The Games

Chapter TWENTY-TWO



The Olympic arena was a steep bowl of stone and iron eighteen stories tall, within which more than one hundred and thirty thousand people could be crammed, safely or otherwise. The fighting pit lay inverted at the very bottom, a deep oval depression one hundred yards long by twenty-five yards wide. Although the floor of the pit lay a full dozen yards beneath the upper lip of the oval, the arena organizers had taken the precaution of spreading an enormous net of carbon fiber across the opening at the top—a barrier between spectator and spectacle that didn’t sacrifice visibility.

The bowl-within-a-bowl construction allowed for maximum visual access while also providing the security of heavily reinforced walls. The sides of the pit were perfectly smooth except for the narrow creases that outlined the edges of the many doors. There were dozens of them equally spaced along the walls, and on each was painted a different national flag. The floor of the pit was sawdust two feet thick.

It was easy to pick out the weakness of the setup.

“And the tensile strength?” Silas asked.

The engineering supervisor smiled indulgently. He stood at the very lip of the pit, one foot resting on the carbon-fiber cable, one finger casually advancing the clip screen he held cradled in the nook of his right forearm.

“I don’t seem to have the figure here with me, but I can assure you, nothing is going to get past this web.”

“Your assurances aside, I still need to know the specs on this wire.”

The engineering supervisor sighed and looked out over the webbing. There was no doubt which TV network version of Silas this man believed in. He obviously considered Silas to be a pain in the ass, and worse, a whining diva who was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He gave the cable a solid kick, and it twanged harmoniously for a long second. “I suppose I can dig up the numbers from somewhere. But these things were meant to tow barges. Even if a gladiator did manage to get this high up the pit walls, there’s no way it could snap one of these lines. I don’t care what kind of muscles you gave the damned thing.”

Silas looked through the mesh and down onto the killing floor. “Get me the numbers as quick as you can. Big muscles. Huge. You wouldn’t believe it.”


IT WAS late afternoon, and Silas was in the catacombs beneath the arena. Even through all the distance of cement above him, he could hear that the crowd had begun to gather. He could feel their voices in the soles of his feet. The walls themselves reverberated with their restless energy.

The gladiator was pacing now. It moved in slow figure eights, like a panther confined too long in a cage too small. Like a predator eager to be set free.

Did it know what was coming? Did it yearn for it?

Down the long hall, lights drooped on chains from the ceiling, creating pools of brightness that swayed slightly between segments of subtle shadow. Silas could hear the grunts of the others. He could smell their animal musk. Now and then, handlers, and trainers, and scientists from other teams would pass by on their way from somewhere to somewhere, and they would glance at the black thing that paced in the cage with the American flag on the door. Sometimes they would stop and stare for a moment, these men and women, as if trying to believe what they were looking at. Other times, they would quicken their pace.

Silas felt no curiosity about their creations. He had no desire to take the lap around the catacombs and see what his fellow geneticists had made for their countries.

As time passed, the thrum of the crowd slowly built. More than a subtle vibration in concrete, it was audible now, or at the edge of it. The gladiator kept pacing.

Silas stood well back from the bars, arms folded across his chest. The creature would very likely be dead before the night was over, and he felt, standing there, as if he were witness to something. Some great thing that had gone wrong even now, and he was powerless to see it clearly. So he watched, hoping to recognize what he may have missed.

Silas recalled Baskov’s amusement at his use of the word “being” in reference to the gladiator. Silas wasn’t sure how to think of the creature anymore, but he had no delusions. “Being” or not, he knew exactly what it would do if it got loose. People would die. Maybe a lot of people. Maybe a huge number of people.

Five minutes later, when Vidonia touched the back of his neck, he didn’t jump. He’d seen her coming in the gladiator’s reaction. He’d seen her in its crouch, its predatory stare into the space behind him.

“Did you get it?” he asked.

“Yes.” She handed him the papers, and he flipped through them one by one. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said. “The tensile strength of those cables would probably stop a freight train going fifty miles per hour. Nothing in the competition even comes close to the kind of mass that would be required to snap one of those lines.”

He handed back the papers, wondering why he didn’t feel relieved.

“But there’s something else you should know,” she said.

“What?”

“The protesters have begun to organize outside. They’re planning a march of some kind.”

“Is it bad?”

“Not real bad. Not yet. But I thought you should be made aware.”

“And the police?”

“They’re a presence. A very solid presence. I don’t think you have to worry yet, but I figured you’d want to hear about it. It’s not going to play well on the news.”

“I could give a shit about the news,” he snapped. “What kind of numbers are we talking about?”

“Maybe three hundred, college age, mostly, but there’s a behind-the-scenes constituency running the group.”

“There always is.”

“They’re doing all the usual noise and bluster, but they’re at least preaching nonviolence.”

“So far,” Silas said.

They watched as the gladiator began to pace again.

“What time is it?” Silas asked.

She looked at her watch. “Two hours,” she said, answering the question he was really asking.

“Time enough for a few more precautions.”


“ON WHOSE authority?” The man’s voice on the line was shrill, alarmed. There was no video link to go with the voice, but Silas could imagine the man perfectly—short, spare, nearing the end of a career that had gone alarmingly off the tracks somewhere.

“Mine,” Silas said.

“It’ll frighten people,” the voice said.

“I don’t give a damn who it’ll frighten,” Silas said. “The U.S. contestant won’t compete without it, and don’t give me any shit about time constraints. The ice blowers are already being used in the catacombs. Some of the teams are using them as ‘motivational devices’ right now.”

“I know that. The ice blowers I have no problem with. We already have plans to use them. It’s the live rounds that have me worried.”

“Do it.”

“Just during the U.S. events?”

“Yeah, just us. That’s fine.”

“It would make a lot of people nervous.”

“It’ll add drama. Think of the ratings.”

“I think I’ll have to get verification for this from the commission first.”

“Listen to me. I’m head of the U.S. program until someone tells me otherwise, and as head, I’m telling you that I need these security measures.”

“I understand that, but—”

“I’ll take care of the commission, and I’ll take full responsibility. If you don’t start on this immediately and something does go wrong, I’ll see you receive full responsibility for the consequences.”

There was silence on the line. Another vote for the pain-in-the-ass, drink-throwing network TV version, Silas thought.

“Okay,” the man said, finally. “You want it, you got it.”

Dial tone.

“Do you think he’ll really do it?” Vidonia asked.

“I don’t know,” Silas said. “But it was worth a try.”