Gladiator

by Barry Solway

  “Oh my. Of course I’ll run the tests. Promise me you’ll come home soon, just to visit. We haven’t seen you in over a year.”

  “I won’t slowly die, especially in front of you and the children. The research is promising. A few months and I’ll know for sure. And we can all be together again, I promise.”

  “A cure, you mean? I don’t understand how your research into these new alien lifeforms will help cure you.”

  “You know it’s classified, and I can’t discuss that part of it. But yes, it could be a cure. A cure for all our problems. Tell the children I love them. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  “We miss you. Goodbye, dear.”

  Silence filled the room. A sudden glare of light flared behind Mel’s eyelids and she heard footsteps coming into the room.

  “Apologies for my interruption. I hope your wife and children are well?” It was Anna. Mel reflexively ducked her head.

  Kathor grunted but didn’t reply.

  “I’ve configured the portable AI module, as we discussed. It’s set up in an isolated qCore. There’s no communication interface, though. Are you sure you don’t want audio at least? It would be useful, I would think.”

  “No,” Kathor said. “I don’t want any more artificial constructs than we absolutely need.”

  There was a shuffling sound. “It’s ready for testing whenever you like. Also, we’ve received confirmation on the next match. I’m going to—” Anna’s voice suddenly cut off.

  The silence stretched for a moment too long. Finally, Kathor spoke. “You’re going to what?”

  Anna’s voice shifted. “Sorry. I just got a notification. I was saying that I put the qCore on the control panel in case you wanted to test it. As we discussed, it uses the standard UVMSB interface. You can plug it into any modern ship and it should take it over within seconds. And I’m going to gather the team and inform them of the next gauntlet.”

  “I heard you the first time. It is unusual for you to get distracted.”

  “Apologies. I received a warning of a possible problem in one of the service tunnels.”

  “Mmm. Fine, look into it. We may not be ready to allow the girl to compete again.”

  “The architects have increased the scores for Beats and Mirage and they won’t be able to compete. We’ll need everyone else, so we may not have a choice unless you want to delay that game,” Anna said. There was a pause, then Anna continued. “I expect a sensor malfunction. I’m going to investigate that before I collect the team. It will likely take me ten minutes, in case you need me.”

  Kathor grunted again, then footsteps, and the light faded. Mel closed the panel as quietly as she could and lowered herself back down.

  Her heart raced as panic set in. She quickly put the electromagnet back to her ear, but it was obviously too late. Anna knew Mel was there. Not just that Mel was in the tunnels; Anna had known Mel was right under Kathor’s room, listening in. Anna’s comment about meeting the team in ten minutes had been a warning. Mel was sure it had taken her longer than that to crawl her way there, and she would have to return going backwards.

  Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself backwards through the tunnel.

  Chapter 24

  Mel moved quickly, sweating from exertion and fear. It was curious that Anna hadn’t told Kathor she was there, but Anna could change her mind at any moment. All she could do was move as fast as possible.

  She panicked several times during the journey back, afraid she had taken a wrong turn or even missed her room, since there wasn’t much in the tunnel to mark where she was. Periodically, she stopped to look at the cables. She had pushed the cables below her room off to the side so she would recognize them, but was afraid they may have slipped back. At one point, she felt sure she had come too far and was contemplating retracing her steps. She decided to go a bit farther and was rewarded by a set of cables that had obviously been moved. She realized this was Jeff’s room, so hers should be the next one down.

  Scrambling backwards, she immediately ran into the problem of how to get out of the tunnel. She couldn’t go head first, because there wasn’t enough space to twist her legs the right way. She tried to remember how she had wriggled down into the tunnel, but the more she tried to remember the more it filled her with anxiety and increased her sense of panic.

  Wriggling her legs around the cables, she pushed herself out of the tunnel, almost doing a handstand push-up in the process, but her leg caught on one of the cables and she had to lower herself back down. Then she heard the sound of someone walking into her room.

  She had closed the bathroom door, but the access panel was still open. If someone opened the bathroom door, it would be pretty obvious what she had done. A voice called her name.

  She reversed course and went head first, just barely poking her head through the trap door by twisting her left leg. That was as far as she could go, but it was enough.

  “I’m in the bathroom! I’ll be out in minute,” she yelled.

  “Oh,” Gorgeous said. “Anna’s here. She wants everyone to meet in the main room.”

  Mel had a flashback of Jeff and Gorgeous talking in his room. “Okay, okay. I’ll be out in a minute. Going to the bathroom!”

  Mel thought she heard footsteps receding, but didn’t waste any time. She dropped back down and scooted forward, pushing her feet up and out the access panel. It required a weird twist of her hips at one point, and then she ran into another problem. On the way down, she had gravity on her side, but coming back up she didn’t have anything to grab onto to lift her up. She was doing a handstand and was a bit stuck with her legs poking straight up through the access panel. Fishing around with her feet, she was able to hook one foot on the edge of the toilet and use that to brace herself enough that she could reach back with a hand and grab one of the pipes. She feared she wasn’t strong enough to pull this off, but with immense effort she got one knee through enough to brace her thigh on the floor of the bathroom. Continuing to wriggle, she was able to shift her arm so she could push off on the pipe. The gap in the access panel was so small that she scraped her back and neck as she pushed herself into the bathroom, collapsing on the floor and panting.

  There was a cough from the other room. Apparently, Gorgeous hadn’t left. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes!” Mel yelled, perhaps a bit too loud. “Everything is fine. Peachy. Really, I’m going to the bathroom, okay? Some privacy please? I’ll be out in a second.”

  She reached up and turned on the sink, to help mask the sound of closing the access door. She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the cramping in her shoulders and the stinging scrapes on her back. Splashing water on her face to wash off the worst of the sweat, she tried to rub it dry with her arm as she opened the bathroom door.

  Gorgeous stood at the doorway with a strange curve of her mouth that translated in Mel’s mind as bemusement. “Whew. Must be side effects of the medicine they gave me. Okay, then, let’s get out there and see what Anna has to say.”

  Gorgeous touched Mel’s shoulder. “You’re all sweaty.”

  Mel winced. Her shirt had sweat stains all around her chest and underarms, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

  “Yeah. I was sleeping and woke up with cold sweats.”

  “You feel quite warm,” Gorgeous said.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “Awesome, that explains everything. Let’s go, shall we? Don’t want to keep Anna waiting.”

  Mel walked out, trying her best not to look guilty of anything. She caught a glimpse of Jeff and realized that everyone in the main room had heard her conversation with Gorgeous, since the door had been open the entire time.

  Jeff looked at her strangely, which Mel found highly annoying. She deliberately cast a glance at Gorgeous and then looked back at Jeff with a raised eyebrow. Jeff looked back and forth between Mel and Gorgeous, a puzzled look on his face. Mel responded with a knowing wink, which drew a surprised look from Jeff. Mel immediately looked away. Let him stew on what that mean
s, she thought.

  Anna gazed out the long window, which had gone completely black again the day before. Even the stars were gone. Mel coughed. “Sorry about that, slight digestive problems.”

  Anna looked at Mel with a neutral expression. “It’s a good thing you made it to the bathroom in time. Things may have gotten… messy… if you hadn’t.” She turned away. “Now that everyone is here, I wanted to announce that we have another game approaching, in two weeks. I will give you a brief rundown of the course and we’ll tailor training towards this game starting tomorrow. Any immediate questions?”

  “Do we know who’s fighting yet?” Jeff said.

  “Beats and Mirage won’t qualify for this game, so everyone else will need to be ready to fight.”

  Anna brushed a small tablet she carried and a presentation appeared in the air. The next game was in an abandoned city named Janga, on the planet of Latanu. That’s why the window had gone blank, because they were traveling to a new solar system. Anna told them to think of it like hyperspace, although apparently they weren’t technically “moving” at all.

  Pictures of the city showed hints of towers and tall, wispy buildings, but the city had long ago been overtaken by a jungle. The entire lower part of the city was lost in greenery, while even the tallest of the buildings had vines and vegetation crawling up the sides. This city had been abandoned seventy-five years ago, after a civil war that damaged much of the infrastructure. Given the age of the city, there wasn’t likely to be any scavengers. The challenge of this battlefield would be the environment. The jungle would slow progress, not to mention the dangers of falling buildings and damaged roads. Even worse would be the multitude of potentially deadly jungle plants and animals.

  Large tiger-like predators that hunted in packs. Smaller animals that were probably more dangerous. Little frog-like things that moved in swarms of thousands. With sharp teeth and a mild poison, they could swarm and devour much larger prey. Riley called them land piranhas.

  Some of the vegetation could also be dangerous, including a vine on a particular species of tree that would entangle its prey and slowly digest them over days. By the end of the presentation, Mel felt sick.

  “And why can’t Beats and Mirage be there?” Jeff asked.

  “The team from the last game lodged a formal complaint that both Beats and Mirage were underscored,” Anna said. “The architects rejected the claim for purposes of the payout, but they did reevaluate. It doesn’t really matter. All players are evaluated after every game. If a team wins, it’s highly likely that at least some members’ scores would go up. At level one, the maximum score an individual player can have is 45, and both Beats and Mirage were already there. But Mirage was bumped to a 98 and Beats to 85. The architects don’t deal with players of their species very often, so it’s not surprising there was some confusion.”

  “How do we prepare for this?” Mel asked. “You know, assuming your fancy AI isn’t just going to send us off to die.”

  Anna pulled up an overhead view of the city. “Kathor would prefer to see how you perform in a real scenario, so there won’t be any tricks,” she replied, ignoring Mel’s sarcasm. “Given the dangers of the environment, I suspect this gauntlet is intended to be a battle against the environment more than against the other team. We’ll work with some of the possible technology you might scavenge from the city. The city was involved in a civil war and we believe there may be leftover military grade munitions. Which could be both a benefit and a danger. Also, which plants to avoid, which plants can be helpful, and how to avoid the various predators. Given the challenges, we expect there will be a higher than normal number of supply caches. It’s likely there will be firearms provided for this game.”

  Everyone murmured in surprise. It was a bit odd that they were spending the kind of time and resources this gauntlet would require on a level one match, which Mel pointed out.

  Anna shrugged. “The levels are just guidelines so that teams can estimate what matches make sense to take. The architects make the rules, and they can change them at any time. It was intended as a level two game, but one team dropped out and they couldn’t get a replacement in time. They simplified the game a bit and made it a level one match. Level one teams are always looking to trade up, because they know it gets them into the spotlight. The team that wins this match is likely to instantly become a serious level two contender. That’s why Kathor took it.”

  Mel sighed. With Beats, Mirage and Riley out of the running, it was fairly clear who would be in the next gauntlet. Gorgeous and all the able-bodied humans. Mel wondered if this was literally the most lopsided group of gladiators that had ever competed.

  “It’s not going to help him much if we all die,” she said.

  “You’ll be fine,” Anna said.

  “I do have one question. In the last match, the aliens couldn’t understand what we were saying. That’s a bit of a problem, don’t you think?” Mel asked.

  Anna considered it. “Obviously, their translators don’t have English programmed in, like we did for Beats, Gorgeous and Mirage.”

  “So how are we supposed to ask them to surrender? Gorgeous is the only one they’ll understand. Isn’t there a way to reverse the translator, so that they hear us speaking in their language?”

  “Not with the translator units you currently have. You would need an external speaker. I’ll look into it, but it’s really the least of your concerns. Let’s get back to training.”

  As they walked back to the training hall, Evan grabbed Mel. “Hey. Ready to try out your first bomb?”

  Thirty minutes later, Mel reluctantly looked into the pot. Tired from a long day of training, getting caught snooping the tunnels and general anxiety about the upcoming gauntlet, she really didn’t want to be playing with explosives again. But Evan wanted to teach her how to do it herself and she felt bad for avoiding him the last few days.

  “You know how it all works,” Evan said. “The battery is melting in the pot and the chemicals from the plastic housing mix with the battery chemicals to make the explosive. Get ready with the tongs. And remember, don’t bump into the pot.”

  Mel smiled halfheartedly, wrinkling her nose at the smell. “I can’t believe Anna still lets you do this after that last mess.”

  “The conditions in the gauntlets are way worse. We won’t have pots or tongs. And the amount of chemicals you have to mix to get a good size bomb is way higher than what we have here. I think she’s trying to balance safety with being realistic. It gives me a reason to pay attention to what I’m doing, that’s for sure.”

  Mel nodded and yawned. “Good old Anna, always looking out for us.”

  Evan frowned, not noticing Mel’s yawn. “I have dreams about… never mind, that’s stupid. I mean I don’t… uh, never mind.”

  Looking at him quizzically, Mel realized she was failing to suppress a smirk. “You have dreams about what? Anna?”

  Evan’s face turned red and he ignored her question. “What do you think of the color?”

  “Of the bomb or your face?”

  Evan grew more scarlet. “Don’t make…. focus…” He took a deep breath and spoke slowly. “Stop joking around. You need to focus on the bomb.”

  Mel chuckled. “It’s beautiful. Let’s move it to the blowy-up box.” Fortunately for Evan, she was tired enough to resist teasing him more. And she didn’t care about the explosives; she just wanted to get this over with.

  Evan handed Mel the tongs and turned to open the safe. The plastic on the battery bubbled in the pot, turning an olive green color that ran down and mixed with some clear liquid at the bottom. An acrid smell wafted upwards. Mel leaned forward to look closer.

  “Yuck. So much for beautiful. It’s turning puke green,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  Evan turned back quickly. “It shouldn’t be green yet. Don’t—” Evan didn’t get the rest out as Mel brushed up against the disassembled pistol battery that sat on top of the pot. A tickle of an electric charge raced acro
ss her arm. But the sensation was immediately forgotten as the pot exploded and a fountain of battery acid and flames surged up to engulf Mel’s head.

  Chapter 25

  Mel heard yelling. It was strange, though, almost like a dream or like she was hearing someone talk underwater. She couldn’t see anything and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew it was because her eyes no longer worked. There had been an explosion. She had caught it full force in the face, and her entire head had been engulfed in flames. A strange recollection of how that felt remained; but it was, thankfully, dim and far away. She marveled that she was still alive, then chuckled to herself. This was the third time in the last few weeks she had that thought. Surprise that she was still alive was becoming routine.

  Unable to move or feel anything, she wondered where she was. The pain seemed detached. It was more like a belief that she should feel pain.

  “I can’t believe she’s still alive.” Anna’s voice.

  “Because of your idiocy.” Kathor. He did not sound happy.

  “It’s a risk of training with the explosives. We’re lucky Evan hasn’t tried blowing up the ship on purpose.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” Kathor hissed. “Do you realize what this has cost me? I wasn’t done going through the last round of data. We weren’t ready for another operation! This blundering on your part could have cost me everything!”

  Anna’s voice changed. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I can’t be everywhere at once. I’m trying, I swear. I made a mistake. I won’t let Mel get hurt again.”

  “You are lucky, as the procedure appears to have been a success again. But I cannot afford any mistakes. Make sure that nothing happens to her until after I have confirmed all the data from the first experiment and this one. I can’t afford a third attempt until I know the process is perfected. If you fail, I will replace you.” There was a sudden slam and Mel heard Anna shriek in pain, then a gurgling sound. “Do not fail me again.”