by Mark Tufo
“Mike, this isn’t a trick. Finish me off or they’ll do the both of us in. Just look over there,” he said and pointed to the right side of the stadium. The guards were already zeroing in on us and up until now I had not noticed the hissing and booing from the seats. The crowd wanted death and they wanted it now, they didn’t care whether it came from my spear or the guards’ weapons.
“Do it.” He dropped to his knees. “Do it now.” He clasped his hands over his head. “Do it or all of our women are dead.”
I approached him slowly, tears welling up in my eyes. Then I began crying like I was in the first grade and somebody had stolen my lunchbox. I dropped my spear and picked up the sword he had discarded and walked completely around Timmins so his back was to me. The crowd hushed, the guards put down their weapons. I raised the sword with both hands but I had to take one hand to wipe my eyes. I wanted to make sure this was a clean killing blow. I could tell he was also crying; his back rose and fell like when people are sobbing.
“I’m sorry, Shawn.”
“Me too,” he cried.
I cut his head off; it was amazingly easy, like a hot knife through butter. Blood spurted out of his severed neck and the body fell over. His head rolled another five or six feet before coming to a rest. Of course it was face up and he still had a tear in his eye. Oh God, I thought, please don’t let him be cognizant right now. This was already going to haunt me. Just then his mouth moved wordlessly and I hurled everything I had ever eaten in my entire life. When there was nothing left my body looked for more, dry heaves threatened to rip loose every muscle in my rib cage and still his mouth moved. God, please forgive me! The crowd was going nuts; they apparently liked good old-fashioned beheadings.
I couldn’t sleep for a week. Every time I closed my eyes Shawn’s head would haunt my dreams and every so often in my five minute dozes before I awoke screaming and sweating, words would actually come out of his mouth. Words of blame, of acrimony. Tension in the Talbot household was at an all time high. I wasn’t sleeping and we had doubled our population. Needless to say I wasn’t the most popular guy to half of these women. Some of the girls who had been with me for a while were actually concerned I might be in some danger from one or more of Shawn’s women. And then bless her heart, Debbie snapped out of her self-induced fog to bring some sanity to the household.
“Quit your bitching!” she yelled to the newcomers semi-huddled in the corner of the room. “Your champion—”
“Shawn!” one of the girls yelled.
“Shawn, he wanted Mike to win. He gave himself up to protect all of you! He knew he wasn’t going to win and he didn’t want to lose to any one of those other animals still out there. What do you think would have happened to all of you if he lost to Durgan?” Most of the girls shuddered; some were still not letting go of their anger. “Did you not all watch the battle? He gave himself up willingly. He wanted Mike to protect all of you. All of us.”
“He didn’t have to kill him!” one of the first girls in Timmins’ household called out. Her name was Karina.
“And what then?” Deb yelled. “You saw the guards, they would have killed them both without blinking. And do you know what they do to gifts with no champion? They kill them! They just bring them out to the center of the arena and mow them down. End of story. So we will quit all of this in-house bickering and we will move forward. I’m sorry Shawn died. From what I could tell he looked like a decent person.”
“He was!” the same little blonde cried out.
“But these aren’t decent times. Shawn did the most decent and selfless thing he could for you and us. He sacrificed himself so all of us stood a better chance of staying alive. And right now girls, that’s what it’s all about.” I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house, I retired to my room as both sets of women got into the middle of the room and had a huge group hug and cry fest. I had nothing left, I was tapped. I think I had heaved every possible emotion left in me. I slept for three straight days and not once did Shawn Timmins intrude on my thoughts.
Unfortunately for me, Timmins’ selflessness ended up hurting me. In his willingness to let me kill him, the aliens felt I had not lived up to my ranking and demoted me to twenty-fifth, not that it truly mattered. Out of the thirty-eight of us who were still alive, none of my remaining battles were going to be easy. But I had another month or so to prepare.
CHAPTER 25
Washington DC – Pentagon
“Do you think this is a viable plan?” the President asked his Chiefs of Staff.
“Sir, we don’t know if it is, but it is the only plan we have,” answered one of the President’s more liked advisors. He was Dr. David Witherdrot, Chief of Homeland Security. “Sir, we have heard nothing further from the ship since they took those hostages almost six months ago. To do nothing makes us look weak. Especially to an increasingly hostile and paranoid population. For good or bad, we need to do something.”
“Yes, I understand the need to do something,” the President uttered. “I’ve got pressure from groups that didn’t even exist half a year ago. I just don’t feel confident this is the course I wish to take.”
“Mr. President, we understand your concerns, but we feel this shuttle is our best offensive weapon.”
“And what of the hostages?” the President asked.
“Sir?” asked the Chief of the Military.
“The hostages, General, are they just fodder?” the President snapped back.
“Sir, we’ve been through this. We have to protect the many, even at the cost of the few.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier, General.”
“Sir, whether you like me or not, the fact remains, as a military man, I would rather avoid conflict at all times. It’s always been politicians who scream war; whereas we military men have always advocated peace. But in these times, sir, I believe our hand has been forced. The aliens sit there parked on our doorstep and say and do nothing. They could be waiting for reinforcements, they could be just deciding which way would be the best way to attack. Sir, not to get morbid, they might just think of our planet as a drive-thru restaurant and they’re just finishing up. What do we do the next time they come to visit? I don’t think we offer them a dove.”
“General, what if they are trying to ascertain whether or not to contact us?” the President asked.
“Sir, with all due respect, the best scientific minds on this planet have been working on that very question for almost the entire six months. They came to the basic conclusion the aliens have enough information at their disposal to have come up with a decision in their first week of orbit around Venus. No, sir, their expert opinion is that the aliens are deciding on how to take us down in the most efficient way without doing untold damage to the planet. For all we know, Sir, those people they grabbed are test subjects for some type of viral agent that will reduce our population to thousands or maybe even hundreds. Sir, as a species, our days may be numbered in the single digits. We owe it to all humanity to take this one final shot. If nothing else, we need to show those bastards we won’t go down without a fight.”
“General, I understand your vigor. But what makes you think these nuclear weapons will have any effect whatsoever on the mother ship? We didn’t even scratch the probe the last time we tried something like this.”
“Sir, there is no guarantee, but the explosives on that shuttle are on the magnitude of seventy-five times the power of the one detonated off the atoll. It’s our best chance.”
“I hope this doesn’t just anger them,” the Chief Science Officer intoned.
“Well, speak now, Dr. Nisorini. You’ve made your opinions known, no sense in keeping them bottled up now.” The President did not like Nisorini in the least; he was a member of a growing segment of the populace who had become increasingly fatalistic. Depression and suicide were running rampant throughout the country and the world for that matter. The President had always been a die-hard optimist, if you were still alive, you still had a chance.
“Sir,” Dr. Nisorini said with a nasal twang. “The aliens thus far have done nothing to us.”
“Except take twenty-five thousand or so people off our planet against their will.”
“Except that sir. But at this point we really don’t know if they have harmed them in any way. It just might be a way to introduce themselves. It has been my stance we should not anger these aliens in any way. To do so could bring untold horrors down on the rest of us.”
“So we should just chalk those people up as losses?” asked the President.
“That is my view,” Nisorini droned. For being such a brilliant man, he had not the least amount of common sense. The President had merely been baiting him, but Nisorini bit hard. Well, at least the President thought he knew where the good doctor stood. Not that he valued that opinion very highly.
“Well, thank you, Dr. Nisorini. You have made up my mind,” the President said.
“You are welcome, Mr. President.” Nisorini beamed like a child who had received a gold star.
“General,” the President said.
“Sir?”
“Launch the shuttles.”
“Yes, sir!” The general hopped on the phone to tell NASA to get their butts in gear. It was now time for operation Blue Dragon.
The President wished he had a camera. Nisorini’s face was worth a thousand words. The President couldn’t decide whether Nisorini was going to cry or start stomping his feet.
CHAPTER 26 – Journal Entry 20
Number 13 was a guy from Jersey. He was Italian, but not your regular Italian, he was more your Guido variety. Come on, you know the type, think Jersey Shore. Drives a Camaro, wears huge gold chains, most likely with the Italian horn on it. Has wife-beater t-shirts. Uses more hair gel than your sister. Yeah, that one. Generally, they are on the bullying side of things and this one looked to be no different. He looked like he did side work for the mafia. He stood about six-one to six-two, jet black hair, and huge low hanging arms. He just epitomized the tough guy look. He appeared to be very used to a variety of weapons, although he shied away from the bow and arrow and spear. Probably with arms so large he wasn’t able to get a proper throwing motion going. I had a month to study this guy and I needed the entire time. I’d been watching his events for a solid week and as of yet I had not discovered a single weakness. He was smarter than he looked. He was cautious; he knew how to fight with or without weapons. And most importantly, he wasn’t insane. He went about his business as if it were a business, very methodical and precise. He didn’t extend himself to any great degree and as of yet he had made no mistakes. This man had not so much as suffered a scratch during the entire games. His competition, on the other hand, had not been so lucky. Was lack of passion a weakness? If it were, I saw no way to exploit it. I could see why the aliens had ranked him subsequently so low; he didn’t do his job with any particular flair, he just went out there and did what he had to do. And now it was my job to figure out how not to let him do his job on me.
While I watched and trained, Deb and I grew further apart, but she did not withdraw as she had previously. If anything she took over control of the household with a new and determined vigor. We had twelve women plus myself living in our ‘household.’ It was increasingly difficult to find time to myself. This place was always bustling with activity. I tried my best to be pleasant but I didn’t know half their names and in all actuality I had no desire to learn them. I already felt overwhelmed with the thought of protecting them all; I had no desire to get to know them any better. Deb had made it crystal clear my room was completely off limits to everyone for any reason. I had my refuge, but I guess she figured if she couldn’t have me, nobody could. And that was fine, I longed for one and one only. With about a week left before my next bout, my biggest surprise to date on the ship happened. I and the rest of the gladiators were given a tour of the ship. To this day, I don’t know the reason why they bothered, they thought we were beneath them on the evolutionary ladder. I can’t imagine taking my pet hamster on a tour of my house. Did some of these aliens know what it was like to be cooped up with a harem of women? Was that it—did they feel bad for us? Or was it gratitude at the display we had been putting on for them? Don’t get me wrong, we were heavily guarded by the larger of the two species, the ones known as the Genogerians, but we were being taken on tour by the smaller species that definitely seemed in command of things. It would have actually been a great diversion from the normal routine if it hadn’t been with the very people who wanted to, or at least had to, kill me. Number 13, Tony Rizino, eyed me up and down once, and then apparently made up his mind because he never once looked at me again for the entire day. I, however, studied him for the full two hours of our tour and did not discover a chink in his armor. If anything, he looked more imposing in person than on the screen. His arms looked a full foot longer than mine, so much for hand-to-hand combat.
“This, hu-mans, is where we eat.” Our host led us through a cafeteria not very far removed from the ones on Earth. The greatest difference would be the troughs were on the far sides of the cafeteria lining both sides. I wouldn’t have been too sure what those were if not for the fact a couple of the Genogerian guards were at the troughs sloughing away. Well, so much for manners. They had scraps of food all over the floor and pieces of flesh hung greedily to their snouts. “You will have to excuse them, hu-mans, they have yet to learn the importance of manners.” Our host seemed to sneer at his last comment. I understood there were two very distinct races here, but it was unclear to me whether this was due to some twist in their evolution, or this master race had simply taken over the planet the Genos owned and had made them slaves. Was that our fate? I might have assumed that except some of the scraps on the floor appeared more than likely to be of human origin. One did not generally eat their slaves.
And so we traveled through the cafeteria and beyond to what could only be labeled as the shuttle bay. Hundreds upon hundreds of spaceships of varying sizes and shapes were lined up along the hull for as far as the eye could see. They didn’t look much like the ships from Star Trek or Star Wars, but I was still fairly able to tell which ones were mere transports and which ones were used for battle. Some of the gunships even had what appeared to be other alien vessels painted on the outside. I guess in a lot of ways we were a very similar species, they also liked to know how many kills they had, much like our aces in the great wars. What were the odds I could fly one of those things? Slim to none. Could I make a run for it now? The guards looked slack, but I still didn’t think I’d make it ten feet before I had a plasma burst in my back. And even if I made it, then what? I couldn’t fly the thing and I sure didn’t have any clearance to get the shuttle doors opened. Someone had to let our planet know. These guys weren’t here to say ‘hi’. The only reason this ET was phoning home was to let them know how the impending invasion was going. Our demonstration was merely a means for them to study our warfare tactics up close and personal. What better way to do it? They were learning all about our cunning and our brutality, while we were entertaining them. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. And we were all too wrapped up in our own existence to see the bigger picture: that they were merely using us as test subjects to further their cause. By surviving and killing each other, we were in effect giving them the weapons with which to kill our entire planet. It was then and there that I began to formulate my plan to get off this ship and let my planet know the true intention of these things. If they came here because of the message Carl Sagan sent out so many years ago, I was going to kick his ass too. The tour guide of our little group was droning on about the vast array of ships they had. And how many civilizations had fallen under their rule. And that soon Earth would become part of the Strolactic Empire. Ah, so I finally had a name, but the ugly bastard never disclosed any vital information. Like how does one fly one of these things? Oh well, there had to be more than one way to skin a cat. Or gut a crocodile as the case may be. I got the impression this tour was more o
f a ‘Look how awesome we are, puny hu-mans’ tour. That could just have been my slant on things, but being from New England I tended to take the rose-colored glasses off before I looked at things. Our next stop was the training area for the warriors; another interesting note there was not a Progerian, beside our guide, in sight. The stop after that was the sub-helm according to our guide. On a starship of this magnitude, apparently there were seven such sub-helms all under control of the main helm, which we were informed we would not be seeing. No alien race had ever seen the main helm and according to Brystrar, our guide, none ever would. Another point that seemed to interest no one but myself was there were no Genos on the helm, either. So along with being two distinct species, they had very clear lines of delineation on their tasks. Was that a weakness? And if so how could I exploit it? I was having as much difficulty with this task as I was with finding and exploiting the weakness of my next opponent.
I was startled out of my thoughts by of our guide.
“So, hu-mans, you have seen part of our ship. I will allow a small amount of time for questions.”
Wow, this would be the first time we had actually been allowed to speak to them; what questions would we ask? What questions would they answer? We were each allowed one question and it went in order of ranking. I tried desperately to think of a question that would not be asked before it became my turn. I had little to fear in that department. Here we were in front of a vastly superior technological race and we could ask them virtually anything regarding the cosmos, and the questions laid out were more along the lines of what you would ask your neighbor. “What do you eat?” Although that could have been more out of concern. “How long do you live?” There were a couple of questions that piqued my interest. One of the more fascinating was, "Do you believe in God?” That was actually Jersey Man’s question. Brystrar’s answer had been somewhat hesitant and blatantly evasive, but the general gist I got was that no, the Progerians had no need for a God but the Genos wholeheartedly believed in a higher being. I was wondering if the Genogerians believed the Progerians to be this higher being; that could be used against them somehow, but not while I was on this giant can. When my turn came around I figured I would get some clarification on Jersey Man’s question and also on my own thoughts.
