by Randy Dyess
One of these days, Jason would win and both would go out and celebrate his new skill level. That didn’t, however, mean that Michael would take it easy on Jason, and he always adjusted his skill level to be one step above his friend’s. This was enough of a difference to keep Jason on his toes and make him better, but not enough to discourage him. It even helped Michael, because it took a lot of effort to hold back.
The two fighters circled the dojo’s floor, waiting for the other to make the first move. Michael knew his friend would twitch his finger and move the tip of his sword down slightly to the right before launching an attack. The key to defeating Jason was focus. If he caught the first movements of his friend’s attack, he could defeat it and win the round.
His friend twitched his finger and dropped the tip of his sword slightly as he rushed Michael. He dipped his body and wove right as he was about to reach him, when he slashed downward. Michael parried the attack and their blades clashed, sending sparks flying into the air. The two backed off and resumed their stalking. They loved the new practice swords Michael had shipped from a highly-rated manufacturer on Ethuna. The sparks made their practice more exciting, and his business had improved when others learned about the new, sparking swords.
He caught Jason’s eyes move to the side, as if he were distracted. Hoping to catch him off-guard, Michael moved in quickly and performed an uppercut slash. Jason sidestepped to his right just enough to make Michael’s blade miss him by a fraction of an inch. He had been faking and it had worked—something he never could do before.
Michael smiled at his friend as both fighters moved away from each other to prepare for their next attack. Okay, focus. He always gives away his attack, he thought as he tried to concentrate on his opponent. Jason’s goal was learning the technique, but Michael’s goal was to take his mental abilities to the next level, which would make him a true Kenjutsu master.
“Are you focusing?” Jason taunted. His only way of eventually defeating his teacher was to learn how Michael moved. Like poker players, Kenjutsu fighters learned to read body language for little clues that would betray their opponent’s moves. Jason knew Michael knew his tells, but now he wanted to learn his. He believed that the only way he could defeat him was to provoke him, for he often rushed his attacks when he was provoked. This was very hard to do, though, since he was slow to provoke on a normal day. When he was working on his focus, it was damn near impossible to make him lose his concentration.
Kenjutsu fighters not only learned to read their opponent’s body language, but they also spent hours learning how to hide their own. For the past ten years, Jason had been trying to figure out how Michael knew how to beat him. He’d watched himself in the mirror, filmed himself, and concentrated on his form each time he’d fought him, but he still couldn’t figure out his own tells. He would have to work his way through all the tells he knew about to figure out which one Michael was using to defeat him.
He stood there, watching his friend’s reaction. He tried to fake him out by moving his right toe, but he didn’t take the bait. Instead, he took Jason’s slight distraction as the chance to launch his own attack, and Jason barely had time to move his sword into a high guard when Michael slashed down and sparks flew. Jason quickly backed up, but his friend kept his attack going by sliding his sword off Jason’s and slashing down to his right. He was just able to block it, and he moved his sword up to counter the attack with an upper slash of his own.
The two Kenjutsu fighters spent twenty minutes attacking and retreating, and both were sweaty and tired. Jason was spent, and his attacks came slower and slower each time. This was the point in the training exercise Michael was waiting for—it was when his focus would begin to drift. For some reason, he couldn’t concentrate when his opponent slowed down. It was a bad habit that he needed to correct.
Michael had just finished centering his focus when he heard a boom in the distance. Focus, you idiot. Ignore what’s going on outside—your opponent is right in front of you, not outside. He refocused on Jason’s sword and hands, and the two continued to circle around the training area, watching each other’s moves. Jason feinted several times, but Michael never took the bait—his sword tip did not move correctly and his finger did not twitch the right way, after all.
They went through another few rounds of circling and feinting, but no real attack came from either party, and they were becoming exhausted. Exhaustion was no excuse, though; Michael had to force himself to continue until his opponent was defeated. He had read about sword battles lasting for hours during competitions, and he dreamed about the day he could take part in one. When that day came, he didn’t want to lose because he grew tired. Exhaustion now meant wins in the future.
“Dreaming of the day you win that tournament?” Jason asked. Michael didn’t answer, but continued waiting for his friend to make his move.
After another round of circling and feinting, Michael decided he needed to try to bait Jason into attacking. Usually, his friend would lose his patience and attack by now. “You’re getting better,” Michael said. “Usually, by now, you’ve lost. I’m impressed.”
“Been working” was all Jason had a chance to get out as Michael used the distraction to his advantaged and attacked. His sword came up from a low guard position and caught his friend in the leg pads. If this had been an actual tournament, the strike would have scored enough points to put Jason out of the fight.
“Try that again,” Jason said. “You won’t get me twice.”
“You want to bet?” Michael asked.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. You clean the dojo every day.”
“I already clean the dojo every day,” Jason grinned. “Let’s up the stakes.”
“How?”
“If I win, you talk to Cindy and get things settled.” Jason could tell Michael didn’t like the stakes, but he didn’t care. He needed to do something about their relationship and move on with his life.
“What if I win?”
“I’ll talk to Cindy,” Jason chuckled.
“Yeah, right. How about you stop bugging me about Cindy for the next two months?”
“Deal,” Jason said before quickly lunging forward. Michael barely had time to parry the strike before trying to step back and regroup. His friend kept up the pressure, and strike after strike rained down on Michael. It took all his skill to keep his friend from winning the bout.
After finally getting away, Michael laughed. “You must really want me to break it off with Cindy—that’s the best I’ve seen you fight, yet.” Jason didn’t reply, but started another round of strikes, driving Michael back into the dojo. He was trying to do everything he could to win this bout, because it had become about Michael’s future.
Sparks flew as the two men fought.
Chapter 9
Skylar Reilly didn’t like mornings—they came too early for someone like her. Long hours at work and late nights trying to keep a social life going left her with little time to sleep—not that anyone could sleep after five in the morning on Candus. The sun came up way too early for late sleepers, and even with the few windows in her apartment darkened against the glaring Candus sun, everyone else was already awake and sending traffic noise through her walls.
“Damn planet of farmers,” Skylar said through her pillow. “Why can’t they sleep in like normal people? It’s not like the potatoes are going anywhere.” On real planets, people understood when you didn’t show up to work until noon—everyone on core worlds enjoyed their social lives—and nothing ever got done before lunchtime, anyway.
Skylar finally drug herself out of bed to begin her day. Today was a big day for her. Under her leadership, the marketing team had finally put together the best presentation to have ever come out of the Candus office. Today was the day she was going to shine and get noticed for all her hard work. Today was the day she was going to get the recommendation she needed to transfer back to a real planet.
She stood in fro
nt of her closet, watching it go around and around. Nothing, she thought. I have nothing to wear. She had hundreds of outfits, but none of them seemed appropriate for today. What do you wear when you finally earn your way off a backward planet?
After dressing in the outfit she’d worn for her presentation last year on Metros and checking her makeup for the hundredth time, Skylar finally deemed herself fit to go to work. She had on her best outfit, her best shoes, and the perfect lip gloss. Looking one more time at herself in the mirror on the back of her front door, she smiled and opened it. As she walked into the hall, she instructed her AI to turn off the lights and lock the door to her apartment as she hurried to the elevator.
“Come on, come on,” she told it, knowing it couldn’t answer back. “In a core world, you would already be here.”
She had spent time working at Candus Corporation’s headquarters on Metros, and she missed the luxuries from outer-core worlds, such as scheduled elevators or elevators with override buttons for someone running late to work. On outer-rim worlds, like Candus, elevators still had the old-fashioned push button interface, instead of AI interfaces. They couldn’t be waiting for you as you left your apartment.
“Come on, damn it!” she yelled. Skylar had been putting in long hours working on multiple projects, which she thought would help her when a position opened at headquarters back on Metros. If she managed to get the new job, she would be transferred to the main Candus Corporation headquarters back in the “civilized” world. Being late to work, even though she’d worked well past two in the morning, was no way to impress the hiring manager.
Skylar gave up on waiting for the elevator and started toward the stairs. She stopped to take off her shoes, which made her look professional, but weren’t very functional. She had once seen a pair of shoes on Metros that would change shape, color, and functionality, depending on the situation—shoes that she, of course, couldn’t find on a backwater planet like Candus, and having them shipped all the way from Metros would take a month’s pay, which she couldn’t afford to spend.
She barely stopped to put her shoes back on as she made her way through the apartment building’s lobby and outside to the sidewalk. Her AI instructed her that she would have to hurry to make the next train. Although Candus City had over eighty-million inhabitants, taxis were hard to find in the area Skylar could afford to live in. Most of the inhabitants used a series of mag-lev trains running under and over the city, and the nearest stop was still two blocks away.
Walking as fast as her shoes would allow, Skylar instructed her AI to keep her updated on the train schedule. “You will miss the next scheduled train,” it informed her a minute later.
“Damn! When is the next one?” she demanded.
“The next train is in three minutes. Based on the regular schedule, you will be able to attend your meeting on time.”
Skylar slowed a little. Even this early in the morning, Candus was hot and dusty—it wouldn’t help her if she arrived dirty and sweaty. Her earbud was already starting to build up a layer of sweat, causing it to move and become itchy. She hated the thing, but it was her lifeline to her AI system and comm unit. As she reached up to push it back into her ear, she thought, On a core world, I could get one of those implants, or at least the new earbud model that bonds with your ear. I wouldn’t have to live with this outdated piece of crap.
She dreamed about the latest model of implant, which would allow her to interface with her AI and comm unit while projecting video onto a contact lens. All she would have to do was move her eye and talk to her AI—everything else was seamless. Here on Candus, she had to carry video glasses, a comm unit, and an AI earbud system. What a hassle. Even if I find an implant, the crappy network here wouldn’t support it. I can’t wait to get off this dirt ball.
As she sat down in an empty seat on the train, Skylar decided she’d had enough—the itching was driving her crazy. She pulled out her earbud and set it down next to her on the seat before scratching her sweaty ear.
*****
Skylar Reilly would have been average on any core world, but on a rim world—especially an outer-rim world, like Candus—she was gorgeous. She’d always known she was smarter and better-looking than the other girls, and that it was her way off her home world. She also knew she was lucky: her parents were higher-level Candus Corporation managers, and when she’d turned sixteen, they’d been able to pay for her to go to an inner-rim college. It was an education denied to the majority of the population of Candus and Candus City.
Even then, a degree from a university on an inner-rim world, like Juclone, wasn’t enough to qualify her for a job with a major core world corporation. Her parents had pulled some strings and gotten her the internship with Candus Corporation on Metros, which had landed her the job she currently had on Candus as a marketing and public relations lead. That one-year internship had changed Skylar’s whole view of the galaxy. Even though it was for just a short amount of time, it had made her long for something other than life on Candus—a life that could change the course of her family by getting them off the worlds full of hardship and onto the core worlds full of luxuries and pleasures.
Skylar was dreaming about her year on Metros when the train pulled into the station. She grabbed her bag and bolted out of the doors as soon as they opened. When she felt her comm unit buzzing, she realized she didn’t have her earbud in; a moment of panic set in before she remembered that she’d left it on her seat for the third time this month. She jumped back onto the train, grabbed her earbud, and just managed to get back through the doors before they closed and the train sped off. She wouldn’t have made it to her meeting, if she hadn’t gotten off the train on time, and there was no way she could spend her day without her earbud.
She smiled and thought she would easily make it to work on time, but Skylar didn’t see the drainage grate in front of her. She walked onto it and her right heel immediately became stuck, pulling her shoe off. “Damn it!” she yelled. “Why does this planet have drainage grates in this age? Like it ever rains here!”
When she bent over to retrieve her shoe, she almost got the other caught. “Damn city,” she muttered as she stepped off the grate to put her shoe back on, not seeing the puddle of water. The splash had just registered in her mind as she felt hot, sticky water run down her legs. “Damn it!” she yelled again. “Isn’t anything going to go right today?”
Normally, she would have gone right back home and changed, but not today. She had an important meeting about the project she had been working overtime on all week. Today was her day to shine, and now she would have to go to work with one chewed-up shoe, another wet and ruined, and wet, gross slacks. Plus, she was sweating, which had caused her makeup to smear and her hair to tangle.
Never again, she thought. I will never wear my good shoes to work again! Normally she wouldn’t have done so, anyway, but because she was late, she hadn’t thought to wear her walking shoes and carry her good shoes, like she usually did. There was always something dirty or gross on Candus that would ruin even the best clothes she could afford.
She was dreaming about the smart clothes she would have access to, once she got her promotion and could finally leave Candus, when her AI interrupted her thoughts to inform her that she would not make the meeting at her current pace. Skylar picked up her pace, which only added to her layer of sweat.
Almost jogging through the lobby, she smiled at what’s-his-name at the front desk. I need to get better at remembering names, she thought. I also need to start keeping up with people who could help me out in the future. Skylar instructed her AI to set up a schedule she could follow to keep in touch with important managers on Candus and her old coworkers on Metros; it never hurt to have friends when a position became available.
She briefly wondered why she’d ever let the communications slip. Her father had always stressed that business relationships were more important than actual work. I’ve just been too busy, she thought, knowing her dad would never accept an excuse l
ike that. He would have worked overtime and kept up his business relationships at the same time. I must do better!
*****
She cheered silently as she walked into the conference room to find that her boss wasn’t there, yet. If the boss wasn’t there, you weren’t late.
“Did you sleep here?” Sandy asked. “Or did you fight your way through a farmer’s strike to get here?”
Skylar smiled and tried to straighten up the best she could before her boss walked in. All that work to pick out the perfect outfit and make herself shine today was wasted. Pull yourself together, girl, she thought. Being a little dirty and sweaty doesn’t matter. Everyone here is a little dirty and sweaty—it comes with the territory. Do not let this affect your performance. You’ve nailed this campaign, and it is about time to get the credit you deserve. Once Bill finishes praising what you’ve done with the resources you have here, you can tell Sandy to shut the hell up.
She was grinning and thinking about the look that would be on Sandy’s face, when Bill walked in and slammed the door to the conference room shut. “Can someone explain this crap?” he yelled at the assembled group. “I looked this over last night and it looks like something a kid would make! There’s no way I’m sending this to headquarters. I don’t care if you have to work thirty-six hours a day, fix this!” he ordered.
