by Barry Solway
“What the hell is Mirage doing? She needs to get out of there,” Riley said.
“I can’t tell if she’s dragging him into the building or if he’s dragging her,” Beats replied.
“Mirage!” Gorgeous screamed across the courtyard. “Get out of there!”
“Calm down. It’s part of the plan.” Even as she said it, Mel felt a knot forming in her throat. This was part of the plan, but Mel already knew it wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
Mirage shifted her form, lifting Stoner higher off the ground. Her little tentacle feet churned and she ran into the building, carrying Stoner. Mel held her breath. A second later, Mirage’s form appeared at the door, racing towards the courtyard.
A deafening roar and rushing wave of heat slammed into Mel, sending her backwards as Mirage flew across the courtyard, encased in flames.
Chapter 40
It took long moments for the blast to settle. One side of the building had collapsed, while the other side teetered alarmingly. A fireball shot out from the bottom floor during the explosion, but the collapsing building and lack of flammable material had snuffed out most of the fire already. Except for the small blaze in the middle of the courtyard.
Heedless of the explosion, Mel ran to Mirage, Gorgeous and Riley beside her. Mirage bubbled under the heat and one of her tentacles waved feebly. The other two stopped feet away from Mirage, but Mel raced forward and threw herself on top of the alien.
She heard Gorgeous and Riley yelling Harkin’s name, but she ignored them. Hopefully, her armor would protect her from the worst of the fire. She rolled over Mirage, trying to smother the flames with her hands and body. It took several moments, but finally Mel put the fire out. She leaned backwards, gagging at the sight of Mirage’s burnt body and a smell like burning rubber. Mel could feel the heat against her skin through the armor, but she ignored it.
Tears gushed down Mel’s cheeks. Mirage was charred black and shriveled. A few areas of glistening silicone showed through, but the normal white color looked gray and ugly. A single tentacle waved feebly in the air, coming to rest against Mel’s helmet. The tentacle wrapped around her helmet, squeezing gently, until Mel reached up to hold it with one of her hands. A cheerful whisper played in Mel’s ear. Thank you.
Mirage knew that Mel wasn’t Harkin. Mel cried under her helmet, nodding at Mirage as the tentacle she held went limp and slid through her arm. Mel hung her head for a moment, but the smell of burning rubber was too great and she had to crawl away.
Riley crouched down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Harkin. I misjudged you. You did what you could for Mirage. I can’t believe…” Riley trailed off and Mel looked up at his ashen face, stricken with grief. Now he understands, she thought. A wave of sadness gripped her.
“She was already dying,” Mel said.
“What does that mean?” Riley asked.
“Anna told me. Mirage had a condition that causes paralysis and seizures. It worsens with time. It’s why she was doing the gauntlets. She wanted to die with a bang instead of slowly deteriorating. I’m sorry. This was a plan Anna and Mirage came up with to deal with Stoner. I guess they took my idea literally.”
“You mean Mel’s idea. Jesus, why didn’t she tell us?” Riley said. “I can’t deal with this.”
“She didn’t want us to pity her,” Mel said. “It doesn’t matter now.” Mel struggled to her feet as Gorgeous and Beats joined them. Beats stumbled and didn’t look in any condition to fight. Crouching on one knee, Riley tried to grab a few moments of rest. Mel guessed his higher metabolism burned through energy at a faster rate than normal humans would.
She surveyed the field. The building was in ruins. Whale and Wicked lay unconscious by the vehicle. Stoner was buried under the building with the other sphere. How the hell were they supposed to win this thing if the sphere was lost under a pile of rubble?
Then Mel noticed a shifting in the smoke and rubble of the building. She gasped. Unbelievable. From the briefing, she had known what he was capable of, but seeing it in person was unreal. An arm appeared over a pile of rubble and a moment later, Stoner staggered out.
“Can anything stop that guy?” Riley said.
“Not anything we can do,” Beats said. “Especially now. I think I have a concussion.”
Stoner took a few steps, then sank to his knees. A moment later, Soryda appeared from a side building and raced over to him, holding Junkyard’s rifle. The alien woman must have gone back for it before blowing the building. Mel cursed her stupidity. She should have taken it when she left.
Soryda bent down to help Stoner, then raised her rifle to point at Mel and the others.
“What are we going to do?” Riley asked. “Four of us and only two of them. But she’s armed and he’s invulnerable.”
Mel took a step forward, holding up her arms. “We’re done. No one else is going to die.”
“Give us your sphere!” Soryda called.
Riley stepped next to Mel and called out to Soryda. “We don’t have it here. You kill us and you’ll never find it.”
Mel put her hand on Riley’s chest, stopping him from moving further forward. “That’s not true,” she said. She reached into a compartment at her belt and took out their sphere. “I have it.”
Riley stepped back, glaring at Mel. “What the hell is this, Harkin? You’re double-crossing us!”
Mel faced Riley, reaching up to remove her helmet. The battle was over. It didn’t matter if they found out she wasn’t Harkin now. “I’m not Harkin,” she said, shaking her head to get her hair out of her eyes.
Riley looked like he might have a heart attack. “Mel!”
“This does resolve the paradox of Sharon hugging you,” Beats said. “Order is restored to the universe. But Mel, you shouldn’t be here.”
“I have a plan,” she whispered. “Honest.”
Riley’s face toggled between exhaustion and disbelief. “I knew you weren’t Harkin. You were actually being a reasonable human being… alien… whatever.”
Mel turned back to Soryda. “You can have the sphere.” Mel started to walk towards Stoner and Soryda but realized she may have made a grave mistake.
Her translators picked up on Soryda’s body language. The rifle pointing directly at Mel and the tentacles on her face quivering. Soryda was livid.
Stopping, Mel realized that Soryda still held her responsible for her husband’s death. Given Soryda’s state of mind, she thought the alien would kill her even if she gave up the sphere. As she hesitated, unsure how to continue, Gorgeous appeared behind her.
“Let me take it,” Gorgeous said.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Mel replied, licking her lips.
Gorgeous took the sphere, but Soryda screamed across the courtyard. “No! Let the human bring it!”
Gorgeous shook her head. “No. We are trying to avoid any more death or injury. We have just lost one of our team,” Gorgeous said, pointing to Mirage. “You can have the sphere, but not if you plan to harm her.”
Mel was sure desire for revenge would win out. But Stoner reached up with an arm and pushed Soryda’s rifle down.
“Bring the sphere,” he said. “Keep your end of the bargain and we won’t harm you.”
Gorgeous nodded and continued forward. Mel stayed where she was until Gorgeous gave the sphere to Stoner. Then Stoner took out his sphere and pointed Soryda towards another building. Soryda glared at Mel for another long moment, but finally let Stoner guide her to their endpoint.
Mel had assumed the building Junkyard was in was the other team’s endpoint, but that had been another ruse. Stoner and Soryda entered the building as Gorgeous and Mel walked back to Riley and Beats. A moment later, a red flare burst in the sky above the building.
“Mirage is dead,” Riley said. “And we lost. Kathor’s going to be pissed.”
Mel looked back sadly at Mirage’s form. She should have revealed herself and given up the sphere sooner. If she had, Mirage
would still be alive. Even knowing that Mirage was sick and, at some level wanted this, didn’t help.
“I could have saved Mirage. It doesn’t matter. The game isn’t over yet. Just follow my lead.”
The others looked alarmed, but nodded in unison. Mel squinted in the sudden wind as a dropship landed in the courtyard to take them to the main landing site. It took them a few minutes to load the Whale and Wicked into the ship. They carefully gathered Mirage as well, covering her in a blue blanket. Stoner and Soryda came out of the building and the six remaining gladiators boarded the dropship. Stoner looked exhausted and Mel wondered if he was more injured than they thought. Having a building dropped on you certainly should have caused some kind of damage.
One of the architects, another Asadharan like Kathor, looked disapprovingly at Mel. He knew she had replaced Harkin. Mel wasn’t sure what kind of punishment that would entail, from either the architects or Kathor.
***
It was the first time Mel had been awake, or alive for that matter, during the end of a game. The dropship landed in an empty intersection between several buildings. There were other ships there, including one for the other team and a sleek ship that belonged to the architects. Kathor had watched the gauntlet from it, along with the architects and others who had paid to see it unfold live.
The intersection had an assortment of people, including a makeshift medical tent that the injured parties were taken to. Riley and Beats were given infusions through a drip line, which made an immediate difference for Riley. Kathor argued with several other aliens, and he occasionally cast a furious eye in her direction. All the weapons had been taken by the architects, and Mel felt slightly naked sitting in the waiting area. It would be different if the game she was playing was actually over.
Although she hadn’t seen the end of a game in person, she had seen them on the vids and Beats had talked about the end of the first one. Surviving players were lined up on a makeshift award platform and the architects declared one side or the other the winner. Each team member received a small medal and the team at large received a cube that apparently served as a digital currency. The payment for winning the game.
Mel looked across the intersection. She had estimated where the award stage would go based on watching other games. They always picked a dramatic backdrop. It was late enough that the planet’s three moons were out, circling at different rates in the eastern sky. But it wasn’t late enough that they would wait until morning. The three moons, two white and the other glowing a faint rose color, lit up the metallic city in dramatic hues of silver and black. The silhouettes of the tall buildings provided hints of further mystery, danger, and sacrifice, at least to Mel’s eyes. They had placed the stage closer to the center of the intersection than she had expected, which made her plan even easier.
The architects found Sharon hiding where they had left her. Beats, Riley, Sharon, Gorgeous and Mel lined up on one side of the award stage while Stoner and Soryda lined up on the other. The Whale and Wicked were still in the medical tent and Mel could see the stretcher carrying Mirage sitting outside it, still covered by the blue blanket. Behind them were a half-dozen guards armed with electromagnetic rifles. They stood casually, looking bored. With the game over, there really wasn’t much to guard and Mel thought they were mostly ceremonial.
There had been a minor argument about whether Mel should be in the ceremony, but since they had lost, the architects didn’t seem to care. Kathor clearly wanted the ceremony to end so that he could get them back to the ship. Mel wondered what plans he had in store for her.
Glancing at Sharon, Mel noticed the girl shaking and breathing in short gasps. Sharon caught Mel’s eye and mouthed the word five. Mel looked at Mirage’s form. The last death, she thought.
The architect held six medals in his hand. He began to read from a prepared script when an explosion erupted in a huge circle around the award stand. Part of the intersection caved in and dirt and cement rained down. Mel immediately attacked the guard behind her, wrestling his gun away. She turned it on another guard, who stood frozen in confusion. Shooting him, she turned and tripped the guard to her right.
“Get their guns!” she yelled to Riley, Beats and Gorgeous. They stared at her with their mouths open. Amusingly, it was Sharon who swung into action first, grabbing the rifle from the guard Mel had shot. People ran around in the chaos, trying to figure out what was happening. No one had figured out what Mel was up to yet.
The architects had plans to make sure the gladiators couldn’t hurt each other too much. They hadn’t seen a need to protect themselves, especially at the end, during the awards. Mel took a few quick strides to her right and grabbed the cowering architect from behind. She aimed the rifle at his head and hissed in his ear.
“You’re going to take us to your ship. Do you understand?”
The architect nodded, the translator conveying his fear. Mel turned back to see that the others had overpowered the other guards, who hadn’t really put up much resistance. Now Beats, Sharon, Riley and Gorgeous were all armed with the electromagnetic rifles.
“Where to, fearless leader?” Riley said.
“The architect’s ship,” Mel said tersely.
“Can you fly it?” Gorgeous asked.
“After a fashion,” Mel responded.
They formed a ring around the architect, their rifles pointing out. Another architect shouted from the side. “What is the meaning of this? Are you insane? This is absurd!”
Mel searched the crowd for Kathor. “Ask him,” she yelled back, locking eyes with Kathor for just a moment before shoving the architect forward. The temptation to shoot Kathor right there gripped her, but she held back. Killing him would bring her satisfaction, but she wasn’t a murderer. As much as she hated him, she couldn’t bring herself to shoot him in cold blood. As she turned away from Kathor, Sharon screamed and threw herself into Mel. Staggering to her left, Mel fell to the ground as multiple shots fired in the air above her. The architect clutched his chest and fell to the ground at Mel’s side. A moment later, Sharon fell next to him.
The small group of people gathered around them scattered as Riley and Gorgeous opened fire. Mel saw Kathor, a pistol in his hand, as he ran with the crowd behind one of the dropships. He had tried to shoot her. Whipping her head around, Mel cried in anguish.
“Nooo!” Clutching at Sharon, she knew it was too late. Sharon had pushed Mel out of the way and the shot had gone cleanly through her heart.
Mel’s hands trembled and she cradled Sharon in her arms, unable to let her go.
Beats finally grabbed her and Sharon both and carried them onto the architect’s ship. Riley waved his rifle, chasing out the remaining crew members, including the pilot. He turned back to Mel, Sharon’s body lying sprawled on the floor.
“Mel, what are we supposed to do? What’s your plan?”
Sobbing, she looked up at Riley. “No one else was supposed to die. I was trying to save us.”
Riley crouched down next to her. “I know. But now we’re on this ship. It’s not going to take them long to figure out how to stop us. I’m sorry, I really am. But we need to escape. Can you fly the ship or not?”
With a visible effort, Mel collected herself. Laying Sharon’s head gently on the floor, she closed the girl’s wide, staring eyes and stood. Motioning to Riley, she moved into the cockpit. Looking out the window, she could see the remaining crew members, medical personnel and architects milling around, pointing at the ship and arguing with each other. They clearly thought Mel was insane. Since she had kicked the pilot off the ship, they believed there was no way for her to fly it.
Mel removed her pack and took out a metal sphere. Rotating it in her hand, she identified an odd indentation on one side that had several round glassy bumps. “Look for something on the control panel that matches this,” she told the others, pointing at the indentation.
“There,” Gorgeous said.
Mel placed the sphere into the semi-circle on the control pa
nel and twisted it until it clicked into place. Stepping back, she held her breath. A moment later a form glimmered in the air above the control panel. The light winked out and then came back, revealing a three-dimensional image of Anna’s head. Riley stepped back in surprise. The hologram turned to Mel. “Hijack protocol initiated. Full control in three… two… one… complete. Welcome. Where would you like to go?”
With a tight smile of satisfaction, Mel said, “Take us back to the Insight. We need to pick up Jon and Anna.”
“Flight pattern calculated. You may want to take seats in the main cabin. I can serve drinks if you like.” The ship shuddered as the engines came to life. With a jolt, they lifted off and arced upwards. Mel marveled at how much smoother the flight was than the dropship. The perks of being an architect, she supposed.
Mel found a blanket in a smaller cabin in the back and covered Sharon’s body with it. Riley wanted to move her body out of the main cabin, but to Mel, the shock of her friend’s death hadn’t worn off. While unable to explain it, moving her felt like she was abandoning Sharon.
It took thirty minutes for them to get to the ship. Mel sat with the others in the main cabin, bringing them up to date and discussing the rest of her plan. It took a while to explain that Anna was actually an android. Mel had intended to tell them she was a clone, but when she tried, she found she couldn’t get it out. Finally, she decided it wasn’t important at the moment. She would tell them after all the action had settled down, when they had more time.
The next step was to get to Kathor’s ship and try to rescue Jon and Anna, if she would come with them. After that, they would need to find a world to hide on. Mel didn’t know quite where to go from there, but she hoped that between Beats, Gorgeous and Anna they would be able to figure out a safe place until they could manage a way to get home.