Arena Mode (4 page)

Smooth move, Matt.
The girl you’ve been awkwardly hitting on for years actually asks
you
out on a date – the first time this has happened in the history of
ever
– and you shoot her down, turn and literally scurry away.

Either I had a new disorder to add to my already impressive list, or I had recently developed some serious brain damage.

It wasn’t even noon and I’d already blown an opportunity. Classic Moxon.

Everyone gathered close around the Trinitron like campers warming in front of a fire.
With the click of a bulky plastic controller, the television hummed to life, and the picture flickered into focus. Gavin already had it set to pull a stream of the announcement from the web. A full-screen countdown slowly ticked away, and the room watched it in silence.

Before his accident, Frost would hold live press conferences, often using sports arenas to accommodate the enormous crowds and the mob of eager reporters. The announcements that preceded the tournaments were nearly as entertaining as the events themselves; watching Frost on stage, microphone in-hand, was a captivating experience.

A tall, muscular figure with a square jaw and piercing, dark eyes, his physical presence alone was more than enough to hold the audience’s attention – but it was his words that mesmerized. He spoke of victory, of conquest and the indescribable rush of adrenaline when you achieve greatness and live up to your full potential. His love for competition was infectious.

If there was anyone on earth who could have talked me into participating in a swordfight, it was Cameron Frost.

A three-time tournament champion himself, Frost had the experience to back up his rhetoric, and an endless supply of confidence – but that version of him ceased to exist several years ago. When a mysterious accident confined him to a wheelchair, Frost became a shell of his former self. Bitter and reclusive, he rarely appeared in public anymore; his big announcements were reduced to pre-recorded messages that he sent to the networks, with instructions to be simulcast at a designated time. It didn’t diminish the excitement of the actual news, but there was always something that struck me when I watched his videos. It was his eyes. They used to radiate, reflecting a fiery passion for whatever new event he was promoting. Now they were hollow – almost vacant.

When the countdown rolled to zero it faded and disappeared, replaced by an image of Cameron Frost, sitting behind an oversized work station. With his disheveled hair, unkempt beard and tired eyes, he looked more like a derelict from the Dark Zone than the wealthiest man in the hemisphere. If it wasn’t for Frost’s suit and tie he’d be nearly unrecognizable from his former self.

“Greetings, my fellow Americans and sports fans around the world.” He folded his hands loosely on the surface of his desk. Frost appeared even more out of sorts, but his enunciation was as crisp and practiced as ever. “Although superhumans are now a part of our everyday lives, few of us have any real understanding of their abilities. We’ve all seen the footage of the man from Montreal, running so fast that he’s able to pass cars on the highway, and video of the construction worker from Phoenix, lifting two-ton beams above his head. The next step in human evolution is upon us, and as we’ve slowly been learning, the human body is capable of amazing feats. This, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. Since I’ve announced my upcoming Arena Mode tournament, I’ve been flooded with messages from around the world – with more stories of people possessing incredible powers that I never dreamed possible.”

“You know the rules, the location, and the date. Now it’s time to meet the first competitor. Here is The Reveal that I’ve been promising.” Frost paused for a moment, building the anticipation – as if that was even possible at that point. “This video came to me from a small town in Southwestern Russia and features the first entrant and the number one seed in the event: Sergei Taktarov.”

The video cut to a young man standing in an open field. Dressed in blue jeans, runners and a simple white t-shirt, he seemed more or less unremarkable – like any scruffy-haired blond kid you’d pass in the street if you were to wander around Moscow.

The videographer took several steps back and shouted something in Russian, and Sergei began to sprint. After a few long strides he leaped in the air and took flight, soaring high above the ground with his arms extended. Several people were audible in the background, shouting and gasping in amazement. The Russian flipped and rolled, performing some aerial acrobatics before hovering to a stop several feet off the ground.

He pointed and nodded, as if to relay instructions to someone off-camera. A moment later someone tossed a tin can into view. The Russian’s eyes began to glow a menacing shade of crimson before emitting two thin beams of light. The lasers sliced through the spiraling can in mid-air.

Camera shaking, the videographer searched the grass and located a piece of seared metal. He scooped it up, slowly rotating it to examine the scorched edges.

The screen faded to black and Frost reappeared, smiling brightly. He was beaming with an enthusiasm that I hadn’t seen since before his accident. “And
that
,” he said with pride, “is the first competitor in Arena Mode. If you are a superhuman, send me your footage. Impress me, and you’ll have an opportunity to compete for the largest prize ever awarded in an athletic competition: ten billion dollars.”

The room burst with excitement. Gavin stood and shouted, shaking my shoulders. I could tell that he was as shocked and elated by the announcement as I was, but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. His mouth moved, but my ears filled with a loud ringing, like a high-pitched bell that was continuously getting louder.

The room spun and I collapsed.

The last thing I remember was the sickening crack of my skull bouncing off the edge of the coffee table.

The most idiotic phrase in the English language, without a doubt, is “Just my luck.”
People utter this nonsense when they get caught in traffic or stuck in the rain without an umbrella, as if some unseen mystical force is guiding their every action. A force that decides what will and won’t happen to them based on whatever criteria they feel applies to their given situation.

It’s infuriating.

All things, good and bad, happen because of math. If you drive on a freeway during rush hour, you’ll get stuck in traffic more often than not. It has nothing to do with fate – it’s statistical probability. If you go surfing off the North Shore of Hawaii during the month of January, there’s roughly a one in six million chance that you’ll have a limb chomped off by a great white shark. If you’re that one guy it definitely sucks, but it was going to happen whether you went to church that morning or kicked a puppy on the way to the beach.

There’s no karma, no destiny and no divine intervention. Everything in life is simply a calculated risk with a number of contributing factors. Some factors are well within your control, and unfortunately, most aren’t. But if you play the odds and lose, nothing is happening to ‘you’ specifically – it would have happened to
anyone
under the same circumstances.

As the doctor rattled off his own facts and figures, I did my best to remind myself that my situation had nothing to do with luck. Although, if I
did
believe in that shit, it would have been the perfect time to curse it.

Doctor Stuart Dinneen ran his finger along the holographic image being projected from his tablet. It was a colorful three-dimensional scan of my brain.

The results of the MRI indicated that my malignant tumor wasn’t just larger than normal – it was off the charts. “I have no idea how this went undetected for twenty-nine years,” he said with fascination, rotating the projection so he could study it from all angles. “It really is quite astonishing. With a mass this size it’s a wonder you’re able to function at all ... but you say you haven’t experienced
any
symptoms up until this morning? No dizziness, nausea ... not even headaches?”

I shook my head. “Nope, everything’s been pretty cool up until today.”

“How is your memory?” he asked, finally averting his eyes from the slowly-rotating hologram.

“Pretty good.”

“And your problem-solving skills? When was the last time you took an IQ test? Because based on this data, and the unusual size and placement of the mass, there’s a chance you could be one of the most –”

“Look,” I interrupted, “I’m glad that my life-threatening condition is so fascinating, but can we discuss my options? If I survive, I’ll send you my SAT scores.”

Flustered, Doctor Dinneen switched off the projector. “I’m
so
sorry Mister Moxon, I’m just ... it’s just that I’ve never run into anything quite like this, and I’m having a hard time processing it.”

“You and me both.” I raked my fingers through my hair and exhaled loudly, staring up at the ceiling.

The doctor prattled on about the upside of my condition, explaining how I was fortunate that I didn’t die right on the spot, and that at least now, with the extra time I was afforded, I had the opportunity to make peace and say my goodbyes.

I just nodded and stared into space.

The optimism was appreciated, but there was no way to candy-coat a bombshell of that magnitude. If someone dug deep enough, I suppose they could find a microscopic sliver of positivity inside of
any
negative situation. Sure, you could tell someone who had just been shot in the chest, “Hey, at least there isn’t
another
bullet lodged in your face,” but I don’t think that’s really cause for celebration.

“So what are the odds that I’m going to survive?” I asked bluntly. “Give me a percentage.”

“If we do nothing?” he said, removing his wire-framed glasses. “To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how you’re still alive
now
. If I had to guess, you can’t have much more than three, maybe four months left. Six if you’re lucky.
With
a procedure? It’s occupying far too much of your intracranial cavity for radiation or chemotherapy to be effective.”

“What about surgery?” I persisted.

“To remove a mass this large with a craniotomy would be ...” he trailed off momentarily and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his lab coat. “It’s never been done. Not as far as I know.” Dinneen pulled a small plastic stool from under his desk and sat across from me. “There
is
one option: in Holland there’s a surgeon I know of, Doctor Ray Anderson, and he’s considered one of the best in the world. Maybe
the
best. Recently he’s been partnering with a French nanotech corporation called Cerveau-N, and they take on a limited number of patients each year. They’ve been able to successfully target individual cancer cells, destroying them with a non-invasive procedure. If you can afford the treatment, that may be your best chance.”

“You mean my
only
chance. You know I don’t have health insurance, so what kind of price tag are we talking about?”

The doctor shrugged and scratched the side of his head. “I’d have to make a few calls for you, but the last I read it was in the ballpark of three ... maybe four million. Euros, not dollars, mind you. That was six months ago, and they had a long waiting list, so ... it could be more.”

I sat in silence. I couldn’t find the words, but my face must have said, ‘Holy shit’.

“What about family,” Dinneen asked sympathetically. “Anyone you’re related to who might have access to that kind of money?”

Are there people I’m technically related to? Yes.

Family? No.
      

My father died of a massive coronary at the age of fifty-five, but even if he was still around, I doubt he would have even taken the time to visit me in the hospital, let alone try to save my life at his own expense. Growing up, I rarely saw him; his primary residence was a building downtown where he was the Vice President of a software corporation. He returned home for a few hours each night to sleep, shower, and make me feel like a failure before taking off again.

We didn’t see eye-to-eye, even at the best of times. I remember being no more than ten-years-old, and he would berate me when I was playing a video game or reading a comic book on a Saturday morning; “When I was your age, I was thinking about work, not sitting around like a lazy asshole. I would wake up and ask my parents what I could do to help around the house, or I’d get a whipping. What the hell have you accomplished today?”