Max Arena Read online

  Max Arena

  by

  Jamie Doyle

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 Jamie Doyle

  ===========================================

  For my wife because I love her...

  ===========================================

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  11:10pm, 31st December. The Arena

  7:06pm, 30th June (6 months earlier). Discovery

  11:28am. 1st July. Canberra, Australia (the next morning). A New Friend

  1st July (15 minutes later). A New Enemy

  9:57am, 2nd July (the next day). Kris

  3pm, 2nd July (later the same day). Isolation

  10am, 4th July (2 days later). Trials and Politics

  8pm, 4th July (later that night). Sheikh Abdullah

  11pm, 4th July (later that night). Fear

  8am, 5th July (the next morning). Compassion

  10:30am, 12th July (7 days later). Fractionation

  9pm, 12th July (later that night). The Truth

  Noon, 16th July (4 days later). Skirmish

  Noon, 20th July (4 days later). Spiralling Downwards

  5:30pm, 21st July (the next day). Team Max

  11:45am. 22nd July (the next day). A Spark

  Noon, 29th July (7 days later). Revelation

  4pm, 29th July (later that afternoon). Rules of Engagement

  10pm, 29th July (later that night). Trouble on the Fenceline

  3am, 2nd August (3 days later). Prophecy

  10am, 2nd August (later that morning). Evacuation

  5pm, 2nd August (later that same day). Dread

  9am, 5th August (3 days later). Light and Pancakes

  4pm, 5th August (later that day). Secret Flame

  10pm, 5th August (later that night). Faith

  8am, 7th August (2 days later). Unveiled

  9pm, 7th August (later that night). The World Sees

  2pm, 15th August (8 days later). Maximum Exposure

  10pm, 15th August (later that night). Boys’ Night

  4:30pm, 10th September (almost 1 month later). Rescue

  4th October (almost 1 month later). Peace

  5pm, 4th October (later that afternoon). Unleashed

  11pm, 6th October (2 days later). Not Ever

  9am, 13th October (1 week later). Steel In Hand

  12:30pm, 14th October (1 day later). Everything

  7:30am, 12h November (1 month later). Arena Plans

  3am, 22nd November (10 days later). Maternal Vision

  Noon, 1st December (8 days later). Christmas Hope

  Noon, 1st December (same time). Together We Win

  9pm, 1st December (later that night). The Pain of a Good Man

  4:30am, 2nd December (the next morning). Dawn

  1pm, 17th December (15 days later). Committed

  9pm, 17th December (later that night). Crumbling

  5pm, 29th December (12 days later). It Makes You...Human

  5pm, 31st December (2 days later). Final Reflections

  11pm, 31st December (6 hours later). Clash of Blades

  11:20pm, 31st December. Impenetrable

  11:40pm, 31st December. Warlord

  12:25pm, 1st January. Glimmer

  THE END

  Who Is Jamie Doyle?

  Also By Jamie Doyle?

  11:10pm, 31st December. The Arena

  Max crouched on all fours, looking down to see his own blood drip and splash on the lush, green grass of the arena surface. The stadium crowd and in fact the whole world had disappeared behind a white fog, impenetrable and silent. He knew his wife and children were out there and with him in spirit, but right now, right here, he was alone and that was okay. That was how he needed it to be.

  He had just taken a battering and needed to focus. Max wasn’t hurt, not really. If he survived the night, the shallow gash on his forehead would heal quickly enough. Max certainly wasn’t scared either. In fact, he now knew exactly what he had to do to get through this bout. He had wondered for the past six months what it would really be like in the arena. The chaos of the crowd. The atmosphere beneath the lights. Even the feel of the humid night air. All of it he had wondered about, but now Max knew and on top of that, he also knew how to beat this foe.

  Looking up, he saw his instrument of victory. The fog receded a little to reveal his sword, skewered into the ground like the Excalibur of legend. The perfectly smithed blade glittered beneath the stadium lights, its perfection belying its lethal capacity to kill. All Max had to do now was rise to his feet, walk the handful of metres towards it and take hold of the hilt. With the blade in his hand, he would have victory secured.

  Max knew that his foe was bearing down on him from behind, mistakenly sensing that he was wounded and vulnerable. Without rushing, almost casually, Max straightened and rose firmly to his feet. Pausing slightly, he then stepped forwards and in a few paces reached his destination. He looked down at the weapon and paused again. His mind imagined him reaching down and grasping the leather strapped grip. Then Max imagined pulling it effortlessly clear of the turf and twisting it to hold it upright in front of his face, his second hand coming up to rest on the hilt directly beneath his other. Mentally, Max could feel the surprising lightness of the weapon. He could also see the keen, double edge with twin glimmers of light rippling along them. Max could even feel the weight of the humidity infused air, the hair on his arms and legs cloyed with the slight bead of sweat. He was ready.

  Reaching down with his right hand, Max repeated his imagined scene in real life. A moment later he was standing with the sword in front of his face, his gaze watching the light play down the blade edges. His foe was almost upon him. The sound of the crowd started to diffuse back through the steadily thinning fog. The world was coming back to him, or perhaps he was coming back to the world.

  Looking up into the crowd, the fog receded further to show a section of the stadium, a private viewing booth, mid way up the stand. Its floor to ceiling glass framed three figures huddled together, looking down on him like an angel and two cherubs. His wife and their two beautiful children. There they were. Every reason in the world he needed to live was standing there looking over him. Now Max was really ready.

  Behind him, Max’s foe was launching into the air, preparing to strike him down. His fingers gripped the hilt of his sword even tighter. The noise of the crowd roared back into his senses and the green grass of the arena sprang back into clarity. Stepping lightly, but firmly back onto the ball of his left foot, Max spun, sword slicing the air. It was time to fight. It was time to live.

  7:06pm, 30th June (6 months earlier). Discovery

  Max gently laid his sleeping three your old son down on the bed and pulled the sheet over him. He then reached across and grabbed the stuffed doggy from the other side of the mattress and tucked it into his boy’s floppy embrace. Straightening up, Max looked down at the little boy and the tiniest of smiles curled the corners of his mouth.

  A soft hand laid itself on Max’s shoulder and without looking around, he reached up and rested his own hand on his wife’s. Together they held their little boy in a lingering gaze before turning to switch off the bedroom light and leave the room.

  ‘The little man played hard today,’ Max said as he walked into the small kitchen of their apartment.

  ‘B
oth him and his sister,’ his wife said as she walked into the living room to flick on the television. ‘She passed out just as quick as him. She’s already snoring next door.’

  Max smiled as he started putting the children’s dishes into the dishwasher. ‘Beach holidays will do that to you. Struggling a bit myself.’

  ‘Oh, diddums. Had a big day did you?’ his wife drawled back.

  ‘I wasn’t the one who had a kip at lunch time.’

  ‘I needed that,’ his wife said, sidling up behind Max, ‘to keep up with you after the kids went to bed,’ she finished as she slid her arms around her husband’s chest from behind.

  Max straightened and spun in her embrace, pulling her in closer as he did. ‘And what exactly, young Elsa, did you plan on getting up to now that the kids have left the room?’

  ‘Use your imagination, champ,’ Elsa replied, a smile drawing across her face.

  ‘Hmmm, you know my imagination is bigger than the Earth,’ Max returned, an equally intentioned smile on his features.

  ‘That’s why I married you,’ Elsa said, slipping backwards out of Max’s embrace. ‘Now hurry up and clean the kitchen and I’ll see you in the adults’ room.’

  ‘Your wish…’ Max said, bowing.

  With that, Elsa left the room and Max watched her go, keenly aware that his heart rate had skipped slightly up. There weren’t many things, physically or emotionally in life that impacted him, but from the first moment Max had met Elsa, it was not only his heart rate that had skipped up. His entire life had found new meaning. He knew he had at last found something worth holding on to and when the time came, worth fighting for.

  Turning back to his chores, Max finished loading the dishes into the dishwasher. He then wiped down the benches and after a quick glance around to make sure all was in order, washed his hands and moved into the living room to turn off the television. With the remote in hand, Max’s finger started moving towards the off button, when something on the screen caught his attention. His finger immediately stopped and his heart rate edged up again. His eyes widened slightly as his attention zoomed in on the image on the screen.

  It was a face, one that he’d seen countless times and usually in a mirror as he looked at himself, except this time, his face was not in a mirror. It was etched into the snow clad, north slope of Mount Everest, at least five thousand metres above sea level and over five hundred metres in height.

  ‘Elsa?’ Max said quietly, but firmly. ‘You need to see this.’

  For the next ten minutes, Max and Elsa stood together watching the news reports across the various channels. Max held Elsa’s hand and she pulled herself in close to his side. Max’s heart rate had settled, but now her’s was racing. Every channel showed the same story and it was all about Max, or at least the images they were showing were all images of him.

  Shot after shot, showed Max’s face impossibly sketched into natural landscapes across the world with enough detail to know that it was him. Etched into the snow and ice of Mount Himalaya in Nepal. Glassed into the sands of the Sahara Desert in Libya. Scribed into the shallow corals of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Carved out of the bare rocks of the Hajar Mountain Range in the Sultanate of Oman.

  Max was everywhere and all of the images had apparently appeared virtually at the same time, but with no evidence of how or more importantly, by whom. It was a complete and gob-smackingly unbelievable mystery, but not to Elsa. The mystery stood right next to her, holding her hand. She had known Max for ten years and knew that those ten years of her life had been her best. She had loved and been loved in return like she could not have imagined. She now had two beautiful children to love just as fiercely and she had hope for a future. A hope that she knew could not exist without Max. He was her everything, but now it was all at risk, but then again, she knew this day had been coming.

  Suddenly, the television switched off. Max threw the remote control onto the couch and turned to face Elsa. She couldn’t look up to him. She couldn’t look into those deep blue eyes and keep her composure, so she pulled his hand up to her chest and looked at it instead.

  ‘It’s time,’ was all Max said.

  Elsa nodded and felt the first upwelling of tears.

  Max pulled her in tight and stroked her hair. ‘We knew this day was coming,’ he said quietly.

  Elsa tried to hold the tears back by screwing up her eyes.

  ‘I made two promises,’ Max continued. ‘First, I would avenge my mother.’

  The first tear squeezed itself out of the corner of Elsa’s eye.

  ‘And second,’ Max said, ‘I would protect my family, even if it kills me.’

  And then her emotions got the better of her. A retching sob tore at Elsa and she buried her face into Max’s chest, clawing at his shirt and spilling tears down his front. Max simply held her tight. Right now it was all he could do, but soon the time would come for more. He needed to prepare. He needed to be ready for what came next and more than anything, he needed to be ready to die. There could be no hope for victory if he was not ready to die.

  * * *

  It was two o’clock in the morning. Max and Elsa had not slept a moment since turning off the television. They lay still in their bed, Elsa resting her head on Max’s chest and Max’s arm enveloping her. Though their voices were silent, their minds were awash with imaginings of what would happen next in their uncertain lives. Then Max heard the quiet crunch of grass underfoot outside their ground floor apartment. He heard the soft scrape of boots on the paved patio. He even heard the almost imperceptible rustle of synthetic material as what must have been five or six people gathered and positioned themselves in the courtyard beyond the glass sliding doors of their bedroom. Whoever was outside, they were all undoubtedly armed in some manner with orders to use force as necessary. Maybe they carried non-lethal ammunition? Rubber bullets and tranquilisers? To kill the man whose face was inscribed all across the world would be to learn absolutely nothing, so they could only be here to apprehend and detain. Not to kill, but maybe that was being too optimistic?

  Max whispered quietly, ‘Elsa, they’re here.’

  Elsa’s head jerked up.

  ‘I’m going to bring the kids in here with us,’ he added.

  ‘Go. Quickly,’ she almost pleaded.

  Springing from the bed wearing only boxer shorts, Max moved as swiftly and as quietly as he could into their son, Jason’s bedroom. Picking up their still seeping son, he carried him back before placing him gently on the bed next to Elsa. Elsa immediately pulled him close, while Max disappeared out the door to get their five year old daughter, Millie. A few moments later he was back with the little girl cradled in his arms, also still asleep. He then crowded his wife and their two children up to the head of the bed and asked them to be as quiet as possible.

  Listening as keenly as he could, Max failed to hear anything from outside. Whoever the intruders were, they were ready and they were coming. Max stood in front of the bed, his stance like a granite sculpture, feet apart, arms flexed down by his sides and his hands spread open. Elsa looked at Max’s silhouette and again marvelled at her husband’s physicality. He was not a huge man, but he was solid and muscular and whenever he moved, it was with purpose. Powerful if necessary, but then as gentle as a soft breeze when called for. Right now, he was there to protect them and she pitied whoever was coming inside.

  Then Max turned and lifted his right hand to his lips and blew them all a kiss. His glance lingered just slightly and in that moment, Elsa knew she and the kids were safe. Despite the danger outside those doors, there was no safer place for them to be than behind her husband and their father’s form. She smiled and squeezed the kids. Then Max turned back to the doors and the night closed in.

  It was over in moments, glimpsed by Elsa only through snatches of half-light from the street lamps outside and the sickle moon. A cacophony of harsh, brutal sounds accompanied the melee. Smashed locks, shattered glass, grunts and groans and two gun shots, the twin reports deafe
ning in the confines of the bedroom. It happened so fast that neither Elsa nor the kids had time to cry out.

  Then a foreign voice shouted out, ‘Get the light!’

  Blinding light filled the room and Elsa clamped her eyes shut, unconsciously pulling the two children in even closer, both of them burrowing their own faces into her chest as they huddled on the bed.

  ‘Don’t move, mate,’ said the same foreign voice, the person’s voice firm, but covering an edge of uncertainty. ‘Nobody wants to bring you down.’

  ‘You already tried that,’ came Max’s voice, even in tone and absolutely without fear.

  Hearing this riposte, Elsa couldn’t contain her angst any longer and popped her head up. The scene that assailed her was like nothing she could ever wish for.

  Their bedroom had been invaded by four black clad soldiers, completely surrounding the bed at close quarters with handguns extended in front and pointed directly at her husband. The only flesh she could see were their eyes inside balaclavas and all four pairs were fixed, wide open and jittery, on Max. In contrast it appeared as though Max had not budged a muscle, his stance exactly the same as it had been while standing in the dark, waiting for the assailants to come into the room; rock solid and unflinching. Then he did move.

  ‘Are you okay, honey?’ he asked as he turned to look her and the kids over.

  Then she saw the two deep bruises spreading across his chest. ‘What are they?’ she cried out, her hand shooting forth to gesture at the injuries.

  ‘He shot me. Twice,’ came the simple reply.

  Elsa threw glances at each of the men. ‘Who did that? Which one of you…?’

  ‘It was him,’ Max said calmly, turning and flicking a finger towards the shattered sliding glass door, ‘and he can’t hear you.’