The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe (5 page)

“It definitely is,” Dawson agreed. “They’re training, recruiting new soldiers, and preparing for what Taktarov is calling the ‘Ascension’: the moment when every remaining human–run territory is under his rule.” He swiped his finger through the air and closed the news feeds, returning to the local cameras monitoring the population outside of the castle. He gazed at the monitors, transfixed on the citizens of Iceland who were milling about in the streets, completely unaware that the shields were down – or that there was a superhuman assassin in House Lehmann custody. “These people under my dad’s watch, they have
no
idea what’s going on outside in the real world. No idea how bad things could get if the Uprising gets its way.”

“This is like an episode of the Twilight Zone,” I grumbled, massaging my throbbing temples.

Snapped out of his daze, Dawson cocked his head like a confused puppy dog, his mop of blond hair flopping to one side. “The Twilight
what?”

This was the second fairly casual reference I’d made to a well know pop–culture icon around Dawson; he didn’t seem to have heard of Sir Galahad, either. “Wait, you don’t know what the Twilight Zone is?”

He shook his head.

“All right, I’m going to try something. Stop me when you’ve heard of one of these: Coke, Pepsi, Ghostbusters, The Matrix, Nike, Nintendo, Sony, McDonalds, Lady Gaga – ?” I paused, awaiting a response. “Nothing?”

His face contorted, brows furrowing as if he were physically pained by the labor of intense thought. “So...is this Lady Gaga part of the Northern Realm?”

My situation was finally – somewhat – beginning to make sense. “Ha! This is a different reality,” I shouted, louder than I’d intended. “A completely different timeline. When I got electrocuted in 2041 I was thrown forward in time, but also into some parallel universe. That’s why things are sort of the same, but sort of different. That makes sense...right?”

“I guess?” Dawson replied casually. “I mean, anything is possible, I suppose.” He didn’t seem overly skeptical. I assumed growing up in a world where superhumans are commonplace would have that effect. “So how are you going to get back?” he asked.

His question froze my train of thought, and a sensation of numbness overtook me. “I...I have no idea,” I mumbled. And I didn’t. I had no freaking idea how I was going to return to my home in 2041 and set things right, but I couldn’t stay here – not in this nightmare.

Deep in thought, I noticed a pinch at the base of my neck; it felt like a bee sting and instantly began to swell.

“What the –” I clapped my hand over the wound and turned to find Dawson’s brother, Drake, who had snuck into the darkened room undetected. Whatever he’d pierced me with began as an annoyance and quickly started to burn. “Jerk!” I shouted, shoving his shoulder. “What the fudge was that all abbboooooou ...”

My words turned to pudding on my swollen tongue and my vision blurred into fractals. I collapsed into his arms as the darkness swallowed me.

Being held prisoner in a medieval dungeon isn’t as bad as it sounds. Sure, a dank, torch–lit cell that smells like a combination of mold and human despair is depressing at first, but once you get settled in it’s pretty cushy. After a quick look around I realized that my current confines were actually bigger than my entire New York City apartment, and had about the same amount of furnishing; an oak table, hand carved chairs...hell, the cot in the corner of my cell was actually more comfortable than my bed at home. The worst part of being held captive was the anticipation; not knowing if, or when, I was getting out...and not knowing what King Lehmann had planned for me next.

“Guard,” I shouted, snapping my fingers to draw his attention. “Hello, anybody home?”

A pair of stoic prison guards stood at attention, backs pressed against the stone wall on either side of a staircase – the lone exit from the dungeon. Each well–armored guard remained perfectly still, like a pair of ash white statues, each brandished a long metallic device that resembled a cattle prod. I’m sure they’d been informed of my weakness by Drake, who had no trouble detaining me with his electrical sword after I’d arrived. Not that they’d need to use electricity to subdue me at that point, anyway...my lovely new thumb ring was keeping me corporeal, rendering me unable to phase through objects. Stun batons were probably overkill.

I ran the toe of my steel boot back and forth across the bars, hoping to annoy one of my captors into blinking. “Either of you guys in charge of dinner? It’s been half a day and I’m starving over here.” I clinked and clanked my boot for another few minutes, echoing the sound throughout the gloomy underground tunnels.

“I can do this all day,” I called out with exaggerated cheerfulness.

“Enough,” the guard on the left groaned, finally breaking his silence. He was addressing me, but not making any attempt to establish eye contact; he stared awkwardly at the middle distance while he spoke, eyes bulging with concentration. “We can’t feed you, we can’t entertain you, and we sure as heck can’t talk to you.”

“You just did,” the guard on the right blurted out, his eyes apparently fixed on the same thing that Leftie’s were.

“I know,” Left replied sharply. “But I was only talking to her so she’d know that we can’t talk to her, all right?”

Right groaned under his breath, rolling his eyes. “You really are a mental giant, you know that? Don’t you know that they have cameras down here? What if someone is monitoring us? If they play back the recording and discover that –”

“Discover what?” a curious voice asked, the sound traveling down the spiraling brick staircase. It was Dawson. He emerged from the opening with a torch in–hand, casting a bright orange hue against the damp dungeon walls. He was still wearing his armor and had a tan satchel slung across his chest.

“Nothing!” the guard on the right said, so stiffly that his lips barely moved.

“He’s telling the truth,” Left confirmed, remaining equally still. “Oh,
please
don’t tell your father I spoke to the prisoner. If he finds out ...”

“He won’t,” Dawson assured the guards. He stopped at the base of the stairs and glanced from one guard to the other, then back towards the staircase. “You’re both dismissed for the evening.”

The guards exchanged glances without even craning their necks.

Dawson let out a goofy laugh. “The whole ‘dismissed’ thing only works when your feet move. Are either of you confused about the concept?”

Without further instruction the guards hurried up the spiraling staircase and out of view.

Dawson approached the bars to my cell as he unbuckled the latches on his satchel and reached inside. “How are things?”

“Can’t complain,” I shrugged. “Aside from the lack of food, sunlight and human interaction it’s been pretty relaxing. Actually I’m not too concerned about that last one.”

He pulled a rumpled paper bag from his satchel and passed it through the bars, dropping it into my hands. I could smell the freshly baked goodness even before I tore it open.

“I hope you like chocolate chip.” He raised his eyebrows as I shoveled the warm cookies into my mouth, barely allowing myself enough time to chew. “Are they good?”

“Good?” I mumbled in between bites, continuing to cram pastries into my face with reckless abandon. There’s something about being imprisoned that makes everything taste extra yummy. “
That
is an understatement, Galahad.”

His leaned forward on the bars, letting his head sag. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, a trace of defeat etched in his voice. “Drake had been following us and saw that you were in the control room. One call to my dad, and ...” he grumbled, burying his face in his hands. “My family sucks.”

After crumpling the bag and brushing the crumbs off on my shirt I reached through the bars. I wiped Dawson’s floppy blond hair aside. “
Everyone’s
family sucks sometimes. But at least you have people who care about you. Back in 2041 I
had
friends, but ...” I stopped myself mid-sentence, realizing that I was thinking aloud. I was once again waxing nostalgic about a time in my life when I felt like I was a part of something. My friends were the only family I’d ever really had, and people who complained about their families – no matter how overbearing or annoying or infuriating they could be – simply didn’t know how good they had it. “There was nothing you could have done differently.”

“I guess.” He glanced down at his armored shoulder plate, tracing his fingertip around the red and blue sigil. “Sometimes I think Drake and my dad care more about this stupid logo than anything...more than doing what’s right.”

It’s a symbol I’d seen before; not that exact design, with two flaming dragons nipping at each other’s tails, but I’d seen something similar back in my dimension. “It’s the Ouroboros.”

“An Oreo–what?”

“An Ouroboros,” I giggled. “It’s the name for a serpent eating its own tail. Different versions of it have been around for centuries. It represents a cycle.”

He nodded weakly. “It makes sense that it’s my family crest, then. I’ve been stuck in this stupid cycle since the day I was born. Every day I put on this armor and follow around my older brother, watching him lead and make decisions, and prepare for the day when he takes over the kingdom. Drake is faster than me, stronger than me, a better fighter than me...it’s like I’m living in his shadow. And
my
life, whatever that’s supposed to be, never seems to get started.”

I dragged a wooden chair towards the bars and sat, and Dawson did the same on the outside. “What do you want?” I asked flatly.

He raised his eyebrows, innocent eyes widening. “Wow...no one has ever asked me that before.” He inhaled deeply, scratching at his mop of hair with both hands. “I suppose I just want my own path. Somewhere to go and something to do that’s
my
choice, and my choice alone. Then if I screw up at least I know it’ll be my mess to clean up, you know?”

“Guess you don’t clean up many messes when you’re royalty.”

He managed a weak smile. “No, I definitely do not. So what about you?”

“What about me what?” I asked.

“What do
you
want?”

I glanced at my surroundings, eyes ticking back and forth. “You’re
kidding
, right?”

It took a second or two, but the realization eventually set in. Our conversation had been so casual that I think Dawson momentarily forgot I was a prisoner. “Ah, right,” he chuckled. “Well aside from the obvious, then.”

“I want to get rid of my powers.”

“But you can move through things like a ghost! Go anywhere, do anything ...” He glanced around at my confines once again. “Okay, well not at the moment, but usually isn’t that a pretty awesome power to have?”

“I suppose,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I can read minds, too.”

The heat suddenly rose in his face. “Oh...really? Like, you can read thoughts?”

“Relax, I haven’t read
you
,” I assured him. “And besides, it’s not as exciting as it sounds. Most of the time it’s better
not
knowing what people think about you. Believe me.”

“So why get rid of it all?” he asked.

“I’m not really real...I’m a perception.”

“So...you’re not here?” Dawson pulled his chair closer, leaning in on his elbows.

“I am, but it’s not me. It’s like, I’m not whole. I’m just an abstract idea until someone observes me, and then I begin to take shape. I start to appear however my creator wants me to look.” I was still the person that Matthew Moxon envisioned back in 2041, but that could change at any time.

“Hmm.” He trailed his eyes from my boots up to my wave of blue hair just as he had when we’d first met, although this time he did it with a silly smirk. “Whoever saw you last had some interesting ideas about hairstyles.”

I let out a tiny laugh. “I’ve had worse. But it’s more than just that. After a while I start to feel what my observer feels, taking on their fears and desires...I’m an echo. It’s like I’m never
really
me: I’m just a reflection of someone else.” It was the first time I’d ever said that out loud, but for whatever reason, in that raw, naked moment, it felt liberating to reveal it to another person.

He laughed under his breath, shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You’re a superhuman time traveler and I’m a teenaged prince from a parallel Iceland, but we have a lot more in common than I thought.” He glanced back at the exit, and then back at me. He leaned into the bars until his forehead touched the steel. “What if I got you out of here?” he whispered, his lips barely moving.

I’d been scanning my cell and the darkened corridors for the better part of the afternoon, and I hadn’t spotted a video camera, but it didn’t mean there wasn’t one hidden around here somewhere – the guards said it themselves. “Are you insane?” I hissed, leaning forward until our heads nearly touched through the bars. “You’re the only one down here. Your dad would know it was you who let me out.”

“So what?” he snapped back, his voice rising to a dangerously audible level. “I could take a ship from the hangar. I’ve got my pilot’s license and I’m not bad at flying the smaller crafts. I could take us off Iceland while the shields are down. We can be out of range before Drake and my dad even know we’re gone.”

This kid – this adorable, sweet, naive kid – was willing to put his life in jeopardy for me. Or at least he was fantasizing about it with way too much enthusiasm. I almost hated to be the one to put a pin in his shiny little bubble. “This is crazy, Dawson.” I reached through the bars, cradling his soft chin in both hands. “Almost every country is under Taktarov’s rule. And the remaining human–controlled countries might not even let us in. Plus I’m still a superhuman. One of the enemies, remember? I always will be.”

His eyes welled with emotion. “But ...”

“But
nothing
. It’s not happening, kiddo.” I ran my fingers though his floppy gold hair, rumpling his bangs. “You’re unbelievably cute, and if I were a decade younger and we weren’t in some bizarro universe...you never know.”

He deflated, sagging back into his chair. In that moment Dawson had mustered the courage to suggest something wild and impossible and completely life–changing, saying the words I imagine he’d repeated inside his head a thousand times. He wanted out, and he wanted someone to escape with. And when he finally loosed the words I crushed them one at a time, letting them crumble to the cold dungeon floor. Sometimes just saying something out loud makes it real...I guess that’s why we live so much of our lives internally. Your dream can’t be crushed as long as it remains in the abstract.

“If you die again,” he asked tentatively, staring down at his boots. “Will you...disappear? Go to some other time and place?”

“I have
no
idea,” I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“But your clothes go with you, right? I mean, you were dressed when I found you.”

“Yes ...” I said cautiously, cocking an eyebrow. “I was indeed clothed.”

He reached around his neck with both hands, tugging at a thin chain. A flat, circular disc emerged from the top of his breastplate; it was an intricate recreation of the twin dragons on his family crest. He dipped his chin and pulled the chain overhead, passing it through the bars. “When they’re q-questioning you ...” he stammered, trailing off for a moment. “I mean, if you don’t make it, maybe you’ll just disappear and wake up somewhere better.
Anywhere
but here. And you’ll still have something to remember me by.”

I shook my head. “No, I can’t ...”

“It’s no big deal, really.” He looped the chain over my head and brushed my hair over top, adjusting the pendant around my neck. “For me, this symbol is just a cycle that never ends. But maybe for you it’ll mean something new. A fresh start.”

“Dawson,” a voice thundered down the staircase, resonating through the underground chamber. I knew immediately who it belonged to. I hastily tucked the chain into my shirt and ensured the pendant was invisible beneath the dark fabric.

The King, looking half asleep, trudged down the staircase wearing a fuzzy white housecoat with matching slippers, sipping from a martini glass. “Keeping our prisoner under close watch, are you? Good work. It’s time for her question and answer session.”