Scene 12

Gorn arrived at his apartment early, about 2 pm PST, having gained three hours teleporting to Vancouver from New York. Despite the bright, crisp fall day, he was tired and needed a nap. Since the advent of such things as teleporting all over the globe, sunlight-imitating lamps, and an increasing necessity for night work, biological sleep cycles had lost all sense of meaning. You slept when you felt like it and/or had time. He shut off his eyes and stretched out on the couch.

An abrupt knocking on the door wakened Gorn. Sensing the activity in his brain, his mechanical eyes switched on automatically and he noticed by the dusty yellow light filtering through the window that it was dusk. He got up, stretching, and padded over to the door. ¨Password?¨ he inquired.

¨Gorn is a galloping jackass. C'mon chief, let us in!¨ came Anna's cheerful reply. Us?

He opened the door and there were Anna and Ivana, together, which probably meant the former hadn't been able to wait two hours to spill the beans to the latter. Well, at least he'd already planned on involving Ivana in this. ¨Come in, ladies,¨ he said, holding the door for them and gesturing inside with an outstretched gorilla's arm. ¨If you're hungry, let's make some food first and then get down to brass tacks.¨ The town femmes fatale affirmed that they were in fact starving, and the three went to work preparing a nice large batch of pasta puttanesca, one of Anna's favorites. While cooking, they sipped beers from one of Vancouver's several world-class breweries and shot the bull.

The Dark Phalanx was of the rare breed of Tournament teams whose members were on friendly terms outside the arena, despite their absolute seriousness and military efficiency inside it. They all got along well, even the other two members, Farham and Nikita, who kept mostly to themselves, and a true bond of friendship hand developed between Ivana and Anna. With regards to Gorn, Ivana had always admired him, and he and Anna seemed to enjoy each others' company in an odd way, despite their philosophical differences.

After eating, they went to the living room to watch the last purple glow of light diminish over the dimly visible mountains of Vancouver Island to the west. Ivana broke the silence. ¨Sounds like Anna had an interesting week, Gorn.¨

¨That good news or bad news?¨ he asked cautiously. ¨Anna, what's up?¨

She proceeded to relate the contents of her interview from the day before (two interviews, if you counted the janitor) and concluded saying that she'd reached somewhat of an impasse and the best thing to do would be to review the video files of his match with Malcom on Deck 16. Gorn agreed and fired up his computer, obtaining all the studio camera feeds from the match thanks to HAL and setting up his apparatus to play the 10 or so different feeds simultaneously on the TV screen for the women to watch. He fast-forwarded through the first frag, and set the videos back to normal speed when he saw that they were getting close to the first time he had ambushed Malcom from above with the minigun. Running in and out of view of various different camera windows, they saw Gorn's recorded figure drop down to the lower rocket launcher, walk through the portal there, and then he disappeared; no screen had his position. A few moments later he dropped down into view of a different camera, just in time to hose down Malcom's back with the minigun.

¨Huh,¨ said Ivana, disappointed. ¨What bad luck. There's no camera there.¨

They fast-forwarded to about the middle of the match, where Gorn, trailing, had retaken control by killing Malcom from above in approximately the same position, after Malcom appeared to think that the rockets he'd fired down into the armor pit had come from way over by the lower rocket launcher instead of above. Once again, however, Gorn couldn't be seen at all.

¨You know, the third dumb mistake he made is going to look just the same,¨ said Gorn, frowning. ¨Without a camera to tell for sure, we might never know exactly what it was about my position that threw him off.¨ They pondered it in silence for a few minutes.

Ivana finally sighed, and said ¨Look guys, I still can't think of anything but we should be able to figure this out. I just have this weird feeling that there's something specific all three frags have in common.¨

¨You mean besides the fact that we can't see me at all?¨ Gorn joked bitterly.

¨HEY!¨

¨Yeah, Anna…?¨ ventured Ivana. ¨You uh…¨

¨Sorry, something just occurred to me. What if the relevant fact is that there is no camera in that spot?¨

¨How could it be?¨ demanded Gorn. ¨It's not like he needed cameras; he was there, and he did a great job of figuring out where I was the rest of the….¨ he trailed off, and his semi-expressionless face adopted a pretty good approximation of a puzzled look. ¨Hey, wait…¨

¨You get my drift, Cap'n?¨ said Anna, with a round note of satisfaction in her voice.

¨Seriously though,¨ said Gorn, shaking his head slowly, ¨that's impossible. The gladiators are given an absolutely strict equipment scan by the portal when they enter the arena; you know that.¨

Ivana looked lost. ¨You two mind telling me what the hell…¨

¨Wallhacks…¨ murmured Anna, mostly to herself.

¨What?¨ said Gorn.

¨Just something I read once. Ivana, what if Malcom were somehow receiving information from outside the arena, specifically, from someone watching Gorn's location on all those camera lines?¨

¨Which, as I said, is impossible,¨ noted Gorn.

Anna continued. ¨I think we could then assume that he didn't really know Deck 16 much after all, and his amazing prediction the rest of the match was, in essence, a bunch of hax0ring fag0try.¨

¨Seriously this time Anna, what the fuck was that?¨

She blushed. ¨I told you, it's just something I read. So anyways, when Gorn left sight of the cameras, Malcom's 'friend on the outside couldn't help him, and Malcom got fragged.¨

Ivana shook her head. ¨You know, everything else I can think of makes even less sense, besides the possibility of extreme coincidence, but I don't really like it.¨

¨Me either,¨ agreed Gorn, ¨especially because of the fact that it's against Tournament rules. I don't really respect Malcom much as an opponent because of his big mouth, but to be honest cheating doesn't seem like his style. He thinks too much of himself to resort to that kind of thing. And then what could this possibly have to do with FenTech?¨

¨We could try probing around their facility for that separate database HAL mentioned,¨ suggested Anna.

¨Anna,¨ said Gorn incredulously, ¨when you say 'their facility you mean….?¨

¨FenTech.¨

¨And when you say 'try probing around?¨

¨Go there and, you know, probe them.¨

¨Anna,¨ Ivana said, exasperated, ¨as beneficial as insanity is for some gladiators, we need the ones on this team to be reasonably lucid.¨

¨Well, of course, but why tell me?¨ she asked innocently

¨Because what you just said is insane,¨ Ivana pointed out.

¨That is to say,¨ clarified Gorn, ¨it's impossible, so trying it would be insane.¨

¨So if it weren't impossible, you'd be willing to try it?¨ Anna asked him, making sure he understood that the question this time was serious.

¨Actually, no. You know how much Ivana and I love to explore every strategic angle in order to win, but this is going too far, and if you didn't have a personal grudge to satisfy, you'd agree.¨

¨C'mon Gorn, he's breaking the rules. Wouldn't you like to put a stop to such villainy?¨ Besides,¨ she added, ¨I'm going either way and it would be a shame if I got into trouble and one of you wasn't around to help me out.¨ Gorn just stared at her with his mouth open, trying to find a suitable way to describe how stupid this was. He suspected it wasn't possible.

¨I'll go,¨ Ivana said suddenly. ¨Something about this stinks, and I'm curious to find out what it is.¨

Gorn threw up his hands. ¨Fine, get yourselves arrested, or better yet killed, if what this Marshall said was true. But count me out.¨

Anna shrugged. ¨Sorry to hear it, but I can only get two in anyways, and your being a big ape might be an obstacle as well.¨ She turned to Ivana. ¨Are you 100 on this? I already told you about the kinds of things I've heard about this business….¨

Ivana grinned. ¨I always dreamed about fighting bad guys outside the arena, but police work isn't really my speed. But more importantly, I'm not going to leave you hanging out to dry and I trust you wouldn't be getting me into this if it was gonna get me killed. Uh, right Anna?¨

Anna nodded, her face having completed the transformation from its typical appearance of leg-pulling kidster to a stony serious gaze that showed hints of the Black Ops assassin hidden underneath. ¨Damn straight. Buckle up sister, we're going to New York tonight.¨

Gorn watched them leave with a feeling of helplessness, like the team he had founded was slipping away from him. After the door closed though, he found himself murmuring ¨Good luck….¨