Assault or Attrition (4 page)

By the time the
most recent presidential assassination attempt took place in 2035,
most of the modern world was already a polarized oligarchy. You
were either one of the elite or you weren’t – there wasn’t much
in-between.

Now, the
world’s most deprived citizens were standing up and taking action,
no longer resigned to suffer in silence. Someone – anyone – needed
to pay. The government was untouchable, and the upper-class were
faceless; a group of random businesspeople who had hoarded most of
the world’s wealth. I was the easiest person to point a finger at,
and until the witch hunt was called off, I was in the Red Army’s
crosshairs.

I staggered to
the window and pressed my palms into either side of the frame,
peering down at the parking lot below. Police cars surrounded the
building, and a number of blockades were in place to stem the flow
of traffic. Visitors and staff members alike were being thoroughly
searched before they were permitted to enter the hospital.

“This can’t all
be for me?” I asked without turning around.

“Every last one
of them,” Todd replied with a small nod. “You were moved a couple
times already in between surgeries; first Mississauga, then
Oakville. We’re now in Burlington – a city around forty miles west
of Toronto.”

“Do Peyton and
Gavin know I’m here?”

“I called them
as soon as I heard,” he said. “I sent a bird out for them – they
should be here within the hour.”

***

I was still
staring out the window when she arrived.
From five stories up I
spotted a slender girl dressed in black, her pink locks billowing
in the frozen wind.

Detective
Dziobak went downstairs and ushered her past security with a wave
of his badge, leading her towards a pair of sliding doors. Her
brother – my best friend Gavin – was nowhere to be seen.

When Peyton
walked into my room I rushed towards her, throwing my arms open.
The greeting I received was a lightning-fast slap that nearly threw
me off-balance when her palm connected with my cheekbone.

Todd walked
through the doorway behind her, just in time to catch the show.
“Well, that’s my cue,” he said bluntly. “Mox, nice seeing you
again. I’ll be in touch about the thing, if anything...”He trailed
off momentarily, fumbling for the door handle. “Miss Lockridge, it
was a pleasure.” And with a quick nod he slammed it shut behind
him.

I massaged my
aching face with one hand and threw the other to my side. “You
can’t slap someone who just came out of surgery! And
wow,
have you been working out?”

“
Ass
hole!” Peyton screamed. “If you wanted to break up you
could have been a man and told me to my face. I think I deserve at
least
that
much.”

My words lodged
in the back of my throat. “Break up? I don’t want to...I didn’t
break—”

“Three months!”
She shouted, waving an accusing finger in my face. “You said you
needed to blow off some steam, so I figure, ‘Okay, well that’s just
Matty being Matty’. Maybe a night at the bar and a few days huddled
in your man cave reading comics – then everything would be back to
normal. But you disappeared!”

“You
know
me,” I implored. “I’d never leave you.”

Her eyes
widened. “You packed your stuff and left town...in a jet. I think
that’s the textbook definition of ‘leaving’.”

“I’ve been
going through some...” I trailed off and tilted my head back, eyes
fixed on the fluorescent bulbs overhead. I didn’t know how to
explain my state of mind without coming off as a victim – or worse,
a mentally unstable whiner who lacked any basic coping skills.
“It’s my head. My thoughts, my dreams...Arena Mode did things to me
that I can’t explain. I didn’t want to burden anyone, so I left
until I could sort it out on my own.”

“I know you’re
new to this whole relationship thing,” she said quietly. Her voice
lowered in volume, but I could see the anger bubbling behind her
eyes. “So maybe I should have bought you a manual, or signed you up
for a seminar or something. But
this
,” she said sharply,
waving her hand back and forth between us several times,
“
this
is what it’s all about. Talking and stuff – like
normal humans tend to do.”

I never
excelled at communicating with other humans, which I guess was part
of the problem. It was why I spent so much time alone in a
windowless room engrossed in graphic novels. And it was why I did
most of my socializing online, where I could get things off my
chest using no more than a few lines of text and an Emoji. Keeping
in constant contact with someone was outside of my comfort zone,
and I didn’t realize how big a part of this whole dating thing that
actually was.

Although, in my
defense, Peyton knew all of this well before we started dating, so
I’m not sure what she was complaining about. I’d been the same
since the moment we met.

“So where have
you been this entire time?” she asked with a tone that suggested an
accusation.

“Maui,” I
replied swiftly.

“Bullshit. You
hate the sun. And water. And basically everything that has to do
with being outside.”

“I was!” I
scanned the room for my belongings, frantically searching for my
jeans. “When I find my wallet you can check my passport.”

“So you were in
Maui...for
three
months?” She folded her arms tightly across
her chest and arched her eyebrows, scanning my face intently.
“Alone? You didn’t go
anywhere
with
anyone
else?”

This was that
awkward moment in a lie when a half-truth comes into question. I
was technically being honest: yes, I was in Maui – and yes, I was
alone. At least ‘alone’ in the sense that I wasn’t hooking up with
another girl. But there were a few layovers on my itinerary during
the flight home, and I was doing things that I simply couldn’t
share with Peyton. At least not yet. “Look, I
did
go a
couple of other places, but that’s not important right now. There’s
something I need to tell you.”

She pressed her
lips into a tight line, narrowing her eyes in frustration. “At this
point nothing will surprise me.”

“I think we
should move in together.”

Her jaw fell
slack. “Okay...I’m surprised.”

“And I already
have our new place picked out.” When I was able to locate my
personal belongings (which were folded neatly into the bottom
drawer of my nightstand – the last place I bothered to look) I dug
my phone from the pocket of my jeans. With a voice command I
expanded a small floating holo-screen, displaying a three-hundred
and sixty degree, rotating picture my new home: ‘Fortress 23’.
Located across a remote mountain range in Northern Alberta, the
dome-like structure was built directly into the leeward side.
Multiple levels, hoverpads and a military-grade hangar spread
across more than a hundred acres. It was the most impressive
structure I’d ever seen: a futuristic castle roughly the size of
The Vatican – and it was all mine.

The fortress
was part and parcel in a lawsuit I’d won in the aftermath of Arena
Mode. Cameron Frost – the tournament’s founder and mastermind – had
entered as a participant, concealed inside of a giant mechanical
exoskeleton of his own design. The fact that he failed to reveal
his identity before entering the game wasn’t technically against
the rules. What
was
against the rules (and the law) was the
way he manipulated the tournament in his favor as it progressed,
allowing him a number of unfair advantages.

In 2041,
sporting events functioned more or less as they always had, though
the stakes were continually raised to keep up with the times. Brain
damage, dismemberment, death – these things were incidental in the
pursuit of a championship trophy. Within the confines of Arena
Mode, you were permitted to disable your opponent by any means
necessary; but get caught cheating while you’re doing it? That’s
something the American people simply won’t stand for.

Without a will
or a family to fight for his estate, it was awarded to me as the
last man standing. He’d been responsible for the death of several
people during the course of the games, and had put another in a
coma. The rest of the participants had died in combat, so by
default I was the only one able to wage a legal battle. His
companies, stock holdings, and as it turns out his real estate were
all being transferred into my name, and the total value was
staggering. The ten billion dollar prize I was awarded for actually
winning the Arena Mode tournament was pocket change by comparison.
Although the lawsuit was resolved relatively quickly, it was taking
several months to transfer all the assets. Primarily because Frost
had kept so many secrets buried in so many different places, it was
taking a while for my lawyers to dig them all up.

I had just
discovered that Fortress 23 was now part of my
continually-expanding real estate portfolio, and I hadn’t had the
opportunity to inspect it in person. Although in light of my
current situation, the timing couldn’t have been better. With the
Red Army pursuing me, it was the perfect location to lay low until
the movement died out. Far removed from any major cities, the
fortress would be nearly impossible to locate, let alone travel to
across hundreds of kilometers of rocky terrain. And if anyone from
the Red Army
was
able to find me, there was
no
way
they were getting in; based on the initial specs I’d
reviewed, the fortress was reinforced, top to bottom, with iridium
plating – it would take a nuclear blast just to cause a dent.

I explained the
impressive list of amenities to Peyton as the floor plans slid by.
“It has everything,” I said excitedly, swiping over to a photograph
of the massive dome, “including an ecosystem generator that can
replicate any climate. Even during the coldest months of winter we
can swim in a tropical oasis. And the best part is that there are
enough resources to sustain us for
decades
. I’ll be
protected from the Red Army, and we never have to leave.”

She shook her
head from side to side, eyes reflecting a deep sadness. I’d seen
Peyton upset before; I’d seen her drained, defeated and demoralized
– I’d been at her side during her worst days. But this was
something different. It was as if she was in mourning. “What makes
you think I’d want to live there?” she asked.

I stared at her
for a moment, puzzled by her question. This was the most logical
plan I could imagine, and I’ve pored over every possible scenario.
“You don’t get it: you’d
never
have to work again. We’d have
everything we need at our fingertips; safety, security, all the
money we need. It’s perfect.”

She glared back
at me. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

“I don’t—”

“This is your
man cave all over again,” she interrupted. “That dusty concrete
cube you’d hibernate in when you lived in The Fringe. This is just
bigger and has nicer bathrooms.”

“But it’s
safe
,” I assured her.

Peyton brushed
the long pink strands from her face and sighed deeply, sagging
against the wall. “So is a prison cell, Matt. You don’t want to
live in this dome to be ‘safe’ from the Red Army. You want to hide.
You want to bury your head in the sand and pretend that life isn’t
going on around you. I thought – or I
hoped
, at least – that
after Arena Mode you’d learned something.”

“People
hate
me,
” I shouted, much louder than I’d intended. “I could get
killed at any moment. How can you not get that?”

“There are a
lot of unpopular people. People who make hard decisions that affect
millions, and
they
don’t go into hiding. They go out and
live their lives.”

“And they’re
taking a huge risk,” I replied.

She took a few
steps across my small recovery room and placed a warm hand on
either side of my face. Her voice softened and her eyes drew me in.
“You
lived
. For the first time in your life you stood up,
made a tough decision and fought for something. Arena Mode should
have been your wake-up call: live life to the fullest, because it
can end when you least expect it. And here you are, ready to throw
in the towel.”

I pulled her
hands off my face and squeezed them gently. “I don’t think you
understand the gravity of the situation.”

“I don’t think
you
get it. The more you retreat into your shell – do
nothing, say nothing – it’s just going to upset people even more.
You’re a public figure now. Running makes it look like you have
something to hide.”

I raked my
fingers through my hair and exhaled loudly. “I don’t
want
to
be a public figure. I never
asked
for this.”

“And I never
asked to be this cute and insightful,” Peyton replied with a tiny
smile. “We all have our crosses to bear.”

I returned the
smile, but it quickly faded from my lips. What she was proposing
didn’t make sense – for any of us. “Look, Fortress 23 is my only
option at this point. Maybe, once this Sergei Taktarov thing has
died down, in a year or two, I can come back to New York. Then we
can start fresh.”

“That’s kind of
the thing about life,” she replied with an exasperated sigh. “It
doesn’t
die down. Ever. Stuff continues to happen outside
your little bubble whether you like it or not.”

I knew Peyton
was emotional. She was clearly still furious that I’d been out of
reach for so long, but she wasn’t listening to reason. I needed
someone else to help convince her that Northern Alberta was the
best course of action. “When Gavin gets here let’s all have a talk.
Maybe we can come up with a plan, all right?”

“Gavin isn’t
coming,” Peyton said, not much louder than a whisper. “He’s back in
The Fringe cleaning up what’s left of Excelsior.”