by James T Wood
“Oh. I don’t speak German.”
“Neither do I. I just had to know how to ask for beer and the toilet when I went to Germany last summer. I picked up enough from watching cartoons to be able to piece it together. But back to Dr. Grosskopf…”
“A few people know about his research, but not too many. There was his lab partner, but my boss picked him up for questioning a few days ago. I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“What was his name?”
“Dr. Phillip Beeh.”
“What’s the ‘B’ for? Bargain?”
“What?”
“Never mind, it’s a pretty obscure reference.”
“How do you ever get anything done while making all these references and jokes?”
“I don’t know—aw, you should have made a Dr. Phil joke, you know ‘How’s that working out for ya?’ That would have been hilarious.”
Anka took a big bite of her taco and just chewed on it for a long time. I felt the reprimand in her vicious crunching. If it wouldn’t have sprayed cabbage and fish all over the table, she would have sighed again.
“Look, I’m new to the whole secret-agent-lab-experiment-car-chase-drone-strike thing. Maybe I’m using humor to calm my nerves. Sorry if it bothers you.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry too. I just…this is my first assignment out of the academy and I’ve already messed it up.”
“Wait, how did you mess it up? Isn’t it your boss who screwed everything over?”
“I guess you’re right. But I still don’t know what to do. They trained me to follow orders and now I don’t have any.”
“I order you to feel better,” I used my most commanding and authoritarian voice, something between an eighth grade English teacher and a Trekker explaining warp drive to a Star Wars fan.
Anka chuckled a bit and showed off those dimples again, “Thanks. I’ll do my best sir.”
“Good,” I returned the smile, “Now, we know we can’t go to your boss, we probably can’t go to the Cubans, we can’t get to Dr. Grosskopf and we don’t know where Dr. Beeh is. Is that about right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so we need to do some research of our own to figure out what’s going on, why everyone is after me and how we can escape. Where can we go to get the information we need? Is it in the lab at OHSU?”
“I suppose so. I don’t think they’ve had time to get in and clear out all of Dr. Grosskopf’s notes. But how would we get in there. There are cameras all over the place, they’d catch us for sure.”
“Ah, but you’re forgetting that I now have super powers. I can do anything that I see. So all we have to do is find a way to get in, find a video and I can do it.”
“Right, I forgot. We could fight our way in, I suppose, but that doesn’t help with the cameras.”
“So we need to turn off the cameras somehow. Where can we do that?”
“From the security station, but it’s a voice authorization system. We’d have to get one of the security guards to do it for us, and I don’t think they’d be very keen on that.”
“…I don’t think they’d be very keen on that.” I repeated Anka’s words, mimicking her voice exactly.
“How? I didn’t know…How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, I just decided to try it. Do you think it will match a voice print?”
“I think it’s our best bet. We can go in tomorrow like tourists. We’ll pretend to be from the South and be all friendly. We’ll ask the guard his name and chat him up for a while, and then we’ll wander off. We can slip away to the recording station. I should be able to take out the guard and get you in to deactivate the cameras.”
“Awesome, we’re super-secret spies!” I said with a grin.
She smiled tolerantly and said, “It’s about time for us to leave. I think we should do some other preparations tonight. Just in case.”
As we walked back to my apartment Anka slid her arm into mine. Startled, I looked over at her sharply, but she just stared at the sidewalk ahead and kept walking as if nothing had changed. I swallowed and then faced ahead too. We didn’t say anything for the rest of the walk home.
When we got inside she walked over to the windows and pulled the blinds. It’s not as if my small, basement windows offered much in the way of light, but she shut it all out. She turned and looked around the apartment before deciding that the middle of the kitchen suited her needs. Whatever those were.
Anka bent down, pulled off her shoes, and tossed them to the side. A nod at me was command enough to do the same. I had no idea what was about to happen when she attacked me.
Without thinking I used The Matrix move to block and grab her arm. I tried to do it again when she swung her other arm at me, but at the last second she changed the direction of her punch and hit me hard in my exposed kidney. I grunted but kept her other arm pinned at my left side. She stepped back with her opposite foot and pivoted around the left so she was standing beside me, then she ducked down and gripped my left arm with hers, extricating her right and pulling my left painfully behind me. Her right arm slipped around my throat, she wrapped her leg around mine, twisted and we both fell to the ground. I landed on my chest with her still on my back. The air rushed out and I grunted again. Everything hurt.
“Alright, so we have some work to do,” she calmly got off of me and flipped me over before helping me to my feet.
“Ow.”
“Sorry, I just wanted to see what you could do. You took down the Cubans easily so I didn’t know what you were capable of.”
“I must have gotten lucky.”
“Yeah, you did. Now we need to teach you, so you don’t need luck.”
Training Day
We spent most of that night training. Actually, it might be more accurate to say, I spent the rest of that night getting my ass handed to me. I like to think I’m a well-adjusted twenty-first century kind of man, but I still felt some twinges of man-guilt when I repeatedly got my butt kicked by a woman. And by “twinges” I mean I felt like a freshly neutered puppy impotently humping a stuffed bunny.
I may have received super brain powers somehow, but I didn’t use them to apply logic while Anka was pummeling me into submission. I just went with her plan while she stood me in various positions and instructed me on how to block or counter or strike. Then she’d attack me and ruthlessly overcome my feeble defenses. Luckily she didn’t punch my face, or I would have had black eyes to go with my bruised ribs, aching knees and raw hands.
After a few hours of abuse I called for a break. She obliged—after taking me down one more time.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she announced as she strutted from the room.
“Ungh,” was all I could manage with my face mashed against the floor.
Slowly I got up and wandered over to the table where my computer sat. I plopped down and automatically opened up my browser to make sure the internet was still there. Maybe the ruthless beatings kept me from thinking about it before, but I suddenly remembered the videos. I loaded up some of the MMA demonstration channels and quickly watched a few of the techniques that Anka had been trying to tell me about. I kept watching the clips as long as possible, but when I heard her flush, I closed the browser and walked back to where I’d been before.
Anka came out with her hair pulled back into a messy bun, wearing just my Atari shirt and my bike shorts. I guess I’d left them in the bathroom after my last ride. On cue, my heart started pounding as I devoured her form. She’d tied the shirt in the back so it wouldn’t hang loosely. The three curving lines of the logo stretched tightly across her chest. Just a hint of skin showed between the bottom of the shirt and the top of the shorts, which showed…well, everything.
“I was having trouble moving in your jeans. This is for training. You’d better pay attention to fighting and not my boobs or you’ll hurt even more in a few minutes.”
I tore my eyes away from her stunning body and searched for saliva enough to swallow
. She came at me without warning.
It was the same strike combo she’d been trying to teach me to counter. But I’d just watched the video. In a fluid motion I dodged the first punch, blocked the second and grabbed her leg as she kicked. I then swept her other leg out, dropped her on her back and jumped on top of her. In a second I had both of her hands pinned to the ground.
Anka was almost as surprised as I was at the drastic turn. She lay there breathing heavily for a moment before smiling.
“Well done. It took you a while, but you finally learned something. I guess you’re not hopeless—aw, again?”
“Sorry, I—”
But I didn’t get to finish my apology. She brought her legs up behind me, crossed them around my neck and forced me backward. I tried to wriggle free, but she just squeezed tighter.
“Remember, if you have full-mount, you need to sit back far enough on the hips that they can’t lift their legs.”
“Err-gehr.”
Anka released me and got to her feet while I fought for air.
“Well, you finally learned something. Let’s move on to the next thing. It’s called—”
“Wait, Anka, I didn’t learn it from you. I learned it from watching a video online.”
“What?”
“For whatever reason, my brain is able to pick up and mimic anything I see. You weren’t showing me the fighting moves, just telling me about them. It wasn’t until I saw someone do what you were describing that I could do it too.”
“So you could do all the things that I’ve done, but you can’t do any of the things that I’ve just told you about?”
“Yeah, I suppose I could do the stuff you’ve showed me.”
“Prove it. Attack me with the combo I just used on you.”
So I swung one fist, which she dodged. I swung the other; she blocked it. And I kicked at her. She grabbed my leg, took me down and got into the full mount position. I tried to get her with my legs, but she was sitting on my hips.
“Well, I guess that’s that.”
Luckily she got off of me before I embarrassed myself again.
“So, what’s the plan? How should you train me?”
“It doesn’t seem like I need to train you at all. You’ve got YouTube and I’m tired. You watch as many videos as you can and I’m going to bed. We have a long day tomorrow.”
I watched her hips swing as she walked away. As she turned to walk into my room I saw her dimples clearly with her hair out of the way. She removed the smile from her lips, but not her eyes before she looked at me.
“You’ll take the couch. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I staggered back to the computer and sat down heavily. I’d never been around a woman like Anka before and I wasn’t sure, at all, how to deal with it. She had confidence, power, style and beauty. She was smart, witty and accomplished. I was…well, I was living the Portland dream of doing just enough to not have to do very much. For all her attributes, I might as well have been the opposite: hesitant, weak, dorky and failing at life. She eclipsed me in nearly every way.
Then why would she smile like that? Why would she give that proud, feminine strut for me to watch? Then it hit me, she smiled when I wasn’t that hesitant, weak dork. She smiled when I did something well, whether trying to shield her from the explosion or successfully defending myself from her attacks.
She’s different from every other woman in one simple way: she expects something from me.
More Money
We woke up early. Rather, Anka got up early and woke me up. I was still sitting at the computer where I’d been looking at MMA videos. The mixture of getting beat up by a girl and sleeping in a chair made me feel like I had a hangover from drinking the devil’s urine mixed with Donald Trump’s toupee sweat.
“Ugggh,” I retorted.
“Just get up. Do you have anything for breakfast?”
“Burritos.”
“I hate that I have to ask this: Are they breakfast burritos?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’m going to jump in the shower. You get some food ready for us,” she walked in to the bathroom still wearing the tee-shirt and bike shorts, “And make sure I don’t have an ice cube in the middle of my burrito. I hate that.”
Moving was pain, but I forced myself to unfold from the chair and stretch out. I hobbled over to the freezer and grabbed out two burritos and threw them in the microwave. Then I set some water on to boil so I could make coffee. The French press was dirty, so I had to wash it before I could grind the beans and start brewing. Sometimes I envy the people who have those auto-cup-robot coffee brewing things, but then I remember that they’re drinking terrible coffee. Despite my stumbling, I had a cup of coffee and a burrito ready in about ten minutes.
I sat down to eat just in time for Anka to come out of the bathroom. When I heard the door I found myself secretly hoping that she’d be dressed in a towel again, but instead she wore her sweater and khakis from before. They didn’t look too bad for having been through an explosion and a MAX ride. She caught me checking, I guess.
“Like what you see?”
“I…uh…I just noticed that you put your old clothes back on.” Smooth.
“I washed them yesterday.”
“Ah.” Awkward. “There’s a burrito over there and some coffee, if you want it.”
“Thanks.” She gathered her sustenance and joined me at the table. “So you microwave your burritos but French press your coffee?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“That doesn’t strike you as odd?”
“Well, no, I just…no.”
“Well said,” she smirked at me. “Good coffee though.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure. Thanks for giving me a place to stay and feeding me. I don’t want to seem unappreciative. I just want to make sure we’re doing everything we can. I think I told you that this is my, or I guess was my first assignment. I went through selection and training and this was my chance to show the boss that I’m ready. I don’t know. I guess I’m still thinking that it’s some sort of test or something. Maybe if I do a good job it’ll still be okay. You know?”
“I have zero context with super-secret spy missions, but I do understand trying to impress a new boss. It’s stressful.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I had no idea if she was being sarcastic or if she was just depressed about her boss and actually thankful. Why do women have to be so difficult to understand?
“So, I was thinking, we need a way to get some money.” I looked across the table as she sipped at her World’s Best Soccer Mom mug.
“You’re right. We can’t use cards. They’ll be able to track us. We probably shouldn’t even stay here much longer. People might start to get suspicious. Do you have any cash here?”
“Nothing much. I have some change in a bowl. Maybe some random fives in my winter jacket or something. Pluss the fifty from Grosskopf.”
“Okay, so we need to figure out a way to make some cash.”
“Quickly too. I don’t want to go in to the lab without a smart phone I can use to get videos. If we get in trouble I want to be able to look up a skill or something.”
“That’s a good point. So we need to go and get a few hundred dollars. You turn tricks?”
“What?” I was both confused and then shocked when I finally processed what she meant.
She laughed a full, throaty laugh with her head back and eyes shut. Before long I joined in. It felt good to laugh after the car chases, explosions and fighting.
“I think I have an idea,” I said after we were done laughing.
“Oh, what’s that?”
“Well, since I can do anything I see, I figured we could make some money off of it. What if we go downtown and bet people I can do things. We can make some money pretty fast I think.”
“It actually has some possibilities,” I tried to not take offense at her surprised tone, “But we won’t be able to make as much money if you do it right
all the time. We’ll have to run a scam. You can bet people and then lose some. Then they’ll be willing to bet more. Also I’ll take bets from the bystanders to drum up some more cash.
“We’ll have to be quick about it though. I don’t think we can keep it up for long without being picked up by the cops or making the people mad. So when I say it’s time to quit, we quit and walk away. Agreed?”
“Okay.”
After I drained off the last of the coffee we headed out and got down to Pioneer Courthouse Square on the MAX. Once we were there, Anka told me to hang back while she checked things out. I watched her make a slow circuit of the square watching the activity. It was a typical day in downtown. There were street people scattered around, some had signs, some were just enjoying the sun breaks between the clouds. There were the hacky sack guys, who never seem to leave. Plus all the tourists, workers on break, and people watching the channel eight news cast through the window.
When she got back she grabbed me and we walked over to the hacky sack crowd.
“Don’t say anything,” Anka whispered to me as we walked, “Just join the game after you’ve seen enough to be able to play. Keep copying the moves of the last person to touch the sack. And don’t say anything. I’ll take care of it.”
So I stood outside the circle watching them kick the small beanbag around. Some of them were proficient, but one guy was amazing. He had an almost supernatural mastery over the hemp sphere. He could stall it on his neck, ear, head, back, knee or anything else. Then he’d juggle the sack three, four or five times before launching it expertly at one of the other people in the circle. I noticed that other onlookers would gasp when he performed a particularly spectacular trick.
The super star was dirty, and I’m not the cleanest person in the world. He had visible smudges of dirt on his face and arms. His shirt was a mottled gray that may have been white at one time. His pants were tatters at the cuffs over his filthy bare feet. Hippies want to grow up to look like this guy. The rest were all attempting to be as dirty, smelly and disheveled as their leader.
Eventually I got the sense of how to time the approach so I stepped in when an errant kick brought the sack in my general direction. I copied the leader’s most recent juggle-stall-juggle maneuver. It just happened that the direction of the pass out of the combo sent the sack back to the Hippie King.
