Here's another fix of sci fi for reading addicts

THE YOUNG GLADIATOR

Jack Bragen

copyright 2010

Probably, I would never have made it as a teenager and then a young adult. The invasion, the ensuing chaos and the reorganization of power took care of that for me. It would never be necessary for me to “fit in” among my peers, to have social skill, to ask a girl out on a date. These were things that seemed to come naturally for the other students, but terrified me. I was afraid of talking to girls, although god knows I wanted to have one. I was a small kid, and so the bullies would pick on me. I was the stereotype of the high school geek. And I probably would have ended up taking my own life, that’s how bad it was.
I mused about this as I put on my boots, my gear, and my helmet. I took a sip of nutri-water and bit on a chew of anti-tobacco. I greased my ears for the earpieces. I put two electrodes on the front of my scalp. Almost ready. Involuntarily, I kept thinking...
Then came them: they had put a fantastic weapon in my hands and showed me how to fight. They had said to me that only one in a hundred thousand young men had the talent to fight like I did. I was made an example, and was so good, they took me off the front line and put me in the arena as a showman.
And now I was preparing to step into this arena once again. But something was different.
I tested my weapon, pointing it idly at a trashcan that should get harmlessly knocked on its side, and then, pulling the trigger. The trash can burst into smithereens, and its pile of remains flamed. The fire suppressor put the inferno out in a few seconds.
So now I was to fight with an enabled weapon. These guys always had a few tricks up their sleeves. It was partly their unpredictability that had enabled them to take us on, beating us at our own game: war.
Before a chance meeting a few light years away, the Alpherians and perhaps much of the rest of the galaxy didn’t know the concept of it. They had got along peacefully and couldn’t conceive of doing things otherwise. War was invented on Earth, and we exported the concept outward to the surrounding star systems. They caught on quickly, so that they were soon better at it than we. Then, they invaded planet Earth, and made slaves of the humans. Slavery was yet another human invention of which the Alpherians had no concept, yet they adopted and excelled at it quickly.
And I too was a slave, albeit a privileged one.
I prepared myself for anything that might happen on the other side of that door. I silently said a prayer, and I gave a signal in front of the video camera indicating that I was ready. The heavy door lifted, and I stepped through.

##

The stadium packed with extraterrestrial spectators had cheered at the spills of blood, and had lispingly, in their shrill voices, chanted my name. I had killed five and maimed one. My head buzzed from the knock of one of their deactivated weapons that had found its mark. Had it been a fair fight, I would now be dead. As it turned out, I had been the only one with an enabled weapon. I wondered if this meant that I was a celebrity, and would from now on have the contests rigged on my behalf like this one was.
A group of humans in shackles and neck-mounted controllers had been in a spectator box close to the arena. I had thought for a moment that one of the humans had resembled…but I couldn’t allow the thought.
Was mom still alive? The question had stuck with me, and I had lost a great deal of sleep over it. I knew the aliens had toasted dad and my two brothers. I had seen that happen and they weren’t coming back. Mom had been hiding in the upstairs bedroom closet, and I had been taken away from that house without knowing if she had been found.
It had, at times, given me nightmares. I dreamt of mom somewhere in the midst of the grouping of middle aged, standing in line to get her experiences taken away.
The middle-aged humans with their vast pool of experience were thought by the Alpherians to be an asset that they ought to mine. After all, what good did that quality do them if it remained between the ears of their conquered enemies? And if they were simply put to death, it would be a shame, like shooting all the buffalo for kicks. No, human experience must be harvested, not wasted.
I began to strip myself of battle gear after the end of tonight’s show. First off were that sweaty helmet, and the irritating electrodes and earpieces that were there to monitor my brain. Then came the knee and elbow protectors, then my uniform. I walked in solitude to the shower and twisted on the hot water. I anticipated the enjoyment of sitting in my apartment, alone, and watching television with a beer. Such simple pleasures had been divested from humanity upon the takeover, but I was allowed it because of the fact that I was privileged, and had fought against my species.
This locker room that had once hosted famous baseball and football teams seemed sometimes to chime with the outraged spirits of past players. Sometimes this locker room gave me the creeps.
I put on street clothes and started down the underground tunnel that had been built for the exit and entrance of football and baseball players who were too famous to be bothered by the public. It was a lengthy and well-lit hallway. I went through an inconspicuous, heavy steel door and was on the street, albeit the Alpherians monitored my location. To the naked eye it might have seemed that I was free to go where I wanted, but this wasn’t so. I was to go to the hotel that was three blocks away, and I was to go there by a specific route, at a specific pace, even displaying a particular manner of walk. There was no freedom.
As I walked, in the corner of my eye I saw other controlled people. To an onlooker who didn’t know what had happened, it might appear that I was living in an absolutely harmonious society, or maybe one in which everyone had received lobotomies. A couple of times, I passed by Alpherian guards, who watched and supervised the humans who crossed their zones. I was conspicuous because there was no controller clamped around my neck. I knew well the price of disobedience as I had seen what happened to those who tried to resist. Besides, my every move was scrutinized, and so an automatic restraint like the neck monitor in my case wasn’t needed. Should I divert from obedience at some future point, death would be quick and merciful. That was the warning I had received, hundreds of times, and it rang through my mind incessantly—a lisping, shrill, menacing, Alpherian voice.
I, as with other humans, could not allow the level of anger and outrage to surface. Such an emotion would result in instantly trying some foolish act of defiance, and then being disintegrated quickly by the Alpherian monitors before being able to make any difference. On the surface, it was completely congenial between species. An observer, at first, might not be able to discern, since everyone appeared to be getting along, that the Alpherians had conquered the humans, and enslaved us.
After reaching my apartment at the hotel, getting a beer from the refrigerator and turning on the television to see myself doing gladiator work, it wasn’t long before I was tired enough to go to bed. I remember thinking, before I fell asleep, that I really ought to watch something other than just coverage of myself…

##
I awoke with a jolt of adrenaline to the sound of muffled speech. I realized an intruder was in the apartment, and I got out of bed as quickly and quietly as I could. I peered through the partway-opened bedroom door, and saw a woman, hunched over in a chair speaking on a cell phone. On the desk, next to her, there was a hypodermic needle filled with clear liquid.
I swung open the door and sprang toward the woman. Quick as I was, she was faster, and picked up the hypo, jabbed her own wrist with it, then pushed the plunger. As I stood there watching, the woman intruder collapsed to the floor.
“Why don’t you try the other side?” she murmured, barely able to speak. Her eyelids fluttered, and she went pale and lifeless. The cell phone carried excited speech from where it had been dropped on the floor. I picked it up.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello showman. We have a script for you.”
“What?” I said.
The phone line clicked, and the screen said, “Call terminated.” Then smoke emanated from the cell phone and some of the smoke got in my nose. I became drowsy, and stood up, trying to fight it off. By this time my vision was blurred. I tried to walk toward the bathroom, thinking I would take a stimulant; I stumbled and fell to the floor. I remember losing consciousness and thinking of mom.
I was barely conscious and was aware that people were carrying me. I was put on some kind of golf cart that drove down a tunnel with fluorescent lights. The tunnel had to be of human manufacture because the Alpherians never used that type of lighting—it was hard on their eyes.
I ended up in a brightly lit room that had desks, chairs and a chalkboard; I was in a classroom. However, I noticed that this classroom had no windows. I guessed that I was underground. I realized I was regaining consciousness, at this point, and I noticed that my arms and legs were tied to the chair I sat in. A gray haired man with spectacles and a necktie sat on the other side of the classroom and quietly observed me.
He said “Up and running yet?”
“What’s it to ya,” I replied, still groggy.
“How does it feel to have betrayed your species?” the man asked.
“It feels just fine,” I said. “They betrayed me.”
“Did your mom betray you, idiot?” said the man. He had a particular way of saying the word, “idiot,” that sounded like my dad once did.
I was angry enough that I let out a series of expletives and began to thrash in my chair. I managed to get the wood chair to which I was tied broken to pieces, and this meant that there was nothing restraining me any longer. The bespectacled smart aleck man had time to hit a panic button on the wall before I reached him. I was in the process of strangling him, hopefully to death, when six or seven burly men entered the room, grabbed me and restrained me. I let out some more expletives while the men tied me to a chair made of steel, and they also chained it to the leg of a heavy steel table. To my surprise, they did all of this to me without hitting or kicking me, or even causing me undue pain. I had not reciprocated this gentleness.
“You may not ever like me,” said the man, putting his glasses back on and massaging his adam’s apple, “But I’m the one who will deprogram you from alien brainwashing. Someday, if you’re still alive ten years from now, you may thank me in your thoughts.”
“Deprogram me; that is a laugh,” I said. “I’ve joined up with the Alpherians of my free will. I don’t care for people.” I had spat the word, “people,” as though it were a profanity.
“Then you will be brainwashed by us to like people,” said the man. “And you’ll still probably thank me some day.”
“Why would I?”
“Because humans won’t stay on the bottom. We’re going to win this war. And when we do, those who have betrayed us will be punished.”
“You sound like they did,” I said. “Can you tell me what is it that makes humans morally worthy of victory?”
“How did morality enter this conversation?” said the bespectacled man. For an instant I identified with this man, and then when I realized it, I stifled the emotion.
The man spoke into his radio piece. “Get the lady with the needle now please. He’s ripe.”
I was injected with something that made my mind soft and receptive. Over the next few weeks, or at least that’s how long it seemed, they daily injected me with it; afterward, the bespectacled man would speak into my face. This time was partly a blur, as it was my subconscious that was predominant, and I had difficulty forming a coherent memory.
In time, the brainwashing on me was complete, and it was so thorough that I knew I was brainwashed and it didn’t matter to me. They released me, and I went back to my apartment. The video cameras put up by the Alpherians soon discovered that I was at home, and a group of their guards showed up at my door.
“I escaped from the dirty humans,” I said. “They tried to convince me that their way is right, and they were unsuccessful.”
“We were certain you couldn’t be convinced. We expected they would kill you. It is good that you are still alive,” said the head guard. “Can you gladiate tomorrow?”
“Of course I can,” I replied. “Will the Illustrious Leader be in the audience?”
“He/she is your biggest fan and wouldn’t miss your performance,” the Alpherian replied.

##

Sometimes the fighting in the arena took place with various gimmicks. One of these was to provide my opponents and me with propulsion backpacks that allowed for flying around the arena. It often made the fights more exciting when I was in the ring, darting through the air and shooting down my opponents. Tonight was one of these nights.
By chance, their king on this night was in a prominent location to view the action, a location that I could hypothetically reach by flying up into the stands with my propulsion pack. I think the Alpherians assumed that I was too afraid of punishment to try such a bold act.
Immediately after I shot down my three opponents, I did just that; I flew into airspace above the King’s seating and blew him/her to a million smoking pieces with the weapon that was provided for the gladiator show. Then, with a quarter tank of fuel left in my propulsion unit, with the Alpherians in a state of confusion, I flew clear over the seating and all the way out of the stadium, and landed three blocks away where a group of the human underground waited for me.
I had done the precise action that the brainwashing had prepared me to do. The bespectacled brainwash person was among my reception group. He said: “Thank you for a job well done. You are no longer needed, and we will put you out of your misery now.” And he raised a weapon and pointed it at me.
It so happened that my weapon remained in my hand, and I was quick enough to blow away this man before he could fire on me. I was aware that my weapon was now out of shot, and I used the remaining fuel in my propulsion pack to get a block away from the remainder of humans in my receiving group.
I shed the backpack and started to run. I should have known it was futile to do so with the Alpherians patrolling the streets, but I ran, anyway. When an Alpherian guard spotted me, after I had sprinted about ten blocks and was out of wind, the worst he did was to give me a thumbs up. (This involved two Alpherian digits, since the species had two thumbs per hand.) Perhaps these were a people who lived in fear of their leader, and who were now grateful to have him gone.
Not knowing what else to do, I walked back to my apartment, sat down on my sofa with a can of beer, and turned on the television. I saw on the other screen that showed who was at my front door, there were suddenly Alpherians at my door who stood guarding the entrance.
According to television news, the superstar human gladiator had shot the King to death, and a restructuring of power was now in progress. Video was shown of me shooting the king and then flying away over the side of the stadium. The news said that I was being guarded in a secret location; the newsman surmised that I might be given freedom in exchange for liberating the Alpherians from an oppressive and brutal leadership.