Hel...Hello? He felt ridiculous. Is anybody there? Nothing, not even a glimmer of recognition. He stood rooted to the spot for another few moments trying to reasure himself that, really, he was not going mad. He could have sworn that the comment had been directed by one of the presences in his mind, it had to have been, but they were unresponsive to any probing and.seemed even more silent than usual.
Adama made his way back to the player's hall and wandered over to one of the many bars, still pondering. He was brought back to reality by a gruff voice. "Well if it isn't Adama 'Sleeping Beauty' Cyrell." The voice belonged to a grisly looking giant of a man called Granite, so called because of his striking resemblance to a mountain. He was the captain of Physical Torment, a team where the main entry requirement was was being over 6'5 and built like the proverbial outhouse. He was grinning from ear to ear, something that did not enhance his already rough features, and around him were seated several of his team members. "Fallen asleep while fightin' recently Sleeping Beauty?'
"Not now Granite," Adama pulled up a chair and seated himself at the giant man's table. Whilst not exactly best friends, Adama and Granite had fought against each other for long enough that a form of mutual respect had developed. Adama had come to quite like the big man's ostentatious sense of humour.
"Oi, bartender," Granite shouted across to the serving robot, "one Spinal Cord for my mate here." All the drinks in the Tournament bars had ridiculous names. Granite shifted in his seat so that he was leaning back, severely straining the structural integrity of the large chair. "You look glum, chum. Whats the problem?" Adama took a moment to answer, and when he did he left out mention of the voice.
"I'm just not having the best of weeks. Mace cut my sponsorship for a start, after the Garaxis i'm on my own." His drink arrived. "I dont know why you drink these things Gran', they have absolutely no taste."
"Get you proper tanked though," he said with a chuckle, "and you look as if you could really do with not being sober."
"You know what," said Adama coming to a decision, "the Cup ain't until the day after tomorrow, I think i'll take your advice. You guys gonna be here all evening?" There was a cheer from the Physical Torment team.
"Probably most of tomorrow as well," Granite's grin was still fixed firmly in place. "You've got some catching up to do little man, knock that back and we'll get another round in."
Looking back on that day, and the night that followed, Adama would always wince when he remembered exactly how much he'd drunk. Spinal Cord had followed Spinal Cord until Adama lost count. Eventually they had moved onto other concoctions, the Flak surprise had been full of floating bits that turned out to be a form of alcoholic sugar and when Adama had tried his first ever Eternal Biter he almost retched at the sheer potency, earning many laughs from the members of Torment. They later explained that it was named after a previous Tournament champion, Rakem Biter, who had died of alcohol poisoning instead of in the arena. "He died with a drink in his hand, one that still lives on! A toast to good old Rakem," bellowed Granite at some point. There had been a lot of toasting, Adama recalled, he vagely remembered offering up one for his boots at one point. At the time it had been widely accepted as a comparitavely sensible one. Eventually, along with many of the members of Physical Torment, Adama blacked out.
The engineer looked down proudly at the finished article. It lay on his work bench, glinting in the light given out by the bright bulbs in the workshop. It looked very much like a standard issue Tournament Plasma rifle, indeed that had been what it started out as. The difference, the engineer knew, was that it had a much increased rate of fire and a modification to its seconday mode. Instead of a direct beam of plasma, deadly effective but merciless in its use of energy, the weapon now had the ability to charge a large single globe of plasma. The clever part was the targeting system that the engineer had painstakingly installed. Not only was it capable of homing in on the selected target to the extent of avoiding basic obstacles, but the weapon calculated how much power was required to destroy the target and modified the output accordingly. It effectively prevented wasted ammunition. It was impossible to enter the arena with modified weapons, the engineer was all too aware, but it had been the organisers of the Tournament themselves that had commisioned him to develop the new weapon. It takes away the joy of the kill. The engineer did not seem to hear the voice, he picked up the rifle and moved over to its case to put it away. As he opened the protective box he heard a noise behind him. Spin, level the weapon, fire, roll, evade, all one smooth action. Again the engineer was oblivious and turned to see who had entered the workshop. He never managed to fully turn himself around, mainly due to the burst of small arms fire that caught him in his side. As he fell to his knees he noticed that the workshop looked very different from this angle, he could not see his attackers face, but he did get a good long look at his boots.