Springboard

Wu had been taking the long view for many years. He had learned long ago there was little value in demonstrating one’s abilities to impress others. The ropes ahead were not the last obstacle. Others that needed muscle lay ahead, and pacing was important. Wu had learned how to fight smarter, not harder. Arriving at one’s goal first but exhausted was not the formula for victory.

Wu smiled again, and continued crawling toward the ropes.

University Park, Maryland

Thorn’s arm and shoulder were already aching, but he still had thirty more cycles to go with the katana. He stood in front of the mirror in his home salle, the wooden sheath of the Japanese weapon at his left hip placed so the cutting edge was up, held in place by a karate-style cloth belt. The sheath was lacquered a shiny jet; the blade, nearly mirror-bright, had the patterns and clay-temper line that identified the sword as one of the traditional folded-steel weapons lovingly created by a master craftsman. This particular weapon, one Thorn had only just acquired a month ago, wore a handle of pebbled manta-ray skin, under the traditional diamond-wrap silk cord, the butt capped with bronze, and an iron tsuba, or guard. It was of the New Sword period—“New” being a relative term, since it had been made in Musashi Province by Korekazu, or one of his students, four hundred years ago.

Under the handle, which was held in place by a bamboo peg, inscribed in Japanese characters upon the tang, was the name of the smith, the year the blade was made, and a phrase that Thorn had been told translated to “one fortunate day in February, this blade was made” along with the surname of the original owner. Below that, there was another inscription that said “three-body.” This latter was, Thorn had learned, the number of men, stacked one upon another, that the sword had cleaved through during its sharpness test. It did not indicate whether those men had been alive or dead when the test had been done; apparently, both were commonly used…

The folded Damascus-style steel was relatively flexible, with the edge tempered to a harder state. This gave the blade great cutting qualities, better than that of many modern steels. Thorn had seen a vid once, an old rip from a home shopping channel, in which the salesman was demonstrating a stainless-steel copy of a katana. He talked about how sturdy it was, and to show that, whacked the spine on the table in front of him several times.

On the last whack, the blade snapped in half, and the broken part flew up and stabbed the man in the biceps.

Newer did not always mean better…

One of the big advantages of having money was that you could buy such things as this treasure. It had cost as much as a new Mercedes, and with care could be around another four hundred years.

Thorn smiled. It would be interesting to see how well an eight-hundred-year-old Mercedes ran…

He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the burn in his deltoids. Relaxing as much as he could, he reached across his body with his right hand. He tried to allow his consciousness to expand, to achieve a total awareness the Japanese called zanshin. Such was the goal of an iaido practitioner using the live blade.

In Japanese, do meant “way.” This was different from the more warlike arts, which were usually known as jutsu. Iaido was not an ancient art, according to what Abe Kent had taught him, but a term that came into being in the early 1930s. The parent art, iaijutsu, had been around for many centuries, but since, as in Western fencing, killing people with a sword these days was more or less frowned upon in polite society, the killing arts had evolved…

There were all kinds of formalities to iaido—ranging from detailed instructions on how to clean the blade, and precisely how to tie the string of the bag in which the sword was carried, to how to stand, sit, bow — everything. But there were only four parts to iaido once you were ready to move: the draw, the cut, the shaking of blood, and the return to the sheath. Kent had told him the Japanese names—nukisuki, kiritsuke, chiburui, and noto—but had also said that the names weren’t important.

The goal was simple: A master swordsman became one with the blade. After countless hours of practice, the idea was that there would be no conscious thought involved when action was required. One moment, you stood facing your imaginary opponents, the next, the sword was in your hand and you cut them down. The moment after that, you shook the blood from your blade and put it away. All without raising your heartbeat…

The samurai sword was primarily a slashing rather than a thrusting weapon, though it could be used as such, and very much unlike a foil, epee, or saber in weight, balance, or effectiveness. Yes, a master fencer of the French, Italian, or Spanish schools would almost certainly stab a master iaido-ist first, a straight- line thrust being faster than a broad slash. In a match, with buttoned weapons, this would be enough. However, in a real duel, a stab would probably not be instantly fatal. Your opponent could be dying, but still able to move, and the result of such a situation against a man with a razor-sharp katana and the knowledge and determination to use it would most likely be ai-uchi—mutual slaying. To give that first thrust, you would expose yourself to the return cut. Mutual slaying was an accepted goal for the Japanese — the way of the samurai, the saying went, is found in death.

Historically, Western swordsmen generally wanted to pink their opponents, kill them if necessary, and walk away. If all you wanted to do was commit suicide, you could jump off a high bridge. If a man was willing to die to take you with him, that gave such a man, Thorn thought, a decided advantage.

He drew the sword, brought it up and over his head, and in the doing, grabbed the handle with his left hand behind the right. It was a two-handed weapon, and the pivot-style grip allowed for great power. He brought the sword down in a cut. You could take a man’s head off with such a strike. Or, in the case of this very blade, cut through a stack of bodies three deep. An adept with such a weapon and willing to die using it would be a formidable opponent. Not somebody you’d want to screw around with.

Thorn moved the blade to his right, released his left hand’s grip, then did a wrist-twirl that spun the sword in a downward circle. He added a snapping, slinging motion that ended the twirl with the blade’s tip pointed at the ground.

Still trying to stay relaxed, he turned the sheath sideways with his left hand, brought the blade up and across his body, the spine toward him, and touched the mouth of the sheath with the back ridge just below the guard. He drew the sword across his body to his right, keeping his left thumb and forefinger lightly pinched over the blade — this was to remove any lingering traces of blood — until the point reached the scabbard’s opening. He pushed the handle forward, away from himself, and lined the blade up, then gently slid it home, until the brass friction plug just ahead of the guard snugged tight. He twisted the sheath back to edge-up position, removed his right hand, then bowed.

Seventy-one. Only twenty-nine more, this session. And, according to Kent, maybe ten thousand or so repetitions to get to the point where he was beginning to get comfortable with the process.

Thorn grinned. He had a long way to go. Still, there was something in the simple motions. Thorn knew that “simple” didn’t mean “easy,” any more than “complex” meant “hard,” but even after only a few months of practice, it was already beginning to feel much more comfortable. Which, when you started waving a razor-sharp blade around, was certainly a good idea…

7

Department of Defense’s High Performance Computer Modernization Program

New Pentagon Annex Washington, D.C.

For a man of lesser technical skill, creating scenarios for VR could take away valuable time better spent on the problem that needed to be solved. Jay, who had been among the best in the biz for years, didn’t have that worry. He had a shelf piled high with stock scenarios, figuratively speaking, and he could always grab one and plug it in. You built stock when things were slow and you had time to get it right. And if you couldn’t get it right, why bother? Grab some commercial product, light it, and ride somebody else’s train…

Not this boy, no, sir, nohow, no, thank you!

Jay grinned as he slipped into the VR gear. The mesh, the casters, the feelware, it was all getting better and better every year. A man suited in full sensory mode could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch things in a VR