No Flesh Shall Be Spared

Again, Adamson laughed and the sight was like watching a corpse kiss your sister.

'Look, I’m not going to bullshit you…'

'Good. I hate being bullshitted.'

'I’ve seen my fair share of fighters come through this place and not all of them left happy. Shit, most didn’t leave with a proper pulse.'

Cleese nodded and figured he’d already heard what he was about to hear again. ‘This place is dangerous. This place will get you killed. Yadda yadda yadda…’ Not wanting to appear too rude, he figured he’d give this guy about five minutes and then use meeting Monk as an excuse to leave.

Adamson surprised him though by saying, 'You’re a different kind of animal though. I’m guessing that you’ll do fine here. You’ll undoubtedly make yourself a shitload of money, but I don’t think you will make it outta here without some damage.'

Cleese looked at him and grimly shook his head. 'Well, that’s reassuring.'

Adamson leaned forward just a bit, 'Even if you are able to survive your time in the pit, the damage you need to worry about…' Adamson raised his right index finger and tapped it lightly against his temple. '…is mental. You need to figure out how to protect yourself against that.'

Well, Cleese thought, here’s a new twist.

'Have you ever heard of someone named Martin Seligman?'

Cleese shook his head in the negative.

'He was this old school scientist who developed the concept of inoculation from stress by studying the learning in dogs. His experiments put dogs in cages that had an electric shock pass through the floor at random intervals.'

'Fun guy…'

'Yeah, well… The dogs would jump, yelp and scratch at first as they tried to escape the shocks, but after a while they’d fall into a depressed, hopeless state of apathy and inactivity that Seligman termed ‘learned hopelessness.’'

While Cleese wasn’t exactly sure how any of this applied to him, he was now interested enough to keep listening. Besides, he silently hoped that Adamson’s story ended with this Seligman clown being ripped to shreds by his own electrified doggies.

He was, after all, a romantic at heart.

'Once that learned hopelessness set in, the dogs wouldn’t try to avoid the shocks any longer even when they were provided with an obvious escape route. Some of the dogs were shown a means of escape after receiving some shocks but they were shown the door before they fell into this state of learned hopelessness. These dogs learned that they could and would eventually escape from the shocks. After only one such escape, they would become inoculated against this condition. Even after periods of random, inescapable shocks these inoculated dogs would escape when finally given a means to do so.

'However, and this is the important part, if the dogs were allowed to develop learned hopelessness, they’d sit in their cages and, with a blind sort of resignation, just endure the shocks as if they were an accepted and expected part of their lives.'

Cleese looked at Adamson and saw a slowly dawning sense of sadness in his eyes. The guy looked like someone who’d just been given a terminal prognosis.

'As interesting as that is, I don’t really see how electrified puppies have anything to do with me,' Cleese said clandestinely checking his watch.

'This place… these people… are not your friends, Cleese. These people… they are the one’s delivering the shocks, Son. And you… you’re a dog who’s hopefully smart enough to figure it all out. You need to understand that these are the kind of people who would give Anne Frank a fuckin’ drum set if it meant they’d make a little more money or gain a little more fame.'

Yikes, Cleese thought, ‘Bitter Fuck, party of one.’

Adamson continued talking, but it was pretty clear he was doing so more to purge his soul than to make simple conversation.

'The language and the culture of The League is designed to help you be able to deny what it is we do here and why the system is set up the way it is, but it’s only so that the whole thing will seem more palatable. Do you understand what I’m saying, Cleese?'

'Money…' Cleese said and took another drink from his water bottle if only so he’d have something to do with his hands.

'You’re going to have your first fight soon and I don’t doubt that you’ll do fine. You’ll see, afterwards, you feel fuckin’ invincible and wanted and important. Never doubt for a minute though that the feeling will pass.'

Adamson looked up and earnestly stared into Cleese’s eyes. His gaze was haunted and had a doomed quality to it.

'I guess all I’m saying is to try to remember who you are and what you really want out of all of this. Then, try to keep in mind what you really mean to these people and decide for yourself if this is someplace you want to spend the rest of your days.'

'Well, I appreciate that…' Cleese said quietly.

'There was another guy,' Adamson interrupted, 'named J. Glenn Gray who once wrote a book called The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle and in it he said, ‘Few of us can hold on to our real selves long enough to discover the real truths about ourselves and this whirling earth to which we cling. This is especially true of men in war. The god Mars tries to blind us when we enter his realm, and when we leave he gives us a generous cup of the waters of Lethe to drink.’ Do you understand?'

Adamson abruptly stood up and, without waiting for a response, looked almost embarrassed; as if he’d suddenly come to the realization that it had been a mistake to come here and that he’d maybe said too much. He looked around nervously and then clapped Cleese on the shoulder.

Despite himself, Cleese felt as if he was definitely going to need that shower now.

'Just watch yourself,' he said and stepped back. 'These people are only here to mine you for what they can. The League does not give up its resources until they are ready. Believe me when I say that they are never ready. Trust me… I should know. I once tried to get out, but… Where was I going to go?'

Adamson turned as if to leave.

'Once The Dead have put their mark on you, Cleese, it’s damn near impossible to get it off.'

'Well, I appreciate that…' Cleese repeated because it was all he could think of to say. All of this fatalistic talk was starting to creep him out. The whole omnipotent corporation thing, the dog torture, and the 'sitting this close to a guy who smelled like a crypt' was starting to put the zap on his head.

 'And…' Adamson said and took a couple of steps back in the direction of his Holding Pen, 'the rest of the world doesn’t know how to deal with you now because of the things they know you’ve seen. You’ve taken a peek behind The Veil. They can’t—or won’t—forgive you for that. It’s something they refuse to think about… much less try to understand.'

Cleese sat quietly and watched as the sad, broken man walked off across the grass.

'Remember, Cleese,' Adamson called back over his shoulder, 'we all want Heaven, but few of us are willing to die to get there. A good friend of mine, many years ago, had three things he used to always say, ‘Know thyself,’ ‘To thine own self be true,’ and ‘Screw the bastards before they get a chance to screw you.’ You’re gonna need to keep your eyes open for your chance to save yourself and, when it comes, you need to take it….'

Cleese stared as the man walked further and further away.

From the distance, he heard Adamson say, 'You need to take it before that window of opportunity closes on you forever.'

Cleese sat for a long time as the sun slowly set and the birds chirped far off in the trees. Far off, across the stillness, once again Cleese thought he heard the ever-present moaning of the dead coming from the direction of the Holding Pen.

The Art of War

The air outside of the Training Hall was calm and cool as the sun made its way over the surrounding hills and