Scene 5
With a low hum, the lights flickered on in Deck 16. One of the most famous Tournament arenas for both dueling and team deathmatch, it had a history of bloody contest that preceded the Tournament itself. A couple hundred years ago, the place was Settling Deck #16 of a bio-waste processing plant in Old Chicago. Officially shut down due to malfunctioning equipment and toxic conditions, its use continued unofficially afterwards by bio-processing factory workers from around the city as an arena in which to settle ¨personal disputes¨. Liandri Corporation bought the facility when one of their scouts learned of its former ¨recreational uses¨, and renovated it for Tournament play. In this case, of course, improving safety was not a concern - only structural durability and the addition of a few dozen translocators and matter reconstructors. The stinking, corrosive pools of bio-waste remained.
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Gorn checked the functioning status of his mechanical eyes and ear for the tenth time, clipped on his pack, and walked into the private translocation terminal in the central station of Vancouver. He appeared in an empty circular lobby with two translocation portals - one with a sign marked ¨Exit¨ and the other with a sign that said ¨Arena¨. The shiny tiled floor was inlaid with a pattern that, viewed from above, said ¨Deck 16¨ in the center of a big red circle.
He entered the portal that said ¨Arena¨ and appeared on a wide cement bridge over a large pool of toxic green sludge in Deck 16. Malcom was already there, standing off to the side of the bridge, staring pensively across the arena to a pile of metal industrial crates which were clustered around a shock rifle. He appeared to ignore Gorn's presence. Gorn took a moment to study his opponent. He was tall, maybe 6´5¨, but not huge like some of those freaks in Raw Steel, with a medium build. Gorn estimated that he was probably superior to Malcom in raw strength, but any fighter worth a damn knew that often meant very little. Malcom's easy, natural pose and well-dimensioned athletic figure plainly demonstrated that his training regimen, at least, was natural. Those twitchy, over-bulky monstrosities that munched glandular stimulants were easy to spot.
Malcom finally turned and faced him. Really, a handsome guy - it was easy to see why the cameras loved him. He had a smooth-featured African face, strong cheekbones, and dark eyebrows that perched quizzically above his stylish shades. He extended his hand.
¨Gorn.¨
Gorn extended his own meaty hand and shook Malcom's with a grip appropriate to the occasion. ¨Malcom,¨ he replied.
Malcom registered no emotion on sizing up his opponent, but internally he was a little surprised. Gorn was one big dude. His pack appeared diminutive on the vast expanse between his huge shoulders, and his paw, seemingly outsized even considering its owner, practically enveloped Malcom's hand. The palm was rough and hard, like a laborer's. Where do you come from, gladiator? wondered Malcom. He studied Gorn´s pale face, its unreadable cold features set in a thick neck and topped by close-cropped dense, brown hair.
¨Warm up?¨ Malcom asked. They might as well; the match was still fifteen minutes away. Gorn nodded. Malcom punched the Public line on his comm. and said ¨Respawn, please.¨
¨Roger that,¨ somebody replied. ¨Translocating combatants in 3…2…1…¨
Malcom and Gorn were translocated to randomly-selected spots that were somewhat distant from each other in the arena. They ran around collecting weapons, stretching and target-practicing on crates and shock balls but not much on each other. A cagey competitor obviously didn't show his cards before the game even started.
Presently, the announcer gave them the thirty-second warning, and both fell to a series of last-minute checks of their persons and equipment - fairly unnecessary, but performed as part of the ritual that every competitor has to busy their hands and mentally gear up for the coming moment.
¨Match begins in 3… 2… 1…¨
Gorn spawned in the body armor pit - good luck. He grabbed the armor and nearby shock rifle, and sprinted down one of the narrow exit corridors towards the main room. He pulled up short next to the expansive pool of sludge and kneeled, sighting carefully along his shock rifle across the room and up to its middle level where a pile of boxes surrounded the other shock rifle. He aimed between two boxes and waited; Malcom appeared a moment later and Gorn nailed him with a shock primary beam. Malcom staggered backward, and before he could get behind a box Gorn fired again. Malcom went down and stayed down.
Gorn quickly turned into a small compartment set into the cement pillar underneath the main central bridge at the foot of the slime pool, and picked up the jump boots within. He ran to the side of the middle bridge and boot-jumped up onto it. At one end of the bridge perched the overly-tempting shock rifle, and at the other, a minigun. He ran to the minigun and picked it up, then boot-jumped up to the uppermost ledge above it and ran toward the other end of the main room where the sniper rifle and a little more armor lay. He grabbed the sniper, and rather than camping out on its ledge as was popular among newbs that liked giving away body armor to their opponents, he ran down the nearby ramp back to the middle level and dropped down again next to the slime at the bottom.
He continued towards the opposite end of the arena from the body armor, where there lay a rocket launcher and a portal to a nice hiding place in the rafters high above the body armor pit. He emerged from the portal with minigun at the ready and pointed it down through the big metal I-beams at the passage below. Malcom, he guessed, would be avoiding the central room and coming from one direction or the other in this side corridor. Presently he heard the pick-up sound of somebody grabbing the other sniper rifle in the right-hand passage and aimed toward it. Malcom appeared running towards him, and Gorn let him pass below, then dropped behind his opponent and hosed his back down with a stream of minigun bullets. Malcom's body danced around upright a little, then pitched forward and disappeared. Gorn grunted in satisfaction and dropped to the bottom level to grab the body armor again. He didn't really need it, but keeping potential advantages out of your enemy's hands was a very important part of dueling strategy. He advanced into one of the narrow side passages to the main room, in order to monopolize the next pair of jump boots as well. He was in control of the match, but two points' lead was nothing. He had to keep the pressure on.
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Malcom spawned again on the top ledge. Finally, some luck, but…. Oh, the goddamn sniper rifle was gone. Of course; it was last picked up less than thirty seconds ago, the ¨spawn time¨ for most objects in the arena. He ran the other way along the ledge to the bio-rifle. Slow-moving, extremely difficult to aim, easily dodgeable, and unbelievably damaging, the bio rifle was a classic desperation weapon. He depressed its secondary fire and waited while a huge glob of toxic goo charged up in its chamber. He heard the jump boots pickup sound and looked over the ledge down towards the minigun. Gorn shortly hove into view two levels below, and Malcom fired his fully charged bio shot in the general direction of the minigun. It splattered all over the bridge just as Gorn jumped right into it. He tried to escape, but Malcom had quickly pulled out his Enforcer pistol and shot into the largest puddle. The heat and agitation of the bullet started an instantaneous chemical reaction that spread in milliseconds to all the unstable goo around, causing it to vaporize into a superheated green cloud of plasma gas; Gorn more or less vaporized along with it. Malcom laughed and ran across the ledge to collect the recently-spawned sniper rifle.
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Gorn spawned, cursing, at the flak cannon in the most useless corner of the arena. He ignored the flak and ran toward the pile of boxes and shock rifle nearby, not intending to pick up the weapon but to escape through the rocket launcher portal on the lower level before Malcom got the sniper. He made it that far, but at the other end of the portal, Malcom deftly shot his head off through a small window between the rafters and central room.
The next few minutes were very frustrating for Gorn. Malcom's prediction was uncannily good - freakishly good, really, for such an inexperienced dueler, and he was making excellent use of his superior foot speed to stay one step ahead of Gorn. His unparalleled aim with the sniper rifle - that, Gorn expected. But how did the bastard know where he was all the time?
Gorn got several more armor pickups, but failed to remove enough of Malcom's armor to frag him. There were health packs behind some boxes blow the sniper rifle ledge, and they always seemed to be there when Malcom was injured. Using all of his tricks and defensive tactics to stay alive while trying to ambush Malcom with some good prediction shock combos, Gorn was slowly falling behind. At the halfway point, Malcom led 7-2.
The breakthrough for Gorn occurred then, in a moment when he had engaged Malcom with the pulse rifle in an open firefight near the minigun, and knew that he'd left his opponent in a sufficiently injured state where he had to go get some health packs. Gorn spawned at the midlevel shock rifle, grabbed it, dropped down to the lower-level rocket launcher, and picked it up as he ran through the portal. He immediately started loading rockets and ran to the side I-beam where he had ambushed Malcom before. He guessed at the timing and fired four rockets blindly down towards the body armor. Malcom, coming from the health packs tucked behind some boxes in the body armor pit, practically walked right into the explosion - the force blew him back towards the shock rifle, where he rose unsteadily and moved onto one of the elevators that came out of the pit. He limped off it and crouched next to the door into the main room, poking his sniper across towards the lower rocket hole. Gorn combo'd him to pieces from above.
His control of the match restored, Gorn played aggressively and confidently, meeting Malcom head-on with his minigun before the other could set up an ambush or accumulate armor and weapons. During the brief reflective moments the match allowed, he wondered about the spectacular error in judgment on Malcom's part that had allowed him to retake control. His curiosity was piqued more when he scored the game-tying frag by ambushing Malcom from the same I-beam, again tearing into his unsuspecting back with the minigun exactly as with his second frag of the game. How could a player with such excellent predictive abilities make the same obvious blunder for the third time?
The ending was somewhat anticlimactic, as Malcom grew frustrated and desperate, making more frequent use of his Enforcer. His aim remained deadly, but it didn't really matter in a fight against Gorn's superior armor and merciless minigun. When the buzzer sounded and the announcer declared Gorn the winner, the score stood 12-7 in his favor.
They were both translocated to the center of the arena to shake hands. At that point, Gorn could no longer resist a jab - both he and Malcom had kept radio silence during the match like professionals, but right now nobody was listening.
¨Dazzling sniper, rookie, as promised, but winning in a duel requires more than just aim.¨
Malcom eyed him sullenly. ¨Like cheap tactics? Make it to a CTF game against my team where you can't hide like a rabbit and let's see you talk big.¨
Gorn's mouth twitched upward in a brief smile. ¨Maybe if you paid attention to my hiding spots you wouldn't fall for the same trick three times. I mean really, you hardly seemed that dumb the rest of the time.¨
Malcom, oddly, appeared confused by the remark. ¨I knew exactly where you were!¨ he responded quickly, angrily. ¨You just weren't…there …. Or where? I knew… I….¨ he trailed off, apparently bewildered by some thought, but composed himself a moment later and went on scowling. ¨Just wait ´til next week, chump. I'll find out all your tricks.¨
Gorn shrugged. ¨See you then, rookie.¨ They shook hands, Gorn impassive under Malcom's radiant anger.