Gauntlet: Chapter 10 (final)

“Enter. Take the elevator up.”

“To what floor?” Clio asked, but no response came. She shrugged and went inside.

The elevator was at the side of a modern lobby decorated with abstract paintings and metal sculptures in twisted configurations. The interior of the elevator was paneled in mirrors. Only one of the buttons worked–the penthouse.

“Up.” Her reflection grinned wryly back at her. It almost felt like a stranger’s face, even though, except for her shorter hair, she looked the same as when all this had begun.

The elevator stopped smoothly and the doors slid apart with barely a whisper, opening directly onto what appeared to be a large, open living area. The furnishings looked expensive but lived in. Instead of the stark, postmodern lines she expected, the room exuded a subtle warmth and comfort that actually put her more at ease.

The doors on the far wall were retracted, opening almost the entire length of the room to a spacious terrace tiled in muted Mediterranean shades of blue and green. Clio stepped out of the elevator.

“Hello?”

She went farther in, but no one was in the room. Hallways branched off to either side of her, but she heard no sound from any of them. She went out onto the terrace and waited, admiring the breathtaking view of the sprawling city.

“So you’ve come to us at last.”

Clio whirled around.

An attractive woman of indeterminate age watched her with a playful half-smile. She was dressed in a white, knee-length sheath dress and a pair of brown sandals. Her blonde hair was swept over one shoulder, and Clio was struck by a sense of familiarity.

“You were expecting me?” Clio asked, a hint of uncertainty creeping into her thoughts.

“Of course. Would you like to sit down?” The woman swept a well-manicured hand toward a set of cushioned lounge chairs. She took a seat in one and looked at Clio placidly. “We’ve expected you for the past two weeks.”

Clio flushed. She wasn’t sure if that statement was meant to be a rebuke, but she felt it, anyway–and felt the need to offer an explanation.

“I needed time to think,” she said, her chin lifting slightly in unconscious defense of her choice.

“And did you?” the woman asked, curling her legs beneath her like she was preparing for a cozy, comfortable chat with a girlfriend.

“I…” Clio frowned, thrown off by the woman’s casual demeanor. “Yes, I did.”

The woman smiled that half-smile again, as if she were enjoying a private joke. “Please sit down, Clio. Would you like something to drink?”

“I don’t want anything to drink,” Clio snapped, almost immediately feeling guilty for her rudeness when she hadn’t been treated badly. But the woman had called her Clio. She knew who Clio was, so that meant she was involved with the Gauntlet somehow.

Clio stood her ground and looked the woman in the eye. “I want to know who you are.”

“Is that all?” Despite the irritating undercurrent of humor in the woman’s voice, Clio was distracted by a sense of familiarity again. It was like trying to recall a word or a name on the tip of her tongue. Clio’s thoughts were cut off when the woman offered, “You may call me Regina.”

The woman–Regina–held out her hand, and Clio automatically stepped forward and took it. Then she frowned and let go.

“That’s not what I meant,” Clio said in sharp retort, “and you know it. I want to know what you have to do with the Gauntlet. Are you…are you the one running it? Are you the one responsible for putting me in there?”

“Responsible?” Regina tilted her head. “But you chose to enter it.”

Clio balked. “I didn’t choose it. I was chased into it!”

“You were chased, yes.” Regina regarded her with a display of mild puzzlement. “But it was your choice to enter.”

“You call that a choice?” Clio cried indignantly.

“Of course. You were given opportunities to turn back. I offered you one myself.”

Clio scoffed and shook her head. “What are you talking about?”

“I offered to share my cab with you.” Regina smiled, and Clio flashed back to that fateful day, before night had fallen and she’d wandered into unknown territory. Clio gasped, remembering the way she’d admired the woman’s poise.

That was why Regina seemed so familiar–or part of the reason, anyway.

Clio’s brow furrowed in frustration. “Are you trying to tell me that if I’d taken that ride, none of this would have happened?”

Regina merely smiled.

“But that makes no sense!”

“It doesn’t?”

Clio got the feeling that the woman was studying her, as if trying to decide how much to actually reveal.

“I thought… Well, it seemed like you–or whoever it was–wanted me in the Gauntlet,” Clio said haltingly. “If that’s true, why did you give me a chance to…avoid it?”

“Three chances,” Regina corrected. “You were warned away by the man with the ice cream cart, and I believe you were offered a haven by two young men. As to why, well…the simple answer is that it makes the outcome so much more interesting.”

Clio stared, hardly noticing as she sank into the chair nearest the woman. “So…so it was really just a game…some bizarre, twisted game?” Her face contorted. “Why? What’s the point? Why did that man…the Jacks…any of them go along with it?!”

“The point…” Regina gave a curious tilt of her head. “You should ask them.”

Clio opened her mouth. Nothing came out. There had to be a reason she was chosen by the higher-ups for the Gauntlet. They’d sent her in because of August, right? That had been her theory in the end. She’d been a pawn, but at least a pawn had meaning.

Was she wrong, or was she being misled now?

“Was everybody I met just playing the game?” she asked in a lost voice. “Just…playing a part?”

Regina released a soft chuckle. “Everyone plays a part every single day.”

“Quit…quit toying with me,” Clio cried, her face twisting in angry confusion. “Was any of it real?!”

“You ask that question like it has a meaning beyond what meaning we each give it.” Regina bestowed a look on Clio that was almost sympathetic. “Can you tell me how it will affect you if I answer yes or no? Does it matter?”

“Yes!” Clio cried. “Of course it does!” Her hands spread in disbelief. “I… What I went through…”

She had invested so much–been taken away from her life. It hardly mattered if everyone seemed to think that her life was too mundane to be worth considering–it had been hers. Everything that had happened–especially with Britt, with August and Chance–had left a profound mark on her. If it was all just a lie, she didn’t think she could cope with that. Every feeling revolted.

“What right do you have to treat anyone like this?” she asked in a tight, accusing whisper. “Why do you do it?”

“Because we can,” Regina said simply. “Maybe we’re simply bored.” Her voice was almost kind. “Let me ask you this: will you believe my answers?”

“No,” Clio said grudgingly, realizing it was the truth. “I could never take your word for it. But it’s your fault I feel that way. Is that the point of the Gauntlet? To make someone doubt everything?”

Regina’s lips pursed as if she didn’t quite agree with that interpretation. “Everything that we experience is subjective. Perhaps one lesson is to learn that two people never completely share the same truth.”

Clio shook her head in denial. “That’s just a cop-out–a way to avoid responsibility for what you’ve done.”

“I have no wish to deny what you call responsibility.” The playful smile was back. “Those of us who…oversee the Gauntlet…have shouldered that responsibility for a very long time. We come and go, but the Gauntlet remains. It’s much bigger than you can imagine.”

That, at least, Clio could easily believe. “But what’s it for? And why…why did you choose me?”

The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Always that question. It satisfies your vanity that you were, doesn’t it? The ‘whys’ don’t really matter, but let’s just say that you were at a crossroads, and that those people are the ones who interest us most. You were perhaps…receptive.”

Clio was startled when an older woman carrying a coffee service on a tray came out onto the terrace. Regina thanked her as she set it down on the table, then the old woman left as silently as she’d come.

“Receptive?” Clio asked as Regina poured two cups. “What do you mean, receptive?”

Regina seemed to disregard the question entirely. “Some people believe that a deity created the universe–wound it up like a clock and set it running, and then walked away to let it unwind on its own.”

Clio frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? Are you saying that’s what happened with the Gauntlet? Someone made it and wound it up, but then walked away? Then how did I end up there?”

Regina smiled. “Other people think that whatever mysteries the universe holds can only be examined by walking a path toward enlightenment, passing through a series of trials until they are initiated into awareness beyond that of the uninitiated.”

“That sounds like a cult,” Clio said warily.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose you could look at it that way, though one without coercion, without form or formality.” Regina set a cup and saucer in front of Clio. “Milk or sugar?”

Clio shook her head. “How can you say without coercion? I didn’t actually choose to enter of my own free will, no matter what you say. It was just what seemed like the best choice in that moment.”

“How is that different from any choice that you make?” Regina sipped her coffee, watching Clio over the rim of her cup. One eyebrow rose delicately.

“It…it is different,” Clio said weakly.

“Because it made you feel like your heart was going to burst? Because it took you out of a comfortable, unexceptional existence and put something vital at stake?”

“Because it’s wrong,” Clio flared. “It’s wrong to play with people like they’re toys, to force someone to make choices as part of a game they never agreed to.”

“You think it’s immoral.”

“Yes!”

“So what is it that you came here seeking?”

“Answers! Honest answers. The things that happened to me, to the people I met–all of it can’t be some elaborate play that they put on. The Jacks, okay. They were inside and out of the Gauntlet. They were playing a role–I knew that because they all but said it themselves, but it was still more than that, wasn’t it? Even they were more than that. And the droolers… God, that wasn’t faked. What’s been done to them is beyond sick.

“And Britt! She got out and went back. It was to change things, wasn’t it? What she found inside there? Chance said I was a pawn. Is that true? Was August really someone you sent in who got out of control? Did you want him out? Where is he now?”

Clio knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t stop. The questions of the last several weeks–of the weeks before that, when she’d been surviving in the Gauntlet–rushed out of her all at once. She needed explanations. She needed clarity.

She needed…validation.

“What are you really doing with the Gauntlet? Who’s in charge of it now? I don’t believe for a second that someone started it up and walked away–someone’s watching. You. There must be others, too. You interfere all the time, don’t you, playing your God game? But maybe you’ve lost control, or maybe that’s what you wanted all along. Do you even care about people who get hurt in there? Or… ” Clio’s hands curled tightly against her knees. “Or was everything really and truly just a lie? When is it going to stop? Has it stopped?”

“But you’ve already told me that you won’t necessarily believe what I tell you,” Regina replied. “So Clio…ask your questions, if you must, but I’ll ask you again. Would my answers really change anything?” She leaned forward, and Clio was transfixed by the depth in the woman’s clear, dark eyes. Her lips curved upward in the barest smile.

Clio closed her eyes. She thought about the question for a long time, focusing only on that and leaving her rage aside for the moment. And as she reflected on everything she’d gone through–everything she’d lost, and everything she’d gained–her anger finally began to dissipate. When she opened her eyes again, she felt her face relax.

“No, I guess they wouldn’t. Anything you could say wouldn’t change what I’ve already gone through.” Her mouth curved in a mirror of Regina’s expression. “I saw things and I felt things. That won’t change.”

Regina sat back as if satisfied, the momentary air of intimacy broken. “Will you go back to your job?” she asked swiftly. “You can, of course. All those sorts of things were smoothed over for you, as you’ve probably determined.”

Clio stared, but after a moment, she smirked. The woman was playing another game with her. “No. I’m going back, which I’m sure you already figured out.”

“Are you?” Regina looked and sounded genuinely surprised, though Clio didn’t believe it for a moment. “But are you so sure the way will be open to you?”

Doubt was an unpleasant coil in Clio’s belly for a second, but then she relaxed. “I think it will. After all, I made it out.”

“Yes, but not with your passport intact.” Regina’s eyes dropped to the single charm on Clio’s bracelet. “That earned you an audience here, but now it’s nothing more than a memento.”

Clio smiled. “I thought you’d say something like that. That’s why I’m glad I was able to hang on to this.” She reached up and pulled the scarf at her throat loose.

Britt’s necklace dangled above her collarbone.

Clio held Regina’s gaze for a long moment, and then Regina inclined her head. She rose from her seat; Clio followed suit.

“You’re a good girl,” Regina said, linking an arm through Clio’s and drawing her inside. “So I’ll give you this small caveat. The path, my dear Clio, is never the same twice.”

***

Clio thought about those last words as she ascended the steps to the Gauntlet. Regina had kissed her on the forehead before she’d left–formally, like a benediction, or perhaps an initiation.

Then Clio had found her way back to the stairs and the red doors.

She was sure there were other entrances, other methods of invitation. After all, the Gauntlet was bigger than the sections she’d been in. And she didn’t know what was waiting for her any more than she had the first time she’d stood here, gazing up at the words engraved in the archway.

She didn’t even know which of her motivations for returning were the most sincere. Did she want to help the people still inside–the people she counted as friends and those who couldn’t help themselves? She did. But as her heartbeat raced faster and faster with each step she climbed, she also wondered if, truthfully, even those were merely excuses to keep playing.

The setting sun cast long shadows, and Clio’s lips curved as she set her hand on the iron handle of the door and pushed.

Alea iacta est.

The die is cast.

End.

The final ebook release of Gauntlet contains an additional story and mini comics. Additional Gauntlet material is also available in Sparkler’s Cherry Bomb line. Paperback coming Q4 2014.

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