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 they have a mouth 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.
Jorj has a new earpiece. One not fused with him, it remains on the side of his bed. The room fills with a woman's voice, whereas normally such talk is transmitted directly into the fused earpiece within his eardrum.
"It has come to our attention that in the previous IC contest you have pulled our earpiece off 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 other half-arguing filth as soon as the door closes behind him.
A pair of cattivelli teenagers close in. 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 centimetres 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, but so they are, both infront of him and 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 a stoppage. The water tank is already open and a cup of pure water is brought to Jorj.
He believes it to be offering of fans, the display perhaps of a fandom that he does not know. Truth is, that the two are overtaken by fear. Standing closer to reasons even if they cannot utter them out, the three men go their own way, closer than the other to what happened here, wholly perfect to not be compared to each other.
-
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, totalling 141980. Arena expenses for Friday, 32nd, 104th year of the 32nd Planet's integration totalling 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 other cursing happenings 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 uneven, universal, grand scale magnitude and order of space life and time.
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.
-
Diners had the best service. Not because they had good food or rare stimulants, but because the power sockets spewed out cheap energy that came along with the bill.
The usual 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 licence. It is considered a common occurrence for one Contestant to perform better after they are fragged the first time in the arena. The resurrection pod uses a Body Rights Management licence that the Contestant has carefully fixed in order to remake the entirety of their body, excluding the brain. During that process most ailments and other toxins within their body, they are not remade. One Contestant might have bone cancer for example, but the resurrection pods remake the body to that locked place in time. It spits a Contestant out in their prime with the only change being some added fatigue that has already accumulated during the duel.
The only reason 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 spectacles one finds at the random people here.
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 the fluffy sugar clouds, all sitting on top of a pinky-deep wafer.
-
Claimants are not the types of people to be found anywhere. Matter of fact, they are only near rare and important moments, further back, 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. Branded in a signature. Marked by corporate ownership on a pin over the Claimant's heart.
"Makkaras? Magnisia?" Asks Jorj as he half focuses on cutting the cake and catching a good glimpse into the Seer'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", 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 centimetres infront from my nose. Need some time". The other man asks of his genetic composition, wondering if he has regenerative abilities, the likes of which can repair extensive Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy after a while. "Yeah. About a twentieth, something like that from Khanza-Rum. I've recovered from worse. The gold layering 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 saw the match." Says Varhas. "Amazingly good?" Asks Jorj with a sly gesture. "Horrible."
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 the short stubble. Jorj remembers a habitual stream of thoughts, that if he could do the BRM scan again, he would have done that freshly shaved. He runs his open palm over the prickly stubble, returning to each respawn after a match's end.
Another sliding thing, this time 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. Healing rapidly and then he frowns back into a serious face.
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 is to be a few weeks later when his brain returns to the usual person it carries within.
For here is also a lapse in judgement. BRM covers body only and not the finer details of gray matter and its swings and even that unwoven influence that some silver globe manifested during the Great Thinking. Simply put, the brain is sacred in a sense, only protected by a golden layering, brought to and fro, great machines and other places. Damaged as it may become, it is also holding piece of the man on the other side and Jorj believes it too, that it is indeed a sacred blessing. Care provided by the Claimant on the other side of the table, fixing an armored brain.