When she was done, she thought about picking up one of the paperbacks, but she wasn’t ready to settle in for the night. If she had been at home, she would have spent the evening listening to stories about what her father had been like when he was a child, or about what Detroit had been like in its heyday, or about what life in general had been like, for that matter, before the Internet, and cell phones, and color television.
Kaitlyn definitely didn’t feel like sitting around missing Grandma Maggie, so she wandered back out into the suite to see what the other girls might be up to. Unfortunately, Sam was the only one in the living room, and she clearly wasn’t in the mood for company.
“Hi,” Kaitlyn tried, but Sam never looked away from the television. She was watching some nature show in which zebras were trying desperately to cross a muddy river, struggling to climb over the dead, bloating carcasses of other animals that had been trapped by the steep banks and trampled to death in the process.
“Ugh,” Kaitlyn said. “That’s awful.”
“That’s life,” Sam said. “Survival of the fittest. Deal with it.”
“Yeah, but I mean, look at that little one. It’s so sad.”
“It’s not sad,” Sam retorted, her tone entirely unsympathetic. “It’s a zebra. If it makes it across, it’ll act like nothing happened. All those dead zebras will be right behind it, and it won’t care. See that one, there? That one just got out, and it’s already forgotten about the whole thing. Zebras are shits.”
Kaitlyn looked, and the zebra was, in fact, calmly grazing within sight of the massacre. Somehow, that didn’t make her feel any better.
“Where’s Mackenzie?” she asked.
“She didn’t say where she was going,” Sam said, her eyes never leaving the slaughter, “but she was dressed for a workout. She’s probably downstairs doing pushups like a good little soldier. Either that or beating the crap out of something. Hard to say.”
“Uh, OK. Thanks.”
As Kaitlyn opened the door to the hallway, Sam added, “Hey, if she’s beating the crap out of Rush, come back and get me. I’d give it even odds they’d knock each other out.”
Kaitlyn didn’t reply, but as the door was closing behind her, she heard Sam add, talking more to herself than to Kaitlyn, “I’d actually pay to see that.”
As Kaitlyn neared the workout room, she began to hear repetitive grunts accompanied by dull, forceful thuds, and soon enough she saw through the long, glass wall of the gym that Sam had been right. Mackenzie was beating up a heavy bag, using as much energy as physically possible.
She alternated among punches, elbows, and knee slams to its midsection, punctuated by the occasional kick for good measure, as she danced around the bag from one side to the other, her body constantly in motion.
When she circled behind it, she saw Kaitlyn standing in the hallway and nodded without pausing her barrage in the slightest. Kaitlyn went in and sat down on a weight bench while Mackenzie finished a lightning-fast combination, ultimately springing away from the bag and leaping into a nasty, spinning kick that connected with a final, resounding thud.
“Hey,” Mackenzie said, breathing heavily. She stopped and caught the bag in her hands before letting it go. “What’s up? Everything OK?” She picked up the gym towel that was hanging from a nearby handrail, used it to mop the sweat from her face and neck, and then casually flicked it back over the railing. Then she picked up a water bottle, squirting it into her mouth like a boxer.
“Yeah,” Kaitlyn said. “Sam’s watching zebras die on TV. I thought I’d find something else to do.”
“She’s watching what?”
“Never mind. How’s the workout going?”
“Good. We’ve got our one-on-ones tomorrow, so I’m going kinda light.”
“That’s light?” Kaitlyn asked, but Mackenzie only laughed.
Miss Williams had told them at dinner that Kaitlyn’s session with Ammu would be in the morning. Mackenzie’s would be in the afternoon.
“I’m kinda nervous about mine,” Kaitlyn admitted. “Are you?”
“Aw, I wouldn’t worry,” Mackenzie told her. “I mean, obviously I’m thinking about it, but I’d be here doing this either way. I try to get a two-hour workout in every day, minimum.”
“Oh,” Kaitlyn said, suddenly feeling like she should go practice fixing things. She dropped her head and started swinging her legs in the air.
Mackenzie chuckled. “Ammu just wants to see what we can do,” she said, playfully cuffing Kaitlyn in the shoulder. “You said yourself you’re a good mechanic. I’m sure he’ll be impressed.”
“You think?”
“Definitely.” Mackenzie nodded reassuringly and smiled at her.
“OK.” Kaitlyn smiled back, but she still didn’t feel that sure about it.
“Hey,” Mackenzie said gently, “you just need to get your mind off it, you know? If you find something else to do, tomorrow will be here before you know it, and then the whole thing will be behind you.”
“Maybe,” Kaitlyn said, frowning, “but not dead zebras.”
Mackenzie laughed. “No,” she agreed, “definitely not dead zebras.”
Kaitlyn pretended to shudder, and Mackenzie laughed again.
“You’re welcome to hang with me if you want,” Mackenzie offered, setting down the water bottle and stretching her back, “but I’m just going to be training. I won’t be much company. Maybe you should go see what Daniel’s up to. I’m sure he’d like to see you.” She said this last bit with a teasing grin and raised her eyebrows suggestively.
“Oh, come on. I can’t go to the guys’ suite,” Kaitlyn protested. “That’d be weird.”
“Well, suit yourself. But it’s either hang out with Daniel or watch some morbid zebra marathon. If I were you, I know which one I’d pick.”
With that, Mackenzie winked and started punching the bag again, leaving Kaitlyn to consider her options on her own.
? ? ?
After dinner, Rush hoofed it straight back to the suite (with his self-appointed protégé trailing loyally behind him) and immediately fired up his console to check on the Internet, which was still down, just as Miss Williams had predicted.
“Sh—” Rush stopped himself and looked down at Sketch, who had settled next to him on the couch. “—ugar,” he finished. “Another night offline. This downtime is killing me.”
“Playing online is really that much better?” Sketch asked.
“Well, yeah, but it’s not just that. You know how I said this game isn’t even out yet? That it’s still in beta?”
Sketch nodded.
“They let people play it before the release to get them all into it,” Rush explained. “So everybody’s talking about it.”
“So they sell more,” Sketch said.
“Right. And with this game, as part of the hype, they’re hosting an invitational in August. The top hundred players in the world get to compete, and the top five get a spot on a pro team.”
“And you’re number eighteen!” Sketch exclaimed. “You’re so in!”
“Yeah,” Rush said, nodding, “so I don’t want to lose my rank, and without the Internet, I can’t check on it.”
“Oh man, you’re gonna lose your rank if you can’t play?” Sketch asked, his eyes wide with horror.
“Naw. I mean, I hope not. If they were just going by total kills, maybe, but that’s not how it works. They’re tracking ratios, not totals.”