The flood lamps blinked on in a torrent of streaming bright light, illuminating the single dark track, walled on either side. At the finish a single box held seats, the remainder of the vast stadium empty. Footsteps echoed off the walls and three figures entered the solitary box via a previously unseen door, the light from the corridor beyond casting long shadows, silhouetting the figures. The door snapped shut, the noise reverberating throughout the arena, a gunshot in a church. A hush of intense calm fell as the footsteps approached the box, contrasting the sharp noise of just moments before. As one, the men sat, three world leaders wearing the same severe expression: of anticipation. The fourth and final seat was left empty out of respect; a tribute to the lost country. Tension crackled through the air between the men, their hurried truce seeming evermore fragile. The moment passed, the men settling back in their high backed seats, to watch the race. A race which would change the earth, and result in a second empty seat.
I watched them from above, clinging in the shadows of the top tier, waiting. Looking upwards, I saw the boundary where the protective boundary ended and the endless smog of the atmosphere began. Disdainfully, I returned my gaze to the dark stadium with its three occupants, each intentionally ignorant of the problems outside that they had caused. My rightful throne was in sight, but I was unable to touch it. They would soon wish that they had paid more attention during my extermination than they had. I visualised the three racers, varying from bio’s to mechs, beginning the long accent to the start line. A low buzz, right on the verge of my hearing, snapped me to attention. It was time, I decided, slipping across the stadium through the shadows. I prepared to make my move.
React!