He still hadn’t figured out what he was actually going to do when this was all over.
Coach Evin cuffed him on the back of the head.
“Focus,” he barked. “Your head is all over the place recently. It’s no good being top of your game here-“ Evin jabbed a meaty finger at Garrant’s chest “-if you’re not top of the game up here.”
“I know, I know,” Garrant said, brushing off Evin as he tapped against Garrant’s skull hard enough to make his brain rattle.
Evin folded his arms. “Something on your mind? Because now would be a real good time to get it off your chest and out of your head so you can be at your best for the opening heats tomorrow.”
Garrant had a hundred things on his mind - mostly to do with his looming retirement. For the last three years the doctors had been saying to him that his body was close to the limit. In his thirties and close to his limit. He felt like an old man when others his age were feeling barely in to their prime. But that was the cruelty of the world of athletics. For most events, it was a young man’s game. A very young man’s game.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said to Evin. “Let’s get started.”
Evin had them run through some basic drills, really simple, repetitive stuff, mostly on the floor, not even bothering with the propulsion shoes that would push him and his team into the air. When he’d first started training this way, it seemed pointless to Garrant. Why bother perfecting movements they wouldn’t ever do? But Evin knew what he was doing as a coach. Taking the propulsion shoes out of the equation meant they only had one thing to think about - the particular movement of the drill. And with each easy repetition, Garrant’s focus narrowed some, the muscle memory of his body kicking in, and the mind’s equivalent. By the time they moved onto proper flying drills, Garrant’s focus was exactly where it was supposed to be.
Garrant’s people were big fans of meditation, mental focus, but he’d always been a poor student. Everywhere except on the Hyperdisk field. As a kid, he could barely sit still during his meditation classes, but he could focus like no other with a Hyperdisk in his hand and the triangular goal in front of him. His talents had quickly been lauded and then channelled. A gift from the goddess! Parshana had blessed him! To not train him to the best of his abilities was to ignore the hand of the Goddess - and the Iparshana believed they did that at great peril.
Garrant sometimes wished he hadn’t been given such a gift. Because how was it a gift to give someone great skill and talent, and then take it away before they’ve even reached their middle years? Without it, he was nothing. Garrant sometimes thought it might have been better to be nothing all along and get used to it, rather than to have everything he’d had - the buzz of the competition, the joy of victory, the people he’d met and the places he’d been - and lose it all.
Parshana was a cruel mistress - if her hand even guided his life, which Garrant had long suspected it did not.
Now they were fully warmed up physically and mentally, Coach Evin moved them on to more complex manoeuvres. Garrant’s evasive rolls were Evin’s current bugbear, and he made Garrant repeat them over and over again.
“You’re sloppy on your right side still.”
“You manoeuvre like that in real play and your competitors will barely have to swipe to knock you off balance.”
“Keep yourself tight, controlled.”
“Again!”
“Again!”
“Again!”
Garrant rolled until he felt dizzy, his body aching from holding the same position. But that was the point of the training. Force the muscles to repeat until it became second nature to them. At last, Evin signalled that he was done, and Garrant drifted down, tapping the propulsion shoes off and dropping the final few inches to the floor. He rolled his shoulder again, the twinge a persistent niggle - not enough to throw out his form, but enough to be annoying, distracting.
“You’re grimacing, Garrant, what’s up?” Evin said.
Garrant waved him off. “Nothing.”
Evin narrowed his eyes, but didn’t challenge him. “Alright, take five minutes, then we’ll do a few sequences to finish.”
When Evin wasn’t looking, Garrant probed at his shoulder again. He’d injured it a few years back and ever since, it had always given him a bit of grief. Aches and pains, particularly when he was tired or cold. Sometimes minor strains that required rest and physiotherapy to heal. He still couldn’t feel any knotted tissues, though, so he kept rolling it back and forth, keeping the joint mobile, and otherwise pushed it to the back of his mind.
After the break, Evin arrayed Garrant’s team against him in a defensive formation and had Garrant go through a sequence of manoeuvres to effectively avoid them. He started simple, working up to a sequence that included Garrant’s nemesis - the evasive roll.
“Let’s see if those drills earlier have done you any good,” Evin called.
Garrant’s team tensed in readiness. The coach blew his whistle and Garrant launched himself forward, propulsion shoes whirring as he pushed himself through the air, weaving in and out of his training partners arrayed defensively against him.
Left, right, drop down under - the first few moves were perfect, muscle memory and concentration working together to produce precision movements, not even a finger out of alignment. Tight, controlled. Just like Evin wanted. The second to last defender loomed ahead of him, and Garrant tensed his core, drawing on the strength and balance he’d earned through years of intense training, holding himself like a coiled spring until, at the last minute, he threw himself into an evasive roll, spiralling over the second to last defender, even as he drew his arm back ready to throw past the last one.
As his arm reach the furthest point, muscles charged with power, something in his shoulder popped. All the control, all the precision, all the power went out of him, and Garrant spiralled out of control, losing his balance and toppling towards the floor. It rushed up towards him, until, at the last moment the low gravity field kicked in, the air a cushion around him as his body slowed and he landed on the floor with no more than a soft bump.
“What the hell was that?” Coach Evin called, rushing over as Garrant picked himself up, rolling his shoulder. With every movement, it twinged, pain radiating out across his back and up his neck.
“Misjudged it,” he said. “Threw too much power into the roll. Lost my balance.”
“Sure you did,” Coach Evin said, his face sour. “Shoulder again?”
“Shoulder again,” Garrant said with a huff of frustration. Frustration that he’d had to admit it. Frustration that it had given out so close to the competition starting. “It’s fine, just caught me off guard. I’ll strap it and…”
“Not this time, Garrant,” Coach Evin said, shaking his head. “I’m referring you to the medical team.”
“A day before the games start?” Garrant said. “You can’t be serious. If they say I can’t compete…”
“Then you can’t compete. End of story. If you’re not medically fit, you’ve got no chance of winning your heats, never mind placing in the final. There would be no point competing. You’d be risking making the injury worse for nothing.”
Garrant looked down at the disk in his hand, the smooth, circular piece of metal that had been a constant companion throughout his life. The only constant companion. Bad enough that he was about to age out of the top levels of competitive play - he couldn’t crash out of what would probably be his last major Intergalactic competition.
Coach Evin was stony, though, not a millimetre of budge in his countenance as he fixed a hard stare on Garrant.
“Fine, I’ll go see the medical team.”
“Good. And after that, rest. Go check out the Shopping District or something.” Coach Evin dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
Garrant plodded back to the changing rooms, rolling his shoulder as he went, trying to convince himself that the agony was easing off. That stripping off his vest wasn’t difficult and painful, that the jets of hot wa
ter on his back weren’t a blessed relief.
Rest. He just needed rest. He’d head back to his rooms and sleep it off after he’d seen the medical team. They’d be able to patch him up. Get him through the next two weeks. His heats were spaced out with plenty of time to rest up in between. He didn’t even have to win them well. Beating the other team by one point was enough. He could take it easy, ignore the siren call of the crowd and play just good enough. Save the proper play for the final. It was the only round that mattered, anyway.
Garrant closed his eyes, imagining himself at the awards ceremony, stepping up onto the strange little podium the Humans used where the second and third place athletes stood slightly lower than the first place winner. Bronze, Silver, Gold. The ranking Humans used, based on precious metals on their planet.
Gold. He wanted that Gold.
If this was to be his last ever Intergalactic top level competition, he wanted to end it on the highest of highs.
The water sluiced over his skin, soothing out the aches. As Garrant scrubbed himself clean, his eyes traced the tattoos running up his left arm and across his torso, telling the story of his achievements, his failings, his adventures and mishaps throughout the years.
Every success should be celebrated. Every failure should be remembered and learned from. And the Iparshana people celebrated and remembered things in the same way - marking them on the skin. Garrant touched a hand to the blank space on his chest, right above the pounding beat of his heart. When he won the gold he’d get it filled in. Mark out his proudest achievement.
When. Not if.
The doctor had him go through a series of exercises - rolling his shoulder back then forward, lifting his arm above his head, doing a full rotation. Garrant tried to keep a bright, friendly smile on his face, but by the third time through the sequence, there was no hiding the grimace of pain, the sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead. The doctor said nothing, but Garrant could see the concern she was trying to keep off her face.
“I’d like to do some scans,” she said. “To assess the extent of the damage.”
“It’s just a strain,” Garrant said, “a bit of rest, some anti-inflammatories…”
He tried for a winning smile, the kind that usually had women charmed. But the doctor was either not susceptible, or he was losing his edge.
“I believe I’m the one with the medical training,” she said. “Follow me to the scanner, please.”
The scanner did a full 3D reconstruction of his musculature for the doctor to examine. She rotated the projection of his shoulder through several different angles, pressing her lips together in deep thought, tapping notes into her comm. Garrant lay very still and tried not to read anything in to the way she frowned, the tenor of her note taking.
“This is a recurring injury,” the doctor said once they were back in the private room. “It’s not the first time you’ve hurt this shoulder. I can see the build up of scar tissue and weakness from previous injuries.”
Garrant said nothing. What could he say? She could read everything she needed to know in his very tissues.
“You’re Iparshana, so close to Galactic Standard in terms of life expectancy, age progression, that sort of thing?”
Right at the top of the great Galactic bell curve. Average in almost every way.
“So at thirty two standard years, you are coming to the end of your Hyperdisk career. At least at this competitive level.”
Hearing it said in the doctor’s plain, no nonsense tone made it seem more real, more imminent. It hit him like a punch to the gut.
“Yes,” he said, forcing the word past his gritted teeth.
“That’s good, because this is the sort of injury you won’t ever fully recover from. The best thing for it is rest and no more intensive use. You’ll probably always get aches and pains, particularly in the colder weather, but it will be manageable as long as you do it no further damage.”
“But that doesn’t help me right now,” Garrant said. “I’ve got heats to play tomorrow.”
The closed look on the doctor’s face told Garrant she thought he was an idiot for even considering it, but she nodded, apparently used to dealing with idiots.
“There are a few restorative treatments we can try that will give you the range of motion and strength back. They are short term, but will be enough to get you through this competition. Just this competition. You need to give serious consideration to this being your last.”
“I was already considering it my last,” Garrant said. Though saying it out loud to someone was a very different thing to thinking it.
The doctor nodded. “Sensible. I appreciate that. Not many of my patients are sensible. Now, I recommend a round of massage treatment and we’ll see from there.”
The massage treatment involved sitting in a chair with a device shaped like a torso closed around his own. It fit snug against his skin, and when switched on, began to vibrate, pulsing nodes inside working in to his muscles - stretching and kneading them. About halfway through, the pulsing stopped and a series of needles pressed through his skin, before the vibrating started again, his muscles twitching in response. For almost an hour he sat, the device working at his problem areas with the kind of relentlessness only achievable by machinery. When it finally stopped, clicking open, Garrant felt tender to his core.
The doctor fetched him and applied a numbing cream to the worst affected places.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
Garrant rolled his shoulder and couldn’t hide the wince.
“Is it going to get better overnight?”
The grim look on the doctor’s face said it all.
“Then what else can you give me?” he asked. “I can’t play like this.”
“Perhaps you should listen to your body, heed it.”
“It’s the last chance I’m going to get to play. I can’t… I can’t drop out now.”
The doctor sighed, then turned to her drawers and pulled out an injector gun.
“I have something, but I want you to think carefully before you decide to have it. It’s an experimental new treatment - initially developed for military applications. A stabilising injection. The serum bonds with the muscles and strengthens them, but it’s only a temporary fix, designed to prop up injured soldiers and get them out of danger zones.”
“But it would work for me?”
The doctor hesitated a moment. “You have to understand, this treatment was originally meant as a last resort sort of thing. The serum holds together the injured joint, but when the serum wears off, the chemicals in it actually do damage to the muscle tissues, making the initial injuries worse. Better that than dying on a battlefield, but not necessarily better that than not being able to take part in a competition.”
“So, what? It will prop me up for one heat, but then I can’t play again. How does that help?” Garrant could feel his temper flaring and tired to bite it back.
“A pharmaceutical company have been working to extend the effects of the serum and reduce the damaging impact,” the doctor said. “This current formula should last you between seven to ten days, and if you only take one dose, the damage will repair over time. A second dose will see you through another five days, but the damage is more extreme. You’d probably have to have surgery to repair the muscles and you’ll never get back full use of your arm.”
“But if the first treatment lasts ten days…” That was enough to get him all the way through to the final.
“If,” the doctor said. “It depends a lot on your physiology. Some find it wears off sooner than seven days. The treatment is so new, I can’t give you any guarantees. Except that it will do you damage.”
“You can give me one guarantee,” Garrant said. “You can guarantee I won’t be playing tomorrow if I don’t take it.”
The doctor’s eyes went cold. “I suppose so.”
She made him sign some forms, reiterating the risks, the fact that he could only have the one treatment without doing himse
lf damage. Then she pressed the injector gun to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
As the cold sting of the serum entering his body started to fade, Garrant tried rolling his shoulder again. It still hurt, but already it was much better.
“It takes twenty-four hours for the serum to fully stabilise,” the doctor said, putting the injector gun back. “Don’t give in to the temptation to practise. Rest. And do some gentle movements in the morning.”
Garrant left the medical centre and headed back to his suite, testing his shoulder every so often, amazed how quickly the pain faded into insignificance. He just prayed that it would last him til the final. And then…
And then he had no idea.
Chapter 3
THE DRESS SHOP WAS ON THE top floor, so they made for one of the many lift platforms. It looked like just a circle of metal, but when they stepped on it, there was a woosh of air, and a sense of the sound deadening. Nell reached out a hand and met with some invisible energy shield. Which didn’t serve to make her feel much more secure as the platform launched upwards. She closed her eyes then opened them again, unsure whether it was worse to be able to see the floor plummeting away beneath them, or to have the sensation of rising without any visual input to go with it. At least Angela looked equally disconcerted, Nell thought, as they shared a grimace of solidarity.
On the top floor, the shops looked far more expensive - large open spaces with only a few items, not hundreds crammed in to fill the shelves. There were boutique clothes shops and shops selling high end electronics, beauty parlours and exclusive looking restaurants. Nell looked round, feeling more uncomfortable with every step she took.
Ahead, Asha glanced down at her comm and up at the shop in front of her. It was a boutique with a range of elaborate dresses on display - some clearly for members of the Intergalactic Community with builds far different to those of Humans.
“This is the place,” Asha said, eyeing it with suspicion.
A woman with bubblegum pink hair, styled in an elaborate up-do, came blustering out of the store, plunging into a deep bow as she reached Asha.
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