Arena Mode (22 page)

I think I was in a state of shock, because the weight of Arena Mode hadn’t fully sunk in;
watching the medical staff sliced to pieces, wading through their remains, seeing a friend stabbed to death, and just moments ago, helping to end someone’s life.

It was all so crisp and fresh in my mind, and at the same time it was like an out-of-body experience. I felt as if someone else had witnessed these atrocities and was relaying the information as vaguely as possible, carefully protecting me from the most lurid details.

My brain was trying to compartmentalize what I’d seen – it was the only explanation.

I was subconsciously burying the events in some dark corner of my mind to avoid dealing with their gravity, but eventually I’d have to confront what I’d seen and done. The thought of that was overwhelming. Lodged into the rooftop, unable to move, I became more afraid of
surviving
the tournament and dealing with the aftermath than of dying at the hands of a superhuman.

America had been perpetually at war for the last four decades. There was no shortage of casualties. Each year, thousands of soldiers returned home in agony, burnt and disfigured, often missing limbs. As gruesome as their wounds were, the physical damage wasn’t what I found most disturbing – it was the permanent scars left on their psyches.

A veteran named Reed who lived on my floor would wander the halls at night, wearing nothing more than boxer shorts and a pair of tattered slippers. He’d amble around like a zombie: unshaven, dead-eyed, and mumbling to himself in a near-catatonic state. At only twenty-seven, he’d already served two tours in North Korea and three in Sudan. His roommate – a cousin who’d volunteered to take care of him – told me that Reed slept less than an hour a night, and he’d wake up rambling about unspeakable horrors. He ranted about firing squads, burning villages, and the sounds of screaming children. That continued on for nearly a year until Reed was moved to a permanent care facility, but who knows what good that would have done. They could prescribe medication or offer counselling, but nothing would erase the sights and sounds that were seared into his mind.

If I was to free myself, make it out of the competition,
and
survive the surgery, I could live out the rest of my life in relative peace. I just didn’t know what
kind
of life I’d be living.

It seemed easier to surrender. To let the next superhuman who found me finish the job that my tumor had started.

I heard the fire escape creaking once again.
Winston Ramsley pulled himself to the top rung of the ladder, brandishing a long metal pole that was roughly the size and thickness of a baseball bat. A length of steel would have been no match for a competitor who was armed with a sword or a gun, but it was more than enough to bludgeon an unarmed man to death who was stuck in a roof.

He seemed to be struggling with the top portion of the damaged ladder, which was now falling away from the building; he was barely able to keep his head above the ledge. The spattering acid must have further damaged the rusted metal, and it was collapsing under The Gentleman’s weight. He attempted to steady himself while pointing the pipe in my direction. It hummed, like power spooling up inside of a massive generator. Then it started to glow. With a flick of his wrist, Ramsley fired a bolt of electricity from the end, reaching out like a crackling tendril of lightning. Fortunately he was off-balance as the ladder bent away from the rooftop, so the blast missed my head – but not by much. I could feel the heat as it blistered past, stinging my eyes.

I wasn’t overly motivated to free my leg from the sinking roof before the British swordfighter had arrived, but nearly having my face burnt off proved to be just the right amount of incentive.

A second bolt sailed in my direction, striking the area near my trapped leg. It burnt away some of the sagging gravel and tar, affording me just enough space for an escape. I heaved myself from the opening and stumbled to the opposite side of the roof, as far from the collapsing fire escape as possible.

As I teetered on the ledge, peering four stories down, I scanned the narrow alley where a cardboard-filled dumpster seemed like the only suitable landing spot. Every action movie in my collection raced through my mind. It was insane. There
had
to be another, more logical way down.

I took a nanosecond too long to decide.

A bolt of electricity struck the center of my back. My armor conducted the energy like a Faraday cage, absorbing most of the blast (and saving me from certain death) but the momentum knocked me forward.

I fell off the roof, twisting, screaming. I wasn’t sure where I was going to land, because in mid-air my senses shut down.

Darkness set in, and time disappeared.

I pulled myself from the dumpster, crashing to the pavement with a painful thud.

I had no concept of how long I’d been unconscious since falling from the rooftop; minutes, hours – there was no way to be certain. But however long it had been, I
had
to be camping. I studied the back of my left hand and noticed that my epidermal implant was no longer blinking. I couldn’t even feel it beneath my skin. The electrical charge that ran through my body must have fried it, rendering the tracer useless. Finally some good news. I never thought there would be an upshot to being struck by lightning.

Gazing up at the sky through the narrow space between the buildings, I hoped to get a reading from the daylight, and possibly a sense of what time it was. My best guess was mid-afternoon. A few clouds had gathered overhead, granting Manhattan a measure of relief from the punishing July sunshine, but the humidity persisted.

From the corner of my eye I noticed an object, tucked against the wall at the dead-end of the alley: a casket, bearing a gold emblem. I didn’t know if my memory was starting to fail, but I was certain that on the satellite map Gavin had acquired, there was nothing in this location. Frost must have dropped some additional chests around The Arena this morning, or possibly had the existing ones relocated to throw off the cheaters (like myself).

Badly in need of a weapon, I approached the casket, kneeled, and ran my fingers along the underside of the latch. I was nearly positive that, based on the emblem, it wouldn’t explode in my face – but at this point I wasn’t about to start taking chances. When I finished my inspection, I prepared to flip the lid, but froze when I heard footsteps falling behind me.

I spun to see who was approaching, and suddenly wondered if my lack of medication was taking its toll – possibly triggering the onset of a full-blown hallucination. Either my condition was worsening or I was going crazy ... or both. There was no way to be sure. Because what approached was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

And it couldn’t have been real.

When your eye is processing information, light passes through your cornea
, striking the rods and cones. This data produces electrical activity, which communicates with the visual cortex of your brain. Then, when your brain processes these impulses, it rationalizes what you’re looking at. Voila: you’re seeing something. Pretty simple, right?

At least that’s how it’s supposed to happen.

I’m not sure how I knew it at the time, but in that moment, I was doing it in reverse. I felt as if my brain was firing information
outward
, and I was creating the person walking towards me. I was imagining them into reality, and altering their physical appearance. A slender, pale-skinned girl approached with a wave of flowing blue hair, dressed like the lead singer of a punk band. But it –
she
– wasn’t always this person. Just moments before, she had existed only as a cluster of atoms, waiting to be completed by an external observer. Before I saw her, she was the genesis of a thought about to be birthed into existence.

“I have been sent here by the almighty celestial creator,” she said in a chilling monotone, raising her hands above her head. “Kneel before me, Earth-dweller, for I am the harbinger of your destiny.”

I stopped breathing.

She lowered her hands and burst out laughing. “I’m just fuckin’ with you. Sorry, Mox – that was
really
mean of me, but when I saw the look on your face I just couldn’t resist.”

“What? How ... you know my name?” I narrowed my eyes, still trying to process what I’d seen.

“I’m Brynja, a last minute replacement into the competition. When that scientist dude lit himself on fire, I was the first one on Frost’s reserve list.”

Darko Simić’s dangerous light show had gone awry, injuring several people during yesterday’s weigh-ins – himself included. After his withdrawal was announced, I just assumed that there would be twelve competitors in The Arena, not the previously announced thirteen. As always, Frost was thinking one step ahead.

Brynja and I stared at each other in the gulf of silence. I parted my lips and planned to say something, but couldn’t produce a sentence.

It was getting weird.

“So,” she said, rapping her fingers against her hips. “Here I am ... I hope you don’t think I’m rude. I’d shake your hand, but ...” She opened her right palm and extended it towards me.

I tentatively reached out to take it, and my outstretched fingers passed directly through hers. Her hand was a flesh-colored cloud that was disrupted by my presence, swirling like a cold mist. After a heartbeat, it solidified and reassembled.

I was still unsure if this encounter was actually happening, or if I was on the brink of a complete mental collapse.

“You’re gonna have questions,” she said matter-of-factly. “So go ahead and fire away. I won’t be offended, I promise. Nothing is off limits.”

“What
are
you?” I blurted out.

She creased her face into a tiny frown. “Wow,
now
who’s being the rude one?”

“I’m sorry, that’s not ... it isn’t what I ...”

Brynja flashed another smile. “Just screwing with you again. It’s cool. What you saw when I changed, it’s my ability. I’m what’s called a ‘perception’. I look how you want me to appear, like a physical manifestation of how you see me.” She lowered her chin to examine herself; thick combat boots, cut-off jean shorts over a pair of black leggings, a cropped tank top and bunches of mismatched spiked bracelets lining each wrist. She took a moment and nodded in approval. “Huh. You have some interesting tastes in women’s fashion, Mox ... but I’m not hating it.
Anyway
, you created this version of me, which happens when I’m observed. But if no one is there to observe me for too long, I start to fade away. Sometimes I completely leave this dimension.”