Introduction

Life was pretty bleak by the end of the twenty-fifth century. The cities had long since grown together from over-population. The one city-state was suffering from widespread poverty. Bored, frustrated people filled the walkways. Housing was limited and filthy. No one starved, thanks to total automation, but not many people lived fulfilled lives. Tension was at a peak. Mobs of people with nowhere to go roamed the city, wreaking havoc on property and on their fellows. They had no jobs, no money, and nothing useful to offer a world that treated them like excess baggage.

The city controller computers were worried. If trends continued on their present course, the city would be engulfed in holocaust. The mobs were at the breaking point between frustrated apathy and psychotic violence. It was plain that drastic change was needed. Temporary measures were put into effect. Priority was given to the manufacture of luxury items, in the hope that a higher standard of living would lull the masses. Even by the latter half of the twenty-fifth century, computers were still fairly ignorant of human psychology. Those few people who felt that the masses were useless burdens were aggravated by the attempt to coddle them, and those that felt bitterness toward society were appalled at the blatant attempt to treat the symptom while ignoring the disease.

The computers analyzed their mistake. They concluded that the cause of human misery must be eliminated... Extermination was considered, but quickly rejected as being too expensive. They began to study human history in an attempt to understand the root causes of mob revolt.

The results were helpful. They realized that man's ego demands a sense of recognition. They discovered that man's aggressions, when suppressed, blaze forth in an orgy of destruction. They found pieces of the answer throughout history. From the Japanese Samurai tradition, from the Dark Ages, from the armies and religions of the world, they culled the symbols of humanity. They gave the world a stage where man could compete against himself, a place where man could succeed or fail on his own merit. They gave man the Bilestoad.

Everyone knew that the Bilestoad didn't really exist... Not in the reality of man, anyway. But, reality is a product of perception. For the average young street-thug, tucked away in a warrior's booth like a fetus in the womb, "reality" was not a valid concern. Reality became running for shelter, the yayger hot on his heels... Blood oozing from his wounded shoulder... The sweet perfume of roses mixed with the smell of fear... The salty taste of his own blood... It made no difference that a computer was taking orders from his brain and feeding perception back to him. Few people minded that there was no physical world on which to fight, and the few that did mind were usually too intellectual to be a threat to the city controller computers, anyway.

Most never got beyond the battle. For them, it was enough to hack away at an opponent. An opportunity to release their anger and cleanse their souls was all they wanted. They could wash themselves in blood. The mobs were quelled and quieted.

For those with a more intellectual turn of mind, the Bilestoad offered a chance to compete and explore. They could rise through the ranks and become masters. They passed through the crowds like priests, the captains of the new world. They'd attained the respect they felt they needed.

Welcome to the Bilestoad, a world of half reality and half nightmare.

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