Arena

            I adjust my shin guards. They must be tight but not so tight they cut off my circulation. Shielding is a privilege of affluence, but an error in using advantages can be fatal. Poor win some victories because of careless affluents’ misuse of armor.

            Before I check the edges of my sword and my knife, I know they are sharp. Attention to detail is essential. Over attention speaks of nervousness. Nervousness can be dangerous.

            As if tuning to my thoughts, Roger walks across the locker room and stops in front of me. He hasn’t finished armoring himself. He carries his shield askew, unmindful of its function, careless of damage he might bring to it by forgetting he carries it. He sweats in nervousness. He says, “I shouldn’t have let them talk me into this, Jake. This is insane. There are plenty who want to do this. I hate this.”

            “You fancy yourself a champion of the poor, Roger. Make your choice. Join us wholeheartedly and survive, or continue walking with one foot in each world and be unable to save your own life.”

            “I haven’t been a champion of the poor, Jake. Several times, I said, ‘They are still human. They are human.’ That’s all I’ve said.”

            “You wear your bleeding heart for all to see, Roger. You’re visible pain and sympathy. You’re offensive when you condemn the affluent, though you are one of us by your earnings and by your possessions, if not by commitment.”

            “I don’t condemn the affluent, Jake. I question the sanity, the sagacity of Arena. I don’t know if we’ve developed the way we could develop. I don’t know if we’ve attained high social evolution. Is it wrong of me to ask a question, to hope humankind attains its highest possible development?”

            I have been testing the hand grip of my shield. I turn and step close and speak into Roger’s face, “This is not a time to talk about it. I am preparing. So should you.”

            “I know, but...”

            “If you continue to talk, be sure the cameras are on, because we will fight. Spontaneous inter-affluent fights are rare. Camera crews sometimes miss the generation of combat. They would love to record a battle from the beginning. Shut up and prepare, or you won’t live to see the arena. I’ll make the decision for you, and your agony will be over.”

            He turns and walks stiffly back to his side of the dressing room. He lays out his equipment, and dresses for combat. From across the room, I see him shaking. He speaks to himself in anger and agony.

            Roger is not ready for battle. A poor man will soon kill Roger, and the world will be better. The poor man will take up a new name, “Roger Killer.” He will battle again. He will reign as a hero for the poor, one who killed an affluent and lived to fight again. If he can win twice, that will lift him to affluent. Television producers will pay him for interviews. He might sign products. He can choose among many ways to earn money.

            When a poor climbs to fame, ratings climb to the sky. Everyone tunes in, poor and affluent alike. Advertising climbs to peaks. Important stars interview the poor man. Pundits speculate about the next battle, about the poor man’s increased possibility for survival from the further training he finds after his first victory.

            Television personalities interview the affluent who is next in line to fight the poor man. They walk deeply into his biography and his physical and psychological make up. World wide, abjectly poor, who are giving up in despair to the inevitability of the arena, decide to try harder. They will win a battle or get a leg up in our economic system before it is too late. Some of them find better jobs, more education. Some achieve a fifty-thousand credit income and the right to survive as part of the economic system, to go to Arena only by choice.

            The system works as it should work. How can anyone listen to Roger’s suggestion that Arena is an uncivilized practice, preventing humankind’s evolution? Roger was not born to affluence but qualified when he grew up. Most can give up their past, but some remember too much. Perhaps inability to separate from his past is what causes Roger’s questions, his fear, his second thoughts about going into Arena.

            Camera crews film the rest of Roger’s preparation, and mine. They hope to film a locker room battle between affluents. But it is over. Roger and I won’t fight, but when a poor man kills Roger, Roger’s preparation will assume more weight, and it will be shown again and again. The poor can learn hope by watching. The affluent will be inspired to better focus their energy for victory.

            Cameras record my preparation. Other cameras, in another room, record the preparations of the poor men Roger and I will fight. Anything that moves a battle above the ordinary round of conflict and death is carefully recorded. Tastes too easily become jaded. Differences from routine are eagerly sought out.

            We walk out the long tunnel to the arena. Our armor jingles and clacks. Our feet slap, slap, thud, thud against stone. The leather we wear creaks with our motion. Stone walls of the tunnel echo the sounds we make. Roger sweats. I smell his fear. He wants to speak, to ask my advice, to tell me more about what he believes, but he holds his tongue.

            I am furious that this coward interrupted my careful preparation, demanded my attention when I would devote everything to readiness. I am furious that I allow myself to be furious, that I allow myself to experience any emotion that could reduce my focus on the battle I walk toward. I breathe deeply and consciously. I bring my emotions and my thoughts under control.

            My victory is assured. There is usually some small handicapping of the poor gladiator, secret, not apparent even to those who know that secrets, invisible actions, and intrigues tie Arena together in ways that please those in power, whose identities remain obscure to those who only view, whose identities remain obscure even to many who are involved in keeping Arena functioning smoothly.

            Often enough to discourage carelessness, a poor gladiator overcomes handicapping and kills an affluent gladiator. When they are pitted against marginal affluent or politically difficult affluent, the poor are not handicapped. I know this from living within the functioning of Arena and from the sand that absorbs blood when I kill. All of Arena is part of the process of selection of those fit to survive and carry mankind into our future. Often, affluents fight affluents, for settlement of conflict, for definition of power, for a choice of who will bear our species forward.

            I am well trained and in good condition. I will win because I am ready for battle.

            We walk into the arena.

            I have killed eight men for the camera. Each time, killing a man, watching his life’s blood soak into Arena sand infuses my life with gratitude, with new appreciation of everything around me, with new appreciation of the preciousness of my own life. Each time, I walk back into the every day world of work with sharpened senses and heightened awareness.

            Arena is shot through and overlain with invisible lines of power, with intrigues, with concealed plans for power and wealth. Often enough to keep viewers interested in trying to see and understand contests for power, a plot for war between factions or a plan to use unsanctioned murder to short circuit the blind justice that walks Arena is exposed, publicized, and stopped. The sentence for malfeasance is always immediate Arena, continuing until all who would have usurped power have died in the battles of Arena.

            The orderly process of individual battling individual winnows toward a perfected future.

            We walk into the arena surrounded by bleachers built from stone. Bright sunlight dazzles my eyes. Wild colors and motion clarifies into understandable vision. I smell arena dust, blood, offal, fluids released at death, in soft afternoon breezes.

            The powerful young man picked to fight Roger walks quickly and smoothly toward Roger. As quickly as my eyes adjust to brilliant sunlight, I see he has not been drugged, injured, or starved. I watch his strength and determination resonate across the arena to a waiting audience and into hungry cameras. He swings his sword, freeing his muscles, and walks rapidly across hot Arena sand toward Roger.

            The heavily armored referee motors into position and stops the man. Good that the young man is eager for battle, but essential to follow every step of protocol. The first step is that combatants meet in the center of the arena and consent to battle. Viewers in the stands and in front of televisions have seen that the poor man is confident, aggressive, in excellent condition, and so eager to attack that the referee had to maneuver energetically to stop him and remind him.

            The poor man retreats to the center of the arena and waits. He rests the point of his sword on the metal and leather sword shield strapped across his instep. The polished sword reflects hot, bright sunlight toward us.

            Alert advertisers had time to select this battle, rate it blue, and time to drive advertising to the sky.

            Roger walks toward the center of the arena. I see only his back, but perceptions deeper than conscious thought tell me something has changed. I have time, a few of Roger’s strides, to understand strength and discipline flows in him toward the waiting poor, who raises his sword in sunlight, ready.

            Roger swings his sword savagely above stained arena sand, and the poor man steps back, swings and thrusts. Steel blades ring together. The poor man understands battle and moves well. He swings, thrusts, chops, thrusts again toward Roger, slams Roger’s efforts aside into cutting, chopping, stabbing motions into air of the arena. I feel a sense of leisure, as if, in the center of the arena, we leave behind concerns about living or dying and enter into ancient, ritual dance, enter into the celebration of trained, calculated motions laden with ritual strength and numinous meaning of battle to death, a dance from antiquity toward humankind’s future.

            Metal clangs against metal. Metal thrusts metal aside into air. Swords cut against shields, against swords. The poor man swings hard and low; slices blood and flesh across Roger’s left thigh. Roger steps into the sword’s swing, chops downward, and cuts the man’s right shoulder, exposed at the end of his swinging blow, deep enough to slow him. Roger steps forward into that moment’s hesitation, and swings for the poor man’s head. The man ducks but takes Roger’s sharp sword’s edge a glancing blow from his skull that sends part of his scalp and splashes of blood flying to arena sand. The poor man turns, slashes, cuts, and thrusts, opens Roger’s blood and flesh, but Roger’s blow to his head slows him. The poor man steps forward and slashes and cuts arena air, but he swings too far. Roger swings down on his exposed neck and severs his head, thud into sand. Blood splashes Roger, splashes sand, and stinks in hot sunlight. Poor man’s body falls flat.

            Roger stands, point of his bloody sword resting in arena sand, breathes deeply of golden sunshine and hot air. He does not offer clenched hands above his head to the four cameras as protocol requires. He will be forgiven that breach because he fought well and because this is his first time in Arena. He sheaths his sword, draws his knife, turns the poor man’s body, slits his clothing, slits straight up his abdomen and chest and exposes entrails.

            Two Harvesters dressed in white and gold uniforms run across the arena, carrying their blue and white cooler between them. Roger steps aside and lets the harvesters and cameras close in. This poor man has been brave and powerful. His organs and meat will be highly valued.

            The harvesters sort among entrails, take the poor man’s heart, kidneys, liver, and his eyes. They cut bone and harvest his inner ears. They place everything in the cooler close it and lift it. They loft the blue and white container, one on each end, again and again as they circle the arena, that the viewing crowd might see and add weight of approval to this step toward immortality. Human voices raised in celebration overpower hot sunlight in the arena.

            Roger kneels and flays. Now he is careful about the correct order of ritual. When he peels away chest skin and frees the skin from the left arm, he has satisfied ritual. He steps back, and two butchers run from opposite sides of the arena in their flashing red and blue uniforms, meet at the carcass, and continue skinning. Bursts of red light and blue light radiate from them into the arena. They cut meat. Cameras move closer and show the man and the woman preparing the carcass and clearly define quality.

            This film, starting with our action in the locker room, will become a classic. Bidding for meat, skin, and bones will set highs for the week, probably the month. Viewers love a strong story backing a battle, and we have an ideal story. Roger, uncertain of his ability and strength, uncertain if the system itself qualifies as good and strong, converts in battle to sure and strong, confident of his own and humankind’s future. The battle displayed well-matched skills and a hard-to-predict outcome.

            Back at work, in the daily flow of earning and living and keeping Arena working smoothly, I couldn’t read Roger. Sun shone in the windows where we all worked at desks and computers, editing stations, control and direction areas.

            Above the skylights, dark clouds blew across the sky. The city spread out grey and black beneath the windows of our tall building.

            Arnold sent for me. He sat at his desk. His heavy muscles began to slacken with age. He motioned me to a chair. He drummed the fingers of his right hand on his desk. I waited for him to speak.

            He said, “I want to know more about Roger. What he thinks, what he does, what he sees in his future. I want you to talk with him and observe him. When you know what he’s doing and what he’s thinking, come and talk to me again.”

            He took a file from his desk drawer and pushed it across the desk to me. “Here’s his personnel folder, to give you something to start with. It’s scant.”

            Arnold turned to paperwork at hand. I assumed our business was finished, and I left his office.

            Arnold was promoted to a position of power ahead of more capable people. He uses his power for the aggrandizement of his ego, the aggrandizement of his fortune. He will trip up. No one is without vulnerability.

            I have already been casting about amongst the people working around us, that I might understand better how Arnold works, that I might know if others are as restive under his heavy yoke as I am. I have tried to learn who might turn their contributions to his power in other directions. This is a slow and careful process, more delicate than Arena of sand underfoot, but as deadly.

            Kathleen bridles under Arnold’s direction and wonders if we’re headed in a true direction. “He decides the future of the entire world. He decides if there will be a future for this world.” Kathleen wields power by her detailed knowledge of those in power. Ephrain is lean and restless. He needs a direction that makes sense to him. I’m sure I begin to make sense to him.

            I read everything in Roger’s folder. It is scant, a poor and obscure childhood. Roger grew up interested in everything around him. He tested high in Universal Education and earned the opportunity for Advanced Education. After he finished Formal Education, he came almost directly to us, without much experience between.

            I search on his identification number. He wrote for his college newspaper. I call up issue after issue of the newspaper and find a young man with a dream for a better world. That’s okay. Even good. Usually though, the shiniest, gleaming corners of idealism have been rubbed off by experience before workers come to us. Usually, workers come to us after they’ve had much more work experience than Roger has had.

            Roger shouldn’t have been pressured to go into Arena yet. I lean my chair back and stare through the skylight. Dark clouds cover the sky. They release heavy rain at the city below them. Water washes across the skylight above me and obscures the sky.

            I search Roger’s activities. Swordsmanship classes three times a week. Martial arts. Dance. Two classes, two different places. Dance is unusual, but it is better than stopping at a bar and soaking up a couple of hours of alcohol. As far as I can tell, Roger doesn’t drink. He could go to a bar, pay cash and leave no trail of records, but the rest of Roger’s existence doesn’t line up for that.

            I send Arnold a note about the lack of testing and training before Roger’s debut into Arena, to make sure I’m covered.

            Roger works as well as ever, and he communicates well whatever is necessary to work, but he avoids other conversation. I might be a better observer if we didn’t have conflict between us.

            I find opportunities to work with him, but I don’t overcome his polite distance. I could apologize for what happened in the locker room, but that attempt could become dangerous. I have no idea how he thinks of our encounter the day he killed the poor man. Did he take offense at what I said, or did it buck him up when he had lost courage? Is he grateful to me, or does he hate me?

            I don’t know Roger well enough to answer these questions nor to discern the answer in his demeanor. He speaks to no one about what happened before he walked into Arena and killed his first man. He seems calm and transparent, but I really don’t know him.

            Why did Arnold tell me to watch Roger? What did he expect Roger to do? Run amok? Bring Arena into the work place? Are Arnold’s security measures unable to prevent that? Are laws against weapons anyplace but in the arenas insufficient to prevent that? Why did Arnold assign me this role?

            Arena rotated across Europe, Asia, and Africa and returned to this continent the end of September. Crews had loaded blood and gore soaked sand and hauled it to nearby farms, and farmers tilled it into their fields. Clean sand glistened in our arena in sunlight slanting down autumn. Crews painted bright colors and renewed hangings and flags.

            I walked into our building from rain beginning in autumn wind. The new roster hung on the bulletin board. I walked over to sign up. Roger’s signature was near the top of the page of volunteers to fight for affluence. That startled me. Roger had been pressured into his first fight in the arena, but signing up is voluntary. I stopped him when he walked by.

            “Roger, I see you’ve signed up for Arena.”

            “Yes, Jake, I have.”

            Roger is not stupid. He knows I seek to understand what change he’s experienced that allows him to volunteer for combat. He looks into my eyes, and I know he is not afraid of me nor of my position. He turns and walks away.

            Again, in the arena, a referee maneuvered and stopped the poor man until Roger walked to the center of the arena. The poor see the films. They understand the history of the combatants. They watch the process of the draw. This was not a battle between an anonymous affluent and a random poor. This poor man had prayed for the draw to match him with Roger, defector from defender of the poor to poor man killer. The poor man was eager for battle, already blessed with powers beyond himself by achieving this position he had prayed for. God was on his side, and all could see it in the way he carried himself and handled his weapons.

            The poor man, taller than Roger by half a head, attacked, thrust, swung, then leaped forward and smashed into Roger, his full weight behind his shield. Roger turned the poor man’s sword aside, then carried the poor man’s attacking weight, turned, thrust him in the direction his attack carried him, swung his sword, but the poor man turned, crouched, caught the blow on his blade, thrust it aside and stabbed under Roger’s sword’s arc, sword point reaching hungrily for Roger’s hips but not reaching far enough.

            Roger battled defensively, turned blows, stepped back, turned the poor man’s thrusting sword aside, taking the measure of the man and saving his own life. Two men danced across the arena. Steel rang against steel and blood splashed on hot sand, as bright red in hot sunshine as the passion of this dance.

            Roger stood his ground. He brought the poor man to a stop, then attacked, gracefully, as if to rhythmic music that no one else heard, blow after blow. The poor man retreated, slow step at a time, clear to the west wall, tried again and again to rally time and space for attack.

            Roger drove the poor man’s sword point into the sand, cut off his right hand, stepped back and raised his sword, stepped forward and swung his sharp sword through the man’s neck. Thud of the man’s head against arena sand carried clearly, and splash of blood. His headless body continued the last swing of his sword, as if he might continue to fight, twisted, stepped its left foot forward, fell full length in Arena sand. All sounds of the action in Arena were lost to thousands of voices of the spectators rising above the sudden death.

            Roger dropped his sword point into sand and raised his left fist to the roaring crowd, once north, once east, once south, then west. Cameras stayed close. Roger opened and partially skinned the carcass and stepped back. Harvesters ran across arena sand and harvested. Butchers rendered the carcass into components.

            Combatants drifted toward locker rooms, and all the workers of Arena completed their jobs. The sun set, closing the day in the arena. The earth turned on its axis toward the future. Four of us met in Arnold’s office soon after Roger’s third battle, again a decapitation.

            Arnold spoke to Roger, “Some call you ‘The dancer.’ You have become known for your grace of movement, as if you form your own rituals of battle, rooted in movement, in music that you hear as you fight.”

            Roger looked into Arnold’s eyes and asked, “If that’s true, do you find a problem with that?”

            “No. You draw an audience. Your advertising ratings are in the top rank. But I wonder if everything will turn upside down. I would rather not be completely surprised.”

            “You want to understand my ideas so you can predict aberrations before they become dangerous.”

            “Yes.”

            “Three times begins to form a pattern, or three times could be luck. I don’t know if I drew three opponents who were ideal for me or if I have a talent for fighting and winning, or if some power seized me and guided me through battle. I don’t know if power will be with me when I fight again. The fourth time might give us more to discuss. Or I might be killed, and there will be no need for discussion.”

            Arnold said, “Your opponents have been without handicap. If you lasted this long, we planned to escalate into more highly trained opponents. You appeared to be a zealot holding forth for the poor. You’ve changed.”

            Roger stood up and paced behind the chairs, burning energy. Even in his pacing, his energy was purposefully directed and calm. He said, “All my life, I was told Arena brought the end of war, because it satisfies mankind’s need for battle, for killing. It satisfies mankind’s need for a shared ritual of deep numinous weight, worldwide, among all cultures. That ritual helps us achieve balanced existence.

            “I believed that, because it was part of the knowledge given to me by adults. I accepted everything I was given. Arena is the foundation of our social structure. It is our religion, our social system, and our economic system, and it appears to work.”

            Roger walked to the window and looked down on the city below us, square and composed of squares, and beyond, to the green and brown larger squares of farmland. White clouds raced each other across the sky above us.

            “I grew to the age of individual contemplation, and I questioned everything. I questioned belief in Arena as good for mankind’s future. I began to think Arena was a way to keep the poor in check, to control population, to control minds. The idea that legal, planned, exploited, broadcast violence fulfilled a moral goal and kept man tilted toward affluence, away from war, and selected among us for positive evolution seemed to me effectively developed and disseminated propaganda. It had some basic truths, but stood some basic values, respect for life and compassion among humans, on their heads. I wondered if Arena was a positive direction for mankind.

            “Then I killed a man. That changed everything, deeper than thought, into my emotions and instincts. In my wildest imagining I would not have predicted that I would kill a man and volunteer to battle and kill another man and another.

            “It’s taking me a while to sort myself out. I’m not assured that working out my understanding of myself, of Arena, in words will mean that I have correctly worked it out. I’ve realized that what I am predates rational, conscious thought. What I do is not the same as what I say or what I think. I live in more than my conscious, rational mind. It has to be enough for you that I’ve volunteered for my fourth battle and I’m also seeking the answers to the questions you ask.

            “I will fight who you choose or who comes to me by an honest draw. You want your question answered to assuage fear of unknown directions. I want the same questions answered to understand what humans are, so I can understand what I am, certainly not what I thought.”

            He turned and left the room. Silence for a moment, and then I spoke, “We could put a highly trained fighter against him now.” I was unaware until the words were in the air between us what I was going to say. But I did say it. I said, “An aberration developing in Arena makes me nervous. We have no idea where it will go.”

             For the first time, I thought I understood Arnold’s approach. If it is different, destroy it. Change is dangerous.

            Arnold tapped his fingers on the expensive wooden top of his desk.

            Roger decapitated poor man number four in a battle beautiful to watch, two men dancing a long dance in hot sunshine toward death for one of them and suddenly, over, and Roger victorious in hot sunshine.

            Roger’s advertising ratings before his fifth battle raised him to E-5. An E-5 becomes a free agent and can change employment without Central Approval. Roger didn’t seek another, better-paying organization. He opened a battle training center for the poor. No affluent had ever trained poor for battle.

            Arnold tapped his fingers on his desk. Warren spoke, “We might have foreseen and prevented this, had we been alert and kept better track of what Roger said and did.”

            Arnold said, “There never has been a need to prevent what is happening. There still isn’t. We need change to prevent stagnation. It’s unprecedented, but he isn’t starting a revolution. He’ll bring some change and create more honesty when we say poor have a good chance in the arena and a good chance to achieve 50,000. We’ll add truth to the statement that Arena brings evolution toward good by trimming the affluent for survival of the fittest. We talk about evolution, but how can there be evolution without change, without more honest winnowing of the affluent? Every year, we are fatter and safer.”

             He let his hands lie quietly on his desk as he looked at us and spoke. “Study the history of Arena. Don’t harvest generalizations that serve for historic background, the finished product from the media. Find out about actual events, some of which seemed to be massive and threatening aberrations when they appeared. They kept interest alive.

            “No matter what we give the audience, they like it. It’s better than thinking. It’s better than being alone with each other. The audience buys what we advertise.

            “Before we had specific ammunition, three times, in wild west shoot-outs, revolutionary fighters killed part of the audience. That added to the thrill of Arena. Action, death, victory, and glory spilled from the arena into the audience and put the masses into the arena with the reality of danger and death. Whatever seats emptied because of fear, we filled when those who had become bored realized Arena is not separate from daily existence but dominates humankind’s existence.”

            I asked, “How does he pay for it? Poor can’t pay enough to support his training center and him.”

            “He found sponsors among old men who have fought their battles and won’t return to the arena. Or they found him. They are bored. Roger became effective advertising for change, for evolution, for more excitement in Arena.”

            I said, “If the poor begin to see they have power, it could lead to chaos in a world that has been operating smoothly for two hundred years.”

            Arnold said, “Have you been afraid each time you went into battle?”

            “No. Fear can cripple a warrior. Whatever happens in Arena is what will happen. I learned that well when I was young. Fear nothing. Train for battle.”

            “Good. Apply what you learned to this situation. Arena is inevitable, whatever direction it takes. What has started will develop in the fullness of Arena. If change begins, that change will work itself out in Arena. Fear of it weakens you. Train well for battle.”

            I left the meeting knowing Arnold was more radical than I ever suspected. He was changeable, undependable in his beliefs and actions. Something happened that caused him to veer in his course. He’s not telling anyone what caused the change or where he hopes it will lead us.

            Change in Arena could lead deeper than he can imagine. This change Roger brings sets a precedent that will stir the minds of many, world wide. It changes perceptions about human values, about Arena. Arnold is finished with battle, old enough that he is safe to be reckless with our future.

            Arnold has too much power. I will change that. I list his vulnerabilities in conversations. I stir among lines of power throughout Arena. My efforts become less secretive as days and weeks pass, because time flees from me. I gather allies. We work to preserve Arena, humankind itself from destruction.

            Arnold becomes more isolated from those who work with the mechanisms of Arena. I become more aggressive to rally my coworkers to me. There is no longer time for subtlety. There must be a shift in power to prevent the chaos that has already started.

            I take a moment between work projects and enjoy sun shining on my desk through the skylight in the high ceiling above me. The door to the work area opens and Roger walks in, accompanied by two dressed like he is. The way they are dressed brings their purpose to my mind. They are unarmed, as law requires, but their clothes are intentionally reminiscent of Arena, close-fitting leather, with metal shields sewn on at every joint.

            They walk quickly across the clean, open floor to my desk, and Roger hands me an envelope. I slit the envelope in sunshine, withdraw the form and read an invitation to battle Roger the day before Arena rotates from us into South America.

            My heart beats hard in my chest. It takes me a moment to compose myself. Given the nature of that moment, I am sure there are cameras on me, but there is nothing I can do about that. What I feel might not be as obvious to an observer as it is to me.

            Observer, observed, reactions to an invitation, none of that matters.

            Now I understand more fully what Arnold had in mind when he spoke of the inevitability of Arena, when he said everything would work its way into human history through Arena. He toyed with me. He began an elaborate statement whose details I did not realize until now.

            I have killed twelve men in battle. Some of them were not handicapped. I have been so involved in intrigue, I haven’t been training enough.

            One never loses the skills of battle.

            A slight difference in conditioning can mean the difference between living and spilling my life’s blood to Arena sand.

            There is no retreat. If challenger and challenged are qualified for battle in Arena, once the challenge is issued, they will fight. There is no way to appeal a challenge.

            I have twenty-eight days.

            I could prove that Arnold pursued the aggrandizement of his ego and his fortune when he manipulated Roger to challenge me.

            Sunshine creeps across my desk, over the edge, onto the floor, builds a slowly moving golden rectangle on the white floor. Shut off the damn cameras, I need to think, and I really don’t have much time.

            It doesn’t matter. Run the cameras. Run the clock. I can’t prove anything, and to whom would I prove? Who tells Arnold, “This would be a good thing to do, and that would be a good thing to do, so do these things for me?” There are obvious, formally structured lines of power, but they are not what drive this developing event.

            I could talk to Roger, “You’re giving Arnold strength by challenging me. You’re furthering their cause in opposition to your cause. All causes, by the creation of new purposes to Arena, now fracture into chaos.”

            In images running through my mind, Roger responds to what I say by listening to me, but he doesn’t say anything, because I have no idea what he would say.

            He might say, “Arnold has nothing to do with it. I challenge you because of what happened in the locker room, when I asked you for support, and you threatened to kill me.” That will be the way the cameras run it, our confrontation in the locker room months ago, and then our battle as the culmination of that confrontation.

            Roger could say, “I tried peaceful ways, and they didn’t work. Now let there be war between poor and affluent, but let’s empower the poor by training them and by giving them knowledge of the depth and the meaning of this war. Let us, through battle, begin to wrest power from you.”

            The less chance he is given to say anything, the better it will be.

            It isn’t death that frightens me. It is the idea that Arena has started to go in unpredictable directions under Arnold’s hand. It is death that frightens me, my own death, the death of an orderly future.

            I look up from the invitation into Roger’s eyes and tell him, “It will give me great pleasure to meet you in Arena.” I put the invitation down on my desk and sign on the line provided, put the invitation back in its envelope, and hand it back to him. He bows and turns toward the door, walks away with his two attendants flanking him until the narrowness of the doorway forces them to drop behind him as they exit.

            Parts of the next four days, I follow Arnold’s suggestion and research the history of Arena. Arena has always been like this. Personal power, intrigue, deep secrets of power and influence, understood by few, have been part of Arena from the beginning, because they’ve been part of humankind from the beginning. When Cain killed Abel, that’s when it began.

            I train every day. I watch films of Roger’s battles. Other watchers integrate their new knowledge of Roger and his battle techniques into their futures stretching into indefinite time. I have little time to integrate this knowledge and use it well.

            Some say he does nothing new. He only coordinates effective movement and rhythm from different disciplines of movement.

            I am strong and in good condition. I have killed twelve men in battle. I dance and twirl and dance.

            My master of battle arts delights in my newfound motivation. “I haven’t seen enough of you, these past few months. I think I will see much of you now.” I spin and come up hard under his arm. He laughs and thrusts me away. We turn to each other and bow and dance and thrust and speak of coordinating dance into martial arts and swordsmanship.

            “It is a dance,” he says and thrusts his naked blade, seeking flesh, “Like this,” he pants out as he dances and thrusts and dances, “and like this, and like this, and you are dead at my feet in Arena sand in an instant if you open your movement low like that. Come high and shielded, like this or sideways, like this.”

            What happened before a challenge means nothing, except as background that shows the progression toward battle, toward the inexorable process of Arena, settling all questions, all disagreements, all challenges, keeping humankind in balance.

            I am well trained and in excellent condition. I fight for my life and for balance, to preserve Arena itself. Roger aims his force toward chaos. He is wrong. I will stop him. I will kill him.

            Rain falls hard for days without end. Then the sun shines every day without a cloud in the sky. I train. I train every day. Nights, the moon hangs in the sky. Then nights of nothing but stars. I would that the day of battle with Roger is here and over with. I would that time stops, and the battle never comes.

            And then the day of our battle is upon us. I get ready for battle in the locker room.

            I should have drawn and killed him the day this began, in this locker room. I remember that day as vividly as television, as vividly as movies. Roger paced across the room toward me, nervous and sweating.

            I turn and look in the mirror. I sweat. I look like Roger looked that day. I am nervous. I turn away from the mirror. I fasten my shin guards, stand, test and adjust. I test the edge of my sword and my knife. They are very sharp.

            I calm my deepest existence. We fight for glory. We fight for history. We transcend individual values fought for in this battle. We reach back in time to the beginning of humankind’s habitation on earth. We reach away from our individuality into eternity of the unknowable future.

            I walk the long tunnel toward the arena. My armor jingles and clacks. My feet slap, slap, thud, thud against stone. Leather in my garments creaks with my motions. Stone walls echo my sounds around me. I smell my own sweat. Two join me, armored, with the open areas of vulnerability defined by Arena rules.

            We walk out into sunshine in the arena. Roger walks out of the tunnel on the opposite side of the arena. Two attendants follow him closely.

            Sunlight flashes from Roger’s shield. A bright shaft of sun from his polished blade dazzles my eyes, and I turn away from it to clear my vision. We walk across hot arena sand toward each other through bright sunshine, our swords in our hands. Breezes stir through the arena. The crowd that fills the stands is quiet, waiting. The referee moves to position, brings us together, gives the sign to start fighting, then backs away from us.

            I turn, stand, and strike. Roger stops my blow with his sword. Metal rings against metal and echoes from walls of the arena. We dance on hot sand of the arena for positions of power. Our swords reflect brilliant shafts of sunlight and ring tones of metal against metal as we dance toward first blood, toward injury, toward death, toward the future of all mankind.