-2-
The makeshift white of a tiled room, the so full of cracks ceiling, filled with white Mucus anti-fungus powder, they are all buzzing with that head-aching ambience of fluorescent tubes. Nauseating, going from one side of comfort in the simple metal bed, to the discomfort of jelly meals, to uncaring doctors, to space cattivelli breaking into rooms and selling plastic junk, to them being chased out by moon-gypsies for few iron coins, to the old people having their souls prolonged a bit further than the sentence of a mouth that wants to call a stop, to the faded windows that cannot even showcase the orbiting planet and of course, to the passive aggressive corporate meetings that he has to attend, all is to and fro, more so leaning to extreme displeasure. Long and excruciating dullness, mixed with elements of civilized cruelty.
Jorj has a new earpiece. One not fused with him, it remains on the side of his bed. From that small machine the room fills with a woman's voice, instead of the usual direct-to-drum communication.
"It has come to our attention that in the previous IC contest you have disconnected corporate property when connected to your assigned support Claimant. Please clarify why this happened. But before that please understand that you have to perform your needful reassignment of trainings as per company policy 145-IC-10040. I will send you the respective document numbers by EOTD as per YOP." Another voice continues. "What helps me Jorj is that I try to put everything I can into Cel. A Cellblock and every time that I have something new, irrespective of what happened, I add..."
Off from one side, Jorj gets up from the bed and walks out of the room. The earpiece is left there and the ambience becomes replaced by crude language and half-arguing filth as soon as the door closes behind him.
A pair of cattivelli teenagers close in to the Contestant. The corridor is gray, with green, plastified floors that look as if molten paint was flooded here and let to cool off. The two young men carry a water tank on their backs and they stop infront of Jorj.
The difference of size between the three is astounding. Even if considered short by Contestant standards, at one meter and ninety-eight centimeters tall, Jorj easily dwarfs the two malnourished boys. There is no left or right to this man. Wide and stout, of such broad plex, the other darkly and crooked two, stand ahead at the distance of his shoulders. They cannot pass through unless they take a long way around his body. By instinct, by the unreal super-physiological meeting of what seems inhuman by either pair of men, there is brief stoppage. The water tank is already open and a cup of factory-grade water is brought to Jorj.
He believes it to be an offering of fans, the display perhaps of a fandom that he does not know. Truth is, that the two are overtaken by slight and civilized fear. An awkward moment of uncertainty, where violence can simply not manifest. The three men go their own way, wholly complacent to not compare themselves to the other inhuman form.
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The debt is, 1004058 credits. Four respawns from a resurrection pod, 80000 each. Four re-forges of Gygmetes-tier armor plates 12000 each. Thirty-seven plasma Lanza core slices used, totaling 141980. Arena expenses for Friday, 32nd, 104th year of the 32nd Planet's integration totaling 509980 credits as per material and energy costs adjusted to that day's universal market value and then readjusted to Ohros' system market value.
"Round the numbers up and I've made even less than last time". Jorj blurts out in an instant, fully aware that weirdos and curses are invited when one speaks out loud his inner thinking.
The transfer is to be completed in a few days’ time. However long that is on the uneven, universal, order of life and time in space.
Or, as Jorj would think a few moments later, while sitting on an empty dinner table, with its leather and torn, outwards red but inwards dirty yellowed out foam and plain white table, about a sleep cycle away.
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Diners are widely known for their services. Not because they had good food or rare stimulants, but because the power sockets spewed out cheap energy that came along with the rest of the bill.
Slop is served, recycled matter sprinkled with traces of noble minerals, acids and nutrients. It matters little to the physical condition of a Contestant as their bodies have been locked at their prime when issued their BRM license. It is considered a common occurrence for one Contestant to perform better after they are fragged for the first time in the arena. The resurrection pod uses a Body Rights Management license that the Contestant has procured in order to remake the entirety of their body, at the exact specifications when that the BRM license was taken in. All bodyparts are woven as they were, excluding the brain. During that process most ailments and other toxins within their body are not remade. The resurrection pod spits a Contestant out in their prime with the only change being some added fatigue that to reflect what has already been accumulated during the duel.
As such is the process but only limited to all bodyparts except for the brain and some parts of its stem.
The only reason for anyone to be sitting in a diner like this, is to take advantage of the cheap staying fee, cheap power, cheap toilet breaks and water basins and perhaps to enjoy some of the mundane spectacles of decay one finds at the random people passing through such places.
Some birthday is happening and five cake slices are handed to the few people gathered there. One such slice is brought to Jorj and the microscopic bident-fork cuts along the pointy end of fluffy sugar clouds, all sitting on top of a pinky-deep wafer.
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Claimants are not the types of people to be found anywhere. Matter of fact, they are only near rare and important moments, inbetween the least expected of events.
As another fan's offering, another plate with an equally sharp slice of cake enters Jorj's view. Varhas speaks his name as the plate is pushed closer to Jorj. In that null moment, before the other name is exchanged, the Claimant is eyed from top to bottom.
Varhas the Claimant, is dressed in what Jorj can only perceive as black, layered and of much detail clothing, housing a branded signature. Marked by corporate ownership, a pin covers over the Claimant's heart and that heart rests behind layers of blackened cloth, in a moody envelop of Makkaras.
"Makkaras? Magnisia?" Asks Jorj as he half focuses on cutting the cake and catching a good glimpse into the Claimant's uniform. "I am wearing Makkaras. Good eye." Varhas lets the compliment out with a wave of his finger and Jorj strains to listen. "I am a bit shaken in my Gray Shielding. Pardon my injured mind.", says Jorj, pointing to his own head.
Varhas is aware that the man ahead is no good for speech. He searches for something in his pockets.
"I got hit with a cannon. Flak. Blew a few centimeters infront from my nose. Need some time". The other man asks of his genetic composition, wondering if he has regenerative abilities, such that can repair extensive Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy after enough time has passed. "Yeah. I am a twentieth, something like that from Khanza-Rum. I've recovered from worse. The Gray Shielding around my brain is intact, just a lucky shot that made me slug through a couple of frags. My CTE should be gone in a dozen or so sleep cycles."
"I cannot wait that long to speak to you. I saw the match and it was horrible." Says Varhas.
Jorj, presses his mouth together in a straight line where his lips become seemingly flat. With one hand he forks the rest of the cake, while the other scratches away at his short stubble. Jorj remembers a habitual stream of thoughts, that if he could do the BRM scan again, he would have gone through the process freshly shaved instead. He runs his open palm over the prickly stubble, returning as such to each respawn after a match's end.
Another object is crossing the table. Varhas pushes a small syringe to the hulking man on the other side.
"How much?"
"Free. Just shoot it up now."
With another sly gesture, a frown, Jorj wipes his mouth on his backhand and afterwards he shoots the liquid in through a vein on his neck.
What comes between the men is someone else, or more accurately, as Varhas would later put it as, another string of mood, rapidly dawning on the Contestant, remaking him into clarity, a man he would normally be a few weeks later when his brain returns to the usual person it carries within.
In that space where man carries himself, BRM covers only the body and many of the finermost details that make of a human. Muscles, sinew, eyes and neurons, so very close to the gray material within the brain, but not exactly there.
All is as a swing, unwoven influence made to be as such bygones of the Great Thinking. Sacred is the place of the brain and intrusion is righteously chased away from being made real. Protected by a golden layering, referred to as Gray shielding, though it may become damaged and healed by various means, the exact breadth of what can enter the brain is an ever moving taboo.
Widely, the Claimant thinks, of how sacred it is, to be the sole priest of the holy altar that is one's mind. Yet in pinpoint, surgical focus, he wonders too, how fateful mankind is to trample that sanctity, by giving mystery syringes to random people, telling them to shoot liquids in, that heals their armored brains.