“Okay . . .” I say faintly. “So does that mean that you won’t kill me?”
Deneb Gratu makes another frustrated noise. “For what you’re worth now, I wouldn’t bother to spit. If you were anyone else, I’d give you to the others for basic AG points. But you’ve been very useful indeed, and might be again. So, congratulations, you got your wish. Welcome to the team, Imperial Lady Gwen Lark.”
Chapter 48
“We lost three people today,” Fadut says, as Team Gratu heads back to their own yellow Safe Base, having finished scavenging the dead at the scene of the battle for useful weapons and equipment.
“Could’ve been worse. And we gained a Vocalist,” the team Technician whose name I still don’t know, retorts, walking behind me.
“Just don’t let her near your uniform pants. It’s how she took down Sarpanit Latao,” Kateb says casually, glancing at me with a blank expression. “Must be an Earth secret fighting move.”
His comment is met with laughter.
I keep my mouth shut, and walk quickly, with my equipment bag once again slung at my waist.
Now that I’m “officially” a member of their gang, Deneb Gratu has given me back a few of my own weapons, so my bag is heavier, and I feel more secure.
The best part is, I’m no longer on Deneb’s “death row.” Doesn’t mean I can relax completely, not with these hardcore Contenders. But at least for now, I am okay. . . . And if I play my cards right, I might even last a while longer.
We arrive at the yellow Safe Base, unlock the secure gadget-locks on the door, and pile inside. Deneb places the Red Grail prominently in the middle of the room, amid cheers and hoots of approval from the rest of the team. They clap and watch as he barely inclines his head in dignified pride, slowly turning in all directions, posturing before an invisible audience via the nano-cameras that are recording us indoors even now. At the same time, we hear the stadium audience outside respond in a roar of approval. The surveillance screens pick up and briefly display the interior of our Safe Base, passing over our faces and then zooming in on Deneb Gratu and finally the Red Grail itself, sitting like a centerpiece on our floor.
At least Aeson can see me safe for the moment, I think with strange satisfaction, seeing my own face flash by on the giant screen. Furthermore, at least it’s my face, and not the awful clip of me grappling with Sarpanit Latao and tearing down her pants, that has been replayed every few minutes on what seems like every stadium screen that I can see, accompanied by roars of laughter from the audience. . . .
I stand with my back to the wall, clapping along with the others. And I think of the irony of the situation. I was the one who delivered the Red Grail to Deneb Gratu, but since he has current possession of the item, he gets the credit and the points.
Honestly, I don’t even care. My only goal right now is to survive. I need to survive somehow and win my Category slot by default.
The rest of the afternoon is surprisingly uneventful. Gratu’s gang stays inside the Safe Base and luxuriates in their win over Sarpanit Latao’s group. Some of them received minor injuries from the battle, so they deal with the cuts and bruises by applying salve and small bandages from their personal med kits, and that’s it. Because of the rare fighting skills of these Contenders, no one’s seriously hurt. Normally, after a short rest, they would be out hunting once again, but about an hour into our break, sirens go off in the arena indicating a Hot Zone change.
“Look.” The Scientist is at the surveillance screens, pointing at the view outside our walkway where a light beacon fades from golden white to fiery red, marking our immediate structure as part of the Hot Zone. “I wouldn’t go out there now. Could be traps set.”
Deneb nods. “We ride it out in here. Besides, we can all use a nice long nap.”
Fortunately, the Hot Zone works two ways, one of them to our advantage. While the Safe Base itself is immune, and we are safe while indoors, we can’t go outside. But then neither can anyone out there come inside. If someone tries to climb the structure scaffolding and attack us, they’ll be risking the Hot Zone’s hidden dangers.
And so, twilight comes, the arena lights up with artificial illumination once more, and no one here in the Safe Base seems to care. The Contenders in this team spend their time sitting or napping, snacking on whatever’s in their bags, and playing Atlantean dice games that I find oddly comforting and similar to what we have on Earth.
As for me, I try to make myself as inconspicuous as possible and sit quietly, occasionally nodding off from my general weakness and exhaustion. I still haven’t eaten anything today, and had only that one drink of water that Kateb gave me. . . .
I try to distract myself by watching the others. I notice that this group has very little wariness of each other, and there are no “sleep shifts” or turns being a lookout. Everyone simply does what they please, maybe because they’re so self-assured and confident of their personal abilities to not be taken unawares. I don’t think anyone here trusts the rest of the gang, they’re simply too cocky to show anything that can be seen as a sign of weakness. Also, they all defer to Deneb Gratu himself, and don’t want to stir up any trouble or disturb the current fragile power hierarchy with him on top. Deneb’s punishment and retaliation is apparently deadly.
However, this doesn’t stop them from showing off to each other with contests of strength or skill. Fadut the Entrepreneur and the Artist whose name I can’t remember—no, wait, it’s Vidam—throw little darts at the wall, roll the six-sided dice cubes (each side colored red, blue, green, yellow, white, and black), and gamble for each other’s protein bars. Deneb naps with his hands behind his head—or at least he merely has his eyes closed, and he could be secretly observing all of us through slits between his eyelids. Who knows?
Kateb seems to be the silent type. He’s back in his darkened corner, and occasionally I see the glitter of his eyes as he watches the room.
The Scientist flips the knife in one hand as he looks at the surveillance screens, and chats with the Technician about gadgets.
The Entertainer does her stretching exercises, reminding me of “my” team Entertainer Kokayi Jeet and his own contortionist moves—lord, but it seems ages ago now that I’ve been locked in that other Safe Base with Kokayi and Brie and the others. How are they doing? Are they even alive?
The Entertainer sees me staring at her—I’m merely spacing out, and it’s not personal, but she doesn’t know it—and stops doing her workout. “What are you looking at?” she says in a hard tone.
“Nothing,” I say tiredly.
Fadut the Entrepreneur and Vidam the Artist pause their dicing and look in our direction.
“Give her one of those meal bars,” the Entertainer says to them. “She looks half-dead, and we can’t afford a weak member on the team.”
The Artist cranes his thick tattoo-covered neck to look at me, then throws a trio of dice at my feet. “Sure, but she needs to cast for it.” And he smiles at me.
I meet his gaze, and it’s not a nice smile at all.
“I have nothing to give you if I lose,” I say. “You know what’s in my bag, it’s mostly basic junk.”
“True,” Fadut says with a snort. “So just give her a bar. You have too many since you won nearly all of mine.”
Vidam the Artist raises his brows. “You can’t have too much of anything in the Games. Never know when you’ll need something to barter.”
“Don’t be a greedy chazuf,” the Entertainer says with disgust.
The Artist picks up a meal bar and holds it by the edge of the packaging, so that it swings back and forth like a tempting lure. “Here, My Imperial Lady, come and get it—if you can,” he says, offering me the bar.
I sit up slightly, leaning forward to take the thing, but Vidam quickly pulls back his hand with a laugh.
The others in the room are now paying attention. Even Deneb Gratu opens one eye to watch.
“Take it from me, and it’s yours!” Vidam says with a grim smile.
“Whoa!” Fadut chuckles. “Make room, this could get interesting!”
“Seriously, stop teasing her,” the Entertainer says again, craning her head in continued disgust.
I stand up, feeling a sudden head rush from the movement, since I’ve been sitting so long, and yeah, I’m not in my best shape right now. What the hell are you doing, idiot Gwen?
Honestly, what am I doing?
“Come on, take it!” Vidam the Artist repeats, dangling the bar before me again. He doesn’t bother to rise from his own seated position.
I advance toward him, stepping over Fadut’s outstretched legs, and pause, trying not to step on the delicate gadgets the Technician has laid out in rows on the floor.
The moment I move that much closer, Vidam drops the meal bar and puts his large hand over it, covering it from view. “Where’d it go?” he says with a smile.
“Screw you,” I say, biting my lip in frustration.
“Heh! Your Imperial Bridegroom might have a problem with that,” the Scientist says with a nasty giggle, while his fingers move swiftly, playing with his annoying knife.
So I turn on him instead. “Let me borrow your toy,” I say. “And don’t worry, I won’t kill anyone with it.”
The Scientist looks startled for a moment. He glances from me to Deneb, who nods in a bored manner. “Give her the knife.”
“Are you sure, Deneb?” The Scientist still hesitates.
But now Deneb opens both eyes, cold and terrible, and gives the Scientist the full force of his stare. “I said, give her the knife. I want to see what she will do with it.”
And so I take the thin long knife from the Scientist and turn my attention back to the Artist.
“Let’s play an Earth game,” I say.
Vidam sneers at me. “Does it involve pants?”
“No, fingers.” I motion at his hand that’s resting, palm down, on the floor, still covering the dratted meal bar.
I squat down next to him, and tap the floor near his fingers with the sharp end of the knife.
Vidam watches me with a mocking smile plastered on his face. “What kind of game?” he says.
I sit down cross-legged before him. “Easy,” I say. “You do what I do. One move at a time. Simply repeat my moves. We take turns. If you refuse to do a move, I get that meal bar.”
“Heh,” he says with a smirk. “Moves? What kind of moves?”
“Like this.” I place my left hand palm-down on the floor, fingers splayed, and then quickly tap the knife in between each finger near the webbing. Tap-tap-tap-tap. “Now, your turn.” And I hand him the knife.
The Artist laughs and splays his own hand. He taps the knife around each finger copying me mockingly. “That’s all? Okay, sure. Let’s do this.”
“You agree to the rules?” I say.
“Yeah, why not.” He watches me with amusement.
“My turn.” I take the knife back and tap it around all my own fingers again, only quicker. “Now, your turn.”
“What, again?” He makes a sound of disgust and copies my movement with the knife around his own fingers, with equal speed, then hands me back the knife. “Your turn, Imperial Lady. This game is crap. So, does it get any harder?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes, it does,” I say. And aiming carefully I plunge the knife into the middle of my hand, directly through the inconspicuous old scar tissue.
The slim knife goes easily through my flesh—in through the top and out through my palm—and penetrates the floor panel underneath. I stab down hard and release, so it sticks up on its own menacingly, vibrating with a rattle for a moment. And I don’t even flinch, even though it still hurts a little going in, as it always does during practice.
“Whoa!” Fadut exclaims nearby.
The others sit forward, suddenly alert.
“What the hell!” Vidam exclaims, frowning, as he stares at my impaled hand.
“Your turn,” I say, with a little smile.
The Artist pauses, then exhales angrily. “You’re crazy!” he growls. “That’s some kind of trick, right? I’m not stabbing myself.”
“Then give her the damn meal bar.”
Everyone turns to look. Deneb is sitting up, and has an intense expression, while a thin smile grows around his cruel mouth. “I don’t like cowards. Either do what she did, or give up.”
“All right, all right!” Vidam opens his hand and tosses the meal bar to me.
“Thanks,” I say calmly, taking the food. “And no, not a trick.”
I pry the knife from the floor, still leaving it stuck through my hand, and lift my palm up for all to see.
And then, with everyone still staring, I tear open the meal bar wrapper with my teeth and take a hungry bite.
Now that Deneb Gratu and his gang believe I’m not a complete laughingstock, things improve somewhat. I spit on the dagger blade and remove it, lick the entry wound in my palm as clean as possible under the circumstances—silently thanking Gavreel and Krui for teaching me this weird body piercing trick—and then return the knife to its owner.
Someone gives me a share of their water, to wash down my meal bar.
And then I curl up on the floor with my equipment bag for a pillow and fall asleep, no longer giving a damn about any of these people. When Midnight Ghost Time comes I sleep right through it, and on until morning.
What wakes me up on day three of the Games is not the building rudely shaking underneath me, but a series of muddled disturbing nightmares. In them I first hear a rising high-pitched screech, and then it’s replaced by complete impossible silence.
Sleep recedes. . . . I open my eyes and feel an immediate jolt of adrenaline, because all my instincts flood me with the awareness that something is terribly wrong.
Right now I cannot hear the normal, slightly muffled noise of the stadium crowds outside, that has been playing in the background these past two days. There are no roars, no explosions or gunfire, no applause, no usual voices of the commentators.
And here inside the Safe Base there are no voices of the Contenders, not even living movement or sounds of human breathing.
I sit up with widened eyes, in a burst of panic.
That’s when it occurs to me, I cannot even hear myself.
Chapter 49
I look around me, heart pounding, and see that half the team is up and awake, and the rest still sleeping. The Scientist and the Technician huddle around the surveillance smart board, and gesture with their hands silently. Kateb stands behind them, looking over their shoulder. The others are still lying down.
“Hey!” I exclaim, but nothing seems to be coming out of my mouth. I can feel my vocal cords vibrate, but no sound.
What is happening?
I clap my hands, pound the floor and the wall next to me.
No sound, nothing.
I get up, stepping over someone’s legs on the floor, then approach the grouping at the screens. I slap Kateb’s shoulder, momentarily wondering if none of this is real, if I’m having an insane nightmare, and whether my hands will pass through his intangible body like ghosts.
But Kateb definitely feels solid. He starts at my touch, whirls around, and opens his mouth, saying something to me that cannot be heard.
His lips move, but there’s no sound.
“What happened? What’s going on?” I scream silently, hoping he can read my lips.
And then he starts mouthing something, gesturing, then speaking slowly and pointing to his lips.
I can’t lip-read in English, much less Atlanteo, so this is not helping.
However, what helps is the Technician. He turns around in that moment, seeing me, and then raises a small gadget which has a text display. On it I see these printed words: “Sound damper is on. We are under sonic attack.”
I part my mouth in understanding.
Okay, good—at least I’m not crazy, and the world is not upside-down.
And then, with many gestures and mouthed words, supplemented by printed text on the hand-held device, the Technician explains to me what’s taking place around us.
Apparently about half an hour ago, just past dawn, someone activated a sonic weapon outside our Safe Base. An Atlantean sonic weapon works with highly focused sound waves to disrupt the body gradually, increasing the volume and frequency to biologically dangerous levels in a subtle progression so that the subject doesn’t know it until it’s almost too late to do anything about it. That weird screech that woke me originally was the moment the weapon went into harmful mode. Fortunately, the Technician had an anti-sonic device in his gadget arsenal. He woke up and enabled the sound damper, causing us to lose all sound capability, but also preventing the sonic weapon outside from harming us further at the molecular level.
Deneb Gratu and the rest of the team are up now. They come up behind me as the Technician is explaining all this. “Who did this?” Deneb mouths and gestures angrily at the surveillance view that shows us a hovering, drone-like, tube-shaped device that hangs in the air, four feet above the walkway, pointing at our door.
The Technician shrugs. “Did not see,” he communicates.
Deneb picks up his big gun and gestures with it at the door.
The Technician shakes his head and quickly types something on his hand-held text display. “No, ordinary firearms will not work.”
Deneb cusses, then mouths: “Can you disable it?”
The Technician nods and raises several fingers to indicate time.
“Do it!” Deneb mouths. His expression is dangerous.
The Technician nods again, and gets to work.
I stand back and watch while the others shrug, turn their backs and go about their morning business, use the toilet hole, or stand grimly watching.
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