The other three people in the medical bay looked at him expectantly.
“So that means…” He waited for someone else to finish his sentence.
Of course.
Not only had every single person around him been born before the Cluster, they’d even all been born before the turn of the millennium. Born on Earth. Sure, Crickett might go up the atmospire to grab supplies, but she’d never been on a real spaceship.
Never been through the Cluster. Never explored a system.
“There’s one trillion humans in the Cluster,” Logan said. “At least, there was one hundred years ago.”
“What’s a trillion?” James asked.
“One thousand times a billion,” Logan said.
“What’s a billion?” Crickett asked.
“A thousand times a million.”
It was then the other three sets of eyes in the room went wide. Victor, James, and Crickett all struggling to comprehend a number so big.
“There are hundreds of moons, dozens of large planets. The Cluster is big, and technology has definitely improved in the last one hundred years. Even in charted systems, there are hidden dark sides of moons, fleets of nomad ships, even large asteroids people had burrowed into like ant hills.”
“What are you trying to say?” Victor asked.
“I’m saying the Cluster is big, insanely big. You never know what you’ll find out there. There was a hidden island on the planet Bowie, held a city with eight million people in it.”
“That’s more than London!” Victor gasped.
“Where?” Logan frowned. It must have been a place from the old Earth. “Point being, they lived in the trees, the roots partially sentient, growing into the buildings they needed.”
“How is that possible?” Crickett asked.
“Terraforming produces odd results,” Logan carried on explaining. “What I’m getting at is that was one city on one island on one planet in one of the systems. There are hundreds, thousands of unknowns in the Cluster. There’s bound to be someone, somewhere who could get you in the right body, Victor.”
“Besides right here?” Victor asked.
“You ever consider Agent Glass could be lying?” Crickett offered. “It’s what I would do. Hell, it’s a bit suspicious he offered you the exact thing you wanted right when Logan showed up.”
Victor tilted his head, like a confused puppy. He clearly hadn’t considered the idea that Agent Glass might have been deceitful.
As he did, James Love frowned, looking Victor up and down.
“Thanks for not ratting me out,” Logan said, putting a hand on Victor’s shoulder.
“You promise me?” Victor asked. “When we get out of here, we’ll look for something to change me back to human?”
“I swear it,” Logan paused, wondering what he could say to convince Victor. “I swear it on the grave of my son.”
Victor nodded once, clearly believing Logan.
“Now,” Logan said, “we need a better plan than last time.”
“Better weapons for sure,” Crickett said.
“All the weapons have stun locks on them,” Victor said. “If you even attempt to take it out of the training area or the main arena, it stuns the user. Even if someone takes it out by accident.”
“What about sneaking everyone onto the Seacole?” Logan suggested.
“The sealed doors have alarms on them,” Victor said. “The moment anyone pries them open, the drones will deploy.”
“Where are those kept?” Crickett asked.
“In orbit,” Victor said. “They deploy on Lord Zemka’s command.”
As they carried on talking, James took a step forward, standing right up to Victor, looking him up and down. Inspecting him.
“There might be a way to…” Victor paused, looking back at James. “Everything well, young man?”
“Yeah, it’s just…” James squinted, looking Victor in his inky black eyes. “You’d be pretty good in a fight, right? With your claws and jaw and such.”
“Well, yes,” Victor said, “but I swore the Hippocratic oath, both in my old body and this new one. Do no harm.”
“Right, you’re a raptor because of a computer glitch.”
James took a step back from Victor, then looked over at Logan and Crickett.
“Now I’m not a man of science, but is there any chance we could recreate that glitch?”
For the first time that day, Logan felt a grin spread across his face.
Chapter 31
Logan Rexington felt colder than he’d ever felt in his life. He’d done dozens of drop missions on ice planets, but this cold was different. It was inside him. Like his bones were made of ice, his blood colder than snow.
His mouth was dry, his joints were sore, his tail ached like he’d been sleeping on it for a week.
His tail?!
Logan peeled his eyes open, trying to take in his surroundings.
The last thing he’d remembered was heat. Scorching heat.
The bomb.
The Necrotrons.
He’d stayed behind with the bomb, setting it off, reducing the mainframe to ash. He’d felt the explosion tear through his body, searing every single nerve ending.
So how was he feeling cold right now?
Was this what death felt like?
If he was dead, why was he feeling an ache in his tail?
He was lying on hay of some sort, the sound of various animals in the distance. He could hear growls, snarls, something like barks.
Was he in a stable?
“Okay, so this is all going to sound a bit strange…”
Logan knew that voice. Better than any in the Cluster.
He tilted his head up, the scaly skin around his neck crinkling as he looked around the stable.
There were three complete metal walls, and one half-wall on the side. Logan could see the glint of an energy field as he looked at the person standing outside of the stable.
At first he thought he must be looking in a mirror. He had to have been.
Except he was sitting down. His reflection was standing up. And when he turned his head, the Logan in the reflection stayed still.
Logan frowned, peering in closer.
Something was off.
The Logan standing in front of him had a different scar. Sure, it was in the same place. But the line was perfectly straight, instead of curving just above the eyebrow. And the damaged tissue was thin all across, no lumps and bubbles left from the dermigel.
“My name is Logan Rexington,” the strange reflection said. “I am a clone of a man that died one hundred years ago. You are also clones of Logan Rexington, except we didn’t put you in the same body.”
Clones? Plural?
Since when was cloning legal?
Logan turned his head to the side. God, he felt weary. Like he needed to sleep for a week.
Instead, he turned to look around the stable.
There were five velociraptors locked in the room with him.
Logan screamed. Well, he meant to scream. Instead, a strange shriek escaped his lips as he scrambled back, his clawed feet sending hay in all different directions.
The raptors all shrieked as well, sounding eerily similar to the sound that had just burst from Logan’s lips. They also backed away, scrambling away from one another. They all seemed as terrified as Logan felt.
His cold heart pounding, Logan paused, waiting for one of them to attack.
All the raptors held themselves still.
He still moved back a few feet to be safe, his tail slapping against the metal wall of the stable. He spun around, looking at the green scaly limb sprouting from his back.
He had a tail?!
Logan looked at his hands. They were green, thin, reptilian. Three long fingers, no thumbs.
He ran his tongue across his teeth. His tongue was prickly, strange bumps all across it. His teeth long, jagged, pointed at the ends.
“OKAY!” the strange reflection of Logan call
ed out. “Okay, right out of the gate! You haven’t been cloned as humans. You’ve been cloned as velociraptors.”
“We know this must be confusing, but that’s why we’re here to help.”
There was a raptor outside of the stable as well. Except this one was wearing a monocle. And a fancy old jacket.
He held a mirror in his claws. Relatively big, he positioned it at the divide of the energy field.
It was then Logan saw his true reflection. The large eyes, the razor-sharp teeth. The claws.
He was indeed a raptor.
Logan Rexington was now a dinosaur.
“Here.”
The dinosaur with the monocle held out a touchpad.
No. Not touch.
A keypad?
Actual buttons to press.
The fancy raptor typed a few words with his claws, before pressing enter.
“Here is how you’ll ask your questions,” a robotic voice called out from the keypad.
The monocled raptor attached it to the edge of the stables, a small hole forming in the energy field to let his hands pass through unharmed.
Logan took a step forward, his clawed feet shaky as he adjusted to the new body.
“Rwarghty!” he said, trying to form the words in his mouth.
“It took me sixty years to master speaking with this tongue,” the monocled raptor said. “Please have patience.”
Logan grunted, carefully using his clawed hands to type on the keyboard.
It was like trying to use a data pad while drunk. His scaly fingers wobbled in the air, missing the keys half the time, Logan slapping the backspace more than once.
After twenty seconds of typing, he pressed enter, his message ringing out of the device. “What the actual fuck?!” the monotone voice of the computer asked.
The other raptors all nodded in agreement. The human Logan had said they were all clones.
Were the other dinosaurs also Logan Rexington? Was that why no one had attacked one another?
Logan, the human Logan, nodded. “Okay. It’s one hundred years in the future. We’re trapped in something called the Arena of Doom. The owner, Lord Zemka, grows dozens of clones a week, and makes them fight to death in the arena. Thousands of people watch live in person, millions more on streams throughout the Shennong system.”
They were in the Shennong system?!
“We need to escape,” the human Logan carried on, “but all the weapons are stun locked. There was an attempt a few years ago with kitchen equipment, but that didn’t work. I know this is a lot to take in, but you’re our weapons. We only have a few days to train you, so every second counts.”
Logan was about to use his claws to type on the keyboard again when a loud roar rang out through the stable. So loud it made him flinch, his tail accidentally slapping into the raptor next to him.
He turned his head, trying to find the source of the loud roar.
The other raptor put his monocle away, resting a claw on the human Logan’s shoulder. The human Logan nodded, rushing away from the stable as raptor Logan watched him go.
“My sincerest apologies,” the fancy raptor said. “It appears the T-Rex clone of Logan woke up earlier than expected.”
Logan looked down at the keypad, thinking hard what to type next.
After a few moments he just hit enter again, looking back up at the monocled raptor.
“What the actual fuck?!”
Chapter 32
Yrsa inspected the handle of her axe. The wood was singular, no cuts whatsoever. Clearly whittled down from one piece of wood, probably the sturdy branch of an oak tree.
How could there be a device inside? How could there be something that would shock her like Thor if she took the axe out of the arena?
Magic. It had to be. Some kind of spell that worked only in a land like Hel.
But, if what the strange Logan Rexington said was true, she might not be in Hel for much longer.
The words they’d used had been beyond confusing. Glitch, energy field, drones, lower orbit. Yrsa hadn’t a clue what any of them meant. But Crickett and James had explained the plan to her all the same.
Crickett had stumbled on her words a few times, blushed even, like she was nervous around Yrsa. She couldn’t blame the pirate — Yrsa was built of pure muscle, had felled many in the arena. She was surprised more residents of Hel weren’t afraid to stand in her presence, that they didn’t tremble at the mere sight of a powerful warrior.
As the gates to the arena opened up, Yrsa stepped out onto the sand.
A warm-up round once again.
Hopefully, the last. All she had to do was follow the plan.
Part one: don’t kill the lizard beasts.
The others called them raptors. Yrsa knew a demon in Hel when she saw one. But somehow, using the magic of the ‘glitch,’ Crickett and James had somehow tamed the Hel beasts.
Or so they said.
The voice of the announcer rang out as Yrsa, Grimsaw, Oog, and one of the Roman husbands stepped out into the arena. All melee weapons, Yrsa instinctively held her axe tight, the sand of the arena clinging to her deerskin boots as she walked to the center.
The crowd cheered, stamping their feet, jumping up and down. Thousands of spectators, not one of them sitting down. She may have been a warm-up fight, but Yrsa still excited the crowd to no end.
Yrsa held out her arms, absorbing it in for one last time. The glory of battle, the love of the crowd. It was bittersweet.
A horn rang out, Yrsa looking around her, like she had hundreds of times in the arena.
One of the four other gates opened up, a half dozen lizard demons spewing out, rushing out of the gate towards them.
Yrsa held her axe up, ready to strike.
A raptor approached, looking Yrsa up and down.
It was then she saw it. The mark she was told to look out for.
The line of blue paint across the left eye.
The mark of Logan.
Yrsa had been told it meant the beast would be an ally. But she was waiting for proof.
She looked around her at the other raptors. They all had blue paint across the left eye.
All except one.
Grimsaw raised his war hammer up, about to strike the unmarked beast. It snarled at him, crouching down, readying to pounce.
Then the raptor in front of Yrsa spun around, darting towards the unmarked beast, snapping its jaw around the neck.
The raptor squealed, red blood dripping down as other raptors began to tear into the beast, making quick work of it. Splatters of mildly warm blood hit Yrsa in the face as chunks of neck were torn out. In mere moments the raptor slumped over, barely half an inch of flesh connecting the head to the rest of the body.
A strange murmur rippled over the crowd, the audience looking confused at one another, talking amongst themselves, pointing and trying to figure out what was going on.
It seemed that Logan’s glitch spell had worked.
But they weren’t out of danger yet.
One of the raptors approached Yrsa, kneeling down.
She wrapped her thighs around the back, clenching tight, as the other gladiators mounted their own raptors.
Oog held the club in her hand up, grunting at the raptors around her, looking confused.
“It’s okay, dumb one,” Yrsa said. Oog tilted her head, looking at Yrsa in confusion.
She held out her hand, motioning Oog to join her like she had dozens of times when they left the arena.
“Come along.”
As the other gladiators and raptors took off, Oog wrapped her arms around Yrsa’s waist, the two of them trailing behind the gladiators by about twenty feet or so.
The murmurs from the crowd rose, people shouting. A few people were beginning to chant “BATTLE ROYALE!” over and over again, clearly hoping the gladiators would fight each other on the backs of the beasts.
But Yrsa was paying little attention to the other gladiators. She was keeping her eyes fixed on the ground aro
und them, looking for the first disturbance.
There.
Opening up just in front of them. A hole in the arena. Leading to the moving dungeon below.
Yrsa didn’t even need to pull on the raptor. He already curved to the left, darting around the hole leading down. There were a few halfhearted cheers from the crowd, the people unsure what they were even seeing, let alone shouting about.
A few moments later, another hole opened up, underneath one of the unburdened raptors. The beast fell into the hole, disappearing with a yelp as it sealed up.
For once this wasn’t for the entertainment of the crowd. This was Lord Zemka, trying to get back control of his gladiators. But the ruler of Hel would get no satisfaction. Not this day.
Oog clutched onto Yrsa tight as their raptor approached the edge of the arena. The other beasts were already pulling at the gate with their claws, the metal creaking as it was pulled apart. Grimsaw worked with his war hammer, smashing into the metal joints. The Roman had slid his rectangular shield into one of the breaks, leveraging it up, bending the metal apart even further.
Getting off the raptor, Yrsa slid her axe into a gap, doing the same. As they worked, she glanced behind her, a hole opening up in the ground just a few feet behind them.
Whatever magic worked to change the land of the arena must end just before the edges. The moving dungeon could move no further, not without risking opening a hole up beneath the crowd.
A raptor bit down on the metal, his powerful jaw pulling it open.
A hole just big enough for the Roman to slide through. He did just that, dropping his spear on the outside, holding the shield on his back, the metal scraping against some of the jagged metal.
On the other side, the Roman slid his large shield in once more, grimacing as he strained all his muscles to help lift the gate up.
As the gate slid a few more inches, it was clear the crowd had had enough. Boos began to ring out, the crowd holding their thumbs down, throwing food at the invisible walls around the arena, some of them even getting up and leaving.
Turning her attention back to the gate, Yrsa and Grimsaw grabbed onto the bottom, beginning to pull up with all the strength they could muster. The metal slid up another few inches, giving enough room for everyone else to slide underneath.
Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1) Page 17
