Indian Hill (34 page)
“Sir, morale is as high as it can be, but the men do have a few requests.”
“By all means, Colonel, but please be advised that we have been told by our senior science staff that these transmissions are being monitored and most likely decoded.”
“But how is that possible sir, this is the most advanced technology known to man?” and then the Colonel realized that he had answered his own question. “Sir, the men would like a few words with their significant others.” He made damn sure to omit the word ‘last’ in the previous sentence. No sense in letting their eavesdroppers know their intentions.
“We should be able to arrange that Colonel. But in the meantime, Colonel, please know that you have the utmost admiration and respect from your colleagues and myself.”
“Coming from you sir, that truly is an honor.”
“Over and out Liberation.”
“Over and out Ground Control… and goodbye,” the colonel added inaudibly.
I sat in my enormous living room and stared at the Jumbotron
. So there I was, ranked last, I couldn't believe it.
I couldn’t buy respect in a whorehouse. Three people left and I
was
ranked third. This was worse than betting with my brother Ronny, at least I knew where I stood with him. I just kept losing, it was never hard to know where you were. But here, I ke
pt
winning and I
was
losing, how does that make any sense?
Then again none of it
really
did
. I was fully expecting another round robin event but the aliens wanted to draw the suspense out. No. 2 Sam Pontiff and myself were to battle to the end to see who would have the privilege to meet
Durgan O'Shea
, who by all accounts had gotten even bigger. He looked like he was growing taller and more muscular, what
the
hell were they feeding him? I had actually hoped for a one on one on one event again, I’m fairly certain Sam would have sided with me until we possibly finished Durgan off, although I would have liked to have another two or at least three people in there with us for insurance. I’m not sure if a battle armored alien guard could have stood up to Durgan th
o
se days. Any semblance of sanity had left that man the first week he was on th
e
ship, and he had done nothing but spiral even further into that insanity since then. Sam was a study in the opposite, he was methodical and thorough. Proficient I guess is the word I’m looking for. He had been somewhat of an underdog through the earlier rounds, but he had proved himself big in the last three or four rounds with some huge upsets. He had the appearance of a surfer dude gone bad. To glance at him quickly you would have seen a man with shoulder length bleached blonde hair, roguish good looks and a quick smile. I’m sure once upon a time he was a pot smoking laid back dude, much like my friend Paul whom I missed dearly. But on closer examination of his eyes, you would take notice that whatever light of goodness that had shone in them had dimmed and been replaced long ago with a cruel and bitter darkness. He took no joy in his kills but neither did he shy away from them. At 5’10” he wasn’t necessarily huge but you could tell any surfer residue had been burned away. This man had been using the weight bench religiously, he was ripped. I was trembling, I hadn’t even realized it until I looked down at my hands and they were shaking. I wasn’t necessarily shaking because of Sam, although he definitely scared me. No, I was shaking because I was two rounds away from Beth, and I couldn’t even begin to explain to her the things that I’d done since we’d been apart. How do you go about explaining the unexplainable? Oh God, I w
ould
have gone through all th
at
for naught. No, I said to myself, stop thinking like that, you have kept these women around you alive too. But for what? I asked myself. For further slavery for more events? I’m pretty sure they weren’t going to put me out to pasture after this was over, if I lived. Isn’t the first sign of insanity when someone talks to themselves? My mind was racing in a thousand directions but it always steered back to one thing, Beth. The girl that I felt in my heart I was destined for. My soul mate. But how tarnished was my soul, how black and dirty was it now? Even if she accepted my on the physical plane, would she reject me on the spiritual, would her soul be so repulsed by mine that her heart would have to follow? I had to get out of
t
here, I had to go for a walk. So I went up to the door that wasn’t a door and just started shouting.
“Guards!!! Guards!!!” The women stopped everything that they were doing and froze, they just stared at me. I felt that I had entered into one of my early pubescent daydreams. Come on you know the one, where you are able to freeze women so that you can do whatever you want to them. Oh you never had that one? Maybe I am going insane.
“What is it hu-man?” The guard looked vaguely pissed, almost like I had interrupted a card game or whatever they did in their free time around
t
here.
“I need to get the fuck out of here!” I shouted, not realizing that the door only stopped me, not my voice.
“What is phruck?” the guard said, having some serious difficulty with the “f.” It almost sounded like an Asian. Great, I have an Asian crocodile guard at my force field door. Did I truly just lose it that night I called my brother from a bad acid trip? Maybe I never came down. God please, maybe I’m really right now just locked up in an insane asylum and someday some brilliant man will invent some drug that will get me out of my drug induced insanity, how awesome would that be?
I
n the meantime
though
I gue
ss I’d better keep up with what wa
s going on in th
at
alternate universe.
“No I just want to get out of here.”
“Stop talking hu-man!” he shouted, maybe he also didn’t realize that the door didn’t stop sound waves. And that was that, he turned and walked back through the invisible shield on his side of the deck. I had contemplated shouting again, but I didn’t think he’d be nearly as congenial this time around. I was about to head back to my room when I saw a sliver of light down the corridor. I craned my neck to see, but the angle just wasn’t right. I hoped I hadn’t ticked off his card buddies an
d now it was time for payback. T
hen the smiling face of what could possibly be my initial guide from the previous tour was at my door. I didn’t mean to be specieist but they all looked the same. He let the gate down without so much as a guard by his side.
“What can I do for you Mike?” I jumped back, I had never expected him to use my name. “Are you so surprised that I should know you by your Earth name?”
“Ah yeah, I’m a little shocked,” I said as I was trying to regain my mental balance.
“Learning your name was the least I could do after all the dr… Money that you have earned me.”
“I’m glad I could be of help,” I said with my best Bostonian sarcasm attached to it. Unfortunately the wit was lost on him. Oh well, apparently there
wa
s no sarcasm in space.
“Why thank you, so what can I do for you?” he replied politely. He still looked like he could eat my head with one bite. It goes back to that whole trusting the smiling dog thing. It’s a hard concept to get over.
“Well first
things
first, you know my name, what is your name?” Now it was his turn to be taken aback. I had no sense of why this was.
“We do not share our names with any one that is not of our race, even the Genogerians do not know their commanders’ given names.”
Whoa, so they don’t even consider the Genos to be on the same plane as them? My guess was that they used the Genos in these games when they couldn’t find an unsuspecting alien civilization. How long had they been doing this?
“But you can call me ‘Frertek,’ it means roughly ‘one who guides’ in your primitive language.”
I had a snappy retort all set for that one, but then I might just anger him and if he didn’t eat me outright he might not allow me to do what I so desperately wanted to do.
“Well Frertek, I would love to get out of here.”
“I am sorry Mike, but no one is permitted to leave this ship, especially som
eone of your stature.” And I kne
w he d
idn’t mean that in a good way.
I wish I had a baseball bat, cause I’d be slugging him upside his large noggin.
“No I mean out of this house, I just want to get away from all of them.” I tried as casually as possible to motion to where all the women were. But he did not have a clue. How the hell could they be so far advanced from us? They had to have had outside help. “The women, Frertek, I have to get away for a while from all these women. I just want to go for a walk.”
“Why would you wish to get away from your harem, Mike? Is this not the way that kings in your early years lived?”
“Yes Frertek, but when the king said jump his harem would say how high. If I said it they would tell me to go take a flying leap.” No recognition in his eyes, he didn’t get it again. “Do you procreate, Frertek?”
“
We do but it is an infrequent and difficult process
,” he said very matter-of-factly.
“I guess that’s sort of a blessing.” Again with the blank stare. Okay, back to the direct approach. “Frertek, will you take me for a walk so I can relax?”
“That is the least I can do, but be advised Mike that I am unarmed and at all times a guard will be no more than fifteen feet away. If you were by some means able to overpower me.” It sure sounded like he used sarcasm there. “You would be shot immediately, and you have never experienced a pain more intense than that of a plasma discharge. It will burn you from the inside out. It is a most excruciating death, or so I am told.”
“I have no illusions of escape Frertek, I simply wish to...” I was about to say stretch my legs but I was afraid he might take that too literally. “To go for a walk, to just leave this house for a while.”
“Lead on Mike, you may go where you wish except for any door which has a red triangle on it. Those would be strictly forbidden to your kind.” He really had no idea how pissed off he was making me. But I had been granted my wish so I wanted to make the most of it. I headed in the general direction of the arena, I had never been there except on game day, this would be my chance to check out the place without any life or death pressure placed on me. And I wanted to see where Beth sat, maybe, hopefully, she had a seat with a very obstructed view, but I highly doubted it. The arena was deathly quiet; nobody was in there except myself
,
my guide
and his hired gun
. The place was enormous, on the scale of Mile High Stadium, maybe even bigger. How big was th
e
ship? I walked onto the floor from my normal entranceway, the floor had not been altered in any way, no sense in wasting power with no event on. It was a very unremarkable looking surface for all the wondrous things that it could do. I pointed up into the stands.
“Frertek, could I go up into the stands?” I asked innocuously.
“Why certainly Mike, I see no red triangles around here.” I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or straightforward. Thinking that I was a lesser being though, I had to opt for the latter.
“Frertek, where exactly does the Queen of the games sit?” My heart was pounding.
“It is not far from where you enter the arena. She sits about midway in the arena and five rows up. She sits in the seat marked with the flowers.”
I all but ran to the seat, maybe some of her scent still lingered behind. If I concentrated hard enough maybe I would still be able to feel her presence. I inhaled deeply, I smelled something but whether it was just my overactive imagination I’
d
never know. But I would have sworn that I smelled the sweet vanilla scent that was Beth. I turned to the stadium floor, and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. She could see every disgusting thing I had done, perfectly. People on good old planet Earth paid huge bucks for these kinds of seats, just for the fact that you could see everything.
“Our Supreme Commander sits directly in front,” Frertek broke through my horror. “He also has been watching your gamesmanship. He is very impressed with your skills on the arena floor. But he does not believe that you can beat either of the two opponents left,” he said very matter-of-factly. What did he care, it wasn’t his life he was talking about. I could have been an insect for all the emotion he showed about my expected demise. I noted with great interest where the guard stations where. There was one right next to each of the gladiators’ entrances but curiously enough there were no guard stations that were noticeable anyway, anywhere around the Supreme Commander’s chair. He obviously had no concern whatsoever in regards to assassination. Maybe that was only a human folly.