Jason had his eyes fixed on his watch. His heart was beating loudly in his chest. He was standing on a ship cargo container in an open warehouse in the middle of the night. A cool wind was blowing on his face, but his eyes were not moving from the numbers displayed in light green neon color on his inner wrist. Below it were a couple of other numbers and signs displaying his heart rate and other things. He had gotten this health implant on his eighteenth birthday from his parents; that was all they could afford. It was completely useless; a simple watch could have done most of the same things, and it would have been much cheaper.
"What are you talking about? You'll never have to get this fixed; those digital watches run out of battery every day, and this keeps the wearer healthy," was what his father had said when he had voiced his complaint. But Jason couldn't complain; they were not rich, and it wasn't easy in this society to get money from normal methods.
He pushed the thoughts out of his mind and focused on the task at hand. It was his first time on such a big hiest. The watch hit twelve; it was exactly midnight now; every guard on the ground with a skull implant would go to sleep mode for two minutes, and they were the ones to look out for. He jumped down from the container and ran towards the other side of the yard; he stayed in the shadows for caution; he ran with all his might and reached the large metal gate; there was a digital lock on the gate; he pulled out the small circular device he had been given earlier and stuck it on the center of the numpad, and pressed the green button on it, it beeped and started typing in and as he watched with bated breath and looked back nervously the lock beeped and the gate slid open. Standing on the other side were a small group of people. At the front was a huge guy; his name was Stevin, and he was the leader of the group. Jason and Derek, his best friend, had been trying to get in their gang for a while now since Derek's older brother Rick was a member, too.
Stevin gave a sideways glance to Jason, and then the rest of the group rushed in since they were running out of time. Jason looked past them to the grinning Derek.
"Dude, you did it! now they'll definitely call us more often; Rick said we could even get our hands on some of the implants they'll steal today," said Derek, full of glee.
"Next time, you will stay inside; I was going to go crazy out of nerves," he said. They had sneaked Jason inside in the morning in one of the containers, and then he had waited with bated breath for the whole day with a burger and a water bottle.
"That's why I told you to take a few pills to calm your nerves," said Derek, laughing.
"Forget it. What do we do now?" he asked.
"Nothing, they'll handle the rest; let's get out of here; we'll meet them at the hideout," said Derek, who was still excited that he knew their hideout now. In reality, they always knew, just never dared to go too deep in that part of downtown.
"Are you sure they'll give us some implants?" asked Jason on the way to Derek's car.
"Yeah, man, I talked to Rick," said Derek; they got in his car and drove away. On the way, Jason thought about the kinds of implants he would prefer. Implants were a relatively new technology. They had figured out a way to integrate machines into the human body and run on human blood. As long as the person is alive, the implants would function, and after that, the world had gone to shit; it wasn't in any good shape after the boom of artificial intelligence; millions of people lost their jobs, and crime was at an all-time high. Jason was born in this shit world, however, so he couldn't imagine humans any better off.
"Of course, my dream implant is Agil-Mark3, like the one Stevin has; Mark2 would also do, but Mark3 has that electric skin shield; did you notice it?" asked Derek.
"Yeah, but I am not sure; I mean, doesn't he look too much like a robot now? I would like to keep a bit more of my humanity," said Jason, picturing Stevin walking around with metal arms and legs.
"It's still better than a skull implant" said Derek.
"I like the one that Stacy has, too," said Jason, picturing the other crew member. Stacy was a slim, green-haired beauty; she had several small implants that increased her abilities, but the one Jason was talking about was the one in her eye.
"I know you have a crush on her, but she is too cool for you right now," said Derek, smirking as Jason hit him.
"Anyways, look at us talking about million-dollar implants like this," said Derek, laughing.
They entered the town. The warehouse was in the industrial sector, and you wouldn't see too many people there at this time, but inside the town, some people were waking up. Humanity, too bored of building upwards, had started to dig down, and so the town of New Drop was more than half below ground level. So their car tilted downward, and they started going downhill through the busy town.
Downtown was the part of the city where the dregs lived; it was a hotspot for all the criminal activities that happened around the city. It was apparent to anybody when they entered downtown that light was always a scarce resource here; weird noises coming from dark alleys were a common thing, and it was a good rule to mind your business.
"Wait here a bit, I need to buy a couple of booster shots," said Derek and left Jason in the car while he went to a very shady-looking shop, which was something if you feel that even downtown.
"You should buy tested ones. They can be harmful," said Jason when Derek returned holding three shots that looked rusty.
"Yeah, I'll have to sell a kidney for them, and they just give a little bit of headache in the morning, nothing much," said Derek, waving his warning aside. Derek pulled one shot and stuck it on his arm, and they could see the thick blue liquid flowing through his nerves.
"The tournament should be starting soon, I need to get ready," said Derek.
"Waste of time; you won't get far without any weapons implanted," said Jason.
"I don't need to get far; I just need to win a couple of fights; I have been saving up for a plasma gun," said Derek, grinning.
"Fine, I guess it would be a good time while the crew comes back," said Jason, and they headed towards the underground rings.
The Underground Rings was a very violent and happening place, but for Jason, after years of watching amazing fights happening a few feet from him and wishing and dreaming of being like the fighters, he wasn't keen on the rings until he had a chance of winning them.
The rings were in the basement of a shopping mall, or it used to be a shopping mall. The rings were, as usual, pretty packed when Jason and Derek entered. They paid the entrance fees at the gate, and Derek went to sign up for his name in the tournament. Jason went up to the watching booths. There were some fights finishing up already. Jason looked up at the upper booths; they weren't open like their common booths and reserved for VIPs. The rich might stay away from this part of town in every other manner, but they were also like them, addicted to excitement and stimulation. Even now as Jason stared at the glass panel covering the upper booth, there must be some rich kids inside waiting for the fights to begin.
A horn sounded, and everybody in the booth turned towards the ring; from one corner, a small stage rose up, and a man wearing a helmet stepped up with a microphone.
"Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen," the announcer said, although the way he said it made it pretty obvious there was no gentleman here.
"Welcome the fighters of tonight," he said to loud applause, and a line of people started walking towards the center of the ring. Jason saw some familiar fighters; the ones that got the most cheers from the audience were the ones who actually looked like they were straight out of a game, with weapon implants all over their bodies. And then there were players like Derek, who were hoping to make some money.
There were always a couple of new faces, some non-locals who wanted to test the rings out. But today one of them was getting a lot of attention.
Standing next to Derek was a man who was wearing black armor which was covering his whole body; the armor looked high-tech, and it had to be really expensive. Was it an implant or an exoskeleton " asked Jason.
He might be in trouble if Derek got matched with him in the first round. The fighters posed for the audience for a while and left the ring.
"Let's see what the pairings are for tonight," said the announcer, and the fighters' names were paired on the large screen above the ring. Jason searched for an unfamiliar name in the list; there it was, V-Blade, who had to be the guy in the suit. Derek was fortunately paired with the Four-handed Gorilla, a guy who used animal aggression drugs to make him more aggressive in the ring and two bionic arm implants, it sounds good on paper but the guy was also middle-aged, and the drugs didn't do anything special anymore and if Derek kept the fight long distance he should be fine, Derek was as usual going to use his ion-shield glove and laser Glock 67. They were light, and he should be fast on his feet with the boost. On the other hand, V-Blade was paired with probably the third strongest fighter tonight, Blood-Demon.