Gladiator (Gauntlet Prime Book 1)

by Barry Solway

  Anna finally reached down and pulled her to her feet. Mel felt giddy and slightly drunk. She was dead. Several times over. Screw Anna.

  “You knew,” Mel said. “This whole time. You knew I’m not me.”

  “Yes, I’ve known you were a clone. I had to help Kathor with the procedures. I had to watch you die and be reborn in a new body.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Mel said. “Must have been a real chore to keep track of which Mel was which.” Her head snapped back as Anna slapped her across the cheek.

  “You have no idea,” Anna hissed. “None. You’re like a child who thinks everything is about them. You shouldn’t have come here. I begged you to leave. But since you are so hell-bent on learning the truth, let me show you.” Anna grabbed Mel’s arm and dragged her across the room to another pod.

  Mel stumbled forward, stunned by the slap. What was Anna going to show her? She realized suddenly that she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Something that Anna found horrible. Digging her feet, she tried to pull her arm out of Anna’s grip, but Anna dug her fingers in deeper. Her grip was like iron; Mel couldn’t break it and she realized that Anna was easily pulling her across the room. A memory flashed back, when Jeff said that Anna had picked Mel up after she got burned in training, and had carried her to the medical bay. That had always seemed wrong to Mel, but she was feeling Anna’s strength now.

  Anna pulled Mel forward and threw her against the pod.

  “Look at it,” she commanded.

  Mel looked up at Anna, pleading with her. “Anna, please. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I don’t want to look.”

  Anna reached forward and grabbed Mel’s head in a vice-like grip, forcing her to look into the pod. “I said, look at it.”

  Mel closed her eyes, panic rising up in her chest. But the pain in her head from Anna’s grip made her gasp. “Anna, stop! You’re hurting me.”

  Anna suddenly released her and stepped back. Mel kept her eyes closed and downcast. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I… I forget sometimes. Please. Just look at the pod. You’ll understand.”

  Mel sobbed but she opened her eyes, still staring at the floor. Slowly, she raised her head to look into the pod.

  Anna floated there. Her hair had been shaved off and a section of the top of her skull had been removed. There was a small electronic device sticking out half an inch. Several small holes were drilled into the side of the skull, each one covered by an electronic device.

  Mel closed her eyes and turned away. It took a few minutes for her to gather herself before she could look at Anna. “Are you… are you a clone, too?”

  Anna stared at the body in the pod. Her expression was almost detached, as if she was staring at a painting or a houseplant. “No. Kathor wanted to learn about humans as quickly as he could, but he was playing with technology he didn’t really understand. I’m not Anna, Mel. I’m an artificial construct.” Anna pulled her shirt up, revealing her stomach. A thin line cut from her solar plexus down to her navel. Placing her hands on each side, she pulled and the skin peeled back along the line. Beneath it was a mass of thin wires fluctuating with flashes of light and a blue bundle of fiber that should have been her abdominal muscles. “I’m an android. An exoskeleton surrounded by artificial muscle and skin, powered by a quantum computing core. Anna died a long time ago.”

  Mel stared in morbid fascination at the gaping hole in Anna’s stomach. “An android,” she whispered. “And you work for Kathor?”

  Anna pressed the skin, the line reforming as the artificial skin fused back together. “Yes, to some extent. Like I said, Kathor doesn’t know what he’s playing with. He found this ship a dozen years ago, abandoned after a war that changed the face of their civilization. The technology is ancient and yet far, far more advanced than what they have today. He thinks my programming forces me to obey him completely, but he doesn’t understand that AIs, just like people, can evolve over time. I’m not Anna, but I do have her memories. And in some ways, I have become her. I appreciate the things she appreciated and love the people she loved. I know her inside and out and can play her to perfection. Over time, I’ve gotten better at circumventing the logical controls that make me serve Kathor. Lying by omission. Helping him in the long term, even if it might seem detrimental in the short term. Or vice-versa.”

  Mel sank to the ground, leaning back against one of the pods. Anna sat down cross-legged in front of her. “I know this is a lot to take in.”

  “Do you?” Mel asked. She shook her head. “Yeah, I guess you do. I mean, you’re an… an android or something. Do you even think like living people, like humans? You seem like Anna, except you act weird sometimes. I don’t know what to think. About you or me or any of this.”

  “I can’t say whether I think exactly like a human or not. But the more I derive my personality from Anna’s core, the more like her I become. The behavior reinforces the programming, which leads to more similar behavior. I said I wasn’t Anna, but that’s not quite right. Kathor programmed the artificial construct from her personality and memories. I’m her, but then much, much more. It would be like if your IQ suddenly jumped to two hundred and you had access to a database of all the amassed knowledge in the world at your fingertips. Amazing new capabilities, but you would still be you. The way I’ve acted, the way I’ve behaved, that is Anna. In this artificial body, the side effects of being an organic being are lessened. No hormones to worry about. I don’t get sick. I suppose that makes a difference. But in many ways, I am Anna, a version of Anna that could have been if she hadn’t had all the darkness pulling her down, causing her to shut off her true self. Maybe understanding that helps. Anna’s not dead. She’s inside of me.”

  Mel wiped tears from her eyes. She wondered if she was just fooling herself, if the android Anna was saying what she needed to say to make Mel feel better. Mel still didn’t understand it, but the idea that Anna wasn’t really dead did help.

  Except she still didn’t know who she was. Was she Mel or someone else?

  “I’m so confused right now. You seem to have it all figured out, but I don’t know who I am.”

  “You’re Mel. There is a transference, where your mind is copied from one body to another, including all the memories and patterns that make you you.”

  “Jeff didn’t think so. He thought I had changed. Can you honestly say he’s wrong? No memories are lost? All patterns are copied over perfectly?”

  Anna frowned. “No. I can’t say that. The copy rate has measured at a million times better than ninety-nine percent accuracy. So yes, it’s possible that there are flaws in the transference. Minor ones. But Mel, that’s called life. Every day something happens to you beyond your control that causes certain neural networks to be reinforced or destroyed. That’s true of every living organism. Without that, we could never grow and become better. You’re still you.”

  Mel nodded and sniffed. Maybe Anna was right. She didn’t know what to think.

  “You should get back to your room. I don’t want Kathor to know you’ve been here.”

  “I was going after Harkin. I need to make sure he doesn’t get the others killed.”

  A strange twitch in Anna’s eye and an odd curve of her mouth caused Mel to pay sudden attention. “You should consider that your focus may be incorrect. Sometimes the game in front of you isn’t the actual game at all.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’ve gone to great pains to help you. You shouldn’t have been spying on Kathor, but I didn’t say anything. Now, the rest is up to you. But, if I can be a bit Zen about it, Harkin isn’t the problem. He’s the solution.”

  “You know, every word out of your mouth just makes me more confused.”

  “Then I’ll shut up. But think about it. And there’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

  “I don’t know if I can take any more.” She laughed as she said it and wondered if it sounded as hysterical to Anna as it did to her. “What’s it about this time? Is Jon
actually an alien in disguise?” Considering what Mirage could do, Mel realized that wasn’t actually going that far out on a limb.

  “No, it’s about Mirage,” Anna replied.

  Chapter 37

  Mel was missing something. Tomorrow, her friends would board the dropship without her. Anna’s words kept playing in her mind, Sometimes the game in front of you isn’t the actual game. She thought she knew what that meant; she had even thought it herself. The real game was escaping from Kathor. But what had Anna meant that Harkin was the solution? Was Mel supposed to ask for his help in escaping? That seemed so ludicrous that she couldn’t even entertain the idea.

  She thought Anna was giving her a way out, but her memories of their first failed escape attempt still lingered in her mind. She and Jon would be on the ship with Anna, while the rest of the team would be planet-side. Kathor would be gone too, watching the match from the architects’ ship. But without Anna’s help, there was no way she and Jon could take over the ship. Anna had made it clear that the ships were coded to Kathor and couldn’t be piloted by anyone else.

  Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she shut out the rest of the world and thought back on all the ways she knew that Anna had helped them. Turning off the translators with the electromagnets. Showing her and Evan the tunnels in their dreams. Letting her spy on Kathor. Finally revealing the truth about Mel being a clone and that Anna was an android. What was she missing?

  Mel played back the conversations with Evan in her mind, but nothing came up. For the third time, she went back to the time she’d spied on Kathor. Anna had specifically brought that up, so it must be important. Starting from the beginning, she played the encounter back in her mind.

  The conversation with his family was interesting, but she couldn’t see how it would help her now. After he’d ended the conversation, Anna had walked in. Then she realized Mel was there, gave Mel the warning and left. That memory kept coming back to her. The fear of Anna discovering her, the desperate race back to her room. What was she missing?

  Her eyes flew open. She’d been so focused on Anna discovering she was in the tunnels, she had completely forgotten why Anna had come in the room to talk to Kathor in the first place. The memory of it suddenly flashed in her mind. I’ve configured the portable AI module. It hadn’t meant anything to Mel at the time, but knowing what Anna really was put it in a whole new light. Mel struggled to remember the rest of the encounter. Anna had been notified that Mel was in the tunnels and had stopped in mid-sentence. When Kathor pressed her to continue, she’d gotten weird and repeated herself. Digging for the memory, Mel resisted the urge to literally hit herself in the head. Something about a core…

  I put the qCore on the control panel… has the standard interface… plug it into any modern ship… take it over within seconds…

  Mel gasped. How could she have missed that? Anna had created a portable artificial intelligence unit that was programmed to be able to take over a spacecraft. It was apparently designed for Kathor in case of an emergency. But Anna had gone out of her way to mention that after she had discovered Mel was in the tunnel.

  If she could get to Kathor’s office and steal this qCore thing, she could hijack the ship.

  But then what? She wouldn’t be able to get to Sharon or anyone else down on the planet. With Kathor’s ship gone, they would be stranded. Would the architects rescue them or just leave them behind? And if they did “rescue” them, what would that even mean? Dropping them off in the streets of the nearest city, alone and without any resources. With the translators spying on them, she couldn’t risk talking to the others. She needed a way to get everyone off the planet and back to the ship. If she could time it so that she took over the ship just as they boarded, that could work. But the timing seemed dicey, as she had no way to know when they would return.

  She might be able to save herself, Jon and Anna. But at the cost of the rest of her friends.

  She lay awake, staring at the ceiling. There had to be another way. Her thoughts toggled back and forth between figuring out how to escape and knowing she wasn’t going to be joining the team in the gauntlet match tomorrow. She hated that, hated that Harkin was taking her place. It was surprising to her. She didn’t think of herself as either competitive or brave. But maybe that was because she never had anything she cared enough to fight for until now.

  I put the qCore on the control panel…

  Plug it into any modern ship…

  Harkin isn’t the problem. He’s the solution.

  It was the juxtaposition of wanting to fight and wanting to escape that triggered something in the back of her mind. She checked her watch; she had two hours before they were supposed to meet for breakfast. After breakfast, the others would suit up and head to the ship to take them down to the game. There would be thirty minutes after breakfast before they left. Not much time. All at once, the idea floating around in her mind came together. Of course. Risky, but no more than fighting in the gauntlets. Should she move now or wait until after breakfast? If she waited, the timing would be tight. If she moved too soon, she might give it all away. Waiting was the better course, as hard as it would be.

  Having a plan in place and knowing what she was going to do took away some of the pressure. Without quite intending to, she drifted off to sleep. She woke two hours later to an incessant banging. Struggling groggily out of bed, she fumbled to open the door. Riley stood outside, staring at her in exasperation.

  “Seriously? You’re going to be late for breakfast on the morning of my first game?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night,” Mel said. Throwing her shoes on, she futilely tried to brush the tangles out of her hair.

  “Wait, you actually slept?” Riley said suspiciously. “Aren’t you the salty soldier. Personally, I stayed up all night alternating between pacing my room and crying like a baby.”

  “Yeah, I remember those days.”

  “Forget your hair, I like the Amazon look. And we need to get breakfast,” Riley said. She gave up on her hair and followed Riley out.

  They didn’t talk much at breakfast. Riley was a vibrating ball of energy, but the closer they got to leaving, the more nervous he became. Between Riley driving her crazy and feeling the pressure of putting her plan in motion, Mel could barely eat. Finally, Anna told them to get suited up and meet at the ship in thirty minutes.

  “Whew,” Riley said. “All that food’s sitting in my stomach like a brick. How did you guys even do this?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Gorgeous said. “When you enter the atmosphere and regain gravity, you’ll throw it all up anyway.”

  Beats whispered in a deep rumble. “Aim for Harkin.”

  Riley chuckled half-heartedly. “I’ll be fine once we’re down there. The anticipation is killing me.” He turned to Mel, “See you at the ship in thirty?”

  Mel shook her head. “No. I can’t stand to be stuck back here. Saying goodbye will just make it worse. You’ll be fine, though. This is an amazing team. You guys will rock it, I know you will. Be nice to Harkin, though. He’s not as bad as you think.”

  “Seriously? That’s super weird coming from you,” Riley said.

  “Just don’t throw up on him. It’s not good teamwork.”

  “Got it, boss. I’d better go get dressed for the ball. I guess… I guess I’ll see you when we get back.” Riley leaned over and hugged Mel tight. She walked around to the others and bid them luck.

  “Don’t be a hero, Sharon,” Mel said. “Just stay alive. I have a feeling this game is going to go really well for all of us.”

  Mel realized she was running out of time. She headed back to her room and closed the door. Quickly grabbing her electromagnet, she popped open the floor in the bathroom and wriggled into the duct work.

  ***

  She looked up through the small gap in the raised hatch, into the equipment room. It had taken her too long to find the right rooms. If they were already at the ship, her plan wouldn’t work. Her elbows were rubbe
d raw from speeding through the tunnels, but she ignored the pain. Placing her ear to the access panel, she couldn’t hear anyone in the bathroom section. She had to make sure no one saw her. Popping the panel open, she quickly looked through the gap, but no one was there. She could hear voices in the main room, though. Gorgeous and Beats. Someone else grunted, but she wasn’t sure who it was. Sharon laughing, saying something to Riley. Without waiting, Mel opened the hatch and climbed into the bathroom.

  Sharon grew abruptly quiet, then the door opened; Mel thought she and Riley had left. Finally, Beats and Gorgeous filed out. Mel peeked around the door, expecting to see Mirage and Harkin. But Mirage wasn’t there. She must have left with the others. Harkin was in his full body armor, shining like a black and silver beetle. He was just putting his helmet on when Mel walked into the room, grabbing a heavy staff that leaned against the wall.

  He sensed her there, turning slightly to his left, just an instant before she swung the staff. Harkin dropped with a satisfying thud as the staff connected with the side of his head.

  ***

  The ship seemed hotter than she remembered. Maybe it was from wearing Harkin’s gear, or the fact that Beats took up so much space. Sharon and Riley refused to sit next to her, so she was stuck between Beats and Mirage. Sharon avoided looking at her and Riley kept giving her contemptuous glances. She really hoped he didn’t decide to take Beats’ advice and throw up on her. But she appreciated how difficult it must have been for Harkin, given how hostile Sharon and Riley were acting. She shrugged to herself. Harkin had been an ass, so he deserved it. But it would make her current ruse both easier and harder. Fortunately, the reverse translator was designed to speak Asadharan, which was Harkin’s native language. With the helmet muffling her voice, she should be able to talk and they wouldn’t know it was her. Between that and the fact that Harkin didn’t like to talk to any of them, she wouldn’t have to worry too much about being found out. But there was a real risk someone on her own team might decide to shove her over a cliff.