by Simon Archer
I gave her my hand, puzzled.
“I noticed you scraped your knuckles yesterday while we were working on the equipment.” She pointed to several scabbed-over scrapes. She leaned down, and before I could pull my hand away, she licked it several times. She stood up, let go of my hand, and jumped back over to the bed to resume her grooming.
“Exactly what was the point of that?” I asked, slightly disgusted.
“Look at your hand,” she instructed without looking up.
I lifted my hand to examine it, not knowing what to look for. It took zero time for me to see what Kennedi meant.
The scrapes on my hand were half-healed. The scabs were gone, and it appeared my knuckles were in the stage of regenerating new skin. I just stared. I opened and closed my hand and moved my fingers. There was no sting or pulling of the skin.
“You mean to tell me you can heal people?” I asked, shocked.
“To a certain extent,” Kennedi confirmed. “It doesn’t work on organ tissue, and skeletal muscle takes much longer and several treatments, but yes, for the most part, I can help heal.”
“Now that’s fucking awesome. I’ll have to keep that in mind,” I told her. I have a secret weapon against scraped knuckles, I thought humorously as I finished my breakfast.
Shortly after I was done eating, Bev came out and offered to let me use the shower in her house. The barn bathroom didn’t have a shower or tub, and she’d figured I’d want to clean up before leaving with Theo to find out more about the Platform. I jumped at the opportunity and went back to the house with her.
Twenty minutes later, I was clean, and Theo, Kennedi, and I were driving to the Platform in Theo’s gray, two-ton quad-cab pickup truck. I still had no idea what to expect as neither Theo nor Bev had offered any further details. After a half-hour on a bumpy, dusty dirt road, a large concrete building loomed into view. The closer we got, the more I could see how massive the building was. It had to cover a full half acre and was blended into the sand-colored land around it.
Theo turned onto a narrow road just before the building and followed it around to the backside where a sort of makeshift parking lot had been scraped flat. We parked, and moments later, we were entering a single, undersized metal door into the structure.
I had to blink repeatedly and squint in until my eyes adjusted to the dim interior. Theo seemed to know his way around, and soon we were standing in front of an elevator. I glanced around. There was nothing in the building. Absolutely nothing. The concrete floor seemed polished, and there were no scratches on it. I became uneasy. Why would an empty building be out here in the middle of nowhere? Our footsteps from the door to the elevator had echoed so loudly that I waited until the elevator doors closed before I spoke.
“Why is it empty?” I asked Theo.
He looked me in the eyes, put a hand on my shoulder, and grinned. “That area is for the after-party,” was all he said as the elevator dinged. We got in, and Theo pushed the button marked with a ‘B.’ I assumed it denoted ‘basement’ as we started heading down.
When the elevator stopped, the doors opened slowly, and several loud noises became audible. It sounded like a floor polisher running, someone hammering on a metal pipe, the whirr of a table saw, and welding all at the same time.
Kennedi’s ears turned forward, and she started to step in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Making sure you don’t get hurt,” she whispered back.
I took her hand in mine and pulled her until she was standing beside me. I’d never had a female, CG or otherwise, act protectively on my behalf.
Theo stepped out of the elevator first, and Kennedi and I followed. About twenty yards in front of us was a huge pit that was at least sixteen square feet in size. Directly over the middle of the pit, there was what looked like a four-foot walkway that stretched from one side to the other with light poles at either end.
Surrounding the pit on all sides were rows and rows of seats. It was like stadium seating, but instead of having fold-down type chairs, all the seats were dark brown leather recliners. There were small stands that mimicked side tables spaced between every two chairs. There must’ve been at least five-hundred seats.
Theo must have guessed what was going through my mind from the look on my face. “There are six-hundred-fifty standard seats. Then there’s another fifty in the boxes.” He pointed just above the top row of recliners. Upon a closer look, there were huge windows on the walls. The skybox rooms were recessed instead of jutting out like you’d find in a football stadium.
“What do the people who fill these chairs come here to see?” I asked Theo, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
“Let’s get to the skybox, and we will get all your questions answered,” Theo replied as he led us to a small cherry picker that had been fancied up with a velvet lining around the bucket and jewel-encrusted controls. Theo manipulated the levers, and soon, we were on our way up.
We stopped just as the bucket became level with a railed walkway that led to a doorway covered by a huge purple velvet curtain. Once inside, it was like a completely different world. One of luxury and extravagance like I hadn’t quite accomplished myself, yet.
The carpeting was plush and dark gray. Walking on it felt like I was stepping on memory foam. There were more of the leather recliners in a straight line directly in front of the huge window but on a lowered section of the floor. In the main area of the room, there was a full kitchen and a sitting area with white leather couches and ottomans. The couches were covered with multicolored faux fur pillows, and glass-top coffee tables and end tables were strewn about the space.
The only thing separating the state-of-the-art kitchen from the sitting room was an L-shaped bar with a white and gray marble top. The front edge of the bar, under a thin layer of self-leveling gloss, was a row of gold coins, all polished to a brilliant shine and no two the same. There were ten dark-brown suede-upholstered barstools pulled up to it.
I was just getting a look at the far side of the room when I heard a toilet flush. Then a door I hadn’t seen on the far wall opened. A rather overweight gentleman walked out. He was about five-foot-eleven-inches, red-faced as though he’d already had a few cocktails, and wearing black square-frame glasses. He was balding but was trying to hide it with an unsuccessful comb-over. Despite his generally unkempt look, I could tell that the suit he had on probably cost more money than I’d make any good year.
“Ah, Theo,” the man said jovially. “So great to see you,” he continued as he strutted across the room with his arm outstretched.
As they shook hands, Theo turned to me and said, “ Clark, meet Mr. Alan Graves.”
Alan broke grip with Theo and offered me his hand. His handshake was firm without being aggressive.
“Alan, this is Clark Watkins,” Theo continued. “I have a feeling he’s everything you’re looking for.”
“So, you’re the talent?” he questioned, and when I nodded, he continued. “Well, Clark, it’s nice to meet you. Now tell me, what do you know about the Platform?”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” I started, “I don’t know the first thing about it. What do you do here, with all this?” I motioned out the window.
“We entertain thousands of people each and every week,” Alan boasted, stepping in front of the window. “It’s great for CG sales, and it doesn’t hurt that we make a ton of money doing it!” Alan pointed to the pit with the walkway over it. “You see that there?” “That’s the Platform.” He looked over at me. “Looks pretty harmless, doesn’t it?”
“Looks like a walkway,” I said. From this high up, I saw glimmering in the pit that I hadn’t noticed before. “What is that pit filled with?”
“Needles,” Alan replied without hesitation.
I first looked at Kennedy, who had been completely silent since the elevator, and then at Theo. Neither looked shocked, so I wondered if maybe I’d heard him wrong.
“Needles?” I rai
sed an eyebrow.
“Let’s go down and have a look. I’ll spell the whole operation out for you.” He gave me a huge smile. “I trust Theo, so if he says you’ve got what it takes, I’ll take his word for it.”
Before I could ask any more questions, Alan headed for the velvet curtains that led to the cherry picker. He froze when he spotted Kennedi for the first time. The two just stared at each other for two long, awkward seconds, and then both broke gazes. Alan continued on, and the three of us followed.
Back on the ground floor of what I’d come to consider a stadium, Alan began our tour. Walking right up to the edge of the pit, Alan peered over and motioned for me to get closer.
“It’s full of needles,” he said again. “That way, when the loser falls in, there are consequences that aren’t fatal... usually.” He shrugged.
I looked closer at the needles. They were all different sizes and lengths, and who knew how many thousands there were. There was still blood on many of them.
“I must be missing something here. Why would anyone fall in an obvious pit of needles? And what is special about that walkway?” My patience suddenly started wearing thin. Theo looked at me and stepped forward, taking over for Alan.
“Clark, that platform is a battleground. Two contestants, armed with only a single weapon, battle until one falls into the pit. It’s a little-known event that is extremely lucrative for the winner,” Theo hurried in his explanation, sensing that I was about done with the lack of information I’d received so far.
Suddenly the whole place looked different to me. I’d always had a great imagination, that is one of the reasons I was so successful at MIT with origination projects. Now my imagination served to create a scenario before my eyes.
I could see myself on the platform facing an opponent. The seats were filled with rich, fat patrons who were sipping on their vodka tonics and waiting for blood to spill. The noise was almost deafening. The large scoreboard-type lights flashed ‘$25,000’ to signify minimum-entry betting.
I blinked and returned to reality. “This can’t just be a weapons fight on a walkway,” I told Alan. “What’s the catch?”
Alan smiled as though he’d been waiting for me to catch on. He slapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Come on!” He walked up onto the Platform and waved at me to follow him. When we reached the middle of the Platform, he continued. “There are four challenges to the platform, other than your opponent. First-timers don’t get to know what those are. In fact, I’m not even supposed to tell you that much. The point is, this isn’t just a fight. It’s a test of all your faculties. Now, we don’t let stupid people up here. Theo says you are an educated man?” Alan ended, looking for confirmation.
“Yes. MIT. Electrical and architectural engineering majors.”
“Good. That’s the kind of brain that just may make it through this. Ever fight before?” Alan inquired.
“When needed.” I didn’t volunteer any further details.
Alan looked back over at Theo, smiled, and started nodding his head. He looked back at me and took a step that put him closer to my face than I felt was necessary. “You in?” he asked.
“What’s the purse?” I asked.
“Ten thousand per night with a twenty-five-hundred-dollar bonus for each danger that passes.”
I wasn’t in the habit of hesitating when it came to the opportunity for that amount of money. “I’m in,” I said right away.
6
“You realize he was lying, don’t you?” Kennedi asked once the three of us were back in the truck.
“About what?” Theo wanted to know.
“In his insinuation that a non-fatal consequence was of importance. He couldn’t care less if someone died in that pit or not,” she stated.
“How do you know that?” I had to know.
“Each CG is programmed with one exceptional skill. Mine is reading human body language. It’s called decoding. When he talked about the pit, he was most certainly glossing,” Kennedi explained.
“Lying or not, ten-to-twenty thousand is worth staying OUT of that pit for. Now, Theo,” I said, turning to him. “What supplies do I need?”
Theo reached in his glove box and pulled out a strip of paper and handed it to me. “The items on that list are things I know you’ll need,” he answered.
Thirty minutes later, we had dropped Theo off at the house and were on our way to the nearest Army Surplus store.
“Now that we are alone,” I started, “what was that weird look you and Alan had in the skybox?”
“I recognized him,” she answered. “Alan is the CFO for Omnicorp. All the higher-ups in Omni are programmed in so that we recognize and take commands from them at all times.”
Nothing about that sounded above board, and I suddenly found a distaste for Alan starting to form. Why hadn’t he said anything?
“Well, let’s forget about Alan,” I said. “We are going shopping. While I pick up what I need, why don’t you grab some new clothes? You can’t be wearing the same thing every day.” Not that I minded the maid’s uniform at all.
“I’ve never been shopping before!” Kennedi squirmed in her seat excitedly. “Usually, when a cat girl is designed, the people buying her go shopping for her wardrobe, so I’ve never picked out anything on my own!”
I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. Shopping is something I would avoid any day of the week if I could get away with it, but here was Kennedi acting like she was about to have a life experience she’d always had on her bucket list.
When we stepped into the Army Surplus, I was impressed by the basic but efficient layout of the store. Regardless of what someone was looking for, the merchandise was organized and displayed so that it could be easily located. The walls were covered with hanging metal shelves stacked to the ceiling with every sort of outdoor equipment you could think of. There was a clothing section off to the right that consisted of plain folding tables covered with jeans, shirts, sweaters, socks, and caps. Nearby, there were racks of winter jackets and snow pants. I puzzled as to why any store in Nevada would stock snow pants.
I found what I needed relatively quickly. Cargo pants with zipper-releasing leg sections and thick belt loops, sturdy leather belt with a simple buckle, and body oil were what I was told to pick up for the match. I added a couple of extra t-shirts, a water canteen, and steel-toed boots to the mix as well. Once I had everything I was looking for, I went to locate Kennedi. This town didn’t seem like the kind of place that was used to seeing cat girls, and I was startled to realize I was worried about her just a bit.
I passed the dressing rooms just as she walked out of one. She was wearing a pair of men’s jeans and a blue-and-white plaid button-up that was tied up between her tits, leaving her midsection showing. I looked at her and shook my head a little.
“You don’t like it?” She asked.
“Oh, I’m lovin’ that shirt, but those jeans are cut for men, Kennedi,” I informed her.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I meant to fix that!” In one quick motion, Kennedi used claws that I didn’t know she had to cut the jeans off into shorts. The shorts fell just below her ass cheeks, and when she saw me looking at them, she smiled. “Don’t worry, they’ll be a little shorter when they fray,” she said in a soft voice and winked at me.
At the register, we were helped by a very militant-looking woman with a name tag that said had ‘Sally’ hand-written on it. Her dark hair was tied up into a tight bun, and she dressed like a man. Her hands were dry but looked stronger than some men’s I’d seen. The only thing soft about this woman was her smile.
“Hey there,” she greeted us. “Just passing through?”
“We’ll be staying for a bit, but yes, then we’ll be moving on,” I responded.
“That is just about the way of it ‘round here,” she chuckled and started ringing up our supplies.
I saw her progress of checking us out get slower, and a seriously thoughtful expression take over her face. She looked at me and out
wardly scowled.
“The last time I saw this exact order come through here, the Mister was headed for the Platform,” she said.
I hadn’t gotten the idea, at any point, that the Platform was a well-known event to those who didn’t have heavy purses, which I assumed this woman did not. I said nothing. She held my gaze for an awkward five full seconds and then turned and walked around from behind the counter. She held one finger up and said, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
Less than a minute later, she returned, carrying a heavy sack and swung it up onto the counter.
“You’ll need this where you’re going,” she stated and rang it up before I had the chance to protest.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, reaching for the bag. She didn’t say a word but instead let me open the bag and pull out the contents. It was one single item: a fifteen-foot whip.
The whip must have weighed ten to fifteen pounds and was made of well-worked leather. The end of the handle had a knob of woven leather, and the entire length of it had braiding that was twisted and tied together. The gradual decrease in the diameter of the tail finally ended in what looked like a three-inch silicone tip.
Sally saw the puzzled look on my face and started explaining in more detail. “They told you that there was one weapon per contestant, but I bet they didn’t tell you what that was. Well, here you go. It’s a leather whip. That is the only weapon you are allowed to step out with.”
I looked at Kennedi, who had been silent. She just nodded her head and said, “She’s telling the truth.”
“Of course I’m telling the truth! Am I going to make up a story like that to sell an extra whip every now and again? No!” she snapped, incredulously. “You can take your chances, or you can show up prepared. Which is it going to be?”
“I’ll take the whip, but how did you…?” I didn’t have the chance to finish before she cut me off.
“I’ve been on the Platform,” she said in an ice-cold voice, looking me square in the eyes. She turned slightly and rolled up the sleeve of the flannel shirt she had on as she walked back around the counter. There were scars in the shape of dots all over her skin. “I didn’t win.”