Cold Fusion - A Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Fusion Short Story Anthology

Chapter 3: Allies

He had just begun to ponder the cat's words when the door he had used to enter the arena, opened once again. Turning to look at the open exit, Fletch frowned in confusion. If this truly was a black mark match, then he should've been executed at it's conclusion.

Yet, here was the door he had used to enter the pit, opened once more to apparently let him leave instead, as if he had been in a normal match instead. Fletch looked down at the fallen cro-mag once more. 'Rest easy, brother,' he silently directed. 'Your watch is now ended.' Then he was quickly striding towards the open door, expecting a Peacekeeper shot in the back with each step he took.

It was with a strange mixture of elation and disappointment that Fletch felt as he stepped through the door and into the sloped corridor beyond. Was that a black mark match or not? If not, why had he faced the cro-mag from the enclave?

"Judging by your expression, I'd say you're confused by what just happened," a quiet voice said from the shadows.

Looking in that direction, Fletch found a slender, cloaked figure standing there. As his eyes fell onto it, the figure lifted it's hands up to pull back its voluminous hood. The variant's eyes immediately narrowed at what was revealed. With her oversized eyes, large braincase, small snout, and delicate build, she didn't look like a creature he would've expected to find outside of an armored power suit.

"Game master," he named the graceful reptilian creature in a hard, flat voice. "Come to execute me by your own hand?"

Turning their large, green-pupiled eyes to him, the creature cocked it's head to the side.

"Strange that you call me 'game master' yet neither fear nor respect me," the reptilian said in a soft, feminine voice.

"I just survived a black mark deathmatch, game master," Fletch retorted. "Since disrespecting a game master earns me a black mark, and you cannot be marked twice, there are no consequences inherent to my attitude. And since the game masters foster fear by threatening death and I've assumed that I'm already dead from being in that match, I have no fear."

The female reptilian's eyes widened as Fletch spoke until she was staring at him with open astonishment.

"Well, that was unexpectedly bold," she admitted before pushing the surprise off her fine boned features. "However I cannot fault your logic." She folded her long-fingered hands primly in front of her. "As much as I don't blame you for expecting me to perform some game master function, not all therapsids are game masters."

Fletch frowned in confusion. Not all therapsids are game masters? What did that even mean?? Of course they were!

"But I'm getting ahead of myself," the stranger said. "Perhaps an introduction is in order. My name is Chhon. I was once the research assistance for a famed therapsid scientist named Trahd."

Fletch's expression immediately darkened. Chhon he had never heard of. Trahd, however, was a different story. Every variant had heard of the crazed scientist that had discovered the multiverse and the original DNA stock from which the variants were derived. If this Chhon was in any way involved in their unwilling servitude to the game masters, she deserved to die ... horribly.

Chhon must've been watching for his reaction to her introduction because, as soon as his expression began to tighten, she began to explain.

"Ah, I see by the look on your face, you've heard of my former mentor. However, I can assure you that the infamous 'professor of doom' has benefitted little from the game masters' efforts to turn his greatest accomplishment into a horrifying blood sport. In fact, he has told me from his prison cell, that his single most pressing regret was discovering the multiverse and the dominant Earth-born races in each."

Fletch's eyes narrowed in confusion. A prison cell? No, every story had him living in the lap of luxury, his reward for creating mass entertainment for the therapsid government.

"If Trahd truly languishes in a cell, what was his crime?" the human wanted to know. "He failed to pay his taxes on time?"

"Endangering the federation," Chhon answered, anger coloring her words. It was the first real emotion Fletch had seen from any game master. "His arrest was a travesty, a mockery of a tradition of scientific achievement spanning 10,000 years. It only happened because of certain militant elements that took control over the central government. Once those elements controlled the halls of power, they promptly declared all projects, scientific or otherwise that questioned the nature of therapsid dominance over our universe a threat to our very existence." Her face hardened even further.

"A threat they felt needed to be immediately neutralized. So they arrested and imprisoned Trahd, and thousands like him."

"How could discovering the multiverse threaten the federation?" Fletch asked, his confusion growing.

"I think Professor Trahd said it best," Chhon said thoughtfully, her anger fading somewhat. "The discovery of the multiverse demonstrated that therapsid dominance extended to only our version of Reality. In every other universe, our kind failed to rise to dominance due to a combination of extinction events and competition from early protosaurians." She made a gesture with a hand. "The government felt that, if left unchecked, the species that Trahd brought from the other universes would out-compete us at every level, leading to our extinction."

"That's ridiculous," Fletch said with a snort. "Even if the populations of the faction species suddenly exploded, we'd never posses the numbers or the capability of displacing the therapsids as the dominant species in their own universe."

"I agree. The central government's stand on the issue is illogical at best, moronically paranoid at worst. Until Trahd found the multiverse, nobody questioned our evolutionary dominance of our reality. A handful of apex species from other realities shouldn't have challenged that. After all, bringing you all here didn't somehow change us."

A sound from further down the tunnel interrupted any further discussion.

"As you surmised, you have indeed been black marked for your involvement in the fracas at your enclave," the therapsid revealed even as she took a bemused Fletch by the arm and directed him across the arena floor towards the door the cro-mag had used to enter the arena.

"As per their practice, you were scheduled to be terminated at the end of the match." She paused to touch something on her wrist and the door in front of them swung open. "However, Trahd thinks you are the key to freeing the faction species from the game masters' enslavement. So I was directed to leave a corpse that was modified to look and scan like you."

"Why?" Fletch asked as he followed Chhon through the door.

"To buy us time enough to prepare you," she said, going down the sloped corridor without slowing.

"For what?"

"Why, to lead a Rebellion against the game masters and their Peacekeepers, of course!"