Qualify

  This time most of us are too stunned to make a sound.

  The African locks guy next to me silently mouths, “Oh, f— me!”

  “As you can see, I am unhurt,” Oalla announces in a loud voice, still holding up her hands and arms to the room. “Every bullet has been stopped and adhered to the arm shield. Underneath, my skin might show a few light impact bruises tomorrow, but that’s about it.”

  “Before you lose your nerve completely,” Keruvat speaks up, starting to circle Oalla once again, “you need to realize that while the Green Quadrant shield might defeat the Blue Quadrant gun, it is a weak weapon and no match for your own Yellow Quadrant cord!”

  Keruvat flings himself toward Oalla, and this time the cord is back—the same one he’s been discreetly holding all along, apparently balled up in one fist. He makes a series of strange coordinated hand and finger movements and the cord becomes a sequence of short loops that he’d single-handedly shaped and twisted with the fingers of one hand, because there’s no other explanation for it.

  In seconds, the loops are thrown then tightened around Oalla’s arms in their braces, and her hands are effectively tied together before her in an intricate net-like knot.

  She stands with a shadow of a smile, hands bound, while Keruvat holds the end of the cord and nods at her. He then flicks his wrist and the cord handcuffs come apart with a single tug. Must be sleight-of-hand, because honestly, even looking at it, I have no idea how he did that!

  This time everyone in the room is clapping.

  Off to the side, Aeson Kass claps also. He then continues to observe, arms folded at his chest. I glance at him and note the continued impassive expression, hard and cold and impenetrable like a wall.

  Oalla rubs her arms lightly along the bullet-covered braces, then pulls down her sleeves. “You have just learned the basic tenet of Atlantis weapons combat. Yellow cord trumps Green shield trumps Blue firearm trumps Red blade, which in turn trumps Yellow cord. It’s an eternal circular balance—a Great Square. Somewhat like your Earth game of paper-scissors-rock. We in Atlantis study all four weapon forms, but ultimately specialize in one, depending on which Quadrant we embrace.”

  She paces between our rows, fierce and commanding.

  A frightened girl raises her hand. “Seems amazing, all of this. How much of the weapon fighting are we supposed to learn? I mean, there’s so little time. . . .”

  Oalla turns to look at her, and the poor girl almost cringes. “A valid question. And yes, there’s hardly enough time to master weapons and combat techniques in just a few weeks. For that, you will need years. But there is enough time to determine if you have the potential to become proficient. Those of you who can prove your potential, will Qualify.”

  “But suppose for a moment—what if you have no weapon?” Keruvat speaks in turn. “What if there’s no netted cord, no gun, no sword, no shield at your disposal? Then all you have are your bare hands, your body, your speed, strength, and stamina. And, don’t forget, your voice and your mind.”

  “And that’s where the ancient martial art of Er-Du comes in,” Oalla says. Unexpectedly she turns around and her gaze seeks Aeson Kass. With a bow of her head and a smoothly gliding hand movement, she motions to him. “With your permission, Command Pilot Kass, may I have the honor, daimon?”

  We all stare.

  Aeson’s face does not show any reaction, not even a motion of an eyelid, not a blink. A pause. And then he nods lightly. And he approaches.

  For some reason I find that my breathing has pretty much stopped. I stare, mesmerized, as I see Aeson and Oalla fall seamlessly into a pliant combat stance. Although Aeson is much taller, they appear evenly matched. Feet are slightly apart, knees loose, backs straight. Their hands start at their sides, then sweep upward like wings, then fall back to float in the air at shoulder level, in a strangest kind of warrior dance.

  They circle each other and take wide steps, parallel and opposite to each other like chess pawns starting out their strategic movement across a chessboard. Their fingers make complex signs, hands and arms continue moving with strange grace, from unfurled wings to snakes, to swans, shaping intricate figures in the air before them.

  In the next instant, Oalla strikes. She is a serpent, or a scorpion bringing down its tail. Her hands flash forward, and are met and blocked effortlessly by her opponent. Aeson seems to be barely moving, so casually and lightly he steps, and his hands flash out, arms bent at the elbows, then twisting to escape impossibly, coming together and apart in intricate contortions, easily avoiding Oalla’s fierce hand strikes.

  I bite my lip and continue to hold my breath.

  Their hand strikes rain down, faster and faster. . . . And now, kicks are added to the mix. Oalla takes a running leap and does a roundhouse kick, narrowly missing his chest, while Aeson lunges to the side and away like an eel, then returns with his own kick. It lands and sends Oalla flying along the slippery floor, away from the safe landing area of the mats. She recovers easily with a back flip, and springs back up. Immediately she goes into a spin series of kicks and punches that move so fast she appears to be spinning into invisibility like a top.

  Aeson Kass matches her effortlessly, strike for strike. . . .

  It is all happening so fast now, faster than any martial arts combat sequence I’ve ever seen, even in those SFX-enhanced ancient Hong Kong action movies where people fly on hidden wires, seemingly by magic. I can no longer tell what’s going on.

  I also momentarily wonder if either of these Atlanteans is actually human.

  No way on God’s green Earth—or on Atlantis—will I, or for that matter any of the Candidates, ever be able to do anything even remotely close to what’s being demonstrated here before our eyes. This is insane!

  Then just as unexpectedly they come to a stop. Their feet are planted in wide stances, hands held in pliant beautiful final forms, palms of one hand touching their opponent’s while the other hand floats. Their gazes are unblinking and they stand looking at each other, with only slightly elevated breathing to mark their impossible exertions.

  A pause.

  Then Oalla breaks away, lowers her palm and then lowers her head in a small bow, then steps backward. “My profound thanks, astra daimon.”

  Aeson Kass nods to her, and straightens, stepping out of his own final form. “A pleasure as always, daimon Oalla.”

  “Wait, what? She’s a daimon too? What’s a daimon again?” The locks guy next to me whispers, and I throw him a quick glance, raising my eyebrows and widening my eyes to indicate cluelessness.

  Bad move.

  All three Atlanteans turn in our direction, and suddenly the locks guy and I are both being scrutinized by three intense stern gazes.

  “You ask what is a daimon,” Keruvat says. “We are astra daimon. We are the elite of the Star Pilot Corps, who have mastered our disciplines and excelled beyond the highest expectations of our rank.”

  Oalla glances at Keruvat, followed by a fleeting glance at Aeson. Then she again looks at us—at me in particular. “The astra daimon answer to no one but their own. We are a brotherhood and sisterhood, the best of the best. To be chosen as one of our brethren, a Pilot must earn the honor. The astra daimon have mastered the disciplines of at least one of the Four Quadrants. See this band on my arm?” She points to the yellow armband on her sleeve. “These are not mere ‘dorm colors’ as you might have seen on some of the other Instructors. It is a symbol of my chosen discipline and Allegiance to the Yellow Quadrant.”

  “As mine is to the Blue Quadrant,” Keruvat says, pointing to his own blue armband sleeve.

  “And what about him?” the guy with locks next to me speaks up suddenly, motioning at Aeson Kass. “Is he some kind of black ninja?”

  A few stifled giggles and nervous titters are heard.

  Aeson’s expression does not change. Everyone stares at the black armband on his sleeve.

  Oalla addresses locks. “Your name, Candidate?”

  “Who? Me
?” the kid with the locks says. “Yeah, okay. I’m Tremaine—Tremaine Walters.”

  “Tremaine Walters, you think this is funny?” Oalla says. Her voice is hard as flint.

  “Um, no . . . sorry.”

  “The black color of his armband means that this astra daimon has died on our behalf. He has given his life once for the Fleet and his brethren, and he was brought back, and we are forever indebted to him—all of us, indeed, all of Atlantis.”

  Keruvat adds, “A black armband is the highest honor, and is usually earned posthumously—after death. Command Pilot Aeson Kass is a rare exception. He is one of the few in our history who has the right to wear the black armband while living.”

  I hold my breath, and so does, it seems, everyone else in the gym hall. Tremaine’s jaw drops.

  “All right, any more questions, before we proceed?” Oalla scans the room, glancing down the two rows of Candidates.

  In that moment, some crazy brain thing makes me open my big fat mouth.

  “Yes, I have a question . . .” I say, raising my hand tremulously. And then the words just come pouring out, because I am in the blab zone. “Why? Why all this? Why must there even be Combat? Why do we need to learn to fight, and hurt, and possibly kill other people, in order to Qualify for just being alive? Doesn’t Atlantis have some kind of organized legal system so that the average citizen doesn’t need to engage in violence? I mean—”

  It’s gotten so quiet you can hear the hum of the air conditioning.

  Everyone is staring at me.

  And I mean, everyone.

  Oalla watches me with an intense scrutiny, and Keruvat’s expression is curiosity.

  But it is Aeson Kass who speaks.

  “You ask why we are required to fight?” The Command Pilot looks at me directly, and I feel his gaze like a tangible thing, as though a bright searchlight is suddenly shining at me and through me. “In Atlantis, we believe in taking responsibility for ourselves. As you learn to fight, you learn to defend yourself from physical harm. You acquire a powerful self-preserving skill set, and a specific attitude. This attitude carries across to other aspects of your life. So that you can defend yourself from other less tangible but far more dangerous things that can break you—not just your body, but your spirit. Things such as deception, corruption, disparagement, coercion, false accusation and persecution. Subtle evil things that undermine you. And if you can maintain the inner ability to defend yourself against influence, you can build a purpose in your life that no one can take away from you.”

  He pauses momentarily, still looking at me, holding me like a fly caught in amber, in the overwhelming power of his gaze. “In Atlantis, we believe that purpose is the most important virtue. You can lose your freedom, your health, your honor, everything you love and care about. And yet, if you still have your purpose, you have lost nothing.”

  He ends, his words falling like bright ringing things. “Does that answer your question?”

  Silently, I nod. . . . For the first time in like ever, I, who usually talk in class and competitively argue with all my teachers, I who have geeky amazing opinions to offer and theories to elaborate or dispute—I’ve been rendered speechless. Why? I’m not sure exactly, but for some reason the things he just said kind of blew my mind. I feel like I suddenly understand why—why Combat.

  As I stand thinking this, his cool gaze leaves me. Aeson Kass turns away and nods once to Keruvat and Oalla. In the next breath, he has forgotten me and now observes the rest of the Candidates.

  I exhale. . . .

  Next to me Tremaine raises his eyebrows and gives me a “wow” look. On the other side of me, the Asian girl whose name I don’t know makes brief sympathetic eye contact.

  And then we forget everything because Oalla Keigeri shouts a command.

  “Candidates! You will now learn the basic Forms of Er-Du! Watch and follow me!”

  She strikes a simple wide stance opening form, and suddenly we all move, copying her. A few feet down the line, Keruvat falls into the same opening form, moving elegantly like her doppelganger.

  I step forward, and raise my right hand, clumsily trying to repeat what the two Atlantean Instructors are doing. My hand is shaking; my wide stance is unsteady.

  I seriously hope that, whatever he might be doing, Aeson Kass is not looking at me right now.

  Chapter 9

  When Combat Training is finally dismissed, it is close to 5:30 PM.

  I think I am dead.

  No, really, I am a disembodied spirit dragging around a skinny meat carcass made of Pain and Fail that was just made to do crazy things with itself it has never done before. Almost two hours of lunging forward on shaking legs and unsteady feet, and then trying to do weird stuff with hand motions with the person across from you in the other row.

  Lucky me—for the whole afternoon I’ve been paired up with some small wiry kid who looks like a freshman or even a middle schooler, and oh yeah, he is just a happy athletic bundle of horrid energy.

  Damn you, Joshua Bell and your enthusiasm for Tae Kwan Do or whatever martial art you happen to think you know from your local Philly dojo, and now you think you can kick my useless butt in this Er-Du. . . .

  I grumble to myself as I climb up the stairs to the third floor girls’ dormitory, clutching the banister with both hands. My hair is in ratty wet tangles, so—reminder to self—next time, put it up in a ponytail before Agility or Combat Training.

  Dinner is at 6:00 PM, so there’s time to kind of collapse onto the cot for fifteen minutes, or maybe take a shower, because yeah, I am pouring sweat. Okay, so are most of the other Candidates in my class. (I saw them crawling up the stairs like roadkill all around me, so, yeah.)

  I consider the situation, and shower wins out. And so I get in line in the bathroom, and fifteen minutes later I am decent, and wearing my only other change of clothing. Hope there’s a laundry room on premises.

  As I’m rummaging through my bag next to my cot, looking for a spare hair rubber band for dealing with my wet hair, I see Claudia Grito and next to her Olivia and another one of the bully girls, and they are just a few cots away, and heading toward me. . . .

  I quickly look back down at my stuff, and pretend very hard I don’t see them, as if that might steer them away. But, no such luck.

  “Hey, what’s this I see, a little drowned rat?” Olivia says with a smirk, stopping right in front of me and taking hold of my hairbrush that’s lying on top of my blanket.

  I look up. Olivia’s looking all perfect and cleaned up after our Combat class, down to the freshly applied makeup and blow-dried auburn hair.

  Meanwhile Claudia comes up on the other side of me and she is a little sweaty, but negligibly so, in a sexy bitch kind of way, with a few strands of her black hair loosened. She should be reeking, but instead there’s a deep musky perfume scent coming from her, which I bet guys just go crazy for. She leans in on me and says, “So, Gwen Lark. . . . What are we gonna do about you? You’ve been a bad girl. You know that, don’t you? A very bad girl.”

  “They have cameras here . . .” I say, and my voice sounds wimpy and pathetic.

  “Of course.” Olivia moves in closer, and she then sits down right next to me on the cot, still holding my hairbrush. “But all they can see is how we’re all just friends, and hey, we’re smiling, right?”

  “That’s right.” Claudia starts to smile too, and then she’s running her hand through my hair. I feel a slow steady tug that becomes intense then painful.

  “And hey, look, we’re such good friends that we’re gonna brush your hair for you,” Olivia says. She picks up the hairbrush and presses it hard against my scalp, then starts pulling it down, so that the pins dig into me, hard, and at the same time they snag on the kinks in my wet unbrushed hair. . . .

  I freeze, in agony. Mostly, because I am used to freezing in such situations, and because I am terrified.

  Small clumps of my hair are torn out, as Olivia brings the brus
h down again, even harder.

  “Hey now, you better start smiling, girlfriend,” Claudia says through her teeth.

  The third girl with them meanwhile opens my bag, and starts taking things out. I stare helplessly as she takes out a book, one of my Dad’s precious rare editions.

  “No!” I say.

  “What’s she got there, Ashley?” Claudia lets go of my hair and looks closer at Ashley, a skinny blonde, who’s holding up a leather-bound precious copy of Consuelo by George Sand—possibly my favorite book in the whole world—by its front hardcover cardboard plate.

  “Put that down, please,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah? Or what?” Ashley holds the book carelessly and gives it a shake, so that a fragile, age-yellowed page falls out from the middle, and the cover itself starts to rip and come apart at the binding. . . .

  I feel a fierce burning at the back of my throat, and the stifling thickness that comes just before tears. I am about to bawl, like a pathetic loser coward, both from the pain and the humiliation, as I’ve done before countless times, when cornered at school. . . .

  So many times before. . . . Always.

  But something different happens this time. This is my favorite book in the world. My Dad’s beloved edition. I am probably not going to Qualify. So, in a few months from now, it’s going to burn in asteroid flames as the world ends. Together with me, and probably most other people I love.

  What does anything matter?

  A weird new sense of calm comes over me. For some reason in that instant, I also remember, of all things, Aeson Kass. I see his steady blue eyes, strangely intense and unblinking. He is speaking to me, in a low soft voice of power, and his words fill my head. As you learn to fight, you learn to defend yourself. . . .

  The hairbrush that Olivia’s holding tangled up in a clump of my hair is ripping my hair out. I lift my hand and take hold of her wrist.

  And suddenly I press hard—I press with all I’ve got, feeling the bones in her wrist, so that Olivia exclaims in surprise and lets go of my hairbrush that clatters on the floor. At the same time I use my other hand, balled up in a fist, to slam into Claudia’s midriff area.