by Dan Davis
“What is it really, then?”
“Imagine this galactic culture which is made up of these alien species that have evolved on worlds separated by lightyears and by millennia. They must have wildly different physiologies, totally unique cultures, languages. And yet they managed to survive alongside one another. At least, they had a way of formalizing their differences. Of giving them an outlet, a safety valve. The way they keep the peace, out there across the galaxy, is to hold ritualized but deadly combat between individuals from each of the races. And we don’t yet know who the Orb Builders are because they haven’t shown themselves yet but what it has told us is that the Orbs facilitate everything. They are the nexus of that multi-civilization galactic network. There are Orbs in solar systems all over our galaxy, communicating, providing wormhole travel between systems. And hosting formalized combat between the civilizations. The one in the Sol System was given the designation Orb Station Zero. You know how military types like to start counting with zero, right? Well, we expect that humanity, if we manage to compete and win these combats, will be coming across a whole bunch of these Orbs, one in every habitable system, maybe. A galactic civilization, with us as full participants. That’s the dream, anyway.”
Diego finished and stared at Ram.
Milena, too, looked at him with what was either complete sincerity or the best poker face in history.
Was it some kind of test of his credulity? It was ludicrous, completely, but he had just seen the replay and it had been convincing yet he still wondered if he wasn’t being trolled. It was surely the more likely situation. Even though he couldn’t imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of trolling him so completely.
They were waiting for Ram’s response.
“You can’t be serious about all this.”
Milena and Diego both nodded.
“We'd been misunderstanding the situation right from the start. They weren’t asking us to send an ambassador,” Diego said, leaning forward. “They were telling us to send Earth's champion.”
CHAPTER SIX –SUBJECTS
The doctor had said Ram was good at dealing with trauma but he didn't know how anyone could come to that conclusion.
Ram had never experienced any. Not really.
When you’re secluded in your home, there’s nothing that can really trouble you. He had dropped out of school as soon as he started making money from Avar. After starting his own co-op a few years later, he had barely left his apartment. Even before then, when he was a child he had moved home just a couple times in his life. The first time was when they bulldozed his parent’s suburban house for the New Delhi Spaceport.
Luckily, his parents had moved far enough that the Seti family weren’t vaporized in a 4,000 degrees kelvin fireball when, three months later, the shuttle for the Colony Ship Gandhi went down on launch and destroyed a quarter of the city. That had been a trauma of a sort but mainly he felt relief for himself and contempt for the idiots in the government who had decided that placing the world’s third largest spaceport next to a city was a good idea.
Rama was not sure he had ever left his apartment after he moved into it by himself.
But why would you? Everything you could possibly want could be delivered to your door. He earned his living entirely in-Avar. All his friends were in-Avar and always had been and he did all his socializing, learning and playing there, too. Whenever he wanted to visit somewhere in the world he could project himself to anywhere that had the setup. Every lecture theater and tourist attraction was available, for a fee, and you could see it all, hear it all as if you were really there, but without any crowds spoiling the view.
Ram was in Avar all the time and studies showed that virtual experience was practically as good for you as the real thing.
And what was that real thing, anyway? Outside his front door was nothing but millions of polluted, coughing assholes and urban bullshit for miles in every direction. Beyond that? A billion and a half Indian lunatics. And Indians were sane compared to the rest of the world.
No thank you.
Ram stayed safe inside his apartment, experiencing everything Earth and the Solar System had to offer in perfect safety. That was saying nothing of the endlessly rich game worlds that he and his cooperative played in, competed in, killed and fucked in. And that was the way he intended to live for the rest of his life.
Ram realized he was holding his head in his hands.
One thing he knew, staring at his enormous legs in their stretchy shorts, was that his new goal was just to make it out alive. Whether it was all true or not, these people were crazy. If they were trolling him, they were beyond nuts. Who knew what their purpose actually was, his actual life might be in danger.
And if they were telling the truth, well, then he was in real trouble.
“Let me get this straight,” Ram said, without looking up. “You recruited me, abducted me, to be trained for a mission. A mission to fight aliens?”
Diego shrugged. “Only one alien.”
Milena nodded. “This Mission, this Project is focused entire on finding humanity's greatest champion and delivering them to that Orb.”
“And you wanted me?”
Milena stood. “You've seen enough for the time being. The other subjects will fill you in on the rest. And you and I will have regular sessions from now on so any questions you have you can ask me. You'll move into the ludus and then your training will begin. First, you need to meet the Director and Chief Exec.”
Milena opened the door and Ram stood, carefully holding on to the edge of his seat and then to the wall and door frame. He couldn’t believe how tall he was. He could feel the potential of his enormous strength and it terrified and excited him.
“Thanks,” he said to Diego.
“No problem,” Diego said, spreading his hands and leaning back in his chair. “Listen, good luck, okay? You just be careful in the ludus with the other subjects. They're crazy, man. They're all crazy. You watch yourself with them. They're not Avar gamers. They're stone cold psychotics and lunatics. They're killers. You just stay safe, be nice and submissive to everybody, alright? Everybody. Survive your first few weeks at least and maybe they’ll let you make it through to the end of the line, you never know.”
“Alright, Diego, that's enough,” Milena snapped from the corridor. “Let's go, Ram.”
The door slid shut behind him and Ram followed Milena along the corridor, the gently curving floor curling up to the door at the far end.
He watched the way she strode forward, her rubber-soled boots squeaking every few steps or so. Her trousers clung to the top and sides of her perfectly formed ass. Ram stared until he remembered she could measure his hormones then flicked his eyes up to the ceiling scrolling past above him.
“You’re taking me to the Director, right?” Ram said, clearing his throat. “I assumed this was a military project but if you have a director not a colonel or a general or whatever then I guess you’re a private company?”
“In a way,” Milena said over her shoulder, flicking her thick dark hair. “We offer an enormously high-risk investment, without dividends or chance of payoff for decades or perhaps centuries.”
“Doesn't sound very attractive,” Ram said. Strangely, the floor of the corridor was slightly arched, running down toward the center and then up again at the far end where there was a closed door. “Are you a cooperative? Something this big has to be a consortium of cooperatives, right? Where are we? This place is underground, isn’t it. Am I still in India?”
Milena stopped at the door at the far end of the corridor with the words DIRECTOR ZUMA on it.
“You are not in India,” she said.
“How big is this facility?” Ram said. “Are we in China?”
“I will let the Director explain,” Milena said. “If she chooses to.”
Ram was about to ask what was going on when the wall section before him drew up into the ceiling, revealing a room beyond.
It was not the antiseptic white
of the hospital room but an ornate and antiquated study, like you would find in an English-style country home.
He followed Milena into that plush room with a huge antique looking desk in the center. A bookshelf filled the rear wall with old-fashioned books jammed into them every which way. There was even wall-to-wall carpet in a deep, subtle mauve under the legs of the chairs.
Strangely, the furniture was all bolted to the floor and the shelves had strips holding the books in place, as if someone was afraid they would escape.
A beaming, middle-aged woman, stood up from her leather-bound chair behind the desk. She wore black military fatigues and a woolen hat, her tight, black dreadlocks curled up behind.
“I am Director Zuma,” she said, in a powerful but finely controlled voice. “You are Rama Seti and I am very pleased to meet you. I would come round there and shake your hand but I don’t yet trust your self control. May I present Chief Executive Zhukov.”
Zhukov was a tough-looking older man in a gray business suit, standing stiff as a board in the corner of the room by a dark brown antique table with an old, 3D model of Mars on top. Zhukov had small blue eyes, a big nose and square head. He looked like someone who could commit a murder and then sit down to enjoy a five-star meal.
“Mr. Seti,” Chief Executive Zhukov said, speaking English the same as everyone else in the base yet his accent was so profoundly Russian, Ram had to concentrate to understand his meaning. “It is gratifying that you survived the procedures.”
“Thanks,” Rama said. “I’m pretty gratified, too.”
“Milena, please take a seat,” Director Zuma said and sat back down in the creaking leather chair behind her desk.
Zhukov was neither offered nor took a seat for himself and Ram was left standing in the center of the room, looking down on everyone.
The Director leaned forward on her desk. “I believe you tend to go by Ram with your friends. May I call you Ram?”
“Are you kidding?” Rama said.
“Ram it is,” Director Zuma said, inclining her head a fraction. “And I understand your anger. I wanted to meet you right away, hoping to help you transition to your full and willing engagement with the Project. And as our Chief Executive says, we are awfully glad that you survived the transplantation. We need you.”
Zhukov grunted, a sound meant to convey his contempt for Zuma's words. Director Zuma, however, paid the man no attention.
“That’s what I still don’t understand. I’m nobody.”
“I beg to differ,” Zuma said. “You are precisely what we need.”
“I know my emotional state is being chemically manipulated to keep me docile but this all seems crazy. I'm not exactly qualified for fighting, am I. At least, I wasn't. Before you grafted me on this giant body. I have no experience in saving humanity.”
Zuma pursed her lips. “I agree that at first glance, it may first seem like you are an unusual choice. But I have high hopes for what you can do for us. All of us. High hopes indeed.”
“I believe,” Chief Executive Zhukov, talking over the end of Zuma's sentence, “that your admission into the Project for what will be a minimal return on investment is a waste of time, attention and resources. However, we had a recent fatality and Director Zuma has called in the last of her favors in order to activate you, hoping to make the best of this situation. Although the Director and I disagree about your presence here, I am willing to give her this last chance to prove that the course of action she has steered us on is the correct one. If she is wrong, she will have to consider her position.”
Director Zuma nodded, seemingly unconcerned.
“I think I’ve worked it out,” Ram said, looking back and forth between them. “This is a mental institution.”
“You feel uncomfortable at us expressing ourselves openly. Let me explain,” Zhukov said. “We practice a policy of the fullest possible disclosure here at the Project and particularly during this mission. Honesty, both professional and personal, is the greatest benefit for delivery of successful practical outcomes. The nature of the Project leads us to think in terms of secrecy, deceit and competition. It is inevitable that these modes of thinking bleed into the day-to-day work of the Project. My policy of openness and transparency counteracts those destructive tendencies. Do you not agree, Director Zuma?”
“I have doubts,” Zuma said. “My opinion is that we already give up most of our freedoms and I suspect morale would improve if we allowed interpersonal deception to be practiced more widely, as it is in normal society but I continue to adhere to the policy to present a united management structure for our heads of department and their teams.”
“Seeing as you guys are into telling the truth, can you tell me what my cooperative have been told about where I am?” Ram said. “And my parents? Because my co-op relies on me, completely, for arranging practice and competitions. Oh, we have the Gunpowder Dragon semi-finals next week.
Chief Executive Zhukov opened his mouth to answer.
The Director hurried to answer instead. “As far as the world is concerned, you are dead. Your headless body was found and the investigation came up with no leads to explain your murder. Probably Avar gaming related, seeing as it is big business, but basically, the case was quickly closed. Your cooperative, Rubicon? They have recruited another member to fill your place. They have fallen in the rankings. Your funeral was held. Your parents and a few of their friends attended, plus, we assume, your cooperative members attended via Avar projection. You are legally dead.”
Ram closed his eyes for a long time. The others in the room, the perpetrators of the massive violation of his rights, waited silently. Ram wondered what he would be feeling if they let his hormones behave naturally.
He took and released a slow, shaky breath.
“No chance you made a mistake and you can let me go home?” Ram said, quietly, opening his eyes.
Zuma picked up her screen. “You are an elite Avar cooperative leader. You have led your cooperative to the finals of a number of combat based international tournaments.”
“That doesn’t mean I am good at combat myself. I play team games,” Ram said. “I have a good team. Mostly I manage the strategies and deal with the administration, financials and moderation these days. Less time for practice, my skills aren’t what they were a couple years ago.”
Director Zuma nodded. “It is time to move beyond denial. You put a fantastic team together, built it yourself. You attracted gamers with potential, molded them, inspired them, shaped them in a world-class unit. A hundred Avar players in your cooperative from all around the world and you were involved in recruiting them all. You made excellent judgments about their character and potential ability based on their gameplay and meetings in-Avar. You have attracted an enormous amount of sponsorship, advertising and subscription fees. Your cooperative has done fantastically well. All because of you.”
“Even then,” Ram said, delighted but astonished these people had even heard of him. “There are literally thousands of better players than me. Thousands of Avar players who are more famous and with more dedicated fans. Why not recruit those players into whatever this Project is?”
“Do you know how many of those players are jacked up on drugs? How many have used augmentation, biological and technological implants, nootropics, stimulants?”
“Sure,” Ram said. “If you want to break the top ten thousand you pretty much have to use all those strategies. There’s no drug testing in Avar.”
Director Zuma nodded. “Why did you not chose to utilize these strategies?”
Ram would have shrugged if he could have done. “I probably would have, eventually.”
Zhukov stirred in the corner. “You were afraid,” he said. “Of taking your life to the next level.”
“Yeah, I was,” Ram said, trying to glare at the Chief Executive. “Have you seen how long those people last? Even something doesn't go wrong with the enhancements, they burn out. You're not on top for long.”
Zhukov grunted
, amused. “You were eating yourself to death anyway. Your objections make no sense.”
Ram looked at Zhukov. But there was nothing he could say.
“You studied in your spare time,” Zuma said, speaking loudly with a quick glance at Zhukov. “You took extensive courses in mathematics, ancient languages, engineering.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively. “You wrote an anonymous paper titled Strategic Massacres in Ancient Warfare and How to Apply the Concept to Galactic Conquest 7. That paper changed the nature of the metagame, forever. It makes for a stimulating read.”
“I was just a kid when I wrote that,” Ram muttered. “And all that research I did, all those courses I attended,” Ram said, looking at the wall of books behind Zuma. “I didn't do it because I'm a scholar or anything. I only did it to get better at Avar.”
Zuma beamed and jabbed a finger up at Ram. “I am so happy that you said that. I too studied to better achieve my ultimate goal. My mother took me from Durban when I was four years old. I joined a Brazilian security co-op when I was eighteen. I saw some shit, Ram, and I did some shit I am ashamed of. But I knew I could do more with my life. I read these books here behind me and other books like them in order to be a better soldier and a better human being.
“Knowledge makes everyone better at what they do, no matter what it is. There are no limits to knowledge and wisdom. The more you know, the better you can perform. Many of the other subjects here, your new comrades, were elite soldiers even before they joined us with their enhanced bodies. But also have had subjects in the past who were elite athletes, extreme sports pioneers, astronauts and, of course, hand to hand combat champions. You, however, are different. And I am confident that your difference is exactly what we need at this moment.”
“Knowledge and wisdom,” Zhukov said, scowling across the room at Ram and tapping his temple, “counts for nothing without strength of will. In all life but especially here. If you are to survive beyond your first day or two, then you must remember that.”