At 08:49 AM 9/18/98 -0400, Paul Arezina wrote:

| >Hmm. They are perhaps pumping a few millivolts of charge through the
| >Arena
| >floor, enough to essentially lock all the neurons in the body into
| >permanent
| >firing? Shamps has experience with massive doses of electricity and >is
| not
| >affected so badly, one assumes.
|
| Nah... Your thinking too high tech. They were drugged pure and simple.
| Crystaline slivers piercing the back of the neck. Or small darts later
| removed by the medicals. With all the blood who'd notice a puncture
| wound.

And having a system designed to track the necks of two people leaping
randomly about, one of whom hasn't had the chance to be bugged or tagged in
any way, isn't too high-tech? We've already seen that the Arena floor CAN be
made electrically conductive in places; all that's required is to mediate
the amperage a bit and presto.

But if they do a post-fight blood workup - just to make sure no one was on
steroids or some such - the neurotoxins are going to show up. Which will
still lead for a means for Running Deer to spill the beans to Shampoo. Or
perhaps she caught a glimpse of the sliver-guns doing their dirty work.

Do not neglect to take into account the rabid Otoku Arena fan, who will
likely play back this fight in ultraslow motion. Take a few thousand of
those, and someone is likely to smell a rat.

Not to mention that Security, with a little nudge from Soun, is likely to
take a pretty close look at the video of that fight.

Personally, I think the manager of the arena has stepped into it big time.

T.H.

--G. Falconar