Gladiator (Gauntlet Prime Book 1) Read online

  Mel laughed, which quickly turned into a grimace of pain. She wasn’t that much better yet. Anna laughed gently with her, but there was a sad look in her eyes.

  Mel finally got the pain under control. “Yeah, this is just an awesome experience. I’ve always wanted to be kidnapped and beaten near to death.”

  “None of us wanted this. But Kathor won’t kill you. He wants you, for something important. I’m trying to learn more about what he’s doing and, how the ship works, but he keeps a really close eye on me. I have to be careful.”

  When Anna said Kathor’s name, Mel remembered something that had been bugging her for a while. “Why is it that Kathor has a weird alien name, but Beast and Gorgeous don’t? We had to name them ourselves. Or Nick did, anyway. There were some other words. When Beast said what his planet was called, the translator already had a word for it.”

  Anna brightened. “Oh, I did that. Kathor had me helping to program the translators. I gave him a name and then made up new words for common alien words that didn’t have obvious translations. Like planets and cities and stuff. But I didn’t have time for Beast and Gorgeous. And I definitely wouldn’t have used those names. What do you think? Do you like it?”

  “Uh, I guess,” Mel said. It was interesting how Anna fluctuated between her old, bubbly, vacuous self and this new calm, capable self. In the past, Anna would never have been interested in translating alien words. But the excitement at having done something good was vintage Anna. “I mean, their just words, right? It works well enough. But can we change their names?”

  “Translations can be uploaded directly,” Anna said. “Or you can just reprogram it mentally, by concentrating on a new word. That takes some practice though. If you come up with new names, let me know and I’ll change them for you.”

  “The problem is that Nick’s goofy names are already starting to stick. It doesn’t really matter, I guess, I was just curious. Can I get up?”

  “Sure. Everyone’s been in to check on you, but I’m sure they’d all like to see you.”

  Mel threw off the blanket and struggled to swing her legs over the bed with Anna’s help. She was in underwear and the same gray top as before. She gasped when she saw her legs. As it healed, the splotches were turning a sickly green. There was barely an area on the back of her legs that wasn’t covered in bruises. The front of her legs had fared better, since she had been on her stomach protecting Gorgeous. She wondered what her back looked like and was glad she didn’t have a mirror.

  Anna helped her get dressed and supported her as she walked out into the main room. As Anna helped her across the room, Mel surreptitiously peeked at her. Anna was different. Stronger somehow, more stable. Mel would never have predicted that the old Anna would react with such responsibility in this situation. There was something Mel couldn’t put her finger on, but the thought left her mind as she walked into the main room to greet the others.

  Gorgeous ran over and nearly threw herself on Mel. Anna braced her to keep them both from falling down. Mel gasped in pain as Gorgeous hugged her way too tight. If nothing else, it confirmed that her back was indeed a mass of bruises, too.

  “Mel! I’m so glad to see you awake. I was so worried,” Gorgeous took a step back, her face a scowl of anger/laughter as she looked at Mel’s expression. “Oh, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to squish you.”

  Mel shook her head and gripped Gorgeous’s arm, both to hold herself up and to make sure she could block the alien girl in case she came in for another hug. “Don’t worry. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  Gorgeous nodded somberly, and then a strange look came over her face that translated in Mel’s brain as shyness and a bit of guilt. “No one has ever protected me like that before. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “I wish I could say I was glad to help, but that would be a lie. Next time, let’s figure out how to not get beaten to a pulp.”

  Gorgeous brightened and nodded vigorously. “I like that idea a lot.”

  Mel took a step back to look Gorgeous over. Even with her different skin tone and the light coating of fur over her body, Mel could tell she had been severely beaten. White welts covered her arms and chest from when she had tried to block the blows. Blisters formed along the welts and on the left side of her head. They glistened and looked ready to burst.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Mel said, hovering one of her fingers above Gorgeous’s ear.

  “You look very pretty, Mel.” Gorgeous flashed an angry look that Mel took for a giggle. “I like green and blue.”

  “Yeah, they aren’t my favorite colors right now.” Mel looked past Gorgeous and caught Beast’s eye. He nodded and smiled at her encouragingly. Evan, Sharon and Nick came in to give Mel some solace and wince at the extent of her bruising. Jeff glanced at her, then looked away towards Jon’s room.

  “I thought Jon was bad but this is ridiculous,” Nick said, shaking his head in disgust. “Why were they trying to kill you?”

  “Anna says they were just testing us. Honestly, if he wanted me dead I’d be dead, so I guess I believe her. It’s not like we really understand anything going on here.” Mel realized she wasn’t used to people acting concerned for her welfare and was starting to get antsy at all the attention. “Anyway, where’s Riley? Is he doing any better?”

  Anna cut in, “He’s resting now. I’ve been giving him some medicine as well, something Kathor put together. It’s helping; he looks pretty good.”

  “Pretty good as in ‘pretty good’ or pretty good as in ‘not horrible for a zombie?’” Mel said.

  Nick snorted, catching himself from laughing out loud. Even Anna gave a tired smile. “I mean pretty good as in pretty good. Not better, but he’s not getting worse and the fevers are is farther apart. He’s resting a lot, which is a good sign. He should be up in a few hours and you can talk to him.”

  Mel looked at Anna thoughtfully. “Anna, could you check on him for me? Just make sure he’s okay and isn’t awake?”

  Anna stared at Mel without a word for a long moment, and Mel began to wonder if the girl had even heard her. Then Anna smiled blandly. “I gave him medicine right before I came in to sit with you. He was fine then.”

  “Right,” Mel said. “I would really appreciate it if you could check on him, though. That’s three of us… well, four counting Jon, and five counting you, who have been tortured or are injured. I’m afraid, that’s all. I don’t want any of us to die here.”

  Anna smiled sympathetically and touched her shoulder. “Sure, Mel. I understand. I’ll check on Riley and be back in a minute.”

  “Thanks, Anna.” Anna turned to Riley’s room and the door faded open. She stepped through but didn’t close the door. Quickly turning to the others, Mel spoke in a whisper. “Has anything else unusual happened while I was asleep?”

  Jeff shook his head, looking at her strangely. “No. Why?”

  “How long have I been out?”

  Beast pointed at the far wall, full of stars and blackness at the moment. “Four viewings of the planet since you came back. About two days.”

  Jeff interrupted Beast. “Why are you whispering for? And what does it matter how long it’s been.”

  Mel glanced at Riley’s room, but Anna couldn’t be seen. “I don’t trust Anna. There’s something about her. I can’t explain it, but she’s helping that alien a lot. I don’t know, she seems to be helping us too, but she isn’t acting normal. The reason I asked about the time is because it took one day after Anna was taken before they took Riley. The next day they brought Riley back and took Jon, Gorgeous and me. And if it’s been two days with nothing happening, then we’re due.”

  Jeff and Nick both looked alarmed at that suggestion. Gorgeous sighed in resignation but Beast nodded thoughtfully. “An excellent observation,” Beast replied. “I’d suggest we all get some rest.”

  Jeff responded angrily. “What the hell does that mean? We’re just supposed to accept getting beaten and experimented on? One of these times, someone’s going
to die. We need to come up with a plan and fight back!”

  Mel didn’t get a chance to respond, as Anna came out of Riley’s room. She stopped and looked at the others, gathered in a small semi-circle. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Jeff’s just pissy because he didn’t get the crap beat out of him,” Mel replied. Nick laughed, a bit too loud. “How’s Riley?”

  “Breathing is normal, temperature a bit high, but that’s to be expected. He’ll be fine.”

  Mel held Anna’s gaze for a second. Breathing is normal, temperature a bit high. The mannerisms were hers but that sounded nothing like Anna. But Mel didn’t know what it meant. She leaned forward against Beast, too tired to stand anymore.

  “Thanks Anna, I really appreciate you checking. Hey, I’m really wiped out. Could someone help me back to my room? I need to lie down.”

  As Jeff helped her back, Mel could feel Anna’s gaze following them. Mel lay on her bed, pulling her blanket up, wondering if Jeff was right. Should they be trying to escape? Was there any hope? Or was Beast right? Maybe they just needed to accept their new life. Or maybe a bit of both, she realized. Right now, they had no plan to escape even if they wanted to. By necessity, they would have to bide their time, learn more about where they were. Hopefully a plan would emerge and they could figure out how to escape.

  That thought caused her to pause for a second. Escaping would be dangerous. They might die if they stayed, but it was highly likely someone would get killed if they attempted to leave. Was she willing to accept that? Was freedom worth dying for?

  She thought that for her, it was. Better to be dead than a prisoner, forced into medical experiments. Drifting off to sleep, she dreamed of crawling through a large tunnel that slowly constricted around her and her friends while Anna’s voice echoed in her head. You’ll be fine.

  ***

  Mel didn’t think she had slept long. Some of the pain had returned but, by moving slowly, she got herself out of bed. The door faded open, the main room empty except for Beast and Riley. They sat together near the black wall, talking in hushed tones. The planet was just rising from the bottom of the wall, curving up as the sun disappeared from the top.

  Mel walked gingerly over to them, noticing that they both stopped talking as she got closer. She struggled to bend over and sit next to them. Folding her legs up was too painful and sitting with her legs out hurt her back too much. She finally gave up and lay down on the floor.

  Riley watched with amusement. “You’re an old lady now, Mel.”

  Mel smiled wanly. “Yeah. You don’t look so hot yourself.”

  It was true. Riley’s dark skin still had a gray tinge. Even sitting up, he hunched over as if contracting against pain. A light sheen of sweat covered his forehead.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “The shivers come every once in a while, but it’s better. I get these muscle cramps, though. Anna gave me some kind of drink earlier. Tasted like chalk, but it really helped with the cramping. I’m weak as a baby, though. If you ever want to win an arm wrestling contest, now’s a good time.” His face spasmed and he curled into an involuntary ball. “Gahhh! Yeah, like that,” he moaned. Mel looked on helplessly, but the spasm passed after a few seconds as he straightened. “Anyway, that’s been my day. How about you?”

  Mel snorted. “I can’t even sit up, so I’ll pass on the arm wrestling. What were you and Beast whispering about?”

  Riley glanced at Beast, a grin on his face. “Just learning about each other, our cultures and all. Our friendly bigfoot here is is a philosophy major, if you can believe that. He’s also a musician. Well, kind of. It’s a different thing he does, some kind of art and music put together. I was just trying to come up with a word for it, but the translators are struggling.”

  Mel glanced at Beast, fascinated. Not that she had ever given it any thought before, but she would have said that aliens sat around all day waiting for humans to journey into space so they could eat them. Studying philosophy while you waited for human prey to come along was as good a use of an alien’s time as anything else.

  “The art form is called...” There was a pause and a bunch of words floated across Mel’s mind. She frowned as Beast continued, “It’s from Sathir in just the last twenty years, although a repurposing of an older style from over three hundred years ago. Everything comes back around eventually, I suppose. There are three parts. You start with a mathematical algorithm; there are several standard ones that are popular. Then the artist creates an image. When the picture is fed into the algorithm, music is created. It’s complicated to get right. Well, it’s easy enough to get right and any image works. It’s complicated to get good. The best are considered both beautiful works of art and music.” Mel had this sensation of words and images passing through her head but none of them quite settled on the word Beast was using.

  Mel glanced at Riley. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”

  “I think. It sounds like you make an image, basically like painting a picture. Then you feed that into an algorithm. Just say it’s a computer program. The computer program reads in the image and spits out music based on that image. At least I think that’s what’s happening. And he’s saying that there are standard algorithms, and each one creates a different type of music. I’m not sure exactly what that means yet, but I think I get the idea.”

  “That sounds cool. How would you even know what kind of music the image would create?”

  “Practice,” Beast said.

  Mel and Riley laughed. “Imasic,” Mel finally said.

  Beast smiled, showing teeth and nodding energetically in his figure eight pattern. “Yes, imasic!”

  Riley looked at her. “What? What’s imasic?”

  “Images and music. That’s what keeps going through my head when Beast says the name of the thing. Put them together, it’s imasic.”

  Riley looked thoughtful. “I like that. Imasic it is then. And I was just telling Beast about our music from Earth. I was trying to explain hip-hop.”

  Mel suppressed another laugh, her ribs still hurting from laughing just a few seconds ago. “I thought you wanted to be a lawyer, Riley. Going to do law rap?”

  Riley grinned. “Actually, I wanted to get into politics eventually. Be a senator someday. But… I never tell anyone this, but I always wanted to be a rapper, ever since I was a kid.”

  “Sure, put together your own boy band, all of that,” Mel said.

  Riley reached out and lightly punched Mel’s leg, causing her to yelp. “Don’t dis my dream, girl. My parents did enough of that. My dad quashed the idea of getting into music pretty quick. He’s probably the only parent who didn’t let me take music lessons. But you don’t need an instrument to learn to rap, so I just did my own thing. I mean, I never did anything with it. It was just a stupid kid’s dream.”

  Mel gently touched Riley. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I know what it’s like. About your parents pushing you somewhere you don’t really want to go.”

  “Hey, no worries. I just know how much like being beaten,” Riley said. “But I was thinking. What Kathor wants with us and all. And it just made me think about what’s really important. Like, if I die tomorrow, can I look back and say I did what I was supposed to do? There’s not much point in being a lawyer, is there? But music, rap… I can do that anywhere.” Riley shifted uncomfortably. “Forget it, I’m just babbling. Probably whatever this disease is I have, all the fevers and stuff.”

  Mel gazed at the ceiling. “No, you’re right. It’s like a way of holding on to home, to who we are. A way of fighting back.”

  The moment the words left her mouth, the main door slid open. Two zombies and an insect robot marched into the room.

  Chapter 9

  “Speaking of fighting back,” Riley said darkly.

  “Right on time,” Mel replied.

  The zombie
shuffled over to one of the rooms and waved a hand, opening the door. He growled a quick command and then went to a second door. Jeff came out into the main room, looking groggy as the man left the second room and gestured to Beast.

  Sharon came out of her room and joined Jeff, looking tired, confused and scared.

  “What do they want with us?” she asked.

  “No telling. Maybe more training, since they’re asking for more than just one of us,” Jeff replied.

  Beast stood and Mel motioned to him to help her up. “I’m going with you,” she said.

  “What? Are you crazy?” Riley yelled. “You’re not in any shape to go through that again.”

  “Does it even matter? I should wait until I’m healthy so they can beat the crap out of me again? Anyway, I’m not planning to join in, I just want to watch. I’ve seen the training before and it would be useful to see what the others go through. Or if it’s something else entirely.”

  Riley clearly wasn’t convinced, but he was in no position to stop her. Beast walked over to the zombie, the robot scuttling backwards to keep an eye on him. Sharon was shaking, clearly upset, and the second zombie got behind her to force her out of the room.

  “Come,” the first man said. Half of his teeth had fallen out, along with almost all of his hair. She wondered how much longer he could function. Deciding not to ask for permission, Mel just followed them out. She walked slightly behind Beast who followed behind Jeff and Sharon. The robot walked backwards from the front, keeping an eye on Beast.

  Mel was right to think the two zombies wouldn’t notice her. They put so much effort into walking, they could barely pay attention to their surroundings. Concentrating on the ship, she tried to memorize the path. It appeared that most of the hallways joined another main hallway that formed a circle. They came to an unmarked door, but Mel was pretty sure it was the same one from her training. The door faded open and the zombie pushed Jeff and Sharon in.