James Axler – The Mars Arena

“We were promised,” J.B. said. “Mebbe they got promised, too, and believed it.”

“Stupid if they did,” Mildred said. “But they’re young. Maybe they just don’t know any better.”

Ryan put away the night glasses and took up the Steyr. “Two reasons that group went into the Mirage. One, they’re hunting the high ground like us, mebbe going to take a chance at that wall if they can. Two, they’ve got something waiting for them that their baron set up.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” J.B. said.

“Yeah.” Ryan stood and pointed at a window on the second floor. “We go in from the side. Second floor. We’ve already seen some of these buildings are booby-trapped. That one’s an obvious choice.”

J.B. silently agreed. “What about those boys?” Ryan kept his face hard. “If they get in our face and raise their weapons, blow them away. No other way about it. Them or us. Me, I’d prefer it be us.” He stepped into the nearby shadows and moved toward the building.

DEAN FELT AS IF he’d stepped into another world. His clothing was still damp from the short run through the cascading falls spraying down from the fifth floor of the Mirage. He ran a hand through his hair and brushed it back in wet curls.

Conor still walked point, a rifle cradled in his arms. The boy craned his head, taking in the sights.

Dean knew it wasn’t safe to be gawking, but he didn’t blame the other boy for it, either. After walking through the entranceway, they were confronted by another jungle that had evidently overgrown its boundaries in the decades since the skydark.

Paths twisted in different directions between the trees and foliage. Some of them were just ruts made by small animals able to get under the lower branches of the trees. Others, though, were man-made, tall and cleared out, the ground pounded bare of grass in patches.

A few of the trails had been tramped down recently. Dean spotted the machete marks on the tree trunks and saw the amputated branches that still showed meat in places. The trees themselves weren’t indigenous to the area. Dean recognized them as banana trees and palms. But they were mixed in now with spruce and oak.

The ceiling was eighty or ninety feet overhead, and it was hard to see through the darkness. Occasional brief movements let him know the branches held winged night predators.

“Tighten it up,” Louis called out. “Conor, cut your lead to about ten yards and hold up at corners. That way we can back you up if you need it.”

“Right.”

Dean kept his blaster before him in a two-handed grip. If someone or something jumped out from behind the trees, getting the pistol away from him would be harder with both hands on it.

A few yards farther on, they came in sight of the front desk. Dean had stayed in motels before, from honest-run little places operated by a family, to bigger establishments that held roomers in the second or third floor over the stage areas where gaudy sluts pandered their wares. He’d never seen a front desk as big as the one he gazed at.

Lazy tendrils from dozens of plants crawled across the pitted surface of the desk. Behind it, track lighting with subdued illumination played over the huge glass front of an aquarium. Dean was certain it measured over fifty feet.

Dean shivered as he stared into the cold, menacing eye of a small fish that coasted against the glass wall. Whether it was physically possible or not, he had the feeling the eye was staring right back at him, could see him in the dark and gazed with a chill and hungry limited intelligence.

“Bloodthirsty little bastards,” Green said. “Did you see the teeth on that one?”

Curiosity partially satiated, the group moved on under Louis’s command. The hallway closed them in more tightly, and none of them saw the trip wire.

Conor’s foot caught it. “Hey,” he started to protest, almost stumbling over the wire.

His next words were swallowed by a deafening blast Dean struggled to maintain his balance, watching Conor fly through the air, the closest of them to the explosion that ripped the front desk to shreds and smashed the front of the aquarium.