The Arena; 2100

1. The New World

The world changed greatly from 1942, more than hundred years of advancement did that. Most namely a third world war, disassembling the former Chinese Communist Party, former Russian Federation, and Taliban group. New states were established, like Siberia, Korea, China, and Kurdistan. The thought was to ease tensions by giving whoever was affected their own land. The Kurdish and Koreans were obviously two contenders for that idea.
Perhaps most popularly or well known was the independence of Québec, a region of a mostly French speaking population in Canada, and Scotland, a region with major historical differences that has tried on and on well since it joined the United Kingdom.
That was on the mind of a young Providence Nelson. She had overheard some government majors talking about rising tensions between the UK and Scottish. Not that it concerned her, the school year was coming to a close after what felt like forever.
Providence was a straight-A student since her late secondary school days. She enjoyed the challenge of getting 100 on everything possible. Multiple colleges had tried and failed to get Providence, including University of London and the Ivy League in America. Although she decided against it since the American State Crisis started when she was invited.
Providence walked on, the streets of Manchester were bustling with activity, she liked it, but who couldn't like their hometown?
Providence was a biology major, since the other areas of science didn't interest her. Physics was too experimental, astronomy was filled with weird kids, and chemistry came with the added chance of making explosives by accident.
Providence stopped at a local bakery. The owner claimed it was a German bakery, but there were also pastries from around the world, so his word on what is or isn't German is debatable. Providence was a regular, every week she came in to buy a sponge cake or some bread for her aging parents.
"Ah! Miss Nelson! How did the lecture go? Did you learn anything new?" the owner's wife said, greeting Providence warmly.
"It was good, could I get a-"
"Sponge cake?" the owner's wife giggled, grabbing a slice of the cake, seemingly prepared just for Providence.
Providence giggled too and put a few pounds on the counter. She took a fork and was going to eat outside, when the owner came in.
He was an average guy, in his mid-50's but still looked younger. His wife had the same story. He usually greeted Providence every week. He almost thought of Providence like a long distance daughter, and she didn't stop him from treating her as so. He didn't greet her that week because the horns he had from GenMod fell off, it happened every other month, either from hitting his head, or just naturally. He always freaked out, despite having the process happen for easily 10-20 years by then.
GenMod was both a company and an invention. The company owned the invention, GenMod was this program where people would get injected with DNA, iridium, and some other metal alloys to infuse the two. Creating essentially a hybrid, anything from plants and trees to animals were used for GenMod. Most people gained horns, tails, bark, thorns, or additional ears during the process. Hence why some people had horns, bark, or ears.
Providence looked at his empty head, the horns the owner usually had were in his hands. "Ah! Providence, I couldn't miss your visit!" he breathlessly said. His face was flustered from something, probably his horns coming out.
Providence smiled and went outside, enjoying that he still greeted her even during the whole ordeal. Providence took the only table outside the window of the small bakery and dug into the cake slice, texting her lab partner, a young Clovis Steiner. He had said that he was going with a Danish exploration party in Greenland because there had been reports of something encased in ice floating around the western side by Canada and Québec.
Providence put her phone down, it wasn't like she had anything else to do besides finish eating, go to her student hall, and continue her research provided by Clovis, so she could enjoy savoring every bite of the cake. College was stressful, even for someone like Providence, so a second to calm down, slow and savor something as sweet as the cake was a well needed break.

"Guys! Look!" Clovis pulled his ice-pick from the ground, there, under a pretty thick layer of clear ice, someone was. She was perfectly preserved, there weren't even signs of decomposition.
"Damnit Clovis what is it this time?" one of the explorers bellowed, coming to Clovis and looking at him before glancing down. There, the frozen woman was. She wasn't decomposed, she wasn't quite lifeless, not quite alive. A frozen median between life and death.
Clovis and the other explorer stood over in stunned silence, neither daring to speak and ruin the moment. Eventually, the other explorers joined the two, and too, looked at the body in silence.
"I don't know what to say," one man spoke, pulling off his goggles as he looked at her lifeless frozen-encased body.
"I say we bring it back to Manchester University. Me and my lab partner may be able to study it from there," Clovis vouched. A few of the other explorers silently nodded.
The man in charge, a tall, burly Norwegian man named Ulysses Perez, spoke up, "Clovis," he started, "You and your research could desecrate this discovery. I say we bring it to the research center in Denmark. It'll be safer there," Ulysses said, turning around and looking at the other explorers, unfortunately for him, many of them shook their heads.
"Fine! Clovis and his partner can go take the body, but if it's destroyed don't come crying back to me!" Ulysses half-snapped. With that, everyone used their ice-picks and carved her out, while Ulysses called for a helicopter to pick up the body and Clovis, making sure they have a refrigerated cargo hold to make sure it doesn't melt.

Providence cut and ate the last piece of her cake when her phone rang. It was her favourite song, "Yellow Submarine," a song made by an old, insignificant band by now, The Beetles. She looked on her phone. Clovis. She accepted the call and put her phone to her ear, "I thought you were on that trip. What's going on?" "Prov, go to lab 3-C. We have something there," Clovis spoke through the phone.
Providence told him she'd be there. She left a tip on the table for the bakery owners, and made her way to the lab on campus.
She rushed, but did not run, through the streets of Manchester. Bustling with activity, residents, students, tourists, and police filled the streets of the beautiful old city. Going through campus was easy, and so was finding lab 3-C.
Providence opened the door, instantly hit with cold air. Clovis greeted her and gave her his coat. Together, the two saw the frozen body, cut into a poor square shape. Providence gasped and nearly fell back from what she saw. How was it possible? Cryostasis is impossible.
"Prov. I found it, she isn't dead it seems," Clovis started, going to a control platform in the center. It controlled the mechanical arms and other parts in the room.
"Thaw her. Get me an Oxygen Creator. Clovis for the love of god, don't get that mixed up."