Changing of the Guard

  Like his VR scenarios, this was a metaphor. He was training his will, to increase his mental activity until he could get out.

  The idea had come from a memory of the previous coma’s rehab. He’d been weightlifting, an exercise for which he saw no use whatsoever, but had been forced into, and he’d accidentally put the pin into the wrong notch. He’d started his press, thinking it was his normal weight, and had been shocked to find it so heavy. Unwilling to admit defeat, he’d strained, inching the stack up slowly, bit by bit. It had become a test of will—no inanimate pile of metal was going to beat him!

  Jay toweled the sweat off. He was as ready as he could be, and he hoped it would be enough.

  To match his training metaphor, he’d entered himself into a strongman contest. He’d seen one on ESPN once while channel surfing. It had fascinated him to see these modern Samsons doing what they did.

  Each event in the contest he’d planned would test his willpower, help him focus. The brain-wave states of Delta, Theta, Alpha, and Beta were going to be achieved through doing something else, just like VR.

  Jay continued his preparations, stretching his legs, now as thick as tree trunks. He was glad for Spandex.

  Otherwise I’d be shredding clothes like the Hulk.

  There was a musical fanfare from outside, and it was time for the contest. He headed out into a brightly sunlit arena.

  “And here representing geeks everywhere, is Smokin’ Jay Gridley!” The loudspeaker blared again, this time the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  Also Sprach Zarathustra.

  Jay grinned as he stalked across the arena. Just ahead was the competition.

  Alpha, Beta, Theta, and good old Delta.

  Of course there was no real competition—only the mental activity borders between layers of his consciousness. Each had a Greek letter embroidered on his gear, making him identifiable. Delta looked weak; Jay already knew he could beat him. Theta looked tougher, but Jay was sure he could take him. Beta and Alpha grinned. Those were the real challenges.

  Alpha held his arm up, pinched his biceps and shook his head.

  Beta sneered and then pointed his index finger at the ground.

  You going down, Jay.

  Even though he’d seen similar behavior in many of the other constructs in his dream state, it was still impressive. None of the characters had ever used these mannerisms before, and he found their independence unnerving.

  Relax, Gridley, it’s all in your mind.

  So he grinned back and waved at them.

  I can be unpredictable, too.

  Today’s contest had four events. All Jay had to do was beat everyone at their own game, one-on-one, and he’d be free.

  He hoped.

  He and Delta moved toward rows of metal kegs, each of which weighed a couple hundred pounds. Past that, twenty-five feet away, was a platform, just over waist high. The goal was to put as many of the kegs as you could up onto the platform. All within seventy-five seconds.

  Jay knew that Delta could do about four kegs, maybe five. They took their positions, and after what seemed like an eternity, the shot starting the event went off.

  Jay wanted an edge in this race, so when he picked up his first keg, he tucked it under an arm and then picked another one with one hand. He heard a murmur in the crowd as he did this, and looked up for a moment at the watchers to see Theta frowning. Beta and Alpha sneered.

  Go! He lurched forward, almost falling. Delta, who had just picked up the one keg, was out in front, but not by much.

  Jay put the kegs down on the platform and ran back for more. He picked up two more, and saw that although he was slower compared to Delta, he was still a keg up.

  Go! He picked up another pair and made it back to the platform. He ran back.

  Two more. Beside him he saw Delta returning for his fourth keg.

  Faster.

  He picked up the pace and pushed, his entire body pumping, blood rushing, heart pounding, will straining. As his fifth and sixth kegs touched down on the platform and he turned back for more, he heard the buzzer go off.

  “Gridley, six kegs, the winner!” called the announcer.

  Yes!

  Delta glared. Jay smiled.

  One down.

  The next contest used medicine balls. They were fifty pounds each, and had to be thrown at a plywood target. The target was big, to reduce the difficulties in aiming; the bottom of the target was a little higher than three feet off the ground.

  This was Theta’s event, and Jay watched him pick up a ball, lean back, and thrust forward.

  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, épée, 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 épée, 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 épée 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.

  He’d hung a number of golf balls on long strings from the high, vaulted ceiling. Each golf ball was a target. His normal work-out routine started with him addressing a single golf ball, coming to guard before it and simply thrusting at it, over and over, until he hit it fifty times in a row. It got significantly harder after the first hit, since the ball would be moving, swinging back and forth like a pendulum, after each successful strike.

  After fifty consecutive hits, he would move back far enough to add a lunge to his strike. Twenty consecutive hits later he would move back still farther, adding a quick step and turning his lunge into a ballestra.

  That was his normal routine, and he did it with either foil or épée, depending on which weapon he was concentrating on at the time. It was good for practicing aim, for developing speed, and for working on timing. Some days it was simply warm-up for other drills. Other days that was all he did. Today he wanted something more.

  He raised the first golf ball, shortening its string so it hung at about shoulder height. Another golf ball hung a couple of feet behind the first one. He lowered this so that it hung near his hip. Then he stepped back and dropped into guard position.

  Go!

  He lunged, striking at the first golf ball, simulating an attack upon an imaginary opponent. As the tip of his épée struck home, he turned the move into a prise de fer, keeping his point low and sweeping his guard through a hook and lift, visualizing his opponent’s blade being lifted and carried above his left shoulder. His guard held near his left ear, pinning his imaginary attacker’s blade away from his body; he brought his point on line and stepped forward with his right foot, driving his tip into the second golf ball.

  He smiled at the thunk of the tip. Not bad, but that was the easy one.

  Stepping back, he waited for the golf balls to stop swinging and then did it again. And again.

  When he felt he had the rhythm down, he rehung both golf balls, adjusting their strings so they were both chest high.

  Now for the hard one.

  He came to guard closer to the first ball. In this drill, the first ball would be his opponent’s blade, the second ball would be his target.

  Go!

  He beat, once, fast and hard, knocking the first golf ball to the left with the side of his blade. In the same motion, he stepped forward with his left foot and brought his blade around the back of his head, whipping his point at the second ball.

  He missed. Badly.

  He stood there a moment longer, feeling the strain in his right shoulder, until the first ball, swinging on its string, hit him in the back.

  Nice one, Thorn, he thought.

  Grinning, he shook his head and set up once again.

  Twenty minutes later, having hit the ball only three times, he sighed and took off his mask. He was still a long ways from where he wanted to be, but at least he’d made a start.

  Feeling as if he had addressed the problem, if not completely solved it, Thorn went to take a shower.

  19

  Net Force HQ

  Quantico, Virginia

  Thorn wasn’t doing anything illegal, but he still felt a little guilty as he ran the computer check on Marissa. He wasn’t using his status with Net Force to gain access to any classified or secret information—he would never do that; the material he found on the web was public information, available to anybody who bothered to look. That was legal. But still . . .

  Some of it he already knew, but he was definitely intrigued by her, and curious about the rest.

  In her academic records, he came across a set of scores on assorted exams, for college, government service, and the like, and one of them was a standardized IQ test. Thorn had always done well on those himself, since his IQ edged into what was considered genius range on such scales.

  He blinked at Marissa’s number:

  Five points higher than his.

  She was smarter than he was!

  He shook his head. He hadn’t even considered that before. He had assumed that she was a feeler, not a thinker.

  That she wa
s brighter or quicker didn’t threaten him—he liked smart women, he liked to be challenged—but that he hadn’t seen it did bother him. Slipped right past him, that did.

  This was an old lesson, one he should have gotten by now: What you see isn’t always what you get.

  What else was he missing because he accepted it at face value?

  New York City

  It was early, the domestic market hadn’t opened yet, and Cox was attending to business that had piled up during the night. Business never slept when you dealt with people around the globe.

  The scrambled phone rang. He knew who it was; there was only one caller who used this line.

  He pushed a blue button on the unit, picked up the receiver, and leaned back in his custom-built Aeron form-chair, the specialized pellicle flex-plastic shifting under his weight. Most people wouldn’t think of paying several hundred dollars for a chair, much less the several thousand this one had cost him.

  Most people were shortsighted.

  “Cox.”

  “Good day, Comrade.”

  Of course, it was the Russian, making his tired little joke again.

  Cox’s tone needed to be consistent, otherwise the Russian would start to wonder. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” He kept his voice dry.

  Cox knew the intricate chain of events he’d set off by pushing the blue button. The good Doctor had been most cautious—understandably so—when he’d awakened his sleeper, preferring to contact him by phone and infrequently. He’d been smart enough to realize that if Cox figured out where he was, that might not be a good thing for him. But if being rich had taught Cox anything, it was a special kind of patience, the ability to see beyond the present.

  Patience, along with money, could buy all manner of things. The chair upon which he sat, for instance, was more than just a comfortable seat. The quality of it, the fine materials and the beauty of its design—all added to the pleasure of using it. The areté of such a fine mechanism improved his life.