Home Planet: Apocalypse (Part 2) (12 page)

“So what happened to them?”

“We executed them for heresy then scavenged their flying machine for materials.”

I looked at him wide eyed and slack jawed.

“They came all the way from Hawaii and you
killed them
,
for flying a plane
?”

“Of course—I slit their throats with my own hand!” he said, proudly.

I reached for my coat zipper and instantly the guards pointed rifles at me.

“It’s okay, I’m just hot in this thing.”

Valdus nodded ascent and I undid the jacket then the fleece underneath.

“I am growing tired of this talk. Number-19, what are the charges?” said Valdus, impatiently.

He bowed and said, “Great Marshal, there are three charges. One: trespassing on your domain; two: carrying a firearm without authorization; three: suspected use of radio frequencies.”

“Very good, Number-19. And we can add to that insulting me and heresy. How do you plead, Outlander?”

“Not guilty,” I said wearily but without hesitation.

“Very well, Outlander. I will consider your case and return my verdict tomorrow. My loins are growing restless,” he said, turning around to leer at the young women who forced themselves to smile. He stood and looked down at me with a sadistic grin.

“Take him to the cells!”

Whatever nascent rapport I thought I had with this maniac didn’t seem to add up to much. And unsurprisingly, I didn’t have much faith in the justice system around here. Hell, I would’ve taken a corrupt tin pot nation’s courts from 2070 over this place any day. At least they took bribes back then.

Despite the grotesqueness of his character, I still wondered how much choice Valdus had in it all. I mean, if his father let him slit two guys’ throats at a young age, God knew what else he’d exposed him to. In a way, he was no different to the child soldiers of twenty-first century Earth, fighting in nasty little wars in Africa and elsewhere.
Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.
Part of me almost felt sorry for him. Not a very big part though. They say there’s good in everyone. I wasn’t so sure with Valdus. He seemed to have had it knocked out of him at an early age. And if anyone ever needed proof that unbridled power corrupts, they need look no further than Valdus. I’m sure his father was the same and, no doubt,
his
father before
him
.

The guards led me back out to the lobby as Valdus the Insane drew the curtains to his love nest amongst squeals of fake delight from his harem. Most of the guards and all of the hangers-on made haste and I was led down a dark side tunnel to the basement below. The dungeons awaited me. I’d made a massive mistake coming here and wanted to take this tyrant down with every cell of my body. But for the moment I had to be realistic and work on one thing—survival.

The basement parking lot of the former hotel now served as a prison. As they led me down, the temperature dropped to what I guessed was near freezing. The darkened space was a labyrinth of bricked-off partitions and cells fronted with an old chain-link fence. Wretched figures inhabited some of the cells; one poor woman looked up from the floor bereft of both energy and hope. A half-dressed man with welts on his back hung from chains on his cell wall. He looked dead. Moans and hushed voices drifted through the darkness, broken only by occasional weak lightbulb. The place smelled of human filth and death.

“This place is
horrific
,” I protested to Number-19 and Number-45. “How can you
treat
people like this?”

“It’s not your concern, Outlander. This is the Great Marshal’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, save the crap, prick.”

A visceral scream pierced the air, chilling and depressing me in equal measure.

“
Jesus
…” I muttered.

They locked me in my cell, secured the door with a padlock and started walking off.

“Hey, what time’s dinner? Do I get to call a lawyer?”

Number-19 turned around, went to speak then decided better of it and left.

I regarded the ten by ten foot cell, cinderblock on three sides, chain link at the front. Other than the old plastic bucket in the corner, it was completely bare. Below the pair steel loops attached to the rear wall, a reddish-brown stain permeated the cinderblock.

“Like a medieval dungeon but without the charm,” I murmured, trying to break my mood with humor.

It didn’t work—this place was a house of horrors, overseen by a psychopathic ruler.

Then came the soft voice of a woman from the neighboring cell.

“Outlander? Is that you?” she whispered.

“Well, that’s what they’ve been calling me. Are you Myleene?”

“
Yes,
it’s me. They will enter you in the games tomorrow. I heard the guards laughing about it.”

“What are these
games
?”

“You must fight to the death. Only one fighter can emerge from each round alive. If you survive a number of fights, then you go free.”

“How many?”

“It depends how many that bastard decrees.”

I chuckled at her defiance.

“So you don’t think he deserves the title
Great Marshal,
either?”

“He is a bastard, a rapist and a murderer,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “His hunting party took me as a teenager from my people and have treated me worse than an animal ever since. But we are weak against the Valdus’ fighters. They had numbers and weapons. We did not.”

“So
you
have to fight in the games too?”

“Yes, the day after tomorrow. He has decreed three matches, but I stand little chance. I am a small woman; the opponents will be big men.”

This place was the antithesis of everything I stood for.

“You knew this, yet you pleaded guilty… Why?”

“Because there is no justice here and to die by execution is worse. I will die fighting and be noble as my tribe would be proud.”

“You’re very brave, Myleene.”

“I hope so,” she said, before breaking into a shiver.

“Cold?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on a second,” I said as I reached to the chain-link ceiling where our common cell wall met. Not easy with the manacles still on.

Only one securing bolt remained, the others just rusted, broken stumps. The chain-link lifted up easily enough. Next, I hooked the small padlock that secured my right manacle over one of the broken bolt stumps. Then I jerked down on it with all my weight. The shackle popped free, so I repeated the trick with the other one before throwing the manacles to the ground and removing my jacket.

“Here, take my jacket,” I said, unzipping the thick Arctic coat before pushing it over the wall.

I heard Myleene murmur in delight of the clean, hi-tech jacket, large enough to reach past her knees.

“You’re a very kind person, Outlander.”

“My friends call me Dan or Danny or Luker.”

“Thank you, Luker.”

“My pleasure.”

***

That night I slept in fits and starts, disturbed by all I’d seen and heard. But I awoke with rage in my belly and fire in my heart. Someone was going to die today and it wasn’t going to be me. Prof. Heinz’s watch said it was 5:35 a.m. and I could still hear Myleene’s gentle snoozing from next door.

Five minutes later, the noise of guards coming my way subsumed the distant sobs and moans. They laughed and guffawed at their own private jokes until they reached my cell. They wore blue coveralls and the numbers 75 and 80. Both were bigger built than the scrawny guys that had first welcomed me to the wonderful world of Valdus. Both had bushy beards and bad teeth. Number-75 carried a bucket and ladle.

“Breakfast, Outlander,” he said harshly, holding out a ladle of some thin substance resembling porridge.

I looked at him confused.

“Don’t you have a bowl or something?”

“Use your hands, wretch!”

I gave him a hard stare but saw little point in refusing. With no food for a while, I was beginning to feel weak. On cupping my hands, he poured in the cold gruel.

Before walking off, he said, “Be ready in one hour.”

I poured it down my throat in three big gulps then licked off every drop of the joyless gruel. Despite its tastelessness, it helped.

“Hey, dumbass! You still there?”

No answer.

“Please sir, can I have some more?” I called out like a latter-day Oliver Twist.

They were gone.

The noise woke Myleene and I spent the hour learning about her life at Angels Station and her desire to return home to her people. Looked like that wouldn’t happen unless we sprung a jailbreak somehow.

An hour later, the armed guards came right on time and noticed the broken manacles on the cell floor. Number-75 sighed and shook his head. He went to turn away, then spun around with his rifle butt raised, ready to thrust it into me. I anticipated the move and sidestepped grabbing the rifle and holding it across his throat.

“Let him go,” said Number-80, unconvincingly as his buddy grasped at his neck and made choking noises.

“I’ll let him go and I won’t beat your asses, but next time you try something like that you won’t be so lucky. Oh, and no manacles thanks—they’re kind of uncomfortable.”

I knew they wouldn’t kill me without Valdus’s say-so and if they tried to take me down, they’d fail. But there was no point trying to make a break there and then, deep within the complex. I’d need to bide my time and wait for an opportunity. These guys were rank amateurs with shoddy equipment and procedures, so I was willing to wait.

“Okay, okay,” said a nodding Number-80, who looked young and inexperienced on closer inspection.

“How about you, hotshot?” I said to Number-75, loosening my grip.

He nodded vigorously, so I pushed him to the floor and threw his crudely made rifle at him.

“Okay, are we going somewhere nice?” I asked with a smile.

“The Games briefing... C-can you at least put the manacles on please? No lock. W-we don’t want to get in trouble.”

I sighed as if it was a real imposition, but took their point and bent down and put them on with the broken padlocks in place.

After Number-75 picked his ass off the deck, they indicated to follow them. We went up the crumbling concrete stairwell missing its handrail, past the lobby and up four more levels to the fifth floor. An old plaque read
Indoor Pool,
and that’s where they led me—to what used to be the changing rooms for hotel guests. From the large number of people—mostly dirt-poor—surrounding the drained pool beyond the doorway, it was still a place of leisure. But not for me, as the dude dressed in a black gown explained. Apparently, this ruddy-faced old man was the Gamesmaster.

“Outlander, you will fight second today,” he explained. “Your opponent, Baltan, is the undefeated champion of the last six months. He will first fight
two
criminals, then you.”

“Hang on a second ... So what, have I been sentenced to this farce in absentia?”

“You catch on fast, Outlander. The Great Marshal’s servant informed me yesterday. I must say, it took some rearranging of the schedules, but I managed to advertise your bout. The crowd you have drawn looks like being a good for the coffers.”

“Well, I’m
so
pleased for you. So what happens if these so-called criminals hand Baltan his ass before I can?”

“Do you mean should they defeat him?”

“You catch on fast too.”

“That is unlikely... But if they do, then you will fight them instead.”

“So where’s my weapon?”

“That will be revealed in the pit.”

The crowd outside started cheering as Valdus and his entourage entered from a side door and took their places on some upholstered bleachers near the middle of the pit’s long side. His naked harem entered next and sat beside their master. Armed guards filed in and took up positions around the room. Valdus sat while everyone else stood. He clicked his fingers and every single man, woman and child got on one knee and bowed. Everyone but me. Screw him. He clicked again and they retook their places sitting or standing around the arena.

The Gamesmaster looked at me as if to challenge me on my disrespect, but then shook his head and said, “So the rules are, fight to the death, no one leaves the ring until either victory or death. Other than that, there
are
no rules.”

“Great,” I said.

“Now I must leave,” he said, making for the baying crowd. He turned back and added, “Oh and Outlander, enjoy every minute—you don’t have many left.”

We’ll see about that,
I thought as the crowd roared with the Gamesmaster’s entrance.

He took position on a small stage on the opposite side to Valdus and lapped up the applause. The noise died down.

“Our first match today is between the criminal brothers George and Regus Huxley,” he said, pausing for the shouts and boos.

Then he proceeded to read out their crimes, none of which deserved this. The guards brought out two small, frightened looking young men in the same sack-like attire as Myleene wore. They unshackled them, pushing one into the pit and kicking the other off the rope ladder as he tried to climb down. Already shaken and injured, another guard tossed in a couple of spears—copper water pipes with a diamond-shaped piece of sheet metal tied onto them. They looked far from lethal. The vitriol from the crowd was unbelievable—even small children watched from the front and spat down at the poor guys.

From behind the lockers, just feet away, came a bare-chested, powerfully built man with a bald head, wearing sturdy boots and bloodstained jeans. Although a few inches shorter than me, he carried the bulk of both fat and muscle—quite an achievement in this impoverished place. His ugly, broken-nose face turned to me, eyeing me like a predator sizing up its prey before leaving to a rapturous welcome. He jumped into the pit with surprising agility and turned to catch the nail-enhanced club thrown to him.

As the Gamesmaster introduced him, Baltan swung his club menacingly, his sadistic grin reserved only for his scared opponents. The guards moved me outside for a better view.

Why not?
If I’m next, I may as well see how he fights,
I thought.

“The Games will commence on your mark, Great Marshal,” the Gamesmaster said, sycophantically.

And with the stroke of Valdus’s hand, the club-wielding beast charged the younger brother. As he did, the older one peeled intelligently right, thrusting his spear and causing Baltan to stop and focus on him instead. The older brother just escaped a scything undercut, falling backwards against the pool wall. He desperately threw the spear at Baltan, missing completely as the younger brother attacked from behind. He raised his spear and looked like he’d get it into the beast’s shoulder blade, but Baltan was too quick and pivoted one-eighty in the wake of his baseball-like swing. The younger brother’s spear arm stopped as the club’s nails buried themselves in his cheek, smashing it into a bloody mess. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed as his legs turned to jelly. The masses cheered and jeered, their bloodlust still unsated. The older brother, having just witnessed his sibling’s death, ran to the near end of the pit unable to retrieve his spear. He looked to Valdus, kneeling and begging for mercy. The tyrant just shrugged.

“The Games will continue,” said the Gamesmaster, gleefully interpreting the command.

Baltan grinned menacingly as he advanced on his quivering quarry. He bounded toward him full of fury, lunging forward, swiping the club through the smaller man’s knees as if they weren’t there. It sent him flailing to the floor in a messy heap. He picked him up by the throat one-handed watching his pain with apparent delight.