The Manticore Ascension: A Short Story in the Arena Mode Universe Read Online Free PDF Page B

special about a couple drops of plasma. “So? He had some weird fetish. It’s not that strange...I once dated I guy who liked to bite off my toenails.”
    “You don’t get it,” Dawson said, sweeping his hand above him in a wide arc. The gesture fanned a series of images through the air like playing cards on a tabletop, displaying laboratories filled with futuristic equipment that I didn’t recognize. “When the Frost Corporation sold off all of their technology and research, they had stuff in there about biological weapons: using enhanced DNA to genetically modify troops.”
    The notion made my brain hurt. “You’ve got to be kidding me...Frost wanted to make superhumans?”
    “More or less,” Dawson nodded. “Or gain powers himself...neutralise the genes that carried those traits? Hard to say. No one had ever succeeded in creating these people, but that’s where things got weird.”
    “Because they were so normal before?”
    Dawson swiped open another window, depicting a small grey cylinder with a transparent tube inside, containing a few drops of ruby liquid. “My dad actually bought the vial of Taktarov’s blood on the black market. He must’ve thought one of our scientists could crack the code.”
    “He admitted this?” I asked, skeptical that the King would’ve shared this purchase with anyone, including his own sons.
    “No, of course not, but it’s all over the news outside of Iceland. No one around here has a clue. The problem is that things were settling down, and Taktarov was losing support...but buying the vial ...”
    The controversy over the blood was becoming clear. I felt stupid for not realizing it earlier. “He’s using this as an excuse isn’t he? Taktarov is riling up his followers by saying that Iceland is trying to weaponize it.”
    “It’s more than that. His true believers – the ones who worship him – believe it’s an affront.” Dawson asked to see international news and the device triggered a graphic that floated before us: the word ‘classified’ in bold 3D letters. He spoke a series of numbers aloud and the word disappeared, unlocking new feeds from outside of Iceland; feeds that were no doubt censored to all but those who reside inside the castle.
    “An affront?” I repeated, not sure I heard him correctly.
    “Like an offense to their holy leader. That Iceland would dare take Taktarov’s blood is like taking a piece of him . Since my dad purchased the vial a new movement has formed calling themselves the ‘Manticore Uprising’: fanatics who are more radical than anyone who’s come before. They’re mostly superhuman, and have been promising to follow Russia’s Son ‘to the gates of Hell’ to reclaim what’s his.”
    I was hypnotized, gazing at the most recent news footage: somewhere in Sweden the media was reporting from a Manticore Uprising rally. Hundreds of soldiers, many encased in red battle armor with opaque black visors, were screaming and thrusting their fists into the air while Sergei Taktarov spoke from an elevated podium. The audio was muted, but whatever their leader said was whipping his followers into a frenzy. “Wow...that is all kinds of insane.”
    “It definitely is,” Dawson agreed. “They’re training, recruiting new soldiers, and preparing for what Taktarov is calling the ‘Ascension’: the moment when every remaining human–run territory is under his rule.” He swiped his finger through the air and closed the news feeds, returning to the local cameras monitoring the population outside of the castle. He gazed at the monitors, transfixed on the citizens of Iceland who were milling about in the streets, completely unaware that the shields were down – or that there was a superhuman assassin in House Lehmann custody. “These people under my dad’s watch, they have no idea what’s going on outside in the real world. No idea how bad things could get if the Uprising gets its way.”
    “This is like an episode of the Twilight