Dawn of Modern Man

by Nick Plastino

  “You made it,” Cadmus said as he looked genuinely surprised. “Yeah, of course. What’s up guys?” Parker gestured towards the

  other guys on the coach. No one paid much attention.

  “So this is Dunc,” Cadmus introduced the guy sitting next to him that Parker didn’t recognize. Dunc was a good looking guy with a symmetrical well proportioned face, high and tight dark hair. “I used to know him from Whidbey. You remember? He was a couple grades ahead of us. He drives a supplies truck for the hives. We ran into each other on the tram.”

  “Yeah and I heard all you fancy school kids had these beast fights or something,” Dunc said.

  “So we talked about it and I invited him.”

  “Oh, cool,” Parker was comfortably sitting down and interested about Dunc. “I think I remember you a little bit. You played football. So do you live around here?”

  “Yeah, I live close to the Academy. It’s close for work, plus thought it might be a good place to meet some ladies. So far they want nothing to do with a truck driver.”

  “It’s probably your face,” Parker laughed, “I’m just kidding, who knows what these girls want.”

  Cadmus chimed in and said, “So I leveled up, these drinks are on me.” Parker and Dunc mustered a laugh.

  “Well shit, thanks,” Parker laughed again, “Good for you, Cad.” Cadmus laughed, “You know this man. I’m thinking… umm, yup,

  another round,” Cadmus said. He was drunk and had a shit eating grin on his face.

  Dunc got up and made his way to the never ending free drink fountain that sat a few steps from their seats.

  Cadmus continued, “Ain’t life good, Parker?” “Yup”

  “I mean shit, I fuck around in here for a while, basically build my castle in this place and then what? I get a pay increase for doing this. I’m sitting here drinking beers with my friends about to watch a fight,” Cadmus got sentimental, “Life’s good man; things are in place for me.”

  “What do you need the money for if you like it in here so much?” Cadmus looked at Parker with a slight hint of disdain.

  “What I mean is,” Parker said as he gathered his thoughts. “Shit I mean, well… you like it in here?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Cadmus said. He looked up and saw Dunc returning with the beers. He looked back at Parker and continued, “Damn good man. How do you think we live in this place anyways? It’s guys like Dunc, that ensure we can eat in here. Fucking hero.”

  Parker realized Cad was having a great night and wanted to jump on the bandwagon. He abandoned the conversation he was trying to have with Cad about what he was going to do with his money if he planned on living in the Cloud, where he didn’t need the money. He turned to Dunc and realized he genuinely did appreciate how he earned a living. “Damn right Dunc, thanks brother.”

  Dunc looked slightly surprised and said, “It’s just work, that isn’t playtime, that’s all.”

  An announcement came from overhead. The first fight was about to start, it was between the Lakes Midwest Academy and North Mountain Academy.

  Cadmus didn’t pay much attention to the announcement, he was really only at the beast fight to see if North Mountain would win or not and bring a friend along. His attention was directed in one direction and when Jenny Olmstead strutted down the stairs it was clear what Cad’s mind was on. Cadmus stood up and barely looked back as he said, “I’ll be back guys.”

  Dunc looked at Cad and said, “Get me a drink on your way back if you could, I have a feeling I’ll be finished by the time you get back.”

  “No problem,” Cadmus looked towards Parker, “Do you need anything, your Royal Highness fuck-me-in-the-ass?”

  “What?” Parker gestured at Cad by rotating a pointed finger around his ear several times to indicate he was crazy. He chirped back, “Fuck you in the ass? Yeah right. I’ll take another one of these.” Parker then pointed to his beer.

  Cadmus walked towards the stairway to make his way towards Jenny. Dunc scooted over on the couch. The conversation on the other side of it seemed non-existent for him.

  Parker leaned over in his chair, resting his forearm on the armrest and said to Dunc, “So do you like working as a supply driver for the UAN?”

  “Like might be a little strong, but yeah, it’s cool. I get 4 days off a week and work three twelves. On the road too, it’s not bad. I mostly make trips to Seattle and then come out here, it’ll be a roundtrip day, but the drive’s pretty decent. The hive needs its soy bean paste.”

  “You live out here? What do you do with all your time off?” Parker said.

  “Yeah I do, I like it out here. Cost of living is less than over there, plus here it’s a college town, people my age are running around.” Dunc paused and looked around, “I end up coming to the Cloud a few days a week too.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Parker said.

  “But the other thing that’s gotten me going lately is this guy Jeff Falco, he invited me out to this yurt community just north of Whiskey Rock. Do you know the one?” Dunc said.

  “Sure, I kinda know the whereabouts. What’s the deal with those guys, aren’t they a bunch of weirdos? I mean, I get living off the land and… well having a sustainable living or,” Parker paused briefly, “Or not being dependent on anything. But don’t they usually have some religious undertones or something?”

  Dunc smiled and laughed quietly to himself, “Yeah, some of that’s true, for the most part though I feel like everybody out there is just open minded and doesn’t want anything to do with the Cloud or government.”

  Parker sat to himself for a moment, gathered his thoughts and said, “What do you do out there? I mean, it sounds like it could be cool.”

  Dunc looked at the stage and then peered back towards Parker, and said, “I think the fight is about to start, if you want I can bring you out there sometime. It’s really no big deal.”

  “Okay, I can do that.” Parker held out his Compass and waited for Dunc to get his. They waved their devices across from each other, getting contact information.

  The green and maroon stage doors opened and two giant beasts arose from the floor. They stood across from each other chained to the floor. The beast from the green side, Lakes Midwest, looked like a giant badger with patchy black hair and white spots around the eyes. The beast stood on its hind legs with proportions similar to a human with short legs. The badger’s chest was concaved slightly and its arms hung in a position that made it look like a bear holding a large ball. The thing had giant claws the thickness of human fingers and fang like teeth. The beast pounded its chest a few times with each arm and then squatted down to exhale a thunderous roar. The green section across the way let out a chant, “Lakes! Beast! Is ready to feast!”

  Parker looked over at Dunc to see his reaction. He was enthralled, probably never been to one of these before. Parker yelled over the crowd, “You know these fights don’t usually last very long.”

  Dunc looked over at Parker and shrugged as if to say, I don’t care.

  The North Mountain beast stood opposite the badger, it looked imposing chained on the maroon side. If you sat close enough the, beast was architected to emit an odor, a foul odor, apparently a combination of deer piss and fish. This was just to show off. The beast had short back legs and long arms like a gorilla except there was no hair, only grey skin, a loin cloth and an ogre face with one giant, light stone colored eye covering most of the top half of the face, then a strategically placed red eye patch over the ogre’s smaller eye that drooped down to the left of the large eye. The beast pulsated, then two large scorpion-like tails emerged from its back. Each one at least nine feet long with sword-like ends. The prehistoric looking tails each slammed down to the ground over the ogre’s shoulders directly in front of the beast, making a loud noise that silenced the Lakes crowd which was followed by soft clapping from the North Mountain side.

  A famous announcer’s voice came over the loud speaker and said, “On the green side we have the Dirty Dangerous Bad
ger of Lakes Midwest with a five and three record; winning four bouts by annihilation and one bout by unanimous decision.” The Lakes Midwest crowd went wild. The announcer continued, “On the maroon side we have the Stinky Ogre of North Mountain, going undefeated with an eight and oh record, all by annihilation.” The North Mountain crowd erupted with cheer, followed by soft clapping.

  Parker looked over at Dunc and raised his eyebrows as if to say, pretty damn good huh.

  The announcer continued, speaking each word louder, “Let’s get ready for the beasts to FIIIIGHT!”

  The top of the glass wall surrounding the beasts lit up purple and flashed brightly. Flash. Flash. Flash. Quick like lightning, several times. A loud fire alarm bell rang and the crowd stood on its feet and roared.

  The beasts’ chains were released and they started circling each other. They had programmed intelligence to kill the other beast in the ring. They paced around counterclockwise in the ring, each beast side stepping to the right, each step nearly landing in a new school’s color.

  The badger dropped to four legs and its tail swung up swaying back and forth for a moment until the tail stood straight up like a mad dog. The ogre’s two scorpion tails were pointed towards the badger and alternating air jabs in its direction. The badger’s front legs lowered so its chest was close to the ring mat and then it lunged for the ogre. The badger’s paws were geared towards the ogre’s neck. The ogre jumped back and both of the scorpion tails came slamming down, one of which nicked that back left leg of the badger and slammed it into the mat. The crowd from the Lakes side gasped. There was soft clapping from North Mountain.

  The badger beast scowled and scampered around with a limp. There was heavy blood flow from the badger’s back leg. It flooded the stage floor. The badger paw smeared the dark red liquid across the ground. The ogre hurled forward placing his front arms on the ground, lunging towards the badger. As both the ogre’s arms reached up, the badger swiped quickly at the ogre’s chest leaving four thick lines of blood. But as the ogre landed, the scorpion tails came down directly on the lower back of the badger, pinning the beast to the ground. The badger made swipes with its front arms and tried to muddle to its feet with its hind legs. As it lay there pinned, the ogre started pounding the skull of the badger into a smashed mess of blood, bone and hair.

  The badger’s body went limp.

  The fight was over. The crowd was silent, except for soft clapping from the North Mountain students. The silence lasted for a few moments and then like nothing had happened everybody was back to normal, chattering about who knows what.

  The announcement came overhead, from the same voice, “The North Mountain Stinky Ogre wins by pulverizing the Badger’s skull. The bout lasted one minute, thirty-seven seconds.” The crowd was relatively quiet during the announcement. After a few moments, the beasts on the stage faded into nothing. The crowd hardly noticed.

  Parker looked over at Dunc and spoke up, “So the Ogre is pretty sweet, huh?”

  Dunc didn’t move much and turned his head, “Yeah, that thing doesn’t seem fair against the other one.”

  “Well, from what I know about the rules there aren’t many restrictions. Just no weapons. The crazy tail things that came out of the ogre’s back are like a loop hole. Since animal and insect stuff is permitted in making the beast, they’re part of the game. A lot of schools design or architect a beast that’s common to their area.”

  “Yeah, because beasts are common to certain areas,” Dunc said, clearly indicating sarcasm. “I saw an ogre like that on the road the other day.”

  Parker smiled. “No, what I meant was the badger supposedly is native to the Great Lakes area. So schools… fuck, it’s like mascots. North Mountain though chose a Kokanee, you know the fish, not a good land fighter. And the guys in charge of the beast for the school chose an ogre,” Parker said.

  “That thing is bad ass. I would want some sorta snake or something like that, something to whip that ogre. I mean, that thing’s tails are ridiculous,” Dunc said. He was moving energetically.

  “North Mountain is the best,” Parker made a little dance with his hands and forearms in front of him, “I’m kidding, the beast is undefeated though.”

  “He probably is the best,” Dunc said.

  “There’s the North Eastern Troll, they had the same idea as us, but theirs has rhinoceros horns. They do damage, just not quite like the ogre.” “Someone needs something with a shark mouth,” Dunc said with a look on his face that said he knew what he was talking about. He nodded with his arms crossed across his chest.

  “Yeah, that would be cool,” Parker wanted to switch the subject, “So this whole yurt community thing what do you do when you go out there?”

  Dunc looked to Parker, he looked as though the question slightly bothered him, but then answered eagerly, “It’s kind of every man for himself there. Sounds funny because it’s supposedly some kind of commune living but really, the ideas there are basically one man for himself or at least that’s what I think anyways.”

  Parker shrugged and said, “Is there some sort of doctrine that everybody lives by?”

  “Not really, there are some people there that like to impose their views, but these guys got good views if you know what I mean.”

  “I guess,” Parker said. He wasn’t sure what he meant.

  The next fight was about to start and two different crowds on either side of the arena started to make a ruckus. Parker looked down at Cadmus and spoke up to Dunc, “What do you think he’s doing down there?” Parker pointed towards Cad.

  Cad looked to be stumbling around slightly. Dunc answered, “Doing his best I guess.” Dunc reclined on the couch. He pushed his hips towards the edge and concocted his back so just his shoulders were touching the back rest.

  “Yeah, I guess he’s doing his best,” Parker said. And just at that moment the girl Cad was talking too stomped on Cad’s toe. He dumped his drink on the girl. It sparked light commotion around the two, but within a matter of seconds or less both of them disappeared.

  Parker turned to Dunc and said, “Looks like Cadmus got the boot.”

  Dunc started laughing, “Wonder what he said. She stomped pretty damn hard.”

  “Yeah, I wonder too. She’s probably crazy, but you gotta think he said something to piss her off,” Parker said.

  Dunc laughed, “Probably.”

  “Do you want to get out of here? I bet Cad needs a ride home. I’m thinking he checked out after that. I got a Solar Citizen that can take you home,” Parker said as he stood up.

  “Well I was thinking about watching more of this, but since I don’t know anybody and you got a ride, that’d be good. I’d like to come back to one of these again,” Dunc said. He looked as though he wanted to stay.

  “You can come with me to the next one; it’s a couple weeks away. I’m about to jump to the hive. I’ll see you there,” Parker said as he clicked his Compass and within a fraction of a second, disappeared.

  Leaving the Cloud to the Hive was a little different than jumping around in the Cloud. There’s the same white light, followed by nothingness, but that’s the extent of the similarities. It’s like waking from a vivid dream, except instead of a bed, the whole body was submerged in the mycelium liquid. Parker usually opened his eyes under the liquid for a brief moment and always had the same thought, did that really just happen? He would then sit up and take off the oxygen relay, spit out the feeding tube, and remove the headset. He would be physically refreshed, but at the same time his mind would feel like it had been working in overdrive.

  Parker crawled out of his pod and dried off with the provided towel next to his clothes. He was suddenly clear headed. Parker reached for his handheld device and prompted it to get his car. Parker wondered what Cad had said. He wondered if it would have a ripple effect in the real world. He didn’t worry too much though, and he got dressed and walked out the sliding door.

  Parker walked around the semi-circle towards the elevator. Everything se
emed to be moving slow. The elevator ride seemed longer than usual. It was quiet, just the soft hum of the elevator pulley could be heard. Once the door opened to the lobby Parker walked out, tall and proud.

  Cad and Dunc were standing outside of the door close to the Hive security. The Solar Citizen crept up and parked next to the curb. The car’s lights dimmed.

  “Get in guys.”

  The door of the car swung open. Parker got in and made his way to the front of the seating area. Dunc and Cad followed.

  Cad didn’t look anybody in the eye, but he didn’t seem to be down, just a little embarrassed.

  Parker had to ask, “So what the hell happened back there, Cad? What did you say to her to piss her off? Did you tell her, no you weren’t going to be able to sex her tonight? And then she got mad.” Parker said trying to lighten up the situation.

  “No.”

  “Hold up, Car, take Dunc home,” Parker said with some authority. Parker tended to think he was important when people were riding around in his car. He tried to be a good host, but sometimes it just came off as arrogant.

  “Oh no, that’s okay Parker, I’ll go home after you guys, if that works?

  I’m just past your spot near campus anyways,” Dunc asked.

  “Cool, that works,” Parker said then prompted, “Car, go home please.”

  The Solar Citizen responded, “Of course, Parker. We will be home in approximately 12 minutes. Would you like cheese and crackers?”

  Parker looked over at Dunc and then glanced at Cad, “You guys can have some too. Yes, Car.” Parker’s eyes bolted back towards Cad and he said, “So what happened? Why’d we leave early again?”

  Cad’s face flushed, “I said she was dumb for caring about the reproduction research. Not a good idea obviously, apparently it’s a big deal. I couldn’t believe though that she stomped my foot. What are we, in second grade? I didn’t even think about it, I just poured my drink on her head. I mean big deal, right?” Cad took a breath.