Moon 514- Blaze and the White Griffon

by Drew Briney

  Strike, arc, trip, strike, he rehearsed without really thinking of each step separately – each action was simply a moment in time from a larger fluid motion. Trying to retain fluidity, he flexed his legs even as he jumped, performing a spinning hook kick and then spinning again as he landed, striking an invisible, fallen opponent with his staff. Moving back to starting position slowly and methodically, flexing specific muscles all the while, and doggedly focusing on every detail of his kata, Blaze ended the form and instinctively bowed before relaxing.

  Unintimidating. Blaze rounded the corner of the gym and approached the simulator.

  “Alien,” he gruffly instructed Jim, the programmer. “Six feet, five inches tall, four arms, and weighing in at 275 pounds,” he concluded.

  “Come on Blaze,” Jim retorted. “Seriously? Are you forgetting how sore you were last time you tried that? I almost got suspended from my job!”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Blaze grumbled, “but we both know that was just a big political façade – no one else can really do your job well and no one wants the thankless task anyway. You and you alone are the master of this arena. Make it 300 pounds.”

  “No way Blaze,” he answered. “Until you master the four arm thing, I cannot risk taking you over 250 pounds – who knows what programming glitch that may create?”

  “Who cares? It is only a simulation,” Blaze countered. “260.”

  “Wow, you must really be in a bad mood,” Jim offered, changing his tone.

  “Everyone is still at breakfast,” Blaze began, ignoring the comment, “no one will know.”

  “Unless you get hurt again.”

  “No chance,” the ambitious young warrior responded.

  “All right,” Jim concluded. “250 pounds with 5% speed increase but that is it.”

  “Thanks,” Blaze conceded, visibly disappointed but grateful for the concession given the circumstances. “Will you make it extra strong though?” he pushed, hoping for a little more intense experience. “I will confess to the bad mood thing if you just make it a little tougher. I need to let off some steam.”

  Glancing over each shoulder and doubting his own wisdom, Jim raised one eyebrow, squinted the other, and offered a half grin towards Blaze. “265.”

  No other words exchanged, Blaze went to his own terminal, silently reduced his weight down to 175 while Jim was looking at his own controls, quickly took off the mandatory safety monitor, and jumped into the cage. Nearly thirty feet in diameter, the cage was essentially a gigantic, circular chicken-wired fence with bars stretching across the top to allow unusual swinging moves that may occur in real life terrains. Blaze watched, muscles relaxed but ready to respond as the simulator morphed before his eyes. Rough terrain appeared to allow for natural landscape variations, small bushes appeared, and various rock formations grew in size until the terrain was complete. Blaze quickly surveyed this new simulation, gauged which areas would pose the greatest challenges and which areas might provide the greatest advantages, and controlled his breathing to keep his attention firm.

  When Blaze saw the four armed alien, he immediately knew what Jim had been doing the last several days. Noticeably absent from a few community meals, Jim had been heavily involved in perfecting a new concept alien that boasted a noticeably unfair intimidation factor – this one was horrifyingly scary even for a warrior of Blaze’s caliber. Instinctively, his body slightly recoiled and regretted the request for an extra strong opponent – the extra weaponry on its tail and its triple row of fangs would have been enough. Consciously however, Blaze was excited and looked over towards where Jim would be standing – although unseen through the simulator – and beamed with approval.

  Unintimidating? Perhaps. But then, he wasn’t easily intimidated either.

  The creature appeared somewhat bulky and unrealistically large for the weight class Blaze requested. He silently wondered whether or not Jim accidentally typed in 365 pounds and tightened his grip on the bo staff. Slightly shorter in length than his height, the staff was mostly made of a titanium alloy that allowed for greater strength and flexibility while simultaneously allowing him to send electric shocks to his opponents. The staff was coated in the middle section to allow for a stronger grip and protection from any electric pulse. One end of the staff was punctuated with a double point that resembled an artistic dual-edged javelin. In reality, the staff had several lethal properties but he almost never used them in the simulator – these were for reality, not playtime.

  The creature advanced using its two lower arms to more easily bend itself over the rough terrain, each hand gripping jagged blades measuring slightly more than a foot apiece. The length of its back and the backside of each appendage was coated with a plate-like armor that was punctuated with occasional spikes and otherwise rough textures. Eyes undeviating from its prey, the beast quickly and lithely moved towards Blaze with surprising speed. Plus 5% increase? Blaze silently queried. He wondered whether or not Jim had enhanced the beast by 15% after all. All of a sudden, Blaze felt more stress than he had felt in many moons.

  But he was game.

  He would have been willing to request stats like that if he thought Jim would have agreed to them. It was after all, only a simulation. The pain felt real, the loss of blood felt real, the fatigue felt real, and he supposed, the few deaths he had experienced felt real as well. Of course, no one knew for sure what death felt like but programmers simulated a painful knockout as their accumulative best guess as to what a lethal blow might feel like. But in the end, it was all simulation – and nothing more – apart from the glitches.

  Blaze wondered whether or not the beast was programmed to know his habits and weaknesses and decided to test its knowledge right away by feigning a blow towards the beast’s lower right arm while circling the staff to strike at its lower left arm. Blocked once. Blocked twice. That probably answered the question: it held dynamic programming or else its responsive speed was enhanced to match its increased muscle speed. But Blaze had anticipated the second block and prepared the blow to be redirected, using the beast’s own block to deliver a powerful blow to its upper left arm.

  Nearly breaking its wrist, the beast dropped its multi-bladed weapon to the ground, growling in disapproval. Encouraged, Blaze delivered two more feints before offering a reinforced, twisting downward strike to the lower left arm – but this time met disappointment as the alien creature dodged the blow and threw a knife at Blaze’s right thigh. Although an imperfect throw, the blade sliced the leg badly before ricocheting onto the ground. Two weapons down, Blaze forgot to rejoice as he winced at the pain. Partially cut tendon, he quickly assessed before throwing several more strikes at the beast and half jumping, half rolling over a medium sized boulder that was threatening to corner the young warrior.

  In contrast, the beast was relatively uninjured, held one more weapon than his opponent, and boasted three perfectly functioning appendages – not to mention a semi-bladed tail. Rather than try a blow barely within its reach, the creature swung that tail at Blaze, hoping to catch him by surprise – but it too met with disappointment as Blaze was already wary of this extra advantage – and dodged it.

  And so the contest continued for over ten minutes. Towards the end, Blaze felt as exhausted from the simulator as he had ever felt before and silently recited feelings of gratitude that the contest would soon be over one way or the other. Now bleeding steadily from his leg, Blaze had two new significant scratches on his right arm and a series of abrasive carvings decorating his abdominal area and lats – they looked as if someone had taken a power sander with coarse texture to his body. If it continued to bleed like it was bleeding now, Blaze was going to lose consciousness soon so he decided to make his moves more daring and unorthodox. Do or die, he instructed himself.

  Blaze dove into a modified shoulder role to accommodate his injuries and his staff, grabbed one of the alien’s abandoned blades, and threw it at the beast as he stood up. Calculatedly overthrown, the beast stepped to the side to avoid
the blade – regardless of whether or not the reckless throw would have landed blade or handle first – and then turned its gaze back towards its wounded combatant – but not in time to see the javelin like tip of the staff enter its eye socket and not in time to stop it from exiting the other side of its skull.

  Contest over, Blaze silently groaned in relief before nearly passing out.

  “WOW,” EVELIA REMARKED, watching Blaze’s eyes slowly focus back into full consciousness as the effects of the simulator dissipated. “I apologize for watching uninvited but at the same time,” she paused, chewing a little on her lower lip, “and even though that was the nastiest, scariest opponent I have ever seen, I am very glad I happened to be strolling by to see your performance. Impressive,” she finished, “Very impressive.”

  Pain dissipating, fatigue remaining, energy gone, and frustrations evaporating very quickly, Blaze grinned but said nothing audible in response. A slight nod was all he had to offer but it didn’t matter. Evelia was already walking away towards her intended destination and Blaze couldn’t have intelligently responded anyway. Even though it was barely past breakfast, he was already exhausted and ready for a good rest. Besides, now it seemed like there was nothing left to accomplish. Impressive, he inwardly gloated. That was the word she used – very impressive.

  As he let the words echo repeatedly in his mind, Jim walked by, patted him on the shoulder and apologized: “Sorry for the typo buddy. 365 pounds. Wwwhhhhhew. I almost stopped the simulator to reprogram your opponent until I saw your big smile. No one is game as you man!”

  Blaze just smiled. Impressive was all he could hear – and for days, those words would remain at the surface of his thoughts.

  MOON 4 | DAY 7

  I DIDN’T BELIEVE IT. But there were a lot of things that I didn’t believe until I saw them with my own eyes. Other people may have faith in things but I’m a scientist – or rather, I was a scientist. I’m not sure what label should be placed upon me now. Explorer perhaps. Philosopher. Vagabond? I didn’t believe in flying snakes either. They have them you know – they survived the Third Holocaust. They spring from one tree to the next, slithering and flailing like a snake that swims, spreading their ribs and creating an indentation on the underside of their bodies that creates air pockets they manipulate. Scientists technically refer to these as “gliding” snakes and I suppose that is accurate if flying means that you flap wings.

  But they didn’t see what I saw – the greenish-blue one.

  The one whose second set of ribs separated away from its body like a whole train of wings. They didn’t see it glide over one hundred yards on a nearly even keel, undulating through the air on its spread appendages like some flying centipede until it landed on one of our junior scouts. They didn’t see it coil up around his neck until his eyes bulged and his tongue hung out. I did. They didn’t see the fierce fight it gave before releasing the hapless fellow and slithering away in its newly crippled condition – riddled with knife cuts from the natives. They didn’t see its separated joints like I did either. They didn’t see its insides. I did. I dissected it. The world’s only flying, constricting, poisonous viper. One of the other natives got bit while trying to rescue his friend. He was dead within twenty seconds – really: twenty. What is the point of constricting your prey when you have poison like that? I don’t know and I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out – or at least, I hope I never do. I don’t want to see one ever again – did I mention it was over six feet long?

  But flying snakes weren’t what awakened me from my scientific disbelief. I analyzed the creature for days. I measured it, I analyzed the innards before discarding them, I made holographic sketches, I took samples, I even tried to tan the hide to preserve it. It was an embarrassingly poor attempt but at least I preserved the skin – it is surprisingly beautiful – striking.

  Draco volans – the flying lizards didn’t make a believer out of me either – dragons some call them. I thought that was quaint – of course, they would get that label. That makes them sound exotic and inspiring and that generates better tourist revenues. But they were really sort of boring in comparison with what I saw – they just glide from one tree to the next feeding on ants and termites and such. The natives reported more ominous activities from these little creatures but they seemed more intent on providing folklore than legitimate information – more intent on capitalizing off of the flying snake incident than protecting our crew. With virtually no tourism, I suppose that I cannot blame them for capitalizing on freak incidents like the one we had with the flying snake. They are just struggling to survive like everyone else on the outside. Of course, as opportunists, they were bound to exaggerate.

  At least, that was what I guesstimated until I met her.

  Not much taller than five feet, she was incredible in every way. I found her when I went out on a hike on my own one evening. I thought our chief scout was going to suffer from an anxiety attack when he saw me leaving on my own. Our crew leader castigated me for wanting to venture out on my own but I reminded him that this was supposed to be a very safe area and that everything we had seen wreaked of funding issues – the scout just wanted a bonus for standing by my side – and the junior scouts’ comments about letting me die were surely similarly motivated. So he let me go without further protest. I hadn’t ventured more than a couple hundred yards when I spotted her.

  She looked nothing like the natives. In fact, some of her features were so different from any person I had ever seen that I would have described her as a new species at first glance had I not been too far away to make a judgment call like that. Long, feathery eyelashes swathed around her eyes; an extra long waist gave her the false appearance of being a tall woman, and her skin glowed. It was surreal but its glow was so subtle that I initially assumed that she had oiled herself with one of Malaysia’s bazillion unique plant species. Only later did I learn that her natural skin glowed like that. Initially, I thought she was laced with subtle tattoos as well but those were natural markings – impossibly intricate and beautiful. Like many of the natives, she wore little clothing. What she did wear was comprised mostly of a decorative, feathered belt-skirt type thing and then lacey wristbands, armbands, anklets, and a necklace type thing that functioned as some sort of a half tank-top. All of that lacey material is made of a twine she makes herself out of a local “ngofe” plant as she calls it. The material is stretchy but extremely strong, one bracelet holding at least a few hundred pounds before it loses its elasticity; she showed me how to make them but I don’t think I knotted it quite right as hers seem much stronger.

  If you would have asked me right then, I would have guessed that she was only fourteen or so – but I would have been very wrong. Maybe it was just her slender build or maybe it was her small size but when you look past that and see right into her eyes, you can somehow tell that she is older – much older – than fourteen.

  She caught me by surprise when I first saw her. I happened to be walking upon a rare stone outcropping in those moccasin-type shoes the natives insisted that we wear so I was essentially silent in movement, having left my backpack and gear behind as this was simply a pleasure stroll. When I turned a bend, there she was, crouching down near the edge of one of those crystal clear ponds that you don’t expect to find in the middle of a deep forest like we were in, looking carefully into the water before cupping her hands for a refreshing drink. If I ever saw a woman look more vulnerable than her at that moment, I have no recollection of it – and I’m sure I haven’t read about anyone in the database either.

  That is when it came: the griffon-dragon-thing. I know that sounds strange, but it is true. Its feathered wings flapped, its unusual saber toothed canine teeth protruded out of the front of its jaws, and its feline-like claws extruded when its digits were bent. Despite its feathered wings, it appeared mammalian … well, besides its short haired tail that punctuated with a sharp, quill-like tip that looked as reptilian as anything I’ve ever seen – except it too was white. It wasn�
�t overly large in size – perhaps only eight feet long without considering its tail but it made my heart pump hard nonetheless. That is, until I saw that it wasn’t looking at me. It was looking at this small woman. I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Calling out to her might have directed its attention towards me and I’m sorry to say that I acted the coward and did nothing. But that was probably best.

  She saw its reflection in the pool. I quickly guessed that this is why she had been looking into the pool in the first place – she had been observing the skyline, not the water itself. I hadn’t noticed it until that very instant but there was what appeared to be a delicately carved stone ball next to her – one of those kinds where someone carved something on the inside so that there was a carving inside of a carving. I didn’t see right then what the inside carving was but I later learned that it was a sacred symbol for her: the griffon-dragon-thing. Casually, as if she were waiting for her husband to bring her some game to be cooked, she stood up, faced the dragon, held the ball in her hands, and began enchanting something in her native tongue. As she did so, the griffon-dragon exhaled some nasty fire of bluish hue that changed my life’s paradigm instantaneously, I know not how to describe it. It was utterly fabulous and terrifying at the same time. But she barely noticed.

  The ball glowed so intensely as the flame engulfed it that I had to look away. I expected that when I looked back, the little woman would be barbequed and banished to my memories. But there she was, calmly staring down this griffon-dragon – the real thing – and speaking words to it that sounded like a mother scolding her child for coming to dinner too slowly. The dragon-thing bowed its head and tried hard to avert its eyes to escape her censure and that was when it happened. It stared me down.