Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1)

by Connor Brixton

  James turned to the screen next to him, squinting as he read the lineups so close to the display.

  “Okay… we got Nazis vs. zombies opening up on Monday, then—”

  “The Nazis can read!” someone called out. “Skip to the stuff that matters!”

  “We go through the list one at a time!” James called back. “Now shut up so we can all get through this!”

  James carried on through the matches, reading out loud each and every single fight.

  There was no way he’d remember them all, but a few stuck out.

  For once, they were going to have two Hitler clones fighting one another outside of Hitler day. Last year they’d tried pitting two teams of Hitler against one another, red Hitlers vs. blue Hitlers. But the Hitlers had all banded together, trying to climb up into the crowd and take out the audience.

  Raptors had been released into the arena, making quick work of both teams. But maybe with just two Hitlers, they’d be more inclined to fight one another instead of banding together.

  The Roman husbands were up against a land shark. James had no idea what a land shark was, but he was sure the scientists that cooked up the clones wouldn’t disappoint with their creation.

  Strange. For some reason James then realized he’d never actually seen any of the cloning scientists. Or was it just the one scientist? He’d met just about everyone else in the Arena of Doom, but not the people (or person?) responsible for cooking them all up.

  All wonders about the cloning scientists disappeared when he got to the final headline match.

  He squinted, making sure he’d read the names right, before turning to the crowd below him.

  “Logan Rexington vs. James Love vs. Crickett.”

  A strange hush fell over the crowd. Clone against clone (excluding Nazis) was rare. Three against each other was practically unheard of, especially so soon after Logan had taken care of Yateley.

  Crickett rarely fought in the arena. She was one of the few people that could work perfectly in zero gravity. More profitable outside rather than in.

  Why had the three of them been pitted against one another?

  And how the hell would James take on not only the champion of the arena, but someone he’d grown to think of as a friend?

  “All right, beautiful people. That’s all for now. Y’all can go about your day.”

  He climbed down the ladder, making his way through the crowd of the illiterate gladiators, heading towards the open courtyard.

  James needed some air. Well, if he was honest with himself, he needed some whiskey, but fresh air would have to do for now.

  Leaving the barracks, James made his way through the complex, passing by the kitchen on his way. He could already smell something brewing, no doubt Marge putting the cooking robot to good use. Leaving the fragrant smell of herbs and spices, James exited out into the courtyard, his head spinning.

  He’d never been chosen for a headline match. Why now? Why against Crickett as well? He could maybe see the appeal of a cowboy fighting a pirate, but also a space marine? Crickett wasn’t even that good in the arena. She was better than anyone at looking authentically bad when she fought, yet somehow surviving every match she was in. Why had they chosen her?

  “They want to turn his heart black.”

  James spun around. Crickett sat on top of the atmospire elevator, a small ceramic jug of what looked like rum in her hand, taking a large sip.

  “The English used to do the same. In their prisons, or on the seas. Take way someone’s friends, demoralize them. Logan is the champion, but he still needs to know his place.”

  She took another swig from the jug before sliding off the elevator. Falling ten or so feet down, she somehow landed gracefully, standing up straight, and offered the jug to James.

  He paused, looking her up and down.

  “Is it poisoned?” he asked. Crickett was tricksy by nature. He wouldn’t put it past her to get the upper hand five days before a fight.

  “Why of course it is!” she said with a smile. “Alcohol is a poison, by its very definition.”

  James shrugged, taking the jug, and gulping down a big swig. It was indeed rum. It burned differently than whiskey, almost sickly sweet. He swallowed all the same, handing the jug back to Crickett. “Have a cunning plan to get us out of this?”

  “Maybe the atmospire malfunctions on my supply run the night before,” Crickett said. “Maybe it somehow gets jammed up there for forty-eight hours, and I unfortunately miss my match.”

  “You know enough to sabotage it?” James asked, genuinely impressed.

  “I would never do something so unlawful,” Crickett said, “but you never know. Accidents happen all the time. Especially when Lord Zemka cheaps out on everything.”

  She took another swig of rum before pausing, tilting her head.

  James heard it too. Footsteps.

  Without pause, Crickett tossed the jug of rum as high as she could. It landed on top of the atmospire elevator, cracking on impact. Better to lose a jug of rum than end up in the cells for the night.

  The two of them turned, James tensing up as he saw the person walking into the courtyard.

  Logan Rexington. James instinctively placed his hand on his hip, somehow surprised his gun wasn’t there. He’d been wearing a gun for years in the Old West, but that had been taken away from him in the arena. The muscle memory, the instinct, somehow still remained.

  Would Logan be angry with him? Be ready for a fight? Sure, James was his friend, but they weren’t exactly close. And a man was often pushed to murder to keep himself alive.

  “Both of you together?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow. The scar above his eye crinkled as he looked between them. “Excellent. We’ll need snacks.”

  “Snacks?” Crickett raised an eyebrow.

  “Something to write on, or maybe writing stuff down would be risky…”

  “Risky?” James repeated, confused.

  “Possibly even a secret spot to meet.”

  “Meet for what?” James had clearly missed something.

  “So we can plan our escape in five days,” Logan said like it was obvious.

  Chapter 29

  Victor Cunningham the Second unloaded the wheelbarrow full of dead Nazis into the recycling processing unit. Their organic flesh would be broken down to its base components and used to create the next batch of clones. In a few hours he’d have to wheel the vats back into the main complex, place them in the service elevator, the vats taken somewhere unseen in the complex.

  It was almost the same process as natural life, just sped up. People died, their bodies feeding the trees, the worms, the animals that feed off the worms and the tree, back into the humans at the top of the ecosystem.

  Victor was just increasing the speed by one thousand.

  The last Nazi dumped into the vat, Victor sealed up the hatch, using the knuckle on his clawed hands to press the necessary buttons on the touch pad.

  The machine began to whir to life, automatically separating the inorganic clothes from the dead tissue, starting to recycle them all.

  When Victor returned to the main section of the medical bay, he was surprised to see three people waiting for him. Even at a quick glance Victor could tell none of them were injured. Nor did they look sick.

  “Oh, what fresh hell are you about to set upon me?” Victor folded his scaled arms, tapping his foot on the metal floor, the tapping echoing throughout the main medical room.

  Logan Rexington. James Love. Crickett… Did Crickett have a last name? Or was Crickett her last name?

  Either way, it was Logan who took a step forward.

  “We need intel.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Victor said, “a damned good one. Not an encyclopedia.”

  “Yes, you’re a great doctor,” Logan said, “which is why you’ve been here for sixty years.”

  “We need to know about the rebellion,” Crickett said. “The one from twenty-five years ago.”

  Victor was alr
eady cold-blooded, but he could have sworn every vein in his body actually froze solid in that moment. “Have you completely lost your senses?”

  His clawed feet clanged on the metal as he pushed past the three humans, looking out into the corridor behind them.

  It looked empty enough, but that did little to alleviate Victor’s fear. “Even talking about that could get you thrown into the cells. Or worse.”

  “Tell us about that,” Logan said as Victor came back into the main medical bay. All the other beds were empty for once; it was just Victor and the three humans. “Tell us about worse.”

  Victor paused, looking down at his clawed hands.

  Agent Glass’ deal still rattled in his head. What would it be like to have normal, warm-blooded hands again? To have skin instead of scales? He hardly remembered, living so long in the wrong body.

  But then he looked at the medical beds. Empty for now, but how many clones had he helped in recovery, only for them to die in the arena? How many injured had he patched back up?

  How much evil had he been made to take part in?

  “I can do you one better.”

  Victor went to the back of the medical bay, pressing a few buttons on the touchpad with his knuckles. Once a small storage area, the door slid open, revealing the hammock inside. A few items.

  He grabbed the data stick, as thin as a straw, the same length as Logan’s little finger.

  Sliding it into the computer display in the middle of the examination room, Victor took a deep breath.

  “Lord Zemka made a recording of the last rebellion,” he explained, queuing up the right files, “to show to people if they ever got out of line. An intimidation technique.”

  Victor took a deep breath. He’d done his best to forget what happened twenty-five years ago.

  But Logan needed to know what he was up against.

  Victor pressed a few buttons on the touch pad, a display screen on the wall beginning to play the footage.

  Most of the arena had hidden cameras in them. Thankfully not the medical bay, the Seacole ill-equipped to also manage a surveillance system.

  Looking at the screen, Victor winced at the image of the courtyard covered in burning debris. Of the gladiators all rushing through. The attack drones swarmed down, firing their lasers at the mass of gladiators below. They were using pot lids, pieces of bed frame mangled together, even chairs from the mess hall as shields.

  Logan frowned, slamming his hand on the touch pad, pausing the image. He then deftly slid his fingers on the display, zooming in on the clone leading the charge.

  A perfect scar across the left eye.

  “That’s… me?!” Logan turned to look at Victor, fear and horror in his eyes.

  “Twenty-five years ago, yes. The first clone made after Lord Zemka purchased your original fingernail.” Victor sighed, the nostrils on his snout flaring. “We’d cloned you up, and just like this time you’d caused trouble. This was after four months in the arena.”

  Victor pressed play on the footage as the old clone of Logan charged across the courtyard. It looked like the clones had armed themselves from the kitchen, a large butcher’s knife in Logan’s hand. The Logan on the display threw rocks up at the drones, knocking a few of them back. It gave the opportunity to Yrsa and Grimsaw to leap up, grab onto them, bash them apart.

  The chaos played for a few minutes, then below, Lord Zemka emerged from a doorway.

  “FREEDOM FOR WHICHEVER CLONE KILLS LOGAN REXINGTON!” he called out.

  “Nice try!” the Logan on the screen answered back. “But we’re united now! You can’t—”

  Yateley charged up behind him, grabbed Logan by the base of the skull, and snapped his neck.

  The real Logan, the one in the medical room, gasped, taking a couple of steps back. Victor imagined seeing your own clone get murdered would be enough to rock anyone to their core.

  “Yateley was released,” Victor explained. “I spent the night tending to a freshly grown Yateley clone. And five Logans.”

  Victor pressed another button on the pad. It jumped to the next video clip.

  All the gladiators had been assembled in the courtyard, a big vat in the middle, the outside made of glass. The liquid inside was clear, but Victor knew it wasn’t water.

  “The price any clone will pay!” Lord Zemka called out before taking a sip from his fruity cocktail. “For daring to uprise against me!”

  Above the vat was a clone of Logan. No scar on his left eye this time. Strapped to a metal pole, he was slowly lowered feet first into the acid.

  The clone screamed, the clear glass giving everyone a view of his feet as they dissolved, the flesh peeling away before the bones began to float at the top of the acid, melting slower than the rest of the body.

  It took maybe twenty seconds to reach the knees, at which point Victor pressed the button again, changing the footage.

  Another clone of Logan, hanging upside down in the cafeteria, naked except for underwear. The ribs were clearly visible, sticking out of the stretched skin as he starved to death. Most of the clones glanced up uneasily, barely able to eat. All except the fresh clone of Yateley, who vacuumed down food like he was the one starving.

  The next clip of footage. Victor closed his eyes, but he could still hear the screams. The horrible tearing sounds as the machine stripped the skin off the clone of Logan.

  James Love backed away, grabbing a trashcan from the floor as he vomited.

  “Turn it off!” Crickett snapped, taking a couple of steps back.

  Victor opened his eyes, focusing on the pad instead of the screen as he turned off the display screen. The screaming stopped, the screen turning black.

  Logan stood frozen still, his skin pale, his eyes glazed over.

  “That was the result of the first time you tried to escape,” Victor said. “The first time you tried to start a rebellion.”

  He’d tried his best to forget what had happened twenty-five years ago. But Logan needed to know what he was up against.

  “Care to try again?”

  Chapter 30

  Logan Rexington slumped down onto the edge of the bed in the medical wing. He must have been the biggest dumbass in the entire Cluster. Of course he wasn’t the first clone of Logan Rexington. Every other clone had been grown and killed multiple times, why not him? How could he have been so arrogant, think he was so special?

  “How…” He swallowed hard before looking up at Victor. His raptor face was somewhat hard to read, but he was sure he looked upset. “…how many times have I been cloned?”

  “After that night, Lord Zemka decided you were too much of a risk to clone again.” Victor’s clawed feet clanged on the metal floor as he walked over to a sink, pouring two glasses of water.

  James Love wiped his mouth, putting the entire trashcan into the recycling tube.

  “He only cloned you again now because of your centennial.” He handed Logan one of the glasses of water as Crickett leaned on the end of the bed. “The big one double zero good for profits.”

  Logan stared at the metal floor, unable to look anyone in the eye.

  He’d been in the arena before? Not only that, but led a rebellion.

  And it had failed.

  It had failed by a lot.

  “Okay, I assume we were heading for the atmospire?” Crickett asked.

  Logan frowned, glancing up at her.

  Her brown skin looked pale, even green in some spots. Her bottom lip was trembling slightly. She’d clearly been disturbed by the footage. If Logan had to guess, he’d say she was focusing on the facts, instead of the horror, as a coping mechanism.

  “Yes,” Victor answered, handing the other glass of water to James. “The plan was to head up the atmospire, then a few days later Crickett would steal the Seacole, fly up and pick you all up.”

  “The Seacole?” Crickett asked, frowning. “There’s a ship here?”

  “You’re standing in it,” Victor said.

  “I learned to fly a sh
ip?” Crickett said.

  “Takeoff is automated, apparently. At least, that’s what the previous Logan said when he snuck around the ship to explore.”

  Logan continued to stare at the floor. He breathed in through the nose, out through the mouth. Seeing himself die, get dissolved in acid, starve to death, and then skinned alive had taken a lot out of him. It would upset even the most stoic of monks.

  The urge to run up to his private chambers was overwhelming. Hide under the covers like a child.

  He had food in the arena, shelter. A part of him didn’t want to risk getting killed again. Not only that, but cloned up just to suffer, like some kind of living hell.

  Logan could work hard, best most opponents in the arena. He’d be safe, at least. A well looked after pet of Lord Zemka.

  He almost slapped himself at the thought. He was a soldier. His entire life had been dedicated to sacrifice to make everyone else’s lives better. That was his purpose in life.

  Even if he was a clone, a reflection of another man. That was still his purpose. He was Logan fucking Rexington. He’d laid down his life to save the entire Chaucer system from the Necrotrons. He didn’t deserve to fight for his life just for scraps.

  He deserved freedom. Freedom from being cloned up again. Freedom from being forced to fight for his life. Freedom from the Arena of Doom.

  He wasn’t a gladiator. He wasn’t a champion of violence.

  He was a soldier.

  “This ship in working order?” Logan asked.

  If Victor had a bottom lip, he would surely be biting it. Instead his scaly lips curled slightly, like he was weighing up his options. “Agent Glass asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  Logan blinked a couple of times. “Oh…” was all he could muster.

  “He said to tell him if you were planning anything like before,” Victor said. “He promised to transfer me into a human body as a reward.”

  “But once we get out of here we’ll have a ship,” Logan pointed out the obvious.