Authors: Robert Appleton
He glimpsed a gargantuan web of pipes on the dome’s roof, and a transparent tubular walkway under an awning, high up, running the entire circumference of the arena. Thousands, millions of dark dots fidgeted in this spectators’ gallery. To Charlie, they represented the worst kind of evil—beings with the intelligence to do anything they wanted in the universe yet were content to wallow in the suffering of others. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
At least his sponsorship deal with Latigo had been purely financial. He hadn’t partaken in the deplorable treatment of Martian workers. Or had he? Nothing he could do would save these poor victims here in the race, but as Charlie Thorpe-Campbell on Earth, he’d had the power and the influence to effect any change he’d wanted in the solar system. Just like these overlords. And he’d chosen himself over the suffering of others, just like the overlords.
The notion stung him right in the heart. Sorcha
was
right. Millions of light-years away, it was the clearest he’d ever seen his role on Earth. If he ever got back, he promised himself sport would be the last thing on his mind.
“To the victor goes the spoils,” the voice in his ear taunted.
That he’d always lived by that mantra now filled him with hate. Sons of bitches! Without realising it, he’d overtaken all but one runner. The track curved gradually round the far side of the arena. He couldn’t see the carnage behind him, nor the killer assigned to his particular lane. It was no longer an escape from death but a race for survival. First to the finishing line might be spared. Charlie remembered his objective and upped his pace. Whatever happened, he had to find the city’s power source. He trusted Blake’s plan and that the overlords had not probed all his memory. That was all he could do—trust, hope, and dig in. Easy, gliding strides turned to sprightly bounds then to propulsive, ankle-aching leaps.
He passed a large square black-walled enclosure in the eye of the track. There were signs of commotion inside, growls and jabs of sand tossed high, as two of the walls appeared to converge. What sort of sick sport was that? The deafening
thump, thump
resumed from high above. It urged him on. A mist-drenched beach awaited, with morning sunlight filtered dazzlingly through silver clouds—a highway to an empty metal victory.
Despite the spectators’ racket, Charlie maintained sterling focus throughout the remainder of the giant circuit. He was sure at least one creature who had streaked ahead in the early stretch had eluded him but it was not there at the finishing line. Had it strayed from its lane and been sucked up to the rafters?
“Winner,” the voice announced. “The human from Earth.”
The roof nearly lifted off the place. The thumps of celebration were so loud, the loose top layer of sand visibly shifted. A simple, silver line across the race lanes had signalled the end of the event, but Charlie knew he would never forget this win. Fists of horror reached inside his stomach, stirring, twisting his abdominals until he threw up.
He thought of all those innocent alien creatures torn from their homes and then ripped apart. They’d been transplanted here for this—a slaughterhouse orgy. How many of them were fully grown and how many were only children? It would make no difference to the spectators. He imagined the more exotic the creature, the more the audience would enjoy watching it suffer. Sinking to his knees, he thought of all the victims’ families that would never know. It was probably better that way. Marley had told him about technologically evolved species tending toward benignity. The universe had probably never seen a bigger exception to that trend.
The black capsule glistened in his vomit. “Well, well.” Hope in the unlikeliest of places. Pretending to cough, he placed one hand over the capsule to support himself, snatching it up. He rose to his feet. The limelight had never been so potent.
“Human from Earth, follow the spotlight.”
He felt a shivery thrill as he gripped the capsule in his fist. Subterfuge. There was something strangely empowering about being the centre of attention and deceiving the whole goddamn lot of them. If he needed to use his hands, he would shove the capsule into his mouth, hold it under his tongue. If not, he would bide his time and either wait until he was given his freedom in the city or, if anything bad happened to him, leave the bomb exposed and let it blow a crater in the bastard arena, maybe cause some real damage somewhere.
The idea gave him goose bumps.
* * *
The spotlight led him into a much smaller enclosure than the one he’d spied from the track. This, too, had four black walls. It was about a quarter of the size, roughly a hundred square feet. Already lined up inside were about a dozen fresh, incomparable creatures. The word
alien
had no meaning here, for one could be nothing else. No creature had anything in common with his neighbours, other than being captive.
He took several deep breaths as the spotlight guided him to his position at the far end of the contestants’ crescent array. The doorway slid shut behind. What was in store for them this time? What had he qualified for by winning the race? He didn’t like the sight of quivering limbs nor the impatient
thump
resuming high above. At least he wouldn’t have long to wait. Rubbing the sweat from his eyes, he widened his taut stance. Whatever they threw at him, he’d be ready.
Come on, you bastards. Let’s see what you’ve got.
The thumping ceased. Absolute silence clenched into a fist over the arena. For a moment it was all an eerie silver dream, his mind a spinning top unspooling silk. He stumbled sideways, almost fainted.
Clap, clap.
The ground trembled as though a giant horse had reared up and crashed its hooves down onto the thin layer of sand. Charlie looked frantically around the enclosure. The others did likewise.
Clap, clap.
Much closer this time, away to the left but definitely still inside the arena. Where, though? He couldn’t see anything. It occurred to him the noise might be from something underground, but he didn’t think so. The acoustics didn’t tally.
Clap, clap.
A throaty groan ripped his attention to the far end of the crescent. It sounded like the caw of a parrot in agony. Clear liquid blood shot into the air. At once the creatures broke formation, galloping, tumbling, leaping in Charlie’s direction. He had to get the hell out of the way. What had happened? In the opposite corner of the arena, as far away from the gored contestant as possible, he turned to see its carcass being jerked from side to side in midair, as though in the jaws of a beast that was not there.
“What is it!”
The accordion-like midriff of a cowering praying mantis—type creature extended in front of him. The poor fellow leapt at the wall but barely reached halfway up. Its sharp legs then scrabbled for dear life at the base, trying to tunnel out. When Charlie looked across the arena again, the victim’s carcass lay in two pieces. Its killer had now left it. Terrified contestants gazed at one another for help, for a sign, a clue as to what might happen next, each brain desperate to communicate, each mind incommunicado.
Clap, clap.
There! Two prints formed in the sand in front of him. Ten feet away, they were shaped like starfish, only much bigger and with toes of different lengths, the rear one twice as long as the others. He ducked as the mantis was swiped from its crouched position and lifted fifteen feet into the air. Reeling back, he fell over a stray tail. His shoulder scraped the wall. Looking up, he shielded his face as chicken broth—some kind of creamy white blood—poured out of the mantis’s midriff.
“Jesus!”
He barely sidestepped out of the way in time. He sprinted. An awful crunching noise haunted him all the way to the other side of the arena. Again, he saw no sign of the attacker. The mantis lay in two pieces. That same fate awaited all of them unless something could be done to render the invisible visible.
But what? His shoulders boiled and throbbed. His mind cried wolf. The silver-tinted emptiness was now full of claw tips, cold death and other sharp edges everywhere, all at once. An invisible monster?
Clap, clap, clap, clap.
It landed nearby to chase two more contestants into a corner, goring them with unseen fangs, before leaping with legs he could only imagine. Who would be next?
Charlie looked around frantically and considered throwing his black capsule at the beast but it would need a long time to explode in this light. Shit! It was the only weapon he had. Or was it? He quested for inspiration, running around the perimeter while hurdling corpses. At any time, from any direction, he could be plucked up. He ran faster, harder, and soon his vaults glided over two bodies at once, at twice the height. How many contestants were left now? Charlie counted five others.
What kind of spectator sport was this? A sick pastime when the audience couldn’t even see what was happening. Maybe they wore some kind of X-ray goggles to make the beast visible. Sick sons of— As he leapt over the very first casualty, that idea flipped in his mind. X-ray goggles?
Just because he couldn’t see it, didn’t mean it wasn’t there. What they really needed to do was…paint the bastard.
“Blood!”
He dove for the nearest corpse. Unfortunately, its grey blood had already dried up and was now thick as treacle.
Clap, clap.
Another contestant snatched. Not much time left. The next body he tried had colourless, translucent blood. Not much use against invisibility but it was watery, and quite a lot had pooled in the creature’s cavernous, severed chest. There was no time for anything else. His arms shaking, Charlie managed to break the clover-shaped skull free, pull the slimy contents out and fill it with clear blood from the chest.
He stepped out on tiptoes, hyper alert. Wherever the beast landed, he would have to be quick. Gasping, panicked breaths were all he could manage. It gave him a touch of hope to see another creature, a stooping biped with spines on its back, gather four handfuls of sand. It crept toward Charlie. They were clearly on the same wavelength, but where was the invisible brute?
Twenty feet apart, they stopped near the centre of the arena. The three other contestants waited in opposite corners for their signal to flee…again. Event number two had become a countdown of the most horrific kind. Charlie wondered if the overlords had a separate zoo for breeding these monstrosities, or whether they just…
Clap, clap.
Quick.
The stooping creature saw the huge prints first.
There!
In the far corner.
Charlie bolted over and, just as the next poor contestant dodged out of the way, hurled the contents of the skull over the fresh footprints. The clear liquid exploded as though it had hit a wall. A vague, blurry form took shape. Immediately his stooping friend tossed all four handfuls of sand onto the haze. Charlie threw a few of his own. The sand stuck.
The monster was tall and thin. Bowlegged, it nonetheless possessed an extraordinary agility, able to catapult itself fifty feet into the air. When it landed again, the trace of one tentacle arm appeared, but Charlie guessed there were many more. He couldn’t see its mouth because it had its back to him. The problem suddenly rang out.
“We can’t let it turn!” he yelled. “We won’t be able to see it from the front.”
Since the sand had only stuck to its back, he had moments before the thing either turned to face him or sprang away, perhaps to dust itself off.
As if from nowhere, a sharp, broken bone landed at his feet. He looked up to see one of the other contestants, having cottoned on to the plan, armed with a sharp object of his own, run at the beast. Charlie grabbed the weapon and dove at the beast’s ankle, slicing and hacking. It kicked out but quickly shuddered, staggered to one side, then keeled over. He’d nicked something vital. It made him even more determined. The brute writhed, convulsed on the ground, but all four contestants had joined the attack. The others diligently dug into its neck. For Charlie’s part, victory came much too soon. When bone finally met bone, he cursed the brute for not having more flesh for him to cut, yet even its insides were invisible.
He lay back, exhausted but still fuming. The invisible beast was dead, yet Charlie knew this ordeal would haunt him forever. Here, the reality after the dream was the nightmare, because there would be more events to come. But the unexpected victory offered him a glimmer of hope. If each contestant had continued to evade the beast, running aimlessly on his own around the arena, they would all have certainly died. Yet that one creative, defiant spark had ignited this cooperative force to win the day—a triumph over invisibility.
Charlie tongued the black capsule in his mouth and nodded. The spark was his. He’d done this but he couldn’t have done it alone.
The spotlight reappeared minutes later and, with it, the voice inside his ear. It led him out of the arena and more than half a mile to another. He kept checking behind for signs of his fellow contestants, but none appeared. So it was to be him again, the sole graduate to the next ordeal. Though he’d survived two events in under an hour, the respite of a slow walk did him wonders. He was Charlie Thorpe-Campbell after all—one of the fittest men to have ever competed on or above the earth.
Two dozen disparate creatures poured inside this square enclosure—the largest one he’d spotted from the running track—through a ten-foot-tall doorway. The black walls were about forty feet high. Every shape and colour of creature was represented, as well as the most unorthodox arrangements of limbs and features he’d never dreamt of. He recognized one with an enormous cut-diamond eye and huge arms scraping the sand when it walked. It had to be related to the poor runner he’d left in the dust next to him on the track, perhaps its co-pilot. When Charlie entered this new arena within the arena, the voice in his ear said, “The winners from every event will now compete for the grand prize. To the victor goes the spoils.”
He puffed his cheeks and shook his head. This sounded deadly, the finale of an intergalactic games. What events had the others had to endure to reach this point? What unique skills did they boast? Which skills might give an advantage this time?
A vertical structure about thirty feet high stood in the centre of the enclosure. Pale lime, smooth and metallic, it resembled a rudimentary rocket with a cone-shaped nose. A gridiron slope to a single hatchway six feet up provided the only means of entry. There was no seat inside, only what appeared to be a flashing control panel and enough room for one medium-sized occupant. Being the second-smallest creature in the lineup, and probably among the weakest, Charlie swallowed, self-conscious. If it came to a dog-eat-dog fight for the right to pilot the rocket, he’d have no chance.
“Okay, think, idiot, think.”
He half expected a droll hint of instruction from the monotone voice. None came. Or the
clap, clap
of an even bigger monstrosity? Nope. The doorway in the wall closed behind the last contestant. Roughly six acres, the enclosure appeared inescapable except by rocket. Charlie clenched his fists at the overlords’ latest sick contrivance. This was obviously designed to test problem-solving intelligence and, more importantly, cooperation under pressure.
The two dozen of them had to decide which one would live. Blake had told him about survival being the most selfish of instincts, that when a life-form had its back to the wall, regard for its own preservation would invariably prevail. He agreed wholeheartedly. Everything about the scenario told him to bolt for the rocket, get there first and try to fend off the others as best he could. Then again, why hadn’t any of the others done that already? They had to have perceived the puzzle the same way.
One did buck for the rocket—the creature with the cut-diamond eye. It managed about ten feet before two bigger competitors wrestled it to the ground. Another tried its luck, barging through four aliens before receiving a crippling blow from the tail of a coiled sidewinder with protruding ribs and a mass of flailing arms. Charlie kept his distance but twitched a smile nonetheless. He liked the tacit understanding on display. Creatures galaxies apart, with absolutely nothing in common with one another except for being alive and together, they were intelligent enough to realise the danger of panic in a group.
With a low rumble, two opposing walls began to converge.
“Oh, crap.”
Once again, time was short. If things didn’t work out, he’d toss the pill over the wall and let it bake in the sun until…yeah, but not yet. The walls might not crush the rocket and they could all survive in single file either side of it. Hmm, that would be pretty dumb on the overlords’ part and too easy a solution. They’d probably manufacture these rockets by the thousand, one for each day’s finale.
He thought about having some of them climb the rocket’s exterior and hang on while it lifted them to safety but there was nothing to grip on the lime metal, and the extra weight would probably ruin the takeoff. He hissed in frustration. How many times had this puzzle been performed, and how many had survived it? How had they survived it? Was there another solution? He looked around the walls.
“Give us a chance, for chrissakes.”
Then one of the contestants, another stick-thin fellow whose method of quick locomotion was to roll in a cartwheel, held his arms aloft and made a loud clicking sound. Since he was nearest the rocket, everyone observed. His clever contribution was to solve the communication barrier pictorially. With skinny fingers as long as Charlie’s arms, he drew a sketch of the wall in the sand then he added a tower of stick figures, five one on top of the other, in front of it.
Everyone crowded around. Reactions varied from head-scratching to ball-scratching to downright sulking, alien gestures that could have meant anything in their respective body languages. For Charlie’s part, it looked dicey. For one thing, there was no time, and even if they could raise someone high enough to reach the top of the wall, what then? How many could he pull up before the walls crushed the rest? It might help if they had a rope of some kind. Clothing perhaps? Nope. Everyone was naked.
They had five or six minutes, tops.
The stick-thin fellow cartwheeled to the wall and eight or nine others followed. He yanked the bulkiest-looking to the fore and thumped the ground between the brute’s hooves, a gesture for him to stay put. Then he pulled the second-biggest forward and pointed him to the first one’s shoulders—the start of a tower. The others got it, too, scrambling up one on top of the other until five teetered, some way short of the roof, in the most bizarre totem Charlie had ever seen. The bottommost creature in the tower also had to back-step in keeping with the approaching wall.
“No chance. That’s never going to hold!” Charlie was now desperate for another solution. Everyone seemed to be mesmerized by the acrobatics as if its success would save them all. “Don’t just stand there.” He scowled at the rest of them. “Come up with something. You lot have built spaceships. What’s the matter with you?”
A few started running frantically around the arena. One even tried to dig a hole in the sand. “That’s not gonna work either.” Charlie shook his head. “It’s only a top layer of sand. It’s solid underneath.” The poor creature found that out the hard way.
Meanwhile, the tower collapsed, the topmost creature now cradling two broken legs after having plummeted. Its nail marks formed a sideways crescent two-thirds of the way up the wall. Adamant that no one else should die if he could possibly help it, Charlie rushed over to help drag his injured comrade toward the rocket. They barely moved him away in time.
“All right, one of us needs to pilot this thing.” Standing halfway up the gangway, he held up a single finger and pointed inside the rocket. Its controls consisted of one black button, a red toggle and a silver joystick. Four indicator lights flashed purple above, below, and to the left and right of the joystick. It appeared so simple—the button was for lift-off, the stick for manoeuvring, and the toggle—damned if he knew. Ballast perhaps? He felt as qualified as anyone to fly the craft under the circumstances.
The stick-thin creature suddenly rolled up the gangway and barged past him, its skin-and-bone limbs catching him, nearly knocking him off.
“Hell’s your problem?”
It made a beeline for the cockpit and, before anyone could haul it back out, emerged with what appeared to be a silver, folded-up parachute. A cacophony of alien noises assaulted Charlie’s ears. Had they all had the same thought? Now there was a clear solution…
…a pilot had to blast off in the rocket, clear the wall, parachute down on the other side, then throw one end of the rig back over the wall for the others to climb out. But the wall was too high and the parachute probably not long enough. Crap! What else? He snatched the rig from his colleague and unfurled it on the sand to make double sure. As he did, the stick-thin fellow drew a quick diagram in the sand for the others, to prevent them from panicking and rushing the rocket. It mirrored Charlie’s plan exactly. All things considered, it was the only gamble worth taking but when Charlie laid the chute flat, the alien noises resumed, full-throated. His heart sank. The parachute was not a parachute at all. It was a thin, square sheet with a smiley face in the middle. The turtle-shaped face, with three eyes and a gaping mouth, appeared exactly like those of his biomechanical friends.
The overlords, too!
Their practical joke, Charlie realised. The renewed
thump, thump
from above was the cruel spectators mocking him.
That was that. About three minutes left before the walls met and crushed the life out of them all. Of all the sick goddamn jokes, to put them through this torture then snatch the only possible solution away from them right at the end. Beyond twisted, it was savage, sadistic, ancient Rome at its most decadent.
He collapsed to his knees. He felt awful for failing Blake and Hippolyta, and Marley and little Christina. Being at the head of that procession of children, guiding them to safety for two days over the red mountains, had been the proudest thing he’d ever done. He’d become a father figure after all, and no one could take that away from him.
He fingered the crescent scar just below his elbow. Closing his eyes, he saw Sorcha’s auburn hair blowing across her lightly freckled face. She smiled coquettishly and invited him into her apartment for the first time. The desire to want to replay what had happened next heaved constricting pulses to his chest and shoulders. His breaths hit a low roof. Boiling inside, all he could do was straighten his back, look up and gasp.
He spat the capsule out. His eyes followed it as it hit the sand and lay in stark contrast to the pale yellow. He thought for a moment. A bomb? He snatched the capsule up once more. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that before? Okay, so it couldn’t save him, but they had a rocket. The rocket would explode!
The solution spring-loaded and shot him to the far side of the machine. He screamed his plan but no one understood. Four of them were busy vying, teeth and nails, for the pilot seat. He beckoned everyone over, his desperation so fierce and full of purpose most of them obliged. Christ, there was hardly any time. He couldn’t stop to draw it for them. No, he went immediately to work at pushing the side of the rocket with all his might.
“Come on, for Christ’s sake! I’ll never topple this bastard on my own. Come on. Come on. What’s the matter with you? We push it over and start the engines. Horizontal. There’s bound to be enough thrust to do some damage. That’s it, all of you start pushing. There has to be fuel in it, too. Come on. Once it hits the wall, there’ll be a great big explosion. There! It’s going. A bit further. Heave. Heave for your lives!”
The concerted strength of fifteen bodies and wills finally toppled the rocket in exactly the fashion Charlie wanted, on its side so that the cockpit was easily accessible.
“Right, everyone stand clear.” He raced around to the controls. The protruding gangway, still attached, had fortuitously prevented the rocket’s roll. Charlie dove inside and pressed the black button. He scrambled out as the machine began to shake and roar. Four others hammered at the gangway joint. They managed to yank it clear just after the rocket engines ignited. Charlie thought it was a great piece of anticipation on their part, as that sideways anchor would have altered the rocket’s course, possibly spun it in a circle and incinerated the goddamn lot of them. Instead, it shifted only a few degrees as it shot forward.
Fists of white flame erupted from its boosters. They blasted the sand behind and sent the rocket skidding, accelerating like a battering ram toward one of the creeping walls.
Charlie sprinted through a blizzard of hot sand that stung his bare skin. Nine or ten others reached the corner before him.
Boom!
Hell! The noise cracked and the air swelled like wet rice in a wood crate, until he thought his head would burst. The shockwave sent him careening into his colleagues. He struggled back to his feet from within a writhing tangle of unspecified body parts. The wall was still pushing behind them. An enormous plume of black smoke blotted the silver glare. The rocket? From what he could see—white flames and mangled metal—it had exploded. Charlie squinted to see what damage the wall had sustained. Others were more gung-ho, running into the smoke for a closer inspection. The thunderous fire drowned out any reaction from the audience above, so he had to wait for the official verdict.
Screeching metal suggested the wall was now pushing the rocket wreckage as well. That didn’t bode well. The wall had not been destroyed. He could see it now, or at least its edges, closing in. The best he could hope for was a hole, somewhere,
anywhere
…as long as it was big enough for him to escape through.
More creatures made for the wreckage. The stick-thin fellow pulled at Charlie’s arm with pruned fingers, begging him to come along. They must know something he didn’t, he thought, acceding to his colleague’s conviction. He hadn’t seen anyone come out of the black smoke. Had they all been burned, or had they made it? He plumped for the latter and held his breath. The pruned fingers still gripped his hand. Then they let go.
Here goes.
His left side smarted through an almost unbearable heat. Narrowly avoiding slicing his ankles on an edge of jutting metal, Charlie could barely see through the smoke. Wreckage had piled up against the wall. At least two smouldering cadavers had been churned among it. Only by following his colleague’s agile roll over the scrap did he know where to step. Then he saw a narrow gap near the floor with an arm extending through. It was no more than three feet high, and in a matter of seconds, when the melted wreckage began to compact, coalesce in this gnashing of the walls, the hole would close for good. He scrambled on his hands and knees. Sharp edges cut him all over. So near the lifeline…so near…one last reach…and…