MOAB

Chapter 12: Gregoris @ 2.2x nhs

Chapter 12: Gregoris @ 2.2x nhs

Greg went for a drive on his Ducati bike. It was his process, taking entire days to suck in the data about a project and then just taking his mind off of it, letting his subconscious shift through it all and come up with ideas.

It was a nice day, Saturday morning. He had gotten a good six hours of reset sleep and he felt great. He kept checking his phone, but Galene had not replied. He tried to fool himself that she simply hadn’t seen the messages yet, but he knew that girls her age couldn’t stay away from their phone for more than a few minutes.

He drove to the Kallimarmaro, the elongated marble stadium in the middle of Athens. Mel had phoned ahead and got him access to everything, he simply showed his ID at the guard and they let him in. He climbed on a couple of pews and simply walked along its curve. Lots of things happened here. Many showy events, lots of athletic competitions, the first modern Olympics and then two more, the handover of the Olympic flame. Even the original Marathon race ends up here.

Time.

It was all about time. Human bodies pushed to superhuman performances, jump higher, swim faster, run swifter, aim better, throw further.

It was no different that what he did, actually. He pushed himself to think faster, to absorb more, to see further.

Greg jumped down on the track and ran the Marathon finish line. He was no slob; he kept in good shape for his age. But even a Paralympics athlete could outrun him.

Scratch that, all of the Paralympic athletes could outrun him.

He ran the track anyway, getting hot in his leather jacket. He left his things on the side, staying with a t-shirt on. It was safe to do so, the stadium was guarded and he was the only one there. He left his sunglasses too, even though it was a sunny day. He wanted to sweat, to feel it all. The damn Kallimarmaro was very long, after running two laps he was wiped out.

He pushed himself to run one more, and then he really needed a break.

Sweating and panting, he sat down to rest for a bit.

Five laps. Okay, he could do better.

He thought about the Cybathlon. It was the next step in athletic competition. Augmentation was everywhere. Disabled people could walk and run better than the so called healthy ones. People used cosmetic augmentations for gadgets and s****l experiences.

He threw himself back, lying flat on the track.

He had one powerful memory of an augmented person, a single image that was etched in his mind. A runner, Pistorius. Missing both his legs, augmented with those carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer prosthetic blades, he was an icon at the time, a symbol of human determination. Through his determination and persistence, he was the only person allowed to run in both Paralympic and Olympic races. Greg could remember that mixed race, he had seen it live. It was a milestone of the Summer Olympics of 2012. The other athletes outran Pistorius but at the finish line, the guy who came first walked up to the man and shook hands with him, then switched their numbers. All that so Pistorius could be the winner.

It was what Gregoris thought about when he thought of eugenis amilla, the concept of fighting for victory with fairness and morality. Fair game, in short, but those words did not cover it. Amilla was more than just being fair, it was about feeling the rush of competing with the best athletes in the world and just being happy to be there.

And then Pistorius shot and killed his wife and became miasma.

Shame really. It was the finishing blow in mixed athletics. Nobody spoke about that, but Greg knew it was time. Artemis knew it, Hermes knew it.

Some augmentations actually gave an advantage to the athlete over the rest. It was a fact, tested and true. That was the main pushback reason the Olympic committee had to deny Pistorius to compete in the Olympics. Of course when running against demigods who chewed World Records for breakfast it wasn’t enough, but at some point an augmented athlete would finally outperform even them.

The sport is about to change, and whichever corporation is at the front of it will reap major rewards. It was about being established when the fruit was ripe. The matter was taboo for now after the bitter scandal of Pistorius, but Greg’s research indicated that the current Olympic committee could and possibly would approve the change.

Greg could see it all now. The Cybathlon was about pushing the capabilities of the human body with no limits whatsoever, a perfect proving ground for technologies that could be sold to the masses or used in augmented soldiers. The PR angle was this: Be in place when the shift happens, so that millions of people around the world could see Olympic athletes breaking the records with either Apollo or Hermes augmentations.

Greg turned over, covering his face. He could feel the start of a sunburn coming up. He picked up his stuff and thanked the guard on his way out. He shook his head back at him.

Not many people understood his process.