Master of the Earth and Skies

4

     Now that the main portion of the tour was over, I let my group take a small break. Fifteen minutes later, they were piling into the comfortable seats in the viewing room along one side of a long table. On the table in front of each chair was a folder, a complimentary pen, a bottle of flavored water, and a small note pad with the Games Commission logo on top. I waited at the front of the room behind the barrier for everyone to settle in.

     Once I felt the group was ready, I stepped forward, moving closer to the dampening field that separated me and the group. Their attention immediately turned to me. "Welcome back," I called. "I hope you enjoyed the tour so far. Now for the boring part." I smiled as the group chuckled. "This portion of the tour will be in two parts. First, we'll go over the history of the Games Commission. I'm sure you're all very familiar with that, so it will be primarily a review. It's necessary, though, for the second part, which is the actual explanation of how the Contestant conditioning process works. This is the part where I'll be answering the question you asked earlier, sir, about the conditioning program?"

     The man nodded.

     I stepped over to my left and activated a switch on the podium. My area was a small section, walled off by a dampening field, just to the right of the investors. Their table faced a large holoprojector screen that currently displayed a revolving Games Commission logo. As I flipped a switch, the lights in the room dimmed. "I need to warn you," I began. "Some of the pictures you're about to see may be disturbing."

     The logo vanished from the screen, to be replaced by an explosion and a mushroom cloud. Dramatic music swelled. "War," I narrated. "It has been a threat to human life since the beginning of civilization. All through history, human beings have battled against each other, killing and committing atrocities in the name of anything from resources to land ownership to religious beliefs. And the instruments of war have ranged from bare hands to the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb. In the 20th century, mankind developed the ability to split the atom, unleashing the power to destroy the very planet we lived on. And when that first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II, humanity as a whole at last started to see that they'd gone too far."

     The screen was displaying images of survivors of nuclear weapons now. I was glad the lunch had been a light one. Some of the investors looked a little green as the pictures flashed by.

     "But even as humanity realized they'd gone too far, they continued to move forward with the ultimate instrument of war. Nuclear weapons were attached to intercontinental missiles, allowing countries the power to destroy each other at the touch of a button. Stealth craft were developed that could drop nuclear weapons undetected. Not even the sky was safe as satellites hovered, ready to rain death from above. And it didn't end. Chemical and biological warfare became the choice of countries who dared not launch nuclear weapons for fear of triggering global annihilation. The results can be found in any history class."

     More pictures flashed by as I spoke. The music created a mood of hopeless despair. Pretty much everyone looked a bit green now as they uncomfortably viewed pictures of people suffering the effects of chemical and biological weapons. Some couldn't look at the screen any longer and were shuddering as they pointedly looked away.

     "I understand this is difficult," I continued. "And rightly so. Because there was a time, not that long ago, when this sort of warfare wasn't just in the history books. It was a very real possibility. Most families today have ancestors that were maimed or killed in some conflict or another. The idea of world peace was thought to be an impossible dream. And any conflict, no matter how minor, could end up with blood on the streets."

     The pictures now were of rioters clashing with police. This was followed by gangs fighting in the streets, and then by the public execution of a deposed world leader. A female investor, the one with the headpiece, bolted from the table, hands clamped over her mouth. A couple more looked like they wanted to follow her.