Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
A snake pit.
The third round of the tournament was supposed to take place in a snake pit. Again the basic idea was very simple: A hole in the ground with lots of Western green mambas in it. A plank across the pit, strong enough to carry two people. No additional weapons – time for the fighters to demonstrate their unarmed martial arts skills. The participant who managed to kick his opponent into the pit would win the round.
Theoretically the loser could get out of the pit unharmed: The hole wasn't that deep and the organizers had inserted handholds here and there along the walls so that it was possible to climb out. On the other hand, since the ground was literally crawling with green snakes it was rather unlikely to make it to the handholds without getting bitten first. And the Western green mamba is one of the most venomous snakes in the world…
A Western green mamba's poison consists mainly of neurotoxins, cardiotoxins and fasciculins. Its effects set in rather fast, usually about fifteen minutes after the bite. Symptoms include local pain and swelling, ataxia, headache, drowsiness, difficulty breathing, vertigo, hypotension, diarrhea, dizziness and paralysis. They get worse with every minute the victim remains untreated. In the end they lead to death by suffocation thanks to a paralysis of the respiratory muscles. It usually takes two to four hours till a victim dies, but cases are known in which people passed away less than an hour after getting bitten.
The lucky ones, if you will.
So, green mambas are very dangerous… unless, of course, a certain someone milked them thoroughly in the night prior to the fight. Then falling into the pit would only result in a couple of painful bites, but nothing with lasting effects. A completely milked snake needs about fourteen days to restock on poison.
This was a job for Guerrero if there had ever been one. Milking snakes is a highly dangerous procedure. Even experts can get hurt – one wrong move, one tiny lapse and it might be your last. Milking fifty mambas in one night was a Herculean task , almost impossible… Chance or Winston would have probably had the physical strength to help, but Guerrero was the only one capable of maintaining for such a long period of time the enormously high level of concentration the task required.
Sure, Chance and Winston were able to focus, too, but they were both more hands-on types of persons who liked to barge in and shoot the bad guys. Guerrero could meticulously work on a complicated linkage to a military satellite for hours, he was the one for tricky all night computer problems of the hacking kind… that sort of training came in very handy now, just like his finely tuned karate reflexes.
In a way, Guerrero figured, dealing with the snakes was not that much different from his usual work – a simple mistake or, just as often, an unlucky turn of events beyond your control, could lead to disaster in seconds. Over the years he had become pretty good at dealing with that kind of pressure. Not all by himself, though.
Guerrero would never verbalize it, but he knew very well that without the stabilizing factors in his life, he would have never seen his forties. His friendship with Chance, the birth of his son, Ilsa… they had saved him from falling, provided him with the strength to still be on top of the game.
Nevertheless Winston was standing by with the antidote.
The rest of the team was busy with an indeed more hands-on problem – the organizers of the tournament were very good at devising deadly outsets for each round, but the actual realization of their ideas left a lot to be desired. The ropes that the participants had had to use to get to the other side of the canyon hadn't been attached properly. Guerrero had noticed at the last minute and they had managed to secure everything just in time.
The problem this time around was that the walls of the pit weren't stable. The builders hadn't taken into consideration how soft the rainforest ground was thanks to the frequent rainfalls – that's why it was called RAINforest, duh. Anyway, if they let the construction remain as it was, come tomorrow the pit would be in highest danger of collapsing, especially with the vibrations the fighters on the plank would inevitably cause.
Stabilizing the pit was complicated – Ilsa had hired a Japanese structural engineer, a renowned expert in his field, who was in contact with her via web cam. She paid him quite a bit of money to oversee their actions and give advice all night long. Of course the almost obscenely high amount of money also served the purpose of encouraging him to keep his mouth shut about a famous philanthropist and billionaire, crawling around in a hole in the jungle of Borneo in the middle of the night.
When Ames and Ilsa finally came back to their temporary HQ in the early morning light, mud-caked from top to bottom and exhausted as hell, they found Winston in the process of wrapping a bandage around Guerrero's forearm.
"Just a scratch. Milking was already done", he grumbled. "Dude, you're stopping the blood circulation! Didn't they teach you anything at police academy?"
The fact that Winston didn't give any kind of snarky reply spoke volumes about the true nature of the incident.
"When you buy that crocodile-skin handbag, Ames, make sure to get me some snakeskin pumps, too… I'm confident I'll find a matching business suit to go with them", Ilsa mumbled, taking over applying the bandage. Guerrero rested his head against her shoulder and closed his eyes the moment the others were out the door.
… … …
The snake pit ordeal was over. Eva lay in the dark and tried to sleep. Once again she had prevailed and won another round of the tournament… at the cost of another person's life. When they had carried her fallen opponent away he had still been breathing, crying from pain under his mask… It was a good thing they all wore hoods and masks… the anonymity made it easier to deliver the killing blow. Three snakes at once had bitten him. They were way too far away from any medical facility and there was no antidote provided…
With a single kick she had sentenced a man to certain death.
The whole idea behind taking part in this insanity had been to save the legacy of the Temple, to restore it to its old glory and turn it into a haven for people in need of help again. Could this realistically work when the new beginning she was hoping for was already tainted with the blood of people? Could she really help others to turn a fresh leaf, to start anew, when she herself had blood on her hands?
Tomorrow she'd have to fight till death… She'd have to kill her opponent with a samurai sword. So far she had been able to write her deeds off as acts of self-preservation, but tomorrow… even if her opponent surrendered, she'd have to kill him. Execute him.
Eva didn't get a wink of sleep that night.
… … …
Neither did Chance. He was tired and every bone in his body seemed to hurt.
Staring at the ceiling, he wondered if what they were doing was right. They were preventing Eva from becoming a murderer, yes, but only technically. In her mind she had already crossed the threshold, had already decided to kill. I didn't really matter that she hadn't really done any harm so far. She had actively decided to do harm, that was the crucial point.
Was she maybe already lost? Were all their efforts to save her in vain?