Like the five men locked in the power struggle for the land and villes surrounding Las Vegas.

Dean and nine of his cla.s.smates from the Brody School in Colorado had been kidnapped by one of these men, Baron Vinge Connrad, to serve as young warriors in his fight against his compet.i.tion.

At the same time, Ryan and his friends had been on their way to retrieve Dean after many long months of travel. He had desperately missed his son and decided it was time for the boy's studies to come to an end. Before they reached their goal, they themselves inadvertently came upon the s.a.d.i.s.tic and primitive way of settling who would be the leader of the Vegas villes for another year, having been forced by circ.u.mstances to be warriors for a different baron.

"If this is like the Big Game, I could probably handle any two-bit gladiator they throw my way with one arm tied behind my back and my other thumb up my a.s.s," J.B. announced.

"Right. You can't even see well enough to squat down and take a proper s.h.i.t, J.B.," Mildred retorted. "No way are you going in for any gladiator games."

"I don't recall asking for your permission, Millie," J.B. replied.

"She's right. I'm not having you cut down by a lucky punch from some harda.s.s," Ryan said firmly. "But without your gla.s.ses, you're a definite liability to be carrying around. Got to change that triple fast."

"Thanks a whole heaping lot for the vote of confidence," J.B. said, with an annoyed sneer.

"He has fire, yes, even blind, you say? Would do well, would do well," the dwarf interjected. "First battle scheduled today for noon. Need to sign on as contender now, yes."

"Quiet, squirt," Ryan said, cutting off the little man. "Doc said it best"

"I always do," Doc quipped.

"We could be in a lot worse shape. Matter of time J.B. broke his gla.s.ses anyway. At least there's a place here to fix them. So, I say we're not leaving Freedom without two pairsone to wear and one to keep as a backup in case this ever happens again. And the most immediate solution to the problem seems to be this fight in the pit the shrimp's babbling about."

"I don't care, Ryan. John is not going to get himself killed over a pair of eyegla.s.ses in some stupid hand-to-hand battle," Mildred protested. "We've got to find another way."

"I know, Mildred, I know," Ryan said impatiently. "But who said anything about J.B. being the one doing the fighting?"

BEFORE STEPPING into the pit, Ryan eyeballed the arena from above.

The walls plunging downward were sheer, with grooves cut into two sides. He guessed it was a forty-foot drop to the floor below. The actual fighting arena was open and wide, with curved walls to prevent any attempts to crawl up and out of the battle.

In the few hours since he had agreed to the challenge, word had spread throughout Freedom like prairie fire in the dry season. He'd been told all of the seats to the pit match were sold out, "seats" being a term for spots to stand around the protective railing and watch. Already a sizable sum of jack had been generated through pay-per-view sales via the mall's antiquated closed-circuit television system.

Money had even been made from Ryan himself, since he'd been forced to pay a substantial entry fee as a pit challenger. His new manager, Lucas, had kicked in additional funds to complete what Ryan needed to satisfy the demanded sum.

"Case you run. Case you chicken out, call off match before it begins," Lucas explained. "Refunds expensive. I'm counting on you. Do good."

"Don't have to worry about my turning tail," Ryan replied, gesturing at the open hole in the center of the mall, "What the h.e.l.l was this thing, anyway? I doubt any predark malls had gladiator bouts between shopping stints."

"Used to be stage," Lucas said. "Live shows. Raised and lowered from the bas.e.m.e.nt for special effects, scene changes. Worked for a long time till motors gave out. Now floor don't go up no more. So, gutted most of the innards and ripped out the old floor. Sloped the walls. Made a dandy pit for the brawl. One-on-one or big fight. Doesn't matter. Sometimes stuntmen come in on cycles. Motor bikes. Ride them around and around, high up the walls. Like magic show! Fall sometimes. Best part."

"Centrifugal force," Ryan said. "Holds them up."

"Whatever you say," Lucas replied, not understanding the terminology, but wanting to keep his new warrior happy.

"Am I going to have to chill this guy?" Ryan asked bluntly.

Lucas sn.i.g.g.e.red. "You'll be the one who decides, friend Ryan. My guess is yes. To stop him, you have to put end to his feeble life. I shall meet you down there in but a moment. Must go pay more fees, see to betting, wagers. Money to be made."

Ryan turned and entered the access door that led to the backstage area of the arena, heading for the room a.s.signed earlier to use as his place to prepare for the fight. Dean was standing in front of the door, waiting for him.

Ryan nodded to his son as he pulled on his tight black gloves. He clenched his fingers, enjoying the sensation of warmth and protection inside the comforting second skin of leather. He shrugged out of his long coat, his previously dislocated shoulder reminding him of the injury he'd suffered back in the Barrens. Ryan mentally debated keeping his long white scarf with the weighted ends, but decided to leave it behind, choosing instead to keep himself as unenc.u.mbered as possible.

Once the SIG-Sauer was unholstered and the exterior layers of clothing removed, Ryan was dressed in a black T-shirt, heavy jeans, combat boots. Simple, tight apparelthe better to keep a foe from finding a handhold with. He kept his hidden flensing blade under the back of his shirt and the deadly eighteen-inch honed panga on his hip.

"How do I look?" he asked Dean, who'd been watching. The room they were inside was once a dressing room when the stage was used for less deadly performances of music and song. The door of the room had been taken off the hinges, allowing a partial view of the site of the fight to come.

"Like a hot pipe, Dad. Aces on the line all the way down. This won't take long," Dean said. The boy seemed quite sure of this, much to Ryan's hidden amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Wish I shared your confidence, son. It's not always skill. Many a time luck plays a big role." Ryan did a deep knee bend and frowned at the loud pop that cracked out of his joints. "Knees aren't what they used to be," he noted ruefully. He stretched out his arms, extending them and moving them from side to side. His dislocated right shoulder twinged again.

"Nothing is what it used to be," he muttered.

Luras walked into the room through the open doorway, followed by the tense figures of Krysty and Mildred.

"Your women, they say they stay in here, near pit itself. Boy already here. Too many. Against rules," the little man said firmly.

"Don't worry. My boy's going back up to the top to watch. The women are healers," Ryan explained. "I need them close. Might need their help triple fast after this fight."

Lucas pondered Ryan's words. "Doors will be sealed to the pit floor. They cannot help you until match is over."

"Understood."

"Boy will take females' blasters with him to top. They stay, okay, but unarmed."

Krysty and Mildred both took out their pistols and handed them to Dean, who was already weighted down by Ryan's heavy SIG-Sauer. The boy didn't complain. He accepted the hardware and departed the way Mildred and Krysty had come into the dressing area.

"Hurry back, lover," Krysty said, giving him a quick peck on the lips. "There's more where that came from."

"You can count on it."

Ryan took another deep breath and looked at a large clock hanging on the wall. High noon. Time to go. He stepped past them to the reinforced door leading out to the pit floor itself. He lifted the handle, and the door swung out into the arena. A loud cry of excitement was ignited with his appearance as Ryan ducked slightly and strode through the opening.

Instinctively he looked up. The bright stage lights used for illumination prevented him from seeing into the upper reaches of the stands. As he moved farther toward the center of the pit, the voices above got even louder.

Across from Ryan, a twin to his own exit door was recessed into the wall.

The door opened, swinging out. Ryan continued to stare, waiting for the first look at his foe. A canopy overhang cast a dramatic curtain of black over the entryway, allowing for a resplendent entrance.

Like everyone else around the pit, Ryan was waiting. He wasn't expecting death himself to come gliding out of the shadows.

Chapter Twelve.

One-on-one.

Hand-to-hand.

Man againstman?

"Aw, s.h.i.t," Ryan cursed as he saw his foe for the first time.

One essential fact had gone unmentioned by Lucas when the one-eyed man had insisted on accepting the challenge of the pit to a.s.sist J.B., and that was the key piece of information about his intended opponent.

The sec droid was a familiar sight to Ryan Cawdor. He'd faced them before. Like droids he'd fought in the past, this one was vaguely humanoid in construction, legs slightly bent at the knees, arms dangling apelike at its sides. Each arm was slightly longer than a man's would be, in direct proportion to its height.

One arm ended in three fingerlike digits. Two of them were pincerlike, with deadly honed edges. The third was a stubby hammer. The other arm appeared to have been broken at the wrist, and a studded mace added in place of what once were additional appendages.

The android was bent and squatty, less than five feet tall and hunched over. Both legs were stubby, ending in flexible platforms for feet. One foot had three toes, the other twoif one wanted to call the sharpened edges sticking out "toes."

Unlike some of the other androids Ryan had seen, there was no attempt at providing any sort of "flesh" on this creation. The droid was open and bare, with a thick metal skeleton made up of rods of once gleaming but now faded and pitted chromed steel.

Perched on a flat wide metal collar serving as a neck was the robot's head, a head that looked exactly like a scuffed goldfish bowl. Small red crystals embedded in the circuitry gleamed evilly from behind the unbreakable gla.s.s dome.

This one came with the surprise addition of a narrow and open mouth beneath the clear dome, which was unusual since sec droids were known for being silent and deadly, their mouths usually consisting of nothing more than a metallic slit. Razor-sharp teeth gleamed behind the droid's metal lips.

The construct's broad chest was armored, and the first spot where Ryan could sense a weakness. There were definite repairs to be seen here, patches of flat steel soldered into place to cover previous blows. Come to think of it, the neck on the thing was all wrong, as well. Every sec droid Ryan had ever seen came with a tubular, articulated neck that let the head swivel in all directions.

No, this was no factory mint sec droid hidden away to be liberated from within the confines of a redoubt, like the band of five that Ryan had once inadvertently activateda costly mistake where the one-eyed warrior had merely walked down the wrong hallway and sent them lurching into action with his genetic imprint tattooed on their sensors. After that, Ryan always figured he'd already had his worst experience with the killing machines.

"Hey!" Ryan bellowed into the lights. "n.o.body said anything about fighting a b.a.s.t.a.r.d droid!"

"It's up to you. There's still time to call this off. You forfeit your entry fee, but you can back out and slink away," the appointed referee of the match yelled back from the observation box mounted high over the onlookers.

Back down below, Ryan eyeballed the robot. He knew the onboard computers and data banks that gave the commands to the head and limbs of the droid were housed in that broad chest. His job was going to be figuring out how to pry off one of the patches for a look inside without having the droid's mace crush his skull or, even worse, ending up with a bladed foot sunk up to the ankle in his crotch.

Still, those plates had been cracked open before, in battle and in the repairs he knew a combat machine such as that would have required.

Ryan debated. He knew his comrades would understand if he pa.s.sed on this deadly duel. No one had expected his foe to be a sec droid. Ryan felt tricked, placed in the situation of being between a rock and a hard place. They needed the jack he'd ponied up as an entry fee. J.B. needed new peepers, or they would have to get used to running around with a near blind man in tow.

"I can take this b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Ryan whispered to himself.

"What's your decision? Fight or hide?" The ref's query was amplified by the former stage's still functioning sound system.

For a second, Ryan felt the world tunneling in on him, as if a camera lens was zooming in on his own grim visage and he was also outside himself, witnessing it.

He had to make a decision. "I'm staying," he yelled, to the happiness of all the watchers.e.xcept his companions'.

Inside his head, a voice seemed to be repeating, "Killer robot, killer bot"

A rubber ball wrapped in a strip of white cloth was dropped down into the pit, where it bounced, up and down, up and down, and off one of the curved walls before rolling to a stop near Ryan's left boot.

The sec droid lurched forward the instant the ball stopped moving, causing the crowd above to cry out in antic.i.p.ation and joy.

"Nothing like live entertainment," Ryan said under his breath as he readied himself for the endurance test to come.

One hesitant step forward, and already Ryan could sense his earlier estimation was correct. This droid had seen better days. One foot up, then down. Left foot, then the right. The arm weighed down with the mace remained motionless, but the second one telescoped outward, the scalpel like pincers opening and closing.

Yelling ferociously, getting his blood up after the shock, Ryan sprang forward, waving his arms. "p.i.s.s off, you clanking piece of junk!"

The droid stiffly hopped back in a defensive maneuver.

Odd. He'd heard these things could exhibit learned behavior, but against a single man? Perhaps the programmers had made this a fairer fight than Ryan would have believed upon first seeing the droid.

"Come any closer and I'll rip off those skinny arms and shove them sideways up your metal a.s.s!" Ryan bellowed.

The onlookers exploded in appreciative laughter.

In response, the sec hunter again took another step toward Ryan, its gla.s.s head turning slowly from side to side as if making sure no other attacker would be coming out of hiding or from the guard rails of the pit above.

"f.u.c.k you, One-eye," the droid said in an inhumanly flat and mechanical tone that came from a hidden speaker buried deep inside the creature's thick neck. The deadly metal teeth moved in synchronization with the words. "You're nothing to me but fresh red meat, you dumb-a.s.s outlander."

More laughter from above, and despite himself, Ryan felt his blood start to sing in his ears at the string of insults. Obviously, in addition to the numerous repairs and replacement parts to this rusting unit, someone had decided it would be a laugh riot to give their pet techno-a.s.sa.s.sin a voice.

"Chicken-s.h.i.t," the android announced to even more guffaws from the rim of the pit.

Ryan held his anger. Even the blackest of humorists would be amused at a sentient being growing angry at the prerecorded insults from a collection of circuit boards and killing metal. This thing wasn't alive. All the android was to Ryan was an obstacle, a hunk of junk dropped in his way, a ma.s.s of metal he had to remove so he could go about his business, earn his reward, get J.B. his spectacles and forget he'd ever been inside this shrine to the long dead concept of consumerism.

Now that he was closer, Ryan could hear the loud, strained whining of gears and servo motors attempting to keep the droid on both feet. The sounds told him a crucial fact. As he had hoped from his first impression, the internal clockwork of his foe wasn't meshing properly. The hunter could be toppled.

Ryan took a deep breath and examined his options. He knew from previous battles with the droids that even if he'd been well heeled with a blaster, the armor was still a deterrent. The thing was programmed to be lightning fast, but a man would have the edge in maneuverability. Plus, he could see this hunter was well along in years and use, and he'd heard Lucas say that the champion had been beaten before.

Ryan slid the panga from the oiled leather sheath and took an offensive stance, balancing himself on the b.a.l.l.s of his booted feet.

"Come on, you coldhearted tin can. Bring it on," he said.

"Make me," the bot replied.

Ryan squatted, still keeping his back straight and his eye on the android as he moved around the arena floor. After a second or two of feeling around with his free hand, he found what he was searching for.

"Heads up, clanky," Ryan said, and threw the ball tossed down earlier to start the match. The ball hurtled toward the bot, thrown with all of Ryan's might. The rubber sphere whizzed through the air and impacted high on the clear dome of the sec droid's head, hitting with a bonk before bouncing up wildly into the air.

Interestingly enough, the droid had made no effort to dodge the lobbed ball.

Ryan was starting to feel even more confident.

Until the modified sec hunter hopped up like a frog, bounding once, twice, three times before almost landing right on top of his unprotected skull.

Ryan dodged and slashed out with the panga, aiming at an exposed metal cable in the bot's hip joint. The blade gave out a clang, but otherwise had about as much effect on stopping the sec hunter as the thrown rubber ball.

The android responded to the knife jab by swinging its monkey arms high, right where Ryan's head would have been if he hadn't already decided to go low.

Ryan stayed in motion and swung his leg to let the sec droid taste boot leather, feeling two of the toes on his right foot shatter in protest against the force of the impact from the desperate roundhouse kick. The only good the blow did was to leave a black smear across the clear dome of the opponent's observation bubble.