Old Chapter 3 - v1.0

-3- v2.0

As the drug settles within Jorj, a fastening grip surges and describes all within the dinner anew.

For the Contestant, his eyes fall again on the black attire of the Claimant. This time, the kenophobia within radiates meaning and the grip that describes reality latches onto the details. Black robes that conceal light, in an impenetrable darkness. Layers of hanging metallic curtains that flow in the texture of silk, faded mica and rose gold layers in white fringes hang in place. Ill-coloured chemistry is the only texture that exists on the black fabric and it appears that everything on the Claimant is a swaying of imagination brought to boundless fashion. And yet all contrasting pieces are not as such. They flow from one form to the other, never sacrificing uniqueness or becoming obstructive to a body's natural range of motion.

The details give way to imagination as Jorj continues staring at the man. Three streams of thought invade him one after the other.

Jorj imagines firstly, fresh wind, cold and slicing, electric current, static and surging at imperceivable windy patterns over the clothing. There is force underneath all of the hanging pieces of the Claimant's attire. Force and flow that give even more detail to Varhas as his body shifts underneath.

In that shift, Jorj imagines stars on the blackness, without being certain if he actually sees them. Without a uniform pattern, these glimmers of deep blue, orange and yellow are an ordered chaos of starlight. These hints speak of order and some childlike awe, uniform and magical spectacle.

Lastly, Jorj looks over to the man's face. At first glance, the man appears in his late twenties, but as soon as he turns his attention around to his eyes, the man gives off a hint of much greater age. There are old creaks there, strained geriatric crevasses stretching almost from ear to eye. Jorj thinks he is a dead man, one who is of cold skin, a straight nose leading to sharp predatory eyelids that always stand wide, in the most common characteristic of a Claimant. Revealed eyes, whiteness on top of their irises. Calculating and feeling continuously. This one's thoughts, forming as endless dead battlefield. Silent, without miasma, rummaging through moments as old and rusty equipment, or scavenging them for food.

This is how Jorj half-thinks, half-imagines this brief moment. He finds these thoughts odd, but perhaps a result of drugs all the same. He chooses to wait for a response from the man.

For the Claimant, this moment is mute and that is by choice. He passes his fingers through the nape of his neck. A short buzz cut and hairless neck meet his fingertips as he goes back and forth, enjoying the resistance of short hair. All the while, he prepares his words, two, ten sentences ahead.

Jorj grabs the initiative anyways and he speaks first.

'10k a syringe, isn't it? Instant fix and trip.'

'A trip? You are most welcome for the surge of thoughts.'

Jorj finds the response in bad taste. The high and mighty pleasantries of the man ahead does little to help. He waves his hand and then turns away towards the glass panel on his left. The drug has already worn itself off its peak, but he is still able to enjoy its slow decrease. Varhas follows his turn of the head.

Nothing is happening out there. And that nothing soon takes the form of a running man. Naked from the waist up and in an unfitting happiness, the man plants two firm feet on a wooden bench's back. Hands outstretched towards the high ceiling and the half-naked indoor trees of rock and glass. He stands as summoner amidst the plaza, wholly submerged in divine awe and mania, acting it out. Teal and faded, microcline leaves swirl all around him in the simulated winds inside of orbital stations. Both Jorj and Varhas watch this nothing unfold. Four eyes stare through happenings such as this, of long forgotten autumn and they both enjoy the strange peace of this spectacle.

Four eyes see. Yet the Claimant is lost in streams of divination where emotion guides decisions of the future.

'Let me sponsor you. Orichalcum Megacorp.' Says Varhas in this divinating absence as they both remain steadied to the spectacle outside.

'Is there good money in this? Metallurgy corporations have good payroll I hear.'

'Just as much as pharma pays you.'

'It's a no then. I've been running on a debt spiral for over a decade now.'

'We do not have paperwork in Orichalcum Megacorp.'

Outside, the madman removes his pants, tosses them away into the cold gusts and runs away from two arbiters that have come to apprehend him.

'I hope he goes far.' Speaks Jorj, half-smiling at the incident.

'Most likely a gambler. Lost it all at the odd shifts of chances in your last match.'

'Is this what you inhuman mind tells you Claimant?'

Varhas refuses to answer, by way of absently staring at the passage of the naked gambler and then the trees and then the the other people who follow the spectacle in deeper parts of the station.

A thought enters Jorj in a subsiding surge as he turns to face Varhas. His body becomes alert, ready for action and by sight alone the Contestant measures the man ahead.

'You know I am in deep debt right?' Continues Jorj.

'I do. I also know it would take extreme odds to get out of.'

'Then why do you want to sponsor me? Why do you want me to be your Contestant? Isn't it cheaper to go into the proving grounds of Khanza-Rum, or Anava, grab a newcomer there? Get their brains all golden-layered, get them a BRM license and be done with it?

'It is not credit I am worried about. Time forces my choice. Time and sacred machinations of...'

'No. I am not doing this. Stop.' Jorj speaks halfway as a warning.

'... of Pantokrators and...'

'Just. Shut the fuck up.'

The man ahead is not really slowing down in his sermon. Before he is able to continue a deep narrative of things beyond, Jorj arches forwards just enough to put his right hand in range and then he gently pushes against the skull of the narrating Claimant with his thumb.

The schizophrenic speech stops before it accelerates to total, mind-bending influence. Symbolic, widely known across the galaxy and full of meaning.

Perhaps the Contestant is trying to avoid the vivid dreams or headaches that come after one happens to hear such speeches. More than that he realizes by a light hint on his memories, the words themselves invite trouble, change and the hard press of circumstances over one's life. To him, this is neither the place or the time for such beginnings. And whether he feels logical or superstitious caution, Jorj doubles down on his angry decision.

Varhas stops. He is well aware that commoners such as Jorj, rarely enjoy this craft. Much so at idle times like this. Even so, he thinks in earnest pride, how much of a shame it is that the times of old have passed. Before he opens his mouth to speak in what he perceives as, flat and boring words, he too turns to the past. He instead, does not rely on hints, but an overarching and fast scouring of history. In places and times where Claimants controlled language. At the previous era where constructs of flesh became animated and motivated to such complex sermons.

Frustrated also, the Claimant steadies his face and cloaks in shadow this prideful reminisce. In this minute moment, the Contestant grabs the initiative of speech again and he belches the words out with a stern shake of his index finger.

'I am not in the mood for nightmares next time I go to bed. I should cave your skull in for speaking Claimant babble on me.'

'Apologies. I too am a victim of this...'

With wide eyes and a bloodshot, frozen expression, the brutish man stands idle just enough for Varhas to understand that he is going back at the same direction he was swayed off only a second ago.

Varhas hushes mid sentence. When he opens his mouth again, the words come out one by one, carefully strained.

'You are just good. Just that. You are a good Contestant.'

'Good how?'

'I cannot think of many that would have hit that last Lanza shot. It was extraordinary. Fate would not..."

The Claimant halts again, closing his eyes and opening an awkward hand as if balancing while swaying himself out of mystical images and things of higher functions.

'Alright. But what is the goal here? You stand to lose money in the long term and the debt is not going anywhere with these license rates. I am playing in the low leagues anyway.'

'Do not worry about that. I got secret hint on what is to happen.'

'Go on.'

'Have you made up your mind?'

'Speak and I will decide later.' The Contestant finishes talking and falls back on the red leather couch. The broken crimson leather creaks and tightens.

'The new season's Announcement of Colours will be delayed. The Champion's crew will been prosecuted for terrorism or some other act against general, galactic order. Qualifiers will begin soon after. The entire order of the Contest is to become null soon. I speak of events very close and nearing.'

'When?'

'I can only fathom symbols. So I cannot speak of when.'

'When?'

'I do not know. Truly.'

'So the Greens are to be outlawed? You are telling me that this is decided already?'

'Indeed. The Greens have amassed too much public support. Some believe that this might lead into another Rabble March. So some think.'

'So some think. All conspiracy nutjobs. Claimants like you? Buttbuddies and colleagues?'

'I mean, obviously, let's be honest here. But there are, how do I put it, pincer attacks of these cultural divinations. These conspiracies as you call them. Random thoughts by completely different people, all point to the same happening in the future.'

'And what do they say?'

'From one side, some people obsessed with the patterns of order, they believe that the Greens will be removed because they have gained a lot of popularity over the last twenty-four seasons. From the other side, more entertainment-flow oriented people say, that it is only a matter of boredom that invites such change. I mean, you know this. Most spectators that boot up IC telestim, they tend to watch lower-league matches. Gone is the popularity of Color Leagues. The Greens have dominated it for so long that there is no point to watch sometimes.'

'Yeah, but the money is in those leagues not here.'

'And that is why you should come with me.'

Jorj looks at the man and the brief stop reveals that he understood the implication.

'Eh... I am not the one for many eyes looking at me.'

'What do you mean? You are Contestant. You've spent a lifetime in-front of lenses.' Speaks Varhas with surprise in his voice.

'I don't know what I mean. I am but a stupid commoner infront of a Claimant. How do you people say it? Woes me.'

'I think you got to try me anyways. If we keep winning, who knows, Orichalcum might make you a powerarmor. Do you want me to promise you a Kingmaker match? What do you want?'

Jorj smiles at the thought. The sheer spectacle that he has himself not lived through, motivates this reaction. With new light on the man's features, Varhas realizes that he has thrown the hook that lands. His voice holds notes of confidence.

'Give me that and I will follow you anywhere.'

To Jorj, the man ahead remains solid, in the demeanor of business. However, he stares at Varhas and the hints that make his streams of thought, they scream in excitement. Excitement superimposed on the Claimant also. And Jorj gets an uncertain hint that the man ahead wants this too.

Jorj leans his head back and then he lets his elbows push back on the sofa. The smile turns into a yawn and then he speaks.

'So we have a new season approaching then? Another round of Qualifiers. Business as usual.' He yawns again, trying to hide a request. 'Answer me this though, will the private sectors allow for this dissolution of the Contest?'

'They have a say, but ultimately they have to follow the flow of events. We do not live in times where corporations own everything. Even if it doesn't feel like so.'

'So we won't see another Miner's Embargo?'

'I doubt it. Long are the days of airdropping one million tonnes of tungsten from the stratosphere of Dur-Baqa in protest. Did you know, that there are still preserved holes on the glass skyscrapers of that city? An aesthetic of through and through penetration?'

'I do. Been there. Fought in their glass arena. Weird design, to keep the holes as a memento.'

'The architect of that city is a Claimant. Its...'

'Yeah, weird. All of you. All of what you touch, from fingerprint to sound.'

'You think I am weird?' Varhas asks in revealed curiosity.

'Who cares what I think. At the end of the day I am a commoner and you live in a world I do not understand. I am meat, you are...'

Jorj scratches his stubble. He fumbles to find the correct word. Varhas remains completely devoted to the effort, listening and waiting for, what he believes, a revelation.

'...I don't know.' The Contestant shrugs, swatting away other thoughts of brain damage.

Varhas loses interest but he still puts enough effort to appear interested. 'So what is it then Jorj?'

The diner's waitress walks besides their table and stops, drawing their attention. Her tattooed arms hang with nothing to hold to. In the inner part of her elbow two needle marks break from between pale skin and dying layers. The fresh marks are laid there and the two men witness them. Stimulated, mindlessly dead, she asks them if they would like anything else with the nothing that they ordered.

Jorj shakes his head and he waits for the woman to go away. In earnest rhythm, so that two replies don't mix together, he turns slowly to Varhas and speaks in one surrendered breath.

'Sure. Let's do it.'

In a reminisce of ancient times, the Claimant puts a hand forwards and the commoner looks at it for a moment.

'I will only shake at it if you spoil me.'

'That's easy. Let's go over the paperwork now.'

'Right after we hit a few more restaurants yes? I haven't even had my complimentary cigarette yet.