by Chad Leito
Chobb Lowe got out of the way when they came by and allowed them to pass. Baggs got behind Spinks at the very end and pushed her rear while Larry and some of the other participants who had already made it reached down and pulled her up. Baggs came in next, the crowd was cheering his name.
The inside of the HoloVision Box was refreshingly cool. There was a cooler with water in one corner. Competitors sat along the edges, slumped against the wall with exhaustion. Baggs entered through the hole in the bottom. He could hear Chobb Lowe still crying beneath him.
After the last inch of his foot was past the threshold of the opening in the bottom of the HoloVision Box, a clear door slid over the gap, closing the opening. The bottom of the HoloVision Box was clear, and Baggs looked down and could see the sand far below him.
“That was the last of us,” someone said. “They won’t let him in.”
“You think they’ll just let him hang there until he gives up?” someone else asked.
They didn’t have to wait long for their question to be answered. The ladder shook for a moment and then began to slowly recede into the ground. It went slowly, only a few feet per second, as though the sand was swallowing it up. The lions below began to whimper in anticipation. Chobb Lowe climbed to the top rung and waited. The ladder continued to descend.
The crowd loved it.
Now all I have to do is not get killed by Byron Turner and I’m home free, Baggs thought, panting as he lay on his back.
Part 4
1
It was weird to Baggs. It almost felt like everyone had gone crazy.
The things that followed were clinical and functional and it made him feel on-edge.
He didn’t know what he had expected; it’s not like the next gladiator shows are going to be stopped and they’ll shut down the Colosseum forever. It’s not like anyone cares. Larry, Spinks and I were just three contestants of the thousands that have played the game before. We’re not special.
Even though he knew this, it was strange to him when the maze walls started retracting and the Colosseum employees began ushering the lions back into the doors surrounding the sand. They didn’t start this process until after Chobb Lowe had been eaten, of course. The show didn’t end when the last people made it, the show ended when the last person died; really, that’s what it’s all about.
Most of the lions eagerly hurried back through the openings around the arena floor; this made Baggs suspect that they were being baited with some kind of food. Or maybe drugs. They could all be addicted to cocaine. Or glass. A handful of the lions refused to get off the sand and were shot with tranquilizer darts before little robots that looked like monkeys came out and tied the somnolent felines’ feet up with thick red rope. The rope ran all the way from the lions on the sand to a spot in the stadium’s interior. Baggs suspected that the ropes were attached to some kind of machine, because the sleepy, enormous lions were dragged off the sand with a smooth and constant progress.
When that was done, all that was left on the sand below were the carcasses and blood. An automated tractor with dragging nets flanking the big wheels drove out onto the arena floor and scooped up all the bodies. While this was going on, the bottom of the HoloVision box retracted and Baggs saw that he and the other survivors were not simply inside of the HoloVision Box, but they were in a clear box that was placed within the entertainment system.
The box that the survivors were placed within was lowered to the sand, suspended by cables up above. Baggs looked around him; some of the other teams were crying, or hugging each other. Larry was slumped against the wall; the top of his head was bleeding into his grey hair. I don’t remember him sustaining a head injury, Baggs thought. Spinks was also slumped against a wall. Her arms were limp by her side and seemed to be sitting lower than they should be on her torso. Her nose was bleeding down the front of her neck and her chest.
“Have you ever dislocated a shoulder before?” Baggs asked Spinks.
She nodded. She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk right then.
“Hey guys,” Larry said, his dirty face alight with a smile. “We made it.”
“Yeah,” Baggs said.
“We’re going to live,” Larry said.
Baggs didn’t respond to this for two reasons. The first was that he didn’t feel like talking to Larry after what he did to Hailey in the arena. He’s a murderer. The second was that Baggs felt awkward agreeing with such a statement because he knew that they were still in jeopardy. He thought of Gigi’s letter that she had left in his napkin. He had memorized it.
My daddy killed Paul Higgins and he’ll try to kill you too if you survive the competition. I heard him tell mom while he was drunk. Something about vitamins. I don’t know what to do. He scares me. I am scared for you and for your girls.
-G
Baggs thought of Byron Turner with his pointy white beard, his beady eyes and his lisp that somehow made him more intimidating. The lisp seemed to challenge someone to make fun of him, or note it. He was one of the most powerful men on earth, and he wanted to kill Baggs.
God, what are we going to do?
The clear box landed on the ground and the Outlive participants were led off the sand and inside of the Colosseum by guards. As they strode over the sand, the 200,000 people in the stands did not cheer them. They were talking amongst each other, taking drinks of coke, eating nachos, going to the bathroom, fixing their makeup, and in general getting ready for the next death match.
Baggs watched Spinks as she walked with her arms limp by her side. He wondered how Turner might kill them.
And can he really expect just to keep killing people every time his contestants win?
That seemed likely. According to Spinks, Turner had raped a girl, been caught in the act of doing so by a security tape, and then was found innocent in a trial. In the court system in New Rome, the fate of the condemned was voted on by six jury members and one judge. The judge’s vote counted as though the judge were three jury members. Baggs suspected that Turner was voted innocent by the judge and by all the jury members after he raped that woman, even though there was footage that proved he was guilty.
The judge’s vote would be easy to get, Baggs thought. Turner is a councilman. He has enough power that he could end a judge’s career, if the judge voted him guilty and then Turner was found innocent by the votes from the jury; which would be possible, if fiver out of six of the jury found him innocent, Turner would be free to continue his career as a councilman, and would ruin the judge.
And, even if he were guilty, the jury would probably vote him innocent too. Baggs imagined himself on the jury at Turner’s trial. He would be offered a large sum of money, one hundred thousand CreditCoins, for example, to say that Turner was innocent. The amount would be loose change to Turner, but enough to keep Baggs out of Outlive, and to ensure that his daughters didn’t starve to death. As much as he hated to admit it, Baggs would take the money and give the vote for Turner’s innocence. If he refused, what good would that do? One person alone wouldn’t ensure that Turner was treated as though he were guilty. In that situation, Baggs would assume that the judge and all the other jury members would take the money. And then if I voted guilty and everyone else voted innocent, Turner would walk free and then I’d have to enter Outlive for a moral stance I took that amounted to nothing.
That’s not all, though. It’s not like Turner’s employee would offer a hefty bribe and then just leave the jury member alone if the money was turned down. No. Turner probably has people on his payroll like Bite (or eighteen year old me) who would threaten to break someone’s kneecaps if they voted guilty. Or kill their kids.
The Outlive participants were lead through underground tunnels to a garage, where they were siphoned into helicopters depending upon their team. Baggs, Spinks, and Larry were still wearing their Outlive outfits. As they got into the helicopter to be taken back to Turner’s house, Baggs could hear Emperor Daman’s voice rumbling through the arena as the next gladiator event was announced. The
door to the helicopter closed, the machine drove them out into open air, and then they took off.
Baggs felt tired, but he knew he had to think.
If all three of us died of heart attacks, there would probably be some kind of trial about it, but Turner doesn’t care about going to trial. What he cares about is Emperor Daman catching wind that he’s giving his participants performance-enhancing drugs. Then, he’d be banned from Outlive. There wouldn’t be a trial if Daman had evidence that Turner was cheating, he’d simply be kicked out of the Outlive system.
But then another thought occurred to Baggs; wouldn’t Daman suspect that Turner was cheating if his Outlive teams kept dying after they won?
Baggs honestly didn’t know. Maybe he’ll just assume that Turner likes killing them. Killing vagrants in your free time isn’t really something that people lose their rights to ownership in Outlive for.
And, that’s not for me to decide. The thing to worry about is how to avoid dying, not whether or not Turner would get away with killing me. The fact is that Turner thinks he’ll get away with it, as evidenced by Gigi’s note, and that’s all that matters.
The Colosseum dwindled below them.
Spinks seemed to be in a lot of pain. She grunted, leaned her head back and blinked heavily. “Could one of you help me? If I had one good arm, I could relocate the other.”
Larry was disgusted by the prospect. He sunk back into the seat he was sitting in and looked away from the dislodged shoulders.
“Uhh, I can help you,” Baggs said. “I mean, I don’t know anything about dislocated joints, but I’d be willing to try, if you tell me what to do.”
Spinks’s voice was nasally; blood from her broken nose painted the bottom half of her face. “Yeah. I know how to do it. This used to happen loads of times to me as a kid. I’m just predisposed to dislocated shoulders, I guess. You can’t wimp out on me, though. I’m going to scream, but you’ve just got to keep going.”
“Alright,” Baggs said. He scooted closer to Spinks and thought about how Spinks’s knowledge of how to fix dislocated shoulders showed that she came from a lower social class. The upper class had no reason to learn such things when they could simply fly to the nearest emergency room when they had joint dislocations.
“Grab my wrist and elbow and make it so that my elbow is at a ninety degree angle,” she said.
Baggs grabbed her arm and slowly rotated her wrist towards her shoulder until it was at the proper angle. Spinks was sweating from the pain, her teeth were clenched tightly together. She’s tough, Baggs thought. When this is over, I’ll tell her about Gigi’s note. I could use her help.
“Now, slowly pull my wrist away from my body while keeping my elbow tucked against my side. Keep the ninety-degree angle. Go until you feel that you’re stretching my arm out.”
Baggs kept his large, dirty hand firmly wrapped around Spinks’s wrist as he pulled it away from her. He looked at her shoulder, exposed in the leather tank top she had been given to wear under her solid red breastplate. He could see the head of her humerus moving beneath her dirty skin.
Larry was looking purposefully out the window. Apparently dislocated joints bothered him.
Baggs saw that Spinks’s face was red, but she hadn’t cried out. She’s trying to hide how much this hurts. Baggs guessed that if Larry were in the same situation as Spinks, he would be wailing at the top of his lungs, wanting everyone to be aware of how much agony he was in.
“Good. You’re doing good. Now, here’s the part where you’ve got to be really firm with me. You’ve got to cup my elbow and just jam my upper arm towards that socket. Do it hard. It’ll hurt, but it’ll hurt more if it takes a bunch of tries.”
Baggs thought, she saved my life. I owe her this. He cupped her elbow and yanked it upward so hard that Spinks came halfway off the ground. She cried out and tears streamed down her face. “Don’t let go,” she said, “you got it. Don’t let go or it’ll pop back out of place. Slowly move my hand across my chest so that I can grab a piece of my clothing. I need to rest a moment before I do the next one. You can look again, Larry, it’s done.”
Larry turned around and gave a nervous smile, showing his yellow teeth. His glasses were speckled with blood, Baggs noticed.
Baggs placed Spinks’s hand over her chest and said, “I can’t believe we got it in on the first try.”
“The big thing is just relaxing your muscles enough. Used to hurt so bad when someone relocated my shoulder that I would have an instinct to tighten up. I’ve trained my body to relax so that my muscles are loose and the bone can just slide back in. And, you did a very good job.” She gave him a pale smile.
Baggs sat back for a moment and thought about how best to introduce the topic of Gigi’s letter to his teammates. He imagined that, for them, it would be a difficult fact to accept. He sympathized with them because of their ignorance. They’re sitting here with me, thinking that they’ve just defied the odds and that now they’re going to get to live with freedom. Well, Spinks probably doesn’t think that. Even if she thought Turner wasn’t going to kill her, she must know that the authorities wouldn’t let a criminal like her go free. She’ll probably be confined in some way—maybe prison, maybe house arrest. Whatever she imagines her fate to be, it is surely better than Turner killing her tonight, though.
The whirr of the motor beneath them and the chopping blades above them was monotonous and comforting. Larry fell asleep sitting up in one of the leather seats. Spinks stayed awake but didn’t talk for a long while. She kept her relocated shoulder in place, clasping her fingers around her leather top so that her arm wouldn’t fall to her side. Her green eyes stared off into the blue skies; she appeared to be deep in contemplation.
A few times, Baggs tried to open his mouth to start the discussion about Gigi’s letter, but closed it. At first, he thought that he just didn’t know how to address such a delicate topic. Then, he began to suspect that his hesitation was due to something else entirely.
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to tell them, he thought.
Baggs imagined Gigi listening in on Turner drunkenly telling his wife his plan to waste all of his winners. He would have been talking generally.
But I’m not like the others, Baggs knew. Things have changed for me.
Baggs had begun to have these thoughts after Turner told him that he was on the cover of a national magazine for his fight with Mobb Harvey. At that time, he had thought that he might be invited to become a gladiator after Outlive. It had happened before to people who were athletic enough and performed well in their initial Colosseum appearance.
I’m six feet, five inches tall, and I’m pretty strong. I’ll be especially formidable if I go through gladiator training.
Baggs hadn’t had a stupendous showing in Outlive, but he had done well enough that he thought it was likely that Emperor Daman would want to see him on the sand again, as a gladiator. Baggs thought about chopping the bloody, murderous man’s head off in the maze, and then of stabbing his spear through the bottom of Chobb Lowe’s foot. I bet that Byron Turner was salivating while watching that.
When former Outlive contestants accepted an offer to be gladiators, their Outlive owners received some kind of compensation. It was a way of rewarding the owners for training good competitors. Baggs wasn’t quite sure what the reward for honing a competitor into a potential gladiator would be, but he guessed that Turner probably wouldn’t turn it down.
Especially if I can convince him that I won’t tell about the steroids.
But Baggs wasn’t so sure that this would work out. Perhaps the risk of Baggs being let loose with such information would be frightening enough to Turner that he wouldn’t even be interested in the reward money.
And then there’s Spinks and Larry to think about. Do I just let them die without warning them of what’s coming?
He didn’t really care what happened to Larry, but Spinks had fought to save his life. It would be unethical not to let her know about Gigi’
s letter and give her a chance to find a solution.
It’s decided then. I’m going to tell them.
Baggs opened his mouth to speak once more, but Spinks interrupted this time.
“Larry, you awake?”
Larry grunted.
“Sit up, I need to talk to you. Both of you.”
Larry waved a dismissive hand and didn’t stir. Spinks stood up and kicked him in the back.
“Shit! What was that for?” Larry asked. He sat up and looked at Spinks with accusing eyes.
“This is serious. I have something to tell you two.” Spinks looked pale. Baggs was confused and wondered how long this would take. He wanted the three of them to have plenty of time to plan after he dropped the bomb and explained that Turner would try to kill them.
Spinks licked her lips, which were covered in dried blood from her nose. “Turner is going to try to kill us,” she said.
“What?” Larry yelled. He looked angry.
Spinks leaned forward, thinking of what to say next. “I don’t have any proof,” she said, “but there are a few facts that lead me to believe that he’ll try to kill us. His last competitor died of a heart attack; Turner, who’s a cardiologist, filled out the death certificate himself. I think that he poisoned Higgins and then covered it up. I think that he’ll do the same to us.”
“Why the hell would he want to kill us?” Larry asked.
“Calm down,” Spinks said back. “I think that he wants to cover up the fact that he’s giving his teams steroids.”
“Steroids? What are you talking about? Baggs, does this make any sense to you?” Larry looked between the two of them.
“I’m actually shocked that Spinks just said that,” Baggs said. Larry nodded and gave Spinks a look that said, told ya! “Not because I don’t believe her, but because I was about to say the same thing. I think Turner will try to kill us, too.”
Spinks looked relieved that Baggs believed her.
“Wait, what? I feel like I woke up in loony land. You guys think that Turner gave us steroids? And that he’s trying to cover it up?”