Arena Mode Read Free

prize on a game show. “Chad, Darren, this is the guy I’ve been telling you about: Matthew Moxon, but everyone calls him Mox.”
    I shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re the only person who calls me that.”
    The shorter kid removed his gold-rimmed sunglasses and carefully folded them into his pocket. “So this is the genius?” He sneered in a clipped English accent. He looked me up and down as he spoke, arching his eyebrows.
    “He’s more than just a genius,” Gavin replied. “This guy is a super -genius. He’s like Lex Luthor, Tony Stark and Brainiac all rolled into one.”
    “Way to not oversell it,” I grumbled.
    “Seriously, this will blow your freakin’ minds. Go ahead Mox, do your thing.” He nudged my shoulder with the point of his elbow and his grin widened.
    I loved Gavin like a brother, but when he pulled this crap to impress the customers, it made me feel like a carnie. “All right,” I said with a heavy sigh, digging my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. “Pick a book.”
    The kids glanced at each other and then back at me. “Any book?” The taller one asked.
    “Yes,” I said abruptly, and with a little too much impatience. I shouldn’t have been taking it out on these kids – they didn’t ask for a sideshow – but it was still annoying, and I was criminally under-caffeinated. “Pick any book. Go through the back issues and pull out whatever you want.”
    They each pulled open a drawer and proceed to flip through the Mylar slips. The taller one yanked a book from the middle of the row with a little too much reckless abandon, causing Gavin to wince. He peeled open the bag’s enclosure flap and slid the book out with care.
    Gavin started breathing again. 
    “Okay,” the kid said, examining the cover. “This one is called ‘Alpha Flight’ ... and there’s a leaf on the front for some reason?” He squinted at the logo as if it were the most perplexing thing he’d ever seen.
    I tried not to sound condescending. “It’s the leaf from the flag. Canada’s flag. Alpha Flight is a group of superheroes from Canada, so ...”
    “Ah, I get it!” the kid shouted. I could almost see the light bulb illuminating over his head. “That’s pretty clever.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Not so much. Go ahead and tell me the issue number.”
    “Number seven.”
    “Alpha Flight number seven, written by Scott Lobdell, with pencils by Dave Ross and inks by Mark McKenna. The cover price is two dollars and ninety-nine cents, but that was back in November of 2004 when it was originally published. The one you’re holding in your hand is a first-printing, worth six hundred and twenty since it’s in near-mint condition. I’ve seen one go for over a thousand that was signed by McKenna.”
    “Holy shit,” the shorter one exclaimed, sticking his thumb in my direction. “This guy is the real deal.”
    “No doubt,” Gavin said with a satisfied nod.
    Gavin’s obsession with comic books was rivalled only by my own, but even though we shared that common interest, I don’t think it’s what made him value me as a friend. An independently wealthy kid nearly a decade my junior, he was the most ambitious person I’d ever met; I had no idea how he managed to build and maintain a profitable business by the age of twenty – especially having been born and raised in The Dark Zone. Surely there were more successful, interesting, and better-dressed people he could have been spending his free time with. I could only imagine that he thought of me as some sort of a low-level superhuman because of my photographic memory. Aside from performing parlor tricks and counting cards I’d yet to find an actual use for my ‘grand IQ’, but Gavin seemed to find me endlessly entertaining.
    As he ushered the tourists to the more expensive books towards the back of the stacks, it occurred to me that his sole employee was behind the cash register, quietly engrossed in a comic. Normally it would be almost impossible to miss