Changing of the Guard

The ball flew and slammed into the plywood target, a little more than halfway up. He was strong, too, no question about it.

Jay was up next. He concentrated on the sequence he’d been practicing for months — or perhaps it was just days or even hours. Time was so subjective here.

He picked up the heavy ball. He wanted to do more than win; he wanted to smash the competition, to make them worry.

I can do this.

He took several deep breaths, hyperventilating. For what he wanted to happen, he’d have to hit the target high. Okay. This one’s for you, Theta.

Theta leaned against a railing nearby, smirking.

Laugh at this!

Jay bent deep, twisted, wound it up. When it seemed as if he were going to cramp from turning into himself so tightly, he expanded.

Fire all muscle cells, this is NOT a drill!

The twist was followed by two short steps as he lined up and fired the medicine ball with every bit of his focus.

All he had to do was hit the target.

What he did was break it.

It was only the upper right corner. Plywood was tough stuff, made up of criss-crossing wood fibers. The chances of him punching through were nonexistent. But by catching the corner just so, he knew he could tear the corner off, like ripping a book cover.

He’d done it in practice, so it wasn’t so amazing to him. But the audience gasped, Theta slumped, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Alpha and Beta glance sharply over at him.

That’s right boys, you’re next.

And then he was through Theta.

Alpha’s event was tougher. It was a tire flip, with huge tractor tires weighted with water. They lay flat on the ground, and you had to pry them up using a dead lift, raise them onto their treads, and shove them over, then repeat the sequence. Seventy seconds was the time limit.

The contest was tougher, not just because he was already tired, but because his consciousness level had climbed. It was harder to hold all of his constructs together. Things were starting to go fuzzy at the edges.

The first couple of flips went okay. He caught the balance of the water within the tire at just the right time, and it almost seemed to flip itself. He looked over and saw that Alpha was dead even with him.

And that nearly lost him the game.

He shifted balance slightly, and the water sloshed backward, almost toppling the tire backward on the next flip.

He let out a low hiss, angry with himself.

Do or die, Gridley!

He shoved with everything he had, felt the water shift, and the tire went over.

He kept after it now, pushing hard. Four, five, six, seven, eight…

The buzzer sounded.

He glanced over, and saw Alpha was half a revolution back. He’d won!

And suddenly things got even more indistinct. The arena shrank to a smaller size, more of a large room now, everything tighter. Alpha, Theta, and Delta were smaller, too, all standing on a platform off to the left, watching as he and Beta moved toward two huge logs set on the remaining platform.

Log press.

Each log was maybe twelve inches in diameter, with hand slots cut into it at shoulder-width. The contest was pure strength, total number of reps in seventy seconds.

This is it.

This was the hard one. He’d never beaten Beta, never made it out, didn’t know if he had what it took.

Beta looked over at him as if he could read his mind.

He probably could, too.

Jay had failed every time he’d tried to win against Beta before.

So he’d trained differently this time. He’d had a realization. It wasn’t about the end, it was all about the competition itself.

The gun sounded and they began.

He didn’t count his reps, but focused on the feeling, the burning of muscles, the lightness of the weight. He’d trained with heavier logs than this; all he had to do was keep going.

He glanced over at Beta, and saw him straining but keeping the same pace. Jay tried to shut Beta out of his thoughts. He’d lost last time because he’d pushed harder when he thought Beta was going down. A mistake.

It’s not about him, it’s about me.

He tried not to think at all; he worked, seeking the joy of work, wanting the play of muscle, the power. It came down to that. Enjoying the contest for itself, the test of his body; the play of his skin over his muscles, the sensation of the weight rising through the air, rough bark against his hands, the pine-sap smell of the recently cut wood. Not the goal, but the moment…

The air shimmered, and his reality faded in and out.

He kept going.

Born here doing this. Will live here forever doing this…

The scene faded. Everything was dark now, he couldn’t see a thing. But he could hear—

A faint sound, brilliantly crisp and electronic. The click of heels on a floor, the smell of… antiseptic?

He tried to speak, tried to turn his body, but succeeded only in a quiet moan.

“Jay?!”

Saji!

University Park, Maryland

There were times when Thorn did general practice — basic forms with all three weapons: foil, epee, and saber — and other times when he just concentrated on his footwork or blade work alone, repeating a series of lunges or parry-and-riposte drills. Now and then, he would concentrate on one blade, such as he was doing today with the epee, and one particular exercise that he felt was a weakness. Playing to your strength was more fun, of course, it gave the old ego a big boost when you could execute a fancy series and know that nine of ten people you faced would have trouble handling it. But you lost matches on your weaknesses, and eliminating those made you a better swordsman — even if your competitive days were long past.

This morning, he felt ready to deal with one particular chink in his armor, and decided that he was going to concentrate on his infighting.

Infighting was more of a foil style than something you saw much of in either epee or saber, which was exactly why he wanted to work on it. One of the big advantages in cross-training — and this was especially true when it came to cross-training with eastern weapons and styles as well as western fencing technique — was that it opened your mind to seeing each weapon in a new light. The fact that it sometimes gave you new moves, new styles, and new advantages didn’t hurt either.

Infighting was exactly that: close-in fighting, often standing side-by-side with your opponent, your fighting arm twisted behind your own back, your point probing, your parries forgotten. It was something you did, not something you planned, and the whole concept was contrary to Thorn’s own natural style.

He preferred distance. He had a long reach and a great sense of timing, and so he liked to stay outside of his opponent’s reach whenever possible, drawing him out, creating openings that he could attack into. When he closed, it was to take advantage of something, and almost always resulted in a quick hit. He’d never been comfortable going toe to toe.

It was time to change that.

He was working at home today, in a little room he’d left clear of furniture. It didn’t have the right flooring, or the racks of weapons, or the wall full of mirrors that he planned to install in Net Force’s gym, but that was all right. He wasn’t planning a full-scale bout with any of Jay’s VR opponents.