Scene 23

Tempest's luxurious public lounge was absolutely packed. Media representatives struggled to share space with team agents, Liandri Corporation executives, Tournament rules specialists, and the regular spectators present. These ´specs´ were all of the very wealthiest and most privileged strata of society, the only ones who could afford the price of seeing a Tournament championship match live at the arena.

Watching a match from Tempest's lounge was truly a unique experience. Situated on the top floor of the superscraper, directly above the arena, the floor of the lounge was made entirely of brilliantly-clear crystal, giving an open view of the action taking place below. Inside the arena, of course, the ceiling appeared opaque, thanks to holographic images projected across its surface, only visible from below. As the gladiators entered the arena and began warming up, the spectators milling around on the floor of the lounge began to migrate to the edges and climb onto raised balconies, to clear the visual obstruction and get a wider perspective of the arena. Presently, just as everyone was settled in and starting to get antsy, the announcer began his countdown to start the match. ¨ATTENTION GLADIATORS. WARM-UP ENDING. MATCH WILL START IN THIRTY SECONDS.¨

¨TWENTY SECONDS.¨ The crowd began to cheer.

¨TEN SECONDS. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE.¨ The buzzer sounded and below, all the combatants spawned.

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Gorn was running the instant he spawned, Enforcer pistol drawn. He had started in the upper part of the map, close to the minigun and figured he would probably be the one to claim it if he could get there fast enough. As he rounded a corner, he saw that he was mistaken – Riker was already nearly there. With a yell, Gorn put two Enforcer bullets in Riker's back armor before he could get behind one of the thin columns surrounding the minigun. Gorn closed in quickly, paused behind a column, and waited until Riker poked the long, round barrel of his newly-acquired weapon out before jumping directly in front of him, muscling the barrel upwards with his free hand as it spun up and began firing. The spray of bullets pinged harmlessly off the ceiling, and Riker had time for a brief cry of surprise as Gorn pressed quickly into him and put a bullet between his eyes at point-blank range with his Enforcer. ¨Thanks comrade, I'll take that,¨ Gorn laughed as Riker's body disappeared and he was left holding his beloved minigun.

¨First blood!¨ yelled the tournament announcer. ¨Gorn starts us off with a brilliant close-quarters move to conquer Riker and take charge of the minigun. This, folks, is what earned him the nickname ¨Terror of the Skaarj¨ during the Seven-day Siege, when….¨ Gorn blocked out the rest, making a conscious effort to resist the temptation to stand around like a moron and listen to the announcer. He was off to a good start, but would feel a lot better once he found some armor. The beginning of a TDM match was always the most chaotic part, which was exactly what Gorn liked about it.

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¨Enemy has the shield belt!¨ Ivana reported, extrapolating that it had been claimed by one of the two Thunder Crash members that had just chased her out of the shield belt room under a hail of rockets and pulse rifle spam. ¨Give me some status!¨

¨Secure in the armor room,¨ reported Farham.

¨Just respawned near the goo,¨ noted Anna.

¨Doing good at the sniper,¨ came Gorn's remark. ¨Somebody grab that shock rifle and defend the amp room, I'll be along with some jump boots to get the amp shortly.¨

¨Already there,¨ replied Ivana. ¨Farham, fill up that hallway from the belt room with some ripper blades… Gorn, hurry up; they could be coming around your way.¨

¨Got it,¨ came their simultaneous affirmations.

Ivana held her position guarding the shock-amp room, shooting an occasional shock bubble through the doorway to let anyone still in the shield belt area know that a combo in the face awaited them if they tried to come in. But nobody tried, and in a couple seconds Anna came up the stairs from the lowest level of Tempest, carefully holding her fully-charged biorifle. ¨They're holding the belt room still, with one person outside above the biorifle to protect that back entrance.¨

¨Kind of them, giving us time to plan this,¨ remarked Gorn, jogging into the amp room to join his two teammates. ¨What do you say, Ivana?¨

¨It'll be hard to take the shield belt room, the way they're entrenched, but we don't want more than one of them running around with a full belt, so we'd better get to it. Gorn, get the amp and go around the back door. Farham, since you've got armor, try and get through that hallway and I'll follow you. Anna, you grab the flak and start heading through that lower entrance with the thigh pads. Go!¨

Her first orders already being filled out before the last ones were spoken, Ivana continued to spam shock bubbles at the closest entrance from the belt room. She heard the hiss of Gorn's jump-boots as he launched himself into the rafters over her head, and the harsh, synthesized bell signifying that he'd picked up the damage amplifier.

His weapon suddenly seeming to emit a glowing purple light, Gorn quickly launched himself down towards the doorway he'd come in through, sprinting out and quickly dropping down another level, then running down the wide hallway towards the back door of the shield belt area.

Barreling around a turn in the hallway, his highly sensitive eyes picked out the form of a woman crouched in the shadows near a poorly-lit wall. She had time neither to stand up nor raise her weapon as he fusilladed her with his minigun, its bullets temporarily granted about three times their normal stopping power. Hearing the muffled sounds of a fight near the other side of the belt room, Gorn hoped his teammates had the Thunder Crash sufficiently distracted and boot-jumped up to the narrow ledge that led into the opposition's position.

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¨Azure,¨ Riker yelled, ¨help me out down here!¨

¨But the back door…¨

¨Just get some grenades into that hallway, quickly!¨

She sighed and ran towards the center of the room on her high walkway, watching that top doorway out of the corner of her eye as she used the secondary fire on her rocket launcher to lob a few grenades down near where the shock bubbles had been coming earlier, hoping to catch someone now trying to come in. To her surprise, a Dark Phalanx member appeared in the doorway, attempting to dodge his way through the grenades. He was struck by one and staggered back, his body armor shattered. ¨Incoming!¨ she shouted at Riker.

¨On it!¨

Through his words, she thought she heard the sound of the jump boots being used from behind her. Shit. She spun and fired a rocket at the back entrance, but Gorn ran through too quickly, slipping past the projectile like a bulky designated hitter dodging a tight fastball as he opened fire. Azure was down before she could fire again. As she spawned, berating her stupidity, she remembered they still had plan B: Malcom.

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Ivana charged into the shield belt room past Farham's plasma-seared corpse, ready to finish off his attacker, but arrived just in time to see Gorn take Riker down with a quick, lethal spray of amped minigun fire. ¨Double Kill!¨ hollered the announcer, just as the harsh synthesized bell sounded again, four times in succession, to indicate that the damage amp's thirty seconds of use were ending. Rather than celebrate the apparent victory, Gorn looked quickly around the room, apparently disturbed.

¨Where's their guy with the belt?¨

Ivana was surprised. ¨Didn't you run into him on the other side?¨

¨He must've slipped past me. I can handle this spot along with Anna when she gets here; you and Farham, get to the other side of the map!¨ She nodded quickly and ran out, her only verbal acknowledgment a barely-audible ¨Giving orders, are we?¨ that floated behind her across the comm line. Gorn chuckled, eyeing the scores on his HUD. They had taken the early lead, 7-3.

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The air low-down on the small cement ledge shimmered as the sniper rifle spawned, and for an instant, Malcom's intense, deadly aspect morphed into a satisfied grin, although it would have been difficult to see at any great distance through the shimmering yellow energy armor of the shield belt that surrounded his body. His teammates had been routed from the shield belt room, but he had slipped behind the backs of the Dark Phalanx, and now he was going to turn things around with his armor and his sniper.

¨Aryss! How are you doing at the body armor?¨

¨Need backup!¨

¨Okay; Riker and Azure, get over here and hold the jump boot area if you can. Aryss, I'm on my way.¨ He hopped down off the sniper ledge and turned straight into the amp room, almost casually flicking his sniper rifle towards Ivana as he saw her come in through the opposite door. She shot a shock bubble at him at about the same time, but he took her down with a perfect headshot long before she had a chance to combo him, not even stopping to properly shoulder his gun. ¨HEADSHOT!¨ boomed the announcer's voice. ¨Still alive, Aryss?¨ Malcom inquired.

¨Yeah, but taking fire. Hurry up!¨

Inferring that her attacker would already be in the body armor room, Malcom continued into the narrow hallway which ran from the belt room to a ledge above the body armor. As he burst out of the hallway, he witnessed a temporary stalemate – Aryss moving around the edges of the room to his left on the upper ledge, attempting to ricochet deadly spinning Ripper blades off the walls to get at Farham below her, who was bouncing as much flak off the ceiling as he could and waiting for her to drop down so he could shred her in one close-quarters shot with his cannon. Malcom ran out to the right to get a better shot at Aryss's opponent, and as soon as he had it, he quickly took Farham down with two sniper bullets in the chest. ¨Grab that armor when it spawns,¨ he ordered, ¨then come secure the amp room.¨

¨Roger that.¨

He dropped off the ledge and left her behind, continuing down the wide passage towards the jump boots. ¨Riker, are those boots up yet?¨

¨Just spawned, you want 'em?¨

¨Yeah. Go help Aryss with the amp room. Azure, back me up.¨ Both responded with a quick ¨Ok¨ as he ducked into the jump boot alcove, the boots' holographic image disappearing as he stepped through it and the solid, real thing was translocated onto his feet. Azure hopped down onto the ledge to his left to grab the flak cannon, then dropped down again to join him. She stuck to his flank as Malcom continued towards the far side of the map.

As they neared an intersection, Malcom halted, looking to the right up a ramp that led to the sniper rifle area. What am I doing? He thought. We need to get to the belt room. But he felt somehow compelled to stay a second. Suddenly, he knew someone was coming – a woman. It was as if he saw her in his mind's eye, running down that corridor towards them, rounding the corner….

And there she was, entering the sights of his sniper just when he'd somehow known she would. He squeezed the trigger almost reflexively, watching as if through the eyes of another person as she was felled with one shot to the head. How did I do that? He wondered. But hadn't he always been good at predicting the movements of his opponents? Or had it just never seemed odd before because he hadn't given it much thought?

¨What's up, chief?¨ It was Azure. Malcom realized that he'd remained crouched and motionless for several seconds longer than he'd meant to, and got up hastily. ¨It's nothing. Come on.¨ They turned and jogged into the large, vacant room behind the shield belt area, Malcom issuing orders to Azure as they moved. ¨They have a strong position here and won't expect an attack, so that's exactly what we'll do. I need you to go around below and enter by the thigh pads route. When I hear your flak cannon, I'll know that they're distracted and I'll come in through the upper window. Just try to stay alive long enough for me to arrive for backup.¨

¨Right.¨

She dropped down to the biorifle, passing it by disdainfully and heading into the lower passage towards the shield belt area. Malcom watched her go, then jogged over and crouched under the ledge below the window he was preparing to enter, waiting silently for the sounds of combat. Presently, there was the unmistakable flat thud of a flak cannon shell exploding, followed by a clatter of minigun fire, and Malcom quickly dodged a few feet away from the wall and boot-jumped up and towards the window above him. As he did, he pulled a shock rifle out of his pack, ready to defend himself against the enemy that was camped out on the ledge to his left, getting ready to combo him as he came in. Wait… how did he know that?

No time to think. Malcom snapped to his left as he entered the door, firing a shock primary beam at the crouched female figure that he knew he would see. In almost the same instant, she fired a shock secondary bubble at him, which his beam hit, annihilating her in a shower of gore with an accidental combo at extreme close range. He couldn't help laughing. Turning to the right, he ran into the center of the room, pointing his shock rifle down below, just in time to see Azure's bullet-riddled body disappear. Gorn wasn't in his immediate sight, but Malcom suddenly realized that he saw his opponent directly under the ledge he was standing on. It was somehow like he was looking through a clear glass walkway instead of a foot of hard reinforced concrete. What the hell? Then he realized that he'd poked his shock rifle over the ledge and was shooting a combo straight down, apparently without consciously having decided to do it. Again there was the weird sensation of watching himself act through the eyes of a third-person observer. He saw Gorn note the shock ball and try to dodge out from under the ledge, to get out of range of the combo. He almost made it, but the outside edge caught him and threw him across the room, his shimmering yellow energy armor disappearing as he tumbled over twice and jumped to his feet, immediately swinging his minigun up to where the combo had come from.

Malcom, still watching the battle with a disconnected sense of wonder and dull confusion, had the presence of mind to be impressed with his opponent's recovery. Gorn had probably sustained some internal injuries from that blast, but within a second he had gained his feet and trained his minigun at Malcom, dodging and weaving to make himself difficult to hit. As Malcom fired a shock primary shot that missed Gorn to his left and began to run along the ledge, the minigun gun spun up and began firing, spraying a precise stream of bullets which hit Malcom's energy shield with a hissing sound as if entering water and stayed embedded there, apparently stuck in thin air. Malcom took another shot and missed once more, Gorn dodging agilely just before the shock rifle was reloaded and ready to fire.

Spurred by a growing urgency to end the fight before Gorn broke through his shield belt and aerated his hide, Malcom began to recover his focus and take charge of the situation. He ran a couple more steps to give the shock rifle time to reload once more, then doubled quickly back to his left, escaping Gorn's stream of fire for just long enough to take a good shot. He nailed the Dark Phalanx captain in the center of his chest, bringing him down permanently just as the minigun trained on him again, taking off the last of his shield belt. A couple stray bullets slammed into his base chest plate.

Malcom let out a long, unsteady breath, wiping cold sweat off his brow. He had to stop doubting himself here and now, or this match was going to go badly. Whatever the reason for his confusion was, it could be resolved later. He flicked on his team comm line and demanded: ¨Thunder Crash, give me some status!¨

¨Just respawned,¨ replied Aryss.

¨Under heavy fire in the amp room,¨ said Riker, his tone breathless and urgent. ¨I gotta retreat before…¨ His message cut out in a burst of static.

¨At the biorifle, heading back to the belt room,¨ said Azure.

Malcom thought quickly. ¨Good, Azure, get in here and help me. Riker and Aryss, pair up and stay alive, they're about to have an amp run.¨ There was a chorus of ¨Roger thats¨ from his three teammates, shortly before the sound that he'd been dreading played on the arena speakers… the amp bell. Malcom shouldered his shock rifle and aimed it towards the entrance from the amp room, waiting. He sensed a female figure in there, holding the amp and a sniper rifle, just waiting a few seconds, pretending that she'd gone elsewhere. He waited too, holding his fire, letting her think that he'd evacuated the belt room. Presently she made her move, and he shot a shock ball towards the doorway, timing it so that she'd arrive there just in time to greet his combo. In his mind's eye he could see the two converge, and they met at a 90 degree angle in the doorway in the same instant that he detonated the combo. ¨You killed Anna¨ flashed on his HUD.

¨It looked like the Dark Phalanx was going to stage a comeback there with the damage amp, but Malcom put a stop to it with an amazing prediction combo! I tell you folks, there's nobody else like him!¨ the announcer yelled gleefully,

Malcom smiled and ran back along the ledge to get the shield belt that was about to spawn. He saw Azure, who'd just entered the room, running over to pick up the pulse rifle and knew that they were back in a good position once again. This match was going just as he'd hoped it would.

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¨Goddamn cocksucker dirty ass slutcakes bullshit WALLHACKS!¨

¨Wallhacks?¨ Gorn inquired across the comm line.

¨Wallhacks!¨

¨Fucking wallhacks,¨ agreed Ivana.

¨Fucking dirty wallhacks,¨ suggested Farham.

¨All right, knock that off,¨ Gorn said seriously, glancing at his HUD. After initially taking the lead in the match, they were now down 20-15. ¨Anna, whatever you plan on doing here to Malcom, you'd better do it now… I think we've seen enough.¨

¨Already on it, chief.¨ She was crouched near the body armor, Farham protecting her as best he could by spamming flak and ripper blades into the three entrances to the room. He'd already killed a Thunder Crash member who'd been unfortunate enough to run in from the amp room at the wrong moment and catch one of the spinning circular blades at neck level. His head was sliced neatly off. Farham loved doing that with the Ripper. But it had been a lucky kill, and now he was getting anxious… how long was this going to take? He probably wouldn't be able to protect Anna forever, especially lacking a better weapon such as the shock or sniper rifle. But this was important.

Anna had explained very briefly to him before the match that they were pretty sure Malcom was using some kind of outside information to cheat, and that she might need to jam his signal. It was surprising, but then again, you learned to expect this kind of thing in the Tournament. Its rules were often interpreted more as a set of general guidelines, especially by the gladiators who also happened to be convicts. He risked a glance behind him to the semi-protected alcove where Anna was working, punching buttons furiously on her comm device. ¨Almost done there?¨ he asked.

¨I've got the signal isolated… and its source, too, which is interesting. It's coming from someone in the lounge right above us. I guess that's what you would expect though, with that view they could do the best job of helping him cheat. I have to use my decryption code here and then I'll just encrypt a looping signal of random noise that I'm going to be sending to Malcom's receiver for the rest of the match. He'll no longer be able to discern any useful information coming in across that line.¨

¨Sounds great, but can you hurry it up?¨

¨Thirty more seconds.¨ Farham paced nervously. Suddenly a Thunder Crash member appeared from the upper hallway to the minigun area, flinging herself down into the armor pit as she rained rockets around Farham. He took a glancing hit to his body armor and staggered backwards, partially stunned, but managed to throw himself to the side to avoid her next rocket, and close in before being hit again to shred her with a point-blank shot of hot metal flak shards. ¨You almost done there?¨ he asked Anna urgently.

¨Yeah… almost got it… there we go. This noise is going to be fairly unpleasant for him unless he turns that line off so we shouldn't have any more problems.¨ Too bad he can't turn that line off, she thought with grim satisfaction. I wonder how well he'll fight with his head full of static?

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¨Aaaarrggh!¨ Malcom doubled over in agony, struggling to get a grip on his consciousness but slowly losing ground as all his senses were inundated with a wave of warped images and sounds. He fell to his knees with his head in his hands, dry-heaving with nausea. It was like having the inside of his head scoured out with a brillo pad, an insane roller-coaster ride through a sea of sensory gibberish. He wasn't even aware of the female figure bending over him, her features full of concern, asking ¨Malcom! Malcom, are you ok?¨ He was dimly aware, a moment later, of the flash of blue light that obliterated her and sent him sprawling, tearing away his shield belt, and somehow looked up in time to see the second shock bubble come towards him, but didn't quite manage to figure out what it meant.

There was a half-second of blessed blackness, nothingness, then another half-second of good, clean, simple pain, but as soon as he had respawned it started again. Somehow, he managed to tap a button and pant weakly across his comm line, ¨Help… please… someone…stop it…¨

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The observer in the spectator's lounge raised his eyebrows, impressed. So, those meddling miscreants in the Dark Phalanx had actually managed to put their stolen information to good use. Not too shabby. It was a shame that people with that kind of intelligence rarely used it for a higher good or applied it to something other than their own selfish concerns. A real shame. Without the presence of organizing visionaries in the world, everything would be chaos… and did most people notice, or care? Not in the least. They were mediocre, just smart enough to be presumptuous; all convinced of their own wisdom and heedlessly interfering with things that the truly wise knew were for the common good. He was going to truly enjoy subjugating this woman and her friends and turning them to his purpose.

For now, a strategic retreat must be made. A couple minutes of this kind of punishment, and his star pupil's mind would be damaged to the point of losing its usefulness to him. Knowing that the nanomachines' self-destruct message would be received by Malcom's subconscious despite being garbled, he picked up something disguised to look like a media microphone, switched it on, put it to his mouth, and whispered ¨Athena Beta 3.¨

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Through his confusion, Malcom suddenly experienced a second of burning pain that seemed to be right inside his head, and then… nothing. He dropped gratefully to the ground, rolling over onto his back and letting the waves of pure relief wash over him, ignoring the concerned voices of his teammates flooding his comm line.

After a few seconds like that, he had the bad luck of being spotted by a member of the Dark Phalanx rather than someone from his own team. It was Anna. When she ran up and inspected him, seeing the stupefied smile on his face, she just snorted a laugh and continued on. This gesture of contempt was what finally got Malcom's beleaguered mind to drag itself back into a functional state again. Being written off like that, as if he weren't even worth the trouble to kill, drove a lance straight into his sense of pride and pissed him off sufficiently to get him moving and determined. Ignore him, would they?

He took a quick look at his surroundings and found himself near a shock rifle, not far from the jump boots. He picked up the weapon and ran out into the main hallway, checking the jump boot alcove (empty) and continuing towards the body armor. As he turned a corner to the right, he almost ran smack into Farham who was coming from the opposite direction. Before he could react, was slapped backwards in the chest by an invisible hand, falling down stunned and totally disabled with a chest full of burning flak. He tried to move and failed, just managing to see the explosive flak canister arcing over his body….

Malcom respawned, still pissed off, in the shield belt room which was blessedly empty. As he ran over to claim the rocket launcher, he couldn't help but question again what was happening in this match. It seemed that his sense of prediction had just failed him completely, and not only that, his quick-acting reflexes as well. He knew that none of those Dark Phalanx members used enhancers, let alone such top-shelf products like Reflexon which were available only for sponsored Gladiators. Picking up the rocket launcher and running back towards the ramp to the shield belt, he reflected that his slow reaction must have been due to surprise, to encountering a situation that he was unused to dealing with. Was he that used to always predicting the locations of his opponents?

He threw the rocket launcher over his shoulder into a harness as he picked up the pulse rifle, starting to run up the ramp towards the shield belt. Suddenly, he saw movement out of the right corner of his eye at the shield belt's location, and barely had time to throw himself off the ramp before a huge glob of bio-sludge landed on it, splattering all over the area where he'd been a fraction of a second ago. He hit the floor of the room hard on his side, hearing the crack of his arm breaking as he rolled over and came up with his pulse rifle pointing up towards the shield belt ledge above him. Jesus! There was someone there, too? How had he not noticed?

He backed away from the ledge, trying to get to the health packs that he knew were under a ramp behind him, spamming pulse rifle fire up into the shadows near the belt to cover his retreat. He had almost reached the ramp when Gorn dodged through the door from the amp room, brandishing a shock rifle. Malcom trained a shaft of his pulse rifle's secondary fire on Gorn and tried to close in, hoping he was injured, but he didn't manage to kill his opponent or reduce the distance between them quickly enough to avoid the combo that detonated behind him, the edge of the shockwave throwing him forward like a limp ragdoll as the world went black.

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The Dark Phalanx soon regained control of the match, tying the score at 25-25, then passing the Thunder Crash 26-25, and continuing to build their lead for the rest of the 45 minutes. Despite their talent and CTF experience, the Thunder Crash found themselves repeatedly outmaneuvered by the more experienced TDM team. They were sandwiched in ambushes at the armors and damage amp, chased down soon after they spawned before finding any good weapons, and never managed to achieve the level of teamwork and instinctive coherence that the Dark Phalanx manifested. With Malcom growing more and more frustrated, as he had in the duel with Gorn on Deck 16, the Thunder Crash gradually fell apart and the score stood at 75-49 when the final buzzer sounded.

As was customary in a championship match, the gladiators met in the center of the map to shake hands afterwards. The announcer went on chattering about the stunning upset victory and amazing teamwork and resilience shown by this older team against the very personification of youth and talent, and how it showed that nothing could compensate for experience, and so on. The Gladiators ignored it as they lined up and faced each other, both teams appearing to honestly size each other up for the first time. They seemed to be digesting the results, or maybe just taking a breather. By his glower, Malcom wanted to put off as long as possible the necessity of shaking hands with his opponents. But he knew the importance of his reputation. Finally, he walked over and offered his hand to Gorn. It was shaking slightly.

Facing Gorn's impassive stare, Malcom wondered if the confusion and uncertainty showed in his own eyes through his apparent anger. If so, Gorn didn't seem to notice – showed no emotion at all, actually, which was pretty impressive considering he'd just won one of the most important spectator sporting events in the galaxy. ¨Good game, captain,¨ Gorn said. Malcom said nothing, and continued on to shake the hands of the other Dark Phalanx members.

The last was Anna. When he got to her, she said ¨good game¨ and shook his hand with a mysterious half-smile, then added quietly, ¨I'm sure you could've done better.¨ He felt an odd dryness pressed into his hand, and when he looked down, he saw a folded piece of paper. When he glanced up, surprised, Anna gave him a meaningful stare, then a barely perceptible nod in the direction of… his crotch? Wait, no, the side pocket of his armored combat pants. To hide his confusion, Malcom did the only thing he could think of at the time – said ¨thanks,¨ and slipped the paper into his pocket. Then, the spell was broken and the airborn interview cameras descended.

¨How does it feel to be this year's Team Deathmatch Champions?¨ one camera asked Gorn. ¨Any comments you'd like to make about the match?¨ He didn't really feel like answering any questions right now, but when he saw that every single one of his teammates was being pestered in a similar manner and not going anywhere, he decided to give in and stay for a few minutes. He was planning on retiring next year, anyhow. Might as well enjoy the spotlight a little. ¨Well,¨ he began, ¨after what we've been through to get to this point, standing here today feels pretty good…¨

As the dejected Thunder Crash were translocated out of the arena one-by-one, Gorn and the rest of the Dark Phalanx continued to give interviews, answering the barrage of questions as concisely as they could and looking for an opportunity to translocate back to the Gladiator's lobby. After several minutes had passed, Farham even asked a couple times to be translocated out, but it appeared nobody was listening, and the cameras continued their assault (¨Wait, please sir, one more question…What would you say your influences for entering the Tournament were? What made you decide to be a Gladiator?¨)

The press harassment lasted for what seemed like an eternity although it was probably more like half an hour, all of the gladiators eventually beginning to protest. Finally, Gorn got fed up. ¨Enough!¨ he roared. ¨No more comments today! Now can somebody please take us to the lobby?¨ This seemed to be the prompt that the cameras were waiting for to lay off. In one motion, they all wheeled away into the air without a word of thanks and disappeared. ¨About flippin' time,¨ muttered Anna. A couple seconds later, they were translocated out of the arena.

The lobby turned out to be empty, all the members of the Thunder Crash long gone as they walked alone across the intricate tiled floor that said ¨Tempest¨ in brilliant jade against polished jet inside of a bright quartzite ring. As they neared the portals to exit, Farham stopped and frowned. ¨Hey,¨ he said. ¨Do those look like they're turned off to you guys?¨

¨They definitely do,¨ agreed Anna. ¨I guess we were in there so long that they forgot to wait for us to leave before switching 'em off.¨ She walked over to the portal and felt along its inside rim. It was unlit and inactive. ¨Hey!¨ she yelled at one of the cameras lining the inside of the lobby. ¨Turn the portals on!¨ They waited.

After a couple minutes without results, Ivana tapped the Public line on her comm and said, ¨Hey, this is the Dark Phalanx… somebody turned off the translocators here in the gladiator's lounge and we can't get out. Is anybody listening?¨ There was no reply.

Above them, the last of the spectators strolled out of the public lounge, passing by a bank of monitors that showed live video from the cameras all over Tempest. The last two monitors showed a simple open lobby, with glowing translocator portals on opposite sides. The black floor of the lobby was decorated with a white tile circle around the words ¨Tempest¨, in striking green tile. There was nobody there.