Mav smiles behind his smugness. “You’re right, Charisse. He means nothing to me. But Captain Hunniker has a problem with this man, and we will solve it in a court of law.”
“Fuck your court of law, he’s just a kid!” Charisse screams, storming up to Mav. I’m not a kid, I’m older than she is, but I guess I seem like a kid to her.
“Careful, Charisse. You know who’s in charge here,” Mav warns ominously.
That shuts her up for some reason. I wonder what he does to make people fear him.
On my hands and knees, I spit blood onto Mav’s blue carpet. At least I can ruin his carpet before I die! That’s all I can think of: being a nuisance until the end.
“You little fuckin’ puke!” Doyle slams his fist into my cheek and something cracks in my jaw. “Stan and Brock are dead because of you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I tell him. “They’re dead because of your stupid plan.”
“You could’ve shot the guys who captured Stan and Gary, you gutless coward. You just cared about saving your own skin!” He punctuates that with a kick to my ribs, and I let it carry me three feet closer to Mav.
Groaning in pain, I push myself to my knees, feeling the security of the blade against my leg.The chest wound feels like an alien ripping out of my chest, but it’s also the only reason I have a concealed weapon right now, and it’s the only reason Mav is going to die by my hand. “There were too many, Doyle. At least six men surrounding the truck, plus snipers. I would’ve been killed.”
Doyle glares, but seems to think about this. “Once they left, you could’ve taken them out. You had a sniper rifle and they wouldn’t have known what hit them. Then the plan could’ve gone forward. You always stick to the plan!”
“You and I were friends, Doyle, and I trusted you.” Not entirely true, but these are desperate words chosen on the fly. “Now you joined the United Mavreides Emirates?”
Doyle laughs. “Mav is a great man, and he’s rebuilding civilization,” he says, followed by a vigorous kick to my ribs. “You broke my trust first.”
That kick sends me rolling over a few feet closer to Mav, but still too far away to reach him. I lay there, staring up at the glass pyramid ceiling above the Skydeck. I can’t see the sky, because there’s a gray sheet of gloomy clouds hanging over the city.
“Doyle,” I plead, reaching out toward the man who used to be in charge of my gang. He’s a violent hick, but he was an honorable man. How could he possibly be bought by Mav?
Doyle punks me with his fist and I flinch, then look back at him. He’s grinning his toothy redneck smile. His beard makes his teeth seem whiter. “Yeah, Sam? What now?”
“You’re a good man,” I say. “I know it. You can’t possibly fall for Mav’s shit!”
Doyle’s smile never leaves. “Oh, I don’t,” he whispers. “But I don’t fall for yours either, you turncoat puke. You were gonna abandon us, the whole team. I caught you sneaking away, remember that, you pussy-whipped little bitch?” He looks at Charisse and tells her, “He just left you there. He promised he would save you, then he left us all there to die.”
“No,” I tell her, even though I don’t care what she thinks. “I never stopped thinking of you. I came back for you.” I almost gibber a denial or an apology to Doyle, but I know I have one last hurrah in me and I need to get close to Mav for that to happen. Doyle will expect an apology, but he won’t respect one. So I snarl at him, “And I was right, you fuckin’ redneck retard! Your plan sucked, and I went along with it, and we got caught. All our guys got caught!”
Doyle’s smile leaves his face, replaced by a mask of anger. But he knows I’m right. We’re at an impasse. He doesn’t approach me, so I turn to Mav pleadingly. “I’m smarter than Doyle. He’s tough, but you know that you need brains more than brawn.” I start crawling toward him submissively, still talking. “He’s like an ape and you tell him to destroy things, but you can’t ask him to make important decisions.” Four feet away…three feet…
“Oh, I don’t ask--” Mav begins, and then Doyle seizes my leg and drags me backwards across the floor. So close, I was right there!
Doyle’s hand roughly pulls the knife out of my leg sheath. “He’s armed, sir, and unless I miss my guess, he was planning to crawl up and stab you.” He tosses my knife over the railing, and my last hope falls six stories to the ground below.
Mav starts clapping his hands with a look of genuine amusement on his face. “Bravo, Doyle! Bravo, Sam! Men like you are the reason that we live up here, and the other folk live down below. We’re savages, you see? No matter who wins, we will always be assured it is the strongest animal, and therefore our tribe will continue. Down there, they understand nothing. They work for us.”
Neither Doyle nor I have anything to say, and after a long pause, Mav continues.
“Do you know why I’m the leader, Sam?” He positively beams at me. “It’s because I’m smarter than all the people around me. They trust me to lead them, because war and survival is never about brute force. It’s always about cunning.”
Charisse stands behind Mav, her eyes lucid and etched with concern.
Mav says, “You’re a cunning one, Sam. You’d make a good lieutenant for me, but of course, I can’t trust you at all. You’d find a way to kill me within the week, I have no doubt.” Another pause. “But I have a better idea, anyway. Doyle has a grudge with you, and vice versa. You can settle this trial by combat.” He nods toward the girders that run across the atrium, about 80 feet off the ground. They’re three feet apart, so it’s easy to fall between them or get knocked off either side. Truly sadistic entertainment, and exactly what you’d expect from Mav.
He continues, “If you beat Doyle, you can take Charisse and leave unscathed. But if you fail, well, then you die!’ He waves his hand dismissively. “I’ll let God decide who is righteous.”
Doyle roughly yanks me to my feet. “You hear that?” he says. “Trial by combat, on the rafters!”
“That’s ridiculous,” I tell Mav, stalling. “I have zero chance of beating him. What’s the sport in that? Even your people will figure out that you’re some sick fuck.”
“Splendid idea, Sam--I’ll give you a weapon to compensate for the fact that you’re so handicapped. You really must be a tactical genius to have survived out there…that or an Olympic runner.” Mav looks gloatingly at me then orders a couple men to scrounge up some weapons. “We’ll give him the melee weapon of his choice.”
Even me-with-a-sword versus Doyle would be like a five year old with a machete facing Jet Li. Only the luckiest slip will kill Doyle. We’re talking ‘Steve Irwin versus the stingray’ odds.
“That’s still not a real fight, Mav.” I try to sound matter of fact, speaking to his reasonable side. “I understand brutality is one of humanity’s favorite pastimes, but no one wants to see Mike Tyson fight Woody Allen. We need an arena where my wit can balance his brawn.”
Mav considers my words and frowns. “What are you suggesting then--a nice game of chess?”
“They should fight on the ropes course in The Canyon!” one of Mav’s goons exclaims. The scraggly bearded goon, as a matter of fact. Travis something, I recall from Doyle’s fake nametag.
Mav’s eyes dance. “Yes, of course! What a wonderful idea! Sam with a sharp blade, and Doyle with bare hands--giving cleverness a chance of winning!”
“No no no—that would NOT give me any chance of winning. I got shot in the chest two weeks ago and I’m injured,” I shout, pulling up my shirt and showing him the puffy red wound with the bandage dangling from it, now leaking blood after Doyle’s manhandling ripped the scabs open. Charisse gasps and I continue, “Plus, my Acrophobia works against me, and I’m as clumsy as a weeble wobble.”
I feel like Tyrion Lannister in the Eyrie, the dwarf who is expected to fight a knight in trial by combat. I scan the crowd around me, wondering if I can have someone champion me in this fight. That’s how they did it in the old days, right?
My eyes fall
on Army Dave.
His eyes lock on mine, and I felt like he might be my last hope.
“I request a champion!” I shout to Mav. “Someone to stand in my place and fight for me.”
Mav bursts out laughing, and the whole hall follows along. Doyle smirks at me. If this doesn’t work, I’m doomed. But there’s no way I can get out on those ropes with Doyle.
The laughter continues, soldiers jeering at me until Mav silences them with a wave and they all hush as one, like he’s Henry VIII.
“Okay, Sam. I’m done playing games with you. If you can find anyone here to champion you, then we will let that battle decide your fate.” Mav turns to look at the assembled soldiers. “Is anyone here brave enough to take on my Captain of the Guard, to save the life of this cowardly piece of shit standing before us.”
I look back to Army Dave, my mentor, the one man I knew who’d always disagreed with Doyle.
Dave lowers his eyes.
“Dave!” I shout. “You gotta fight Doyle for me. I need you, man.”
Dave glances at me briefly and shakes his head. “You abandoned us, Sam, not Doyle.”
All eyes in the place turn to him, and he squirms beneath the gazes, until Mav erupts with laughter. He swigs his glass of wine between snorts, then says, “Oh, this is priceless justice. The man who betrayed his friends now stands alone begging for their help!”
Chapter 61: Then
Doyle kicked me hard in the stomach, and I dropped to the ground, unable to breathe. He’d knocked the wind out of me somehow, and I lay on the tiles of the fire station, gasping for air.
“That’s the solar plexus,” he said. “It’s a good spot to hit someone. Some vulnerable points on the body are the throat, the eyes, the temple, the solar plexus, and the joints.”
I regained my breath enough to say. “Why the fuck did you kick me?”
“It’s important that you learn how to take a hit, Sam. You’ve never been in a fight in your life, and it won’t just be slow zombies we have to face now. It will be other humans, living humans, who want to kill us and take our stuff. You gotta be ready to fight them. No hesitation.”
I was kneeling in front of Doyle and I looked at his crotch, two feet from my face, then threw a punch at it. Those of you who saw Karate Kid 3 will remember that this kneeling dick punch was the ‘crane technique’ of that film, taught to Daniel Larusso by the evil sensei!
Unlike Daniel’s enemy, Doyle stepped easily out of reach. “You telegraphed your attack, there. You looked at my nuts, and then you tried to hit it. I saw you coming before you realized what you were gonna do.” He grinned. “Besides, the nuts aren’t vulnerable. That’s only in the movies. You can take a hard kick to the groin and keep fighting through it.”
I half-expected him to try to kick me there, but he didn’t. He did spend the next ten minutes knocking my ass around the fire station, goading me to keep fighting even when I was hurt.
I didn’t land a single hit on him, but I learned to take a beating.
Chapter 62: Now
Standing in Infinity Mall amidst the legions of Mav’s Gang, I accept my fate. I look at Charisse, the woman who’d started this whole thing. I can see she cares now, even though it’s too late. And I’m fine with that. I will die as the most pathetic tragic hero, and Veronica had been right--I was far more a man than I’d ever been. And far more a man than most in this room. I was also a fool who’d lived the saddest life of quiet desperation.
“I’ll fight for him,” a voice calls out suddenly.
And there, amidst the black-clad soldiers, stands one darker than the others. Hasbro steps forward.
Mav does nothing to hide his astonishment. “Who said that?”
Hasbro raises his hand. “I did, sir.”
“Lieutenant Middleton? Is this some joke?”
“Yes, sir,” Hasbro says.
Mav chuckles. “Okay, well, I—”
“It’s a joke that you expect this man to fight Captain Hunniker,” Hasbro interrupts. “And it’s a joke that you call that ‘justice.’”
“Careful now,” Mav says in his scolding voice, taking a swig of wine.
“We need to be better than that, sir,” Hasbro says. “And I’m willing to fight for this man.”
Mav stares wordlessly, twirling his beard in his fingers and apparently pondering (in that snotty professor style of his). Finally, he says. “Okay, Lieutenant Middleton. My word is my bond. But may I ask why you would fight, and possibly die, for this man?”
Hasbro meets my eyes and smiles. “Because he my brotha,” he says.
I snort a laugh out at that and want to high five him across the atrium. I’m beaming inside. It doesn’t even occur to me that Hasbro has no idea how tough Doyle is.
“Just to make it clear, Lieutenant Middleton, there’s no handicap for you, and you do not receive a weapon.”
“I’m not sweatin’ it,” Hasbro says.
Chapter 63: Now
I’m marched across the mall to the ropes course, and accompanied by Mav’s entire army.
Charisse walks beside me, having rearranged her robe so she’s covered.
“I gotta say, Sam, this is about the bravest, craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Whatever,” I say. I’m too mad to look at her.
“I mean, if you were fighting Doyle, it would be even braver, but…” she laughs. “Yeah, we know how that would go.”
“What do you want, Charisse? To make a bigger fool out of me?”
“But I’m really touched that you did all this for me,” she says. “It’s definitely the sweetest thing anyone has ever done.”
I can’t say anything. This fucking whore lied and tricked me and turned her back on me, and now I’m about to die, and another good man is going to die with me.
I’m considering hurling myself over the railing and falling headfirst to the lower level, two stories below. At least then Hasbro wouldn’t die on account of me. Then I think I should hurl Charisse over first. “You got two men killed, and you’re sitting here telling me how sweet it is that men fight over you,” I snarl under my breath at her. “Go to Hell, Charisse.”
She walks in silence beside me, then says. “I know I deserve that, Sam.” After a few more steps, “I just want you to know, it caught me off guard when you came back. I didn’t know who you were. And I was really fuckin’ high. I’ve sobered up since then.” In my periphery, I can see her looking at the floor.
I stare straight ahead, steely eyed. She’s getting under my skin, stressing me out.
“Anyway, I just want to say, if Hasbro wins then I’d like to come with you, if you still care for me. I mean, Mav will probably just kill us anyway, but I’ll take that chance to go with you.”
What? Did she just flip my world upside down again, with a sentence? I couldn’t believe my ears on three counts, and instead of addressing the fact that she would want to go with me, and that she was willing to die going that route, I just say, “How do you know Hasbro’s name?”
She laughs. “Oh Sam, all the guys come to our floor.” She must’ve seen my posture stiffen because she puts a hand on my arm. “I know I’m just a drugged-out slut to all of them. And some of them are good guys, and some are dicks. But you, Sam. I know that I mean more to you than to anyone alive. And that means something to me. Please believe me. You made me feel like a little girl again, the things you said in front of Mav, being so brave. It gave me butterflies in my chest and it broke my heart to think of losing you again. I wouldn’t trade your love for all the drugs in the world.”
The rope course looms into my vision ahead, and it now looks like the most diabolical arena.
“Sam, I know I don’t deserve it. But I remember how you kissed me, the way you loved me. I know it’s still there. Even a girl like me deserves a chance to…” She takes hold of my arm and tries to pull me towards her, but I turn away.
Her words sink in, but I don’t believe them, and though a part of me yearns to just take hold
of her and kiss her, I just can’t bring myself to trust her or set aside her betrayal.
I’m scanning the sea of black-dressed soldiers for Hasbro during the walk, and finally catch sight of him, standing shirtless at the edge of the rope course and surveying it. His body ripples with muscles that most humans don’t seem to have, like some Greek sculpture.
I walk up next to him.
“How you doin’, little brother?” he says, grinning.
“Been better,” I say. “Listen, Doyle is a crazy redneck. I think he does martial arts and all kinds of stuff. He’s like one of those survivalist guys who lives in the bayou and wrestles alligators.”
Hasbro seems unruffled. The rope course spans four stories of mall and, at the lowest point, hangs about forty feet above the hard tiles below. Someone is going to die here today.
“Hunniker beat my ass in sparring,” he says finally. “But if there’s one thing a kid from the hood has over a good ol’ boy clansmen like him, it’s climbing and jumping.”
I almost tell him that Doyle isn’t racist like that, but I decide it’s better if Hasbro thinks he is.
“Hasbro,” I say, pausing, realizing he isn’t really listening. “Just be careful. He fights dirty.”
“Only way to fight.”
A thought strikes me suddenly and I have to ask, “What happened to Ma’Sheea?”
He shakes his head, and for a moment, his expression shows the weight of all the people he tried to protect. “We took her leg and she still turned.”
“Seena?”
His smile brightens. “She here with me, still. In the civilian barracks.”
My heart brightens at that, but mixed with the deep pain of Ma’Sheea, and her terrible last moments. I ask about the others at the church, to distract myself.
“Luck ran out for most,” he told me. “But some got away and they here livin’ good lives.”
Hasbro turns and puts his hands on my shoulders, gripping me tightly and kneading them. For some unknown reason, he smells like an auto garage. Motor oil, maybe. “Sam, what you did for my family and my people, I would die for you ten times over. You saved Seena’s life, Sam.”
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