Gladiator (Gauntlet Prime Book 1)

by Barry Solway

  After introducing all the members, a table appeared with the individual scores of the team. Anna explained that the scores were general guidelines established by the game architects so the teams could be fairly matched. In this gauntlet, the architects limited each individual to no higher than a score of 45. Anna went down the list of the opposing team. The Whale was rated a 40. Wicked scored a 25. Mel frowned. Two team members had used up half of the total for the entire team. Junkyard was a 20 and Marksman came in at 15, while Things 1 and 2 were 12 points each. Mel’s understanding was that if someone had twice the score of another player, that person was considered twice as valuable. So, someone thought that two Junkyards were as valuable as one Whale.

  Mel leaned forward in surprise and morbid anticipation as the table of the opposing team’s scores vanished, to be replaced by a list of six members from their team, along with their scores. Mirage was at the top, with a score of 45. Next was Beast, with a score of 42. Impressive—two members of their team scored higher than the top member of the other team. But her sense of hope faded as she ran down the names. Jeff was next with a score of 12, followed by Jon at 10 and Nick at 8. And then her breath caught as she saw the last name on the list, also with a score of 8.

  The last name was hers.

  ***

  When they returned to the main room that night, Mel suffered a strange mixture of anxiety, exhaustion, and frenzied excitement. She wished she could jump into the match now and get it over with and doubted she would be able to sleep that night.

  Sitting with her back to the picture window, she looked up as Jeff sat next to her, casually putting an arm around her shoulders. She had completely forgotten about their conversation that morning, and didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to embarrass him in front of everyone. Even more concerning, she realized that she was already making strategies of her own. Maybe “dating” Jeff, or whatever you would call it when a prisoner on an alien spaceship, made sense. If they were in a match and Jeff had the choice of helping Nick, Jon or her, wouldn’t she rather it be her? Part of her felt that way, and she resented it. But she had been brought up in a world of dancing, gymnastic competitions and eventually going to college, not bloody battles to the death. Also, she really didn’t want Jeff to save her over anyone else. What she really wanted was for them all to get home, every one of them. She didn’t want to have to make decisions on who would have to live or die; just the thought of it made her ill.

  She was saved from further conversation by Riley and Beast. They sat against the wall to Mel and Jeff’s left, talking with Gorgeous and Nick. As the conversation grew louder, it drew the attention of everyone in the room. Riley was trying to explain rapping to the aliens.

  “No, no, there’s the music and lyrics, but it’s also about the flow and cadence. And there’s freestyle, where you try to come up with rhymes off the top of your head. With rap battles, you diss the other person, make fun of them and try to embarrass them but doing it with the best delivery.”

  “I’m not sure it’s really music if it’s just lyrics and rhymes,” Beast said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing as having a ‘battle’ by singing at one another.”

  “They have poetry contests on Sha Shahar,” Gorgeous said. “They can be quite entertaining. And I’ve seen them lead to fights. Mostly because they’re so bad someone wants the person to stop talking.”

  “There you go. We have more in common than you realize,” Riley said.

  “Show us these raps,” Gorgeous said. “I want to hear you engage in battle.”

  “What?” Riley said. “Uh. Rap battles aren’t really my thing. I’m more about building people up, you know? Anyway, there’s no one here to do one with.”

  “I’ll battle rap you,” Beast said.

  “It’s not ‘battle rap’,” Riley muttered.

  “Whatever you want to call it. Rap war. Battle rhymes. You go first and I will learn from you and then I’ll go.”

  “Are you two serious?” Sharon said. “This isn’t the time to have fun.”

  “Let them go,” Nick said. “I could use the comic relief.”

  “Okay,” Riley finally said. “I have this thing I was working on, you know, in my spare time between the seizures. Let me think how to end it. Right, I got it. You sure you want to do this, Beast? Rapping is harder than you think.”

  “What’s the worst that can happen? Tonight I embarrass myself, tomorrow I die horribly. Please, teach me,” Beast said, waving his huge hand at Riley.

  Riley took a deep breath. “It’s like this. Gotta do this with no backbeat. Not a problem….

  They tell me that I'm free to decide,

  Do what they say or lie here and die

  The man don’t listen when I just say no

  I'd fly away, but I ain't Han Solo

  Pay with blood – bet your ass

  Have a nice day at hotel Alcatraz

  Grade B sci-fi, slow motion riot

  Storm must be coming, all I hear is quiet

  Look I got a pair

  Of two's – not a straight flush

  No one said it was fair,

  Dealt a hand of bad luck.

  Enjoy the glitz, enjoy my wits

  Good as it gets, choke down some grits

  Hungry, angry, stabbed and maimed

  Hope you enjoy the Hangry Games.

  I ain't sad, just try to survive

  Ain't no one gets out of life alive

  Nosedive, revive

  No time to take five

  Being kidnapped is a handicap

  This mishap’s all gift wrapped.

  Now everyone get up and clap

  We got this white dude, who thinks he can rap.”

  “What!?” Nick said, clapping Riley on the back. “That was both hilarious and awesome.”

  “Did you seriously just make that up?” Mel said.

  “Just the end,” Riley said with a grin. “Gotta do something while ya’ll are in training. Alright, your turn Beast.”

  “Hmm… I’m not really sure I understand. You just string together a bunch of words?”

  “Yeah, but you got to get the rhythm. And the rhymes.”

  “When sentences end with the same sound? I didn’t hear any rhymes,” Beast said, looking at Gorgeous.

  She shrugged. “It sounded mostly like gibberish.”

  “I guess I can try,” Beast said, as he absently stroked his chin. He continued in a his deep voice. “A variation of the Wanderer’s Lament, a famous poem of my people.

  I’m a prisoner

  With strangers I don’t know,

  Who seem nice, but I don’t know them

  So it’s hard to tell.

  But we’ll go out tomorrow and fight together

  And hopefully we don’t die.

  I would tell you how bad you are

  And point out your flaws.

  But you’re sick and dying

  And I feel compassion

  For you, my friend.”

  Nick and Evan both fell over laughing.

  “Dude, that doesn’t even rhyme,” Riley said, trying to suppress his own laughter.

  “Of course it does,” Beast said. “It’s a sad rap, but the ending was quite poignant. I think it was excellent for my first time.”

  Riley shook his head and looked at Mel with a wry grin. “Baby steps. I’m going to have Anna change your name from Beast to Beats.”

  Beast growled in a way the translators said was laughter. Riley looked at him, his expression suddenly serious. “And one other thing. You’re not allowed to die tomorrow. But I’m glad to call you my friend.”

  Chapter 16

  Mel couldn’t help staring curiously at Anna. Everyone else had bags under their eyes and fidgeted like they were ill. Nick wrapped his arms around his midsection and rocked in place. But Anna moved with relaxed efficiency. Mel had no idea how the girl could keep so calm, although she supposed it helped that Anna didn’t have to participate.

  Tem
peratures planet-side would be hot and they already had concerns about Beats overheating. To keep him from having to trek any farther than necessary, they decided to have Beats and Nick go to the city center instead of the blue zone. Once at the city center, Beats and Nick would head towards the blue zone with the intention that Mirage and the others would already have the goal and would meet them along the way. Then they would all head for the red zone. The AI predicted that the Whale and the rest of the team would try for the blue zone but would take so long to get there that the humans and Mirage should have a good chance to find it first. This didn’t make sense to Mel; it didn’t seem like the Whale would do any better in the dry heat than Beats. Her faith in this AI of Kathor’s was definitely strained.

  Anna took them to an equipment room and showed them the clothes and packs they would be equipped with. She told the others to get dressed, then asked Mirage to follow her out to the hallway.

  They had some flexibility on clothing, but weren’t allowed to take weapons or anything with a power source larger than a watch. While they couldn’t bring weapons, they were free to find or improvise weapons once on the ground, although Mel and the others didn’t intend to engage in any fighting if they could help it. They ended up with tan versions of their normal outfits, but the tops were long-sleeved, the slippers were replaced with sturdy boots and they were each given a pack. Going through her pack, Mel found meal rations for a day, a gallon jug of water, a round piece of tan fabric that might be useful as a hat, a small wand that served as a flashlight, an electronic device that was a combined watch and compass, and a map of the city. She put the watch on and repacked the rest of the gear.

  After they were dressed, Anna and Mirage returned and Anna took them to a room that was similar to the one with the escape pods. They went through an airlock to a ship about the size of a large bus. The dropship had hard bench seats in a row along the walls and no windows. Webbing along the walls provided a strapping system that worked for most body types. Mel could feel the ship moving and gasped when the gravity cut off. She hadn’t even thought about how the main ship had gravity, it was just something she had always taken for granted.

  The trip through space was uneventful but it was obvious when they started to enter the planet’s atmosphere. The temperature in the dropship jumped at least fifteen degrees. The shuddering of the ship was nerve-wracking; occasionally it would pitch sideways or drop like a stone. Surprisingly, none of them threw up, although she thought it was close a few times.

  Finally, the dropship evened out and flew relatively normally. A brief descent ended with a thud as they dropped straight down to land. As the doors in the back folded open, they got their first view of the deserted alien city.

  They had landed in the middle of a large square, the intersection of two major roads through the city. She had a mild sense of vertigo, looking at the towering buildings. The architecture of the buildings was strangely familiar, basically very tall rectangles. There were only so many ways to build tall buildings, she guessed, but she almost felt disappointed. If she squinted, it could have been any major city on Earth, except for the state of ruin.

  “Well, that’s a lovely dystopian nightmare,” Beats said casually. “I don’t suppose any cafes will still be open?”

  None of them had moved, until a voice suddenly blared on a loudspeaker, telling them to get off the ship. Mel reluctantly removed her harness and stood up. No one was there to greet them. Anna said the game started the moment they hit the ground and they shouldn’t waste any time.

  “Why the hell are we getting off the ship?” Jon shouted. Mel turned to see Jeff adjusting his pack, but Nick and Jon were still buckled in. Mirage scuttled off the ship and into the bright daylight, and Beats crouched behind Mel, unable to stand up.

  “You know why,” Jeff said. “If we don’t, Kathor will eat your brains. Get the hell up and let’s get this over with.”

  Jon swore but finally stood, kicking Nick until he undid his harness. Nick shook and kept holding his stomach, but he didn’t talk. There was nothing to say and Mel walked out behind Mirage as the others followed.

  Dust swirled around her feet. It was still early morning, but the sun, just above the horizon, already burned with a brutal heat. It must have been almost 100 degrees and Anna thought it would reach 120 by noon. Forget Beats and the Whale, Mel wasn’t sure she would be able to handle this. And she would have to cover at least three miles to the goal, then another four and a half to the gate. She wasn’t sure she had ever walked that far in her life.

  Adjusting the backpack on her shoulders, she turned to the others. The strategy was to use speed to get the goal as quickly as possible and they didn’t have time to waste. Mel pulled out her map of the city and reviewed the route the computer had planned for them. The ship’s ramp closed and they all cleared away as the ship rose into the sky and disappeared. They were officially on their own.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Jeff said, calling everyone together.

  “This heat is horrible. I’m going to die if it gets any hotter,” Nick complained.

  “You’ll be fine,” Jeff said curtly. Mel felt both annoyed and relieved that Jeff was trying to run the show. Anyway, it was just for show. They all knew what to do.

  “It is a beautiful day!” Mirage said. Mirage talked so infrequently, that Mel was still getting used to hearing her. Unlike Gorgeous and Beats, Mel never heard any sounds from Mirage. A cheerful female voice would just sound in Mel’s head, which was disconcerting and one more thing to add to Mirage’s weirdness.

  Mirage didn’t have a backpack. The alien’s lower half started to morph as the five long tentacles drew up slightly into her body and the upper half squished downwards. At the end, Mirage was about a foot tall and three feet long. She looked like a long, wide skateboard resting on several dozen tentacles about six inches long each.

  “Goodness, I haven’t had this much fun in ages! Enjoy yourselves. Remember, don’t get killed!” A thin tentacle emerged from the top and waved to them, then the dozens of tentacles on the bottom started churning and Mirage headed off down the road. She was moving fast enough that Mel doubted she could keep up with her even at a full run. And apparently Mirage was going to go that speed the whole way to the blue zone, which would put her there in about fifteen minutes.

  “You know, the really, really weird thing about Mirage? She reminds me of Ms. Chiperowski,” Nick said. Getting out of the ship and moving around must have helped Nick settle, as he looked marginally better than a few moments before.

  Mel laughed. Actually, their eighth grade English teacher’s name had been Ms. Chipowski, but everyone called her Chipperowski. “She is a bit chipper isn’t she?”

  “And almost as weird. Maybe Chipperowski was an alien,” Nick said.

  “I seem to remember having that discussion more than once.” Mel checked her watch. “It’s going to take us at least an hour, so we better get moving.”

  Jeff nodded as Jon stared off into the distance with a gloomy expression.

  “This is stupid,” Jon muttered. “We should just hide until it’s over. Let the other team win. Who cares?”

  Mel had thought the same thing. “If we don’t win, we don’t get home. If we’re useless, Kathor will just kill us. You know that.”

  “Whatever,” Jon said, adjusting his backpack.

  Mel patted Beats’s hip, which came up almost to her shoulder. “Ready?”

  Beats nodded. “I’ll walk with you for a bit. I’m afraid I have to agree with Nick, though. I am most certainly not designed for this hellscape.”

  They started off at a quick walk. Jeff led them to the side of the road that was still in the shade, which helped considerably. Beats’s long legs covered the distance fast, and Mel had to almost jog to keep up with him. But that didn’t last. Within ten minutes, Beats started to flag and Mel could see that he was breathing very heavy. The fur around his head and shoulders was covered in sweat, but given his heavy breathing she
wondered if he expelled heat the same way animals did, by panting.

  Mel had to admit the body suits worked well. She wasn’t too hot as long as she kept moving and it was almost enjoyable to finally be out of the spaceship and able to really move around. They finally stopped, as Beats needed to rest. Nick wasn’t doing much betters, his face red and blotchy as he wheezed from the fast walk. After grabbing a quick drink, they split up. Mel, Jeff and Jon followed Mirage’s path while Beats and Nick turned left to head directly to the city center.

  Jeff set a pretty quick pace, somewhere between a fast walk and a slow jog. While she didn’t think she could keep it up for long, she also didn’t want to complain. The two boys had the advantage of practicing football in the summer, and were relatively used to the heat.

  After thirty minutes, she called for a rest break. The dust was getting in her throat and her mouth felt like sand. The fronts of her hips were starting to hurt from the repetitive motion of jogging that she wasn’t used to.

  “Keep it quick. We need to meet Mirage,” Jeff said.

  “What’s the hurry?” Jon replied. “Mirage can handle herself. If we take long enough, maybe she’ll already have the goal.”

  “I’m not worried about her, I’m worried about us. I’d rather be with Mirage in case anyone shows up,” Jeff said.

  Mel reappraised Jeff. He didn’t seem to be fond of the aliens and in particular seemed to resent Beats. But he was being realistic about their chances, and he was right. It would be far better to have Mirage around to protect them than to be off on their own.

  They put away their water bottles and decided to snack while walking. As they headed out, Jon pointed ahead. Three blocks away, a vehicle was parked along the side of the street. There were a few abandoned vehicles, but this particular truck-like vehicle was parked in the center of the road and seemed to be relatively in one piece compared to all the others. Three humanoid forms were walking towards it from one of the buildings.