The Dark Songs

Chapter1- The Contest

Segehart Swiller leaned against the window frame as he watched the opponents battle just outside of the preparation zone. The fighting zone consisted of an enormous cubical room, within which there was a smaller cube in the centre. The remaining area had thousands upon thousands of seats which the crowd occupied. The central cube housed the actual arena, where the contest would be underway. In the closed cube were the contestants who fought, and this fighting was captured by miniature hidden 3D cameras built in. The recorded footage was then projected outside in the bigger cube, which appeared magnified. As Seg watched the battle, a hundred foot long figure pushed another, equally huge figure, out of the way, and tried to perform a traditional takedown. The crowd's seats did move accordingly, watching the figures moving in and out of them.

It twisted his guts just thinking about how inept fighters were in this part of Lumba. This contest in the army would be much, much more interesting. Here, people just had fancy implants which they used randomly within battle. The crowd got excited at those moments, but the excitement instantaneously vanished. They had come to see Segehart's performance on this day, each and every seat was occupied. Word of his skill had spread like wildfire through the HiveMind, which was a computer network that connected all the AI's of the world.

Segehart did like showing off his skills once in a while to a grateful audience who would love the show as much as his former coach, Merc, would. His chest thrust forward at the thought of Merc. The great man would be proud of his battle prowess. Seg was a soldier, but had chosen to serve with the local police to care for his daughter who was in the list for her first Betrayal. The overall situation was peaceful, and they had given Seg a leave.

A Lumban like Segehart got attached to their Crevese and its implants so much that they were usually ready to go to the lengths of murder to keep their current Crevese. This tendency had evolution-ally been developed for survival. In today's world, though, changing Creveses had become a necessity for all. For different professions, there were a different set of implants. An implant replacement technology had recently been developed, but it costed a fortune, and wasn't publicly available yet. The government deemed it too life-threatening for large scale use. And so, the Crevese had to be changed frequently for the children who had not yet decided on their profession. Without that technology, the Lumbans would never have advanced technologically.

Because of this emotional and physical attachment, it was often difficult to convince young Lumbans to change their Crevese. They had to be "Betrayed" to get them to change their Crevese. Since no other authority had permission to use force on them, their parents themselves forced them unconscious and handed them over to the authorities. It was morally wrong, but it had been the same way for centuries. And one doesn't simply change century old traditions.

Segehart couldn't take the incompetence any longer. He sighed and pushed himself from the window frame. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection on the window, and smiled in smug satisfaction of how his body had not deteriorated since leaving the military. He looked exactly like a military colonel should look, a commanding figure, neat and clean. He had a light-cyan Crevese, and had worn a matching sweatshirt and a pair of track pants today for the contest. He was in a circular room, four diametrically opposite doors, two of them being for entry and exit, and the other two were testing rooms, for last minute checking of implant damage and efficiency. There were multiple cameras fitted here, covering each and every angle, preventing the start of the contest in the preparation area itself!

His opponent for the day, a sleek, lithe woman, was sitting by the entry door, knees to her chest, staring straight ahead, seemingly deep in thought. Her small, purple-Crevese form looked positively miserable. She didn't appear to have any implants for fighting today. She would be relying on speed. Having multiple implants on your Crevese meant bearing yourself down. It lowered agility. In the battlefield, the usefulness of the implants overtook the loss by decrease in speed. Segehart, being a military man, had to use these heavy implants, and rely on his abilities than his quickness. The opponent, her name not being mentioned due to multiple cases of bribery, looked up from her staring-spot at him as he walked towards her.