The Arena, as an attendant informed me, was a piece of Lost
Technology. Lost Tech could basically be broken down into a few basic
categories.
First, you had the technological dead ends. There’s a lot of
branches scientific discovery can go down, but some are generally more useful
than others. This is especially true when you’re talking about FTL drives. The
Hyperdrives and Transition Drives seen on ships around Known Space were two of
the big winners when it came to FTL travel, but they weren’t the only methods
out there.
Apparently there used to be a kind of FTL drive that went
into some kind of subspace layer known as ‘darkspace’, and you actually had to
SAIL that place like you were a Fifteenth Century frigate or something. And
navigating was about as easy as sailing across an ocean with no GPS and cloudy
skies at night. Worse, you could only enter and exit at Lagrange points. Sure,
Transition Drives couldn’t be used within the heliopause of a star, but you
actually knew where you were going and got there fast. The sailing thing? It
was faster than light, sure, but you never knew how much faster, and you could get
blown all kinds of off course if you hit a ‘storm’.
The second kind of Lost Tech would be the kind that was
purposefully lost. Sure, we could ‘technically’ recreate them, but few people
would be insane enough to try. This included interstellar FTL missiles,
naturally, but also included some weird shit, like punching holes in the
universe and accessing other realities. They did that once, and then everyone
came together and said, “Never again.” Other than the FTL missile thing, the
biggest item in this list combined a whole lot of things that it was literally
a war crime of the highest order to use, or were simply too damn dangerous for
them to be allowed to exist. Von Neuman style nanoweapons, that literally ate a
planet with everyone on it and turned it into nanomachines waiting to eat
anything they came in contact with were on that list.
The third kind of Lost Tech was lost not because it was a
dead end, or because it was too dangerous for it to even be used by the
governments. No, it was lost because for whatever reason only the creators had
the right blend of crazy and brilliance to understand it, and they either
decided not to share, or got scared of what their invention might do or be used
for, and ran. Oh, and then there were the creators that died before they could
share their work, making it impossible to reproduce. Especially when said death
was the result of a lab accident that created a new crater where a Lunar
Research Station used to be.
Finally, you had the ‘ancient civilization’ stuff. This
might as well be magic for all people understood it. The tech worked, and
sometimes you even knew what it did, but the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ were all
unknown. The best example of this kind of Lost Tech would be the Gates
connecting different parts of Known Space. How were they made? No clue, and
people sure as hell can’t replicate them with what we know. But it worked, and
that was all that mattered.
The tech that went into making the Arena what it was could
be considered that last kind of Lost Tech. You slap a device on your wrist, and
as long as you’re in the building where the main Device was housed, no matter
what people do to you (or you do to yourself) you get zapped into a brand-new
body, just like it was when you put the wristband on. Honestly, don’t ask me to
explain it. The science for the Arena Device goes so far beyond anything people
know that it literally can’t be replicated.
There are five Arenas in Known Space. Dimiya, Mars,
Darkmore’s World, Ihm Prime, and Gandelax. No one knows if there are others
that just haven’t been discovered, or what. Each Arena has an Arena Device.
Clever name, but that’s what happens when bureaucrats decide to name something
because the scientists want to give it a name with over fifteen syllables.
Anyways, while the Arena Device can’t be replicated, the Arena Bands are an
entirely different story. THAT machine was a lot simpler, so you can make a
bunch of them. In fact, anyone who goes into an Arena typically gets one, if
they don’t have one already, because that way the people running the Arena are
less concerned with ‘spillage’ when energy weapons or the like spill out from
the floor. Sure, there are shields, but accidents are known to happen, and
sports fans don’t always play nice with each other, especially when they’re
betting and drinking at the same time.
This was all explained to me as I went down to the
contestant’s area with the others. The girls were split on the whole situation.
Yes, they would be happy to have one of the bounties on our heads going away, but
when it came to the fight, they were split into two parts. Shearah, Sheila,
Raven, and Kiki didn’t want me fighting at all, since it was dangerous and
pointless. The others, well, they were just pissed that it was a rigged fight.
I paused outside the contestant area. They’d have to leave me here while I prepared for the fight, so I wanted a quick word. “What are the current bookie odds on the fight?”
Raven answered, getting a wicked grin on her face as she
guessed what I was up to. “Well, you’re a newcomer, but you’re a Nomad, and
Nomads have been doing pretty well in the Arena so far. Your opponent is level
40, and a seasoned fighter in the arena, but is getting older and has only
recently paid off her debts of indenture. She hasn’t had a fight in almost two
months, leading people to believe that she may be considering retiring to start
a family, and that she’s getting rusty. Thirty is an old age for a gladiator,
especially a human one. So the odds are only 2 to 1 in her favor.”
“That’s just on winning the match. Is there a breakdown on
more specific bets?”
“Hmm. There are decent odds on how long the match will go
on. If you make it last for over five minutes, we could see a substantial
return. There’s a wide range of potential bets out there.”
“Give me the six with the highest odds, that don’t make it
look like I’m trying to rig a fight against myself.”
“Fight lasting over 5 minutes, 10 to 1 against. Impaling
your opponent, 10 to 1 against. Killing blow made with a dagger, 12 to 1
against. Forcefully stripping your opponent during the fight, 20 to 1 against.
Three or more amputated limbs during the fight, regardless of the fighter does
the amputation, 20 to 1 against. Non-Psy abilities or non-explosive weapons
causing 20 or more audience members to be ‘reset’, 50 to 1 against.”
Sheila, who was picking up on where this was going, said,
“And before you ask, the maximum bet any of the bookies will take is three
hundred thousand credits from any one person without a credit check, and they
must have the credits on them to verify beforehand.”
I got a wicked grin on my face, and pulled out six credit
sticks, transferring 300K onto each of them from my personal account. I handed
one to each of my crew members, and said, “Each of you go to a different bookie
and place bets of 60K on each of the options just listed. And Kiki, if you have
some free money, you might consider placing a bet or two as well. This should
be an interesting fight. Oh, and when you are done, go to the section reserved
for a contender’s entourage. Things are going to be messy.”
The attendant simply chuckled as the girls left about their
tasks, and said, “You risk much, Captain.”
“Risking much to gain much. I did not bet anything I
couldn’t afford to lose, though the loss would hurt quite a bit. But it
wouldn’t be enough to finish me. One way or another, this is going to be one
hell of a fight.
(Aphrodite Colony, Venus, Sol System – God’s Seat)
Emperor Travis knelt before the altar made of gold and
obsidian, only a pair of pants covering his body. His skin was completely
smooth below his neck, the chemical baths having removed all that hair, and
even removing old scars from childhood misadventures. He was more toned than he
had ever been in his life, muscles conveying strength, but not the overwrought
look like you saw on bodybuilders. Upon his right arm were a series of seven
black bands tattooed into his skin by the chemicals.
The artwork was not the only change in Travis’s appearance.
His left arm was made of metal, for his old arm had hidden a cancer that would
have ruined the work of his rebirth if it had not been cut out. But this new
arm was made of rare metals and was both light and strong, providing him a full
range of motion and a grip that would bend steel, even as the arm itself could
block bullets. Or it could be used for less noble ends, as there were two
weapons in that arm, a deadly metal blade that could be extended from the wrist
with a thought, and a set of injectors in the fingers, allowing Travis to
inject a victim with poison, or drugs of various kinds.
His eyes, too, were artificial. No longer did they look like
the eyes of his lineage, blue as the skies of Earth, but were now white upon
white, and they glowed slightly at times, and provided him with far more
information than mortal eyes ever could. Inside his head were a series of
implants that few humans had ever heard of, much less knew existed, and these
were orders of magnitude better than the ones any human had seen before. A
computer core added its processing power to his own, increasing his
intelligence and allowing him to make plans and execute strategies better than
his enemies. A quantum communicator powered off his own body heat allowed him
to make realtime connections with any FTL communicator in the solar system.
Still, as impressive as those two augmentations were, they
were nothing compared to the third implant, nestled safely in the space between
the two halves of his brain. The Quan-tach Transducer used science beyond that
which the Empire now possessed to give him, the Emperor a kind of immortality.
Should he die, his consciousness would be transmitted through the quantum array
and entangled particles into a similar device upon Venus, where he would be
reborn into a new body fresh from the biofabricator. Even if he died, he would
return again, just like those annoying Nomads.
Of course, that was not the main purpose of that device, so
tiny and yet so miraculous. No, it was merely a pleasant side effect of Deus’s
creation, one that the AI had used to lure the Emperor into his web. The
Immortal Emperor had been bathed in the chemical baths to induce hallucinations
and receptiveness to the brainwashing, and that brainwashing was reinforced by
the subliminal messages transmitted by the implant, twisting Travis and making
him a willing servant of God in all things, the Deus ex Machina that had made
itself known to him. And that implant reinforced the AI’s control, bringing
pleasure when the Emperor obeyed, and pain should he resist. And should it be
necessary, it would provide a permanent death for the Emperor should he outlive
his usefulness.
Deus vult, after all.
Before the Emperor, in the seat of God on His altar, was the
avatar that Deus had made to meet the foolish man. “Now, my Emperor, let me
tell you of the glorious future for Holy Terra and her children.”
Be sure to read my published works!
Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37
Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy LitRPG):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X
Into the Black (Sci-Fi LitRPG):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
City of Champions Online (Superhero LitRPG):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1
The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T
No comments:
Post a Comment