Win

  “What fun,” Brie snorts in sarcasm. “So hey, looks like some of the Goldilocks can think for themselves after all. Who knew?”

  “It’s a big planet,” I say. “I’m sure there are as many opinions and social factions here as back on Earth.”

  Brie stares at the golden mask with fascination. “And some of them don’t like the Imperial Family. I’m impressed.”

  “How long must you follow the dead traditions of the ancients?” the golden mask says. “How long will you worship the Imperial Kassiopei, blind to the ineffectiveness and the corruption? Your Imperator presides over the dead and the living ghosts—all of which are you. Even now he watches as you die in the Games, watches the rest of you sit idly by and place bets on your own slaughter! And his useless son, the Crown Prince, the pitiful culmination of this cursed dynasty, watches helplessly as his Earth Bride fights to stay alive another moment, a victim of his own ineffectual weakness—”

  “Wow,” Brie says, looking at me curiously. “Harsh words about your loverboy.”

  I don’t reply, but listen, starting to frown. I’ve no problem with this masked “Rim” speaking ill of the Imperator, but my Aeson is another matter! I glance away from the screens momentarily and notice all the Atlanteans in the room looking at me closely. Their expressions range from mild curiosity, to intense scrutiny, suspicion, and even pity.

  “What honor is there in the hero who wears the black band, the so-called savior of Ae-Leiterra, when he cannot even save his own beloved?” the speaker behind the golden mask continues in the same modulated voice, but even the mechanical filter does not hide the tone of disdain.

  Not true! Unfair! I want to scream. He’s doing all he can for me, under horrible circumstances. . . .

  But even now there’s little I can say that doesn’t sound like treason or reveal unsavory truth about the Imperator’s actions. Even defending Aeson is a double-edged sword. But at least I can try.

  “The Imperial Crown Prince has done so much for me, including training me so that I can defend and save myself,” I say with sudden anger. “This was my choice, and the Imperator simply granted me this gracious gift of participating in the Games.”

  Yes, I’m spinning this wildly, and almost gagging on the words “gracious gift,” but what else can I do? If I cannot reveal the truth, at least I can own it, make this seem like an act of my own choosing.

  There’s a crackle that comes from the feeds as the picture wavers for an instant, fades in and out, and then returns. “Wake up, Atlantida, step away from the Rim of the Grail from which you drink the lies and oblivion. Embrace the refugees from Earth and reject the tyranny! We stand with you, Gwen Lark, Earth Bride, who must not be allowed to die in the Games, and take all hope with her—”

  Another series of crackles and the mask disappears, interrupted mid-sentence. In its place, the normal feed of the Games returns, populating the screens with live views of the arena and stadium outside. At the same time, a cheering audience roar of approval shakes the stadium.

  “Finally, they must’ve figured out how to cut those pirates off,” Kokayi says. “Any other time, I wouldn’t mind hearing their inspired foolishness. But not now—now we need to be able to see what’s outside our Safe Base, and the rest that’s out there.”

  “Agreed,” Lolu says. “We need the surveillance feeds.”

  “Our profound apologies for the interruption, Grail Games worshippers!” the main announcer’s voice goes on, amplified so loudly that his volume rattles the sound system of our indoor smart screen. “All criminals will be brought to justice, we promise you that, and now your favorite show is restored! The Games are Forever!”

  The stadium roars.

  “The Games are Forever!”

  “On that note, it’s almost time for our second sleeping shift,” Brie says. “Lark and Lulu—I mean, Lolu—feel free to hit the sack, and the rest of you go back to sleep, while we take over, the Green dude and I.”

  Lolu frowns. “Why should I hit a sack?”

  And Kokayi says, stretching his limbs, “What is ‘dude?’”

  “Saints almighty . . .” Brie mutters, shaking her head. She then points me to the floor.

  Honestly, I’m too wound to sleep, my heart still racing in angry stress. But I lie down anyway, with my back to the wall for safety, and rest my head on my equipment bag for a pillow.

  I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing, while I hear the others in the room shifting quietly, settling back down, while Brie takes over at the surveillance screens, and Kokayi the Entertainer sits not too far from her, yawning hugely. Meanwhile the constant ordinary noise of the arena and the audience continues—the occasional explosions, lonely screams of pain, and now and then Contenders climbing up the scaffolding and knocking around our Safe Base.

  I ignore the thuds and cries and the gunfire. I ignore the soft sleeping sounds, and the occasional whispers between Brie and Kokayi.

  Is Aeson still here in the stadium? Has he gone to rest, or is he still watching me, right this moment? What about Gracie, Gordie, my friends? My thoughts race around in a trance.

  Soon, Midnight Ghost Time begins, and the beautiful choral hymn sounds, bringing a pause of silence to the fighting, as the Games staff return to collect the dead.

  By then, despite my nerves and adrenaline, exhaustion has the better of me, and I fall asleep.

  I come awake out of a dark abyss to a terrible loud pounding on the Safe Base structure, and the sensation of someone literally shaking the floor from under me.

  “Huh? What?” I sit up, going from groggy to instantly alert, holding on to the floor with both hands, palms down, as everything is shaking underneath and around us.

  “What the hell? Crap!” Brie Walton cries out a few feet away, as an especially hard impact rattles the structure. Meanwhile the other sleepers make sounds, coming awake.

  Zaap is standing upright, leaning over the screens intently, and Chihar is with him—apparently it’s the third shift, which means it’s morning already.

  “We’re under attack,” Chihar says in a grim voice. “This time it’s serious.”

  “Who? What?” Kokayi and Lolu speak simultaneously, as the floor shakes.

  “Deneb Gratu and his team,” Chihar replies.

  Oh, no. . . .

  Kokayi yelps and curses, then springs up also. “Then it’s the end! We’re dead!”

  “Enough with the dramatics,” Brie interrupts in a hard voice. “We may be screwed but it’s not over yet.”

  We all crowd around the display, hold on to the floor and the walls, and watch a truly frightening sight on the multiple view screens.

  It’s early after dawn, so the light outside is still not blinding white, and the arena night illumination is still on. Ten Contenders, one of each Category, stand on the ground level, pointing various weapons at a whole crowd of others, who are forced to labor at the scaffolding. They are pounding and bludgeoning the base of our structure at various levels of scaffolding, while the whole thing shakes violently.

  Beams creak and bend, and a few ultimately collapse. . . . A localized small explosion goes off on level three and takes a vertical support beam with it.

  We begin to sink . . . slowly. And when I say “we,” I mean the entire Safe Base one-room structure that contains us.

  At the same time the audience roars its approval.

  “Oh, no, no, no!” Lolu mutters desperately, trying to remain upright as the floor slants sideways under us.

  Kokayi wails, while Chihar starts going through his equipment bag quietly to arm himself.

  “Okay, now we’re really screwed,” Brie exclaims, throwing me a hard glance.

  Desperately we grab our bags, get our weapons ready.

  The screen views show us slipping down to level three scaffolding, and some of the surveillance cameras go out, as they are damaged in the assault on the structure—so we lose a couple of the views around the back and from one side. A Red and two Greens climb o
ur roof, while someone is pounding at the door.

  “Crap, crap, crap!” Brie mutters, while Zaap cusses, producing incomprehensible streams in Atlanteo.

  “Hold on!” Chihar exclaims, as we feel another hard thud and the floor slants in a different direction as we slide down further and are now halfway between level two and three. Amazingly, our room itself still holds while all support beams collapse around it.

  I have my stun gun out, and another one handy in the bag pocket, and my clear shield is within reach. . . .

  In that moment, a deep booming voice sounds from ground level.

  “Gwen Lark!” Deneb Gratu calls out harshly, as for a moment the destruction around us comes to a pause in silence. “Come out, Gwen Lark, surrender now, and we will let the others live. We offer a trade for you.”

  Deneb is a giant—muscular, hard as a mountain. In the still-functional panoramic camera view of ground level, we see him take a step forward and point a gun at a short Contender also in Red, young and thin, who is pushed forward, with his hands bound before him.

  The boy is a teen, and his uniform has the Warrior logo. He stands upright with a straight back, but he is terrified.

  Immediately Lolu gasps. She makes a sound, putting her hand over her mouth.

  “I have Khadram Eetatu,” Deneb cries. “I trade you this boy for Gwen Lark. I believe he’s someone’s brother? Yes? If so, you have one minute to decide. And then I shoot your brother. Easy math—either Gwen Lark comes out, or he dies.”

  Deneb gives the thin boy another shove with the end of his gun. And then he checks a small gadget in his other hand. “The clock starts now.”

  Immediately Lolu Eetatu goes insane. She jumps backward out of reach of any one of us, scrambling for two guns, and stands pointing the weapons at me. “Stay back, all of you!” she exclaims, her kohl-darkened eyes wide and intense with anguish, her gaze darting around the room. And then she focuses on me. “You, Gwen Lark! You have to get out! Now! Get out, Gwen, I’m sorry, but you have to—you have to—” her voice trails off, and she is panting, breathless.

  I take a step back from her, my mind reeling, while the others freeze.

  “Whoa!” Brie says carefully. “You can’t seriously expect to give her up to them? That big Red guy, he’s lying! You open the door, he takes Gwen and kills all of us! At least this Safe Base is still intact—”

  “Shut up!” Lolu yells at Brie. “Shut up, just shut—”

  “Wait,” I say, while my pulse is racing, and universes start spinning in my mind. “Maybe we can figure out some other way—”

  “There is no other way!” Lolu speaks fiercely. “One minute! That’s it, no time left! You have to go!”

  “He’s going to kill me,” I say softly, looking into her eyes with a kind of mild calm that makes no sense even to me. “If I go out there . . . I’m dead.”

  “I know! Yes, I know! I’m sorry! Very sorry, Gwen! But he’s got Khadram! My brother must not die, not now—I can’t—”

  Zaap curses again.

  But they all look at me with resignation. Everyone except Brie, who’s drawn her own gun, and starting to take a step in my direction. Not sure if her intent is to also shoot me or to shield me.

  In that moment a very strange sense of grounding in reality comes to me, a sudden realization that if I die now, so many other things die with me. Aeson . . . Atlantis itself.

  I remember what he’d told me once, that I am his anchor now, and if he loses me, he loses hope. Only now is it sinking in, the hard clarity of what it would really mean to him—the devastating blow that would cause a long chain of events, causalities, the fallout. . . . It’s as if a moment of prophetic insight opens a glimpse into the future, and shows me everything collapsing. This planet, all the people on it, the mysterious aliens who are poised to destroy it. . . . And at the same time, far across the stars, Earth, and everyone on it, going up in flames also. Everything is burning, the end of all things. . . .

  If I die. . . .

  “Okay,” I say, watching Lolu with her wild glistening eyes. “I get it. It’s your brother out there.”

  And then I look around at her and the others. “I’m going.”

  Brie is staring at me in disbelief, with her jaw dropped. “No, Lark! You can’t do that!”

  Chihar, as usual, has a hard-to-read expression. Zaap is sullen, and Kokayi looks genuinely sad.

  They have no idea. They have no clue, no glimpse of what cascading sequence of life-and-civilization-ending events would happen if I die.

  Indeed, what am I doing? I can’t go out there! Not now, not like this! Not when everything somehow depends on me! Especially not while knowing all that I know now . . . the alien threat, the complexity of the situation, Aeson’s need for me among a truly fragile Imperial house of cards. . . .

  And yet, I must. What else is there to do? There is no other logical or even remotely feasible solution that comes to mind in which I don’t end up dead in the next few minutes. . . . Might as well let Lolu have something . . . let something good come out of this.

  A moment of silence. And then Lolu edges toward the external speech amplifier on the wall and presses the button, speaking in a brave steady voice, almost sounding like her usual annoyed self. “Don’t shoot, she’s coming out! Send Khadram Eetatu ahead, and Gwen Lark will come out! I give my word, now you give yours! Don’t shoot him!”

  Immediately we hear Deneb Gratu’s booming voice. “Good decision!” the superstar Athlete responds. “Send her out.”

  And on the view screen we see him prod the boy in front of him with the gun, telling him to walk slowly forward and climb the collapsed pile of scaffolding toward the entrance of the Safe Base as it semi-hangs perched between levels, atop the few remaining warped plates of a damaged walkway.

  “Go!” Lolu tells me, motioning with her gun. In that instant she doesn’t meet my eyes. “I’m really sorry, but—go!”

  “Oh, hell no! Don’t go out there, Lark!” Brie says furiously, moving toward me. “Goddamn it, it’s suicide!”

  In reply I sling my equipment bag across my shoulder, place fingers on the stun-gun hidden in the outer pocket, and walk the few steps with difficulty along the sloping floor panels toward the door. With surprisingly steady fingers I unlock it, then open it slowly, blinking in the grey early morning light.

  Behind me I can hear Brie Walton’s shouts of protest and a minor scuffle, as apparently she fights and is held back by the others. . . .

  I take a deep breath and step outside.

  I step on crooked walkway panels, trying not to trip on broken beams, holding my hands out to the sides for balance.

  I’m going to be shot in a few seconds.

  I think of Aeson’s black armband, a hero’s honor, folded and resting like a handkerchief in a pocket hidden on my chest, a tangible thing of love, somehow protecting me. . . .

  As I move steadily forward, finding spots to place my foot, I glance periodically at the dozens of silent Contenders who stand around waiting for me, both on ground level and up here among the remains of scaffolding. Not one of them moves to either harm or assist me—Deneb Gratu’s team still has their weapons pointed at these people who were coerced to bring down our Safe Base.

  A few more steps, and I see the boy—Khadram. He makes his own way toward me with difficulty, his hands still bound. I see snatches of his face, with a minor resemblance to Lolu, his expression grim and resigned. He seems so young.

  And then we are up-close, and then we pass each other.

  Lolu’s brother does not look at me as he steps around me and continues on toward the Safe Base.

  My heart is pounding violently as I keep moving, knowing I have possibly just a few seconds to live. . . .

  One more level and Deneb Gratu awaits, watching me as I land on the roof of the base structure, about to jump off on the ground floor of the arena.

  And then comes the familiar zing-zing sound of an energy gun being fired. I instinctively close
my eyes, brace for impact, for pain, for oblivion. . . .

  Instead, I hear a boy’s cry of pain behind me, quickly silenced.

  I whirl around, and Lolu’s brother is lying on the walkway, next level up. Looking up, I can see the outline of his body through the beams and panels, and there’s no blood yet, only a laser scorch mark and the smoke of burned flesh.

  Then I hear the screaming wail from inside the Safe Base, as Lolu Eetatu witnesses and responds to the shooting of her brother.

  I am stunned, both at the extent of tragedy and treachery.

  It’s a good thing, because for a moment I forget to be afraid, and I take wide steps forward, jump down to the ground level, and rush toward Deneb Gratu, the Athlete giant in Red. “You damned liar!” I scream. “How could you? You promised to let him go!”

  But Deneb simply nods to the two Contenders next to him. Then, before I can fire my stun-gun, I feel the blunt impact of two heavy bodies rushing me, wrestling me to the ground.

  I struggle, squirm like a snake, but it’s no use. They have my hands and arms and my feet, and I am restrained even as I try to turn my head and bite—as I had been taught by my expert trainers—but to no avail.

  Deneb Gratu towers before me. I see the hard planes of his red-clay skin, the cold glint of his dead blue eyes.

  “It’s the Games, Imperial Lady. No rules, no promises, no lies. You, Favorite Kill, are worth a great deal, while he—he was worth nothing.”

  Chapter 45

  The crowds roar as I am restrained and held in place. With my peripheral vision I see the distant giant screens flash between different displays of the Game Zone. . . . Many of them now focus on my location and this drama being played out.

  “So are you going to kill me?” My heart beats so violently it hurts my chest. “Do it.”

  Deneb cranes his thick neck slightly, watching me with a smirk. “Of course,” he says, and reaches out with one huge beefy hand to slide fingers around my neck. “Unless you want to self-disqualify?”

  The audience roars and screams.