He grabbed the camera and pulled it close, until his face filled the entire screen. “Before I can lead the revolution, I will finish this game. Two of your strongest Americans lie dead because of my power. Next, I will destroy the final two. They are running now, to hide like cowards. I will find them.”
As the battle raged between Sledge and Russia’s Son, we were gradually driven south. Brynja and I passed Greenwich Village and entered Lower Manhattan, putting as much distance between ourselves and the chaos as possible. As we fled, the battle unfolded on holo-screens all around us, splashed across the sides of buildings.
We saw Sledge’s body. We saw Taktarov’s terrifying victory speech. And when he mentioned ‘the American cowards’ who were running away, we knew exactly who he was referring to. We ran faster.
I sprinted for longer than I thought possible – chest aching, feet swollen, the lactic acid building in my muscles until they felt like lead. When my body would no longer respond, I ducked behind a dumpster and dropped to my knees, gasping for air.
Brynja had little sympathy. She had the endurance of a marathon runner, and kept pace without breaking a sweat. “You need to move your ass,” she instructed, lightly tapping my leg with the toe of her boot.
I struggled to fill my lungs with enough oxygen to respond. “I can’t.”
“No, you mean you won’t. We met for a reason, and I’m not going to stand here and let you die.”
“A reason?”
“Yes,” she said emphatically, “a reason. I’ve spent three years trying to connect with someone who could help with my transformations. Since we met, I’ve had control. I can fade in and out when you’re focused on me, but it’s more than just that: when I’m in my physical state, I can actually feel again. Really feel.” She reached down and wrapped her tiny hands around my upper arm, lugging me to my feet with a swift jerk. “When someone gives me their focus, I can pick up objects, touch people, and do all the stuff that we take for granted. But it was always so temporary. It’s like my body knew it would soon be gone, so it wouldn’t let me get too comfortable. When I’m with you, I feel a warmth inside. If you die, that dies. I need you with me to control this – whatever ‘this’ is.”
I stumbled and leaned against the wall of the alley, scanning the area to ensure I wasn’t visible from the street. It didn’t make a difference. Several hover-cams had been following us, circling above like wasps at a picnic table. Our every word and action was being captured, transmitting our location to the remaining three competitors.
Brynja could sense my physical and mental exhaustion. She placed her hands on either side of my face and tilted my sagging head upwards until our eyes met. “I don’t know how you always come up with a plan, but whatever you’ve been doing, it’s working. You have a way of reading situations – of reading people – it’s gotten us this far. We’re going to make it ... we’re close.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been improvising, not planning. They’re two different things.”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said, “because you can’t plan for Arena Mode. I thought I could at first, and I tried. I spent weeks reading and mapping and plotting. But there are too many variables, even for me. Right now we’re just sitting at a table on a hot streak, but it can’t last forever. We’re going to get dealt a losing hand, and it’s gonna happen sooner than later.”
“So we’ve been lucky,” she asked quizzically. “It’s just that simple?”
“No, we’ve been beating the odds. There’s no such thing as luck.”
A sardonic smile cut across Brynja’s face. “That was an amazing speech, Mox. Really inspiring. You should coach Little League.”
I wiped the perspiration from my face with both hands and slumped into the uncomfortable brick wall. “Look, it’s ... I’m trying to be realistic here.”
“Sometimes being optimistic helps more than calculating the odds.”
I chuckled to myself and blurted out a few awkward laughs.
Brynja narrowed her eyes. “Did I say something funny?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“You remind me of someone, that’s all.”
“Peyton, the girl who gave you the rings,” she said tersely, glancing down at my chest. “Well I don’t know much about her, but she sounds pretty damned smart. Maybe smarter than you.”
I gazed into the sky as my smile faded. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Think,” Brynja shouted, lightly cuffing the side of my head. It was rude and jarring, but the slap refocused my attention. “He saw us, and we know he’s on his way here. I know it’s hopeless and we’re going to die, blah, blah, blah. But if we had even a remote chance of defeating Russia’s Son, like in some bizarre fantasy world, what is it?”
I lifted the K9 handgun and stared into the opening of the secondary barrel. “I doubt it’s with our glorified nail gun here. Or the single acid bullet that won’t fit inside of it.”
“All right,” she snapped, “what else have we got? Can we use your gold card to start a car? Maybe we can circle the streets while the others fight it out. Or make a break for the North Bridge now that we’ve secured a top-four position?”
I shook my head again, exhaling loudly. “I tried it once and it almost killed me. With Taktarov and Fudō both flying, we won’t have any advantages on the ground – they’re too fast and too strong. We’ll be trapped in a metal box.”
She groaned with frustration and booted an empty soda can across the alley. “Well we can’t just sit here!”
The tin rattled down the pavement, bouncing an echo off the walls as it travelled. Before it rolled to a stop, Sergei Taktarov had silently descended into the alley, and was standing between us. “No, you cannot sit here. You must fight. And you have both witnessed just two-tenths of my power.”
“You need a new catchphrase because that shit is not working. And why don’t you just say ‘one-fifth’?” I needed to say something – anything I could think of – to buy some time. Preferably as much time as possible since I was paralyzed by fear, barely able to form a coherent thought.
The Russian remained stoic. “Americans and their jokes. Everything is funny to you. Loyalty to your nation, the damage you do to Russia – you laugh on your couches and drink your beer while the world crumbles around you.”
I shrugged with as much apathy as I could muster. “Whatever, man. What are you doing to make the world better?”
“I put my life on the line for Mother Russia,” he shouted, stepping within arm’s reach. “You hide behind walls, as you always have, cowering in the shadows while others fight. The brave do not behave like this. We step in front of the wall to defend it.” He looked at me with disgust, trailing his eyes deliberately from my feet up to my face. “Your walls cannot save you now.”
Taktarov reached out and tore the armor from my chest. With both hands, he crushed the titanium plate into a ball like he was about to dispose of a foil gum wrapper. A heartbeat later, I was thrown. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but the next thing I remember was being upside down, sailing towards the side of the dumpster.
The Russian looked down at me and shook his head, as if he was disappointed with my lack of offense. Then he turned towards Brynja. “He dies first,” Taktarov said flatly, “and then you. You can continue to run, but you cannot stay a ghost forever. When you become real ...”
“Hey Sergei,” I shouted as I dragged the K9 off the ground. I barely had the strength to lift it and take aim. “Say one more word to her, and you’ll have to deal with this.”
“Still trying to be funny, American. I have been shot with bullets before. They cannot harm me.”
“Let’s test that theory.”
I fired. Not a bullet, of course – just some coins that I found on the street and fed into the secondary barrel. It was then I learned that Taktarov wasn’t just getting stronger as the competition went on, he was getting faster. A fraction
of a second after the shot rang out, he opened his palm, revealing all three coins. The Russian had snatched the flying pieces of metal from mid-air, so quickly that I didn’t even see his hand move.
He came closer to smiling than I’d ever seen, lips curling slightly at the edges. He resisted the urge and relented, apparently not wanting to abandon his stoic image. Taktarov turned towards the nearest hover-cam as if he was going to say something; one final statement before finishing us off, and eliminating the final Americans from the tournament.
That moment was all I needed to give my partner a message, and focus on her with all my intention.
Brynja heard my thought and responded instantly. She reached inside the Russian’s head with one hand, fading through him.
When she pulled back, Taktarov spun to face her, attacking with his laser vision. The beams passed harmlessly through Brynja’s torso, searing a pair of holes into the wall behind.
She clapped both hands over her chest, gasped, and breathed a loud sigh of relief.
Russia’s Son staggered and fell to a knee. A single droplet rolled from his tear duct and down his cheek – a dark green bead that smoked as it trickled. “What have you done?” He asked, more confused than angry.
“We improvised,” Brynja replied.
When Taktarov caught my makeshift bullets, his confidence radiated. He was positive that we weren’t a threat. With so many cameras nearby, I hoped he’d want to take the opportunity to brag about his superiority before finishing us off. All I needed was a small window to allow Brynja the chance to drop our lone acid-filled bullet into his brain, and pull her hand out before he noticed what was happening.
“You ... both of you deserve death.” Russia’s Son lunged towards me, but slowly enough that I was able to roll, narrowly avoiding his fist. It smashed into the dumpster with enough force to send it out of the alley, across the street, and through the window of a shoe store. He stood again, fists clenched. As more green liquid oozed from his eyes, the muscular Russian teetered and sagged, taking a few wobbly steps before collapsing and curling into the fetal position. His blue eyes filled with a sickly green hue as he coughed out his last agonizing breath.
Brynja kneeled and cocked her head, gazing curiously at Taktarov’s expressionless face. “How did you know the bullet idea would work?”
“The same way you knew that you’d be able to drop it inside his head without lopping your hand off.”
Her eyes widened. “Shit ... I never even thought of that.”
A transcript from the five-part BBC series ‘Walking with Gods: A Look at Superhumans Living Among Us’
Part three - an interview with Winston Ramsley
Originally aired on June 12, 2041
“Is it frustrating? Are you being quite serious? Before I answer that question, allow me to offer you a bit of a history lesson.
“I have been a butler since the age of nineteen. Born in Lewisham, South London to a penniless family, it was surprising that I had made anything of myself at all. After graduating from The Butler’s Guild, I went directly to work as a hall boy for the Pembrooke family in Leeds. It was ten years until I would ascend the ladder and gain any sort of credibility.
“The upper-class possess a shocking amount of leisure time, which they often fill with gossip. Occasionally they’ll speak well of the help, and if you’re fortunate, your name begins to circulate. Mine must have been brought up in the right conversation at the right time, because I was offered a position back in London at the famed Hainsworth Manor.
“I spent twenty-three years, four months and nine days in that Manor – one of the most spectacular in London, surrounded by opulence that never ceased to amaze. During my tenure, very little changed. The children grew older of course, the help came and went, and obscenely expensive paintings would periodically be sold and replaced with even more obscenely expensive paintings.
“One can only stroll by the same Monet so many times, I suppose.
“Mister Hainsworth treated me well and the pay was adequate, so I had little to complain about. The routine, however, became tedious, and tedium turned to resentment. Day after day spent roaming the halls of the massive Hainsworth estate served as painful reminder; it was a stunning portrait of the life I would never live, and of the person I would never be.
“Then, one brilliant day, Cameron Frost started the Full Contact Swordfighting League. It became the most popular sport in America, and soon thereafter, European leagues began forming.
“I hadn’t handled a saber since secondary school, and, on the far side of fifty, I was skeptical of my ability to defeat men half my age. I lacked youth, but I had determination on my side. I entered my name in the draw, and won the UK primaries with relative ease. Eight consecutive wins, including two kills. I even held a record: I was the only man to have won a tournament using a fencing saber against competitors wielding katanas and broadswords.
“After decades of service, languishing in a profession I had grown to despise, I found my calling. At the risk of sounding trite, it was a dream come true.
“Shortly thereafter I was seeded in the 3037 FCS Championships, opposite Frost himself in the opening round. I would not only have a chance to win five million American dollars, but to dethrone the reigning, undefeated champion.
“The day finally arrived. The pre-tournament drug tests went according to plan, and they detected no abnormalities. I was then subjected to a brain scan. My tests revealed an abundance of delta waves; it was determined that I possessed latent superhuman abilities, and my name was immediately withdrawn from the competition. Ironically I had no idea that I possessed any powers. It wasn’t until a year later that I discovered that I could channel electricity through metal.
“There were other options that day, and I could have competed. I deserved to. If Cameron Frost was so concerned with my alleged abilities, he could have used a Cerebral Dampening Unit and suppressed my delta waves, making me as ‘human’ as the rest of the competitors. But he didn’t. He had me ejected. I don’t believe it was in the interest of creating a level playing field, as he claimed at the time. I believe it was because Frost saw my name on the tournament bracket opposite his, and he feared for his life. He no doubt had seen footage of my previous victories, and saw the determination in my eyes. His days were numbered, and he knew it. He took the easy way out.
“You want to know if it’s frustrating to be on the verge of fame and fortune, only to have an egomaniacal billionaire tear it from my hands? Yes, frustrating is one word for it. Another is ‘infuriating’.
“Make no mistake: I relish the opportunity to take ten billion dollars from Cameron Frost’s pocketbook. But this is about much more than acquiring wealth: it is about claiming what is rightfully mine. At the end, I hope Mister Frost is there to hand me the check personally, and that he has the nerve to look me in the eye when he does it.”
It’s amazing what you can get used to in a short amount of time. I’m not sure that I was accustomed to seeing people die, though I’d seen enough of that in one day to last me a lifetime. Despite what pandering politicians spout on Sunday morning talk shows, video games do not desensitize the younger generation to violence. If pretending to shoot someone with a digital gun on a computer screen gradually turns regular people into stone-cold killers, I’d be the most ruthless competitor in The Arena. As anyone watching that day could attest to, that was clearly not the case. Although, as I casually searched Sergei Taktarov’s body for items we could use, I realized that certain strange and immoral tasks no longer seemed quite so strange or immoral.
Brynja pulled a metallic object from inside the Russian’s belt. “Check this out,” she said, tossing me a small circular holo-com.
I twisted the handheld device clockwise and it powered on, revealing a glowing green battery light that was nearly full. I opened a 3D browser window and used the voice command to create a simulcast link. “Arena Mode, map,” I instructed, and four blips sparked
to life over a detailed layout of Manhattan.
Fudō-myōō was near the airport, moving too quickly to be on foot. He had either acquired a vehicle or, more likely, was in flight. Winston Ramsley’s dot remained relatively still – he was camping just north of Chelsea.
“The Gentleman is blocking the North Bridge,” I said, pointing towards the bright red pulse. There was only one remaining way to tap out of the competition: to surrender at an exit point. With only four competitors remaining, Ramsley knew that he could force a confrontation by staking out a position near the skyway.
“Maybe he’ll take fourth place and call it a day?” Brynja suggested with a tiny shrug. “Five million bucks is nothing to sneeze at.”
“No, Ramsley would have left by now if that was his plan. He’s a fighter. He’s competed in Full Contact Swordfighting before, and he has something to prove. If I had to guess, I’d say he wants first place.”
I used the holo-com and toggled to the live feed, which was displaying replay after replay of the Taktarov versus Lewis confrontation from every conceivable angle. Brynja and I had just pulled off a pretty spectacular elimination in my humble opinion; no, there weren’t any explosions or cars being tossed through the air, but it was pretty damned impressive nonetheless. If I wasn’t so focused on getting out of The Arena alive, I would have been a little insulted at our lack of media coverage.
“Let’s see what they’ve dug up over at Excelsior.” I contacted Gavin, who howled in celebration the moment his face projected from the screen.
“You did it!” he shouted into the microphone, so loud that I had to dial down the volume. “When I saw you square off with Russia’s Son I was this close to storming your apartment and ganking your comic collection, but you pulled through, man.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said with a chuckle. “Don’t loot my apartment just yet, buddy. I could still make it out of here.”
“So I guess your armor is pretty much toast,” Gavin said.
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