The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe (6 page)

“You
can’t
,” Dawson pleaded, rising to meet his father. “I mean, she didn’t
do
anything.”

“Now son,” the King said lazily, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t be like this. You know we can’t trust the superhumans. If we let her go what kind of a message would be we sending to the rest of the Kingdom...to the world, for that matter? And besides, the shields are still down and we have no information about incoming attacks.”

“The fire woman?” Dawson asked.

The King finished his drink with a single gulp and shook his head. “Nope. Nothing. She hasn’t said a word. Unless she decides to suddenly confess, your foul-mouthed, blue-haired wench needs to be questioned.”

I stood so fast the wooden chair toppled behind me. “I’ll make you a trade.”

“A trade?” The King asked, his sleepy eyes now looking somewhat more alert.

“Information for my freedom.”

The King took a step towards my cell and reached out, leaning against one of the bars. “My dear young girl, let me explain something: whatever you have, I will simply take it. It’s one of the best parts about being King. You have nothing to offer me.”

“I can get the fire woman to talk,” I promised him. And I
could
. I just needed a few minutes and access to my powers.

The King smiled – a wide, condescending grin that stretched across his face. He didn’t believe a single fudging word I was saying. “We’ve had the Tyrant working on her for
hours
and she hasn’t made a sound. He’s done things to her that...well, I won’t bore you with all the details, but let’s just say I’ve seen Japanese horror movies that were less graphic. What makes you think that you can do any better?”

“I can read minds,” I said. “I just put my hands on her head and jump inside.”

“Convenient,” he chuckled, holding his belly with one hand. “And I suppose you want me to just remove your disruptor ring so you can perform this parlor trick? Then you phase through the wall and you’re on the loose, probably back to send a message to the Manticore Uprising.”

“Come on,” I shouted, stomping my feet. “Where the fudge would I even go?”

He poked a finger through the bars, inches from my face. “Language, young lady.”

I groaned and threw my hands up, no longer able to control my temper. “We’re in the middle of a fudging island, and there’s nowhere
to
go! What am I gonna do: jump in the ocean and dog paddle to Norway?”

“Technically Greenland would be closer,” Dawson interjected, suddenly enthusiastic. “But the Faroe Islands and Scotland are pretty close, too.”

“
Dude
,” I said sharply, “
not
helping.”

“She’s right,” The King added. “This conversation is already growing tiresome and you just made it a little more boring.”

Dawson’s eye flicked between his father and I before shrinking back into his chair.

“This is the deal,” I stated flatly. “Give me
one
chance at reading her. That’s all I need. I’ll get inside her head, scrape out the goods and tell you everything about this Manticore gang and whatever they have planned.”

The King sighed and shook his head, absently scratching his beard stubble.

“Come on!” I screamed, balling my fists. “What’s the difference? If I fail you can torture and kill me afterwards.”

He nodded in agreement, scratching at his belly beneath the drawstring on his robe. “And
if
you succeed, I suppose you’ll want a royal pardon in return. What will you do with this new found freedom?”

I had nowhere to go and no one on my side...there was only one thing I
could
do. “Figure out a way to get home.”

The King tossed his martini glass over his shoulder, shattering it against the stone wall beneath a mounted torch. “Oh all right,” he yawned, stretching his hands overhead, a motion that lifted the bottom of his robe to a dangerously precarious height. “It’s getting late, and to be completely honest this conversation is putting me to sleep.” He rattled off a series of numbers that caused my thumb ring to stop pulsing. “You have precisely one hour,” he said sternly, extending a single digit in front of him. “Not a minute longer.”

The door to my cell creaked open and I stepped into the corridor.

I reached down to pull off my ring when the King offered me some quick advice. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he suggested. “I deactivated the disruptor, so you’ll have your powers back for the time being...but if you remove it, the charge goes off. You won’t be much good to us if you get blown to sticky little chunks.” He let out a hearty laugh as he trudged back up the stairs. “And Morton
hates
scrubbing sticky chunks off the stone. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“
Wow
,” Dawson whispered once his father was out of earshot. “I don’t know how you talked your way out of that one.”

I didn’t either, to be honest, but I still wasn’t completely out of danger. If I failed to read the fire woman I’d be tortured and killed, and if I
did
manage to get some information out of her, there was no guarantee it would be worth trading for my freedom – assuming His Royal Capriciousness didn’t have a sudden change of heart.

“You can go now,” the King shouted from the top of the staircase. “Dawson, take her to the Tyrant...and when you have a moment, please let Morton know there’s some broken glass down there.”

After trekking through the castle’s persistently dank underbelly, Dawson and I arrived at an imposing steel door. It was a round, dense monstrosity as thick as it was high. Someone had left it slightly ajar, allowing a sliver of white light to seep into the torch–lit hallway.

Dawson reached out and grasped the edge of the door with both hands. He pulled it open to reveal a short, narrow man with a neatly trimmed mustache and a slick of dark hair.

“Ah, Master Dawson,” the man chimed in a posh British accent. He was in the process of tying on an apron, covering the front of his pastel blue dress shirt and white linen pants. “Always a pleasure to have you down in these parts. Don’t get many visitors in this wing, now do I?” He glanced at me and winked as if I should have known what he was talking about.

“This is Tyler Grant,” Dawson said. “Although some people call him ‘The Tyrant’.”

“I have no idea what could have earned me that dreadful nick name,” Tyler replied innocently, but with a glint of mischief dancing in his eyes. “And who is this lovely young lady?” He flashed a set of pearly teeth and stepped out into the hall, taking me by the hand. Referencing me as ‘young’ came off as a little odd since he looked to be in his mid–twenties, no older than I was. “Let’s have a look at you, then.” He spun me in a pirouette as if we were dancing. “This is
quite
the fine specimen, Dawson: high cheekbones, symmetrical features...I’m thinking her lineage is relatively local. Finland? Sweden, perhaps?”

“My parents were both Icelandic,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “And what’s it to you?”

He chuckled to himself as he unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them to his elbows. “Ah, I’m sorry. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. I am simply
fascinated
by different cultures and backgrounds – distinctive facial features, bone structures. I’d like to have all of them in my office at some point. A man and woman from every country in the world.”

“Your...office?” I glanced over his shoulder at the door he’d emerged from.

Tyler folded his arms loosely across his chest, flashing Dawson a wide grin. “I know what’s going on, you sly devil.”

“You do?” Dawson said, perplexed.

“Picking up a commoner, trying to impress her with a tour of the lower east wing...you wouldn’t be the first.” Tyler’s eyes met mine and he flashed his teeth once more.

“No, it’s not like that,” Dawson blurted out, the heat rising in his face. “She...it’s just not at all the situation. My father...er …the King … well, he told me to keep an eye on her, so it’s –”

“All right, all right, all right,” the mustached man said, holding both hands up in mock–surrender. “I’m not one to get in the way of a romantic escapade, no matter how...
unique
it might be.” He turned and stepped back into the room and we followed. It was empty. No furnishings, no windows – just a second steel door at the far end, identical to the first.

Tyler strolled towards the second door, pressing his hand into the surface. “One, one, three, eight,” he announced, causing it to chirp and swing open.

We entered behind him and the pitch-black room illuminated, detecting our presence. It was like the room we’d just left, but this space was outfitted with a table in the center – a long gray slab I’d imagine a mortician would use – and strapped to it was a girl. Naked, pale, her soft features obscured by a waterfall of red locks, and her limbs colored with angry purple welts. It was the intruder. The fire woman.

Tyler leaned in and brushed the hair from her face, revealing vacant green eyes. They lolled back into their sockets, unable to maintain focus. She was fading in and out of consciousness. “Now
this
is a specimen,” he announced. “Scottish and German ancestry, if I had to guess. But it’s her superhuman ability that’s fascinating. She can’t burst into flames anymore thanks to our disruptor ring, but her healing abilities? Incredible! I’ve already sliced and stabbed her with every tool at my disposal, and you’d barely know it by the looks of her. Sure, she’s a little black and blue, but every single cut has mended on its own.”

“Stabbed?” I whispered, my eyes transfixed on the prisoner.

“Toolbox,” he shouted, prompting a portion of the wall to slide open, revealing an arsenal of medieval torture devices. They were all neatly displayed as if ready to be photographed; curved blades, syringes, hammers, tongs – some still dripping with crimson, dotting the white metal floor. “Well
this
is unacceptable,” Tyler groaned, kneeling to inspect the blades. “The cleaners were supposed to sterilize
all
of the equipment prior to my second session. I’m going to have a word with Morton about this.”

“What has she told you?” Dawson asked.

“Not a great deal,” Tyler replied. He stood and walked towards the slab, leaning in towards the girl. He used a thumb to prop open her eyelid and produced a pencil–sized flashlight from his pocket, flashing it in her pupil. “She’s resistant. I have no idea how she’s holding on for so long, but it’s remarkable.”

“She’s a
person
,” Dawson insisted. “Not just some science experiment. We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“She’s an
intruder
,” Tyler was quick to correct him, clicking off his light before tucking it into his shirt pocket. “And you’d be wise to remember that. If your father hears you speaking this way he might think you’re sympathizing with the enemy.”

Tyler yanked a pair of white plastic gloves from his back pocket and snapped them over his hands, strolling towards the wall full of blood–stained weapons. “I’m going to get started. Would either of you care to stay and watch? I don’t mind an audience while I work.”

“No, thank you,” I was quick to reply, holding up a hand.

His eyes immediately snapped to my thumb, and the pulsing red ring that encircled it. “Wait,” he asked, “are you a prisoner?”

“No,” Dawson said. “Well, not exactly. She arrived just before the superhuman, and –”

“But she’s wearing a suppression ring,” Tyler interrupted, extending a finger towards me, “which means she’s not only a superhuman herself, but she’s in royal custody.”

Dawson shrugged awkwardly – his gesture made even more awkward by the fact that he was buried beneath plates of armor. “If you want to get technical, then yes, I guess she is.”

“Fascinating,” he whispered. Tyler turned and pulled a pair of long, jagged blades from the wall, rubbing them together is if he were about to carve a Thanksgiving turkey. “Well, if you
are
planning to stay I suggest aprons. You wouldn’t know it thanks to the cleaners, but after the first session this room looked like a Picasso painting.”

“We have orders from father.” Dawson motioned towards me. “Brynja here is going to read the prisoner.”

“Read?” Tyler replied suspiciously.

“Brynja can read minds,” Dawson explained. “She’s going inside the fire woman’s head to figure out when the next attack might be.”

“Hmm ...” Tyler stared at me, humming and hawing as he drummed the tips of the blades into the edge of the table. “You see, I
could
take your word for this, but you know how the King is a stickler for paperwork. Do you have a royal decree signed by His Majesty, authorizing this amateur interrogation?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Dawson shouted, his voice strained. “We’re
completely
defenseless, and everything is down: shields, EMPs, CDUs; Taktarov could fly in here right now with an army of superhumans and we’d have
nothing
to fight him with. The only things that
are
working are the disruptor rings, and something tells me he won’t let us put one on him if he decides to show up.”

The fire woman groaned. The skin at the corner of her lips danced, curling at the edges. She was trying to manage a smile.

“Is something amusing?” Tyler asked. He leaned in and pressed the serrated blades to her throat, hard enough to send a trickle of blood rolling down her neck.

“You can dissect me if you’d like,” she hissed, eyes blazing with defiance. “I won’t breathe a word.”

“That’s the interesting thing about my line of work. You see, everyone bleeds, and everyone feels pain. Some more than others, but there is
always
a breaking point.” Tyler pulled the blade away from her neck and skewered her abdomen, so suddenly that it went through her back and scraped the table below. “There’s always a button you can press...and if you press it enough times ...”

Her screams filled the room, intensifying as Tyler twisted the blade.

I didn’t care how much the humans hated the superhumans and vice versa – this was getting us nowhere. “Enough!” I screamed. “The King promised me a chance and I’m taking it,
right
now. If it doesn’t work you can torture both of us.”

The Tyrant paused mid–twist. “Really?” he said, cocking a dark eyebrow. “That
is
an interesting proposition. Two beautiful specimens in the same day?”

“I’ll hop up on the table myself,” I promised. “Now
please
pull the sword out of this woman’s belly button and let me try it my way, okay?”

Tyler glanced down and actually laughed. “Oh, right.” He yanked out the blade, splashing his apron with a ribbon of blood. “She’s all yours.”