Arena 5

by Logan Jacobs

  “It shall be an endurance race that will last days,” Tyche said with a flourish. “The Aetherons have dubbed it ‘The Passage of Pain’. Each alliance, or individual champion, will be grouped in brackets of sixteen groups. You will be given time to use your credits to choose vehicles, skills, equipment, and weapons for this multi-stage race across the wastes of Cruxia. Each stage will end with teams reaching a way-point that will allow for resupply and rest. However the way-points will not always be spaced evenly and those who arrive first will get a head start against the rest of the teams. You will be competing against the inhabitants of the Cruxian wastes who will wish to destroy you and steal your vehicles and belongings as well as fighting each other. Only the final three teams to cross the finish line shall live. You will receive your brackets and the chance to build your transports shortly. That is all.”

  Tyche gave a short salute to the crowd and then winked out from existence.

  The whole room sat in stunned silence for a long beat and then erupted in chaos.

  “Come on,” I shouted to the gang. “Let’s get back to the gym.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement and we began to pick our way through the crowd.

  A few minutes later we were all gathered around the conference table in our gym.

  “Okay, who else here thinks ‘Passage of Pain’ is lame?” Tempest asked. She was seated with her feet up on the table.

  “Sugar, that name is atrocious,” Aurora replied.

  “They could have gone with Cannonball Run in the Stars, or Death Race 2000, or Fury Road in a Galaxy Far Far Away,” PoLarr rattled off in quick succession.

  “My thoughts exactly,” I nodded my head eagerly and gave her a high-five.

  “What nonsense are you two blathering on about?” Grizz said, quite irritated.

  “Not important, sorry, Grizz,” I said.

  “We are going to have a lot of choices to make,” Artemis said as she pulled up some of the info for the race. “What type of vehicle we want, how we want to joke it out--”

  “Trick,” I corrected.

  “That’s what I said,” she defended, then continued. “And we have to decide on upgrades from winning the last match.”

  “Well, I say we pick our ride, trick it out, and then, depending on how that goes, decide what skills will best support it,” I explained.

  “Havak, we may make a champion out of you yet,” Grizz said with a small, yet proud, smile on his face.

  “Our Gold Tier status gives us a starting credit balance of ten thousand,” Artemis said and typed a few buttons on her computer. About a dozen different types of vehicles popped up on the holo-display that sprang from the center of the conference table. From years of vigorous, sometimes bordering on obsessive, video game playing I recognized that these were all base models of the various types of transportation that we would have available to us. “Cruxia is a planet that is ninety nine point nine percent desert wasteland with little pocket oasis city-states which house the civilized peoples. Those who live outside the walled-in city-states are comprised of nomads, brigands, scavengers, horrible creatures, cannibals, and the Biker Boys you faced in your first trial, Marc.”

  “Oh, those tools,” I sighed. “Hey! I can use my flaming chainsaw sword! Flipping sweet!”

  “Yes, Marc,” Artemis chuckled. “You can indeed use your flaming chainsaw sword.”

  “Yes!” I said very loudly. “Okay, let’s get back to picking a vehicle.”

  “Hmm, interesting,” Artie said. Her face screwed up into an adorable little mask of concentration. “Cruxian vehicles are still primarily land based with wheels instead of hover propulsion so we will be limited to that.”

  “I say we go for the fastest choice possible,” Tempest said as she looked over the various vehicles. There were muscle looking cars, dune buggies, a freaking Top Fuel Dragster, motorcycles, a couple of all terrain tank thingies, and several tractor trailer type trucks. Next to each vehicle were little bars that gave their particular base stats of Speed, Durability, Fuel Capacity, and Maneuverability. If one was super high in speed, say like the Dragster, it was low on durability and fuel capacity. The muscle cars fared a little better. Obviously, due to the number of us, motorcycles were out of the question, plus they provided scant protection from the harsh desert elements.

  “Maybe,” I mused as I continued to look over the choices. “How long are the legs of the race going to be and in what kind of terrain, Artie?”

  “Well, we don’t have specifics for what is going to be in each leg,” Artie said as she read over the mission brief, “but no leg will be less than five hundred miles and could be up to a thousand. The Cruxian badlands are harsh deserts with rocky mountain ranges, sand dunes, and salt flats. There are remnants of roads from Cruxia’s ancient past before the planet turned into mostly desert but they are usually worse than the open terrain.”

  “What about one of those dune buggy things?” Nova asked and pointed to one of the vehicles. “They have a good balance of speed, maneuverability, and durability.”

  “True,” I said as I looked it over. “But they will barely hold all of us and don’t give any room for supplies or weapons. Plus, as soon as we add any type of armor the speed and maneuverability will start to suck.”

  “Good point, Marc,” Nova nodded as she thought about what I’d said.

  “I say we go for the semi-truck looking thing there in the middle,” I pointed out.

  “Why the big truck?” Tempest asked. “I figured we’d need something super fast. That thing looks like a beast.”

  “Oh, are we talking about Marc’s penis again?” Aurora said without any hint of impropriety.

  “No!” I shot back and felt heat flush my cheeks.

  “Boo,” she cooed and pouted.

  “I think we should do the truck,” I continued and tried to push down the rush of excitement that sparked through my loins at the thought of Aurora and my penis. “Because it is a great combo of speed, durability, and storage capacity. We can armor the fuck out of it without losing maneuverability or speed. It can take a shit ton of punishment. We can pack it full of ammo and stuff and, most importantly, I can drive the shit out of a truck.”

  “I forgot that was your job before you became champion,” Nova said.

  “Nova, it wasn’t just my job,” I said. “It was practically my entire life. I spent eight to ten hours a day in the cab of a truck. Now, I didn’t drive a lot of big wheel semis like this one, but, you know, it was close enough. I hauled anything and everything from Delaware to Maine and back down to the tip of Florida. I once took a truckload of old car parts through Detroit, this should be a cake walk compared to that. We won’t be the fastest or the prettiest vehicle out there, and I know it seems counter intuitive, but trust me, this will be the best bet.”

  “Confidence is commendable, Havak,” Grizz stated, “but hubris is a path to destruction.”

  “Marc knows that, Grizz,” Artie defended me, “I think he is employing the technique of minding himself above. Right, Marc?”

  “Um…” I murmured. That one was taking me a bit. Then it hit. “Ah, yes. I am indeed psyching myself up.

  “We shall shine everlasting on the fury road! Witness me!” PoLarr bellowed from out of nowhere and made everyone jump. “Sorry. I’d been holding onto that one for a while now and couldn’t keep it in any longer. I love you, Marc, but by all that is good and holy in this universe you should have had more supervision as a child.”

  “True,” I agreed. She wasn’t wrong. Growing up with a single mom meant I had spent a lot of time by myself. I guess I could have learned to play an instrument or gotten really good at basketball or something. Instead I watched a staggering amount of television and movies. I also read a stupid amount of comic books, Stephen King, and dumb men’s pulp fiction novels. Oh, yeah, and video games, which were like a perfect combo of all of those things that I could actually play. When I thought about it, it was kind of like destiny knew I was going t
o be chosen to do this and gave me a brain that could handle the shock of being beamed across the galaxy on a daily basis to fight weird alien’s that wanted to kill me for the survival of my planet. Which, would make a totally sweet premise for a video game, and I made a mental note to mention it to the POTUS the next time I spoke to him.

  “I’ll be able to communicate with you during this match,” Artemis said excitedly as she read the dossier on the mission as it came across her feed. “Oh! And visit you at the checkpoints.”

  “Tell me more about these checkpoints,” Nova said skeptically. “How is that going to work? I would think that when all the teams arrive it would be a free-for-all melee of killing and maiming, would it not?”

  “No,” Artie answered as she tabbed through a few pages of rules text on the screen with lighting speed. “It will be like The Breach, safer than The Breach, actually. A safe zone. No fighting once you cross the line into the checkpoint. We’ll be able to resupply and rest. I’m seeing here that each one will have like a tavern hotel kind of set up.”

  PoLarr and I immediately turned to one another and said in unison, “This is the Amazing Race.”

  “This is a race of perpetual torment and certain doom,” Grizz said confused. “The only amazing thing about it is how many different and creative ways you could die.”

  “Grizz, sugar, it’s that thing they do,” Aurora said and rolled her eyes. “That must be some movie or television show that the Soul Gaze has allowed them to share the memory of.”

  “Bah!” Grizz exclaimed and slapped his holographic hand to his holographic forehead. “PoLarr, that Soul Gaze was either a stroke of unlimited genius or the worst mistake you ever made.”

  “You ain’t saying nothing slick to a can of oil, Grizz,” PoLarr nodded. “And I don’t even understand what that means but I stand behind it.”

  “Hey, guys,” I said and pulled everyone’s attention. “Let’s get back to the task at hand, like making this the fucking radest truck anyone has ever seen. I want to make George Miller jealous.”

  PoLarr was the only one in the room who knew that was the director of the Mad Max movies, but everyone else just went with it.

  “Right!” Artie pretended to understand with confidence. She then caught my eye and shook her head slightly as if saying “I have no fucking clue what anyone is talking about.” I smiled at her and rolled my fingers in the air in a “just roll with it” gesture. She nodded and smiled back. “So, we have a ton of options to modify the base vehicle.”

  Artie made a few hand motions, like someone swiping the screen of an iPad but in the air, and twenty little boxes in neat rows appeared on the holo-screen in front of us. There were engines, wheels, transmissions, armor, and about six different trailers that could be attached to the cab tractor part of the whole set up. Cruxian technology seemed similar to Earth trucks but with a weird retro Nineteen Fifties “Jetsons” vibe. Like a bunch of Futurists got together, drank a shit ton of martinis, and came up with stuff they thought the future would have.

  “I say we spend the bulk of our budget on the cab of the truck, which is where we’ll all spend most of our time,” I suggested. “It’s where the engine and transmission are housed.”

  “Agreed, Marc,” Nova responded and pointed to several of the squares in the middle of the block. “We should make it like a Paladinian Battle Mustang. Strong, fast, powerful, and able to withstand a tremendous amount of punishment. Which would be the title of my sex tape.”

  “Nova!” I blurted out.

  “What?” She shrugged innocently. “I can get in on this whole pop culture quote thing too, you know. I have been studying.”

  “I can tell,” I chuckled and shook my head. “The base truck looks like we can fit two different engines under the hood. One workhorse and one super charged for speed when we need it.”

  I grabbed the two engines out of the air with my fingers and drug them to the model of the truck that spun lazily in front of us. Eat your heart out Tony Stark.

  “The power train should be shielded and able to switch from low to high torque easily,” Tempest added lazily from her chair. She had taken one of her little, sweet smelling cigars from the pocket of her jumpsuit and popped it into the corner of her mouth. A pleasant vanilla scent filled the air while ribbons of purple smoke floated from the burning embers on the end of the cigar. It made her look tough and sexy.

  “Noice,” I remarked.

  “Make sure the tires are suitable for any type of terrain, puncture resistant, and self-inflating,” Aurora said and pulled two different types of tire square from the air and put them on the truck.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” Artie stammered with barely contained excitement. “Medium weight armor on the cab section where you drive from, and then heavy chain curtains and spinning knives on the wheels. That way you can shred anyone who comes close to bloody ribbons!”

  “Damn, Artie,” I whistled.

  “We shall smite our enemies,” she growled.

  “You are equal parts scaring and arousing me right now,” I told her.

  “Exactly,” she nodded with a somewhat maniacal grin on her face.

  “On to the trailer,” Grizz interjected. “I can see that it has ample storage room for plenty of fuel and supplies, but I would advise against carrying too much extra fuel. One well-placed blow and you would explode in a ball of flame that would take you to the great battle field in the beyond.”

  “Good point, Grizz,” I agreed. “Okay, so we can have enough fuel to travel two days, water and food for a week, and then we can fill out the rest with spare parts and a few extra tires just in case.”

  “Guns, guns, guns,” PoLarr said in a dead on Kurtwood Smith from the original Robocop. “Let’s not forget the armament. I say we put a light machine gun turret right where the trailer meets the cab with a full three hundred sixty degree field of fire, and we can put up a solid titanium blast shield to protect it. Then, at the back of the trailer a quad harpoon cannon powered by compressed air that draws from the trucks brake system. We can have some high-ex harpoons, some incendiary, and maybe even ones with cables attached. And to keep all of that safe, looks like there is a reinforced ammo storage locker that will prevent it from going kablooey like Grizz said.”

  “What’s the grand total there, Artie?” I asked. She typed her fingers in the air and swiped all the other boxes away so that a completely rendered version of the truck spun in front of us. It looked fucking badass. Max Rockatansky would be proud.

  “We have exactly one thousand credits left,” she replied after a few seconds. “We can add a little more light armor or… an air horn.”

  “Air horn!” I yelled before anyone could chim in with another suggestion.

  “Havak,” Grizz said and stared at me. “Sometimes I believe you may be completely out of your mind.”

  “Crazy like a fox,” I grinned. I had an idea for what I wanted to air horn to be able to play and it was going to be epic. Like, epically epic.

  “Here, I’ll have the computer print out a construct of the final vehicle,” Artemis said and waved her fingers on the holo-screen in front of her.

  In the center of our gym a fully rendered version of the truck and trailer formed in front of our eyes.

  When all was said and done, it looked fucking awesome. Like some kind of monster semi-trailer hellbent for havoc.

  “Sweet,” I muttered in awe.

  “Well that settles that,” Aurora yawned. “Can we go now? I’m hungry, if you all know what I mean.”

  “Almost, Aurora,” Artie comforted. “We need to pick our upgrades. We get one team upgrade and one individual.”

  She wiped away the truck and in its place was a complex holographic skill tree with tons of branches and offshoots. I scanned the whole thing with soft focus trying to see if my subconscious would pick something out. It had proved to be a useful tactic when trying to pick skills. The whole damn thing was freaking overwhelming, and it was easy to get bogged down with
the number of choices. I’d found out that if I just let my mind wander something usually jumped out at me. After a few seconds one skill stuck out, and I jumped at it.

  “Motorbike riding,” I pointed to the skill. “I think that could come in very handy here. If we can scavenge or steal some motorcycles, we can have some scouts or interceptors if shit gets hairy.”

  “Well chosen, Havak,” Grizz nodded in agreement. “With the Cruxian Biker Boys inhabiting most of the barren wastes, I imagine you’ll have plenty of chances to commandeer a few two-wheeled transports. Now on to the individual skills.”

  “I want mechanical skills,” Tempest said without a thought. “I like fixing shit anyway, and I think we’ll need a gear head during this match.”

  “Tempest,” Grizz started to say, “I believe you will be a valuable addition to the alliance. Well chosen.”

  “Aw, thanks horn face,” she said cockily.

  “You are welcome… wait…”

  “I want Silent Movement,” Aurora drawled with relish. “Combined with my veil I’ll be invisible, silent, and quite deadly. This match is going to be absolutely delicious.”

  “I shall go with Archery,” Nova pointed to the skill. “I trained in long range projectile weapons, as does every knight on Paladin, and this shall enhance that very well. From what I understand about Cruxia, we may need to improvise our weaponry. Firearms are scarce and ammunition is even scarcer in the wastes.”

  “Okay, Legolas,” I chirped. Nova just stared at me. “Okay, how about you, PoLarr?”

  “Hmm,” she hummed as she looked over the skills, “oh, Star Navigation. After two nights on the planet I’ll be able to successfully navigate without the use of instruments. That might be very handy.”