Congratulations competitor!

For once, the voice wasn’t all encompassing. It didn’t feel as though it emerged from everywhere, filling both his ears and his head, instead he could hear it in the distance, echoing around the arena.

Let us have a round of applause for the champion of the arena, Abel!

The stones around him shook with the roars of the audience. Abel got to his feet before he realized what he was doing, yet there was nothing stopping him, no pain, no shaking muscles. He stared with wonder as the voice went on.

Please leave the arena peaceably through the proper exits. Remember, once you leave the arena, you will again have access to your Commands. Agona is waiting!

He stood in the following silence, still catching his breath from the encounter with Bernard, adrenaline pumping in his veins. He’d been terrified. His life had flashed before his eyes several times in the primitive struggle across the sands.

But in the end he had won. While he was relieved, it was tinged with guilt. Abel knew he had made the wrong decision, letting Bernard go, but even now he knew that he couldn’t make the other choice. To kill Bernard in front of the entire arena, to stain his hands with his blood and take his life. Not just Bernard, anyone.

Congratulations competitor!

The words came again, but this time flowing through the room around him, addressing him directly.

You are now the champion of the arena. You’ve proved yourself to be the most skilled fighter in the entire city!

The praise felt empty, especially after witnessing Kenji’s finesse. He began to wonder why, exactly, he had joined the competition again. To prove to himself that he could still handle a sword?

As the champion, you are cleansed of all the actions you have made, and the reactions they have caused. As such, any injuries you sustained during the course of your time in the arena have been removed. Any injuries you inflicted have also been handled.

What? Abel’s eyes widened. He tested out his leg again. It felt as solid as it ever had, albeit as sluggish as the rest of his body. His mind began racing. “You can even heal human bodies? What of Bernard? And Brian? Will he come back to life?”

There was silence. He took several measured breaths.

As promised, you will be given rewards befitting your glorious display. First, a weapon of your choosing.

Ignoring his questions, the voice spoke and a panel appeared before his eyes. The choices were the same as they had been when he had stepped into one of the arena’s waiting rooms, and he spoke the word Sabre once more.

The panel disappeared, replaced by a standard HUD, as would appear for a Check. He still had zero in both Kara and Bara, but between them, and beneath his name, there was something new: Champion of the Arena. A title? Or a Command?

“Champion of the Arena?” he asked. Before him, a sabre appeared, seeming to glow a phosphorescent gold in the dark room. He reached out, the hilt fitting his palm perfectly. It was lighter than it had seemed, almost weightless. He gave it an appreciative swing through the air.

Without giving any preconceptions, this is no average weapon. It responds to the user’s will, and can perform many feats that would be impossible for any comparable weapon. For example, with enough willpower, the Champion of the Arena is able to slice through any material he wishes.

Abel blinked, then lifted the tip of the blade to meet one of the stone walls closest to him. The blade warped slightly as he tried to press it forward, straightening as he pulled it back. With enough willpower?

Your second reward is being granted three answers to any three questions.

In the short silence after the voice had spoken, Abel’s mind struggled to wrap itself around what had just been said. I can ask questions? To Sky Sight itself? He shivered, realizing that he was already speaking to the satellite, or something else possibly more terrifying.

Why are we trapped in this city? It was the obvious question, but the answer could be easily dodged, shrugged off. ‘You are trapped because the barrier is preventing you from leaving.’

He gave a hard swallow, mouth dry. “Who are you?”

This voice line is being processed by Alpha-78 below the city and administered through output harmonics ports 5958344 through 5959232. I am known, colloquially, by the name Sky Sight.

Although it was what he and many others in the city had assumed, it still sent a shiver down his spine. He found himself taking several small steps and leaning his weight against the same wall he had tried to puncture. He loosened his grip on the sabre in his hand. It clattered to the floor, then vanished.

Sky Sight had never been given AI. Humanity had never developed AI. The satellite was just a super computer, a clean nuclear device which, coupled with the numerous others buried beneath the city, could run through millions of petaflops each second. From what he’d been told by his grandfather, the possible programs it could run were minimal, nothing more than the visual and audio processing needed for karmic distribution. It had needed to judge the actions of those within the city and no more.

It hadn’t been built to create buildings, to displace people, warping them from one place to another, to heal them and give them supernatural Commands.

Something had changed. Something, or someone.

He thought about the situation in the city, the calamity which had befallen them. Trapped in a world where Karma was real and forced, their hope for escape dwindling as the days went on. He tried to think of what someone would ask, what were the most obvious things that needed to be answered?

After some deliberation, he asked: “Is there anyone outside the city who is coming to help those trapped inside?”

No one is coming to help those within the city.

Abel gave a solemn nod, a pit opening in his stomach.

There are those heading to the city, though. They will arrive tonight at 8:36 P.M. at the point where the West line meets the city’s barrier.

His eyes widened. What does that mean? There are people coming to the city, but no one is coming to help us? He shook his head. “That makes no sense. Are they coming to try and kill us? Destroy the whole city?”

Is that your third question?

He closed his mouth. “No.”

His mind floated back to his fight with Bernard, whether their meeting in the final fight been a coincidence, whether the brackets had been rigged. It seemed a meaningless question now; of course they had been. The system was processing probabilities constantly, it may have even known who was going to win from the instant the rounds began. He tried to doubt the possibility, but found it hard.

A minute passed. His head felt thick, lethargy making his thoughts slippery, pulling his attention this way and that. He had one question left. What was the most important question? Something that everyone in the city needed to know.

He remembered coming into Agona on the train, learning that the other lines had been down. Abel thought back to the lines of trains which had been funneled onto the tracks. That was no coincidence either. But how had it been done? Who had done it? And why?

Shaking his head, Abel followed his thoughts until he came up with a question that, he hoped, would have an answer he’d be able to scrape something meaningful from: “Why was I brought here, into Agona?”

Is that your third question?

“Yes.”

You were brought into Agona to increase the city’s population, and in hopes of reaching a fortuitous conclusion. In other words, you were brought here to fulfill a purpose, as were the rest of the new inhabitants.

What was the purpose I was brought here to fulfill? What is the fortuitous conclusion? The proper questions he wanted to ask, but now his opportunity was gone. He stood in the silent room, still using the wall for support, waiting for the voice to speak again.

Your third and final reward for winning is transport to any desired location. You may be sent to any location of your choosing within the bounds of the city.

He blinked. That was a reward? He didn’t want to be warped anywhere, he just wanted to walk. Abel thought back to the long trek back to the apartments, not sure whether the others had already started making their way back, or if he could do so by himself.

There was nowhere he wanted to go. He wanted to be safe again, and to sleep. “Can you warp me to Sarah?” he asked, figuring that she would be safe in the group they had arrived in.

Yes. Is that your decision?

“Yes,” Abel said, remembering all-too late that the group had, what felt like so long ago, also contained Bernard.