Phobos: Mayan Fear by Steve Alten Page B

swaying palm fronds of a coconut tree, Mitchell Kurtz lies back in his lounge chair, enjoying the nubile bikini-clad women walking in the ankle-deep surf before him. “If this is prison, I’ll take two life sentences.”
    “Shut up, fool. You and your damn pharmaceutical-fed libido is what got us into this mess in the first place.” Ryan Beck has his ear pressed to the cabana deck, the hotel “guests” distorting as they pass across his body. “Magnetic couplings are being shut down. Wherever we are, I’d say we just arrived. Manny, wake up.”
    Immanuel Gabriel slips out of his rapid eye movement trance and sits up in the holographic sand. He has spent most of the last eighteen hours in a state of hypnotic rest, preparing himself for the battle to come.
    The internal lights flicker, the beach scene replaced by four porous gray walls, ceiling, and floor. A hatch opens along one wall, revealing a squad of heavily armed soldiers.
    “The prisoners will exit the vehicle. Move!”
    Manny climbs down out of the cell, followed by his two companions.
    There are standing in Chichen Itza’s ancient Mesoamerican ball court, the thousand-year-old stone baked warm beneath a cloudless blue Yucatan sky.
    Kurtz looks around. “This is like a bad déjà vu.”
    The playing field is a good football-field-and-a-half long, though slightly narrower in width, a rectangle of grass imprisoned within four walls constructed of limestone block. Anchored to the two perpendicular walls like a giant vertical donut is a circular stone ring, its hoop twenty inches in diameter. Below the timeworn goals are slanted embankments adorned with Mayan ballgame reliefs. Situated atop the eastern wall is a twenty-six-foot-high structure—a replica of Chichen Itza’s Temple of the Jaguar. Towering in the distance is the Kukulcan Pyramid.
    Manny closes his eyes and inhales deeply, his senses processing their surroundings. “We’re in a holographic arena, the same one Jake trained in twenty years ago.”
    Beck curses under his breath. “Hangar 13. Your brother spilled a lot of blood and sweat in this place.”
    Manny nods. He can smell his twin’s lingering scent as clearly as one can detect smoke from a nearby forest fire.
    The mobile prison is maneuvered out of the arena by armed cyberwarriors. One of the soldiers aims his pain cannon at Salt and Pepper. “The two of you are to come with us. Gabriel, you’ll remain behind. If you’re victorious in battle, then your friends will be set free. Should you lose, they will die painfully.”
    “Couldn’t you just toss us back in that prison cell with a few sixpacks?”
    Facing Kurtz, the soldier fires a short burst of energy from the device secured to his forearm, causing the bodyguard to double over in agony. He turns back to Manny. “You may remove your neural collar once we exit the arena. You are no longer restricted from using the Nexus.”
    The military men escort Beck and Kurtz out of the training facility, leaving behind a pile of body armor, the black exoskeleton identical to the one Immanuel wore fifteen years ago when Jacob had attempted to train him for combat on Xibalba. The suit’s outer layer is composed of nanofiber ceramics backed by a lightweight carbon, the fabric as strong as steel yet as light as cotton.
    The weapon is a sword, its double-edged blade peppered with dime-size electrical conductors. The faster the sword is wielded, the hotter the steel will heat.
    Manny takes the weapon, ignoring the body armor.
    The warrior approaches from the western end of the ball court. White exoskeleton. Flowing white hair and intense black eyes, framed in thick red blood vessels. A sword carried in one hand, his headpiece in the other.
    “Hello, Uncle.”
    “You look so much like your father it’s scary.”
    “Put on your battle armor.”
    “I don’t need it.”
    “This is a fight to the death.”
    “Is that why I can taste your fear?”
    Devlin clenches his teeth. Tossing aside his own