Chapter 393: Why didn’t you move?

Mason lay between Rebecca and Lexi, both girls cuddled into him and fast asleep. They’d showered off basically in silence, just smiling and pressed together in the warm water before staggering back to the bed and closing their eyes.

But Mason couldn’t seem to drift off. He eventually gave up and crawled out of the bed, covering the girls as he paced around the suite. The pretty prison crafted by their synthetic overlord.

Though it was actually mostly something Becky had said that was rattling around his brain. Way back in Nassau when she’d been angry about his doing the 2v2 alone. She’d said it was some kind of ‘macho shit’, implying it was about ego.

That wasn’t right. He’d known that. But was there a piece of him that just wanted the challenge?

Yes. That was the truth. Though it didn’t make his original thinking wrong. He wished he had an open field or a road so he could run, then realized the system probably had something.

He walked to the elevator and was about to search when ‘Private track’ popped up as a button. He sighed and pushed it, and walked out into what looked like a god damn olympic style, maybe four hundred meter loop of soft, springy floor.

He honestly would have preferred dirt, but he started running. It felt strange on his bare feet. Too consistent. No little rocks or plants or grass jabbing his now hardened soles.

The track was definitely a good metaphor for the Neutral Zone. A thin veneer of pampered gloss coating a world of blood.

Mason was already tired of waiting. Of pretending. Of playing these stupid games inside a game. He looked at the digital clock on the wall, which gave him a meaningless number. Night or day was all the same here. Like a perpetual, frozen slice of reality.

Come on, he thought. Stop this nonsense. Hurry up and get on with it.

Their alien overlord and this 'emperor' probably weren't so different, he decided. They both covered what they wanted with fiction. Mason just wanted it to be over.

“What are we waiting for?” he shouted. “A fancy breakfast? A puppet show?”

We're the fucking puppets, he thought, so get on with the show. He had to endure a whole week of this? He'd break his girls in half that unless they gave him something more to do. Something to occupy his body or at least his mind.

A voice boomed throughout the closed track.

[Attention players. Individual fights will begin in: 5 minutes. Please prepare yourselves for another friendly match!]

Mason stopped running and snorted. Had it just been a coincidence? Had the damn thing heard him and obliged?

Friendly match. Sure. It couldn’t even make a fight real. Go fuck yourself, Mason thought. We kill each other in there. We're not making best buddies.

He went back to running, sprinting faster and faster around the loop until the five minutes dripped like the sweat down Mason's face.

Come on. He tried not to watch the clock tick down. Come on come on.

Then he heard a ding and stopped as Becky came out with a t-shirt and shorts, a smile and a stretch.

“Haley said you were here. You don’t mind?”

Mason just shook his head and smiled, and Becky started her own laps. They were both in their own heads now. Getting ready. He couldn’t fight for her. Couldn’t help her. He would have hated this thing just for that.

The seconds ticked, ticked, ticked.

Then the last one was finally gone, and the fake hotel world vanished. Mason was back in a prison inside a prison inside a prison.

He kicked the holding cell wall until it cracked.

“You hear me, you son of a bitch?” he shouted. “You think this is comforting? All this horse shit. All this pleasure? Turn up the pressure because I'm fucking bored of you. Stop pretending to be something you aren’t.”

Nothing happened. And the timer ticked down until Mason rose from the ground into a new arena. He hardly care where he was. He just turned on Aspect of the Cheetah and ran, senses tuned, deciding not to Call Streak for the solos.

He sniffed and realized it was a natural environment, the scent of moisture and plants and even animals on the air. RoboGod had even added real birds, their calls of warning spreading through thinly spread trees. The grass below Mason’s feet was dry and crunchy. The ‘sky’ blue and wide. Then he smelled an entirely different, and far less pleasant scent on the breeze: magic.

A bolt of mixed affinity energy streaked from a nearby tree. Mason saw it was going to miss him, probably channeled but poorly timed as Mason moved so quickly. But with a very strange impulse, he turned—and ran straight into it.

The projectile struck and sort of...splattered, strange colors wrapping around him like rope. He watched First Blood flare. He felt Apex Predator sniffing at the spell without much concern. He growled and stretched out his arms until the 'ropes' strained and snapped.

"Come on," he shouted at the trees. "You don't need that. I won't move. Hit me with your best."

He smelled the magic channeling again and stood perfectly still, his arms held to the sides. Little hairs rose on his body as the spell neared its finish, this time the ground all around him bursting apart as a kind of sphere swallowed him.

Apex Predator flashed briefly with Elemental affinity, then seemed bored. Mason grit his teeth as a mixture of heat and pressure tried to steal his breath, to force him to the ground.

He kept his feet, letting the growing sphere cook his skin and try to flatten him. He closed his eyes and breathed the heat, reaching out to touch the edges of the sphere. He didn't know how long it went on, knowing only that it hurt.

But Mason welcomed the pain like cleansing water. He felt like it was purging his anger, his hatred, focusing his mind. The sphere finally burst, and Mason stood there with his eyes closed, breathing the cool air with healing lungs.

By the time he opened his eyes, he found a man in a red robe staring about thirty feet away.

"How are you still…I’m…almost out of mana. But you just...why…why didn't you move?"

Mason was trembling from the pain. But as the worst of it healed and the beautiful agony faded away, he took a deep breath and summoned a Claw.

"You should say your surrender words now."

The man shook his head, probably about to explain that he couldn't for the same ridiculous reason the first man had. Mason lunged forward and cut him off, putting the blade through his opponent's chest.

The trumpet flared. Some fake applause clapped in his ears. Mason waited until the arena vanished.

When he opened his eyes back in the 'Neutral Zone' hotel, he turned and smashed the closest chair to pieces. He roared and smashed a hand through the wall, ripping at the 'food teleporter' in the kitchen without success. He bashed his fists into the wall when it wouldn't come off, hitting it again and again until the fake, horseshit plastic started to crack.

He laughed, not caring about the pain, hitting the weakened spot again and again until the thing shattered. He finally got his hand through and reached behind the teleporter device, ripping it out from the wall with a combination of electrical and arcane burning that blackened some of his skin.

He turned to throw it, and found Rosa, Lexi, Becky and Haley all staring from the hall.

They looked frightened. Ready to run except maybe Becky. She stepped forward, but not to help him—it was the same stance she had when she was rushed into battle.

"You're alright now," she said. "It's over."

Mason laughed in her face. What exactly was over? The genocide of most of the human species? The imprisonment of the survivors? He was sorry he was scaring them but for the moment couldn’t stop himself.

"Look at this place." He gestured at the walls. "It's a lie inside a lie. We're trapped like rats. And you know what? Sometimes I look forward to doing what it wants. Or maybe getting killed so it all stops. But it fucking can't do it. Or won't. I don't know if killing or dying is what it wants from me anymore. Probably both. Either way, it wins. It always fucking wins."

Becky just nodded. Haley tried to send the other girls back to their rooms, but both stayed. Mason dropped to the floor and put his head in his hands.

"I don't want to hurt these people," he said. "That man had no chance. None. And when I killed him..." he looked at his hands and shook his head. "I liked it. I always like it."

Becky knelt down and hugged him, and so did the rest of his girls. He closed his eyes and just held on, knowing this was weak and selfish and that he had no time or room for it.

It was good only his girls had seen. He couldn't afford for his players see something like this. He couldn't be seen to doubt, to lose control. To be anything less than confident they were all doing the right thing, that they’d survive.

"I'm sorry," he said, giving Becky a smile. "I know it's not just me. I know we're all in this. I just feel...responsible. How was your match?"

"It put me up against Tommaso." She grinned. "I beat his ass ‘till he gave up. Two points."

Mason didn't fight the laugh. He pulled Haley in and kissed her forehead.

"Sorry if…I scared you. I'm fine. Really. I'm just...this thing is making me into a bully. Like what it wants is some awful version of me. But it's not life or death. At least not yet."

Haley nodded, putting a hand to his cheek.

"I knew who you were the moment you saved me, Mason. You're not like Jeong. Or Sebastian. Or even Blake. We know exactly what you are. That's why we all trust you."

"Yeah?" he said, fighting off the emotion. "And what am I?"

Haley grinned, and even the other girls smiled.

"You're a sheep dog, city boy," Becky said like it was obvious. "You ain’t a wolf. It's just this thing keeps makin' you act like one."

Mason snorted, wondering what 'Cerebus' would think of that. The Nexus event had called him a protector of life, of mankind. Is that what he was? What he was supposed to be?

Most predators exploited the weak. They weren't evil, they were simply doing what they had to in order to survive. But Mason was built for something else. To protect the weaker things inside the herd, just like Becky said. She was right.

He hated this 'emperor', then, even more than before. This tyrant who was forcing Mason to kill these people when they should just be able to submit.

[Attention players, announced the system. Your next team fight will be taking place in 5 minutes. Please prepare yourselves.]

There you are, Mason thought. There was reality. Endless combat without all the bullshit.

"Get with your team," he said, standing and helping his girls up with him.

"You're alright?" Becky said, watching his eyes. He did his best to smile.

"I'm fine, country girl. Now go tell Carl to get his ass in gear. And tell him all about beating Tommaso down."

"Oh I will." Becky grinned, waving as she ran for the elevator. Mason squeezed Haley's hand and gave the civilian girls another hug before waving them off. He glanced back at the teleporter, then realized it had already completely repaired itself.

He stared for a long moment, trying not to feel the helplessness of fighting this thing.

Patience, he told himself, trying to hear Blake's chastising voice. This thing had made him immortal, right? Well, one day, he promised, one day it would regret that decision.

He forced himself to wait in silence for the last few minutes, then vanished again into the darkness of teleportation.