Gladiator

by Barry Solway

  ***

  Leaning back, Mel stared at the wall. Dried tears streaked her face but thankfully she had stopped crying. She was too emotionally exhausted to think, and there was only a low-level humming in her head. When someone knocked on her door, reacting to it took more effort than she had energy for.

  “Mel, it’s Beats and me. Can we talk?” Riley called.

  Mel sighed and moved to open the door. Even with Beats sitting against the far wall, the room felt crowded. Riley shuffled in, reminding Mel far too much of the zombies. On the other hand, he was up and walking. She squinted at him. He had lost a lot of weight and his skin was still an ashen color, but she thought he looked marginally better than last time she’d seen him. To her, that was just a day ago, but she guessed it had been more like a week. It had really hit her, what Jeff said about her being away from the others. They were forming bonds and becoming a team without her and she hadn’t even realized it.

  Beats growled a greeting. “Good to see you, Mel.”

  Mel smiled wanly. It was good to see Beats too, more so than she would have realized. There was no confusion about where she stood with him. Ironically, the person she felt closest to at the moment was an alien and not another human. She really needed to go see Evan, but was so terrified of how that might go that she actively avoided it.

  Riley crouched down, his face momentarily twisted in pain. “Good to have you back. I can personally attest that being dead sucks. Or at least being undead sucks. It is seriously killing my romantic life.

  “Mine too, apparently.” Mel laughed. That was good; she had been afraid she might never laugh again. “Are you saying you had a romantic life? Like ever?”

  “You have no idea. The only one I can get to pay attention to me is Gorgeous. I think to her we’re all equally ugly. I’ve been working on Anna, but she’s not having any of it. I thought for sure I could get through to her with the ‘woe is me’ shtick, but that girl is the official ice queen.”

  “She’s got a lot on her plate,” Mel said.

  “Yeah, I bet. Being lackey to a madman alien slave driver probably keeps you busy.”

  “Kathor blamed her for what happened to me. He threatened to torture her.”

  Riley frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “I heard them. They thought I was sedated. I couldn’t see anything. I’m not even sure I had eyes at that point, but I could hear them talking. He choked her and then threw her across the room. You can see the marks on her neck.”

  “I wondered where that came from,” Riley said. “She seemed really shaken after she picked you up and took you away. Which I thought was very impressive of her, by the way. I think she likes you more than she likes me. But she did give us the rest of the day off, so that was super-duper sweet of her. I guess I should be thanking you, really.”

  Mel almost laughed again. She had never really noticed Riley’s ability to keep a positive, if somewhat cynical, outlook on life. What Riley was going through was at least as bad as what she had dealt with. Different for sure, but would she switch positions with him? Would she have traded being beaten, stabbed and burned in exchange for becoming a half-dead zombie? Even worse, she had been healed every time, while Riley seemed on a slow slide to certain death. It was just a question of when.

  “So, Beats and I are having a second rap battle tonight. I told him I’d pay for his therapy after he loses again. You gotta hand it to him, he has no sense of shame.”

  “I have a new approach that will be significantly more effective,” Beats said. “Since you’re a rotting corpse, I was going to take it easy on you. But if I beat you to a pulp, figuratively of course, you’ll probably look better afterward.”

  “Poor confused alien,” Riley replied. “‘Significantly more effective’ should get you to a normal level of embarrassing instead of DEFCON 4, full-on imbecile levels of embarrassing.”

  “Riley!” Mel said. “Be nice. I can’t believe how you two talk to each other.” A tingling in her stomach made her sit back. Was she actually jealous? Of whom? Maybe both of them, she realized. Somehow, through all the hardships, these two had formed a real friendship. And Mel had seen them arguing together, huddled over a computer screen. There was a part of her that wanted that, but she was afraid of it at the same time.

  “Not-the-Earth to Mel,” Riley said.

  “Sorry. Just thinking of how horrible you two are.”

  Something in her expression must have caught Riley’s eye. “You sure you’re okay? I saw that little argument with Jeff. It didn’t look like it ended well.”

  Mel waved a hand. “Jeff had some stupid idea about dating. It was dumb to start with, and it probably ended exactly the way it was always going to. Can I ask you a question, though?”

  They nodded and Mel carefully considered her words. “Jeff said something and I can’t get it out of my head. Do you guys think…” She hesitated, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me? Because of what Kathor’s done to me? I mean… I’m still me, right?”

  “Uh,” Riley said. “Sure Mel, who else would you be?”

  The question sounded stupid, even to her. But she had to ask, because Jeff didn’t trust her. Because Jeff didn’t think she was worth dating anymore.

  Riley started to say something, but Beats cut in. “You’re still you.” Beats put his hand on his belly. “In here, in what we call your soul. But that doesn’t mean you’re the same Mel as before.” An undecipherable word came out that translated in Mel’s head into religion or philosophy of reclusive monks who live in the desert. Her brain immediately made up the phrase “Beats Priests.”

  “Beats Priests say all people—well, all Manesh, technically, but we’ll make an exception for you—anyway, we all have a core, what we call the soul. The core never changes. But how you show up changes with your circumstance and with time. You learn, grow, lose, win. The more you live, the more your core shines through.”

  Riley raised an eyebrow. “Eloquent, as always. Or maybe just wordy… I get those two confused. So, my thought is that Jeff’s a jock-head idiot and you shouldn’t pay any attention to what he says. How’s that for spiritual enlightenment?”

  “I think Beats has you beat on the spiritual enlightenment part,” Mel said. “Better be careful, he might catch up to you in the rapping, too. For the record, I think you underestimate Jeff, but yeah, I get your point. Honestly, I can’t believe he broke up with me. I was going to break up with him.”

  “I’m still available,” Riley said. “But you’ll have to get behind Gorgeous, I’m afraid.”

  Mel laughed. “So I’ve heard. I think I’ll take a break from dating for a while, thanks though.” She stretched. “I really need to go see Evan. He’s a total basket case. What does Anna have him on, anyway?”

  Riley struggled to his feet, finally accepting a hand from Beats. “I think she shoots him up with a couple pints of heroin a day. It was pretty bad the first night; he was having nightmares and screaming the entire night. Didn’t sleep for two days, refused to train and was basically a raving idiot. She finally put him on the drugs, but I think she overdid it.”

  “You think? I’ll ask her to back it off. Maybe once Evan sees I’m okay, he’ll be better.”

  “You are a braver woman than I am. Mostly because I’m not a woman, mind you, but still.”

  Chapter 27

  Ignoring stares from Jeff and Sharon, Mel walked to Evan’s room. His door lay open with Evan curled up in a ball on the floor. She whispered his name and he flinched. Sitting next to him, she put a hand on his back. “Evan? Can you hear me? It’s Mel.”

  Evan flinched again at her touch and tried to hide his head under his arms. Mel pressed on, quietly but firmly. “Please Evan, can we talk?”

  “Go away,” he said. “Please. I can’t… I can’t talk.”

  “If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll just sit here with you.”

&nb
sp; Evan curled up into an even tighter ball and Mel sat next to him. She laid her hand on his arm. At some point, she started stroking his hair, not realizing she was doing it at first. “It’s okay, Evan. I’m fine. Everything’s okay now.” She wondered if she was talking to him, or to herself.

  She could feel Evan relaxing. After several minutes, he stirred and sat up, facing away from her.

  “I don’t want to look at you. Every time I do, I see… I see you after the explosion. Burned and screaming. I can’t… I can’t get it out of my head.”

  Mel took his shoulder and gently turned him around. Evan’s eyes were red and raw, but he wasn’t crying now. “I’m okay now,” she said.

  Evan glanced at her but quickly looked away. “No, you aren’t. None of us are. We’re all dead, walking around dead, but we refuse to accept it. Riley’s dead and you’re dead and I’m dead.” Quiet sobs shook Evan’s body. “I’m dead because I killed you. I almost killed you. I did kill you. I saw it, you were burned and stopped breathing and…”

  Evan buried his face in his hands. Mel pulled his hands away to look him in the face. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m okay now. It was an accident, Evan. You didn’t do it. If anything, it was my fault. I didn’t take the process seriously. We both should have been more careful, but that’s all. Please, don’t give up. I need you.”

  A crease formed in Evan’s forehead, right above his nose. He got that whenever he was trying to solve a problem that he couldn’t figure out. Holding her gaze for a moment, he finally looked away. “I don’t know… I get confused. Anna is giving me medicine to help me sleep, but I can’t think straight. You don’t need me for anything. I can’t fight and I’ll just screw things up. Next time I might kill you all the way dead.”

  “I do need you. We all need you, Evan. I know the odds aren’t good, but we have a path to get back home. At least to get away from Kathor. And it’s not about fighting. I know that part looks sexy and important, but it’s not. Thing 1 and Thing 2 didn’t fight. Neither did the other two guys, Marksman and the cyborg. They used their brains. They set a trap that nearly killed me, Jon and Jeff. We need someone who can do that more than we need more fighters. Let Mirage and Beats handle the physical fighting. Well, Mirage. Anyway, you know how to make stuff and how to use equipment and… everything. Trust me, if we’re going to make it out of this alive, we need you.” Mel realized how true that was. She also knew she had to believe it because she wasn’t a fighter either. If fighting was the only way of surviving the games, they were definitely in trouble. While she wasn’t a technical person the way Evan was, at least she could bring some strategy to the games. And help keep them together as a team.

  “There’s something else, Evan. Your technical skills are important, but I need you. Me, Mel. I need you because you’re human. Because you’re you. I adore Beats and Gorgeous, but they aren’t from Earth. We need to stick together. You and Riley and me and…” Jeff and Jon and Sharon? She berated herself for even questioning that. “And the others. There are six of us left. No, seven. I forgot Anna. We can all still get home but we have to stick together. We have to support each other. You are my friend, Evan. I’m not going to let you beat yourself up. What happened wasn’t your fault and it all worked out in the end. Okay?”

  Evan took a few deep, ragged breaths. “I am so sorry, Mel. I never meant to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m not a fighter, not the way you are.”

  Mel took Evan’s hand. “Trust me, I’m not much of a fighter, either.”

  Evan shook his head. “You are but you don’t see it. You have the most optimism of anyone here. I would have given up a long time ago, but you really believe we can make it home. You never give up. Even after you get your head blown off.”

  Evan hadn’t meant it as a joke, but after a brief pause, both of them laughed. “I’m getting better at it with practice. Thanks, Evan. I actually needed that. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for the past few hours, but you’re right. Maybe I am a fighter. But I can’t do it alone. I don’t want to do it alone. You with me?”

  “It might take a while for me to be able to look at you. I get these nightmares. I look at you and all I see is you screaming.”

  “It will pass, I’m sure it will. We need to get you off the medicine, though. Wean you off slowly,” Mel added quickly, seeing Evan’s reaction. “We can talk to Anna about it. We can’t have you confused. Your skills are too important. And I like the real Evan better than the drugged one.”

  Evan nodded reluctantly. “I couldn’t sleep. But maybe I can taper off. I see visions and I hear voices. Like Anna, she’s in my head sometimes, talking to me.”

  Mel had the fear that Evan might be addicted to whatever Anna had given him, but she tried to downplay her concern with a smile. “That does sound horrible.”

  Evan shrugged. “It’s not so bad. I like Anna.”

  “What does she say to you? I mean, in your visions.”

  “I don’t know. The Anna in my dreams gives me ideas. That’s how I came up with the electromagnet thing, to—” Evan stopped and moved his hand next to his ear. “You know, to make bombs and stuff.”

  Mel nodded but then paused in confusion. That didn’t seem right. Evan had figured that out before he was on the drugs Anna had given him. “What else has she said to you?”

  “She’ll tell me how… how smart I am. I know that sounds silly… I shouldn’t even tell you this.”

  “No, it’s fine Evan. I’d like to hear it,” Mel said, trying to hide the sense of excitement she felt.

  Evan pulled his legs to his chest and wrapped his arms around his knees, rocking back and forth slightly as he talked. “A few weeks ago, I would have dreams of her. Not bad dreams. In the dream, we would fly through the ship and I could see parts of the ship that I’m not in. She showed me these tunnels, ducts I guess, in the floors. Like a maze of service walkways that robots use to maintain the ship. I became part of the ship and I could go anywhere.”

  Mel leaned back. Was it possible? Was Anna somehow implanting thoughts into Evan? How could she do that? He said that Anna talked to him…. The translators. That must be it. The translators could see and hear everything they could. How much of a leap would it be to send images and sounds to them? And the dreams Mel had about the tunnels. Were they sent by Anna too? They had just seemed like really weird dreams, but the idea that Anna had put thoughts of the tunnels in her head made too much sense. When the time came, and she discovered the tunnels, she was primed to explore them.

  Mel almost blurted out how she had explored the tunnels, but restrained herself. Evan wasn’t in a state to hear it anyway; he had an almost dreamy quality now that he had calmed down. And if she spoke her thoughts out loud, Kathor might overhear. But she was curious.

  “Do you think there really are tunnels in the ship?” Mel asked.

  Evan shrugged. “Sure. Under the floor. Most of the rooms have them. I looked at the one in the bathroom here, but the tunnel is too small for me to get into. I think it’s designed for a robot.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t try to crawl into one and get stuck. Hey, Riley and Beats are going to have another rap battle tonight, after training. Make sure you’re there, okay?”

  “Thanks, Mel. I won’t let you down again, I promise.”

  “Me too. We’re a team.”

  ***

  Annoyingly, Anna hovered over her constantly in training. Even more awkward, Anna knew she had spied on Kathor. And Mel was pretty sure that Anna had planted the idea of the tunnels into her and Evan’s minds. But they couldn’t talk about any of it.

  Taking a break from a session with the sticks, Mel grabbed a bottle of water and sat next to Sharon. The other girl sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, but smiled halfheartedly at Mel.

  “Hey. How you doing?” Mel asked.

  “Horrible,” Sharon replied. “I’m scared, Mel. Really scared. I can’t do anything right. I can’t fight and I can barely run. I hurt all the time. I
hate this place. Do you think… do you think I’m going to die?”

  Mel gazed across the room, her eyes unfocused. “The training’s gone well. We’ll do better than last time, I’m sure of that. Have you seen Gorgeous fight? She’s amazing. We’ll protect each other, okay? Just do your best.”

  “I wish there was something I was good at. You’re pretty good with the pistols, but they just scare me. Gorgeous was even worse than me when we started, but now she’s way better. I’m hopeless.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself. Anna gave Gorgeous some kind of drug that makes her learn faster. But it doesn’t work on us.”

  “It’s so unfair. I just want to go home.”

  “I know. But Gorgeous is on our side. I think she’s almost as good as that alien from the first game. Wicked. Or she will be soon, at the rate she’s improving.”

  “I don’t like her. She’s really moody and she keeps flirting with Jeff.” Sharon cast a glance at Mel. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” Mel suddenly perked up. “I have an idea. There was a match I was watching with Riley a few days ago. One of the toad people had this weird shield thing, with spikes growing out of the edges. I had Anna look it up and they actually have this whole shield fighting style.”

  Sharon hugged her knees tighter. “I’m not any good at fighting.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’ve had this thought that shooting with the pistols leaves me exposed, right? So I’ve been practicing using cover and stuff like that. But then I might get pinned down. What if we trained where you held a shield and I was behind you? You could provide cover for me so I could shoot while still moving.”