Herokiller

by Paul Tassi

  “No longer will we be confined within the walls of the prison system. The Crucible will bring our famed competition to the masses. A grand, nationwide tournament with only one victor. A duel to the death to crown the most formidable combatant in the country.”

  A few younger men in the coffee shop started applauding and cheering. Mark looked at them like they were psychotic.

  “Is he saying what I think he’s—” he began, but Rayne waved him off, eyes glued to the screen.

  “The Crucible begins in sixteen cities around the nation. Preliminary matches will choose a champion from each region. These qualifiers won’t require a mortal price, simply the will and ability to win, but once the final sixteen are chosen, the fights will be to the death.”

  More cheers from the JavaSpot.

  “It is in tandem with this news that I announce the construction of Crayton Colosseum, a stadium that when completed will host the final tournament to a massive live audience, with millions more watching at home. We break ground in Nevada within the week.”

  Mark’s head was spinning. How on earth was this really happening? How could it happen?

  “Enrollment for the regional qualifiers begins at the conclusion of this message and can be completed online or in person. Registration will be open for two weeks, and so long as you’re over eighteen years of age and a US citizen, you are free to enter. And while Prison Wars was an entirely male affair, the Crucible is open to both genders. I believe women are just as strong and capable as men, and I wouldn’t dream of excluding them here.”

  Crayton peered into the lens with uncomfortable intensity.

  “And now, perhaps, you’re asking why. Why on earth would anyone volunteer for a tournament like this where the stakes couldn’t be higher? You’re not death row inmates after all. You have families and friends and your entire lives ahead of you.”

  That was the most reasonable thing Mark had heard him say yet.

  “But it is for the future and for your families and friends I encourage you to fight. For those who qualify for the final tournament, I am guaranteeing a minimum payout of ten million dollars, even if the combatant falls in the first round. The amount will increase with each new stage, and ultimately culminate in a grand prize of one billion dollars, which the competitor will still be alive to spend.”

  The same cluster of jackasses was cheering. Even Rayne wore a crazed smile after hearing that figure.

  “A billion dollars?” she mouthed at Mark, who simply looked stunned.

  “I thank you all for your viewership, and I look forward to seeing you all tune in to the Crucible. Registration details follow this announcement, and I look forward to seeing sixteen of you in Nevada later this summer!”

  Crayton dissolved and was replaced by a montage showing the various qualifier host cities. New York, LA, Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, and then, of course, Chicago, before the list continued. The young men were still grinning like idiots, but the rest of the establishment appeared to be as dumbstruck as Mark. Once the video faded, the shop started buzzing with heated chatter about what had just been announced.

  This is it then, Mark thought. This is how it all ends.

  “WHAT I DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Rayne said as they walked back to the Watchman, “is how he’s going to pull this off after the government just shut down Prison Wars. Like, how is this any less illegal?”

  Mark shook his head and tossed his empty cup into an overflowing trashcan.

  “I don’t know, but he’s got a plan. You don’t organize something like this, promising a billion-dollar grand prize, plus invest what, another billion in this crazy new stadium, without having assurances it’s going to work.”

  “Jesus,” Rayne said, checking the readout on her phone. “I wish I bought his stock when it bottomed out yesterday. It’s going through the roof right now. A 60 percent jump in the last ten minutes alone. His net worth probably just tripled.”

  “Well, he’s got a colosseum to build,” Mark smirked.

  Soon they arrived at the Blind Watchman and Mark spent the next hour staring at a single beer before telling Rayne he was calling it a day, much to her surprise. He wandered outside and started walking until he was out of the Loop and deep downtown. The city seemed livelier than he remembered, and he overheard more than a few people talking about the announcement.

  It bothered him more than it should have, but he couldn’t shake it. He wouldn’t watch it, of course, and no one was forcing him to. And in reality it was only what, fifteen people potentially dying? More would die from heart attacks by the time he rounded the next block than the tournament would actually kill. Still, he felt like a line had been crossed.

  Now we’re cheering as the desperate eat each other.

  “CHRIST, THAT’S A LOT of blood,” Mark said as he handed Carlo another towel. “Sorry about that, again.”

  Carlo waved him off and held the new towel to his lip. The white counter of the gym locker room had a worrying amount of diluted red on it. Luckily the only other people around were the old men who constantly occupied the sauna, though Mark wondered exactly what was going on in there this time of night.

  “Think I never had a split lip before? I’m good, but even I take shots in the ring sometimes.”

  Carlo frowned at the mirror where his lip was starting to swell. Mark had connected with a too-sharp right hook and soon both of them were covered in Carlo’s blood. Mark looked down at his shirt, realizing it was ruined. After stripping it off he tossed it into a nearby trash can.

  “Well, there’ll be plenty more where that come from when you sign up for the Crucible, eh?” Mark said, flexing out his sore hand.

  “You’re goddamn right!”

  “What?” Mark asked in mock surprise. “Are we going to see the rise of Carlo ‘The Needle’ Rivera at last?”

  “Ain’t gonna be no child molesters in this thing. You enter that, you gotta know how to fight. Like me.”

  He patted his chest with gloves. Mark paused.

  “Wait, are you serious? You’re really entering?” he said, horrified. “Carlo, the thing ends with the public execution of fifteen people. Including you, if you make it that far.”

  “Nah,” Carlo said, waving Mark off with his hand. “Not when I’m the 16th, sittin’ on a throne of cash bricks worth a cool billion.”

  It was all Mark could hope for that if Carlo actually was entering, he would get knocked out of the running in qualifiers, which seemed likely. But what if he didn’t?

  “Carlo, the odds—”

  “Man, please,” Carlo said, starting to get visibly edgy. “The odds been against me my whole life. I’m fighting for rent money on the way to the top, yet no matter how hard I go at this thing, that noose just keeps gettin’ tighter. They’re about to take my mom’s house away. My family only gets to eat because I put the food on their table. And I can only do that like half the time. You drive around in your fancy car and think people aren’t killin’ each other to survive already. I could be making three times what I earn now selling crank, coke, or stardust on my block, but I’m trying to do it right. Now this thing comes along and tells me I can take a run at a billion dollars doing what I do already? You’re goddamn right I’m gonna do it. Set up my family for generations.”

  Mark shook his head. He knew Carlo’s life was tough. His father was a Marine who had been killed in Afghanistan during the fourth surge of ’23. His mother had raised him and his little brother ever since, but now he clearly wanted to step up to the plate. Bending over, Mark rummaged through his bag to get out a fresh shirt. Well, fresh was a relative term in a bag which smelled like a dying animal after months of laundry neglect.

  “What happened to you, man?” Carlo’s tone shifting now that Mark had dropped the issue. “You look like something carved you up pretty good a long while back.”

  Mark looked down at the thin, white scars criss-crossing his torso and knew Carlo saw the ones on his back. He quickly pulled on the new moldy shirt and tur
ned around.

  “When I was on base, a private got drunk and drove a supply truck into our barracks,” Mark replied without blinking. “They patched me up best they could, but I still look a little like abstract art.”

  “Intense,” Carlo said, eying him somewhat suspiciously. Mark hoped he hadn’t noticed how many of the cuts were perfectly straight and parallel. That’s Chinese precision for you, he thought, shivering at the memory.

  Carlo lifted up his arm to show a white jag near his armpit.

  “Sixth grader tried to steal my bike when I was eight. He put a goddamn switchblade an inch from my lung.”

  “And he still only tried to steal your bike?” Mark asked, eyebrow raised.

  “My puppy Hercules chomped his arm and I broke his eye socket with a rock,” Carlo said, suddenly looking downcast. “Man, I miss that dog.”

  “Quite the puppy,” Mark said, nodding. He heard a disturbingly pleasurable grunt coming from the sauna, and they both wiped off the counter and fled before whatever was happening in there escalated further.

  ON THE WAY HOME, Mark drove past a long line of people standing in the darkness. He was confused at who would be out at 4 a.m. on a weekday, some with tents, others with folding chairs and beer coolers, but eventually he saw the banners reading CHICAGO CRUCIBLE REGIONALS REGISTRATION, and realized the line trailed all the way to a nearby office building.

  Employees wearing Crayton Media badges were herding the lines into something resembling an angular snake to avoid spilling out into the road. The police were there as well, and blue and red flashing lights strobed in the darkness.

  “Jesus,” Mark said as he saw how many people were registering for a chance to die in front of millions. Did they understand what they were signing up for? Perhaps the qualifiers, a more standard fighting competition, attracted all types just trying to test their luck and brawn, maybe grabbing fifteen minutes of fame in the process. Out of all of them, only one would make it to event that actually forced you to kill other people. If this insanity even made it that far. Mark had to imagine the government was trying to decide how best to go after Crayton this time.

  ONCE HE GOT BACK to the penthouse, Mark couldn’t sleep. Despite six hours at the gym, he still had a seemingly endless amount of energy. As always, he reached for that thin, clear screen, and brought up the familiar file list.

  “Som Chai Okinawa - April 3rd, 2024.”

  Another phone cam shot. The video showed him, cramming vegetables into his mouth with chopsticks.

  “Why are you filming this?” Mark asked the camera. “This does not need to be filmed.”

  A giggle from behind the lens.

  “I thought you should have a record of your first attempt at eating Thai,” Riko said with an unseen smile.

  “Attempt? I think I’m succeeding,” Mark replied. “Give me that.”

  He took the phone from her and the view switched to Riko wearing a pale blue dress and sparkling black necklace that looked vaguely volcanic. Her long hair was wound up far above her head, and she was beautiful as ever. Their first date.

  “Tell me,” she asked, putting on a mock serious face. “How does a Chinese guy stationed in Japan hate all Asian food, Thai included?”

  Mark chuckled through a mouthful of something unpronounceable.

  “Because this Chinese guy is only half-Chinese, and he grew up with a very white mother who made very white food like macaroni and hamburgers all the time.”

  “And what’s your excuse after you moved out?” Riko asked.

  Mark looked from side to side.

  “Umm, macaroni and hamburgers continued to taste better than … whatever this is,” he said, poking at his meal with one chopstick.

  “The fatherland would be so disappointed,” Riko said, shaking her head.

  “I think China may take more issue with me than just my food choices. But if we ever storm their beaches, I’ll make sure they see me eating crispy honey shrimp or something, and maybe they’ll take pity on me.”

  Riko laughed. Mark remembered how the entire room lit up whenever she smiled.

  Mark heard something that sounded like a loud thud in the hallway. He bolted up immediately, the screen falling flat on the sheets. Scrambling under his bed, he came back up with his pistol and crept to the doorcam screen in complete silence. He took one look at what was on the monitor, and his heart nearly stopped.

  “Oh shi—”

  His front door splintered, then exploded.

  4

  POLICE KNOCKED. POLICE IDENTIFIED themselves. Police had POLICE written across their chests in big, bold letters. That’s why, when the first man came in through the door in a blank helmet and flat, matte kevlar with no markings, Mark didn’t hesitate when he pulled the trigger.

  But the resulting click told him the firing pin was inoperable. The gun was a paperweight.

  The armored man and the three others behind him had strobes mounted on the barrels of their submachine guns that lit up Mark’s place like a dance club. Combined with a high-pitched sonic frequency designed to assault his ears, it was horribly disorienting. Dropping the useless pistol, Mark had to dive out of the way of silenced shots from the men in the doorframe. He heard glass shatter in the hallway. The men were shouting coded orders at one another, and Mark crawled to extract his M6 from its resting place taped under his living room couch. His hand felt around and found nothing. It was gone. His pistol. The rifle.

  This was planned.

  There were two other guns stashed in the house, but Mark already knew they would be broken or missing, and he couldn’t waste valuable time chasing after them.

  The men rounded the corner and Mark dove for the flashing barrel. The gun fired a hissing series of silent shots as it swung upward, and Mark wrenched it away from the man’s grasp. He swung the stock into the helmeted face and the invader collapsed on the spot. Mark only had time to get off a pair of shots at the others, but even in the strobed darkness, saw rubber bullets bounce off their armor.

  Capture, not kill.

  That wasn’t terribly comforting either.

  They’ve come at last.

  Mark caught a bullet that felt like a sledgehammer to his exposed shoulder. It spun him around, but he kept his balance and he dove into the kitchen.

  As the next figure came around the corner, Mark reached up and grabbed a cylindrical grenade from his belt. He rolled it between the man’s legs before spinning around to take cover behind the open door of his fridge.

  The EMP blast exploded in the middle of the remaining three men. The strobe and high-pitched wailing stopped, and even the lights in the hallway blew out.

  Mark used their newfound disorientation to charge into the group, slamming the first man’s head through the drywall and firing a rubber bullet into the exposed throat of another figure, who went down to the ground choking. The third man recovered enough to raise his gun, but Mark kicked it sideways before shattering the man’s helmeted face with the butt of his gun. The man stumbled backward into the hallway clutching his face, only to be absorbed into a black mass of armor. More men. At least another four.

  A clear, indestructible riot shield slammed into Mark and the locomotive of men behind it propelled him down the entry hallway. Blue electricity crackled in the darkness, and Mark had to jump back as a taser lashed out through a slit in the shield toward his chest.

  He yanked the shield toward him and spun around, catching the man holding it in the back of the head with a sharp elbow and he collapsed on the spot. A firm front kick bowled over the next two men, but the third hit him square in the chest with two rubber bullets, knocking him on his ass. The man fired another stream of bullets, but Mark rolled right. He grabbed the taser from the first downed man and slammed it into the side of one of the invaders struggling back to his feet. He convulsed violently and shrieked through his helmet. Mark dodged more shots and ran back to the living room as the remaining two men spread out to flank him.

  He hurled a co
rdless lamp at one, and it shattered harmlessly across kevlar. He swung the riot rifle like a baseball bat, but the man ducked under it, and Mark felt an electric jolt hit his ribs as a knuckle taser sent an uncomfortable amount of voltage coursing through him. Doubled over in pain, he just managed to block an ascending knee from the man, and he shot up with an uppercut into his opponent’s helmeted jaw. He heard a crack, and wasn’t sure if it was the man’s neck or his fingers, but he dropped all the same.

  More shouting. More strobes. More dark figures storming through his door. Mark breathed heavily, clutching his side. Blobs of pain radiated all throughout his body where he’d been struck. His muscles were burning, his vision was mostly red blotches.

  From the door, a thin red light cut through the darkness and landed on his chest. Mark thought it was just a laser sight, until his skin started heating up like he was starting to boil from the inside out. He stumbled forward toward the new figures, but dropped to his knees as his entire body felt like it was engulfed in invisible flames. Blue electricity leapt out from the shadows and made the unseen fire feel downright pleasant. The darkness consumed him fully, his body slipping into unconscious surrender.

  MARK’S HEAD ROLLED FORWARD then snapped awake, and he instinctively jerked his hands and feet, only to find them chained to a table and chair respectively. He was seated in an empty stone room with polished aluminum furniture and a suspicious-looking wall to his right that was almost certainly transparent from the other side. He’d been in many rooms like it before, but the question was whose room was it? Mark was just praying the first face he saw didn’t look Chinese.

  Gideon Gellar was not Chinese. Mark’s eyes widened as his old handler walked through a seamless door on the opposite wall. The years had saddled him with another forty pounds or so, and his thick black beard was now streaked with gray. His skin was dark and his eyes smiled at Mark even if his face didn’t. With him was a tall, silver-haired man with the stripes of a general on his blue uniform. He wore no nameplate.