by David Archer
“That's a pulse monitor,” the man said. “It transmits a signal to let us know if you're dead or alive.”
The guard led him to another room, where a large bundle was shoved at him through a window and he was told to pick it up. It had a sling on it, so he put that over his shoulder and followed the guard back out of the building.
They walked back the way they had come, and entered one of the adobe buildings. The guard stood just inside the doorway and pointed at stairs. “Room sixteen is up on the second floor. Go up the stairs and turn right, you can't miss it. Your ID tag will open the door, just stand in front of it for a couple of seconds and it will pop open.” The man turned around and walked out again, leaving Carson alone.
He walked up the stairs and turned right as he had been told, and found the door marked “16.” He stepped in front of it, and a moment later it swung inward. He walked inside and looked around.
There was a bed, a small dresser, a table and two chairs. There was a single window, covered by a thick curtain, but the room held little else, so Carson set the bundle on the bed and proceeded to open it. Inside, he found a bag containing a cup, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, a deodorant stick, two towels, two sets of coveralls, two pairs of shorts, five sets of underwear—boxers and T-shirts—and a set of sheets for the bed. A combination toilet stool and sink was in the corner, with a small shower stall beside it.
He put the clothing into the dresser and went about making the bed. There was no pillow, but he rolled up the cloth bag everything had come in and decided that it would work.
He heard a knock on his door, and turned around. There was a handle on the inside of the door, and it opened when he pulled. Roscoe stood there, grinning at him with another man, younger and of European descent, beside him.
“All settled in?” Roscoe asked, but he didn't wait for an answer. “This here is Johnny Mac. He’s gonna show you a few things tomorrow morning, figured we could all go to eat together. Come on, we show you where the chow hall is.”
Carson shook hands with Johnny, and the three of them walked out of the room and down the stairs. When they emerged into the courtyard, Carson saw that the sun was getting pretty low, and would shortly be dropping behind the buildings to the west. They walked in that direction, and Carson saw a long line of men and women queued up at another doorway. The line was moving rather quickly, and people were coming out of other doors with boxes in their hands, carrying them to metal picnic tables that were scattered around the area.
They got in line, and made it into the chow hall about ten minutes later. It was a simple arrangement, with ready-made meals in boxes being passed to each person as they came to a small window. Carson picked up the one that was passed to him and followed Roscoe and Johnny out to a table.
Carson opened his box, and his eyes bugged out. Inside, he found a tray that contained what looked like a whole fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a roll, and a large bottle of what looked like grape Kool-Aid. He twisted off the lid and took a sip, confirming that his guess was right, and then copied the other two men by taking the tray out of the box and setting the box on the ground beside him. A slot in the tray held plastic utensils, as well as packets of salt and pepper.
“I told you they feed us pretty good,” Roscoe said with a laugh. “Don't worry, you ain't going to get fat. They feed us this good because they know we need the energy. Every day you ain't fighting, you gonna be working out and sparring. We got to get you into shape as quick as we can, ‘cause somebody powerful back home wants you to survive.”
Carson took a bite of his chicken, chewed it up and swallowed, and then said, “Any idea who it might be? I've been thinking about it, and I don't have a clue.”
Roscoe shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “All I know is I was told to make sure you know how to fight. My guess is you got a friend back there somewhere who knows people. I got called up to the guard shack this morning and told you was coming, and that I'm supposed to be your mentor, teach you how to fight and kill.”
Carson had just taken another bite, and looked at Roscoe as he chewed. A moment later, he said, “I gotta tell you, Roscoe, you're going to have your work cut out for you.”
“That's what he's got me for,” Johnny said. “I'm sixteen fights in on a twenty-bout sentence, so I know a little bit about what I'm doing, too. Tomorrow morning, we're going to start training you. I can teach you a lot of things you'll need to know.”
Carson grinned. “Yeah? Can you teach me how to use a sling like Jerry Waller?”
Roscoe snorted. “You need years to learn that, and you ain't got years. You got a week.”
“Yeah, a week,” Johnny said. “But don't you worry, we're gonna show you some things that you can do, stuff you can learn right now.”
“All that's for tomorrow,” Roscoe said. “For now, you just need to know a couple things. This place here, it's sorta like the old prisons. You got your own room, and pretty much only you can open the door, but sometimes they's people in here can hack, so ain't no guarantee won’t nobody get in there. And you got to remember, if there's somebody back home that wants to pull strings to help you survive, there's others who want you to die. Always look in your room before you go inside, and put a chair under the door handle while you're sleeping.”
“We got a curfew,” Johnny added. “There's a buzzer goes off every night, means we got to go to our rooms. If you get caught outside after curfew, they'll make sure you aren't in shape for your next fight. Dicks will beat you half to death, trust me. Another buzzer in the morning tells you when you can come out of your room.”
Carson nodded. “Okay, thanks,” he said around a mouthful of chicken.
“Another thing you need to know,” Johnny said. “Women. There's a lot of them in here, and most of them are already claimed by somebody who's been here a while. Don't come on to any of them, no matter what. If you do, and she belongs to somebody, you're going to get beat down pretty hard. It's hard to win a fight when you've already been beaten half to death.”
“I'll remember that,” Carson said. “Women are about the furthest thing from my mind, right now, anyway.”
“They give us a few little luxuries,” Roscoe went on. “If you like to read, they got a library across the way. You got to wash your own clothes, we show you where the laundry is when we get done eating, then we go over to the library. You a professor, you probably like to read, right? Some guys say it helps, they read a book and feel like they out of here for a little while.”
The two men gave Carson more tips, including pointing out some of the other men that he should avoid. “Cranky bastards, some of them. You don't want to get on they bad side.” He was also told which of the guards were most dangerous, and which ones would treat him like a person.
They finished eating, put the trays and utensils back into the boxes, and went through the line again to return the boxes for cleaning and recycling. When they came back out of the building, Carson followed his new friends across the compound to where the services were located. They showed him the laundry, which held more than a hundred dry-cleaning machines, and he watched as other inmates put their clothing inside. The machines ran for a few moments, and then the clothes came out clean and fresh.
“Those are better than the one I had at home,” Carson said.
“Yeah, but you didn't have several thousand people all trying to use yours.”
They left the laundry and went a few doors down to the library. Carson was surprised when they got inside, because there were thousands of books available, but they weren't digital; each one was printed and bound, the way books were when his parents had been children, and they were arranged alphabetically by genre. Carson quickly found a couple in the science fiction section that interested him, and Johnny Mac showed him how to check them out. The system was automated, and only required him to put the books on a metal plate, and then wave his ID tag over it. A holodisplay registered that he was the one taking the books
, and told him that he could keep them for fourteen days.
“If you don't bring them back,” Johnny said, “one of the dicks comes looking for them. And, of course, if you get killed in a fight, they bring them back for you.”
“That's good, I guess,” Carson said. “I'd hate to get in trouble for not turning my books in after I'm dead.”
Roscoe looked at him. “Great, we got us a clown here.” He shook his head, and started to lead Carson back across the compound.
Carson stopped and looked up at him. “How do we write home? Have they got a terminal here somewhere, for email?”
Johnny laughed. “Ain't no writing home,” he said. “We're not allowed any contact with the outside world. They say it's because it's too hard on our families and friends, because most of us are going to die in here. They say it's easier for the people we leave behind to just let us go and say goodbye.”
Carson stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. Roscoe started off again, and Carson followed.
When they got back to Carson's building, the three of them stopped just outside. “You might just as well take it easy the rest of tonight,” Roscoe said. “We meet you here in the morning, go get some breakfast and then we start working out. Got to get you in shape, man, got to show you how to fight and survive.”
Carson suddenly felt the reality of the situation land on his shoulders, and for just a split second, he was afraid he was going to cry. “Look, Roscoe, Johnny…Oh, hell, I don't know how to say it, other than just to say thanks. I don't know how I'll ever make it through seventy fights, but I appreciate the fact that you're willing to try.”
“I don't know that you want to be thanking us,” Roscoe said. “Whoever sent me word about you offered me some things I can't turn down, some help for my family outside. They the ones you need to be thanking, not us. Besides, we fixing to put you to working out harder than you ever done in your life.”
Johnny grinned. “Yeah, man, we're going to kick your ass so you learn how to not get it kicked in the arena. Know what I mean?”
The two of them walked away, then, leaving Carson standing there all alone. He glanced down, and for just a moment thought he might wet himself. He hastily made a dash for his room but remembered to check it beforehand, pushing the door wide and looking all the way inside before entering. Then, shutting the door behind him, he tossed the books on his bed and finally relieved himself on the toilet from all the tension that had been building inside his body. After he finished, he remembered to put the chair underneath the door handle, and flipped open a book he’d checked out from the library.
Luckily, exhaustion beat out the adrenaline, and Carson drifted off to sleep before long. He woke up again sometime in the night, the heat so stifling that he almost felt he was having trouble breathing. He lay there for a few moments, forced himself to take some deep breaths, and then rolled over and finally went back to sleep an hour later.
He knew he was going to need it.
NINETEEN
“Almost everybody who dies in the arena gets beat to death,” Johnny Mac said. Johnny and Roscoe had met Carson as he exited his building, and the three of them had had breakfast together before moving to an empty spot in the compound to begin working out. “That's because they don't have a clue how to really fight. Guys like Waller are one in a million, but ever since he managed to take out his first bout with that sling, half the guys in here have been trying to use a sling the way he did. Like Roscoe said, that ain't something you learn overnight. What we got to teach you is something you can learn fast and put to use in a hurry.”
Roscoe was nodding as Johnny spoke. “On top of that,” he said, “I think it needs to be something different, something won't nobody expect. Me and Johnny put our heads together on that, and we come up with something.”
Johnny grinned. “Oh, boy, did we ever,” he said. “What you need is a weapon, one that will catch your opponent by surprise and give you an edge. Trouble is, you ain't allowed to carry anything into the arena with you, and they strip search you before you go in.”
“That's what made Waller such a big shot,” Roscoe chimed in, “’cause he figured out a way to make a weapon just with what he had. A couple strips of cloth he tore off his shorts, tied them together to make a longer strip, then snatched up a couple of the pebbles that are all over the place and he had him a sling.”
Carson nodded. There were at least two-dozen men around the compound who were practicing with slings as they spoke, but from what Carson could see, not one of them could hit a target. He was sure he wouldn't have any better luck.
“So me and Roscoe, we thought about what else is available inside the arena. There aren't any trees, nothing you can break a branch off of to make a club, but there's lots of bushes. Some of them have some pretty stiff branches inside, and that's what we concentrated on.” As he spoke, he led Carson toward a bush that was growing in the compound, kneeling beside it when they arrived. Carson knelt beside him as he pointed toward its dark interior.
“Reach up in there and break off the biggest piece you can. It's like wood, it'll snap when you put some pressure on it.”
Carson bent down so he could see under the leaves of the bush, then reached inside and felt for a branch. He found one that seemed to be about an inch thick, then bent and twisted it until it broke off. The piece he dragged out was almost two feet long, and had many smaller branches and leaves all over it.
“That's good,” Johnny said. “Now, break off the bottom and so it's about eight or ten inches long. Remember, when you're in the arena, you're only going to have a few minutes to do this. You got to move fast.”
Carson grabbed the branch in both hands and was able to snap off the thicker end. The piece he ended up with was just short of a foot long. “Like this?”
“That's good, that's real good. Now you got a weapon.”
Carson stared at the piece of wood in his hands. “Okay, how am I supposed to use this as a weapon? It's too small to hit anybody with, so what am I supposed to do with it?”
Roscoe grinned. “Hold out your hand like this,” he said, and demonstrated by holding his right hand out so that the palm faced the ground; his index and pinky fingers were pointing downward and the two middle fingers were raised up as high as he could get them. Carson looked at his hand for a moment, then held out his own the same way.
Roscoe took the stick from his other hand and shoved it in under the two raised fingers. “Now curl them fingers down over the top of it, and raise the other two so they're pointing forward.”
Carson did as he was told, and then Johnny motioned for him to stand up. As soon as he did, Johnny slapped his hand and knocked it to the side. Carson's hand flew open but the stick remained where it was, trapped between his fingers.
“See that?” Johnny asked. “If you try to hold that stick the way you normally would, in your fist, a good hard kick to your hand would knock it away. Holding it like this, though, it's not going anywhere. Your fingers lock it in place automatically. The same trick will work with a knife, if you ever get the chance to use one again.”
Carson stared at his hand for a moment, then looked up to Johnny. “But I still don't know how to use it as a weapon,” he said.
Johnny shrugged. “Well, it would be better if you had time to grind a point on it with a rock, but there aren't any rocks that big in there. Even blunt like this, though, it's still pretty effective. If you can find a piece like this inside the arena, you'll make yourself five times as dangerous as you are without it.”
Roscoe reached out and touched the hand that was still holding the stick in the unorthodox way. “You just turned your hand into a double-edged weapon,” he said. “You swing your hand side to side, and either way you got a hard end sticking out that's going to get somebody. You can poke it forward just by twisting your wrist a little bit, like if you want to stick it into somebody's eye, or poke them under the breast bone with it. If you stick them in the eye with it, they going to be thi
nking about nothing but their eyeball for a couple minutes, and they won't be able to see what you're doing. You get poked in one eye, both of them close down, know what I mean? And if you poke it hard right under the breastbone, you done knocked the breath out of somebody. Again, all they thinking about then is how to breathe, they don't be thinking about you.”
“Exactly,” Johnny said. “If you can get two sticks, then you got the same thing in both hands. The end of that stick is going to hurt somebody a lot worse than your soft little fists can ever dream of. We're going to start out with just one, because that's probably all you have time to get when it comes down to it, and we're going to show you how to use it. Come on, follow us.”
They walked away from the bush, and found a clear area where no one else was practicing. Roscoe stood to one side, while Johnny faced Carson.
“Take off your shoes, kick them over to the side, out of the way. You'll be barefoot in the arena, so you might as well get used to it.” Carson did as he was told, and then Johnny went on. “Okay, for right now, we're just going to practice some basics. What I want you to do is try to poke the stick into my hand.”
Carson's eyebrows went up. “What if I hurt you?”
Johnny laughed, and Roscoe joined in. “If you manage to hurt me, then I'm not paying attention. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Now, poke that stick into my hand, as hard as you can.” Johnny held up his right hand, palm forward.
Carson shrugged, then instantly shoved his hand forward with the end of the stick nearest his thumb pointing out in front. He made brief contact with Johnny's palm, but then the hand was moved.
“Again, keep it up. Every time my hand moves, you poke it again.”
Carson moved again, but this time the hand got out of the way. As soon as it stopped moving, Carson lunged at it again, catching it on the edge of the palm. Each time Johnny moved his hand, Carson went after it, and the more it moved, the harder Carson lunged. After several tries, he managed to catch Johnny's palm dead center, and grinned when the man yanked his hand away.