fans were dedicated, but this is ridiculous. Don’t you have some means of recording the events so you can watch the overnight stuff later? Sheesh.”
Zaap shrugs. “Sure. But all the betting is live. So if you’re not watching it all happen live, you cannot place bets. Even if you don’t gamble, you still want to see it as it happens, and not miss anything, so you can talk about it with your friends and live-share it when the buzz is strongest, things go viral, and the feeds explode. Besides, some of the best Games action happens at night.”
“Great,” Brie mutters. “Guess we have tonight to look forward to.”
Lolu snorts.
“Oh, yeah.” Zaap wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and sniffles to clear it. “Evening and night is great entertainment for the audience but very dangerous for us.”
“Whatever you say.” Brie continues to glance from one Atlantean to the other. “But no way would I stay up that long for some stupid entertainment event—not for anything.”
“The fans love it. Game Zone lights will dim and packs of Contenders will go out to hunt each other . . . in the dark.”
“As I said.” Brie sneers. “Not for all the money, not for crazy night hunting, not for anything.”
Zaap mimics her. “Whatever you say.”
Meanwhile I sit stunned, thinking about Aeson. . . . Yes, again I’m trying to imagine what he’s doing, how he is dealing with it.
Would he also take AG Runner to stay up for me?
I hope not! Poor Aeson, the last thing he needs is to get no rest for four days and three nights straight, as he loses his mind worrying about me!
“So, okay, that explains the stadium audience,” Brie says, flipping her hair backward and stopping her finger grooming abruptly. “Moving on—what about us? Do we also take this Runner crap to stay awake?”
“We don’t. Not officially,” Lolu replies. “We’re supposed to sleep whenever we can manage. But some Contenders will be on Runner too. You can’t detect it easily, so they sneak it in.”
“How can you tell who’s on it?”
Zaap makes an unintelligible sound.
But Chihar replies calmly. “You can tell when the side effects start manifesting. Sweat, chills, tremors, extreme dizziness and general body weakness. If you continue taking it, as time goes by, blood pressure falls to dangerous low levels. Very serious.”
“When Runners finally crash, they go catatonic and eventually pass out, and can sleep for days,” Lolu concludes. “Any Contenders on Runner are fools. It will interfere with their ability to compete, especially toward the end of the Game Stage just when it really starts to matter.”
“Okay, so no Runner,” Brie says. “Got it.”
There’s a brief pause as we all seem to be digesting this.
In the general silence, Chihar takes his water goblet
and pours all of it into a small flask which he returns to his equipment bag. “Best to save for later,” he says. “We don’t know when we’ll have the chance to get more.”
“True,” Zaap says looking at his own half-full grail. “This might have to last until the end of the Stage. It’s possible to survive three days without water.”
“That’s very depressing,” Brie says, watching the boy pour away his own water into a similar small flask.
In that moment a swell of vocal music comes from the outside, being amplified to sound throughout the stadium, loud enough to be heard through the closed door. I recognize the Invocation Hymn, eerie and beautiful, signaling the beginning of Noon Ghost Time.
This gives us a half an hour of safety while they come to collect the dead.
We spend all of Noon Ghost Time watching the surveillance screens. The arena is a strange sight. No gunfire, no explosions. There are Contenders walking about calmly, mostly ignoring each other, while Games workers in grey uniforms move about with stretchers and hover equipment, picking up corpses.
“Meanwhile, all the audience is probably running to the bathroom or getting food,” Brie says with a snort, as Lolu scrolls through the endless views of the Game Zone.
“Pay attention to where everyone is,” Lolu glances disdainfully at Brie. “This is when they scope out the arena and each other’s locations. The overconfident are walking around in plain sight, while the smart ones stay hidden.”
“Such as ourselves, I get it.”
Lolu frowns. “We are not hidden. We are in plain sight too because we are in a Safe Base. They all know where we are. The only difference is, we’re not easy targets, as we would be anywhere else out there.”
“Keep talking, kid.”
“Don’t underestimate her, amrevet,” Kokayi says to Brie.
Brie raises one sarcastic brow. “Don’t worry, I’m not.”
And then she stops paying attention to what’s on the screens and turns to me.
“So, Lark,” Brie says, sitting closer to me, so that I’m momentarily startled. “You’re being awfully quiet.”
“I guess,” I say. “Thinking. About everything. Not much else to do.”
Brie leans her head back easily against the wall, and exhales loudly to signal relaxation. Her face is turned away from me, in profile, and she paints a picture of cool insolence. “So what are we going to do for four days and three nights? Assuming we last in this hole. . . .”
“There’s a few food bars in my bag,” I say thoughtfully. “And in yours too. Everyone else also has something high-calorie to eat. So, theoretically we don’t need to go hunting for those food packs, which means we won’t have to leave the safety of this room. But we’ll eventually need some more water.”
I glance at Zaap. “I know you think we can survive without water for the remaining three days, but we’ll be very weak, and in no shape to fight, toward the end. So I don’t think staying put is the best idea.”
Brie nods. “Agreed. We might have to venture outside at least once, tomorrow or the next day, to get water.”
“I hope you realize you’re assuming ideal circumstances,” Chihar says. “We will be under attack very soon, even today, and especially tonight.” And then he nods to the screen where we see in one of the views a tall pale-skinned man with long white hair and a hard icy demeanor, in a Red Warrior uniform, strolling casually, surrounded by half a dozen others in various colored uniforms, all of them moving in a group. It’s Hedj Kukkait, demonstrably the leader of this pack.
Lolu finds another window view, and another, and there are other groups centered around various high-profile Contenders. In the heart of the Arena near the Red post structure, on the ground, Sarpanit Latao, the Scientist in Blue, is settled in a circle with nine others wearing all colors, one person from each Category—her select chosen team. She is small-boned and deceptively fragile-looking, with short wavy gilded hair, skin the color of river-red clay, and dark penetrating eyes. The Red Grail is proudly displayed at her feet. It appears they’re having a meal and laughing, their swords and guns laid out around them in menacing arsenals.
In another view, we see Deneb Gratu and his cronies up on a tall ledge of the upper scaffolding on the opposite side of the arena from us. As Games staff work around them carrying the dead piled up on the walkways there, glistening wet with spilled blood, Deneb looks on, eating calmly. In a weird close-up somehow afforded by the nano-cameras that happen to feed our surveillance screens, his face is visible, his cold blue eyes empty and terrifying.
If I were there in his place, I would gag on my food. . . . Or maybe not. Maybe I would eat calmly too, next to pools of slowly stagnating blood.
I take a deep breath and continue to watch the screens.
Seems like it’s only been a few minutes but Noon Ghost Time comes to an end. The Games cleanup workers finish their grisly task and leave with the dead, and the Invocation Hymn sounds again.
“Intermission is over.” Brie starts to drum her fingers on the floor where she sits, just as the first sounds of gunshots resume out there in the arena.
“Strange to think, but we survived half a day,” I say. “Now what?”
Zaap points to the surveillance screen showing the view of the walkway outside, from the angle at the back of the Safe Base.
Someone is coming.
We see several Contenders in Red, Green, White, and Yellow climb the scaffolding to level five and approach our structure with confident orchestrated movements, reminiscent of military ops. There’s eight of them, one of each Category as per their colors—they’re only missing Blue.
They pour onto the walkway, easily crossing the fallen trapdoor area, and start surrounding the veranda, while two of them climb our roof.
We tense up, reaching for our various weapons, even though we know that we’re relatively safe here. There’s a reason it’s called a Safe Base—it’s almost impossible to breach, secure on all sides, and designed to withstand a long siege. The only thing they can do is smoke us out if they find an air vent—which is cleverly hidden—or find some other means to lure us outside.
Yes, they can also wait us out, but that’s just as inconvenient for them as it is for us—maybe more so, since we’re secure, while they’re vulnerable to other attackers.
Lolu glances at each of us. “It begins. We’ll be here for a while.”
We stare at the screens, watching them approach the door.
“What, no glue poison traps?” Zaap asks. “Why are they so close to the door? Did you let them get close?”
“Just wait.” Lolu does not bother to look away from the view screen.
In that moment the Contender in the front, a large Red Athlete, steps forward and bangs on the door brashly. “Open and let us talk!” he says in Atlanteo. “We promise to let all the rest of you live in exchange for only one of you. We only want the Imperial Bride. Give us Gwen Lark!”
There’s a pause, while a cold feeling starts to rise in the pit of my stomach.
Lolu presses what must be an intercom on the surveillance screen control panel and answers loudly, her amplified voice carrying outside: “Go away! There is no Gwen Lark here, and this Safe Base is occupied.”
The Athlete laughs. “Stop lying,” he says in his deep booming voice. “We know she is inside. It doesn’t matter how many of you are in there with her, none of you are ever coming out again unless you surrender the Imperial Bride.”
Brie gives me a hard look. “Any idea why they’re so hot for you, Lark? Besides the obvious?”
“Huh?” I say, momentarily confused. “What’s the obvious?”
“The obvious? Someone’s out to get you!” she whispers in English, but makes little effort to keep it down.
I bite my lip.
But it’s Chihar who solves this new unpleasant mystery.
“Look at the scoreboard,” he says, motioning Lolu to stop scrolling and zoom in at one of the arena views. “You, Gwen Lark, appear to be the
Audience Top Choice for Favorite Kill.”
Chapter 42
“What?” I stare at the scoreboard, in that moment seeing my name topping one of the stats columns. “What does that mean?”
“Means exactly what it sounds,” Zaap says. “Sorry, Gwen, but the Audience has voted you as the one they really want to see killed in this Stage. Look at the number of AG points they gave to whoever performs your Kill . . . 349! It’s huge!”
“And it’s still climbing. 351 now.”
“What?” I repeat. I squint, trying to read the intricate Atlantean numeral sequences that still resemble ancient Sumerian cuneiform lines in my imagination. The larger, more complex numbers take longer to translate in my mind into Earth standard Arabic numerals, so I pause, staring at them.
“Okay, I can’t read this alien chicken scratch, Correctional only taught me to count to ten,” Brie says rudely. “Lark, can you verify if that’s the actual number?”
I concentrate, and yes, I can read the numbers, and then see the readout changing even as soon as I’ve come to figure them. “Oh crap, now it’s 367. The number is growing even faster now,” I mutter. “Why is that?”
“Because they can see right now that you’ve noticed, so they’re doing it on purpose,” Zaap responds. “The audience is taunting you. They’re really voting against you now, as a challenge.”
My pulse pounds, while the cold spreads in my gut. “Okay,” I say, swallowing. And then I look away and stare into the empty areas of the room, at the walls, at no one in particular—assuming the nano-cameras are swirling all around me like dust motes.
“Fine, keep voting, Atlantida!” I say angrily to all those viewers out there who’re watching me, because, in that moment, what have I got to lose? “Only 367? Why stop now? Why not 400, or even a thousand? As the Imperial Bride, I should think I’m worth at least a few thousand AG points, so let’s have it!”
“Hey!” Brie interrupts my tirade by leaning in to tap my elbow. “Cool it. You don’t want to piss them off even more now, do you? Make a bad situation even worse.”
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