by Barry Solway
“Get away from him!” she yelled. She pulled the trigger, just feet from Junkyard. And froze in horror as nothing happened. The magazine was out. How many shots had she fired? Only a few, but she realized she had never checked the magazine. Stupid mistake. Junkyard had leaned back in expectation of the shot, but snarled when he realized her pistol was empty. He rolled forward and came up, grabbing Mel by the throat with a metallic arm.
Mel gurgled and tried to yank his hand off, but his grip was too tight. There was a flash of movement to her right as Jeff tackled Junkyard, sending them all crashing to the ground. Rolling free, Mel gagged as she sucked air through a bruised windpipe. Jeff had landed on Junkyard and pinned him to the ground, smashing him with his fists. Junkyard’s mechanical arm fended Jeff off, pushing him away so Junkyard could sit up. Mel darted back in, attacking Junkyard from behind. She tried to remember the grappling lessons, but had no idea if she was doing it right. On instinct, she wrapped one arm around Junkyard’s neck and threw her leg over the mechanical arm, trying to hold it down. Dragging Junkyard down allowed Jeff to sit up and rain blows on Junkyard’s unprotected head. The arm Mel held was strong, but wrapping both her legs around it kept it from attacking Jeff.
Mel surveyed the rest of the battle. Gorgeous fought both Soryda and Thing 3. The lemur was definitely different from the other two. He was stockier and moved with fluid, fast motions, like a squirrel. He looked like he had seen many battles, with a large scar across his face and patches of fur missing. He dived over and around Gorgeous while Soryda spun her staff relentlessly. But Gorgeous was amazing. Maybe she was worth that 40 after all. She easily parried the blows from Soryda and somehow managed to avoid every attack from Thing 3. Short, compact movements created an illusion of unnatural speed. Mostly, Gorgeous was always in the right place at the right time, like she could anticipate what was going to happen. Thing 3 darted in and Gorgeous spun to avoid him, casually blocking a strike from Soryda to finish the spin and stab Thing 3 in the back with her knife. He shrieked and then fell to the ground, unmoving.
Mel brought her attention back to Junkyard. Jeff’s fist was a bloody mix of green and red. Junkyard felt limp in her arms, his mechanical arm no longer pulling at her, and his right hand had fallen limply to his side instead of trying to fend off Jeff’s strikes.
“Jeff, stop!” Mel yelled. “He’s done. He’s out.”
There was a feral light in Jeff’s eyes, one of uncontrollable rage. Mel called out to him again, using her free arm to try and block Jeff’s strike from hitting Junkyard. She unwrapped her legs from the cyborg’s arm and sat up, putting her body across Junkyard’s bloody face.
Jeff tried to push her out of the way. Twisting to face him, she looked up to see a fist raised above his head, aimed at her. The look in his eyes sent a shiver through her stomach.
“Jeff. Jeff, it’s me. Stop, please.”
Jeff was sucking in air, his face red. He blinked in confusion as the anger slowly faded.
“Mel?” Jeff lowered his fist. Now Jeff almost looked sick. “Mel, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
The shot rang out from across the plaza. Jeff slammed forward into Mel, knocking them both to the ground. She felt like someone had punched her in the stomach, then her midsection went numb. Pushing Jeff away, she felt the blood seeping from her abdomen, where the round had gone through Jeff and hit her.
Jeff lay half across her, wheezing and spitting blood. “Jeff, ohmygod, Jeff, please don’t die, don’t leave, please, I can’t—”
Jeff twitched his arm enough to grab her hand. “I wanted to do more… wanted to protect you…”
Mel reached down, pressing her hand into her belly to try and stop the blood flow. Oddly, she couldn’t feel any pain.
“You did protect me. You did. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should never have said what I said. Don’t leave me, please, please—”
“It’s okay,” Jeff said, his voice barely a whisper. “Hope you get home. Try for me. And Evan. Try—” Jeff’s words cut off as he gurgled, then lay still.
Another shot rang out and a bullet ripped into Jeff’s leg. “Stop shooting him!” she screamed. “Stop it! Leave us alone!”
Another shot rang out, from behind her. Twisting her head, she saw Jon lying prone with the rifle.
“Got him,” Jon said with a haggard, joyless smile. But it was short-lived as Soryda cracked him on the head from behind with her staff. He collapsed and Soryda picked up the rifle. She didn’t look good, with a gash on her leg and another across her face. Mel wasn’t sure, but she thought one of the tentacles on her face had been cut off. Soryda whipped the rifle around just as Gorgeous came up on her side. The shot boomed across the plaza, but it was wide. Gorgeous spun under the rifle and knocked Soryda hard on the head with the knife handle. Soryda fell to the ground over Jon and didn’t move.
A red flare lit up the sky. The signal that the goal had been returned to the red zone and the match was won. Sharon had done it. Gazing around at the carnage, Mel wondered how long they had fought. Two minutes? Two centuries? It seemed like it must have been several lifetimes and yet no time at all had passed.
She forced herself to look at Jeff. The blood had stopped bubbling out of the wound in his chest, which had ceased to rise and fall. More blood pooled around Jon’s head, but she couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. And Evan was gone. On the other team, Carun and Thing 3 were dead. Junkyard was a bloody, unconscious mess, along with Soryda. Jon thought he had hit Marksman, but Mel didn’t know whether that meant he was dead or not.
So much bloodshed. And for nothing. Jeff, Evan, and Nick would never get home. Death stood a hair’s breadth away for Riley and the rest of them. She had been a fool, and she was done. This horror show, what she was becoming, was unbearable. She couldn’t look at Jeff’s unblinking eyes anymore. He had asked her, told her, to try and get home. Guilt rose in her chest as she realized she no longer wanted to.
Gorgeous crouched next to her. Mel kept her hands on her stomach, feeling the blood seeping between her fingers.
“Sharon did it. We won,” Gorgeous said. Flat, emotionless.
“There is no winning, Gorgeous. We survived. Some of us.” She felt that familiar cold feeling creeping over her, from the loss of blood. This time, the tears didn’t come.
“You’ve had worse. Hold on, Mel. We’ll get you medical care.”
Mel grabbed Gorgeous’s arm. “You don’t understand. I can’t feel my legs or my waist. The bullet hit my spine.”
Gorgeous’s blank stare turned to a mix of despair and horror. “Kathor will heal you.”
“I don’t want to be healed. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired of watching people I care about die. I want it to end.” Mel couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had given up. But she had never felt so empty before. There was nothing she could do. She had promised to save them and had failed.
The roar of ships landing in the plaza sounded behind Gorgeous. She shifted out of Mel’s view, waving to someone. Mel’s head tilted sideways and she saw Gorgeous’s long knives sitting on the ground, within arm’s reach. Curiously, she reached out to gently touch one of the blades.
Picking up one of the knives, she spun it in her hand and held it firmly in an icepick grip. Frantic yelling in the background faded from her consciousness. It almost felt like she was floating. Setting the point of the blade on her stomach, she pushed. An odd sensation in her stomach, not of pain, but as if someone were pulling at her insides. Fresh blood squirted between her fingers and she gasped, even though she couldn’t exactly feel it. She pulled the knife out, her strength starting to fade, then plunged it back in. She didn’t have the strength to do it again. A smile played across her face as a shadow above her blocked the light. It may have been Kathor, but her vision was fading. A thought played over and over in her mind as she fell into unconsciousness. She wanted to tell him, but the sounds wouldn’t come out of her mouth.
I’m free, asshole.
Gasping, Mel drew in an eager lungful of air and her eyes flew open. Her entire body spasmed, every muscle fiber clenching at once, heart hammering in her chest. Like a switch being thrown, one moment there had been nothingness and then…
She didn’t need to look around to know where she was. Her eyes closed as a tear slid down her face. “No, no, no,” she whispered. The whisper grew to an anguished scream that echoed through the small room.
Chapter 32
Days had passed and she hadn’t spoken a word. Eventually the sobbing had faded into a deathlike stillness inside of her. She couldn’t save anyone, not Nick or Jeff or Evan or herself. Even worse, she would never be free. Unable to escape, even through death, she was cursed to watch the others die around her.
They never found Evan’s body. Jeff had died of a gunshot wound through his lung, drowned in his own blood. Jon had suffered a skull fracture, a severe concussion and several broken ribs. Only Sharon had made it relatively unscathed.
Anna stood behind her, telling her to eat. That’s how it had gone for three days. Letting her body move on autopilot was easier than ignoring Anna.
Riley walked in. He’d been doing much better since she returned from the last game. This would have puzzled her if she had the energy to care. He should be rotting away, dying slowly before her eyes. They had even had a conversation about her killing him if his condition got too bad. Another way for the universe to torture her. The fact that he seemed in good health and happy didn’t mesh with her idea of how her world worked.
Riley ate as if each meal was his first. While still skinny, he now looked healthy and active. Apparently, the new medicine Anna gave him had finally cured his sickness. He was also weirdly cheerful, something that Mel couldn’t stand to be around. And today was the first day Anna had cleared him for full training.
When Riley tried to joke with Sharon, Mel put her fork down and left. She didn’t want to joke or to laugh or to see happiness. She didn’t want to have friends. Friends that would just die in front of her. Friends she couldn’t protect.
Slowly, she wandered the ship, eventually ending up at the training hall well before the others. With nothing else to do, she moved to the firing range and took out a pistol. Round after round blasted in her ears, each one obliterating the thoughts that tried to form in her mind. Firing the pistol was one of the few things that kept her sane. She paused for a moment at that thought. Was she sane? She doubted it. Firing the pistol wasn’t about staying sane, it was about staying in a state of nothingness.
The others filed in a bit later to start their training, but she ignored them. An increase in her confidence after the last game led Sharon to study the techniques for explosives that Evan had worked on. Sharon had been upset that she won the game for them but no one could really bring themselves to celebrate because Jeff and Evan had died in the process.
The team stood at seven: Beats, Mirage, Gorgeous, Sharon, Jon, Mel and Riley, assuming he could actually compete. Beats was training again with his staff while Gorgeous worked through a mini obstacle course, doing an alien version of parkour to navigate the walls and other obstacles.
Mirage waved to her as she trundled in, but Mel didn’t respond. As she turned away, she saw Mirage frozen with a tentacle in the air for several seconds, before it finally dropped. While it was hard to say what Mirage was doing at any given moment, Mel thought she looked confused. Mirage waved again to Mel as if nothing had happened, then headed over to the training course. The shape-changer seemed to be getting weirder by the day, but Mel couldn’t muster the energy to care.
Riley stretched, practically buzzing with energy. Mel cast a quick glance in his direction, but looked away as soon as he caught her eye.
“What should I do first?” Riley asked Anna.
“I want to run some physical tests,” she said. “You’re doing great, but you’ve been sick for weeks, so let’s take it slow.”
“I don’t want to take it slow,” Riley protested. “Jeez, I’ve barely been able to get out of bed for three weeks, and I feel great now! I want to run, man. Or play on a jungle gym. This is going to be awesome.”
“One step at a time,” Anna said.
She put Riley on a treadmill. After ten minutes of that, she made him stretch and then do some calisthenics. Halfway through, Riley glared at Anna.
“This is boring! C’mon, I want to do something real.”
Anna raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
Riley looked around the room and his eyes landed on Gorgeous. “The obstacle course. I’ve rock-climbed before… it’s like that, right? That would be cool.”
Anna checked her notes and then examined Riley with narrowed eyes. “I’m worried about you going too hard too soon and hurting yourself.”
“I’ll be careful, Mom,” Riley said sarcastically.
Anna’s mouth twitched slightly. “Fine. You can go through the course, but take your time and don’t go full out. Use it as a chance to stretch and explore.”
Riley moved to the beginning of the obstacles. Gorgeous struggled to climb a twelve-foot-high wall. There were small indentations along the wall that provided meager hand and foot grips, but she couldn’t make it more than eight feet up before losing a grip and falling back down.
“Hey, pretty lady, jump out of the way,” Riley called to Gorgeous. “I can’t have you distract me, or Mom over here will get upset.”
Gorgeous shrugged and made her way back to the beginning of the course to stand next to Riley. “That wall is horrible. We changed the handholds out and they’re so small now. Try to get a running start and aim for that bigger one halfway up. My record is forty-seven seconds, by the way.”
Riley grinned. “If I beat your record, I get a kiss, right?”
Gorgeous punched him lightly on the arm. “I’m sure Anna would love to give you a kiss.”
Riley made a face and glanced sideways at Anna. She raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.
“Here we go,” Riley said. “Nice and easy.”
Even Mel stopped shooting to watch Riley. The obstacle course started with a narrow cylinder about twenty feet long that you had to run on while it rotated under your feet. That led to a small tilting platform. From there, a jump to catch the bottom of a thick net, then a climb along the underside of the net to ten tall posts about five inches wide on the top. Hopping from post to post would land you on a narrow walkway. At the end of the walkway was the wall Gorgeous got stuck on. From the top of the wall, there was a jump to a series of hoops. Swinging from hoop to hoop landed you on the floor and a final series of boxlike obstacles from three to six feet high. But there were also large cylinders that swung across the path so you had to time the swinging of the cylinders while jumping the obstacles.
Riley rubbed his hands, then froze for a moment, staring intently at the course. Mel had never thought of Riley as particularly physical, but he’d mentioned doing track and basketball in high school. Suddenly, he exploded forward, landing on the cylinder at a run, four feet past the starting point. The cylinder rotated underneath him and he lurched forward as his foot shot off to the side. But it didn’t slow his momentum as he reached out and did a one-handed cartwheel on the cylinder, landing on his other foot and completing the run to the platform.
Mel blinked. That had been so quick, she wasn’t even sure what happened. Riley had just done a cartwheel on a rotating cylinder while running at full speed. What the hell?
Riley barely stopped at the platform, but leaped to catch the bottom of the net nearly halfway across. He scampered across the bottom of the net like an upside-down spider, then did a backflip to land in a crouch on one of the posts, both feet together on the narrow surface. He paused for a moment to look at the posts, then made a quick series of six hops from one post to another without pause. He skipped over four of the posts in the process. Jumping down from the final post, he rolled as he hit the ground and was up in an instant, running towards the wall that had caused Go
rgeous problems. His eyes were on the handhold halfway up, but something in his posture changed as he approached the wall. His gaze shifted up as he leaped. His hands reached high and managed to grab the top of the wall, twelve feet off the ground.
Riley used the momentum of the jump to swing himself over the wall in one motion. He grabbed the first hoop without a pause and swung nimbly from one hoop to the other. He landed on the floor and paused to look at the swinging cylinders. The last run was fifteen yards. Moving with sudden grace, he leaped the first obstacle, dived over the second, rolled under a cylinder and surged forward. He cleared the remaining boxes with ease, either directly jumping them or diving and rolling as he hit the floor. On the last obstacle, he bounced off the top and did a flip to land on the finish line.
He teetered for a second, then threw his hands up. “Whoo-hoo! Did y’all see that? What was my time?”
Anna looked up from her tablet. “I didn’t time it. That was impressive, but I’d like to run some medical diagnostics before you do any more.”
“Man, you are killing my buzz. Can’t a guy have some fun?”
Mel put down her pistol and faced Riley.
“Do you really think this is for fun, Riley?” she said quietly.
Riley’s grin faded slightly. “Kathor did this to you. A medical procedure to make you stronger and faster. It killed the other humans he tried it on—the zombies—and it almost killed you. But they figured it out and now… what? You’re a mutant superhero. And your reward is that you get to go into the gauntlets and kill people. And watch your teammates die while you wait for your turn to be killed. So yeah, congratulations. Should be lots of fun.”