Girl in the Arena - Lise Haines [96]
—UBER, UBER, UBER.
I realize in this moment that they’re just as much in love with Uber as they ever were with Tommy, maybe more. The boards are lit with all manner of photos of Uber and me from childhood on. Romance played up, enhanced, expanded, and enlarged. Commentators speculate, dissect, scramble, talk Shakespeare’s R and J in that prepackaged commodity way, consider our horoscopes, our statistical chances, what our colors mean, and so forth. My legs are numb. My teeth.
I watch Lyn intently as she stretches her arms out in front of her, then behind. She moves her head from side to side, cracks the vertebrae in her neck, adjusts her armor, then looks at me again.
I think she’s finally lost her comic self.
She reaches out now to take my hand in hers, which is only that sensation of moist cool air.
—Don’t let me die, she says.
Before I can find anything to say the gate lifts and she only waits until it’s halfway up before she ducks under it and enters the arena to cheers that eclipse even Uber’s. And then I see it, the odd way she walks, the hip action—it’s only slightly better than before, and my stomach seizes up.
Uber and Lyn move into the center of the arena.
I have this sensation of being very small and very large all at once. There’s a moment of silence as they stare at each other. Then Uber secures his helmet and takes a stance.
Lyn suddenly swings her sword over her head and with a sound that seems to push out of her throat, she drives the sword toward his stomach. It’s met by his shield. The first sound of metal on metal resounds in the stadium.
I have to give Lyn credit for the beauty of this first move, the exact articulation. For one second, Uber glances over to where I hide and then he lifts his sword and they begin to fight, which is unlike fencing because the swords are too heavy, but one blow seems to match another. As she dodges and strikes, I realize there’s something too syncopated, her actions are too repetitive. And maybe this is what seems to be making the crowd so restless. Suddenly she leaps into the air, higher than one can leap, really, and I am reminded of those movies like Crouching Tiger.
When she lands her legs go almost transparent and just as quickly regenerate, as the lights in the stadium dim and then brighten. Another brownout.
An uncomfortable murmur goes through the crowd.
Uber, who looks very pale, tries to get things back on track by making the first cut. The blood trickles down Lyn’s sword arm, which brings good spirits into the amphitheater. But instead of fighting back, she stares at the blood, mesmerized.
I know Uber is backed into a corner now, trapped by Lyn’s confused efforts to fight and simultaneously consider her wounds. So he draws more blood, this time from her left leg. Then I lunge at him, I mean she does, and maybe he’s afraid she’s going to try and run him through. He moves back too quickly.
When he trips I see the edge of the black modem pop out of the sand. I doubt anyone else will know what that small bit of black is, but I know. Uber knows.
He lands with one foot caught on the edge of the power cord. I swear he falls to the sand in slow motion. And the lights, the entire lighting system, in the stadium go down and we’re all pretty much in the dark now except for the toys the vendors sell—those small handheld lights that whirl about and turn different colors, the glow-in-the-dark necklaces and pop beads.
There’s a long minute or two. The crowd begins to stomp their feet.
The lights come up in the top tiers.
I see Uber’s dark shape. I think he’s untangled himself.
Lyn has disappeared.
Mark, I’m sure, could rectify this situation in short order but we agreed in advance that if she were to disappear entirely it’s just too risky to make her reappear. This has to do, in part, with the way she glows into existence and the icons that might appear around her head.
I try to get the cap off the vial of painkiller, but it slips from my hands and shatters on the stone floor. I understand that rubbing glass