Net Force

They might have talked the talk, pushed each other a couple of times, then backed off, but some boys in the crowd gathered to watch shoved them at each other.

Jeffries came in swinging, wild, wide, looping roundhouse punches.

What exactly happened had never been clear in Michael's mind. One moment, there were fists bouncing off his shoulders and head — fists he couldn't feel, and couldn't seem to avoid, even though they came at him in slow motion and dead silence.

The next moment, he had Jeffries on the ground, was sitting on his chest, his knees pinning the other boy's arms.

Thus holding his opponent trapped, Michaels could have pounded his face to a pulp — Jeffries couldn't have stopped him. But he hadn't hit him, he'd just held him down.

Jeffries had squirmed, bucked, twisted, screamed for Michaels to let him up.

No fucking way, Michaels had said. Not until you call it quits. I'll sit here all night.

It had seemed like hours, though it was probably only a minute or so. When Jeffries realized he couldn't buck Michaels off, he agreed to end the fight. They called it a draw, and Michaels was thrilled to let it go at that…

Scout stopped, marked a weed as his territory and scratched some grass over it with his hind legs.

Michaels smiled at the memory of his boyhood fistfight. He'd been what, all of thirteen? A long time ago.

But the smile faded at the more recent memory of Scout's former owner and the look on her face as she'd prepared to brain him with her cane. It wasn't a bloody nose or a black eye she'd had in mind, but a corpse. His corpse. That knowledge made Michaels feel a vulnerability he had never known before.

He could have died. Whack! A cracked skull, just like that, and he'd never have woken up. Ever.

Intellectually, he knew he was going to die someday. Everybody's path led that way. But emotionally, it had never come home to him until he'd sat there in his kitchen after the would-be assassin had fled, sat trembling, the taser gripped in his hand, waiting for his people and the police to arrive. He hadn't been afraid during the actual fight. But afterward…?

He had been afraid. He'd felt… helpless.

He hated it, that sick feeling of helplessness. Yeah, he had chased the would-be killer. He hadn't run away or anything, but even though he had done the right thing, he hadn't felt brave. He realized he didn't have the skill he needed. And now, he needed to do something about that lack of skill, get a handle on it somehow. Maybe he should talk to Toni. She was an expert — he had seen that for himself. Before, he hadn't been interested. But now? Maybe she would teach him some of what she knew.

What was that definition he'd heard? A conservative was a liberal who had been mugged?

Yes. The idea of being able to take a stick away from somebody and keep himself in one piece while he did it had a great appeal to Alex Michaels just now. He wasn't always going to have a platoon of armed guards protecting him. He needed to be able to do that himself, or he wasn't going to be able to leave his home without feeling fear. And being afraid was no way to live. He wasn't going to bow to that. No way.

Sunday, October 3rd, 8:09 p.m. Washington, D.C.

It had been a long and exciting day for Tyrone. As Bella walked him downstairs to the front door, he wondered how a day could get much more exciting. First there was Bella, then the business helping Jay Gee with the mad programmer in the Corvette. It wasn't every day you got to take a beautiful and bright girl out on a VR chase that was also an official Net Force investigation. His dad had been right — let Bonebreaker match that, if he could.

At the door, Bella said, 'Thanks for the help, Ty. And letting me go with you on the Net Force thing. It was gi-ganto excitamento. Let me know how it turns out, okay?'

'Sure. I don't think you'll have any trouble with the class, now. You got this stuff glued tight.'

He opened the door and turned to say good night.

Bella leaned over and kissed him on the lips. It was soft, quick, but if he lived to be a million, he would never forget that warm and unexpected touch. He couldn't have been more stunned if she'd whacked him on the head with a hammer. 'Call me sometime,' she said. 'We'll do something. Mall rawl, BurgerBarn, something.'

His brain stalled, his mouth shorted out. When he got partial control back, he managed a stammer: 'Wh- wh-what about Bonebr — uh, I mean what about LeMott?'

'He doesn't own me. We aren't married.' She smiled. 'See you.' She closed the door.

Tyrone stood there, staring at the door, unable to move, to think, maybe even breathe. When his brain came back he had no idea how long he'd been a statue. Could have been a few seconds, could have been a couple of centuries. How could time mean anything after what she had said?

'Call me sometime,' she said. 'We'll do something…'

Oh, man!

His feet must have been on the ground as he walked toward the Trans station, but Tyrone could hardly tell.

So this what it was like to be in love.

Sunday, October 3rd, 10:01 p.m. Washington, D.C.

In her apartment, Toni looked at the black plastic tape box Rusty handed her. 'Where did you get this?'

'I found it on the webpage for a bookstore in Alabama a couple of days ago. It just got here this morning. I don't have a VHS player, so I haven't had a chance to see it yet.'

Toni looked at the box. The pictures on the back of the box showed a short-haired man in a light shirt and tan slacks doing a block and sapu against a large, ponytailed man in jeans and a dark jacket. The box had apparently gotten wet at some point, because most of the rest of the back was so water-stained and faded it couldn't be made out. She could see that it was a production of Paladin Press, copyright 1999. She knew about them. They produced offbeat books and vids, everything from a dozen ways to kill somebody with common items in your kitchen cabinet, to hardcore gun and sword texts. They were out in Colorado somewhere, if she recalled right.

On the front of the box, part of the faded illustration had been torn off, but the title, Pukulan Pentjak Silat: The Devastating Fighting Art of Bukti Negara-Serak, Volume Three, was still readable. She felt a quick rush of excitement. She hadn't known anybody had made tapes of her art. And this was the third in a series. 'Well, let's see if my player still works, I haven't used it in a while.'

She moved to the multimedia player, and pushed the tape into the VHS slot. The machine lit. She clicked on the television, and went back to sit on the couch next to Rusty.

The tape opened with a credit sequence, followed by the guy in tan slacks walking into an alley. A man in the alley was moving something, asked for help, and all of a sudden, three more attackers jumped out from behind Dumpsters or doorways. One of the muggers had a knife, another a baseball bat. All four went for Tan Slacks. What was his name? She had missed it in the credits. Never mind, she'd get it later.

In five seconds, all four of the attackers were on the ground, having gotten there with considerable impact. Toni watched carefully. She would want to see this again in slo-mo, the guy moved so fast. Silat wasn't pretty, there weren't any fancy stances artfully held, but it certainly worked.

The scene changed, and the guru stood on a mat against the background of a pastel blue wall. He wore a black T-shirt with cut-off sleeves and a classical sarong. The shirt had the Bukti emblem on it: a garuda bird with the tiger face on its chest, over a pair of tjabang tridents. The guru looked fit, fairly muscular, and very confident. She wondered what he'd be like now, more than ten years later.

Toni turned to Rusty. 'This is great. I'm glad you let me see it.'

'I bought it for you,' he said. 'I figured you'd appreciate it more than I would.'

She smiled. 'Thank you. That was nice of you.' She put her hand on his arm.

The moment stretched. The gesture was a simple touch, nothing more, and it meant nothing more than a slight emphasis to her thanks.