Max Arena Read online

  The President looked from Sheikh Abdullah to Joe whose half smile had returned to accompany his nodding head. President Bartholomew then turned and looked at his own men. After a few seconds of thought, he turned back.

  ‘You’re on,’ he said. Then turning to Max. ‘You start at the far end of the course and you have to get to this end by going through all my boys who will be spaced out in twos and threes. Anyone puts you on the ground, you lose. Anyone you put on the ground is out. Got it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Max firmly replied.

  ‘You’ve got ten minutes to get your butt up on the starting line,’ President Bartholomew shot back before turning to walk back towards his helicopters.

  ‘You need to know,’ Max started to say, bringing the President up short to half turn around and look back, ‘fifteen’s not enough men.’

  The President gave Max a long cold stare before turning away and walking back to his helicopter, calling his ranking officer across to join him.

  Max turned to look at Elsa. ‘Stay close to Peter,’ he said. ‘This is all still pretty hairy and I don’t trust this bloke one bit, President or not.’

  Kris stepped around Elsa and said, ‘You sure about this, Max? You’re fit and all, but these blokes are trained soldiers. You really think you can take down fifteen of them on your own?’

  The rich, rolling tones of Sheikh Abdullah sounded, drawing Kris’ attention towards him. ‘I saw smartphone footage of Max bringing down more than twice that number of aliens only a few days ago,’ he said, ‘and they were far more vicious than any of these soldiers.’

  ‘It’s a clever play, your Highness,’ Joe added, his smile now fully borne. ‘You gave Bartholomew exactly what he wants knowing full well that Max will best his men. You used his confidence against him.’

  ‘I did nothing that you were not already thinking, Joe,’ Sheikh Abdullah said, a faint smile also lifting his cheekbones. ‘It was just that as usual, my mouth spoke too quickly.’

  ‘Everyone,’ Joe said, ‘I would like to introduce his royal highness, Sheikh Abdullah of Balasti. He is here as my guest and I assure you all that you can trust him as equally as you trust me, if not more so.’

  Sheikh Abdullah stepped back a pace and bowed.

  ‘He is also,’ Joe continued, ‘the most eloquent man I know and possesses an intellect second to none. I am proud to call him my friend and as I will explain later, he is here to help.’ Joe then turned to Peter. ‘I apologise for not telling you earlier, Peter. You deserved to know.’

  ‘If it’s you vouching for him, sir,’ Peter replied, ‘then he’s a friend of mine too.’

  Joe nodded to Peter and turned back to Sheikh Abdullah. ‘Come, my friend. Let’s leave the real world experts to their work, while we politicians and diplomats play our games. We have a President to wrangle and I don’t fancy doing it on my own.’

  Sheikh Abdullah bore a full smile now too and allowed Joe to lead him off towards President Bartholomew’s black hawks.

  ‘What are all those men doing taking their shirts off, Daddy?’ Millie asked, poking her head around his waist.

  Max turned to look and found several of the President’s soldiers and two of his secret service personnel disrobing to bare torsos and breaking up into pairs and threes, spaced along the length of the one hundred metre course Max had just completed.

  ‘You better get up the other end,’ Elsa said to Max. ‘You don’t want to keep the President of the United States waiting.’

  Max turned back to his wife and said, ‘I won’t be long and stay close to Peter.’ He then flicked a gaze across to his chief of security. ‘You got them, mate?’

  ‘You never have to ask me that,’ Peter replied, an edge in his tone. ‘If I don’t have them, I’m already dead.’

  Max nodded silently and then looked down to tussle the hair on both his kids heads. ‘Stay with Mummy, you two. Okay?’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jason asked, looking up and squinting at his father.

  Max turned around and said, ‘Through those fifteen blokes.’

  Kris smiled and watched him stride off. Two minutes later, Max stood at the head of the course, looking down the length of it, all fifteen of his opponents’ gazes glued on him. Kris held her fingers poised over the stopwatch button of her watch. If she thought she could record this with her smart phone and put it on YouTube, she would, but something about national security made her think against it.

  ‘When I pull the trigger,’ shouted the highest ranking US soldier, ‘you’re away!’

  Max nodded.

  ‘Ten bucks says he doesn’t get past halfway,’ President Bartholomew said rhetorically to anyone in earshot, including Joe and Sheikh Abdullah, both of whom ignored the comment.

  Max tensed as he bored his gaze into the eyes of the first pair of soldiers ten metres in front of him. They were both big men and were clearly used to fighting for a living, Special Forces tattoos sporting on their upper arms. The gunshot cracked and Max launched.

  Driving forward at the left side man, Max hit him square in the midriff with his left shoulder and instantly lifted him off the ground, the wind knocked out of the man’s lungs. At the same time, the other man came at his right side, but Max shot out his right hand, palm open and smacked him hard on the chest, sending him stumbling away to trip over his own heels and onto the ground. Max then drove upwards with his legs and hefted the still winded man on his shoulder up and overhead, so he held him like a common barbell, face up to the sky.

  ‘Holy Moses,’ the ranking US soldier muttered.

  Similar comments mumbled their way around the lips of the surrounding onlookers as disbelief rippled outwards. Everyone stood transfixed, except for Millie and Jason whose shrill cheers broke the strangled silence all around. President Bartholomew stood stony faced, a scowl threatening to cloud his features. Joe and Sheikh Abdullah also remained unmoved, their eyes drinking in the vision.

  Like a colossus with the now struggling soldier still held overhead like a sack of potatoes, Max looked up to face the next group of three soldiers in his path. Striding forward, he sized them up. They attempted to split and encircle him, but Max responded first. Driving all the way up through his legs, Max physically hurled the overhead man at the nearest soldier in front of him and sent both of them flailing to the grass. Immediately Max felt a forearm grip around his neck from behind. The other man remaining on his feet came straight at him and threw a right jab at his face. In one movement, Max bent at the waist and used his torso to lever the man behind him off the ground while thrusting his left hand up in front to catch the incoming jab and grip the fist in his own. The soldier behind the punch frowned and tried to pull his hand away, but failed, as Max’s grip held like a steel claw. Max then suddenly released the man’s fist, pivoted on his toes and spun to the right, bending over further as he did. The legs of the man on his back swung outwards like the blades of a helicopter, collecting his comrade at knee level, scything his own legs out from under him.

  Max then gripped the wrists of the man on his back and slowly, brutishly, pulled them away from each other, until he wore the man on his back like a cloak. Pivoting again, Max spun and released the man’s wrists, sending him flying to the turf.

  ‘That’s five down,’ Elsa said. ‘Ten to go.’

  ‘And he’s only thirty seconds in,’ Kris added.

  ‘Go, Daddy!’ Millie squealed.

  Max turned and found five soldiers charging at him, the next pair and group of three having combined forces. Bending over, he held both arms out wide and launched forward too. Aiming for two of the soldiers in the middle of the line of five, he smashed headlong into them, violently barrelling both of them over to lie sprawled and unmoving on the grass. Planting his right foot, he crouched and turned to look up at the other three men coming back at him. Driving forward and up, Max caught the first man high on the chest with his left hand, lifting him off his feet, his legs still running in mid air. Carrying his own momentum forward,
Max then redirected the man’s bulk downwards to smash him flat on his back, another man out.

  A blow to his ribs sent Max staggering backwards, the full blown kick in the stomach hitting the mark. His peripheral vision glimpsed a punch coming in from the other side and he cricked his neck just slightly to the side to let the blow graze his left cheek. One more backward step was all he needed and Max was back on the offensive.

  The owner of the kick was still coming at him, this time with a roundhouse version. The man’s boot swung up towards Max’s face, but he ducked beneath it and simultaneously spun one eighty degrees. He then again drove upwards, but backwards this time into the body of the other man coming in from the left. The manoeuvre picked the soldier up off the ground and Max ran backwards with him flailing on his back like a live bearskin cloak. Max then snapped upright and pushed upwards with his legs, flinging his own arms high and straight into a backward flip. The soldier slipped off his frame and crashed to the ground while Max sailed over him, his legs flipping overhead until they planted back on the turf, his backward somersault complete.

  Max looked up and found the last soldier bearing down on him. The soldier leapt high and shot his right foot out, his boot headed for Max’s nose. Without flinching, Max calmly stepped to the left, let the blow sail past and reached up to grab the airborne man by the nearest arm. Pulling downward, he smashed the soldier into the ground, hard.

  Not a single voice broke the silence, except Millie’s and Jason’s. They were going nuts. President Bartholomew now wore a deeply entrenched scowl, while Joe and Sheikh Abdullah spared a quick glance to each other with raised eyebrows.

  ‘Just over a minute gone,’ Kris said.

  ‘He can do back flips...?’ Elsa said vaguely.

  Max straightened and looked down the remaining length of the course. The final five soldiers all stood shoulder to shoulder in a line. Slowly, they started to spread out and approach, the flanks of the line advancing a little faster to encircle Max. He let them.

  Standing in the centre of the circle, Max glanced at each of his opponents in turn. They hesitated, watching him for a missed reaction, an instant of weakness. Max looked down at the ground and froze, knowing the ploy would bring them on. The five soldiers charged together.

  With open palms and only half strength blows, Max spun and lashed out, his movements a blur, but clinically precise. A cacophony of slaps and grunts accompanied the performance, the lopsided bout lasting only a matter of seconds as first one, then another, a third and then the last two men together flew outwards and to the ground in varying states of consciousness.

  Max rose from his half crouch and turned to face the finish end of the course where Elsa, the kids and Kris stood, the children jumping and screaming. Max strode down to them and right past President Bartholomew, who glared at him from beneath his hooded brow.

  ‘Wahoo!’ the kids yelled as Max came up.

  Elsa simply beamed, wrapping her wide open arms around her husband, who gently returned the embrace.

  ‘Will they be okay?’ she asked, glancing out to the carnage on the lawn behind.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ he replied. Looking across at Kris he asked, ‘How long?’

  ‘Just over three minutes,’ she said. ‘Would’ve been quicker if you’d jogged over the line.’

  Max smiled. ‘Sorry. I won’t do it again,’ he said.

  Kris nodded, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Max, the boss wants me to get you all inside,’ Peter said, walking over. ‘Show’s over.’

  Max looked over at the American Black Hawks and found Joe and Sheikh Abdullah in conversation with a highly animated President Bartholomew. Off to the side, the fifteen defeated soldiers were being led or carried from the course towards the helicopters. Despite standing tall and ripping through the opposition, Max suspected he had some bruised ribs and a minor black eye from the glancing blow to the cheek, but the injuries would be healed by tomorrow. They weren’t his biggest concern.

  Up until now he had known exactly who his enemy is. Macktidas, but all of a sudden, Max suspected he had just made a new enemy, right here on Earth and this one might be even more dangerous than any alien foe he was destined to meet in the arena. The President of the United States.

  * * *

  Charles Ingot the Third turned away from the computer screen on his desk to look into space. As Chief of Staff for the President of the United States he had seen many extraordinary things and come up against many unfathomable challenges, but triumph had never failed him. That’s why he was still top of the heap with everyone else snapping at his heels, vying to knock him off. However, what he had just seen had for the first time in a long time, caused him to pause.

  ‘Tell me, general,’ he said, ‘what do you think about Max? How good is he?’

  Sitting on the opposite side of the desk, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs pulled closed the screen of his own laptop to lean back in his chair. Lacing his fingers together and resting his hands in his lap, he pondered the question. The Chief of Staff turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow at the silence.

  ‘What’s up, Bob? It’s not like you to be gun shy?’ Ingot asked.

  ‘He’s good,’ Stratton replied. ‘Very good. I’ve never seen anyone carve their way through fifteen soldiers as quick as he did and in that fashion. He has natural combat skills and intuition, but it’s his raw physicality that elevates him. His raw strength and power coupled with his superior reflexes make him dangerous. However, I can’t truly judge him until I see him handle a weapon and oppose a foe equally as armed, but right now, there is every chance he is one of the most formidable individuals I’ve ever seen.’

  Ingot snuck a quick look at the general’s massive panel of multi-coloured ribbons on his left lapel. He knew he was in the presence of military greatness. Not only was Stratton a four-star general and the highest ranking officer in the United States military, but he was also the most decorated soldier in American history. The feats this man had achieved would reside in legend forever.

  ‘That’s a big call from a man like you,’ the Chief of Staff answered.

  The general looked across the desk and nailed Ingot in his gaze, his clear blue eyes as piercing as lasers.

  ‘Let’s be clear, Mister Ingot,’ Stratton said. ‘What this man just did was exceptional, maybe even extraordinary, but in my almost forty years of soldiering, I have witnessed many extraordinary acts of physical ability both on and off the field of battle. Yes, he took those men apart, with minimal effort too, but now let’s get to the reality of it. Would he perform equally as well in the heat of combat, duelling a creature of absolutely unknown prowess in the intensity of a life or death bout?’

  The Chief of Staff waited for the general to answer his own question, but he didn’t. Reluctantly he succumb to the rhetorical response.

  ‘So, could he?’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ the general replied evenly, ‘but right now, he might be as good if not better than anyone we could place in that position. What I would like to know, Mister Ingot, is what is precisely on your mind here? I have provided intel for you and my initial thoughts on the abilities of the subject, but before we progress any further in this conversation, I would like to know what your exact interest is here?’

  Charles Ingot the Third held the general’s gaze for as long as he could, but ultimately looked away. Whilst his will had been hardened in the corridors of political power, his colleague’s character had been forged in the fires of battle and tempered like the steel anvil of a blacksmith. It was pointless going head to head with him across the table and besides, he needed the general on his side. He could not afford to lose the man’s trust. The fate of the world rested on the shoulders of this mystery man, this Maximilian Dyson and if he was to contain or manage this man, he would need Stratton’s covert forces and black operations skills.

  There was also the as yet unacknowledged opportunity beyond the arena. The impact of
an alien threat on the world had already begun to rapidly alter the dynamics of international relationships. The world was changing and if this Max actually defeated all comers in the arena, Max would instantly become the most potent man on the planet. The saviour of the world. The hero of mankind and if that eventuated, then Charles absolutely needed to have control of this man because victory in the arena would likely change the world forever and Charles wanted to be in the right place at the right time to grab control of that world.

  ‘My interest, General,’ the Chief of Staff began, leaning forward and relocking his gaze onto the senior soldier’s, ‘is exactly the same as your’s. The continued safety and security of our United States of America and right now, I don’t know if this Maximilian is friend or foe. Yes, he can fight, but is he fighting for all of us or just himself? His allegiances are unknown and until they are known, he is dangerous and if the truth confirms him to be dangerous, then we will need a mechanism for removing the threat and that’s where you step up to the plate, General.’ Charles paused and leaned back. ‘Is that precise enough for you?’

  ‘I’m a soldier, Mister Ingot,’ General Stratton replied, his blue eyes shining like tinged chrome. ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President and if he commands me, I will obey.’ The general then paused and his gaze firmed even harder. ‘However and let me be crystal clear on this, you are not the President.’

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

  ‘How did the American Army get out here in those choppers without us knowing about it?’ Elsa asked, ‘and with the American president too?’

  The staff had just cleared the dessert bowls from the table inside the formal dining room and left coffees and teas with the occupants. Elsa and Max sat opposite Sheikh Abdullah with the Prime Minister on their right at one end of the table and Kris on their left at the other end.