Only he wasn't.
If he'd been really running, Tor would have easily been left far behind, lost in the twists and turns of the unfamiliar landscape. Sucking air harder than he had in a very long time from a practice run, he bore down, trying to keep up. Burks just sped up a little, hanging back just enough to keep the younger man from getting totally lost.
Crap.
Well, Tor considered as they finally stopped, in front of the light brown door of the hill-house, as Brenda called it, yet another reason to send in Burks instead of him. That and apparently he needed to do more running, and to it faster, even if it hurt.
The older man gave him a minute to recover before they started fighting practice, unarmed first. It was… humiliating to say the least. Not only couldn't Tor touch the man, but it was obvious he was moving in slow motion and letting Tor work full speed. After a bit Tor stood back, out of range and asked what he was missing.
Burks threw a punch, almost exactly like the first one Kolb had taught him.
“A full standard blow, it goes out, stops at the point of impact and gets retracted. About as strong as you can be with that motion, hitting in that direction.”
Then he punched again, doing it several times for Tor to see clearly. It was a little different.
“Partial retraction, the hands are held out, closer to the opponent. You have to be more aware of grabs, an arm dangling out is an invitation to take it. The blow is weaker, about eighty-six percent of the power, but the distance is cut in half, at the end you begin to retract at the point of contact, this weakens the blow about another five percent. But the time the action takes is only about forty percent of what a normal punch requires. If it's weaker you have to make a point of targeting sensitive areas.”
When the fist moved back a new blow began instantly.
“Note how I'm not leaving a waiting time before the next movement? That’s crucial. Almost everyone waits and pauses when a blow is withdrawn. It's an energy conservation technique and not a bad one, you find yourself waiting to see if what you did was enough, but it's so ingrained that almost no one ever thinks about it. The more adept the person the less they'll do it, but unless you consciously realize that it exists, it's very hard to get rid of in a personal fighting style, it's simply a part of our nature as humans. The same idea works for empty hand or weapons work, weapons are harder because of the larger inertia, but both take practice.”
Then he started striking at Tor playfully with two limbs at once, each blow skipping from where it would connect around in a partial circle to the next attack at a different place without hesitation. Sometimes a single kick filled a space, normally a very low one, aimed at the shin or knees.
Tor nodded.
“I see! Now I just need a thousand years to learn to coordinate like that and I'll be ready.” He let his voice go bright, but the movements were pure art and done by someone that had truly mastered them. Honestly it felt like a thousand years might be ambitious to tell the truth.
Burks winked.
“You get three days. I suggest you practice. This is a high energy and high endurance way to fight. If I were you I'd go running again and then practice until lunch. In the afternoon I have something else planned. Lunch is at noon here, just like school.”
Clearly dismissed, Tor started running again, as fast as he could, without throwing up. His gut ached and he wanted to complain about over training, except he knew that his endurance and recovery time was a lot better than an average persons. Burks had mentioned that months before. It didn't make him like running any better, but it meant he could push himself and not be hurt by it. Whee, what grand fun. He intended to go Ten miles, like they had earlier, but ended up going further, because he got lost on the winding path. Twice. When he got back to the door he started working against an imaginary target, trying to remember everything he'd been told. It was harder than it looked. Functionally the style didn't have blocking even, which should have made it all easier, the constant attacks making it nearly impossible unless you just happened to have a limb near an incoming blow. Was the barrage supposed to keep the other person off guard or was he just missing something?
Well, he'd get it, or not.
Three days wasn't a long time and he had work to do that evening if he could manage it. The disguise device. It may not make a difference in the end, but what if it was the exact thing they needed to be successful? Being Lazy could get them both killed.
The afternoon session nearly made him laugh at the coincidence at first. It was all about what he'd need to do to look and act Austran. From their plethora of body and face tattoos to piercings and dyed hair for the young. Everyone over ten had something different about them, which worked in his favor, since people tried to do original things to themselves and make a “statement”. No matter what Tor came up with, it would be correct, as long as he didn't go without.
Then the use of makeup and materials was covered, how to change the shape of a face, the color or skin and hair and so on. It was almost exactly what he needed to know in order to make the device he had planned.
It wasn't a coincidence though. Burks just had the same idea he did. Oh, using make-up and props, but the idea was the same. Once you accounted for the fact the Tor was a builder and tried to get almost everything done that way instead of using other means. After they were done Tor grabbed an early dinner of stale bread and sharp cheese, and started working. It would have to be in the old fashioned way, pushing his pattern too far, too fast, at least if he wanted it done before they left.
If it was a problem for the Ancient that he disappeared Tor didn’t know about it, no one said anything. Not that Tor could have heard them if they did. He worked deep, and had the device ready by the next morning, though that meant skipping sleep.
It took time and the days repeated themselves, each a different crash course on Austra and every word shook his idea about what it meant to be human just a little. They were so different. Even the way they looked at other people was bizarre. Burks tried to explain fully, but it was just so hard for him to believe.
“Family means a lot less to them. Here, say with you, if a distant relative showed up and asked you for something, say to take them in, what would you do?” It wasn't a rhetorical question, but the answer was ridiculously obvious.
“Take them in. Obviously.”
“In Austra, if a close relative came and asked the same thing, they'd be taken in less than half the time. A lot less. People generally wouldn't even think of asking. It costs more to have another person after all, which could require cutting back on personal luxuries.”
That didn't sit well with Tor at all, in fact he couldn't really imagine it as being true. At first it seemed an un- clever joke was being played on him, but Burks remained adamant.
“But,” Tor stammered, flabbergasted. “They're family. You have to help them. It's a rule!”
Burks nodded at the young version of himself slowly.
“Our rule, not theirs.”
That set Tor back for a few minutes. It was their place he was going to, so he had to adapt to them, not the other way around. Not that the plan was for him to run into the city there and do anything. His job was to provide devices and stay with the vehicle, so that they could escape when they needed to. There were tricky bits to it, like making a carriage work under water while leaving him air to breath, but it was doable. That or he'd suffocate and die.
Smiling to himself he got that the idea wasn't impossible, he just had to move air into the craft he was using and make sure it got out at the same speed. If it was done carefully and he didn't go too deep under water it should be fine. Burks agreed and told him not to go below thirty feet, though he didn't mention why exactly. The man was frustrating that way sometimes. It wasn't that he was hiding anything, but rather he just kept assuming that Tor already knew what he was saying for some reason.
“Um, Burks?”
“Yes Tor?”
“What's a robot?”
“It's… never mind, not important to what we’re doing right now.”
That basic conversation became so common that Tor almost stopped asking questions, but that didn't work either, because some of the things were relevant to what they were doing. The morning of the fourth day after their run, in which Tor felt like his lungs were tearing apart and he tasted iron and copper with each breath, deep in the
