by Dan Davis
“You are far from weak, Ram. I have watched you. I have seen you storming the gates at Dar-Kudan in Dragon's Dominion, the first person to do so alone, after your whole co-op died in order to get you there. You personally captured the final flag in the international tournament of Hannibal's Revenge five years ago, atop the Capitoline Hill. And this year you came out of nowhere to defeat the champion of the Galactic Games in one v. one combat. With barely any time to practice.”
“I didn't know I had fans in the secretive underground base demographic,” Ram said, attempting a lame joke. “But if you know me that well then you know I don't have many wins on that epic scale. Our fans like me because I go all out. I am never in the middle of the table. Nine times out of ten, I lose and lose hard. I go out in the early rounds, I don't hold back. People watch me on the remote chance I'll do something great. I rarely do.”
“You are an all or nothing kind of person.” Zuma stood up and jabbed her finger at Ram. “And that is precisely what we need. You see, Rama. In this Project, there are no prizes for second place. Either we win everything. Or we die.”
“Okay,” Ram said. “But just remember when I die that I told you my epic failure rate is eighty percent.”
Zhukov grunted. “Better odds than ours.”
“We will take you to the ludus, your new home,” Director Zuma came around her desk. “When you meet your new comrades, the other subjects, try to not let them see your fear.”
As a group, they headed back into the corridor and kept going. Zuma and Zhukov walked on both sides of him and Milena behind.
Ram considered that he was chest, shoulders and head taller than all of them and probably weighed a hundred kilos more. He could destroy all of them in seconds, if he wanted to. But then what?
At the far end of the corridor, a wall panel one the side slid up, revealing a big rectangular room with a door at the other end, like an airlock.
“What is this?” Ram said.
“Security,” Milena said.
Director Zuma smiled up at Ram. “Our subjects are precious indeed and we can take no risks with you. Also, your new comrades are, almost by definition, violent people. We do not want them to get out.”
The door behind them slid shut. The door in from did not yet open. A mechanical hum thrummed through the walls and a red light above flashed. His heart raced and his face tingled. He’d had panic attacks before and he knew he was freaking out.
“Don’t be alarmed, Ram, I will make some adjustments,” Milena said, tapping on her screen. “You will feel better almost immediately.”
The panic receded, replaced by a certain calm, almost contentment.
“Oh, that's nice,” Ram said, sighing. “You know, I feel like I should be angry at what you're doing to me.”
“Of course, you should be,” Director Zuma said, looking up at him. “You would not be human if you were not. We all want to be free. Humans all have this overwhelming desire to hold on to the illusion of free will. It is perfectly natural that, when the veil is lifted, you should feel the need to rebel. Intellectually, at least, even if we subdue your emotional response.”
“Free will is not an illusion,” Ram said, the rush of happy hormones loosening his tongue.
The room hummed on, the red light above flashing.
Director Zuma laughed, even Zhukov made a sound that could have been a chuckle. But she ignored his free will assertion and changed the subject.
“You are a late addition to the program. We experienced the loss of one of our subjects and so Chief Executive Zhukov gave me clearance to activate you. The others have been training together for at least three years. Three years of bonding, interpersonal conflict and resolution. Of competition, cooperation, rivalry resulting in an established hierarchy. You coming in is going to disrupt all of that. The leaders are going to have to put you in your place. Are you ready for that?”
“No,” Ram said. “No, I hate that kind of thing. It's bullshit.”
Zhukov sneered. “This is why we do not take on shutaways. There is no substitute for real world experiences, none. There never can be. Avar is a simulacrum with far too much control by the user. The real world has orders of magnitude more variables and you cannot simply unplug at will.”
The door in front hissed, the red light above switched off. A clear but gentle ping sounded three times.
“It is unfortunate that you are incapable of being socially competitive,” Zuma. “Your relationships here will be difficult. Do remember that it is your real world performance that you will be measured by. Performance in training correlates closely with the interpersonal hierarchies within the ludus.”
“Work hard and I won’t get bullied?”
“You catch on quickly.” Zuma beamed. “Shall we?”
Red lights flashed and the huge door separated into the walls, floor and ceiling, revealing a large room beyond. The floor, walls and ceiling were all black.
“Welcome,” Director Zuma said. “To the ludus.”
Beyond the doorway, it opened up into a rather narrow, long room. It was somewhat tube-shaped, like the fuselage of an intercontinental airplane. The room was empty of people but filled with exercise machines. The benches, cables and weights looked like a torturers playground in a medieval dungeon.
“Where is everybody?” Ram asked.
“The ludus training facility is quite large, featuring six sections,” Executive Zhukov said. “The subjects are sparring in the adjacent section so while we wait until they finish, we will show you what you will be competing with. And introduce you to Bediako.” The Chief Executive looked up at Ram. “That should make you quake in your boots.”
“I think you'll find Ram is made of sterner stuff,” Director Zuma said.
Ram's sensation of unreality kept growing. The group turned to the left and marched along next to the wall, striding by machine after machine toward the door at the far end.
No one spoke. Perhaps Rama was projecting his fear onto the people around him but it was as if everyone was holding their breath, anxious about what was to happen.
The door hissed open and they stepped through into a narrow corridor that sloped sharply upward to a higher level. From up ahead came the distant sound of grunts, thumps and shouts. Ram tried to control his breathing.
The corridor ended up ahead in a kind of balcony. As the slope leveled out again, the wall opened, showing a long, tubular room very much like the one they had just left.
The group stopped at an opening in the panels. Director Zuma leaned on a low railing to look out down below. Ram stopped behind her and looked down into the open space of the room below the balcony.
His heart sank.
Instead of rows of exercise machines, covering the floor of near enough the whole room were two rows of six enormous, rectangular padded mats.
On the mats, people fought.
A roomful of monstrous great people, grappling and sparring, all unarmed. It reeked of both fresh and stale sweat. The walls echoed with the sound of grunts and the hard smacks of heavy bodies slapping into the mats under their feet and the wet slaps of skin whacking against skin.
All of the giants had undergone the same nervous system transfer procedure as Ram. They had the slightly shrunken head appearance that Ram had on his own body. All those heads were shaved or hair shorn close to the scalp.
Another ten or so normal sized people Around the room walked, observing, giving instructions, recording the fighting, and handing out water and towels. Though the height of the members of both groups varied, the normal sized people mostly reached no higher than the chest height of the fighters that they were advising.
He counted twelve of the giant men and women, although two of them were not fighting. They wore tight, thin shorts and vests of stretchy black, white or gray material. Some were stripped to the waist. They fought in pairs. One of the giant women stood at the edge of the matted area near the balcony as if waiting her turn. Another walked around, watching but not fi
ghting.
The waiting woman’s pectorals and shoulders were just as pumped, her hips just as narrow as any of the men’s.
Taken all together it was a heaving mass of wrestling, striking. Breaking apart, breathing heavily and smacking back together again. They were huge, full of incredible strength. But for all their violent fury, they were not fighting to the death. The enormous men and women helped each other to their feet after they fell. In between grappling, some exchanged words. One pair laughed even as they fought.
But the intensity was astonishing. Their skill and speed were frightening and he could barely follow what was happening.
Did they really expect him to be part of this group?
“These are our subjects,” Director Zuma said, speaking over the sound of it all. “The eleven toughest and greatest fighters in human history. It sounds hyperbolic, doesn’t it and yet it is true. These people were the most elite of the elite fighters even before they were gifted these bodies. And that one there, the old man carved from teak, keeping out of the combat? That is Bediako. Our Chief Instructor in the ludus.”
Walking between the enormous sparring mats, calling out criticisms and bellowing commands at the pairs in a voice as loud and raw as an antique machine gun. Some of the fighters hunched as if to protect themselves or flinched away when he stalked by them. Though the body of the man was powerful and rippling with muscle, his face was hideously scarred and lined with age, his head not shaved but as naturally bald and smooth as a plastic egg. His skin was so dark that it was almost black and his teeth and eyes flashed white as he roared his contempt at a woman on the mat next to him. She bowed her head and muttered an apology, though she herself had the aspect and bearing of a god.
“Chief Instructor Bediako,” Zuma said. “We have your newest subject here and he is dying to meet you. Please attend to us upon the balcony.” Director Zuma spoke at a normal volume, not loud enough for her voice to carry the distance to the man and be audible over the racket. Clearly, they wore communications implants.
The scarred old man looked up, scowling. There was undisguised irritation in that glance. Open hostility, even. Zuma raised a hand in greeting but Bediako looked away, growled something to his staff and stalked underneath their balcony, heading toward Ram and his new bosses.
“Do your best to not be alarmed by his appearance or his demeanor,” Milena said softly beside Ram. “If there's one thing Bediako despises, it is weakness.”
“Okay,” Ram said, wondering if she could tell how terrified he was. Of course she could, he decided. She was measuring his hormones in real time, she could see his cowardice projected onto her screen.
The wall panel at the end of the corridor slid up and the giant Bediako strode out. He was even more intimidating up close than he had been from far away. For one thing, he towered over everyone else in the small group. Ram was of a height with him, taller, even but Zuma, Zhukov and Milena reached no higher than his lower chest.
“Here he is,” Director Zuma. “Our newest subject. Rama, meet the eighth wonder of the Solar System. This is the great Bediako. He is our ludus instructor, training program designer and chief assessor of our entire training program and has been so for a great many years. He is also the only man who survived humanity’s toughest contest. All that you learn here will be from this man. Bediako, this is Rama Seti.”
“The replacement,” Bediako growled, his voice like a sandpaper bag full of ball bearings. He looked Ram up and down. “In the old model body. The failed design. Why are you wasting my time with this, Zuma?”
“Yes, yes,” the Director said, seemingly unconcerned at being spoken to in such a way by her subordinate. “But we have to work with what we have available, do we not? And now, despite everyone’s objections and dire predictions, he is here with us and you will welcome him into the fold. Our other option is putting him back on the bench and that seems like an awful waste of the resources getting him to this point. If you give Ram a chance you will find him a suitable candidate.”
Bediako grunted, his bulging eyes flicking up and down Ram’s body. He felt incredibly vulnerable and that look was loaded with evil intent.
“I saw his file,” Bediako said. “He has the least experience of anyone ever recruited to the Project. If he lives through his first week with us, perhaps I will give him the time of day. Until then, I have real subjects who deserve my attention.”
Bediako bowed his scarred head, turned and strode away through the way he had come.
“He seems nice,” Ram said.
Ram looked past Zhukov’s bulbous head and down at the fighters beyond. A small group of four had broken off their sparring and gathered near to the balcony, looking up at him.
All wore tight shorts and tight vests, showing off their insane musculature and enormous stature. Bediako strode up to them from underneath the balcony and spoke a few words, too low for Ram to hear. The group of five looked up at Ram as one. Their neck muscles bunching and flexing as they moved.
One man among them seemed to be the center of their attention. The others, even Bediako, all seemed to be turned toward him in some subtle way and they looked at him with something like devotion, hanging on his word.
That man was not the tallest or the bulkiest. Indeed, though he was muscled beyond the normal human range, including pharmaceutically enhanced bodybuilders, he was positively slender compared to Ram’s new body.
Yet he was the most frightening looking man there.
He had a face like it had been hacked out of granite with a shovel. His nose was flat, his cheekbones wide. The man's short black hair glistened with beads of sweat. He looked like a mix between Mongolian, Italian and some sort of mechanized battle suit made flesh.
That man fixed Ram with an intense stare and, when he was certain Ram was watching, drew his thumb across his neck.
He sneered, spoke some unheard insult about Ram and spat to the side. The others all laughed, watching Ram like tigers observing a mouse. Their eyes were full of contempt. Two of the four were women. Though their bodies were just as huge and muscled as the men next to them, they were obviously female. Both sexes’ genitals could be discerned outlined through the tight, thin material of their shorts. Ram silently hoped that his own new penis was as massive as theirs were.
The others laughed at whatever the frightening one had said, their massive shoulders rolling up and down with the sheer hilarity of it. The frightening man did not laugh.
His top lip curled up at one side.
“Ah,” the Director said. “That is Mael Durand. Milena would say that Mael has a pathological compulsion to be the top dog in any room. His drive to succeed is equaled only by his urge to destroy the competition. He is our greatest hope. The elite of the elite of the elite, and so on. Our Subject Alpha. I recommend that you stay as far away from that man as you can for as long as possible.”
That man sneered up at Ram the entire time, even while the others turned and filed away to the far side of the long room.
Subject Alpha, Mael Durand, mouthed a brief, silent sentence across the room, all the while sneering and quivering with rage.
“I’m going to kill you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN – DRIVER
The Chief Executive and Director stepped in front of Ram, breaking the line of sight down into the room.
Ram took a deep breath and tried to shake off the feeling of terror.
“We leave you in Milena's capable hands,” Director Zuma said. “Do precisely as she says, listen to everything and trust that she will only ever have your best interests at heart. Good luck. I believe in you, Rama Seti. You are exactly what we need. Your contribution to this great project will have a great and lasting impact. There is no doubt in my mind that you will survive your first week. None at all.”
While she was speaking, Zhukov walked away without saying anything. Director Zuma nodded at Milena and followed the Chief Executive.
“I’ll take you to the mess hall,” Milena said. “It i
s time you began nourishing yourself, with food and with the company of your peers. Then I must leave you. There are no drivers physically in the ludus but I will be monitoring your life signs remotely, plus we can speak whenever you wish to with your microphone. Just speak and I’ll pick up. Unless you are in the barracks. Visual and audio are cut off at night.”
“Cut off,” Ram said, absently, thinking of that guy Mael Durand.
“That’s right, you’ll be alone with the others so your priority must be in making allies with one or more of the subjects. It might be your only hope.”
Ram stared down at her. “Who are you, Milena? Are you a psychologist?”
“I have studied psychology,” Milena said, tilting her head. “As well as biology, neurology and other disciplines. My qualifications focus on human behavioral biology and positive psychology.”
“And those subjects are relevant for a driver?”
She smiled. “Driver is a colloquialism. My job title is Subject Operator.”
“And I’m the subject that you operate.”
“Your new body is a powerful device. It is engineered to a degree of astonishing complexity. When your biological systems are fully integrated between your old CNS and your new body you will have complete control over your nervous system. But the situations you find yourself in will be very dynamic, very high intensity and so you will benefit from my support. I will make real-time adjustments to your central and peripheral nervous systems through manipulation of your endocrine system. And that will increase your combat efficiency.”
Ram thought it sounded like being a slave. “You'll have remote control of me?”
“No,” she said. “Well, not like that. They tried it and it doesn’t work. Reaction times were slow and the vestigial will required from the Artificial Person conflicted with the operator’s commands. They lacked the capacity to understand what was happening. But I am here to support you, give you more power when you need it. If you were a racing driver, I would be your race engineer, feeding you info and strategy. I am the corner man to your boxer. The CIC Commander to your special forces soldier.”