No mystery who started the fight. It seemed half the people Victor healed were there because of Yateley. At least there was less bites and gouging this time.
Apart from Victor and Agent Glass, Yateley was by far the oldest clone in the Arena of Doom. It seemed every month that passed the knight of old grew crueler and more malicious. He didn’t just kill his opponents. He hurt them. Tore into them. It was like he didn’t even consider them human anymore.
Victor let the machines do their work, the metal ring sliding up and down Yateley’s neck, healing the bruised tissue and broken cartilage with ease. Victor checked the display, adjusting the pulse frequency slightly. The machines still needed to be controlled, needed to be handled by someone who knew at least the basics of medicine.
Sixty years was a long time to read up, but Victor had more than relearned his medicine. No longer did he rely on balancing humors, and unfortunately heroin and cocaine were no longer prescribed medicines. But curing cancer with a pulse beam, or fixing limbs without the risk of amputation, was more than a fair trade-off.
Even though a nostril of cocaine would have helped with the late office hours.
Logan had already been healed up, taken away to a cell. A few more minutes, and Yateley would have healed enough to join him down in the jail. The cells were used more often than Victor would have liked, but he had to argue just to get aspirin on a weekly basis.
The other clones had their fights chosen for them. Victor had to choose his battles.
As Victor sniffed in through his large dinosaur nostrils, wishing for just a nail tip of cocaine, the cause of everyone’s troubles strolled into the medical wing, Lord Zemka followed closely by Agent Glass.
“He’s still good to fight, yes?” Lord Zemka asked, a half-eaten burrito in his hand.
“He will be,” Victor said, “once this is—”
“My number one fighter needs to be at his best.” Lord Zemka tore a chunk out of his burrito, a glop of guacamole splashing onto the floor. He ignored his mess, walking over to Yateley, looking him up and down. “Make sure there are three pleasure bots waiting in his room. And a repair crew for them after.”
“You’re not sending him to the cells?” Victor folded his arms, his scales rubbing up against each other. “He attacked another gladiator. By your own rules—”
“Which I control, since my voice is the word of God here.” Lord Zemka chomped down on his burrito, spiced meats and rice spurting out of the end, again dripping onto the floor. “He’s fighting tomorrow. Three pleasure bots. He’ll need to take his aggression out on something. It can either be the pleasure bots, or you can be back in here in another couple hours when he attacks another gladiator.”
Before Victor could say anything else, Lord Zemka strolled back out of the room. Victor sighed, grabbing some paper towels to clean up the mess he had left on the floor.
Throwing them into the recycling tubes, Victor checked the process on the healing ring. Yateley would be back to fighting shape in only a few minutes. The ring somehow used lights and pulses, calculated to mind-boggling precision, to heal the wounds inside. A pulse of light, and bruising was reversed. A hum of sound energy, and the bones inside were melded back to the way they were.
Victor supposed it was hundreds of years in the future, but the technology was still scary.
But not as scary as Agent Glass. Standing silently in the corner, sunglasses always on. He made no effort to hide as he watched every single thing Victor did.
“Can I help you, Agent Glass?” Victor eventually asked. Lord Zemka’s right-hand man. He was too efficient, too sneaky to be entertaining in the arena. He could probably murder Lord Zemka in his sleep and sneak every clone off Crimson’s Lament without breaking a sweat.
But Agent Glass preferred to sit in the right hand of the devil instead of standing in his path. Or even trying to get rid of the devil all together.
He wasn’t a moral man. He was an opportunist.
Agent Glass tilted his head, reaching into his jacket pocket. He dropped the wrapper of the lollipop onto the floor, sliding the red ball of boiled sugar into his mouth.
“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Agent Glass asked.
“We’ve known each other for ten years,” Victor said. “Definitely not friends. You’re a coworker I put up with.”
“That’s hurtful.” Agent Glass grinned, the stick of the lollipop sticking out of his mouth like a cigarette. “Do you miss your old body?”
Victor thought that was a very odd question. “I suppose. But I’ve grown accustomed to this one.”
He’d been a velociraptor almost as long as he’d been a human. Due to chemicals and treatments used to extend his life (same as Lord Zemka), Victor had relearned everything over the years. How to hold on to everyday objects, how to talk. Even how to sit down, the tail on his back a terrible obstacle most days.
Agent Glass nodded, taking the lollipop out of his mouth for a second.
“I have a lot of pull with the big man,” he said, “but I’ve never chipped in a favor. We grow ten Hitlers a week, surely we could slip in a copy of your old body, transfer your mind over.”
Victor narrowed his amber eyes, looking Agent Glass up and down. “I was told transferring my mind would be impossible.”
They could grow another clone any time they wanted. Victor was surprised they hadn’t done that in the first place.
But the clone would have fresh memories. Be a new person. Victor would rather live cold-blooded than die. A copy of himself reliving the horrors of his arrival? And catching up on hundreds of years of medicine once again? No thanks.
“That was sixty years ago. We don’t get the latest tech here, but that could change with the next supply drop. Probably good for the clones as well. Won’t have to explain to Hitler twelve times a week what’s happening, we can just transfer his brain over from last time.”
Victor couldn’t help but feel an icy pit in his stomach. From what he’d read, Hitler was a horrible man. He probably deserved what was done to him in the Arena of Doom more than all the other clones combined.
But remembering it all? Being eaten by a T-Rex, and then waking up to do it again the next week? Remembering being burned at a stake, or having each limb tied to a velociraptor before they all run in different directions?
Even for a man like Hitler, that seemed beyond cruel.
Victor had cloned Yrsa the Viking seven, maybe eight times over the life of the arena. What if she remembered each time?
What if every clone remembered every death for the next one hundred years? What if the Arena of Doom lasted for a thousand years, each clone remembering their death every time?
It would be the closest thing to living through hell.
“If you acquired this technology,” Victor said, “I would need it destroyed after it was used on me. No clones living on forever.”
It was a small comfort, but Victor was glad to learn people hardly ever made clones out of clones. The second generation always came out wrong. Deranged. Almost inhuman. With the mind transfer tech destroyed, they’d be no chance of that ever happening.
Agent Glass grinned once more, sliding the lollipop back into his mouth.
“You’d still need to do something for me.”
Of course. Agent Glass was always working an angle.
“I read the files about what happened twenty-five years ago. The failed uprising.” Agent Glass bit down on the lollipop, breaking it into shards, pulling the stick out of his mouth. “Logan trusts you. Likes you, even. You keep an eye on him for me, let me know if he’s planning anything. I can put in a good word with Lord Zemka, get you into a warm-blooded body again.”
Agent Glass knelt down, picking up the wrapper of his lollipop, putting his trash into the recycling tube on his way out of the medical wing.
“Think about it.”
With that, Agent Glass left Victor to his thoughts, and Yateley to his healing.
Victor looked down at his scaly hand
s, the claws at the end. Three long digits. The fingers at the ends always ached, Victor twisting them into something resembling an opposable thumb every day.
Sixty years in the body of a dinosaur. If Yateley had a rivalry with Logan, he might be dead by the end of the month.
But could Agent Glass even be trusted?
As the healing ring finished its work, Victor had his doubts. But also, for the first time in sixty years, just the tiniest spark of hope.
Chapter 16
Logan picked up the crossbow, surprised at how heavy it felt in his arms. He held it up, looking down the sights, firing it at the display target.
It veered off a foot to the right, completely missing the holographic silhouette of the person ten feet in front of him.
He grunted in frustration, the heat from the sun bearing down on him. Logan had killed dozens, maybe even hundreds of Necrotrons in the war. Hardly ever missed.
But after the tenth bolt he hadn’t hit his target once.
Not only did the arena have clones from across the time periods, but weapons too. Logan had been lucky to get a plasma cutter in his first match (as lucky as one could get when thrown into the Arena of Doom). People used swords, pistols, tommy guns, lances. Logan needed to master every single weapon in all of human history if he was going to have half a chance in the arena.
There were fights and matches every night of the week, apparently. Logan thought the arena would only get packed like that on weekends. But nope. Every single night, people were spending their hard-earned coin to watch clones murder each other.
Logan had thought that, on the whole, humanity had been getting better. Not perfect, but at least making steps in the right direction. But the fact that the stadiums were packed every night, and twice a day on weekends, made him think otherwise.
How could so many thousands of people pack themselves in, every night of the week, to watch others die?
They probably didn’t think of clones as humans. But Logan felt human enough. Until Lord Zemka had told him, he had no idea he was a clone.
He breathed the same, bled the same.
And missed with a crossbow all the same.
Logan put the crossbow down for the moment, wiping sweat from his forehead. He’d missed breakfast that morning, and sleeping in a cold cell hadn’t been the best rest.
He was grumpy, to say the least. Considering he was being forced to fight for his life, he thought he could afford to be a little grumpy.
“You’re using math.”
Logan looked behind him. He was on a shooting range of sorts, dividers and a shelf making booths for all the people practicing. James Love stood a few feet back, a smirk on his face. Dark black skin, a wholesome round face, he looked like the kind of man who laughed easy and found it hard to hate.
“Y’all future people do it a lot. Raised in schools. That crossbow there was built for common soldiers. For them, the highlight of their week was eating a fresh apple. Simple folk.”
“I know how to fire a weapon.” Logan picked up the crossbow, firing it once more.
This time the bolt drifted so far it hit the target next to his, flashing through the chest.
James Love grinned, his spurs clinking as he strolled forward.
“You know how to fire your future science laser weapon. This is organic. It needs a different touch.”
James offered his hand out.
“Consider it a favor in kind. For last night.”
“Don’t mention it.” Logan paused, the crossbow in hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he handed it over. It was not the time for prideful masculinity. It was the time to learn everything he could. The time to survive.
“Nobody else stood up to Yateley.” James slid in a crossbow bolt, lifting the weapon up a couple of times. “Whole room full of people.”
“After last night, I’d be less inclined to help out.” Logan would probably have been less honest if he was at one hundred percent. But he was too grouchy, too sweaty, too hungry to think tactically.
“Still.” James held up the crossbow, squinting one eye closed, then the other. “It was nice to have someone at my back.”
He pulled the trigger, the crossbow bolt spinning through the air, piercing through the display bang on the neck.
Logan nodded in approval, taking the crossbow back.
“He’s a knight, I’m guessing?” Logan held the crossbow up, trying to copy the way James Love had just fired.
“Try firing from the hip,” James said. “There’s some recoil, but you don’t need to brace it like a big ’un.”
Logan held it closer to his chest, taking aim.
He adjusted the crossbow, aiming it up slightly, as James said, “Yeah, from medieval times. He’s been here the longest. Number one gladiator. Gets his own room and everything.”
“Bully for him.” Logan fired, the crossbow bolt darting through the air.
Passing by the head of the holographic outline.
He loaded another crossbow bolt, preparing to take aim again.
“Don’t do the math,” James said. “You’re firing with your head. It’s a weapon for common soldiers, remember? Trust your instincts. Fire from your gut. Both literally and… the other one.”
“Metaphorically.” Logan squeezed the trigger, the bolt hurtling through the air.
And slamming into the chest of the display.
“Oh thank fuck.” Logan sighed in relief, lowering his crossbow.
James slid another bolt into the device. “Repetition, Mr. Soldier Man. Ten more times.”
“Grumble grumble.” Logan spoke the words out loud, raising up the weapon once more.
After the third bolt in a row hit its mark, James slapped his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “Thanks again, Logan.”
“Anytime, Mr. Love.”
“Only the ladies call me that,” James said. “You’re handsome, but you ain’t my type.”
With that, James tipped his cowboy hat, his spurs clinking as he walked out of the booth.
Logan fired the next few bolts in peace before frowning.
Yateley had his own private room? Then why was he down in the barracks last night? Just to socialize?
What a bastard.
After firing the fifth bolt in a row, Logan heard another set of footsteps behind him. Much softer, without the quiet clinking of spurs.
His body tensed for a moment until he heard the weight. Far too light for Yateley. Logan glanced behind his shoulder.
The pirate lady. The one who’d come down on the atmospire. She had her three-pointed hat on, beads of sweat on her brown skin as she looked Logan up and down. Crickett, if he remembered correctly. He hadn’t spoken to her that much, only a brief conversation in the courtyard. He’d yet to size her up properly.
“What did I say about looking out for yourself?” She leaned against the edge of the booth, looking him up and down.
“Be nice, I just got here.” Logan fired, hitting the holodisplay in the shoulder.
“I’m giving you advice,” Crickett said. “Practically makes me a charity.”
“What can I do for you,” Logan asked, “simple supply run lady?” The bolt hit the target in the eye.
“You missed breakfast, of course,” Crickett said, standing up from the wall of the booth. “So you missed the lineup.”
“Lineup?” Logan paused, lowering the crossbow, turning back around to face Crickett.
“You’re fighting tonight,” Crickett said, “in a mob-match.”
“What mob am I facing?” Logan asked.
“You, Yrsa, and Grimsaw,” Crickett said, “fighting a surprise mob. I’m running a betting pool. Five to one says an army of squids, seven to one flying robots.”
“I haven’t been paid yet.” Logan frowned. “Thanks for letting me know… I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“New guy is learning. The ‘but’ is maybe keep an eye out for Yrsa,” Crickett said, “and maybe I accidentally find something extra on my supply runs. Maybe
I accidentally leave it in your bunk.”
“What a crazy series of happenstance.” Logan nodded all the same. “I’ll keep an eye on your girlfriend.”
“She’s not, we’re… I…” Crickett stammered, her cheeks flushing red. “Shut up… nerd.”
With that, Crickett turned around, slinking out of Logan’s booth.
Logan picked up the crossbow with one hand, firing the bolt.
It hit the target directly in the heart.
Whatever he was facing tonight, he hoped he’d be ready.
Chapter 17
Yrsa had fought in the arena countless times. In the wet fields of England, the rocky shores of Norway.
She’d never fought on a giant rotating platform.
But that was what the Arena of Doom was doing that very evening. The sandy ground beneath Yrsa’s feet was slowly spinning, making a full rotation every couple of minutes.
Which made it just that bit harder to keep track of the metal harpies.
Or robots. That was what the announcer called them. All Yrsa could see were the silver metal wings, glinting in the setting sun as they flew down towards her. These were no Valkyrie, these were demons from Hel.
Yrsa looked at the wooden crossbow in her hand, the war hammer in the other. She grunted, hurling the crossbow up into the sky.
The metal harpy flapped its wings, darting to the side to avoid the wooden weapon hurtling towards it.
Yrsa grimaced, holding her war hammer tight. The solid slab of metal on the end looked dented in a couple of places, scorch marks on one side. The handle longer than most axes. Her fellow gladiators had called it a ‘sledgehammer’ – but Yrsa knew a war hammer when she saw one.
The harpy swung down, a sword in both hands, the faceless metal beast hurling towards her.
She waited until the last possible second before darting to the side, swinging her war hammer down.
It slammed into the metal wing, bending it at an odd angle.
The metal shrieked as it bent, the harpy flapping its wings, unable to fly.
Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1) Page 9
