by Peter Glenn
A pool of blood formed beneath the tiger as it took its fresh kill with it, dragging it back to the platform it had arrived on. Seconds later, the tiger had disappeared beneath the floor once more, and everyone around the arena went back to what they were doing.
I stood there dumbfounded for a moment. Had I really just witnessed a murder in broad daylight? Okay, so it wasn’t daylight, but you know what I mean. I could scarcely believe it.
“Let’s get Bao and get out fast,” LaLuna whispered over my shoulder.
I could agree to that. I nodded to her, and the three of us sped down the hallway, going even faster than before.
Not much further now. The hallways merged back into one as we made our way past the arena room. We passed by a few more people on our way to the big double doors that sat at the end of the large hallway.
Sure enough, they had a black mark on them. No other markings adorned the doors, just a big black spot in the center.
I went up to one of the doors, and crazily enough, it opened without issue. I chalked it up to good luck, and we all piled into the room beyond, then I shut the door behind us, and we kept going.
There were more of those cell-like doors from before in this area, but no people, as far as I could tell. Just rows and rows of doors.
But this time, they had names on them. I quickly scanned the doors on one side of the hallway, motioning for Taio and LaLuna to do the same.
It didn’t take long to find what we’d come for. About ten doors down, on the right, I found it. The room where my little nephew was being held. “Bao Xiang,” the nameplate on the door read. This was it.
I took in a deep breath and pulled on the door handle. Once again, it opened freely, revealing a small office-like room inside with one person sitting at a desk, typing away on his computer.
“Uncle?” A confused sounding voice said from within.
I smiled as my nephew Bao came fully into view. He was every bit his father’s son and looked just like him, other than the fact that he didn’t have any gray hair. He did have a few ear piercings, though, and a tattoo on one of his hands. Must have been where Taio had gotten the idea from.
“Bao?” I said, incredulous. “You’re safe!”
I held my arms out wide and took a step into the room. It was bigger than I thought it would be and could easily fit all of us. There was a bed in the back in addition to the desk Bao was sitting at, and it even looked comfy.
“Of course I am, uncle,” Bao said, still sounding extremely confused. He looked at all of us in shock for a moment, then his eyes trailed toward the floor. “You shouldn’t be here. You need to go. Now.”
“It’s okay, Bao, we’re here to get you.” I grinned broadly at him. “I brought Taio and LaLuna with me.” I motioned behind me to where they were standing. “We’re going to get you out.”
Bao’s eyes went wide, and he shot up from his seat. “Father is here?” He shook his head. “Get out! Get out while you can. I’m sorry, I–”
“What’s wrong, Bao?” I’d expected a lot of things when I finally found Bao, but this wasn’t on the list.
“Just go!” he practically screamed at me, waving his hands frantically. “Before it’s too late!”
Taio came into view then and rushed into the room. “Not without you, Bao.” He embraced his son, who didn’t return the gesture and looked every bit the deer in headlights. “Come,” he insisted. “Let us get out of here.”
“No, you don’t understand!” Bao fired back. “You’re all in danger. You… you have to get out of here! While you still can!”
Taio scoffed. “Nonsense! It is you that’s in trouble, son. Come, let’s get out of here and I can explain it all to you once we’re safe.”
“Stop!” a familiar voice commanded.
I spun around to see Luke Harris standing in the doorway, blocking part of it out. “I told you earlier, you couldn’t see him. You should have listened.”
“Luke?” All the blood drained from my face. I stared at the floor. “I should have known it was all a trap.”
“Indeed, Mr. Xiang.” Luke gave me a smug look. “And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”
My hand instinctively went to Grax’thor, but Luke frowned at me and put up his hand to stop me. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Damian,” he said. “Too many innocents could get hurt.” He nodded toward Bao as he spoke.
The implication was clear. I could kill Bao just as easily as I could kill him. Or even if I didn’t, he could make it look like I did after the fact.
Nope, I was trapped.
I gulped down hard and nodded. “Very well.” I relaxed my hand and let it fall to my side.
“Put your weapons down and come with me quietly, and we’ll sort this all out,” Luke insisted.
Taio was the first to comply. I followed suit, with LaLuna the last to concede.
“Excellent,” Luke said, grinning. “Now, you’ll excuse me if I have to do this the hard way.”
A pair of large gentlemen came forward then, wearing security badges. They had some sort of club-looking devices in their hands.
I tried to reach Grax’thor again, but they were on me before I could do much of anything. One of them moved to the side and smacked me on the back of the head with his club, and I felt my consciousness start to fade as pain swirled in my head and my vision started to go black.
The last thing I saw before I slumped to the ground was an Armond Huistad Security badge hanging from the guard’s neck.
12
A strange buzzing noise reverberated in my head. It was incessant and wouldn’t go away.
Get up, Damian, I told myself over and over, trying to break through the haze and the dizzying sound. But it was little use. My body didn’t want to obey my commands.
There was nothing for it, I supposed. I’d have to do the big boy thing and open my eyes.
I opened them slowly. Not because I was blocking out some horribly bright light or anything, but because my head still hurt considerably, and I didn’t want to accept the reality of my situation just yet. But I opened them anyway.
The room around me wasn’t exactly well lit, but it wasn’t pitch darkness, either. As it came into focus, I could tell that it was sparsely populated by only the barest furniture. There was the “bed” I was laying on, if it could even be called that, seeing as there was no mattress or pillow, just a cold slab of metal. Off in the corner was a small toilet so I could do the needful, a mirror, of all things, and a tiny sink that only had one tap control. My guess was it was cold water. Prisoners didn’t get privileges like hot water in my experience.
And that was it. Even the walls were blank, and only the seam around what I guessed was the door broke up the sameness of them at all. The door itself looked to be made of the same metal as the walls—thick, impenetrable steel.
There were small hinges built into the door that I could probably undo if I had several months to work on them, but let’s hope it didn’t come to that. Not much hope of escape there, then.
Yep. There was no denying it. I was well and truly trapped. A captive in the seedy underbelly of Delta Fox Australia.
Who knew game development could be such a dangerous occupation that they’d have their own jail cell network setup in the basement?
At least, I assumed I was still at Delta Fox. There was no telling how long I’d been out. It could have been a few hours or several days. There was no time down here. Though I wasn’t particularly famished, so I figured it was the former. And this room didn’t look all that different from Bao’s room, though his had been a little larger and fully furnished. So it would make sense that I was still in the same place.
Besides, I doubted they made their prisoners known to the public, even in Australia, so it would only make sense that I’d still be on campus. Much easier to keep them secret if you don’t have to transport them anywhere.
I got up into a sitting position and stretched my sore muscles, taking stock of myself. I was
still in my same clothes from before—jeans and a slightly torn up Duran Duran shirt—and I didn’t seem to have any new injuries. At least no pressing ones. There was still that darn buzzing noise in the back of my head that I’d have to figure out, but I didn’t see any obvious bruises.
The good news was, I was pretty sure I’d be able to save the Duran Duran shirt this time. I was getting better with a sewing needle, and I thought I could patch up the minor holes in it from my last round of combat. That would save me a good fifty bucks or so.
Pushing that thought aside, I got up and paced around the room a bit to try and clear my head. My hand brushed my side, and I was surprised to find good old Grax’thor still hanging there, same as ever.
I was a little surprised at first, but I remembered the last guy that had managed to separate us and how that had ended for him. Almost made me sad that Delta Fox hadn’t tried it out for themselves.
Still, there was time enough yet for me to do some killing. Someone was going to die for capturing me. I just had to get out of this cage first.
And before I could do that, I had to get rid of this buzzing in my skull. Seriously, what was causing that stupid noise? It was getting harder to concentrate.
I went back to pacing. It was good exercise at the very least, and in my head, I could just hear Taio silently admonishing me for not taking the time to keep myself in shape in a time like this.
That was just the kind of thing he’d say, too. I just knew it.
A slight passing anger at Taio helped the time fly by just a little faster. Not that it really mattered all that much. I was still trapped, after all. And that darn buzzing still hadn’t gone away yet, but at least I had something else to fill my head for a few minutes to make it more bearable.
Though not even anger at Taio would get me out of this hole. No, I would need to do that myself.
I went back over to the door. The hinges being on this side meant the door swung inward. You’d think that would give me an advantage, but not really. Any time a guard came in, they’d fill the doorway with their presence. If there was more than one, they could block it completely.
And yet, I held out hope. They’d have to open it to feed me eventually. Maybe when they did, I could make a break for it. With Grax’thor at my side, I at least had a chance.
A strange grating noise filled my ears a second later, interrupting my concentration. It was the door. They were opening it.
Eureka! This was my chance. I unsheathed my weapon and held it in both hands, then stood facing the door, ready to pounce on whatever unlucky soul opened the door.
The door inched open slowly as I waited, sweat slicking my palm.
Come on, just a little more. Just a little bit more.
The door screeched and opened just an inch more, then stopped.
My heart sank. The opening was barely wide enough for me to fit a hand through, let alone my whole body.
I waited anyway. Maybe I’d still get lucky.
A hand appeared around the corner of the door. From this angle it looked more robotic than human, though I couldn’t quite tell. The buzzing was messing with my concentration, and I was hungry to boot.
But I couldn’t waste the opportunity. I made my move. I practically leapt from my current position and brought my blade down on the robot hand hard.
Steel grated on steel, and my weapon bounced off it without so much as leaving a scrape behind. My arms shook from the shock of the blow to the point where I almost dropped the sword, but I kept hold of it and swung again, determined to break the thing and use it to get out of here.
Once more, steel met steel and nothing happened. The damn thing was too strong for me.
A sinister laugh seeped through the crack in the door.
“Didn’t think it’d be that easy, did you?” the owner of the laughter said.
“I had to try!” I fired back, deflated.
The guard—or whatever it was—laughed again, and the metallic hand deposited a small sack on the floor of my room, then the big metal door screeched closed, and I was alone again.
I felt so miserable I almost didn’t even look at the bag. But there could have been something in there to use to aid my escape, so my curiosity took over, and I snatched it up.
Hands still shaky from the previous exertion, I examined the contents. There was a plastic bottle of water, a container of what looked like wafer crackers, and an orange with no peel.
I found it odd that they’d leave me a plastic bottle and a wrapper to contend with but not an orange peel. What, were they worried I’d smear citric acid on someone’s face or something? How weird.
Whatever. My stomach growled, so I went ahead and devoured the contents. It didn’t take long. The wafers were surprisingly tasty, with a mild beefy flavor and not nearly as dry as I expected. They had what I assumed was vegemite sandwiched in the middle of them. I’d never had it before, but I’d heard it was all the rage in Australia, and it had the right look to it.
My stomach felt somewhat sated by the repast, so I went back to my “bed” and laid down for a moment. I now had a few small tools at my disposal, but no idea as to how to use them to escape.
So, all in all, I wasn’t much better off than before. And that damn buzzing still hadn’t gone away.
I laid against my bunk for what felt like hours, resting and trying to think of a way out. There had to be something. I needed a way to check in on LaLuna, Taio, and Bao and get them out of here. There just had to be a way.
Thinking of LaLuna made my heart flutter a little. She was truly a remarkable girl. And by including her in this little outing, I’d put both her and Grace in danger again. I’d have to make that up to them somehow when this was all over. They deserved better. Grace, especially. She deserved a more constant presence in her life than a guy that stopped by once or twice a week, mostly to boink her mom.
It’s funny how being locked in a jail cell deep in the earth can bring things into perspective, isn’t it kids?
My door screeched a moment later, rousing me from my inner thoughts. I leapt to my feet, Grax’thor in my hands once more. I was going to get out this time, I was sure of it.
The door exploded inward so fast I was suddenly glad I hadn’t been behind it, or I would have been smushed. In front of the door stood two tall, muscle-bound guards. Both of them were carrying some sort of metal spear in their hands.
No, not spears. Prods. Some sort of modified cattle prod. And I was guessing I was the cow in this equation.
“Don’t even think about it,” the first guard said. He was wearing what looked like Kevlar armor from head to toe, as was his mate. Not good. That stuff would turn my blade easily enough.
I weighed my chances for a few seconds, then nodded and put my blade back in its sheath. “Understood,” I said in a hoarse voice. My throat was scratchy, even with the water from before.
“Come this way,” the first guard demanded. He made a little opening between him and the other guy and motioned for me to leave the room with them.
“Sure thing.” I gave him a wry smile. Like I had a choice in the matter.
I walked out of the room, eyeing those giant metal prods as I went past. They had one rather long wire running along the top and a trigger built into the handle. If I could disable either of those, my guess was it would lose its effectiveness.
Good information to file away for later.
I exited out into a long hallway filled with doors that looked similar to the one I’d just come out of. There had to be at least twenty of them on each side, all nondescript, although they did have name plates on the outside.
Those would come in handy when I went searching for my friends later.
The first guard nudged me from behind with the point of his prod, and I took a few more steps forward. His friend took up position in front of me while he filed in behind. Then he prodded me again, and we started walking down the hallway. Thankfully, the prod wasn’t armed, but I assumed if I stepped out of lin
e, that would quickly change, and I’d get the shock of a lifetime.
Not really something I was eager to experience.
I paid close attention to where I was and the names of the doors around me. None of them were people I recognized, but I wanted to know exactly where I was and how to get away from here. Who knew what details would become important when I made a break for it?
We walked down the hallway for a minute or two before stopping in front of another door. This one was different from the rest. It had a window placed into it at head level. I peered into the window, but the room beyond, aside from being larger than most, looked relatively nondescript.
“In here,” First Guard commanded.
He pushed the door open, and I did as I was bade.
Both guards followed me in, and First Guard prodded me once more, pushing me forward.
I took several more steps at his urging, then we all stopped. The guards took a couple steps back out into the hallway.
“Stay there,” First Guard ordered.
I just shrugged. What else was I going to do, exactly? I glanced around. There was dirt all around, including underneath my feet. And the walls had odd smears on them that looked brown or maybe rusty red. It seemed odd, given how clean everything else had been up to this point. Why was this one room so filthy?
The ground beneath me started to rumble, and I shook with it, reaching out to steady myself. Then I started to lift upward toward the ceiling.
“Good luck,” the second guard called after me with a mock salute. “I’ve got fifty bucks riding on you.”
I shook my head in wonder. What was he on about? Fifty bucks for what?
A hole opened up in the ceiling above me, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. At least they weren’t going to smash me into it.
Soon, the platform I was on reached the upper floor, and I was looking out over a dirt-covered area that spanned at least a hundred feet in each direction, surrounded by a wall of thick-paned glass.
I recognized this place. Now all the dirt and smears down below made sense. This was the arena from before. They’d lifted me up into it.