Arena Mode (27 page)

When bullet supplies dried up, American ingenuity took over. Using the K9’s nitrogen cells, the gun was modified to include a second, wider barrel that attached to the frame. Not unlike the muzzle-loading blunderbuss that was used until the mid-19th century, the shotgun-like tube could fire virtually anything: coins, nails, pebbles – it was limited only by your imagination. Whatever you fed into it could be fired out, and with surprising effectiveness. It lacked the punch and accuracy of a bullet, but if you were close enough to a target, you could cause some serious damage with no more than a modded K9 and the contents of your pocket.

We now had a K9 in our arsenal, which was the good news. The bad news was that the Green Scorpion was too big to fit the primary barrel. The military-grade bullet was designed for a rifle, not a handgun.

“Damn!” Brynja shouted. “I can’t believe this! So you’re telling me we have a gun,
and
a bullet – but the bullet won’t fire
from
our gun?”

“Pretty much,” I replied, shaking my head. “It won’t fit. The secondary barrel will fire pretty much anything solid, but if we try and jam an acid-filled bullet in there, the force of the nitrogen could blow it apart, or melt the gun. It’s not worth the risk.”

Frustrated, we left in pursuit of another casket. En route, we discovered an overturned ambulance and peered inside. The driver, a middle-aged man wearing a white uniform, was dead behind the wheel – a gruesome slash across his midsection spilled his insides across the dashboard. It didn’t take a criminologist to tell that he hadn’t died from the accident. I guessed that there was a medical station nearby, and he fled while being pursued by one of the superhumans (most likely Vitesse, during his rampage that occurred earlier in the day). During a sharp turn, the ambulance overturned, seriously injuring the driver during the crash. A stroke of a blade finished the job.

A multipurpose com-unit was wrapped tightly in his hand, blinking on stand-by mode with only a few minutes of remaining power. I reached through the broken window and peeled each of his stiffened, blood-soaked fingers from the device.

I contacted Excelsior. When Gavin and Peyton’s faces appeared on the flickering hologram, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I actually had to fight back tears. It was a strange sensation having spoken to them just hours ago, but in the fog of combat, it felt like a year.

“Thank god,” Peyton whispered, covering her mouth with both hands. “You’re all right.”

Gavin’s beaming smile was as bright as ever. “You hadn’t been on-screen for a while, so you had her worried.” He stuck a thumb in his sister’s direction and shook his head. “
Total
drama queen, this one. I knew you were gonna be all right.”

“We saw this freaky blue lion thing flying around,” Peyton said, her voice trembling. “It had dragon wings, and a tail with a spike on it.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I saw it too. I’m doing fine here, but I only have a couple minutes of power on this com, and you could cut out anytime. Can you guys give me a quick update on the leader board?”

“Arena Mode, leader board,” Gavin commanded, and the holographic chart flickered into view.

Matthew Moxon - 3 eliminations, 3 kills

Fudō-myōō - 2 eliminations, 1 kill

Sergei Taktarov - 1 elimination, 1 kill

Dwayne Lewis - 0 eliminations

Winston Ramsley - 0 eliminations

Brynja Guðmundsdóttir - 0 eliminations

(eliminated) Jérôme Fontaine - 1 elimination, 1 kill

“Nice going, killer!” Gavin clapped his hands in celebration. “
Three
eliminations so far? I thought the rooftop explosion killed those two chicks, not you? And who was the third?”

“It was Vitesse, but I had some help.” The cameras must not have caught the manticore stabbing Fontaine, and assumed it was my doing. I suppose whoever was keeping score gave me credit for eliminating Serafina and Arirose as well, since I was the one who tricked them into opening the rigged casket.

I noticed a discrepancy with the difference between eliminations and kills – I wasn’t aware anyone had made it out of The Arena alive. “By the way, why does Fudō have one kill, but two eliminations?”

“It was just on the news,” Peyton said. “The Living Eye still had a pulse after he got stabbed, so he was airlifted to a hospital. He’s in serious condition and he’s in a coma, but he made it.”

“Kenneth’s all right?” Brynja shouted, pushing her way into the cam’s field of view. “Did you hear any other news? Can you give us a more recent update?”

“Sorry,” I told Brynja, rubbing her shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do for him right now. As soon as we get out of here, we’ll visit, but now we have to focus.”

Peyton’s eyes trailed along my hand. She pressed her lips together and stiffened her posture. “I don’t mean to interrupt you two,” she said sternly, “but is there anything else we can do for you? Matt’s right – you need to focus. On the
tournament
.”

I looked to Peyton and became incredibly aware of where my hand still was. I jerked away from Brynja’s shoulder as if it were a hot burner.

Brynja was right: for a genius I
was
a huge dumb-ass.

“What’s going on behind you?” Gavin asked, peering quizzically into his cam.

I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the power had been cut from the area. Every visible screen in the surrounding area (and there were dozens of them) had fallen dark. When they flickered back to life, we were about to receive a game-changer.

Advertisements were pervasive in The City – and not just within Times Square.
Digital billboards polluted every square inch of free space within the affluent borough; bright, glittering monuments begging for pedestrians’ attention twenty-four hours a day. Normally the holo-screens depicted bubbling sodas and trendy jeans and anorexic models dousing themselves in six-hundred-dollar-an-ounce perfume, but in a blink they all changed. Every screen,
everywhere
, suddenly displayed a live feed of Cameron Frost. He was sitting in his office, as if he were prepared to give a Presidential Address.

“I admire the courage displayed by everyone competing today,” he began. “You’ve fought bravely. If only I was born with the abilities that you were blessed with ...” he trailed off, momentarily breaking eye contact with the camera. “I wish I could be there with you, out on the battlefield.”

“What’s going on?” Gavin asked. He could hear Frost’s voice clearly through my com.

“He’s everywhere,” I said with surprise. “On
every screen
in The City.”

Gavin’s eyes flicked to the Trinitron, and then back towards me. “The simulcast is just showing replays of all the previous eliminations. The feed you’re watching must be internal only.”

Frost leaned in on his elbows and glared at the camera lens, taking on a slightly more assertive tone. “It
has
come to my attention, however, that some competitors have found a way to disable their epidermal implants, making it very difficult to track them. As you all know, camping is strictly forbidden. And some of you have even gone out of your way to avoid conflicts, which disappoints me. Moreover, it’s a disappointment to the billions of people watching around the world.”

“To that end,” Frost added, “I am going to be initiating phase two of Arena Mode in order to spark a competitive fire beneath the remaining six combatants.” He forced his mouth into a tight smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t think of this as a penalty – think of it as an opportunity. A chance to pursue the way of the warrior. Always remember: dying with your sword still sheathed is the ultimate regret.”

Cameron Frost’s motivational speech came to an abrupt end, and with a sudden blip, every screen reverted back to their original advertisement.

“Phase two?” Peyton asked, her voice strained. “What do you think he means by sparking a fire under you?”

I wondered the same thing, hoping it wouldn’t
literally
have anything to do with being set on fire.

The screens surrounding us flickered again, and they produced a map of The Arena. Not unlike the holographic image that appeared from our epidermal implants, this map revealed the location of everyone who remained in the competition. A bright, blinking icon with our names marked above them indicated our exact locations. And worse, three blips were in motion, converging on ours.

“Are you seeing this?” Brynja shouted, slamming the back of her fist into the overturned ambulance.

I nodded. “Kinda hard to miss. I think
everyone
is seeing it.”

Hover-cams swarmed above, security monitors capped every streetlight, and satellites looked down on us from orbit – we couldn’t have been more exposed. Brynja and I did our best to avoid the other competitors up until that point, but Frost wanted to reveal our location, and we were powerless to stop him.

I spun towards Brynja. “Stay out of the battle. If you fade out and leave now you can make it to the North Bridge. Just wait for two more eliminations and then tap out.”

“What the hell?” she shouted, shoving my shoulder. “That’s insane – I’m not leaving you here alone. We agreed to stay together.”

Things were happening too fast. I couldn’t put Brynja in danger – if she stayed here, I couldn’t protect her. “All right, maybe you can be lookout, and give me a signal when someone is coming.”

“So now you’re just throwing me a bone?” she shouted, throwing her hands apart. “You know what, Mox – thanks, but no thanks. I don’t
need
your bone. I’ve had more bones than you can count.” She froze for a moment, eyes widening. “Oh my god, I really just said that.”

“There’s no more hiding, Brynja. Our best chance of survival is shot. If we split up, at least one of us can make it.”

“I’m not going to just let you die, dumb-ass. You’re stuck with me.” She jammed the point of her finger into my breastplate. “You’re the super-genius, so come up with something. A plan that’s
at least
ten percent less suicidal than your last one.”

Peyton shouted from the com seconds before the power bar depleted. “Someone’s on their...” is all I was able to catch before the screen faded to black.

I launched the device into the ground with a frustrated scream, smashing it to pieces on the pavement.

A moment later, the air disrupted above us. It was a low-pitched rumble, like a jet passing over the city. I shielded my eyes from the blinding sun and peered above the skyline; Russia’s Son was approaching at a dizzying speed.

Brynja clasped my hand and yanked it, sprinting towards the nearest alley. As we ran, I felt a blistering heat rise from the street behind us. it was Taktarov’s laser vision, searing the pavement at our feet like an oversized magnifying glass about to burn fleeing ants.

We stumbled into the darkened space between two buildings. “Come on,” I said between labored breaths, motioning to the opposite end of the alley. “If we make it out, a subway tunnel is just a half-block east. We might be able to lose him underground.”

We ran towards the sunlit opening that spilled from the street ahead, only to stop dead in our tracks when a silhouette appeared, blocking the exit. A man, more than ten feet tall, lumbered towards us with his shoulders hunched, and a stoic expression carved into his face.

“Sorry man,” Sledge mumbled. “Ain’t nothing personal. I’ll make this as quick as possible.”