Arena Mode Read online

  Arena Mode

  Second Printing

  February, 2014

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover Art by Amir Salehi

  Weapon designs by Axel Torvenius

  Arena Mode Logo by Dennis Salvatier

  Arena Mode is Copyright © and Trademark 2013

  Blake Northcott, Digital Vanguard Inc. and Noösphere Publishing

  ArenaMode.com

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.

  Extra special thanks to

  Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki

  Kenneth Livitski

  Tricia “Arirose” Tahere

  J. Paul “Logan” Glendinning

  Mariana Garcia

  Ray Anderson

  Stuart Dinneen

  Todd Dziobak

  Jeremy J. Rivera

  Very special thanks to

  Morris Deutsch

  Hugs and kisses for

  Cassie & Cayden

  Written By

  Blake Northcott

  with Sean Dyer

  Editors and Beta Readers

  Kiri Callaghan

  Jim Deley

  J.D. Hunter

  Mike Stephenson

  Amy Leigh Strickland

  & Jeff Geddes

  Character Design & Illustrations

  Natasha Allegri

  Jason Baroody

  Comic Book Girl 19

  Dave Johnson

  Barry Kitson

  Derek Laufman

  Thor Mangila

  Mark McKenna

  Dan Panosian

  John 'Roc' Upchurch

  As more exciting sports emerge the older ones will die off. It’s inevitable. After you attend your first full-contact swordfight, it’s hard to get excited about watching someone hit a ball with a stick.

  - Cameron Frost (New York Chronicle Simulcast, June 2035)

  Suspended two miles above The Arena I was waiting to be dropped from a hovercraft. If the fall didn’t kill me, someone at the bottom certainly would. Anyone in the competition could melt me with a plasma bolt, incinerate me with their heat vision, or simply pummel me to death with their bare hands. But if I managed to survive all of that, and those chances were slim, the time bomb ticking away inside my head would eventually do me in. Either way I was toast ... it was just a matter of time.

  Staring down at the sharp translucent spires that adorned the top of each megatower, all I could think about was the possibility of being impaled on one as I parachuted in. That would look pretty ridiculous, especially during the slow-motion replays. When people discussed the biggest tournament in history, it’s not exactly how I wanted to be remembered: as the guy who lasted fifteen seconds because he fell chest-first onto a pointy building, getting skewered like a human shish kebab.

  As soon as the producer shouted, “Three minutes until show time!” and clapped her hands like an over-caffeinated cheerleader, I looked back at my life. Nothing epic or mind-blowing, just random stuff. Like stepping up to bat at my first little league game. My shopping trips to the retro comic book store. And things old people told me that I wished I’d paid more attention to.

  My grandfather used to bore the shit out of me with stories about monumental events from his generation – events that happened fifty years before I was born. “I remember where I was when Kennedy was assassinated,” he would say, or, “I know what kind of sandwich I was eating when I saw the moon landing,” or, “I crapped my pants and passed out the first time I heard The Beatles.” Okay, I don’t exactly remember him saying the last one, but he certainly could have. I tended to space out when he was spinning his longer yarns.

  I shouldn’t be so hard on the old guy. If by some miracle I survived all of this, that’s exactly what I wanted – to be able to bore the shit out of my grandkids one day with grandiose tales from my youth.

  And I had a few good ones.

  “I remember where I was,” I would say, sitting in an oversized leather chair in my book-lined study, surrounded by the awestruck faces of the children gathered at my feet. “I remember who I was with, and what I was doing when the President of the United States made the speech that changed everything. It was the day he announced that superhumans were real.”

  At first I didn’t know how to react. No one did. But we sure as hell didn’t expect any of the newly-discovered super-powered beings to put on a cape and try to save the world. Just the fact that they existed was an implied threat as far as the government was concerned, and most of them hid their abilities for fear of persecution. If one of them was crazy enough to try and fight for truth, justice and the long forgotten ideals of yesteryear, it would be too little, too late. For most of us there wasn’t much of a world left to save.

  In 2041 when wars raged, disease spread and the deepening recession crippled all but the elite, there wasn’t a lot to look forward to. Except for The Tournaments. Internationally viewed sporting events where citizens volunteered to participate in dangerous competitions for huge cash prizes, all with the hope of clawing their way out of abject poverty. If you wanted to move from a one-bedroom roach motel into a shimmering mega-tower, you needed a small fortune, and for most of us, the only way to get that was to compete. And to survive.

  The world was always watching when media magnate Cameron Frost unveiled the rules of an upcoming tournament, and this time the stakes were higher than ever. This season’s rules, or lack thereof, were brutally simple: thirteen people test their skills inside a secured urban battlefield, fighting each other ‘arena mode’. It sounded tasteful, but anyone familiar with video games knew that ‘arena mode’ was just a clever euphemism for ‘death match’. This was all or nothing – no reset button, and no extra lives. Twelve die in no-holds-barred combat, and one walks away with enough money to not just move into a mega-tower, but to buy one of their own.

  Despite the inherent dangers of participating in one of the increasingly-violent events, it was an attractive opportunity for millions who faced an otherwise inescapable lifetime of misery. For the largest cash prize ever awarded, there would no doubt be a record number of volunteers, but this particular tournament had one little caveat: If you wanted to take a crack at surviving The Arena, you had to be a superhuman.

  When Frost said the words you could almost hear the entire planet’s jaw hit the floor.

  We’d get to see an actual comic book battle unfold on a live simulcast. I know it sounds morbid, but this was a dream come true. Ever since I could remember, forums, video lounges and holo-sessions were aflame with arguments about who would win in a fight; Could Iron Man take out Batman? What if Thor battled Superman to the death? And how much ass could Wonder Woman really kick while wearing those ridiculous eight-inch stilettos? These were the questions that occupied my thoughts and dominated way too many of my daily conversations (primarily online, where I did the majority of my socializing.)

  And soon – very soon – these questions were going to be answered; what the greatest superpowers were, and how they would stack up against each other in combat – not just across the panels of a digital comic or in a CGI-enhanced action sequence, but in real life.

  This was it. The flame wars were about to end.

  I never aspired to live among the privileged; I was content to live out the rest of my lower-class existence consumed with my collection of vintag
e graphic novels and tabletop RPGs. Like everyone else I occasionally watched the tournaments, and was especially excited about this one, but I was always just a casual observer. I’d never even considered entering one as a competitor, regardless of the potential for riches. But life is funny like that ... it has a way of turning you upside down and dropping you on your head right when you least expect it.

  I craned my neck to the left and saw the producer smiling, holding up a single digit. One minute left. Sixty seconds until I was about to skydive for the very first time, hoping I didn’t collide with a building on the way down. And that was the easiest task I had on my morning agenda.

  At least I took comfort in the fact that the other competitors likely had the same reservations – the same panic attacks, sweat drenched palms and nervous ticks as the clock wound down towards show time. Although I had a feeling my anxieties were a little more pronounced than theirs – because unlike them, I couldn’t fly. I couldn’t shoot lasers from my hands or rip lamp posts from the ground. In a life-or-death battle to determine the ultimate superhuman, I was the only competitor without a super power.

  .

  My eyes snapped open to the ear-splitting chime of a new message echoing through my apartment. When I collapsed into bed around sunrise I forgot to mute my wrist-com. I groaned, buried my face in my pillow and mumbled, “Playback.”

  The small transparent device responded with an irritating beep, followed by an equally irritating voice. “Good morning, Matthew! You have one new message, left by Gavin Lockridge, marked ‘urgent’. Begin playback.”

  < Dude, do you know what time it is? Or even what day this is? This is the day, Mox. Get your ass down here before The Reveal or our goddamned friendship is over. Do you hear me? Over. Forever. >

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Gavin has been threatening to end our friendship on a daily basis for the past three years, always over something completely trivial. Whether he was reminding me to grab him a latte or demanding that I meet him at a bar so we could watch a swordfighting simulcast, it was reason enough to leave an ominous message.

  I cracked my eyelids and checked my wrist: twenty-nine minutes until show time.

  I dragged my feet onto the floor and raked my fingers through my short hair, feeling the beads of perspiration trickle down my brow.

  The air conditioning was out. Again.

  Living in a windowless concrete cube on the east coast of The Fringe was about as luxurious as a prison cell – and didn’t offer much more in terms of square footage – but it had the essentials. The landlord didn’t ask for any identification when I moved in, and she accepted my rent in cash. An occasional inconvenience when it came to cold air or hot water was well worth the trade-off for total anonymity; in my line of work, being off the grid was necessary to avoid unwanted visitors.

  I rubbed my bloodshot eyes and squinted, scanning the dimly-lit room for last night’s winnings. My apartment looked like a failed game of Tetris; dozens of long white boxes littered the floor, stacked waist-high. Piled on top of the boxes was everything else I owned, which wasn’t much – mostly unfolded clothing and a few random gadgets I’d picked up online.

  My filing system created a makeshift labyrinth that I had to navigate through in order to get anywhere in my apartment. After a winding journey to my kitchen, I located the tattered camouflage knapsack slung over the arm of my lone chair, and I pulled open the flap to expose the piles of cash inside.

  Six thousand, two hundred and thirty-five dollars.

  It was more than enough to cover the rent and pay off some existing credit, but I would have to make it last.

  I used to work some of the upscale casinos in Manhattan where they had free drinks and lax security. As long as I dressed to impress, kept to myself and lost the occasional round on purpose, no one gave me a second look. On a good night I could clear thirty-thousand, easy.

  But since The City was being retro-fitted for the upcoming tournament, security had tightened. Until further notice there were no paparazzi, no reporters, and no tourists permitted to cross the bridges.

  When my funds started dwindling, it forced me to search for some action a little closer to home. I played the underground clubs in the north end of The Fringe, which, to put it delicately, were somewhat less elegant than the marble-floored palaces across the Hudson. The dank basement casinos were filled with criminals from the Dark Zone, and run by the type of people I didn’t want as enemies.

  I had to tread lightly; tensions ran high when the house started to lose. Sensing that my lucky streak at the blackjack table was raising a little too much suspicion, I cashed early. All it took was an overzealous pit boss to snap his fingers and alert security, and a suspected cheater would be playing cards with one hand for the rest of their life.

  I prefer to gamble only when I’m sure I can win; overstaying my welcome at the local dives was not a bet I was willing to take when my extremities were on the line.

  I transferred the wads of cash from my bag into a hidden wall safe, but kept four one-hundred dollar bills, sliding them into my back pocket.

  I was still wearing the tattered jeans and red hoodie from the night before, but I didn’t have time to change. I stepped into the featureless grey corridor and slammed the door behind me, listening for the heavy titanium deadbolts to latch into place before proceeding to the elevator. The high-speed lift dropped me forty-seven stories to the lobby in a matter of seconds, and I checked my wrist again: twenty-one minutes. If I hurried, I’d make it to Excelsior on time.

  I knew Gavin was joking, but if there’s a day that he was going to end our friendship over a seemingly trivial event, it was today. There was no way he’d forgive me if I was late for Cameron Frost’s Reveal.

  Excelsior Retro Comics was like taking a time machine back to the early 1990s. The reception area looked more like a living room than a store, complete with wood-paneled walls, burnt orange carpeting and an assortment of mahogany furniture, all arranged around a thirty-two inch Sony Trinitron. I understood the appeal of the décor. It tapped into the nostalgia of a simpler, more romantic time in comic book history: the pre-digital era.

  Just beyond the faux living room was the actual store, which consisted of towering wooden stacks like the old libraries used to have. But instead of books, the floor-to-ceiling shelves were outfitted with narrow plastic drawers containing comics that dated back as far as the ‘Golden Age’. If a title existed in print at some point during the last hundred years, Excelsior probably had a copy of it. If it didn’t, Gavin would find a way to get it. None of the major companies were printing physical copies of their monthly issues anymore, so for those with money to burn it became fashionable to collect the analog relics of the previous century.

  The fact that superhumans were a reality played a big part in the collectors bubble. People who had never picked up a comic in their lives were now obsessed with acquiring rare back-issues, fascinated by the notion that they could be reading a piece of mythology that turned out to be actual fact. So little was known about super-powered beings since their existence had only been verified for a couple of years. Their adventures, however, had been imagined and chronicled since the 1930s. Conspiracy theorists speculated their emergence was not so sudden at all – they had just been cleverly concealed from the general public.

  The discovery of superhumans did a lot more than just kick-start the flagging comic book industry – it challenged entire belief systems. One couldn’t help but ponder the metaphysical can of worms this opened. What about the stories predating comics that were assumed to be nothing more than legend? The fantastic tales of magic and sorcery, and ancient scripture that spoke of gods with supernatural abilities?

  I’d never subscribed to any particular religion, but it even got me thinking: if someone could lift several tons above their head or outrun a sports car, was it so impossible that two-thousand years ago someone could have also walked on water? Theoretically that would make the Bible
one of the first ever superhero adventures adapted into a book ... which would explain its popularity.

  When I pushed open Excelsior’s front door, an electronic chime announced my arrival, and Gavin raced out of the stacks to greet me with open arms. “Mox, my man! You made it with seven whole minutes to spare.” His artificially-whitened grin was wider than usual.

  Tall and clean-shaven with a wave of perfectly-coiffed golden hair, his appearance always managed to ratchet up my insecurities – and his new custom-fit suit wasn’t helping.

  “Hey Gav,” I replied with a weak smile. I pulled off my hood to reveal three days worth of beard stubble and some seriously dark circles under my eyes.

  Whenever Gavin and I were photographed side-by-side, we looked like a ‘before and after’ advertisement, designed to discourage America’s youth from letting their post-college lives go to hell. Beware, kids: you may look confident, successful and attractive now, but this could happen if you waste the next ten years of your life.

  “Do you have any coffee, because this is a little earlier than I usually wake up on a Saturday, so ...”

  He cut me off with a frantic wave of his hands. “No time for that. There are some people you have to meet before The Reveal.” He rushed me to the back of the store where I was introduced to a pair of kids who, judging by their brightly-colored jackets and designer sunglasses, were tourists from The City. And if they came here from Manhattan, they were probably here to spend.

  Gavin motioned to me like he was presenting a prize on a game show. “Chad, Darren, this is the guy I’ve been telling you about: Matthew Moxon, but everyone calls him Mox.”

  I shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re the only person who calls me that.”