Dynorion
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Mind & Machine C.33
🕑 Added 2024-06-12 16:02:53 +0000 UTCChapter — 33
Bullet after bullet flew down the range at holographic targets as Rei and others opened up fire with various weapons.
Rei reloaded her Garland before continuing, doing her best to aim for the head of the blue-colored human projection. A few red dots were already present there and on other parts previously fired at. However, she'd fired many more bullets than the red dots represented.
Still, she was getting better, not missing nearly as often as she'd done on her first day at the shooting range.
The closest range she'd found was just one complex away, meaning that coming and going from her apartment was convenient. Not that she moved between them much. She mainly went back to sleep at night and did some programming; otherwise, she spent her time firing away at targets or roaming the city while sampling vending machines.
It was lucky that the poor-quality, near-nonlethal bullets sold at the range meant for target practice were so cheap, as she'd long since lost track of how many she'd shot. Not that she was keeping track, to begin with.
Just as she finished unloading her magazine at the hologram, another notification came.
「Notice:
[Ranged Mastery] skill level has increased.
Level: 3 → 4」
Rei absorbed the knowledge it provided like a sponge, becoming a tiny bit more competent at reloading her handgun and filling the magazine. There was also a notable increase in bullets hitting the target as she opened fire again, muscles in her hand and forearm adjusting to new instincts to prevent the recoil from disturbing her aim too much.
This is honestly quite fun.
She didn't think she'd found it nearly as fun without the System's aid, as each level-up in her skills felt like a tiny accomplishment and gave her monkey brain a dopamine boost.
Rei continued to fire, seeing people come and go as they entered or vacated their lanes, configured their targets, and began unloading. Some drank alcohol while chatting and hanging out with their friends — a remarkably stupid idea, in Rei's humble opinion. At least she'd read that any other drugs with more hallucinogenic properties were banned in the information packet she'd gotten from the range's local mesh each time she'd entered.
Finishing unloading another magazine and feeling satisfied with how many bullets had actually hit that time, she manually connected to the user interface for her lane amongst the fifty or so others and altered her target hologram.
She'd started with a simple bullseye target to train her accuracy, but she didn't feel like it accurately represented what she would be firing on, so not long after, she changed to a featureless humanoid. It had been stationary in a relaxed pose, but now she wanted to change it up a bit.
There were a few settings to choose from: having her target humanoid walk around in random patterns, running in said patterns, jumping up and down, or taking cover behind obstacles. You could also have it alternate between all of them.
There was also a setting to have the target float about randomly, but why anyone would have a blue, featureless human do that was beyond her.
Rei chose to have her target vary between walking and running in random patterns as she started shooting again.
As expected, her accuracy fell spectacularly.
A man came forward to "help her adjust and correct her posture to hit her target better," but Rei brushed him off as she'd done numerous times before toward both men and women. This particular man, though, didn't seem to take it as gracefully as all the others and moved his hand forward as if to take hold of her waist. Alcohol reeked from his breath.
Rei sidestepped and kicked, [Melee Mastery] making hitting his balls an effortless goal as he keeled over, wheezing.
"Don't you dare fucking touch me," Rei said, her eyes growing cold with [Merciless] sneaking into her thoughts as she mentally prepared for further trouble.
Luckily, one of the men's friends — equally drunk — had the good sense to drag him away. Rei kept a peripheral watch on their group for the rest of her practice period.
Each lane was shielded with plexiglass that the poor-quality bullets had no hope of breaching — perhaps merely leaving scratches or small cracks if fired on from close range — but who knew what a drunk person with slighted pride might do in their stupidity.
As she left, she got a couple of nods and smiles from a few people who'd seen her valiant kick, but Rei didn't feel particularly pleased with it. That she had to physically assault someone to keep herself from being groped wasn't something she relished, and making new enemies, no matter how inconsequential, wasn't something she needed.
***
Nearly a week after she'd begun training [Ranged Mastery], which was now at level 6, she sat in Miyo's apartment, having her elder sister rub some strange-smelling goo into her hair.
"Stop twisting your head," Miyo said in annoyance.
Rei did; her nose crinkled at the smell.
Ichiro seemed to be enjoying her discomfort as he lounged on the couch with a drink.
"Ugh, distract me from this Ichiro. Tell me more about that new job of yours. You said it was as a guard or something?"
"Alright," Ichiro said, running his new black cyberware fingers through his short black hair. "As both Miyo and you opposed me joining another gang," both sisters half-glared at him, "I looked around for something else. It wasn't easy, but Al' has a friend who knows someone working at a transport company, so I got an interview through them."
"What kind of cargo do you transport?"
"Eh, no idea. I'm not sure even my boss knows. I don't even know where the cargo comes from, only that it's being shipped off-world. I told you I've been going back and forth between Relier Shipments HQ and the spaceport, but we don't actually see what's inside the crates being transported."
Rei nodded, only to be lightly smacked on the head by Miyo, who grumbled for her to hold still.
Even though he hadn't talked much about his new career, working shifts lasting nearly a full day as he escorted cargo across Tokyo to the spaceport wasn't hard to miss. He'd even mentioned over a call how impressively boring the warehouse area of the otherwise impressive-looking spaceport was.
At least he's gotten to see the rocket launches and spaceship takeoffs from close up. That has to be a sight.
"So you escort trucks with cargo — too heavy to be cost-efficient for AVs, I guess — toward the spaceport. But how do you do it? Do you sit in sleek black cars surrounding the truck as it moves across the skyways or something?
Ichiro snorted. "No, nothing like that. The truck is autonomous, but there are four seats in each one, and three others and I occupy one such truck. No one has even attacked a truck yet when moving through the less savory areas when not on the skyways, as the promise of us being present is often enough deterrent for anyone to try anything."
"No gangs, no lowlives, no nothing?"
"Nope. Not as of yet. Though, from what the others have told me, it won't last. There's usually at least one attack each month, but it's seldom something we can't handle. I don't think our usual cargo is that valuable as it's not being protected by expensive combat bots but by us instead."
"Huh," Rei said as Ichiro went quiet, and Miyo finally stopped massaging the goo into her scalp.
"That should do it; now we just let it sit for a few minutes before you can go shower it out," Miyo said, moving to the kitchenette sink to wash her hands.
"Can't wait," Rei said, a bit disgruntled.
Her hair was in the process of being dyed black with violet highlights. The nanite-filled dye would supposedly sink into each strand and prevent the colors from mixing before running out of power and going inert.
Rei could almost feel the goop subtly flowing in her hair as she sat there. It was a disconcerting feeling.
"What have you been up to, Miyo?" Ichiro asked.
"Oh, nothing much. It's been the usual at the club. I've been meeting with Derek a few times, though."
Are they going to start dating? I hope he still doesn't dream about me coming with Miyo like some sort of package deal.
"What about you, Rei?" Miyo asked instead of elaborating on what she seemed to think was bland work stuff.
"Hm. I've mainly been going to the gym now and then and spending most of my time at the range. I'm becoming quite good if I say so myself."
"Really? We should go sometime," Ichiro said, sounding excited.
"Sure, sometime," Rei laughed.
"I'll be mixing in some melee practice going forward," Rei continued. "It's why I'm dying my hair in the first place. I'll try out one of the arenas, and as they are often recorded and streamed, I don't want to be recognized."
"What?!" Miyo asked, surprised and with a tinge of worry in her tone. "That can be super dangerous, Imouto."
"Well, yeah. That's kind of the point," Ichiro said in Rei's stead, backing her up. "Endless repetition of forms is good and all, but only through real combat with blood on the line can one hone their instincts."
"Sounding real inspirational there," Rei said, grinning. "Almost like some army general of feudal Japan. I do agree, though. I need practice against real opponents, not to mention the credits I can earn if I do well."
"Well, the Takeda name may mean next to nothing now, but we gotta honor our roots, no?" Ichiro said, nodding sanctimoniously.
"Are you sure?" Miyo asked, still looking a tiny bit worried.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Rei said as she got to her feet and began moving to the bathroom.
After getting the now inert goop out of her hair, she stood in front of the mirror, looking herself over. The hair was somewhat nice with the violet highlights, in her opinion, but she knew that she had to change something else as well.
Prodding the interface of her Luminous Mark IV cybernetic eyes for their UI, she began tweaking their appearance.
She set it to a vibrant violet like the streaks in her hair. It was one of Rei's favorite colors, but meeting her own eyes in the mirror still felt strange. She'd become used to them being orange, and violet eyes now felt wrong somehow.
Eh, I'll get used to it. I'll still switch back to orange when I've got synth hair cyberware that can switch back and forth between colors.
She'd only gone for a dye because it was cheaper, but she'd rectify it whenever she got enough credits to spend it on cosmetics. Hopefully, it was something her debut in the arena and subsequent fights would solve.
***
The arena Rei chose wasn't one of the largest in Tokyo — or Zone 8, for that matter — nor was it one of the smallest. It was somewhere in the middle, as she thought it would give her plenty of opportunities to rise in the ranks and battle stronger and stronger opponents without constantly changing venues.
Every official combat arena was under the banner of Colosseum Inc. — one of the largest corporations in existence with a presence all over the Sol system — and used their ranking system, rules, and regulations. This made it easy for 'Warriors' — as participants were called — to gain an audience and participate in tournaments and the like.
The largest tournament put on by Colosseum Inc. was held every ten years in a gigantic arena located in outer space orbiting Saturn amongst its many moons, where warriors who climbed to the top ranks were invited to compete. The cost of merely viewing previous tournament recordings was astronomical, not to mention actually being there in the stands when it was put on, so Rei hadn't actually seen any of it yet.
She dearly wished she had, as the warriors participating were most likely counted amongst people who'd gone the furthest on the path of transhumanism — a path she was a firm believer in. She'd looked for such recordings on the public mesh, but whatever AIs or Magi worked for Colosseum Inc. kept a seemingly perfect lid on any leaked footage, as nothing could be found without coughing up the credits first.
It was the same for every arena officially beneath their banner, making it highly profitable to be affiliated with the megacorp.
As Rei walked in through the entrance at the lower floors of a highrise seemingly dedicated to the art of violence, she took a few moments to take it all in — through her agent's map with one thread of consciousness and through her violet eyes.
The map showed floor upon floor of arenas. There were malls dedicated to weapons, armor, cyberware shops, and ripper docs, as well as those selling branded clothes or souvenirs for the more popular warriors. One floor was a smaller hospital reserved for warriors, and there were bars, restaurants, and other locales from which to watch fights if one didn't wish to visit a specific arena.
The whole building was constructed for the singular purpose of supporting people in committing violence and raking in profits from people watching it.
And to think this isn't the only spot like this in Zone 8, not to mention Tokyo.
It wasn't even worth counting how many such places were present on Earth or the Sol system as a whole.
And all of it is under the control and management of one megacorporation — it's no wonder Colosseum Inc. is one of the largest.
Rei had researched it and knew that their control over the various arenas was only enforced on specific aspects, such as those relating to revenue, ranking system, and arena rules. One such rule that no arena beneath Colosseum Inc.'s banner could break if it still wanted to be sanctioned was that no deliberate, instantly lethal attacks were allowed.
The second and third most important rule was that no ranged weaponry or mesh magic was allowed. Melee weapons meant for throwing weren't classified as 'ranged weaponry,' however.
Accidents happened, but deliberately killing your opponents wasn't allowed, and depending on the severity or repeat 'accidental' occurrences, the credits owed to the megacorp for the rulebreaking could become severe. People could also become banned, but that was rarely enforced as milking them of their credits was more lucrative.
Not to mention that those who provided the gore often became favorites of the spectators craving violence.
As Rei looked around with her eyes, she saw heavily augmented people who were, without a doubt, warriors participating in the fights. There were even more ordinary civilians present to enjoy it.
Some crowded around specific individuals as they took photos with people and acted like celebrities.
In the grand scheme of things, all the warriors there were nobodies, just like Rei, but there were still those who cheered for local participants and wanted to bask in their glory.
The ground floor seemed to be a gigantic lobby with massive holo displays everywhere showing warrior rankings and snippets from different fights or promotions for upcoming fights between specific warriors. There were also lots of advertisements for various shops located on the floors above, but Rei ignored it all after a casual glance, instead using her agent's map to navigate toward an elevator amongst dozens of others that would take her to the correct floor.
Once there, she moved to the entrance of 'Bonebreaker Arena.' The minor corporation owning it had been established by the warrior going by that moniker. It was usually how the many arenas came to be as warriors retired for one reason or another.
There was a participant's and spectator's entrance, and from what Rei saw, most people went to the latter. Those that went to the former were more often heavily augmented with flashy cyberware to stand out.
Rei naturally went through the participant's entryway, swiftly coming upon a checkpoint with a hologram of 'Bonebreaker' — a burly woman with one red and one white pupilless eye leaning on a two-handed war hammer. Streaks of blood seemed to have been tattooed beneath one eye or were merely a special effect added to the hologram, and she was clad in primitive-looking armor.
The hologram looked at each warrior moving beneath her, all looking up at her as their eyes swirled silver before the barrier ahead opened and closed again. The warriors leaving didn't have to meet the hologram's eye as another barrier opened for them by merely approaching.
So, I'll have to supply my CIP, or Colosseum Inc. Profile, to be let through? That's not surprising.
Rei had registered as a warrior on Colosseum Inc.'s public page the day before, inputting some basic information and choosing a warrior name. It had been surprisingly hard picking a name that wouldn't make anyone think of her if they saw her face without the lower face mask she was wearing — a near replica to her other one but with glowing violet highlights instead of orange and an air filter with a rectangular shape.
She'd also had to buy some new clothes so as to not walk up on stage looking exactly as she had the day she returned to her old apartment.
She didn't have the credits to be extravagant with the purchase, so she bought a cheap, form-fitting black synthetic leather jacket with sleeves down to her wrists and pants of a likewise dark, leathery material. Her black boots were calf-high but nowhere near the quality of those Miyo had gotten her. Other than highlighting her figure, the garments looked plain, but their real purpose was to give her some minimal protection while not providing an easy target for her opponents to grasp like a hoodie would.
Some armor would have been nice, but that is out of the question for now.
As it became her turn to meet the hologram's eyes, she did so and manually breached it to establish a connection where she could supply her CIP. As she did, the barrier of plasteel and red-tinted plexiglass opened, allowing her entry.
It's a bit of a shame that neither ranged weaponry nor mesh magic is allowed in Colosseum-sanctioned arenas, as I won't be able to train those skills, but I guess those who want to see people kill each other that way can just visit the unsanctioned ones.
Rei brought up her CIP as she went down the corridor, which was filled with holos on each wall displaying rankings and match timetables. She ignored the warriors in front of her and behind her.
「[Colosseum Inc. Profile]
Name: Voidliac
Rank: F
Total fights: 0 / 50
Ratio: N/A
Personal data: [...]」
I still don't know what to think about my warrior name. It might grow on me, though.
Let's hope so since you can't change it without creating a new CIP and starting from scratch. Or perhaps it's different when one reaches a high enough rank?
Picking a name had been tricky. She'd wanted to choose something that would represent her future transcendence into a mind inside a machine of grace and efficiency, but all options her [Mind] of 13 could think of were already taken by someone else when she searched Colosseum Inc. Profiles on their official page in the mesh.
It wasn't surprising since many made their cyberware part of their identity, but it was still a bit depressing.
Instead, she'd tried to take inspiration from her appearance, which wasn't very original — settling on 'Void' from the color of her hair as it sounded 'cooler' than black or violet. Just calling herself 'Void' wouldn't do, though, and she'd agonized over what else to add.
Not daring to use anything Japanese in origin for the sliver of concern it would bring her if she ever became a famous warrior, she'd instead turned toward what she could remember from Norway.
The only problem was that there weren't many dangerous or cool-sounding things in Norway that would fit the theme she was going with, or at least hadn't been in the early 21st century.
She could have chosen something from Norse mythology, but when she looked up warrior profiles originating in Scandinavia, most had already been taken — not that similar names were prohibited, just looked down upon.
For example, Thor. He was one of the top 100 warriors in the entire Sol system, and if someone else took on that name, they'd be laughed at since there was only a slim chance they'd ever reach the same heights.
There was still some risk with choosing something overtly Norwegian, as whoever had been hunting her could perhaps know the origin of the data slate's contents. It was still very far-fetched, so she decided to pick something she liked that was native to most of Europe: lilac shrubs.
Rei loved the smell of blooming lilacs.
Hence, she'd eventually settled on Voidliac, combining the two words into a name. It didn't fit her as well as she'd have liked, but it was at least original.
If I find my time in the arenas to be worth it, I might look into getting some custom armor and weapons with complementing motifs or something.
It was thoughts for the future, though, as Rei needed the credits for other things at the moment.
Rent and her gym membership — she'd canceled one of them the day before it renewed — had come to collect their due, and with the small costs of necessities, nanite goop hair dye, clothes, a half-face mask, and the 50 credits CIP sign-up cost, she'd practically become destitute.
That wasn't helped by her biting the bullet and buying a second dagger to go with her first — a DuskClaw 180 likewise produced by Severus LTD. Going into the arena with only one dagger and nothing else seemed a tiny bit too pathetic to her.
The DuskClaw was much cheaper as it didn't have the VibroFang's oscillating edge but was merely a sharp implement to cut things. It was just a couple centimeters longer than her first dagger and all black with faint purple and orange highlights along the blade's edge.
92 Credits left... I can't believe it.
She shook the depressing thoughts away as she approached a large hall filled with nearly a hundred warriors looking over holo displays, chatting by a bar, or lounging in couches as they waited for their matches to start.
Twenty or so doors were placed along one wall with rank and numbers indicating which arena they led to.
Rei walked closer to the second hologram of Bonebreaker, set upon a marble pedestal in the middle of the room. A couple dozen people stood around it, their eyes swirling silver. The words 'Fight registry' repeated in a sanguine ribbon as it rotated slowly around the pedestal's top.
Connecting to its node on the local mesh, Rei brought up the interface in her agent and looked over the various options. Ultimately, she chose the most expedient one as she didn't want to wait for warriors meeting specific criteria to appear, simply selecting 'Any warrior within F-rank' and 'As soon as possible.'
It's not as if I can choose to fight anyone above my own rank. Not that I would, either.
I'm not even sure if I'll be able to keep a winning streak against the people in F as it is.
Rei was reasonably sure that with her [Melee Mastery] at level 4 and [Mind] at 13 — coupled with her second thread of consciousness — she'd be comparably competent when pitted against those she saw seated or leaning against walls in the waiting hall most likely ranked at F.
She breached one skinny-looking guy with swirling silver eyes who was connected to the center pedestal, bypassing his ICE before splicing his agent to read the data passing from him to the pedestal. Through that, it was easy to get a hold of his ranking, and as she'd thought, he was an F, just like her.
Rei swiftly disconnected when she remembered that mesh magic wasn't allowed in places Colosseum Inc. had sanctioned.
It should be fine as I breached the guy for barely half a second and not 'Bonebreaker Arena' itself, but I shouldn't do that again. There's probably some sort of AI keeping watch, especially in the arenas where we'll be fighting.
Rei returned to pondering her relative strength, and another issue soon became apparent.
As everyone has to start at the lowest rank, no matter how much cyberware they have, I'll inevitably face people who should really belong at higher ranks.
Done with registering for a fight, Rei moved to a free seat on a couch and crossed her legs, keeping her agent up to have her eyes swirl silver to signal that she wasn't open to casual conversation.
She needed to think and get her mind into a ready state.
To raise my rank out of the Fs, I'll need to have fought at least fifty battles against my fellow warriors and have a minimum win-loss ratio of at least eighty percent.
How many make it into E-rank with only fifty fights? Very few, I bet.
To Rei, it made sense that only those with supreme skill or cyberware to make up for it would rank up that fast. She wasn't among those people yet, but she planned to be.
It wasn't as if Rei's situation was unique. She saw plenty of people who looked to have little more cyberware than the cheap civilian-grade most people used. Some had armor, though, to make up for it or weapons they may or may not know how to use.
They, like Rei, were there to make credits and hopefully earn enough to chip in more cyberware in the future, continuing their climb up the ranks to more lucrative fights and perhaps even sponsorships.
Rei listened to the conversations going on around her as she waited. People entered the various doors leading to arenas one after another. None exited those doors, however, as the arenas' exits led to a common path that intersected with the corridor she'd traversed on her way to the waiting hall. Those entering the waiting hall could be fresh from a fight or newly arrived.
It was hard to tell which were which without spotting them beforehand, as none were injured to the degree they were bleeding. Those who'd been that injured were likely being treated elsewhere.
It's lucky that all CIP warriors receive free emergency treatment for injuries sustained as long as it isn't related to cyberware.
As she listened, Rei picked up tidbits she hadn't read about on the public mesh regarding her chosen arena or Colosseum Inc. as a whole. It was mostly just stuff about cyberware and fights, though, but still interesting information to Rei.
There was a general comradery in the air, even though it was filled with competitive spirit.
Then, after about ten minutes of waiting, Rei received a message from the arena to her agent.
Rei's match had been scheduled and would start in fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the matches before hers.
My debut as a warrior. I wonder how it will go.
I'm getting kind of excited, which is a first for me when going into a fight. It will dim when I activate my perk later, but at least I get to enjoy the feeling now.
Comments
Dynorion
If there is less risk of instantly dying when losing, then more people looking to fight will flock to Colosseum-sanctioned arenas, generating credits for the megacorp. If more Warriors stay alive and keep fighting, there will be more credits for the megacorp. If they're somehow killed anyway, the killer has to pay a large fine that grows exponentially with repeat offenses, generating more credits for the megacorp. It's just plain greed, lol
Lazerus56
pretty exciting. man a absolute Mecha building for tournaments of course such a thing would exist... I gotta wonder tho, a corp that says 'no killing' when people are killed in the streets constantly? Do the corpos see it as their property being damaged? a premature termination of future value? hehe. I for one love a colesuem, the one in oblivion is bare bones looking back but was enough to capture my imagination. LezGo!
Stefan Landshut
Cool! Can't wait for her first fight!
