Lord of the Arena-05

After the match, after the post-match debriefing and brain massage--a nice way of saying "10 minutes in the mind-cleaning machine"--Eric relaxed in his home. His tactician, who is also his security head, insisted that he have one of his men on hand until the morning. Eric relented, thinking the man a bit overcautious, but not wanting to gainsay one of his key staff.

Just after 2 a.m., the man awoke Eric.

"Sir, the boss figured that you taking out Matt would cause problems, so he put the word out to his network to keep a lookout for such things. We just got one."

"Price on my head?" Eric said, curious.

"$1 million U.S. Dollars, or its equivalent, for your head brought to a location in New York."

"I just backed up my memory, again. They're wanting more than just a body's severed head."

"Correct. It's $10 million if they also do away with the backups and the clone."

"Aside from turning on the top-tier security measures, what?"

"Get on the road, first thing tomorrow. The boss is already organizing the caravan."

"I want the road car ready. He knows better than to fight me on it."

The night then went without further interruption, nevermind incident, as Eric's staff rotated through the night to get the rigs loaded and ready to roll early in the morning. Duluth expected a good show, and neither they nor Eric could let a credible death threat stop them from appearing at the arena there.

When Eric's man got the order, he sighed but relayed it away; his boss was also an expert road warrior, and his best chances for surviving would be at the wheel of his own road-fighting car. That it's currently kept in one of the rigs made making it ready easy to do; if the arena car was a well-oiled, high-tuned race car of old then the road car was a rough-and-tumble rum-runner from a century before, back when morons decided to make booze illegal. The car that made Eric what he is remained with him, and with it Eric the Arena Ace shifted back to Eric Anderson the Road Viking.