The Last Red

Chapter 16: Anarchy

Oh my God. Can't I get a break here? 

"Rogues?" Koben asks me as if thinking the same thing as I am.

"Rogues don't have guns, Koben. They lied," I say through gritted teeth. "They left the fence."

"Maybe not," he whispers.

A tall bulky dark guy in his late 20s smirks at me as he stands at only 3 feet away, his legs spread. "Who are you and what're you doin' here?" he appears to be entertained.

"We were just passing by," Koben states calmly. 

He lowers his hands and the men don't even flinch.

"Passing by, eh?" 

The other, shorter man observes us with his big eyes squinted in suspicion. "You caused quite a," he spits, "commotion back there."

"Wasn't our intention." Koben states without a flinch. He's overly confident in my opinion - these guys are heavily armed for God's sake. He should be more careful.

The big guy stares at me now, checking me out from head to toe. "Nonetheless," he casually leans a g*n over his shoulder, "that's what you did. So I'm thinkin' I owe my men a favor of lettin' 'em smell you a bit more..." he leans into me, "up close."

I push him away instinctively. "Get outta my face."

"Hey!" Koben loses his cool at last. "Don't do that," he tells him, then gives me an admonishing stare. "Chill, Red."

"Red?" the shorter guy snorts with laughter, pointing his g*n at Koben. He c***s the g*n, smiling viciously. "That's an interesting name."

"Don't see anything interesting about it," he says plainly.

The guy snorts. "You're awfully confident for someone standing in front of a loaded g*n," his eyes glitter with evil. "I guess you don't know only robots carry names that start with an R."

"It's just a nickname," he says again.

Only robots? What? I didn't even know they had names.

The guy laughs. "My friend here also has a nickname that starts with R," he taps his friend's back. "Earned it when he survived what no one else has," he eyes me now. "What did you earn it with?"

"Blushing often," Koben lies. Damn he's quick in inventing lies.

"Who are you?" the man asks again, now irritated.

Koben keeps hands in his pockets. "I'm Koben. Who're you?"

The two men laugh shortly exchanging glances. One g*n's pointing at me and the other one at Koben.

"Let's play a game, Koben and Red. You guess my name, I let you leave." 

Koben smirks. "Hm, let me see. Is it Dumb and Dumber?"

The shortie loses the smile.

He throws a g*n away, then jumps at Koben, trying to tackle him to the ground.

"Yessss!" the other guy cheers. "Get 'im, Rooster!"

"Koben!" I yelp. "What is the matter with you?"

Should I attack the other one? His g*n is pointing at me, though. Well, at least Rooster's not using arms - good thing he provoked him. Koben should be able to beat him fist to fist. Right?

Koben brings Rooster to the ground seemingly with no effort. He throws punches across his face until he starts bleeding heavily.

That makes the bigger guy interfere. He puts a g*n to Koben's face. "Hold it!" he yells.

This is my chance. 

I run for the g*n lying down on the sand at five feet away from Rooster's buddy.

Just as I wrap my fingers around it, my eyes go big from the cold metal against my forehead. 

I'm suddenly in a large shadow. I look up slowly until my eyes meet with the bigger guy.

"Tsk-tsk," he clicks his tongue and I know he wants me to drop the g*n.

"Drop it, Red," Koben's voice brings me to the here and now. 

We'll be dead anyway, aren't we? So what do I have to lose?

My finger go arou-

Sudden sharp pain makes everything black as I meet the sand face down.

...

"Ring fight? You crazy? Just kill 'im now! And leave us the girl," I hear a muffled sound somewhere near me.

I slowly open my eyes, realizing I'm lying on the sand. Sharp pain goes through my head and my hand runs towards it. The other guy obviously knocked me out by hitting my head with a g*n.

"What do you take Patrick for? A coward?" someone yells back. "He's undefeated.

"Patrick doesn't fight unchallenged! He's our leader."

"Enough!" I recognize the voice. It's one of the men who almost shot us. "We fight tomorrow. In front of everyone."

That must be Patrick - the leader. This block has a leader?

The crowd cheers.

I sit up and look around. There're people in groups spread all across a large yard, all staring at us judgmentally, whispering amongst themselves.

Oh my God - we're inside the fence.

"Finally we'll see Patrick fight," a female whispers near me. "I bet he forgot how - it's been too long since he was challenged."

"There's a reason he wasn't challenged, Norma."

"Yeah, 'cause of the rule he introduced," Norma scoffs. "Not many are willin' to risk dyin' to rule."

My eyes search for Koben. 

I find him sitting with his hands tied back, a dozen feet away. There's blood sprayed across his face.

"Tomorrow," Patrick leans over Koben, "we fight 'til there's one man standing."

Koben nods without emotion. "Perfect."

A short guy unties his hands. "You bought yourself life for today... only to lose it tomorrow." He kicks him in the leg. "Get up, fool."

"Alright, bring them in," Patrick commands, then walks away.

A man puts his hands under my armpits and brings me up.

"I can walk!" I shove him away.

"Not for long," the guy mumbles in a gross manner, a corner of his upper lip flinching. 

Finally, he speeds up front and leads the way.

I limp my way next to Koben towards the entrance to the scary medium-sized building with only three letters on top - NPS.

"This is so not what I had in plan for today," I whisper so only he can hear me.

"Yeah, bet you thought it'd be movies and chill night."

I almost laugh. "Whyyy did you provoke them, Koben?"

He shakes his head. "They weren't gonna let us go either way. It was easier to kill them out there than in here."

I exhale in defeat.

"I blew it, though. Sorry," he looks at me. "But I'll make it right," he squints fixing his eyes on Patrick. "I promise."

The wide steel door slides open for us and we enter the new block. It looks huge from the inside. There's one floor above the ground floor, surrounded by an elbow-tall fence, and vast space in the middle, sort of like a foyer.

I'm left frozen at our second step.

Three people on our left are having a s****l i*********e in the open, while other people stare at them and cheer. On our right there's a group fight going on, women screaming out in pain as knives cut them.

We're shoved by the men. "Walk!" They order.

"Your cell's the last one on the left."

Koben and I stare at each other in shock as I limp my way down the Hell Corridor.

"This... is chaos!" I gasp.

He clenches his jaw hard. "Just walk and try not to look scared."

Not to look scared? What's wrong with him? He's the one who should be more scared than I am. He's been challenged to combat to the death.

All of a sudden, someone drops to the ground from the first floor, smashing his head, instantly dying.

I look up following the direction he fell from. Someone's thrown him over the fence.

A few people gather around the body and start chanting nonsense to the guys above. What's worse, most others only turn their heads and continue with their business as if they have smarter things to do with their time than worry over 'yet another dead corpse'.

As we move farther away from the door, the scenery only becomes worse.

In one cell there's a mob r**e going on. A woman is being held down by two men as the third one is getting undressed. 

Her head is shaved and tattooed, and she shakes her head in anger. "You're dead, you hear me?!" she yells.

"We gotta do something," my nostrils flare.

He gives me an admonishing look, but seeing my stubborn face, he exhales. "You stay here," he says, then opens the cell door hastily. "Get off her!" he commands grabbing one of the men by the neck, and pushing him away. His body hits against the steel cell bars and he shouts in anger.

The other two let go of the woman and jump onto Koben. I run into the cell, punching one of the guys on the head as hard as I can with my healthy arm.

The woman gets up, laughing viciously. She has a few of her teeth missing.

The sound of her laughter is ragged and high pitched - it makes me cringe.

She reaches for something inside her sock, then jumps up.

It's a knife.

She yells in anger and dips it into one of the guys' necks in one swift movement. As she pulls it out, the guy chokes in his own blood.

She then comes to my face and runs her dirty fingernails over my jaw. "Thank you, sweety."

Right after, she sticks the knife through another guy's abdomen. 

Koben's eyes meet mine for a second. The only living man tries to run out of the cell, but Koben grabs him.

Suddenly, the two men who were leading our way to the cell enter and one of them pulls me out of it.

"No, no, no. This little fella's reserved for tomorrow," the other man separates Koben and a buffed tattooed dark guy. "The chief's got his eye on this one," he nods to the upper floor.

The buffed guy seems pretty upset about it. 

He taps my chest. "That means he's as good as dead," he tells me. 

Then he roars silently inside his throat.

I've never heard a person do it before.

I swallow hard as he leaves. My breathing is shallow and I can only hear my heart beating in my ears. 

"If we don't get out of here tomorrow, we'll be dead by the end of the day," Koben states the obvious, before walking down the hallway.

"No s**t, Sherlock," I mumble to myself.

We finally reach an empty small cell with a bunk bed and its own sewage system.

"This one's yours. Don't get too comfortable, you won't be here long," one of the men says with a vicious smile, then they both leave.

Wow. Such luxury.

Koben rubs his head in frustration as we enter. "This is all my fault."

I kill him with a stare. "Stop acting like I'm your child. I escaped KTL and its robots, all on my own," I spit it out in anger. "I've got more leverage than you, mate."

"Red," he stops and throws a long glance at me. "These guys have guns. And no one to monitor what they do with them. Not only guns, they could freakin' r**e you any second! Do you even get that?!"

My throat contracts as the gravity of his words hits me. We're not protected by anyone. Hell, someone could shoot us in our sleep and no one would care to find out who it was or to punish them.

"Plus," he adds bitterly as we walk in, "you're in no running condition," his eyes fall to my wounded leg.

It hurts just from thinking about running.

I limp towards the lower bed and sit on it. That part's right. There's no way I can run. 

"Basically, we have two options," I lean against the wall, analyzing the situation. "You escape by yourself... or you fight tomorrow and kill him."

He gives me an irritated stare. "The first word-vomit you said's not an option. Obviously."

"Do you think you can beat him?" 

His eyes leave mine as two new men position themselves on each side of our cell.

They're both holding guns in their hands.

He smirks a tiny bit. "Like you said, we've only got that option."

I swallow hard - they made sure we don't escape.

"You're taking the upper bunk," he says.