Blackjack Wayward

Chapter Thirty-One

By the time I was done with the boots, Moe trotted in, moving with purpose.

“Hey, I just thought of something,” he said. “Follow me.”

I threw on the new boots, much leaner and more form fitting with most of the mechanical parts hidden beneath leather compartments.

“You guys taking turns with me?” I asked as we walked the internal maze of the tower.

He laughed, “Feels like that, huh? Nah, we’re just taking breaks from working out the D.C. thing.”

“How’s that going? Anything you can share? Ruby didn’t want to say anything.”

“That’s one secretive girl, let me tell you. I can tell you, it’s cool. We sent some probes and they got shot down, and then we tried some satellite surveillance but all the major satellites with decent angles are down for some reason. So we sent a probe up to check the Intelsats…you know what they are?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay, good. Well, they’re all f*cked up. So I had the idea of putting a long-range camera on a rooftop across the Potomac looking into the city. Shit’s bad, man. It’s like Sarajevo. There’s like a bunch of evil supers in town.”

“Who’s fighting who?”

“That’s what we can’t figure out. I mean, other than General Maxwell went apeshit and is trying to take over. I mean, he’s got an army there. So far we’ve seen he has taken control of all the military bases surrounding Washington D.C. and marched his forces to form a perimeter around the capital. That includes UH-60 Blackhawk and F-22 Raptors out of Fort Bolling, a mechanized battalion of M-1 Abrahms and M-2 Bradleys out of Fort McNair, F-18s off the aircraft carrier Truman and the Mecha division out of Fort Meade, Maryland. But we can’t tell who he’s fighting, you know, who’s defending the White House. SuperD is working on a series of nanoprobes that’ll get us more intel. See if we can contact the good guys. If we go in right now, we wouldn’t know who was friend or foe.”

“But we have to move at some point,” I said, feeling more and more anxious. “We can’t just sit here and watch it happen.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Couple more hours and we’re inbound. I don’t doubt it. Anyway, I got a good way to keep you busy.” He led me to a heavy set of doors that had “warning” printed on them in bold letters.

The doors slid open and he led me into a large, two story room, more akin to a warehouse that had no adornments or markings.

“Be careful now,” he said as the metal doors slammed shut. “This place can be dangerous.”

Moe beamed as the wall frame slid open and a large robot trotted out. The silver beast was more agile and fast than the rickety frame gave it credit for.

“That’s the Mark Three,” Moe said, waving his arms out. “Beat that shit, and I’ll buy the first round.”

I snorted, “You’re kidding, right?”

He laughed, full-bodied, and then realized something was wrong.

“Damn,” he said. “I brought it out wrong. What, you wanna fight anyway?”

Shrugging, I just stomped toward the robot, indifferent to what it looked like.

“No, wait,” Moe held me back. “That’s the trick, man. Don’t f*ck it up.”

“Okay, so do what you need to and let me know when it’s ready.”

“Shit, motherf*cker’s ready to pounce and shit. That’s cool, dog. That’s cool. But you gotta choose what it is. Like, who’s your nemesis, who’s out there that needs an ass-whooping from you?”

I laughed, “What, you’re going to paste a print out of its face on the robot?”

Moe could barely contain his mischievous energy. “Wait until you see how this shit works. You’re gonna be like, ‘Shit, nigga, why didn’t you tell me?’ So who, man? Who you wanna bust up?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “How about Superdynamic?”

“That’s cold,” he said after a chuckle.

Moe walked up to the thing and gazed at an LCD display that appeared in the middle of the robot’s chest. He touched nothing, did nothing, but the display registered his input, via the unseen neural interface. After he was done, Moe said, “Engage,” and the thing fizzled and blurred, becoming the splitting image of Superdynamic.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“You see?”

I walked over. “Forget this, make it Epic.”

His eyebrows rose, and he even pulled back his glasses. “Rematch? Ambitious as f*ck, my man.”

He turned back to it and a moment later, the thing became Epic, with his customary wavy locks of blonde hair, the ridiculous white and gold suit, and the flowing mini-cape that was small enough for a child to use.

“Say when,” Moe said, moving aside.

I circled Epic, cracking my neck to both sides and clenching up my fists. Not knowing how the thing actually worked, I was going to throw all I had into it, pretend that the thing was a bona fide danger to me.

But something happened as the robot became active, as Epic-bot turned his head to follow my rotation. I dropped my guard and stepped back. The bot, unsure what to do, got into a ready stance, similar to Epic’s little-boy boxing position. Similar, but not exact. And that’s what was bothering me: the thing wasn’t exact. It was a simulation, programmed to be quite realistic, but a fake nonetheless. There wouldn’t be the acrimony of the last fight, the rage in his face, the desperation in my heart. I knew if I got in trouble, the machine would turn off, save me from the killing blow. And that’s it if was possible to design a robot to be equally strong as Epic. That’s what was bothering me the most. As advanced as all of Superdynamic’s designs were, there was no way to replicate that raw strength, and the rage that drove it. I knew I wasn’t in danger, and doing it just to work out wasn’t enough for me.

“What’s wrong?” Moe asked as someone entered the chamber in the distance.

It was Focus. She was dressed in a sleeveless tracksuit and coated in sweat, wiping her neck with a white cotton towel.

“Oh,” she said. She’d walked in more than a dozen paces before she noticed us. “I’m sorry.”

“No, baby, it’s cool. Blackjack and I were just leaving. Right?”

His eyes bored into me after dipping his nose a little to let them peek over the mirrored aviator glasses.

“Yeah,” I said, looking back at Epic.

“I see. You were training, too. I can come back,” Focus said when she noticed the bot.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Yeah, we’re done,” Moe said, walking over to herd me out. “We’re not even signed in or nothing.”

“Well, I was worried I might have come early to my session.”

“Let’s go, man. We’re not even supposed to be here.”

Focus watched us walk past. “If you want, I can cede some time. I have a two-hour block. I wanted a quick workout before we went on the mission.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. Thanks, anyway. That thing doesn’t feel right.”

“It’s some solid-light energy shit that Dee made up. I just close my eyes and blow the shit up, you know what I mean?”

“I’ve seen that face before,” I said, referring to Epic. “I know the difference.”

“Then think of some other shit,” Moe said, upset that we weren’t out of the room yet. He wanted me away from Focus as fast as possible. “Anyway, we come back later, when she’s done. Cool?”

“I don’t like those things, either,” Focus said, and only then did I notice I was slowing down, almost to a stop, despite Moe grasping my biceps and trying to guide me out.

“We could spar, you and me,” she said, and I stopped completely.

Behind me, Moe let out a sigh.

“Focus, baby, didn’t we talk this shit out?”

The friendliness in her face faded, and she was suddenly downcast, her features hidden in shadow.

“You’re right. Goodbye, Mister Blackjack.”

As I looked back at Moe, he just flashed his eyes at me, as if to ask, “What are you waiting for?”

“Yeah,” I said, starting to the door again. “It’s not like it would be a fair fight.”

Moe laughed, satisfied I was leaving. “No shit, dog. She’d f*ck your shit up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Focus is trained like a Shaolin, man. She’ll kung-fu you like Jackie Chan. You think being strong is something? That little girl has whooped my ass more times than my momma.”

Focus blushed, a little smile playing on her face.

“I’d like to see that,” I said.

“Bet you would,” Moe retorted. “But I learned my lesson. That’s my martial arts instructor, right there, not my sparring partner.”

“I meant me. I’d like to try it.”

Moe lowered his head, exasperated.

“Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

But Focus and I were looking at each other, and I was dying to see what this little girl could do.

“I don’t know. You said you had two hours reserved?”

She nodded.

“Would it be okay? I mean, would it ruin your workout?”

Focus shook her head. “Not at all. It would be fun,” she added, but she immediately regretted being so forward.

“Don’t we have that thing to do now?” Moe said. “Remember, SuperD was gonna show us something?”

I laughed.

“F*ck, man. We talked about this shit.”

“Moe,” Focus said, more strength in her tone than I knew she had, “I’ll be fine.”

“I ain’t worried about you, girl. It’s this stupid-ass I’m thinking about.”

She smiled. “I’ll be gentle.”

Moe knew he was beaten, but he leaned into me anyway. “Watch your hands, motherf*cker, or I’ll put the systems safeties on zero and pulverize a nigga. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Dude–”

“Nah, man. You don’t dude me. I dude you, dude. Don’t go grabbing no titties and shit. I’ll f*ck up your world.”

I nodded seriously.

“Okay, baby,” he told her. “I’ll be upstairs in the control room in case of anything.”

He strode out of the room and left us alone. Me, Focus, and the Epic-bot.

I walked up to her and bowed, martial arts-style, but she just giggled.

“What?”

“You did that wrong,” she said.

“Is it like this?” I said, doing a ladies’ curtsey.

Focus laughed, covering her mouth with her small right hand.

“No. You were looking at the ground. Do it like this,” she said, and bowed, the only difference between hers and mine was that her eyes never left me.

“You keep an eye on your opponent at all times, Blackjack.”

“Okay,” I said, and then did it again her way.

“Better,” she said. “Now, let’s see you punch the bot.”

I didn’t understand. Weren’t we going to spar each other?

“I just want to see you throw a punch,” she said, sensing my confusion.

I shrugged and walked over the Epic-bot. Without much prelude or preparation, I threw the hardest right cross I could, cracking the robot under his chin and sending it flying across the room. It crashed into a far wall, exploding into a million pieces.

“Yo, what the f*ck!” yelled Moe from the control room, coming in as the robot blew up.

“Just a demonstration, Moe,” she said.

I cracked my neck again, asking, “How was it?”

She smiled. “Slow. Very slow.”

“Felt good,” I said.

“We’ll try something different,” she said, and I noted her going into her “instructor mode.” “I’m going to put my hands up and I want you to practice your jab, throwing it as fast as you can. Don’t worry about strength, just worry about speed.”

She spread her legs apart and raised her hands in front of her, giving me two targets.

I threw up my guard, and she winced, lowering her hands.

“What?”

“You don’t put your hands like that,” she said.

I looked at my fists and didn’t see where I was making a mistake.

“And you’re standing too....” she paused, walking around so she stood almost in front of me. “It’s too stiff.”

Focus put her hand against my right shoulder and pushed just a little, making me lose my balance and throw my leg back to keep from falling.

“See?”

She shook her head, concerned at the difficulty of the task confronting her.

“You’ve never studied fighting of any form?”

I shrugged.

She smiled, “We’ll teach you right. Now stand sideways to me, feet shoulder-width apart.”

Focus stood in front of me, and I mirrored her stance, watching her closely.

“Eyes off the merchandise, F*ckface,” Moe snapped when he caught me studying her muscled thighs.

“Computer, disengage booth audio,” she said, straightening up and clenching her balled fists to her hips.

“Sorry,” she said. “He thinks I’m one of his daughters to worry about.”

I smiled.

“Okay, let’s get to this,” she said, returning to her stance, her back to me. “See how comfortable that feels? Make sure your weight is on the balls of your feet.”

She started hopping like a boxer.

“Are you righty or lefty?”

I shrugged. “Either, really.”

“No,” she said, thinking a moment. “You’re a righty. Your first instinct with the bot was to throw a right.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “What does it matter?”

“Get on the balls of your feet,” she chastised, looking back, making me adjust my stance. “If you put your feet down on the ground flat, you’ll lose leverage and balance. And it’s important because your stronger hand will be your power hand. The left will be your lead hand. Now turn your body like this....”

Focus pivoted her hips so she was facing left, and I matched her move.

“...then raise your left hand over here....”

She placed her left hand almost at eye level, her left shoulder cocked forward slightly and elbow comfortably in front of it.

“...finally, you bring your right hand up and lower your chin a little bit.”

To complete the stance, she brought her right hand so it was just in front of her lowered chin, right shoulder rocking out a tad.

She flashed a look back and smiled, liking my stance.

“Stay like that,” she said, turning around and giving me a better look.

Focus stood to my left, where I was now facing – my new front – and nodded.

“Too far out,” she said, adjusting my left hand closer to the new centerline. “Let your feet rotate so they feel more comfortable.”

I shifted my feet more and the whole thing felt much, much better.

“Okay, now you know how to stand. Are you ready to learn how to move?”

“Let’s do it.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never had any training,” she said, bewildered. I was proving a bad pupil, slow and clumsy.

Turns out that fighting involves a lot of footwork, and I have the agility of a pregnant water buffalo. She tried teaching me basics, like the forward triangle technique, where your lead foot – in my case the left foot – shifts back, angling to the left, and your right foot slides forward to replace it. It’s a simple move, designed to switch stance from a left lead to a right lead, a move that’s more useful in practice than in reality where things are more fluid, but I couldn’t do it. It was a mental block of some sort, like my feet were of their own mind.

Despite my clumsiness, and overall ignorance of fighting styles and techniques, she never lost her patience with me, not once.

“Better,” she said, circling as I repeated the motion over and over. Left foot back and to the left, right foot forward to take its place, right foot back and to the right, left foot forward and taking its place.

“When you have a better handle of things, this is what it’ll look like.”

Focus stood in front of me, as an opponent would, and did it without even moving her hips. The switch was effortless and almost imperceptible, and in an instant she had swapped hands.

“See?”

The whole thing was an excuse to study her lower body, no doubt to the consternation of Moe, who was upstairs somewhere in a remote observation booth.

She straightened up and put her balled fists on her hips.

“That’s not very polite, Blackjack.”

“Huh? No, I was just watching where you placed your feet.”

Smiling, she shook her head and came closer. “I am trying to teach you.”

“Okay, okay,” I said.

“Let’s just keep going. Show me your jab,” she said, putting her right hand up as a target.

I fired one in there, nice and tight, and harder than she could have expected, but instead of being surprised, Focus caught it in her hand with a downward slapping motion, diffusing the power of the blow.

“Not bad at all,” she said. “Again.”

Another, and again she recoiled the target from the blow, catching the punch at its farthest point of extension, and slapping the tips of her long fingers on the back of my hand to reduce the forward motion.

“Okay, now throw a cross,” Focus raised her left hand now. It was weird, since my cross in the normal stance came from my stronger right hand, and I was trying to hit her left hand across her body.

“Put the other hand up,” I said, readying.

“No,” she said. “The cross goes here. Jab here,” she raised up her right hand. “And the hook over here,” her right hand stuck out farther, twisted sideways so I could hit it with my lead hand hook coming across my body.

“It’s weird,” I said, adjusting my feet to compensate.

“No, don’t do that. Just throw the punch.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to hit your face.”

She lowered her guard, for the first time slightly frustrated.

“That’s the whole point, to hit me in the face. I put the target here,” Focus raised her right hand up, close to her face, “so you can get used to how far your blow has to go to connect.”

“It’s just a pretty face,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I’d hate to...you know.”

Focus smiled, enjoying the compliment.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to hit me.”

“I’m just being careful. Moe put me on warning to not touch a hair on your body.”

She furrowed her brow, stepping back, instructor mode faded and gone, replaced with the little innocent girl. Focus walked off a moment, turning her back to me and looking up at one of the bright ceiling lights. She hopped on her feet like a boxer before a fight and loosened up her arms and neck. Her lithe musculature rippled, and her arms, while thin and long, had muscles I didn’t even know existed. Her back was broad and strong, her shoulders taut and ready.

“Don’t worry about Moe, okay?” she said, still facing a way from me.

“I’m just trying to be friendly,” I said.

“Is that all?” She was still, her head cocked to one side, stretching out her neck muscles.

I didn’t know what to say. Of course, I was interested. She was a pretty woman, sexy and athletic, how I like them. But there were too many obstacles to this woman.

Focus smiled and walked over to me. “I didn’t mean to get all serious,” she said but was regarding me with a strange look, as if she still hadn’t figured me out, as if I were some sort of enigma to be resolved, a ticking bomb to be defused.

Then the instructor returned. “Come on, let’s practice the jab-cross-hook combination. Time is running out.”

I threw a few combos, careful not to break one of her delicate fingers, but she kept prodding me on, making me adjust an incorrect launch point, forcing me to extend my shoulders on the cross, teaching me to contain the power of the hook, how to use the full torsion of my body and shoulder while at the same time not over-extending the blow, which would leave my side open to a counter attack.

Then she switched stances on me, gesturing for me to follow, and all hell broke loose. I couldn’t manage the mental function or physical dexterity to reverse the same blows, so my right lead hand mangled the jab and hook, and the left cross had a clumsy arc, stuck halfway between a hook and an uppercut.

Focus giggled at my clumsiness, dropping her stance altogether and covering her face with both hands.

“Laugh, why don’t you? But ask Epic what it felt like.”

I held up my left fist as a display, but her amusement faded, replaced with a look of concern, maybe even anger.

“Hit me,” she said, falling into her stance, her expression hard and serious.

“I’m not going to hit you,” I said, chuckling at the thought of us really fighting.

“I know. You’re not going to. But I want you to try.”

She inched forward and switched to a wicked stance where her legs were farther splayed out, her open hands like tiger claws ready to pounce.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid, Focus. Look, I’m sorry I was an a*shole.”

“I want you to see this,” she said, ignoring my apology. “Come on.”

I shook my head, wondering what the hell I’d done or said to get on her bad side. Did she have a girlish crush on Epic as well? The fop was pretty enough, but I couldn’t see the same human being having a crush on both of us at the same time.

“I said I’m sorry, Focus, okay?”

She clenched her jaw tight, the only sign thus far of how angry she was.

“What do you want? You want me to throw a punch so then you can do some Judo shit and gloat that you’re better than me? Is that it?”

I stared at her, but she was a blank slate, still in her stance.

“Okay, here,” I said, throwing a reasonably fast and powerful jab at her face.

The blow was meant to hit her, not to come close, but she side-stepped it with the grace of a panther, moving closer to me and grabbing my hand and elbow at the same time. With her right hand, she twisted my fist down against the wrist joint, and with her left hand, using her ring finger as a fulcrum, she collapsed the elbow joint. Pressing forward, so fast I didn’t even have time to react, Focus placed her left foot atop my right, pinning me, and continued into me, using her hip to tip me over and onto the ground. She still held my hand, twisting the wrist in such a way that jolts of fire danced up my arm and deep into my shoulder.

“Happy, now?” I muttered, wincing in pain, aware that any shift on my part would lead to a dislocated wrist joint.

She held me too long, her face stern, her mood dark, so I ripped my arm out of her grasp and rolled away onto my stomach.

“Take it easy, girl.” I stood, raising my hands in submission, but she came at me again.

Then the lights went out.

“Great,” I said, figuring this was part of the training, a session gone horribly wrong, but instead of getting beat up further, I could sense her pause in front of me.

A whirring sound rang out across the room and a self-illuminated robot came out of a ground silo. The faint light it emitted from the chest and eyes were the only thing that allowed us to see.

“That’s strange,” she said, her demeanor of hostility gone.

“What’s strange is you going psycho on me.”

The bot extended its legs and arms fully with a whirring of grinding gears. Once it deployed, it engaged and ambled forward toward us.

She ignored the robot, looking at me with a pained expression after registering my comment. “I’m sorry,” she said, but before she could continue her apology, the robot came right up to her.

“One moment,” she said, turning her attention to the robot. “It’s probably Moe sending us a message to–”

The robot lashed out and struck her. Despite getting caught flat-footed, Focus was fast enough to bring up her guard, blocking the blow with her left forearm. I heard the bones in her arm break under the force of the blow; she was driven to the ground, right arm cradling the left.

“Hey,” I managed, as the robot moved atop her for the coup de gras, and I kicked the thing off her. The robot flew across the room, its chest collapsed inward, sputtering from minor explosions, and crashed into the wall some twenty feet from us.

Behind me, Focus was coming to her feet, holding her broken arm gingerly. The robot was trying to rise again, but my kick had crushed its torso, and the body just folded upon itself like a man whose spine had been removed.

“You okay?” I asked her, but she winced, holding her shattered arm against her chest. “That’s a twisted sense of humor your buddy Moe has.”

Focus shook her head. “That wasn’t Moe,” she said as another two-dozen robots rose from their ground storage silos and engaged, stretching their arms and legs outward, to ready for combat.

Once they were ready, they charged us.