The Island by Keith Fenwick

Author:Keith Fenwick [Fenwick, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Keith Fenwick
Published: 2019-11-09T22:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Eigh

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Senator Niur was unfamiliar with the sensations he was experiencing as he watched the participants trot out onto the field. Something in his chest was thumping wildly and he had a hollow feeling in the pit of his ample belly. He was also grasping the handle of his beer mug so tightly, he thought it might break in his hands, making a mess and more importantly wasting the beer.

Not long ago he wouldn’t have given the possibility of spilling his beer or dropping food on the floor a second thought. This was before the period of scarcity which had killed off hundreds of millions of his fellow indoSkidians, a time when he had experienced real hardship.

Niur had only survived by doing things he would never have thought possible and didn’t want to think about again. During this period, when he didn’t know where his next meal was coming from, he had learned not to waste anything.

The MPU routinely added a cocktail of medications to Niur’s food supply to control the nightmares he had of the days before he had stumbled into The Farm, but it was not always one hundred percent effective. He had trouble sleeping when memories of those terrible times returned to haunt him.

Today he felt more stressed than he had ever been through the period of scarcity. The event about to get under way was the culmination of months of preparation, during which he had exceeded his mandate to ensure the new Stim League was the finest ever known in Skid’s glorious history. He believed his plan would take the league to a whole new level and galvanize the population in a way which had never been seen before, with an injection of new blood and innovation.

The first problem he’d had to resolve was the composition of the teams. Despite the influx of newSkidians, there were simply not enough eligible participants to form teams and reconstitute the league. Sure, they could fill the rosters with androids, until they had developed the grass roots events which would feed participants into the senior league. But this process would take years and few new or indoSkidians were interested in participating physically.

The androids plugged a gap, but there were drawbacks to their use. They were one dimensional and were unable to display any real initiative. The key element Bruce had brought to the events, the ability to think on his feet and change tactics when the standard game plan wasn’t working, the ability to innovate, was simply beyond the capability of all android and most indoSkidian participants.

Niur believed the only way to ensure the new league was successful would be to introduce some radical new elements. He would have to bring some new blood to the league and there was only one place which could supply it.

With the first event about to kick off, watching the two sides lined up along the halfway line with their arms linked together, and with the event officials waiting patiently for the official party to arrive, Niur hoped he had done the right thing.

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