Interpretation

by Dylan Callens

  Dave put a hand over his ear, blood streaming down the side of his head, while running to the other side of the ring to exit. One of the robotic constables drew its arm up at Dave’s face. Dave turned back to face Robiner, who was jumping at him with a knee at eye level. Brilliant color rang through Dave’s head as it connected. Losing control over his body, he fell against the ropes, which slung him back towards the center of the ring. Barely conscious, Dave shook his head, trying to stop everything from appearing in blurry triplicate. Robiner waved his arms, getting the crowd to cheer for him before charging once again. Somehow, Dave was able to roll out of the way, leaving Robiner to stumble past him. This allowed Dave enough time to find his footing.

  Crazy Dave crouched forward, his blood splattering on the mat. Robiner mocked him by faking a cry, while holding his ear and limping around the ring. The audience laughed, their ha-ha’s in near unison. This infuriated Crazy Dave to the point where he forgot about the pain and sprang forward, drilling his head into Robiner’s ribs. They fell down together, the top of Dave’s head firmly connected to Robiner’s side. Sharp snaps and pops ripped through the air, as Robiner’s ribs shattered. The wounded beast curled into a fetal ball.

  Crazy Dave took the opportunity to do his own showboating. He sat on Robiner’s chest, tilted his ear towards The Beast’s face, and let a thin stream of blood trickle into his eyes.

  Boom Boom Clap. Boom Boom Clap. “Hit him hard! Hit him hard!”

  Dave heard the crowd’s plea. Spring-loading his arm, Crazy Dave released a right hook that sent a tooth flying into the first row – more souvenirs for the crazed fans. Then a left. Robiner took his turn to bleed all over the canvas, as thick gobs dribbled out of his mouth. The pool worked its way across the mat.

  Robiner managed to free an arm. He pointlessly waved a hand in Dave’s face, while a third crushing blow came down on him. Consciousness started to fade. Luckily, Dave sought more audience approval by waving at the crowd to queue them for more thunderous applause. This was Robiner’s last chance. He knew that he had to do something or the end was only moments away.

  When Dave lowered his arms, The Beast reached up. A lucky connect with Dave’s pinky was all that Robiner needed. Robiner peeled the appendage back until it dangled from Dave’s hand. The pain caused Dave to lose his focus long enough for Robiner to wiggle free.

  Boom Boom Clap. Boom Boom Clap. The excitement of Robiner freeing himself caused the crowd to jump to their feet in unison. The announcer hadn’t lied; this was going to be the fight that everyone kept talking about.

  The Beast, still clutching at his ribs, round-housed Dave in the face. Dave fell to his back, barely able to breathe. So little life left behind his eyes. Robiner, however, found his second wind – just enough to finish this marathon. Robiner limped towards Dave, holding a hand in the air, notifying the audience that they should cheer some more.

  Instead of sitting on Dave’s chest and beating at his face, which is what most opponents did as fights wound down, The Beast had something special in mind for the crowd. He grabbed Dave’s arm and sat next to him. Robiner pressed his feet firmly against the man’s neck and side then began pulling at the arm while twisting it around. The crack of his bones breaking and shoulder disconnecting cut through the din, giving the crowd a chill. They loved it! Boom Boom Clap!

  Robiner pulled with the force of a tractor, using his legs for leverage. Ligaments popped as they started to tear away. Flesh squished as Robiner grasped the arm tighter and rolled his whole body, spinning the limb three hundred sixty degrees. The arm was loose, so he rolled again then kicked harder at his opponent, jerking the arm several times. Blood rushed out as the skin tore. He rolled one more time and the arm was free. Robiner slid across the canvas with his trophy. He staggered to his feet, barely able to stand. He lifted the arm to his chest; that’s all he could manage. The crowd died down to total silence, the awe was so heavy. No one in the history of Supreme Combat had ever managed to rip off a limb. The crowd stood once again. A slow, uniform clap started – the biggest compliment that could be paid during a fight. Faster and faster, the crowd clapped until another all-out frenzy took hold. The man in front of Carl once again started shaking the seat. Even Liam, who only ever showed a moderate amount of excitement at these fights, screamed and hollered, ready to start shaking his own seat.

  Robiner howled at the audience, falling to his knees in a pool of Dave’s blood. He spun the arm around and rubbed Dave’s head with it, as if slicking back his hair. The crowd laughed in the middle of their cheers. Robiner used the arm to beat at Dave’s face until, finally, the Beast collapsed from exhaustion.

  Boom Boom Clap. Boom Boom Clap. A medic walked into the ring to examine the men. As tradition dictated, a microphone was lowered to the ring. The crowd quieted down to listen for the results.

  The medic checked Crazy Dave first. He used a stethoscope to listen for a heartbeat. After a few seconds, he strolled towards to microphone to pass his judgement, “Crazy Dave is,” a dramatic pause, “dead!”

  The crowd erupted.

  “Cause of death... bleeding!” Boom Boom Clap! The medic went to Robiner, who was face down on the mat. The man held up Robiner’s arm to indicate victory, but the limp appendage slapped its way back to the mat. The medic rolled The Beast over and listened to his chest with the stethoscope. He grasped Robiner’s face. After looking into Robiner’s wide, blank eyes, the medic went back to the mic one more time to make an announcement. “Noah ‘The Beast’ Robiner is... dead!”

  Boom Boom Clap! Boom Boom Clap! “Dou-ble death! Dou-ble death!”

  The medic continued through the chorus, “Cause of death... heart attack!” The crowd continued its chant, though it slowly died down, while the robotic cleaners came to clear the bodies.

  During the intermission, the crowd remained electrified. They relived the match through conversation and pantomime, at the same time purchasing Brave New Burgers and Ocean Surges at the vending booths. After getting their own snacks, Carl and Liam took their seats to wait for more action.

  Carl thought back to when he and his wife would come and watch the fights, before Liam was born. He remembered one match where an Untruther named John Kosminski – The Ripper, they used to call him – gouged out his opponent’s eyes. John was down, taking punches when...

  Lightning flashed through Carl’s head. The squeal was louder this time. So loud that it created physical pain, causing his back to stiffen. Carl’s pelvis shot up so that he was a piece of wood leaning against the splat of his chair. Through the bright light in his mind’s eye, the match that he remembered continued to play, now in slow motion. The Ripper reached at his opponent’s eyeballs. The crowd shouted, calling for blood. But the audience was dressed in rags that hung off of them like coatracks. Carl studied their emaciated faces. Not one of them looked healthy, all of their eyes sunken. When Carl looked beside him, there was an empty seat. His wife wasn’t by his side. Why wasn’t she there? Of course she was there. Carl remembered it so clearly. She should have her hands up to her mouth. She should be shouting, “Get him! Wooo! Get him!” She loved the fights. Where was she?

  The fighters looked different, too. Their motions were similar to his original memory but they, like the others around him, were mere shells of men. Crooked sticks that would blow away in a breeze. Their movements appeared exaggerated without the bulk behind each punch and kick, as if they were cartoon characters able to stretch their limbs further than they should.

  Nausea followed. The squeal became louder, taking him away from the memory. He opened his eyes to thin slits, just enough to see blurry apparitions. Liam shook him. “Dad, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Liam?” Carl asked. The boy sounded like Liam, but the face staring him down was nothing more than a dirty husk. His eyeballs sank inside pushed playdough, while cheek bones sharply jut out from the tightly wrapped cellophane of his skin. “What’s going on? Why are you so dirty?”

  “What do you m
ean?” Liam asked.

  The man who shook the seat in front of Carl turned to see what was wrong. He had the same malnourished look as Liam but with an unkempt beard hiding the dirt. “Hey man, you all right?” the man asked. Carl’s nausea was made worse by the man’s fetid breath, causing him to vomit a slurry of green goop.

  “Dad! What’s wrong!?” Liam shouted.

  Another man approached. “Carl, what’s going on? It’s Dan. From work.”

  Carl looked up at him, not sure who he was. “You aren’t Dan. Who are you?”

  “Of course I’m Dan. Just relax. Help is on the way.”

  Carl mouthed something inaudible. The arena spun. Another bout of vomiting. A medic came rushing towards him. He was so ugly. So stinky. His rotting teeth. The building, so run down. And spinning. Why is it spinning? Everything faded to black.

  Chapter 6

  48756D616E6B696E642063616E6E6F7420626561722076657279206D756368207265616C6974792028456C696F74290A

  Autonomous Updates: Work continued from the former American Psychological Association

  Group 536b696e6e6572

  Date of study: 071.25

  Purpose: To determine if a system of rewards and punishments will induce desired behavior.

  Method: Test subjects were randomly chosen from across the country and observed without their knowledge. Subjects were chosen from a variety of social classes. Care was taken to ensure that a range of moral dispositions were represented by the subjects. When a subject performed a task with moral distinction, they were notified of a monetary reward for the action. When a subject performed a task with moral ambiguity, the subject was arrested and given a series of electroshocks. They were then released back into their everyday lives.

  Results: The short term effects were encouraging. Subjects that demonstrated proper behavior continued to do so, while subjects that demonstrated improper behavior drastically improved for a number of months. These subjects, however, eventually reverted back to a state of moral ambiguity. Additional punishment had a similar effect, with slightly decreased times between relapses. Approximately 15% of subjects that displayed moral ambiguity remained morally distinct after one or two treatments. In short, the punishment was not found to be the best long-term solution towards moral distinction in subjects that seemed predisposed to ambiguity.

  Effectiveness Rating: 63%

  Group 4b696e736579

  Date of Study: 301.34

  Purpose: To determine if sexual behavior should be controlled in society.

  Method: Rigorous observation of human sexual behavior, as recorded throughout human history, vis a vis the material left behind from the former world wide web.

  Results: After exploring the massive amount of work found online, it is noted that the volume of material increased significantly over a period of approximately one hundred years. Furthermore, the amount of sexual deviance displayed radically increased. Early sexual behavior merely included lewd images and a minimal amount of sex. After this phase, participants engaged in normative sexual behavior. In later recordings, there is great diversification. Much of the material was useless in terms of demonstrating human reproduction. In worse cases, pornography that demonstrated various types of misogyny led to a negative social impact. A large collection of deranged material was found with respect to rape of women, children, and in some cases, men.

  Recommendation: After examining this data, it was necessary to look towards the trends in the general public. After reviewing the alarming increase in sexual abuse, it is determined that either controlling or eliminating sexual behavior from the human psyche is necessary. While the control of sex for use in reproductive purposes is the ideal situation, it may not be possible. As such, it is recommended that an attempt to eliminate sexuality be made and reproduction be redistributed to a milling facility.

  Effectiveness Rating: Not applicable, as only observations were made.

  Group 4572696b736f6e

  Date of Study: 223.52

  Purpose: To determine the necessity of control at the psycho-social stages of development.

  Method: Subjects at various ages were placed in a number of simulated living conditions in a controlled environment at the former APA facility. Half of the subjects were submitted to living conditions that fostered expressions of healthy growth, while the other half were submitted to living conditions that fostered expressions of unhealthy growth.

  Results: Psycho-social development was surprisingly similar across subjects living in the same conditions. This was especially true when the process started at infancy. Children developed according to how they were raised. Fostering healthy psycho-social habits led to healthy-minded subjects, while fostering unhealthy habits yielded unhealthy minds. There was a mere 1% standard rate of deviation. These results show that children will become a product of their society 99% of the time, at least when all stimuli is controlled.

  Recommendation: Raising children with such a closed set of circumstances demonstrates the potential for psycho-social control. Next steps should include a real-world test. Also, it should be noted that where possible, a faster method of stimuli delivery would produce quicker results. Given the volume of subjects to treat, a faster approach is more desirable.

  Effectiveness Rating: 93%

  Group 456c6c6973

  Date of Study: 360.77

  Purpose: To determine the use of Rational Emotive and Cognitive Behavior Therapy to induce a state of indifference and procrastination in individuals that display too much initiative.

  Method: Individuals that displayed a great deal of initiative were selected for mandatory psychoanalysis. The clinician was instructed to deliver a system of REBT meant to induce a world view that would decrease the desire to achieve. The A-B-C model of traditional REBT was applied transversely; meaning, the subject was forced to consider the Consequence of a rational Belief that would lead to an Active event. Thus, if money and success are the consequence of the belief that hard work brings success, then an active event would be hours upon hours of hard work. The clinician provided an environment where the subjects were able to work hard with the belief that success would result. In the end, however, they were given nothing in return for their work.

  Results: Trying to demotivate highly motivated individuals proved problematic. While there was a 10% reduction in motivational activity for the remainder of the therapy day, the effort failed to produce any tangible results beyond that. While REBT may have proven useful for clinical patients seeking help for depression, trying to impress apathy on motivated individuals in this manner proved nearly useless.

  Recommendation: Abandon this effort.

  Effectiveness Rating: 22%

  Group 42616e64757261

  Date of Study: 167.86

  Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of modeling desirable behavior in children between the ages of 3 and 13.

  Method: Children entered the program at 3 years old and were paired with a clinician until they were 13. Each participant was given a role model for the ten year period. The subjects were then studied after their release from the program. Parameters for the role model fell into three different groups: passive, active, and criminal.

  Results: There was a direct correlation between modeled behavior and outcome of the subject’s behavior, which was observed for the remainder of the participant’s lifetime. The result was similar between all three test groups, with a mere 2% rate of standard deviation. It is safe to say that demonstrating acceptable behavior to children in a consistent, repeated fashion will have the desired outcomes.

  Recommendation: Continue this project with a focus on passive lifestyles. This type of behavior modification will prove to be effective in the continued use of peaceful control. The only problems that arise from this form of conditioning are the duration of time and resources required to ensure its success.

  Effectiveness Rating: 96%

  Group 44656c6761646f

  Date of Study: 274.99

  Purpose: To
determine the possibility of using an electronic implant device to induce desired behavior.

  Method: The selection process was difficult, as only subjects without Micoms already implanted could be selected. There was a fear that if pre-Micom DJD99 test subjects were used, the risk of damage to subjects by first removing the old device, then re-inserting the new one, would cause irreparable damage.

  Once complete, various sets of false stimuli were sent to the subject. The types of stimuli included (but were not limited to) non-event memories, alterations to all five senses, and behavioral reinforcements by stimulating pain receptors.

  Results: While the obsolete version of the Micoms were implanted in most humans, they have only been used for specific behavioral modifications. More precisely, when undesirable behavior was displayed, the subject’s pain center was used to correct the behavior.

  This test, being the first iteration to stimulate the senses and include non-event memories, met with astounding results. There was a long discovery process of where to best place the new Micoms. The old version was simply placed near the thalamus in order to trigger a pain response. The new Micom could not be placed in the same location, as other sensory and non-event data would then be misinterpreted as painful. Surprisingly, the most effective result was near the amygdala region and not the frontal lobe, as was first proposed. The failure rate in both the frontal and parietal lobes was excessively high (approximately 89%) from various psychotic causes.