by JK Ellem
BLOOD
Later, in the aftermath of the first Dominion, the Octagon engineers would make improvements to the drone design. The plastic hardened shell would be replaced with a carbon fiber and titanium composite. Heavier but much stronger. That improvement would be credited to the woman who had bashed and hijacked the drone that she now carried in her hands.
Magnolia ran through the tunnel in a bubble of light, carrying the crippled drone, using it like an oversized flashlight. She had cut the power conduits to the other two propulsion arms so the drone couldn’t take flight again but the internal battery still powered its light that splashed off the walls in jerky movements as she ran
She reached an intersection and found the start of the red line. It angled off down a perpendicular tunnel. Magnolia turned into the new tunnel and ran harder, following the red line.
Five minutes later she arrived at a T-junction. The red line continued straight ahead into the darkness and a blue line now branched off into the start of another tunnel. There was a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing in the direction of the blue line with the names of three buildings: Morgan, Shad, Cotting.
Cotting. That was her exit to the outside. It was the building across from the stadium she remembered from the tunnel system map. The blue line would take her there.
She hooked right and took off again.
A few minutes later she stopped when she found a map of the tunnel system next to a fire extinguisher and checked her position just to make sure she was heading in the right direction. She sprinted off again.
Time was running out. She had only twenty minutes to get to the stadium and find the Orb. She was nearly at the end of the tunnel. A few moments later another blue line branched right off the main line, but she ignored it and hurried straight on.
She passed the mummified remains of someone huddled against the wall, their clothing gray and powdery, skin leached, hollow eye sockets.
She kept running.
Then two more bodies appeared, skin withered and shrunken making the clothes they once wore seem too big. The bodies had been there for years not hours. The rats had done their job.
She kept running.
The blue line doglegged left then right, past the building exit signs for Morgan and Shad until finally the tunnel opened up at the bottom of a large stairwell. Light filtered down from above.
Magnolia breathed a sigh of relief. The tunnels were cold and oppressive and she couldn’t stand being in them a moment longer.
She placed the drone on the floor, squatted down and twisted off a propeller blade from its mounting. They were designed to easily snap off. She slid the eight-inch piece of thin hardened plastic under her armorskin near her wrist.
She stood and raised her booted foot and stomped down repeatedly on the body of the drone, smashing it to pieces. “Fucker can’t follow anyone now!”
She turned and sprinted up the stairs, three at a time, and into the light above.
The top of the stairs opened into a wide entrance hall and a row of external glass doors. She sprinted towards the doors, then pivoted mid-stride, her momentum still going forward, and delivered a powerful side-kick that shattered the rotten timber frame, ripping both doors from their hinges and punching them outside.
She paused under a small portico and breathed in the fresh air.
The stadium loomed in front of her, a street running parallel along the side.
She checked wrist-computer.
Ten minutes.
A figure ran past, left to right, going up the street towards the stadium, then another person, chasing the first person, a trident spear in their hands, then two following drones sweeping low recording the chase.
Competitors were converging, rushing towards the stadium, breaking cover, all in a last ditch attempt to reach the Orb first.
Magnolia jumped off the side of the portico and ran across a snow covered square towards the street.
Speed was her friend now. Fuck caution. She wanted to live.
She reached the street and skidded on ice, her feet sweeping out from under her. She hit the bitumen hard, her head snapping back. Dazed, all Magnolia could do was look up at the sky catching her breath, the wind beaten out of her lungs.
A shadow fell across Magnolia, and a woman’s face appeared over her. The woman smiled. Pretty, blonde hair, narrow features, red armorskin, a trident spear in one hand, her own following drone bobbing like a balloon just behind her head. “I’ve waited a long time for this moment Gray,” she said. “I don’t care if I win this thing, just as long as I kill you.”
The woman spun the trident in one hand like a baton then grabbed it with both hands when it reached vertical and thrust it downwards at Magnolia’s head.
Magnolia rolled left then right, the triple barbs just missing her head by millimeters She tried desperately to draw her katana but she was on her back. She rolled again but this time she rose to one elbow and slammed her other elbow horizontally into the inside of the woman’s knee, popping the joint with a sickening sound.
The woman screamed in agony, let go of the trident spear and collapsed on top of Magnolia, punching her hard in the face on the way down. Magnolia flipped both legs up and wrapped them around the woman’s neck and shoulders, pulling one arm through between them and towards her. She pressed her thighs together in a triangle choke, slid her hands behind the woman’s neck and pulled her head forward and squeezed with all her might.
The woman thrashed about for a few seconds, blood pouring from her broken nose into Magnolia’s face as she fought to break free. But Magnolia clung on, and squeezed harder, finding more strength somewhere deep inside her, crushing the woman’s wind pipe and cutting off oxygen to her brain.
Magnolia watched as the woman’s face turned beetroot then she slumped unconscious.
Magnolia pushed the woman off and got to her feet, her face a mask of blood. She drew her katana and held the edge of the blade next to the woman’s throat, her jugular vein pulsing clearly under the skin. The drone pulled closer, anticipating the kill.
She paused for the briefest of moments then pulled the blade back and ran towards the stadium.
Moments later a man emerged from the same building as Magnolia. Low and hulking, punched-in face, bald and sweaty. Grappa. He lumbered down the path and stood over the unconscious woman, then smiled, yellow crooked teeth, strings of drool at the corners of a cruel mouth.
One, two, three times his massive foot rose and fell, stomping on the woman’s head until her skull cracked and gray matter oozed out in to the snow.
He looked up at the stadium ahead but was in no hurry.
Eight left.
9
THE ORB
Magnolia’s position marker and the pulsing red blip on her wrist-computer merged into one. But she didn’t need to check to know that she had found the Orb.
She ran up the concrete ramp and into the stadium then stopped.
The stadium rose around her, a massive horseshoe shape of stepped concrete seating, tiered levels, and a row of ornate stone columns that ringed the entire upper level of a covered seating area. Arched tunnels with steel handrails, rusted and twisted, dotted around the middle levels, entrances into the stadium for spectators long since dead.
Snowflakes drifted down, soft virgin crystals, pirouetting as they fell. Beautiful. Peaceful. Tranquil. But what lay in front of her eyes was a scene from heaven and hell, all at once.
The sky was choked with a plague of drones. They bobbed and weaved trying to get the best position to film the carnage that was unfurling in the stadium below.
Blood stained the snow, harsh crimson, warm and seeping, melting into it.
Competitors fought on the playing field in the middle, others fought on the lower concrete tiers. Twisting and cutting, hacking and stabbing they embraced each other in a bloody struggle to reach the Orb.
On the very top tier, the Orb floated above the apex of a small pyramid that sat on a raised platfo
rm. It was a spherical, translucent ball that pulsed and shimmered like a beating heart, beckoning the remaining competitors. The first to place their palm on it meant life. For the rest, death.
Magnolia ran, cutting a sway across the playing field, kicking up tufts of snow behind her. She passed a tangle of competitors, two women, one crawling through the snow towards a set of steps, a bloody trail in her wake, the other woman riding her back, half her face missing, stabbing the crawling woman repeatedly in the back.
Magnolia hated back stabbers, so she lopped her head off as she ran past, with a sweep of her katana.
Seven left.
She passed a man nestled in a churn of crimson, a javelin deep in his spine, his face as white as the snow he lay in.
Six left.
Magnolia reached the first flight of stairs, skipped over an amputated leg and looked up. The owner of the leg was twenty steps higher, climbing with three limbs, difficult but not impossible. Further above, making a run for the Orb as well was a hulking man, orange armorskin, holding the axe that had done the damage.
There was no time to do anything except run. Magnolia sheathed her katana, then took the stairs three at a time, leaping past the man with one leg, leaving him behind to crawl and stumble. Ahead she could see the other man, his arms and legs pumping, but she was gaining on him.
Halfway up the first flight of stairs her brained screamed a warning, a disturbance in the air from behind. Instinctively she ducked just as a javelin slew past her head then clanged off the concrete in front of her.
No time to stop. No time to turn around.
She kept running up the stairs.
The man above reached the top of the first section of stairs and turned to run along the tier to where the next set of stairs led up to the final top tier. His head turned slightly as he ran and vicious eyes looked down at Magnolia as she hurtled up behind him, his face a blood splattered snarl.
His efforts doubled at the sight of an ominous woman in all-black armorskin with raven black hair who was gaining on him. He raced along the concrete curve towards the next set of stairs. Above that the Orb sat, shimmering and rotating.
Magnolia came off the steps and sprinted along the tier, her katana bobbing up and down on her back, venom in her eyes. She lunged up the final flight of stairs, her focus on the man above her, he was only a few feet away now, his speed slowing as fatigue reached him.
Twenty feet.
She drew her katana one handed, her lungs like cement, her throat like gravel.
He slowed some more, the axe in his hand dangling at his side.
Ten feet.
She brought her sword up to cut him down.
Then the man exploded in a sphere of red, an expanding ball of blood, skin, hair, teeth, muscle, bone and sizzling burnt fat and flesh.
The explosion punched Magnolia sideways, lifting her off her feet and throwing her over the rows of concrete seats, coating her in a mist of blood and human matter. She hit the ground hard, her senses numbed, her ears ringing.
Slowly she got to her feet, groggy, her legs unsure, her katana still in her hand.
Structurally the man was gone. But he was still there as a circular wet outline painted across the steps and adjacent seats in shades of red, gray and orange.
Five left.
It was then Magnolia saw another man, standing to the right, on the top tier. He had emerged from under the columned roof behind the last row of seating. Nothing special, thin, surly looking, spectacles, high cheekbones, a corporate type, not a competitor. In his hand was a gun, black, boxy, lethal. He was smiling at his aim. It was better than he had expected.
Magnolia staggered forward, slow deliberate steps over the seats towards the Orb, avoiding the entrails of the previous competitor.
The man came down the steps, his face a hideous grin, and stood next to the Orb.
“Well done, well done indeed.”
She paused a few feet away, her eyes wavering, from the Orb to the man with the gun.
“And here I was thinking you were dead. I was positive I’d hit you when you were standing on the bridge.” He seemed amused. But then it was a game after all. “How you survived the fall into the river I will never know.” His eyes shifted slightly past Magnolia. It was a tiny gesture, but it spoke volumes to her.
Magnolia spun around, her blade sweeping horizontally, it was the best technique when striking at an unknown threat from behind. The tip of her blade sliced the stomach of the woman behind her, the competitor who had thrown the javelin. The woman’s entrails spilled out through the rent in her armorskin. She dropped to her knees, a look of surprise then horror on her face, before she toppled forward and fell face-first into her own intestines.
Four left.
Magnolia looked down at the rows below her. There was no one else, just bodies, some still, some crawling, soon to die. She turned back to the man. The Orb still glowed beside him.
He nodded with delight, “You’re the last one left. Well done. This is perfect, simply perfect.” The man could hardly contain his excitement.
“You cheated,” Magnolia said coldly. “You inserted yourself to manipulate the outcome. You were here from the start. You wanted me dead, you tried to kill me.” She edged forward.
“Oh my dear, don’t worry. There’s still time for that.”
The body landed with a sickening thud in front of Magnolia, a bloody tangle of limbs, twisted and broken.
Three left.
“We’ll you’re almost the last one left,” the man with the gun smiled.
Grappa climbed up the steps behind Magnolia. He had came out of one of the small arched tunnels, then lifted the man with one leg missing and hurled him nearly forty feet.
“You’ve been helping him,” Magnolia snarled at the man with the gun. “It’s unfair.”
Grappa paused a few rows down the stadium, waiting for instructions, an insidious grin on his face. He had found an axe and he held it in his meaty hands.
The man with the gun shrugged, “Life is unfair,” he said dryly like he was getting bored. “I wanted him to reach the end. Now it’s going to be more exciting for the audience to see you both fight over the Orb.” The man gave a subtle nod, and Grappa saw it. He exploded up the steps like a freight-train, the massive axe swinging in front of him, wide arcs of glinting steel that sang as the blade cut the air.
Magnolia turned to face him, but did nothing, her arms by her sides, her katana held loosely in one hand watching as Grappa bore down on her.
He tore up the distance in a split second, three drones orbiting him as came.
At the very last moment Magnolia leapt high, too high for the blade of the axe to reach her. In mid-air she reversed her grip, bringing the katana up vertically, the tip of the blade pointing directly downwards.
She reached the top of her momentum, and gravity did the rest.
She descended with her full weight behind the hilt of the katana. The tip of the blade pierced the top of his skull, slid through his brain, through the roof of his mouth and carried on vertically downwards through his center axis.
Grappa collapsed in a heap with Magnolia on top of him. She withdrew the blade in one long, grating motion.
Two left.
“Oh, bravo!” the man squealed. “You are the best one. We did well to pick you.”
Ignoring him, Magnolia turned back to the Orb and stepped towards it.
The man brought the gun up. “No, no,” he said, his voice dripping with arrogance. “You still don’t get it do you.” His eyes narrowed. “It was a test, a game, designed by me.”
“And I’ve won,” Magnolia said, her voice hoarse.
The man looked at Magnolia, pity in his eyes as he shook his head. “No. There is no winner. There can never be a winner. We cannot allow it.”
10
SEED
We cannot allow it.
The words rung hollow in Magnolia’s head. She was never going to win, none of them were. That’
s what the woman was trying to tell her, the Octagon engineer, the one Madigan had killed right in front of her.
“The other engineer? The woman?”
The man smiled, “A traitorous employee. What better fate than to put her in the Dominion with a bunch of murderous killers. It was so entertaining don’t you think?” The man tilted the gun in his hand, showing it to her. “This is a prototype as well, like the game itself. In time it will also evolve. We will make it better, like your suit. Everything will evolve. I think we’re on to a winner here.”
The man was mad. He didn’t care. They were just fodder for entertainment.
In a blur Magnolia lunged forward before he could react, slicing through his wrist. His hand fell, still clutching the gun. He screamed as blood pumped from the blunt end where his hand had just been.
She leapt past him and towards the Orb then pressed her palm on the sphere. It pulsed once then went dark. The apex of the pyramid parted like the petals of a flower unfurling and the Orb descended slowly within before the segments closed over it.
Wild with rage the man got on his hands and knees, searching for his gun, blood spraying on the floor. It had tumbled between two lower rows, his hand still holding it. He crawled towards it in desperation. He reached for his gun, stood on his own severed hand and wrenched the gun free.
Magnolia ran up the final stairs to the covered area at the top of the stadium. She looked around wildly for an escape. A passageway curved away from her on both sides.
Left or right?
“Bitch!”
She turned and raised her katana just as the man emerged up the final row of stairs, and staggered towards her, dripping blood as he came. It was obvious he favored his departed hand, the barrel of the gun looped and wavered.
Four drones swept between the columns and took position under the covered area, forming a circle around both of them.
Magnolia backed away under the columned roof, towards the back wall.
He waved the drones away angrily, “She’s mine, I’m going to kill her now!” he screamed as he took aim at Magnolia, his left hand shaky, and fired.
