Our driver grew more talkative as he maneuvered into a parking space at one end of the encampment. “I wasn’t gonna come out this time, especially after PEZ got off to such a bad start on Monday. Sure looked as if it was gonna be over quick. Good-bye icebergs and hello again water rationing! In fact, I gotta hand it to the Indonesians for coming up with those sneaky little minidit assassin-golems. They sure played havoc with our first-wave troops. But then came our counterattack on Moesta Heights! Did you ever see anything like it?”

“Wow,” I said ambiguously, eager only to get out as soon as he shut down the hissing engine.

“Yah, wow. Anyway, I suddenly realized — I got a perfect battle-mod to counter to those Indie minis! So I figured, come out and give a demo. With any luck, I’ll be in the arena soon, making a deal with the Dodecahedron by nightfall!”

“Well, we sure do wish you luck,” I mumbled while jiggling the doorknob.

He looked disappointed by my lack of interest. “I had a hunch you two were scouts for the army, but I was wrong about that, wasn’t I?”

“Scouts?” Ritu asked, clearly puzzled. “Why would the army have scouts outside the battle range?”

“Go on, get outta here,” the driver said, yanking a lever and releasing the door, spilling us into the hot afternoon.

“Thanks for the ride.” I jumped to ground and quickly headed south, past a cluster of Winnebagos where families gathered together under a striped canopy, chewing barbecued snacks next to a big holo screen showing recent combat updates. If I were a true fan, I’d stop to check the score and see what odds the touts offered. But I only really care about war during the finals, whenever Clara qualifies.

I think she likes that about me.

On one side stood house trailers fronted with fold-down booths selling everything from hand-woven lumnia rugs and wondrous cleaning formulas to aromatic funnel cakes. Beyond the usual Elvis Shrine, clusters of monster truck aficionados sweated under their beloved vehicles, preparing for a rally at a nearby offroad course. There were the usual types of real-life weirdos — clippies and stickies and nudies and people walking about shrouded in opaque anonymity chadors — but all of this was secondary. Fringe stuff to the real purpose of this offbeat festival.

I was looking for its core.

Ritu caught up and grabbed my arm, trying to match my rapid pace. “Scouts?” she asked a second time.

“Talent scouts, Miss Maharal. The reason for all of this.” I encompassed the chaotic encampment with a sweep of one arm. “Wannabes and Trytobes converge here to show off their homemade battle-dits in a makeshift coliseum, hoping the pros will be watching. If army guys see anything they like, they may summon the designer inside the fence. Perhaps make a deal.”

“Huh. Does that happen often?”

“Officially, it never happens at all,” I replied while turning and seeking my bearings. “Amateur ditviolence has been deemed an undesirable public vice, remember? It’s sin-taxed and reproved, like drug addiction. Remember how they yammered against it in school?”

“That doesn’t seem to be slowing it down any,” she murmured.

“No shit. It’s a free country. People do what they want. Still, the military can’t be seen officially encouraging the trend.”

“But unofficially?” One eyebrow arched.

We were passing an arcade where carnies touted all sorts of amusement games and joyrides, most of them mechanical and retro, designed to give a safe but scary thrill to trueflesh. Next door, a long tent sheltered stalls for bio-aficionados to exhibit home-geniformed life forms — the modern equivalent of prize bulls and pigs — amid a clamor of grunts, cackles, and braying cries. Lots of color and atmosphere, all the way down to the homey stench.

“Unofficially?” I answered Ritu. “They watch, of course. Half the creativity in the world comes from bored amateurs, nowadays. Open source and fresh clay — that’s all folks need. The army’d be stupid to ignore it.”

“I was wondering how you planned to get from here into the base proper,” she gestured beyond the exhibits and shouting carnies and whirling fun rides to the killwire fence. “Now I get it. You’re looking for one of those scouts!”

We were close enough to the killwire to feel its soul-distorting currents along our spines. It had to be nearby … the centerpiece of this anarchic fairground. The reason for its being.

Just then I caught a glimpse of my goal, beyond a big, grimy tent with slobbery elephant seal noises coming from within. A long line of archies stood patiently outside, waiting their turn to enter. But whatever was going on inside — whether violent or massively erotic — I didn’t care, and Ritu quashed her curiosity in order to keep up. I hurried, stepping gingerly past the canvas pavilion with its commotion of loud, clammy grunts.

Looming on the other side of the filthy tent stood a spindly structure of horizontal planks and slanting cables, held up by a single tensegrity spire. Several hundred onlookers crowded the grandstand, setting its spiderweb array jiggling each time they stood to cheer or sat back down with a disappointed collective moan. Their broad posteriors, clad in soft fabrics, showed they were all realfolk, with arms and necks tanned stylishly brown in the desert sun.

Between their cheers and moans came other sounds — howls and bitter snarls echoing from the arena’s heart. Defiant insults, hurled by mouths designed for biting instead of speech. Frenzied impacts and moist tearings.

Some think we’re going decadent. That all the urban brawlers, the inload-junkies and pseudowars mean we’re becoming like Imperial Rome, with its bloody circuses. Immoral, unbalanced, and doomed to fall.

But unlike Rome, this isn’t foisted on us from above. A weak government even preaches moderation. No, it rises from below, just another branching of human enthusiasm, unleashed from old constraints.

So, are we decadent? Or going through a phase?

Is it barbarous when the “victims” come willingly and no lasting harm is done?

I honestly had no answer. Who could know?

The arena’s main entrance bore an archies-only symbol and a wary guardian — somebody’s pet monkey, perched on a stool, armed with a spray bottle of solvent non-toxic to trueflesh. Ritu and I could have slipped inside without harm, except possibly to our makeup. But I still had use for the pretense. So we walked by, seeking a place among the non-citizen onlookers who pressed under the grandstand, peering through a shuffling maze of archie feet. Many of the dittos were combatants, garishly hoofed, taloned, and armored, awaiting their own turns on the gladiatorial grounds.

It stank down there. Slobbering, grunting, and farting dense colored puffs from their hyped-up metabolisms, contestants exchanged good-natured jibes while swapping bets and opinions about each round of grotesque slaughter. But not everybody. One fellow was actually reading from a cheap web-plaque, through a pair of outsized spectacles perched on his tyrannosaur snout. When a trumpeted blare called him forth to the arena that ersatz dinosaur tossed his lit-plaque to the ground but gently plucked the eyeglasses between two pincers and slipped them onto one plank of the grandstand, between the feet of an archie who picked up the specs and pocketed them without a word.

Well, some people like to make the most of their time, whatever body they happen to be wearing.

Clara had told me about this place, though I never visited during any of my earlier trips from the city to watch her platoon in action. She didn’t think highly of the “innovations” that bright amateur designers concoct to show off next to the killwire fence.

“Most are too gaudy, based on legendary monsters or personal nightmares,” she said. “They may be fine for a scary movie, but no damned good in combat. A frightening leer won’t help much when the enemy has a particle beam weapon sighted between your horns.”