To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (24 page)

Blake walked into the cell room wearily, followed by Kapuki. They had both just spent four hours in the sensory recorder chairs, running an orientation tape on handling the big twenty-foot, human-controlled killer machines, and they were both exhausted. The different Arenas around the country had different attractions, and the Caligula Arena was thinking of importing some of the Magnabots from the Alamo Arena in Houston. Knowing there was a man inside one of the flame-throwing, metal-clawed monsters was proving to be more exciting than just watching animated piles of metal and computer parts fight it out.

"We gotta keep up with the times," Sergeant White had said.

Blake asked Kapuki to share some of his hoarded watered wine, and she agreed.

Neva suddenly appeared at the door of his cell, and Blake offered her a thick ceramic mug filled with the sweet wine. She took it, leaned against the wall of his cell, and started to say something. But she stopped and took a gulp of the wine.

"Go on," Kapuki said, smiling at Neva's hesitation.

Neva took a deep breath and looked out the cell door. "How would you like to get out of here?" she asked softly.

"I'm
going
out. Up a few levels and out onto the sand."

"No, I mean
out
out."

Blake looked at her, her hair dark and damp.
"Out
out?" She nodded. He smiled thinly. "I'd say 'Whom do I kill?' but I guess we know the answer. Each other!"

Neva bit her lip, then started talking in a fast, low voice. "Blake, remember our talk about you being a symbol? Well, the committee agrees with me."

"What committee?"

"The committee for this area of..." She hesitated, then said it quickly. "The committee of the New Day." Blake raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture. "The People for a New Day. It's a ... revolutionary group. I ... I was one of the committee before I turned down that minister. I've communicated with them about you. They agree you could be a unifying force and–"

"Wait a minute! I'm no revolutionary. In my day I was considered practically a reactionary!"

"One century's reactionary is another century's radical," Kapuki said quietly.

"You're a symbol. Not much of one, I admit, but you're all we have." Neva leaned close to him, her bare breasts brushing his arm, distracting him. "We're going to overthrow these sanctimonious bastards, Blake! We're going to break their hold on the people! And you are the only one who can help!"

Blake couldn't resist a smile. "The only man in the universe who can help, huh? The
only
one? 'Only you can stop the invasion of the blue crabs from outer space, Captain Laser!' Only you can stop the dread nine-meter stainless-steel worms, Blake Mason, only you!' "

Neva and Kapuki looked blankly at him.

Mason shook his head. "Never mind me," he said. "Go on, tell me how I'm the only one that can save the world from God."

"Not from God," Neva
said.
"From religion. Our rulers have perverted religion! The religions are corporations, not faiths. These people don't preach the word of God – any god – they quibble over it! They are not religious, they are irreligious! Calling yourself a Guardian of the Throne of God doesn't make you one!"

"Wait a minute," Blake interrupted. "How do I fit in? I'm just a glorified interior decorator more than a hundred years out of his time. I'm no symbol, and I'm certainly not a craggy-jawed hero
with
rippling muscles."

Kapuki reached up and caressed his chest. "Better than you were a short time ago," she said.

"Hey, those guys use lasers and microwaves and have big armored aircars and things that go zap in the night! I'm only one man."

Neva whispered, "There are more revolutionaries than you think! It's a whole underground! Sure, some of them are on the lunatic fringe, some are floaters just having a dream, some are blast-poppers and Eroticenes. But most are serious, dedicated people who are going to
do
it! With you as an example, maybe they can unify different factions and get things rolling!"

"Maybe even the Catholics," Kapuki suggested.

"What do you mean, maybe the Catholics? That's
a
church, too, isn't it? Or did they sell the franchise?"

Neva looked quickly into the room outside the cell. "The Catholics are outlaws, just as they were two thousand years ago. Ragnar is one, and ... one or two others. The pope is in exile somewhere, probably in Italy or in New America – um, the South America of your time, I think. Yes."

"The Hebrews have fractionalized and gone underground as well," Kapuki muttered. "The old religions were driven out of business by these new ones. The old ways didn't work – or so the people thought. They were sick of the excesses, and some of the new cults seemed to promise them peace and quiet. Once the new ones got to be a majority here in America, they outlawed the Catholics and some of the Eastern religions. Later on, these were outlawed in Europe, too, and elsewhere. The pope has been in hiding for years. He was ... What was his name, Neva?"

"I'm not certain. There were about five popes in two years. They kept killing them off, assassinating them."

"Assassinating them?" Blake was startled. Somehow the idea was shocking, even more shocking than the reports he had heard of the hundred million dead in
India during the First Famine.

Neva nodded. "I think the last I heard, it was Clement XV."

Kapuki disagreed. "No, they blew up his bunker in the Vatican, remember? No, the pope must be Urban IX, unless they got him, too. But I think they would have announced that his death came while resisting lawful arrest, if they had: they love that sort of thing. No, I think it is still Urban."

"It doesn't matter," Blake said. "Our problem will be in getting me out of here."

Kapuki patted his leg and said, "It's very difficult to get out, unless you get bought out. Of course, people have managed to become so popular as gladiators that they were moved into training cadres, but that doesn't happen often. Sylvia Component was unique. Flynn was made director of–"

"Component? What kind of name is that?" Blake asked.

Kapuki looked blank. "Just a name. Oh, is it – I mean, was it – a name from your time?"

"No, it's just ... not like a name."

Neva spoke up. "What does Taylor or Weaver mean? Wheelwright? Turner? Smith, Tinker, Hunter? Bell, Blood, Sheppard, Glass, Short, or Sawyer? Names are built, or appropriated, to fit the user. We now have Elecktron, Urbotower, Foundation, Acolyte, Angelman, Host, Faithman, Minion, Component, Zapfax, Kingdom, Airburst ... urn, and Skylord. Did you have those names in your time?"

Blake shook his head. "I understand. I have so much to learn." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You know, in my time I guess I was considered rather sophisticated. But here ... He looked at their odd expressions and asked, "What's wrong?"

"That word," Neva said. "Sophisticated. What does it mean? 'A follower of Sappho'?"

"No," Blake smiled. "Sophisticated means ... worldly ... um, experienced."

"Oh, I remember that word," Kapuki said. She closed, her eyes and recited. " 'Sophisticated: deprived of original simplicity, made artificial, or, more narrowly, highly complicated, refined' . ."

"Huh?" Neva said. "That doesn't sound too good." She looked at Blake with an expression of mild disgust. "That's what you were?"

Blake shrugged. "Maybe I was. It seems far away now, much farther than just the years. Another age, another world." He snorted. "They would have called what I've got 'culture shock' back in my time."

"They call it 'death sentence' here," Kapuki said.

They were silent for a time, then Blake asked the oriental girl, "Would you really kill me if we were sent into the Arena together?"

Without hesitation Kapuki answered. "Yes. I would not like to, but I would if I could." She smiled. "One time I could have succeeded, but now I do not know. You have a natural aptitude for combat."

"The reluctant warrior..." Neva said. "As long as you still have that reluctance, you will be defeated by the more determined, the more desperate, the ones more eager to survive."

"I can't help it," Blake said. "I'm still not ready to – to kill." He looked at the ceiling of the cell. "Maybe it still seems like a game to me, I don't know. I can't quite believe it is for real."

"Better get over that. Lieutenant Cady is coming tomorrow, for an inspection," Neva said.

"Hooray!" Blake groaned.

They stood at attention in the practice arena, each in the uniform of his specialty. Blake stood with the seen-tors and was directly opposite Neva in the ranks of the retiarii, who were mostly females. Kapuki was somewhere farther back in the ranks behind Blake, almost bidden by her full practice padded armor.

Lieutenant Cady was approaching, down the line, followed by Sergeant White and another sergeant whom Blake did not know. The inspection seemed perfunctory, and Blake was starting to relax when the arrogant officer stopped in front of him.

"Ah, the famous time traveler!" His words were an insult, but Blake kept his face expressionless. "The
infamous
time traveler, in fact. And how are you getting on, Prisoner Blake?"

"Fine, sir."

White was looking at him steadily from behind Cady's shoulder.

"Fine, sir? Indeed. You like it here, then?"

"No, sir."

The officer's face slid into a wicked grin. "Oh? Sergeant White, this notorious criminal does not like it here. Have you been treating him badly?"

"No, sir. Standard training procedures."

"You see, Mason? But perhaps you think you should be treated in some
special
way, just because you come to us from the decadent, godless past?"

Blake had been staring about five meters beyond Cady's head. Now he focused on his eyes. "No, sir."

Cady's face hardened, and he spoke sharply to Sergeant White. "See that Prisoner Mason receives some special treatment, Sergeant. But I want him to go into the Arena as soon as possible."

"We have another week on the training cycle, sir. Then there is the special training for the novelty acts."

"Never mind that!" Cady's tongue slid out and wet his lips. "Give this prisoner an early call, as early as can be arranged; and notify my office. I don't want to miss his first and last appearance in the Arena."

"Yes, sir."

Cady and the noncoms moved down the line, and Blake let out a long breath.

Special treatment. Early call...

Back in the cell room after the inspection, White crooked a finger at Blake and walked toward the cell where Blake had seen the man and woman getting the electric shock. He stiffened but didn't move. He had seen the two of them since, two automatons, half mad, half comatose, going through their training in a blundering fashion, a near-living warning to the others.

Blake was not going to have that happen to him. He had his sword, even if it was only a plastic practice sword, and his armor. He would fight and die right here, rather than be turned into a vegetable. He set his feet and tensed up, watching White.

The sergeant looked at him, blew his cheeks out, and walked over to him heavily.

He did not seem threatening, but Blake was waiting now for the sergeant's sudden, treacherous blow.

White stopped, his head down, his hands on the weapons belt around his waist. "Look, Mason, I have my orders. But the Lieutenant didn't say how
long
you were to have special treatment, did he?" He looked up at Blake and there was a faint smile on his face. "Trust me."

Blake felt the anger go out of him, at least anger toward Sergeant White. He followed White to the cell and the sergeant closed the door behind them. At White's order, Blake dropped his armor and weapons and put his wrists in the metallic bonds.

White pressed a button and raised the metal handcuffs on their cord until Blake stood straight, hands over his head. His mouth felt bitter and there was a fluttering, in his stomach that felt like a twanged nerve. He watched the burly sergeant set a dial to the minimum setting, then a timer the same way.

He looked at Blake, his finger poised over a red button. "You know," he said, "if they could read minds, I'd be in here myself." Then he pressed the button.

The electricity hit Blake like a lightning bolt. He didn't even scream, for his entire body was paralyzed. His flesh seemed to be made of wood – burning wood – and his brain exploding. It lasted only a fraction of a second and then it was over, but Blake was left trembling, unable to control the involuntary nervous twitches of his limbs.

White lowered the wristlocks and Blake fell awkwardly to his knees, banging them on the floor. He gasped in pain, for it seemed as if his dry, wooden body had been bent and broken, shattering splinters into his brain. The vision of the man and woman he had seen hanging in the cell, their bodies jerking and writhing, came back to him.
How did they live through it?

Blake tried to rise, but his trembling legs refused to cooperate.

Sergeant White reached down and pulled him up and kept him up until Blake felt steady. "All right?" he asked. Blake nodded. "So, go lie down a while. We're having some more tapes to look at after the meal."

Blake walked shakily to his cell. He waved off Neva and Bennett, who wanted to help, then lay down wearily on his bunk.

How did they live through it? That explains their being semi-vegetables.
Blake felt the trembles still in his arms and legs, but they lessened now.
Some church, some religion!
he thought,
that can do this to an individual, even a condemned criminal. I wonder how they square that with their Christianity? Do they think of the Circus as retribution for what the Romans did over two millennia ago? These people may have their church, but they certainly aren't religious.

After the evening meal, the novice gladiators gathered again in the main room and the wallscreen lit up.

"This is the Mark III Berserker," Sergeant White said, pointing at the swiftly moving, beetle-like robot.

The monster on the screen came to a stop, sand spurting under its treads. The turret of the black metal tank whirled around several times, firing flaming darts in every direction. The expenditure of ammunition seemed foolish, as there were no opponents in the Arena.

"The Alexander Company likes flash," White continued. "If you remember, the El Cid fighter had flame-throwers even though they were forbidden in combat. They used to blast around the ring in a fancy show before the fight, just to make a big splash. This Berserker is much the same, with the same blind spots in programming. Zamparelli, in the Caesar last year, knocked out two of them in one fight, all by himself. Notice how deep the treadmarks are? These babies are heavy with all that extra shit on them, so even though they have the standard Fifty power plant, they are a touch slower' even if they do put up a lot of flim-splash."

The lecture droned on, and Blake was only paying a tiny bit of attention to it.

Bennett slipped out of his seat and moved to sit by Blake. "Enjoying yourself?" he asked.

"I can't wait for the cartoon," Blake replied.

"We are going to take you out," he whispered. "The People for a New Day." He grinned, his teeth white, in the light from the wallscreen. "For me they'd never take the risk, but for you..."

"Bennett! Why does the Berserker favor a right turn to rear?" Sergeant White's voice cut into their awareness.

Without hesitation Bennett answered loudly, "Because the wear mode is to the right, because of the placement of the firedart feeder line from ammo stores, sir!"

"But reactions are randomized for efficient fighting modes."

"Yes, sir, but the wear factor is greater to the right after eight hours of operation, due to the monitor heat from the feeder chute, sir. An advantage of 8 percent is estimated, sir."

"Correct, Bennett. So you can see you have a plus 8 percent chance of the Berserker turning to the right on a one-eighty to rear."

The sergeant's voice droned on, but Bennett continued to whisper into Blake's ear.

"It'll happen soon, hopefully before your first combat assignment. Keep yourself alert. You'll know when it is happening." Bennett moved away, then leaned back to add, "Unless you
like
it here..."

The People for a New Day. Underground revolutionaries against a worldwide religious cartel.
Blake chewed on the inside of his right cheek.
Anything would be better than this,
he thought.
Or would it?