Cybernation

When she came in, she did it fast, and his slash and poke was right on the edge of desperation. She got in, but she was aware of being touched on the arm and body by his blade. She jumped back as he flailed away at her again, missing.

“Okay, what do you see? Take a look in the mirror.”

He moved a couple of steps so he was in front of the mirror they’d picked up at a garage sale. There was a red strip on the side of his neck, and three other less-defined ruby splotches on his chest, belly, and inside his left elbow.

“Well. Looks like I’m dead, Jim,” he said.

“Yes, you are. Now, look at me.”

He did so. Toni had a red long line on the outside of her right arm, and a small spot under her sternum.

“You see?” she said. “I’m your teacher. I have been training and practicing this art for more than a dozen times as long as you have. With real knives, I would have cut your carotid and probably the radial artery in your antecubital fossa — inside your elbow crook there — plus slashing you in the gut and chest. But even so, you would have opened my arm — which I could have survived — but also stabbed me in the heart.”

She touched the spot on her chest.

“Without quick first-aid care, one or both of us would probably have died after that trade, but we’d both have bled. A weapon changes things.”

“Yeah, so I see.”

“Against a knife bare-handed, you are in deep trouble. Even with a knife of your own, you can get chopped down.”

“And the moral of this story?”

She smiled. “If somebody comes at you with a knife, run. If you can run, don’t attack unless there are several of them, in which case, you take one out, then run. If you stand your ground, you have to cover your centerline, that’s your advantage.”

“But maybe we both die? That’s an advantage?”

“Everybody who carries a knife doesn’t have great skill with it,” she said. “You have to assume they do, of course, and move as if that were the case, but the truth is, most people who might attack you with a blade wouldn’t have gotten any of those hits I did except the arm. They wouldn’t have gotten me, either. And don’t forget, I have two knives, short though they are.”

“Bad for my wardrobe, though.”

She smiled. “You can always buy a new sport coat, sport.”

He smiled.

“Okay, let’s try it again. This time, block with your free hand, dorsal side, and sector to the outside of my attacking hand when you do. Getting out of the way of an incoming knife is usually a good idea — if you miss the block, at least you don’t get skewered. After that, we’ll switch, you attack and I’ll defend. That’s when the kerambits work the best.”

* * *

Later, when they were in the shower washing off lipstick marks, Toni said, “There’s an exercise I want you to learn.”

“I’m game,” Alex said. “Come closer.”

“Not that kind of exercise. A mental one.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed. It’ll be a couple of hours yet before Guru and the baby get home. It won’t take long.”

“What kind of exercise?”

“Posthypnotic suggestion.”

He scrubbed her back with the bath sponge. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

“Look, I know you don’t think a lot of the spiritual and magical sides of silat. You think it’s all mumbo jumbo.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Give me the sponge, I’ll do your back.”

She soaped the sponge and began scrubbing between his shoulder blades. “You don’t have to say it for me to know it. But hypnosis is a perfectly valid tool, and you can do it yourself. It’s nothing more than autosuggestion with a focus. You visualize things, practice them in your head, and it improves your skill.”

“You sound like Jay.”

“No, listen. Take athletes. At the Olympic level, nearly all of them use visualization to help their performances. They practice their exercises — whatever they are, from swimming to downhill skiing — in their imagination.”

“Careful, I’m ticklish there,” he said.

“No, you aren’t. Shut up. You ever practiced your djurus while sitting at your desk, just thinking about them instead of actually moving?”

“Sure.”

“Same thing. Tests on athletes show that mentally practicing can lay down nerve memory channels just like doing it for real. Not as much, but some.”

She squatted, and soaped up his butt and hamstrings.

“So practicing mentally is useful,” she continued.

“Okay. So?”

“What’s your biggest problem with silat practice?”

“Aside from you?”

“I’m serious.”

He looked over his shoulder. “C’mon. How serious you expect me to take this while you’re rubbing my ass with a soapy sponge, Kemosabe?”

She smiled. “Think of me as your teacher and not your beautiful naked wife in the shower.”

“That’s hard.”

“It better be. But try.”

He nodded. “I’m too tense,” he said. “I haven’t learned how to relax when I move. I use too much muscle.”

“Right. So what we do is, we take you to a state of relaxation and suggestibility, and teach you how to get there posthypnotically.”

“You can do that?”

“To a degree, yes.”

“Okay. Is that before or after we make love?”

“Before.”

“Aw, come on.”

“Maybe instead of, if you don’t hurry up.”

He hurried.

* * *

When they had finished showering and drying themselves, she had him lie on his back on the bed. She stretched out next to him, but not touching him. “Okay, close your eyes.”

He did so.

“You comfortable?”

“Yep.”

“All right. I want you to imagine you are in the hallway of an office building. It’s an older place, but well- maintained. To your right is an elevator. Walk to the button that calls the elevator — it’s an old-style mechanical one. You push it, and it lights up.

“The elevator arrives — you can see the number light up above the door. You’re on the twentieth floor. You hear a soft chime. The door opens, the elevator is empty. You step inside.”

Michaels wasn’t having any trouble following along, but it felt kind of silly.

“The elevator is an old one, but in good condition. It’s nice and warm in here, quiet, the light is soft. Push