Girl in the Arena (29 page)

When she lands her legs go almost transparent and just as quickly regenerate, as the lights in the stadium dim and then brighten. Another brownout.

An uncomfortable murmur goes through the crowd.

Uber, who looks very pale, tries to get things back on track by making the first cut. The blood trickles down 
Lyn
’s sword arm, which brings good spirits into the amphitheater. But instead of fighting back, she stares at the blood, mesmerized.

I know Uber is backed into a corner now, trapped by 
Lyn’s 
confused efforts to fight and simultaneously consider her wounds. So he draws more blood, this time from her left leg. Then I lunge at him, I mean she does, and maybe he’s afraid she’s going to try and run him through. He moves back too quickly.

When he trips I see the edge of the black modem pop out of the sand. I doubt anyone else will know what that small bit of black is, but I know. Uber knows.

He lands with one foot caught on the edge of the power cord. I swear he falls to the sand in slow motion. And the lights, the entire lighting system, in the stadium go down and we’re all pretty much in the dark now except for the toys the vendors sell—those small handheld lights that whirl about and turn different colors, the glow-in-the-dark necklaces and pop beads.

There’s a long minute or two. The crowd begins to stomp their feet.

The lights come up in the top tiers.

I see Uber’s dark shape. I think he’s untangled himself.

Lyn 
has disappeared.

Mark, I’m sure, could rectify this situation in short order but we agreed in advance that if she were to disappear entirely it’s just too risky to make her reappear. This has to do, in part, with the way she glows into existence and the icons that might appear around her head.

I try to get the cap off the vial of painkiller, but it slips from my hands and shatters on the stone floor. I understand that rubbing glass shards into my skin is counterproductive at this point, and I know I have to get out there.

Heart accelerating, I pull out the short blade I have tucked in my belt. I cut my arm where Lyn’s arm was cut. Then I reach down and knick my left leg where her left leg was nicked.

I step into the arena.

And something kicks in that I haven’t known for months. Maybe I’ve never known it. I have an almost unbearable sense of peace.

As the rest of the lights return, I see that Uber has pushed the modem back into the sand along with the cord. There’s a resounding noise as the crowd sees Uber and me facing each other again. I wonder if it’s actually a jeer. Maybe it’s a feeling about the management, or the wish for blood and death to make up for the management, but it’s a rousing sound nonetheless.

I never understood just how bright the lights in the arena really are—how invisible the crowd becomes—how much I could use a pair of dark glasses. But unlike my avatar, I can’t manifest them or fight with my eyes closed. I’m aware of all the calls, the chants. My head is filled with chanting.

I secure my left hand in the shield’s strap and grasp the sword tightly in my right hand and looking Uber dead in his visible eye, I give him a slight nod to say: 
I’m ready.

He lifts his chin in acknowledgment. He waits for me to begin.

If I were at the Ludus with a sparring partner, I would start with a blow to his sword arm. But Uber is left-handed, and I feel less confident here, despite all the practice. His face is guarded by his helmet. I could try for his stomach—always the gut—he stands with his shield slightly off to the right. There’s an opening if I’m quick enough.

But in thinking over Lloyd’s coaching, I aim high and suddenly swing low and make my effort at his knees. He’s very fast, deflecting my sword, which prompts me to raise my shield and right my sword again, but I’m surprised to see that I’ve drawn blood with the tip of my blade, just below his left kneecap.

You might think this would bring a certain satisfaction to the crowd but I’m aware of their impatience, especially the ones that hang around the edges, who almost reach in and try to fight for you. I’ve always thought the stadium is an odd design, the lower seats so close to the action that some people fall into the ring each year. Guards have certainly had to chase down the enthusiasts, the streakers, and so on. Accidents have occurred. Some fanatics actually try to do battle with the Glads in the arena.

Now the catcalls, the egging on. They’re like generals and senators—always carefully removed from the action but chronically propelling it.

Without waiting for me, Uber strikes his blade against mine as if to say: 
fight.

We go to blows again. And I think I’m holding my own until that second in which my mind steps out of the action and I realize I’m thinking about what I’m doing. And what I’m doing is feeling a stinging pain and my sword arm starts to bleed.

Then the stupid thoughts stream. I’m not my double. I could die, actually, truly die. And the only twisted antidote I can see, in this moment in time, is the knowledge that I’m capable of wounding and maiming and killing in real time, in the real world, without restraint.

I am everything I am not.

Uber rams his shield against mine now and in the impact my sword flies to the ground. I thrust my shield as hard as I can at him, and I’m surprised to see him trip. Maybe later I’ll learn he lost his footing as a way to buy me time. But for now I have my sword in hand again and he’s righted himself and we are fighting, harder now.

I cut his left leg, he slices my left arm. I rap my sword against his helmet, he cuts me below my chest plate. I hear the ten-minute signal.

And just as we raise our swords again, Uber is suddenly looking behind me, wide eyed, his mouth streaming terror as he calls out, —
NO!

you can’t stop to think.

My feet seem to take off from the ground as I turn. I thrust my sword out with all the force I own, at the tiger, at the lion, at whatever Caesar’s has set free, covering my face with my shield, all in one motion. And I think, 
This is it, I’m going to die.

Then I hear his cry.

I pull my shield away.

I see Thad drop to the ground in his gladiator outfit, his arms and legs splayed, blood spurting from beneath his thin chest plate, down his torso, into the sand.

—Lynie, he says, barely pushing my name from his lips.

I get his chest plate off and press my hands over the wound.

Sheryl, the nanny, is running toward us now, as if she could still catch him in time to prevent what’s happened.

Julie and Lloyd are running into the arena behind her.

I keep telling Thad he’s going to be all right.

Uber shouts for the medics, the ambulance.

Julie tears a swath of cloth from her dress and kneels next to me, pressing the cloth against his chest.

—I told her not to bring him! I scream at Julie, through my tears.

I look at Thad’s confused face.

He can’t catch his breath.

I think he’s starting to turn blue.

—You have to hold on, Thaddy, I say, kissing his forehead.

The ambulance pulls up close. They apply a dressing and strap an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The bed is popped out of the back and they hoist him up.

They tell me to stand back.

—
I’M HIS SISTER! 
I shout.

—You have to stand back so we can save him, a female medic tells me.

Julie pulls at me, saying we’ll follow them over to the hospital.

I watch the ambulance doors shut, the ambulance lights go on. The siren pierces the absolute stillness. I watch it pull out of the stadium.

The nanny is crying. She tells me he wouldn’t stay home, that he got under the train table and kept hitting his head against the wood until he was bleeding, that she didn’t know what else to do.

I tear myself away from Julie and pick up my sword.

With the handle in both fists, I drive the blade into the sand as hard as I can so it penetrates the wood below and stands straight in the air.

—
NO MORE! 
I shout.

Uber throws his shield on the ground and brings his sword over next to mine and drives it into the ground as well.

And the last thing I see as I rush out of the arena is the rain of plastic souvenir swords.

Thousands and thousands of swords as they’re pitched into the arena.

EPILOGUE

I’m crouched outside a hotel room in Harvard Square. I have my tape recorder, and a notebook and pen in case technology fails me. While I think over my questions to Joe Byers, I get a call from Uber telling me he and Thad have arrived at Singing Beach. It’s funny the way he’ll go off with Uber and be perfectly okay with this—they haven’t known each other long. Maybe Uber reminds him of Tommy in some way.

—Make sure Thad doesn’t go in the water above his knees, I say, —unless you’re right there with him. And don’t let him oracle too many strangers.

I include cautions about sunblock and a hat. People recognize Thad everywhere he goes now, and he tires easily because everyone wants a personal reading.

Another inch or two and my sword would have gone through his heart. That’s what I’m trying to live with. Whenever I change his bandages, Thad gives me his manga look, his eyes large and wide and eager to get the tape pulling over with. Predictions trickle from his lips as if this might make it easier to deal with the tug at his chest. I’ve begun to write down as many of them as I can.

I don’t know what it means that Thad’s wound is in the same spot where my avatar had her spear, but I try not to focus on this because it makes me nervous, and then I think I make Thad nervous and the important thing now is to look forward and put our world on solid ground.

I fired Sheryl, the nanny, outside the ER that night. And once Thad was on the mend, I retained an attorney to get my funds from Caesar’s, along with the deed to the house. They claim, since it wasn’t a fight to the death, Uber and I are required to have a rematch. They gave Thad and me an initial sum to live on for a while but nothing close to the contract. My attorney claims that Caesar’s created an unsafe and hostile work environment, and that the amphitheater facilities put my brother at risk since he was able to climb down to where we were fighting without much effort. Getting legal help is a completely unacceptable thing to do in Glad culture. We never bring in outside counsel. And once this hit the news, I was made out to be some kind of hero to young Glads and an enemy to the old guard, and the truth is I’d rather not be either one.

Mark comes over all the time. He hangs out with Thad so I can work out or grocery shop or have some time to work on 
The History 
uninterrupted—that is, when he can make it in or I can make it out—because the paparazzi have just about tripled in numbers around the house. Mark and I are tighter now than we’ve ever been. He really goes the limit to make things cool for Thad. And sometimes I think he’s met someone but if he has it will take him a while to get around to telling me.

We’re getting a lot more foreign press now, and thick outcroppings of protestors and supporters, and God-knows-what-all people hanging out in the streets, including all those oracle seekers, so I’ve had to start looking for a place to move to with Thad, and that has me thinking about colleges in different areas. I don’t know. Sometimes I think Europe, the Netherlands. Sometimes I just want to write the 
History.

Once things settle down, I want to do whatever it takes to give my parents a proper burial, even if that means breaking into Caesar’s headquarters for Tommy and robbing the graveyard where Allison is photographically interred—or inhumaned, as some call it. Both Uber and Mark say they’re up for that, and they’d be happy to recruit some friends to help out.

I’ve had a stream of offers coming my way, so I don’t answer the phone much. Movie deals, clothing line, TV series, a tell-all book, my own column in 
Glad Rag
. I know Thad would like it if I’d accept the gaming offer because they told him they’d put him in the game as the Living Oracle, before I grabbed the phone from his hands.

Thad doesn’t ask for Mom as much now, or maybe I should say not in the same way, as if she’s stepped out to the store and he’s expecting her home any minute. But I’m not sure if he’ll ever understand that they’re firmly anchored in two different worlds now. Sometimes after I’ve washed his quilt we just sit with our backs against the dryer, the fabric going round and round, and I tell him all the stories he wants to hear about Allison and the fathers. I don’t say this to him, of course, but sometimes I think we’ll always be in mourning.

Most of the time the house is drowning in quiet, no matter how I blast my operas, and Allison’s bathroom door remains locked. When Thad goes to bed, I move from one area of the house to another as if one of them might contain a room with sleep, which they rarely do. Even though I dismantled the Living machine, a couple of times I’ve imagined Allison moving from room to room looking for her unfinished letters so she can tear them up and start over. I like to think that if she had stuck around, we would have talked about how stupid and selfish we were, how lost. I think we could have gotten through all of it and laughed at the total inanity. But who knows.

Uber has his own troubles. His mother had to put his father into a managed-care facility shortly after the trauma of charity night. And Uber has also hired attorneys, who sometimes work in conjunction with mine, to see that we don’t end up back in the arena together. His contracts, including the ones for endorsements, are absolutely contradictory and will keep his team busy for some time to come.

When Thad went upstairs to get his beach ball this morning, Uber dropped the lid on the picnic basket and said, —Maybe we should go out to dinner sometime, just the two of us.

I continued to wash the dishes as if I hadn’t heard him over the running water, because I still feel pulled in two by the whole thing. Finally, I dried my hands and then I showed him the stack of college catalogs I’ve been poring over, including the low residency programs and those abroad. He seemed to accept this pretty easily, I mean, all he said was, —Okay, I understand.