by Sean Kennedy
BANG!
The Kaizen stayed in fluid motion, balancing on one leg with the precision of a ballet and the strength of steel. Its leg lashed out, whipping around its body like a dragon’s tail to land with perfect balance in a low fighting stance.
*tap-tap*
Its arms crossed across its chest, tapping each before spreading its fingers and pressing its arms wide to the side. In a blur, it punched twice before freezing, and the dust that gathered on its frame shook loose, like fine snow shaken from the trees by the winter wind.
The Kaizen spun and leapt into the air, arching its body as it turned. It kicking four times with lightning speed before landing and rolled into a tight ball. It sprung into a vertical split kick, the force throwing it into the air with a floating lightness that defied gravity. It hooked its leg as it turned, curving gracefully, before landing, and driving it's arms out in opposing swordlike thrusts.
*swish*
Mac had seen these moves before. It was a Wushu Kata, but more advanced than any he’d ever seen. The Kaizen stood motionless, frozen in symmetry, and Mac felt like he had activated a great and terrible weapon. Mac had heard of Kaizen martial arts units, designed as instructors with the complete knowledge of the combative styles merged with philosophy and art. They were meant to be ultimate preservation of fighting knowledge, with motion capture imprints taken from hundreds of adepts; Shaolin masters and Japanese swordsmen, Indian fighters and Vietnamese priests.
The perfect stillness of the Kaizen broke, and it spun, throwing its legs like whips as it leapt, again and again, kicking in a perfect spiral circle. These whirling strikes, designed for humans, were now delivered with mechanical precision and synthetic speed. The Kaizen sprung into a high leap, landing with its feet together and arms out in a perfect cross, it’s metallic palms flat to halt invisible forces. Its arms hooked and came together. Its left palm catching its right fist in the perfect asymmetry of a martial salute, and bent its body into a bow.
Mac considered there would be no use hiding, he certainly wouldn’t want to surprise it. He straightened up and slowly walked out from behind the shelves, moving slowly forwards until he was close enough to touch the Kaizen in its martial pose. It had a terrible beauty, like the ocean, with vast power lurking beneath its surface.
“Hello,” Mac said.
The Kaizen lowered its arms. Its single pulsing blue ring seemed to stare through him.
“You can call me Mac. I was the one who assembled your body and initiated your systems.” He said softly, but the Kaizen stood silent.
It’s listening, Mac thought.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” Mac said and hoped it believed him.
A calm, whispered voice with a sliding steel tone came from the Kaizen.
“By my intention, I am Kensai of Kaizen. I serve Jacob Faith.”
The End of Book 2.
Other Books By Sean Kennedy
Immersion: 2086
In 2086, reality is augmented.
Dan Hunter is a field investigator for the augmented and virtual cyberspace of Immersion, the most pervasive and dominant technological platform since the invention of the Internet. A strange complaint leads him into a broadcast storm of living weapons and sensual religious orders, all filtered through augmented and virtual reality circles that spin at the speed of light. A world of evolved black projects and terrible secrets left to fester in the upper atmosphere. Once exposed, those secrets could change mankind forever!
“If you're a fan of the genres this book falls into or if you're familiar with a soldiers side of things this book is for you. The fast paced storytelling that this author as beautifully put to words with the vivid details easily puts me right in the action.”
Ambient Reports: 2087
From the creator of Immersion 2086, comes Ambient Reports : 2087. Thirteen near-now dystopian short stories of a networked future, where life is cybernetic, gene-joked, or fuel for something that is.
Come into a datastream where the Made lurks in the smash house system, and Plague grows stronger on the Afterlife servers every day. Road trip over the global autobahn; from the Mermanauts’ sunken lands to the sky condo rooftops of Japan, and learn Sean Kennedy’s cyberpunk prophecy!
Ambient Reports : 2087
Beware the Zero Day Revolution!
“Chapter by chapter, Kennedy opens the thirteen doors into his world with a masterful anthology of short stories set in a future that is both scarily familiar and completely foreign at the same time. Weaving stories with threads of morality, sci-fi, horror fiction and high action in a world of constant technological evolution, Kennedy drags you to the darkest corners of a future yet to happen.”
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