-3-

As the recuperating drugs enter Jorj's bloodstream, there surges a fastening grip, describing all within the dinner anew.

Looking from the inside of the dinner, the man on the left is hard pressed between the white hospital gown. Whatever girth exceeds the fabric, it makes him appear as both large brute and initiate to purer things. Things the Claimant is well aware of, but in truth himself dressed so far apart from. This undefined day has begun for him approximately a week ago. The way he understands it is by only a long, hibernating sleep that lasted a long and undefined slice of time as he travelled here. Thus, on this long awakening, the Claimant is wearing black robes underneath extreme detail alluding to asteroid processing. Kenophobic, there is barely any space in that lightless Makkaras black. Raw mineral and bronze are everywhere on him, slices transparent, or woven to loose and coupled strands. This plex covers him from neck to waist in patterns of metallic curtains, brown belts and rose gold or faded mica in white fringes. Inbetween each strand and the flowing movements, patterns of ill-colored chemical clouds display a still, melancholic flatness ontop of his chest and a cavernous elongated depth on the curvatures of his elbows and armpits. The robe's neck stands a short distance away from both buzz cut and hairless neck.

"10k a piece. Instant fix for no natural wait. What is the deal, my new friend Varhas? Your name, correct?"

Many concurrent things happen at odd intervals, but it seems appropriate that at this very moment, the coincidences that make Claimants and their craft, they are completely absent. There was nothing happening on the space station slowly orbiting a tiny planetoid of molten rivers. Nothing but a hint from the very peaks of the universe, the thrones where man had either placed himself or kept running towards.

Varhas and Jorj throw a glance outside of the diner's window to witness that nothing unfolds as a running person.

Someone had lost a lot of money on the recent duel. That very same someone stood now over at the plaza which the diner overlooked and he placed two firm feet on one wooden bench's back. Hands outstretched to the high ceiling, while all around him, fake mica leaves swirl to simulated indoor winds. Both men stop to watch this nothing, where they should have begun already. Four eyes staring through the long glass at situations that are of long forgotten autumn. Cold only in the imagined shivers and a display of madness from an unfortunate gambler.

Four eyes see. Yet the Claimant is lost in divinating streams.

"Let me sponsor you." Says Varhas in this divinating absence as they both remain glued to the spectacle outside.
"Is there good money in this? Mining corps have good payroll I hear."
"Just as much as pharma pays you."
"It's a no then. I need something more."
"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.

More than what he can recall, Jorj feels certain that there is swaying from the Claimant's mouth into his own. Jorj is aware that the Claimant has perhaps looked into digital repositories and other places, in forgotten happenings and even in his first fifteen years as a crucible-layer forge worker that happened lifetimes ago. The man on the other side is aware and even if he did not find this awareness in old documents and databases, he would pick it apart in clues of whatever defines the Contestant infront of him at this very moment.

An ability wholly made difficult by a healed, but still foggy brain. Jorj realizes that perhaps this was the price of the syringe. Just enough clarity between the two, with only one of them at the reins of conversation.

The thought annoys Jorj.

"You know I am in deep debt right?"
"I do. I also know it would take extreme odds to get out of."
"Then what is the point if I am your Contestant? There are plenty of newcomers out there. Matter of fact, it might be cheaper to go into the proving grounds of Khanza-Rum, or even that earthquake riddled mess that is Anava. It would be cheaper to get a young warrior from there, that is lucky enough to not have their head permanently crippled before the body license and make a Contestant out of them. Have them all gold layered in their brains and buy them a few licenses for weapons or whatnot. Have a few introductory matches, the whole deal with official stipends just because they are new to this."
"That would take too long. Too long and there's the blasphemy of elevating someone new so fast. I am here on sacred..."
"No. I am not doing this. Stop."
"...business of Pantokrators and..."
"Just. Shut the fuck up."

Jorj speaks halfway as a warning. The man ahead is not really slowing down in his sermon. He arches forwards just enough to put his right hand in range and then he gently pushes against the skull of the narrating Claimant with the fingerprint of his thumb.

Beyond the schizophrenic speeches of beggars and acclaimed artists, beyond the debtmaxxed anxiety riddled junkies, there is this way that Claimants talk. Characteristic, the full of symbols and meaning, hardwired language, is known to many, from all sides of life. Vivid dreams, or headaches, one can find within much within such speech.

Varhas stops. Commoners such as Jorj, rarely enjoy their craft. Much so at idle times like this.

Momentary, the Claimant feels annoyed, churning winds that are not meant to be. The time, he imagines, has passed, from older, more savage times, where the commoner would be but a mere construct of flesh, blindly guided by his language. As Varhas remains in this silence, he calms his inmost frustrations. He too, he imagines, is a victim of circumstances.

"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, by, let's say, the peak of a peak, the refined few out the refined many."

With wide eyes and a bloodshot, frozen expression, the brutish man stands idle just in case the bronze-fringed man will 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, strained, with care.

"You are just good. Just that."
"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."
"Do tell."
"So you have made your mind?"
"Say and I will decide later."
"Can you make that later, right after I finish?"

Jorj nods as he falls back on the red leather couch. The broken skin creaks and tightens.

"New season's announcements will be late. The Champion's crew will be prosecuted for terrorism or some other act against general order."
"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? And all governments and planet will agree to it?"
"Not all, but in general, the Greens are feared. Their popularity with the masses more accurately. They do not want to have another Rabble March. Or so some think."
"So some think. All conspiracy nutjobs. Claimants like you I bet."
"I mean. Obviously. But there are, how do I put it. Pincer attacks of these cultural divinations. Random conspiracies by completely different people, all pointing to the same happening in the future."
"And what do they say?"
"One is what I have just mentioned. 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. Others, more entertainment-flow oriented 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 top-tier Color Leagues."
"And there still is no money here. Would the private sector allow this? It has been perhaps a century since Corporations feuded against governments... what was that called?"
"You mean the Miner's Embargoes? The bombing attacks on Baal Hamon? Or even that event when asteroid syndicates airdropped one million tons of tungsten cubes from the stratosphere of Dur-Baqa? Might happen again, the future finds ways to repeat itself. Did you know, that there are still preserved holes on the glass skyscrapers of the city?"
"What, really?"
"Yeah. There even was this one Claimant architect that made a whole aesthetic out of buildings that were penetrated through and through."

Right when Jorj had mellowed out, it happened anew, planned by one of the two, to make the other angry.

"Now why the fuck anyone do that? What is wrong with your colleagues?"
"Artistic expression."
"Sure. The people that threw that cargo away didn't have a few grams of nutrient paste to feed their families. They probably ended up jailed in some hellscape."
"Far from it. These people went on to become top executives, some CEOs of mining corporations after the Syndicate got officially broken up. Officially broken, but you know, forced to branch out and start anew."
"So your boss is one of those people?"
"A great grandson."
"A nepo. Not a good start if you want me in their payroll."

The Claimant frowns, but neither man believes that to be instigated by the corporate slur. Instead, the Claimant focuses away and back again into Jorj.

"Yes. You believe that only merit should manage work is that right?"

The Contestant pulls the plug away from the socket. Offhand, dressed in hospital gowns, his voice comes along with a funny hint of surrender.

"Who cares what I think? I'm just meat."
"And yet you made an impossible shot last match."
"Impossible?"
"You did not check any betting sites?"
"No."
"You don't bet on yourself?"
"Nope. Not anymore."
"Well, if you had seen the match, you would notice that there was a zero percent chance to win after your fourth frag. Your numbers just dropped and that should have been just that. Even so, you proved wrong entire Divination teams, a few hundreds of Claimants, all making the same mistake of zeroing out your odds of victory."
"Alright. And that is why you are here?"

Directly where it matters, Varhas enjoys the straight nature of Jorj.

"That is precisely why I am here."

The waitress walks besides their table. As her tattooed arms hang with nothing to hold to, at the inner part of her elbow two needle marks break from between pale skin and dying layers. The fresh marks are laid there, witnessed by the two men. Heavily stimulated, she is on her second week of overtime work, mindlessly dead, asking both if they would like anything else with the nothing that they ordered.

Varhas passes shame over himself, going halfway to scratch that inner part of his own elbows under the black robes, but stopping as soon as he orders two coffees, along with their complimentary cigarette. His treat.

"Well, if you are to spoil me like this, then I might as well."
"That sounds wonderful. I will get someone to do the paperwork."
"Yes, make some else go through all that sludge. While we are at it, your treat for a couple more places yes?"