The World

“Bro, what the fuck are you doing?” an aura of danger permeated the room as shadows entered from the door. I turned as the man’s presence almost sent me into shock. He was Daniel, the ‘last shining star’ of New Belam.

His almost seven foot figure brushed against the top of the tent, making him slightly lean down when he entered. He wore a midnight black suit, with a similar colored tie on top of a white button-up shirt. It was the picture of a model businessman. I guess you could call him that in a way. These days, most of the stuff he did was business.

“Bruh, I’m just making sure my car doesn’t explode on me mid-race. We can’t all have a billion presents focusing on every aspect of our ride in the contest.” I barely squeaked it out. Daniel was what you would call a celebrity. His face was everywhere in New Belam. You couldn’t walk a block without seeing it.

“Yeah yeah, you always have your excused bro. Have a little confidence! That will take you farther than any implant. It’s the ultimate skill I feel like, the reason I’m as successful as I am.”

“What part of that is an excuse dude?”

“Just have money. It’s really not that hard. Loan offices exist you know, and if you win the contest, you won’t need to worry about something like money. Worst case scenario, you will still have a fun time dude.”

“Yeah, because I’m gonna win. I’m not risking going to a camp for the rest of my life because of a dumb loan either. Working in the blistering cold with Irrademables doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.”

“You never know, this is the contest of the ages after all. With half the city participating, this is anyone’s game.”

“Please. Of the entrants, ten percent will make it past the first round. Of them, who knows how many have a chance? The next event could be anything; people who excelled at the first event may face plant at the second.” I sighed as I spoke. As much as the advertising said otherwise, this wasn’t anyone’s game. Those with unique and powerful implants or those with incredible natural talent had an advantage. That’s not even mentioning the ultimate divider, money.”

“Well see dude. I think there will be a few surprises. Anyway, I got to go. Good luck with… that.” Daniel gestured toward my car before exiting the tent.

I sighed as his presence disappeared. We’d been friends since childhood, yet he still unnerved me to this day.

The car beckoned me towards it, drawing my attention. It was my ticket for the first round of the “game of the century” a tournament held by the richest people in the world. It had simply been announced one day, around a year ago. TV ads blared the contest around the world, radio’s wouldn’t shut up about it. Websites were created and traffic moved.

The basic premise for the contest was simple. Five rounds, and the contestants would slowly be narrowed down to one. Details about every round would be revealed after the one before it was completed.

My car was part of the first round. The official website had announced the details the day the contest was announced. Contestants would need a car for a race, the “race of the century”, because apparently, trillionaires cant come up with creative names. One pocket dimension would be created for every hundred cars, and the first ten finishers of every race would move on to the second round.

The world had immediately gone up in an uproar. Used car sales shot up by 700,000%, and mechanics became rich overnight, charging whatever price they wanted.

That led me back here. I’d put everything I could into the 2037 Camero I was able to grab before prices skyrocketed. 14,000 Horsepower, 7 exhausts, top speed of 734 mph, this was a powerful ride, no matter what angle people looked at it from. That wasn’t including all the gadgets inside either.

I slammed the hood closed with a “thud” and wiped my brow. All the work was done on my car, it was up to lady luck tomorrow. The tent folded itself into a square smaller than my palm when I stepped up, sucking the contents into their own dimension.

The building loomed above me as I made the trek to my apartment. Skyscrapers only seemed to get taller, these days averaging 500 floors. Sure, it helped stop the overpopulation issue, goodbye sunlight though.

Adds plastered my vision, showing tanned celebrities promoting whatever cybernetic implant was popular now. Always annoyed me how people would happily trade their own flesh and blood for some chunk of metal. You could always get a new shiny arm or whatever. You couldn’t grow a limb back.

“Yo, there’s another one over here!”

I didn’t even bother to look as a mass of footsteps echoed to the right of me. I felt sorry for whatever homeless person was about to get mugged, not my problem though. Here in new Belem, you kept to yourself. That was one of the first rules you learned after moving here.

The contest though. The fact it was tomorrow still hadn’t hit me. This last year had been pure preparation, discussion, rankings, all for the contest. The expected entrance number was up to 50 billion people worldwide, 4/5 of the population. From what I could tell, I was in the top ten percent worldwide, Id half to be. Otherwise, my dreams would be dead before they even began.

Speaking of dreams, I looked at a billboard advertising the contest in big green letters. “Do you have a dream, desire, wish? Come check out the Race Of The Century!” Those simple words had caused the world to turn on its head. After all, who could turn down the grand prize, A single wish? Anything you desired could be yours. Money, women, even magic. You could rewrite the world as you wish. Heck, you could become god himself.

My apartment came into view from the light of the artificial lamps, making me sigh. I’d been too lost in my own head to notice the riot going on.

“Fuck the rich, Fuck the rich.” That was all I could hear as windows were shattered under pale grey smoke. Idiots.

I sighed as my body weaved between the protesters, jabbing my body left and right. They just supported the bullshit that the rich always blabbed about with these protests. It’s like they wanted to be called irredeemable. In thirty minutes, the police would start using the cannons, half the crowd would either get injured or die, and everything would be replaced by the morning. The news didn’t even bother to cover these anymore, there was no point. The only people who got hurt were the irredeemable anyway. They could be doing something productive, but nope. Instead, they think protesting to die was a better idea.

The scanner above me hummed as I entered my apartment building. The barrier wouldn’t let anyone enter unless their DNA was in the server, keeping the trash outside from getting in.

“Party out there Joe, sure you don’t want to go back?” Delilah, the old woman who worked the front desk, asked. She was one of the only sane people in the building it seemed like. Probability the only reason her job was not replaced by an AI, they liked her too much.

“Really tempted, but it’s just not crazy enough for me,” I said.

“Pfft. You’re entering the contest, right”

“Yep. just got back from tuning the car.”

“Good luck, and don’t die. I would rather have you here than one of those people” She gestured to the crowd outside.

“I don’t know, I’m sure some of them have redeeming qualities.” Before she could respond, I turned and walked to the elevator. The second I got on, it shot up at 200 miles an hour: all the way to the 273rd floor. I remember when they first introduced these super high-speed elevators, I felt nauseous for an hour by simply going on one.

It was only a short walk to the shoebox that I called home. At most eight meters long, and half that wide, it was cozy. At least, that’s how the builders described it. In reality, it was barely big enough to live in. My walls were pretty barren, with only a picture of my alma mater, NYI, on the wall.

These days, getting a home this big in New Belem was almost unheard of. Rent was always spiking, even for the worst homes, and the government showed no desire to interfere. They cared too much about protecting the “good ones” to do anything to help. It was only Irrademables that were affected anyway. Irridimables only existed for labor that Ai’s couldn’t do yet, otherwise, the government would have killed them all long ago.

I was just lucky I bought my home outright before the building was even closed to finished. Not like I would have lived with Irrademables or anything if I didnt, I just would have lacked the ability to prepare for “the game of the century”

I sat down at my desk and booted my computer up. The “Game Of The Century” was all the internet was talking about. People were talking specs, their odds, etc. The thing that caught my eye was a group called “Circles bet” They shocked the world a few years ago by willing billions in sports betting, not getting a single prediction wrong. Ever since then, they’ve run a betting website, releasing sports odds to their subscribers for a pretty penny.

A new article was on said website, called “odds to win The Game Of The Century.” reluctantly, I clicked. It was too tempting to check. Inside was a simple list of ten people, no other info, no numbers, nothing. I recognized most of the names, but the one at the top caught my eye. Daniel Xemiz, the same guy who had been in my tent earlier today.