The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe (4 page)

“I should have warned you,” the King said offhandedly, marching back up the stairs towards his throne. “For a superhuman, the disruptor rings are quite painful, and very difficult to remove. Try to pry it off and you’ll take most of your thumb with it...and then of course the detonator goes off, incinerating the rest of you.”

I was curled in a ball, knees pulled firmly to my chest. Dawson knelt at my side and rubbed my back in small circles, drawing a disapproving glare from his father. “It’ll be over in a second,” the young knight reassured me, but his words were little comfort.

“She’s
your
responsibility,” the King shouted from his pulpit, jabbing a finger towards his son. “Keep her under a watchful eye and ensure she doesn’t try to escape. I’ve got some questions to ask her, but first we need to deal with some more pressing matters.”

“Questions?” I groaned, gingerly making my way back to my feet. “You ungrateful fudging...you want to question me? I don’t even know where I am...or
when
I am.”

“That’s kind of the point of an interrogation,” the King scoffed, dropping back into his throne and folding one leg over the other. “You see, we don’t know
what
you know, but after we’re done questioning you we certainly will.”

My knees buckled and Dawson caught my arm, propping me upright. If I’d had the strength I would’ve rushed up to the King and planted my steel–toed boot in his royal ass.

Dawson narrowed his eyes, glaring up at the throne. “May we have your leave, father?” he asked impatiently.

“I suppose,” the King replied, now shuffling through a deck of his cards. “She’s earned a break...for the time being.” With a dismissive wave he motioned for us to leave.

I staggered away with Dawson by my side, supporting me as we walked. Once outside of the throne room a wooden door slid shut behind us and I collapsed against the wall.

“I know that was awful,” he apologized, leaning at my side. “But you’re still alive, so...that’s good news, right?” His attempt to put a positive spin on my capture and imminent torture was sweet, but it didn’t do much to improve my mood.

“Cause for celebration,” I moaned. I peered down at my new fashion accessory, which was humming softly and swirling with a crimson pulse. “Why can’t I phase through this stupid thumb ring?”

“It’s like a miniature CDU. They’re cerebral dampening units that were invented for – ”

“I know what a CDU is,” I interrupted. “Everyone does. They stop superhumans from being super.”

“Right,” he nodded. “Then you know that when you arrived here, you shut down
everything
– including all of the kingdom’s CDUs.”

“How? That’s not my power. And why would your entire kingdom need protection from superhumans?”

Dawson offered to do more than explain the situation – he wanted to show me. He escorted me down a series of corridors and into a control center that was considerably more modern-looking than the rest of the castle; gleaming metal walls, a steel floor, and screens projecting from the ceiling that flickered and rotated through the dimly lit room. They displayed video feeds of both the castle interior and the snow–capped mountains that surrounded it.

I stepped towards a screen that monitored the exterior of the castle.  The familiar vista was stunning. It was the same view I’d spent hours gazing at as a child; the peak of
Hvannadalshnúku
r
 
that I’d dreamed of climbing and exploring, and soaring overhead like a bird. I was struck with a pang of nostalgia until the camera panned to the foot of the range, revealing a much different landscape than I remembered; low–rise buildings, one piled atop another, packed into a densely populated urban sprawl. Rusted metal was buried beneath a fresh snowfall, and people milled about in thick jackets, pulling carts, tending to cattle and repairing their decrepit homes.

“This is where we monitor the kingdom,” Dawson explained. As he spoke he reached out and pressed his fingertips into the projections, dragging and dropping various windows into different positions. “The entire island of Iceland is protected by two main safeguards: an EMP and a CDU. The electro–magnetic pulse keeps everything mechanical away – aircraft, boats, even missile strikes. Anything gets within thirty kilometers of the kingdom and it crashes into the ocean. And of course the cerebral dampening units kept the superhumans away...until now.”

When the fiery woman appeared in the throne room it was only minutes after I’d arrived. Ten, maybe fifteen. “How did she know?” I asked, studying the screens.

“That our shields went down?” He motioned towards a floating red power bar that was now depleted, like the interface of a video game. “They monitor
everything
. They knew the moment we lost our shields, and sent the fiery girl right over. I guess she’s the only one with the ability to teleport, or I’m sure there would’ve been more with her. The rest won’t be far behind if we can’t get these shields back up.”

“How did this all start?”

“Superhumans versus the rest of us?” Dawson gestured in the air and the room darkened completely, expanding a screen that encircled us. “It started before I was born. After Sergei Taktarov won Arena Mode he had billions of dollars at his disposal, and used it all to fuel a movement. It started as class warfare – rich against the poor. It made sense since there were so many poor people, and they already hated the upper class anyway. Russia and most of Europe fell to revolutions, and then North America followed. Before long almost every country was lawless, and without a government...well, it left a vacuum. Anarchy. Most of this happened before my brother and I were born, but as you can see, we’re still seeing the effects.”

News footage from across the globe flashed by in a series of cascading screens. Every window told the story of a different nation, but the events taking place were eerily similar: chaos. Riots, lootings, and widespread violence overwhelming the streets. The timestamps were from 2042, just one year after Arena Mode. It was in the midst of Taktarov’s revolution.

Then the timeline skipped forward to 2047, and the news footage was reporting a very different story. The streets, once littered with carnage, were now pristine. Shimmering new buildings dotted the skylines of each major city, and superhumans soared overhead. They weren’t protecting the populace (as I first suspected when I saw the footage) – they were patrolling. The only visible humans were working construction jobs, toiling away on roads and bridges, or erecting massive statues of their powerful new leaders. In some cities major landmarks had actually been torn down in defiance of tradition, replaced with tributes to the superhumans. The Eiffel Tower was no longer part of the picturesque Parisian skyline; it had been torn down to accommodate a five–hundred foot replica of Sergei Taktarov, bathed in the glow of a hundred spiralling flood lights. The Empire State Building, the Burj Khalifa, the Coliseum – all dismantled and replaced with monuments to the living gods.

“Taktarov said that his ‘kind’ was meant to take over,” Dawson explained. “Protecting us, ruling over us...it was a nightmare. Some worshipped the superhumans, others rebelled. But those who fought back were, well ...”

“It didn’t end in rainbows and free ice cream.”

“No,” Dawson said gravely. “Not exactly. Cameron Frost died during Area Mode, and his company’s stock plummeted. His board members sold off most of the technology before the company folded, and a few countries invested heavily in weapons, security, cerebral dampening units...luckily this was before the take-over, so a few of us were protected.” He said the word ‘map’ and gestured in the air, projecting a globe that spun before us. The enormous glowing sphere depicted land masses that were divided into two sections: red countries and blue ones. “The red territories have been completely overthrown by the superhumans,” he explained. Only a few smaller island countries remained blue: New Zealand, Japan, and of course Iceland. “Everywhere else had fallen to Taktarov’s rule. All of the red countries are now the N.S.S.R.: the New Soviet Socialist Republic.”

“Wait,” I noticed, stepping closer to southern Europe. “What are these?” I poked my fingertip into a glowing purple dot on the coast of Italy, causing the holographic projection to blip. “There’s a couple of these scattered across the map...one in Poland, another in Greece, a few throughout the UK ...”

“That’s the good news,” Dawson said, his voice almost hinting at a quiet optimism. “The remaining blue countries have remained isolated for so long that Taktarov’s  movement has lost momentum. Some of the superhumans are no longer following his lead and are threatening to break away from the New Republic – and so are the humans. Those purple spots represent swing territories: they’re teetering on the verge of independence.”

It made perfect sense. “Can’t fight a war without an enemy, I suppose.”

“Something my dad did a few years back actually set the movement back, though.” He pulled a small box from his pocket the size of a wallet and pressed his thumb into the metallic casing. “My dad doesn’t even know I have this. Getting new information from outside of Iceland isn’t easy since he keeps things pretty much on lockdown.” When he pulled his thumb away the contour of a glowing emerald fingerprint remained. The box hummed and produced a smaller video window. The screen showed footage of the epic Sergei Taktarov versus Dwayne Lewis encounter from Arena Mode in 2041, and it unfolded just as I’d remembered it; bodies flew impossible distances, buildings collapsed from the immeasurable force, and – eventually – Taktarov bested his larger foe with a well–placed laser blast that erupted from his eyes, tearing a hole through Lewis’ chest.

“This is old news,” I shrugged. “I saw this earlier today...or thirty years ago...you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, but this is the part you
didn’t
see.” The video footage froze and zoomed on the concrete beneath Taktarov’s feet. It has been chewed into bits from the force of their bodies colliding, but in super high-definition something was evident: there was
blood
. Just a couple drops, barely perceptible, but there they were, gleaming in the midday sun. “These were the only drops of Taktarov’s blood that had ever been recovered. A camera man scooped up the concrete and took it to a lab, preserving a couple drops in a cryogenic vial.”

I failed to see what was so special about a couple drops of plasma. “So? He had some weird fetish. It’s not that strange...I once dated I guy who liked to bite off my toenails.”

“You don’t get it,” Dawson said, sweeping his hand above him in a wide arc. The gesture fanned a series of images through the air like playing cards on a tabletop, displaying laboratories filled with futuristic equipment that I didn’t recognize. “When the Frost Corporation sold off all of their technology and research, they had stuff in there about biological weapons: using enhanced DNA to genetically modify troops.”

The notion made my brain hurt. “You’ve got to be kidding me...Frost wanted to
make
superhumans?”

“More or less,” Dawson nodded. “Or gain powers himself...neutralise the genes that carried those traits? Hard to say. No one had ever succeeded in
creating
these people, but that’s where things got weird.”

“Because they were so normal before?”

Dawson swiped open another window, depicting a small grey cylinder with a transparent tube inside, containing a few drops of ruby liquid. “My dad actually
bought
the vial of Taktarov’s blood on the black market. He must’ve thought one of our scientists could crack the code.”

“He admitted this?” I asked, skeptical that the King would’ve shared this purchase with
anyone,
including his own sons.

“No, of course not, but it’s all over the news outside of Iceland. No one around here has a clue. The problem is that things
were
settling down, and Taktarov
was
losing support...but buying the vial ...”

The controversy over the blood was becoming clear. I felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. “He’s using this as an excuse isn’t he? Taktarov is riling up his followers by saying that Iceland is trying to weaponize it.”

“It’s more than that. His true believers – the ones who worship him – believe it’s an affront.” Dawson asked to see international news and the device triggered a graphic that floated before us: the word ‘classified’ in bold 3D letters. He spoke a series of numbers aloud and the word disappeared, unlocking new feeds from outside of Iceland; feeds that were no doubt censored to all but those who reside inside the castle.

“An affront?” I repeated, not sure I heard him correctly.

“Like an offense to their holy leader. That Iceland would dare take Taktarov’s blood is like taking a piece of
him
. Since my dad purchased the vial a new movement has formed calling themselves the ‘Manticore Uprising’: fanatics who are more radical than anyone who’s come before. They’re mostly superhuman, and have been promising to follow Russia’s Son ‘to the gates of Hell’ to reclaim what’s his.”

I was hypnotized, gazing at the most recent news footage: somewhere in Sweden the media was reporting from a Manticore Uprising rally. Hundreds of soldiers, many encased in red battle armor with opaque black visors, were screaming and thrusting their fists into the air while Sergei Taktarov spoke from an elevated podium. The audio was muted, but whatever their leader said was whipping his followers into a frenzy. “Wow...that is all kinds of insane.”