CHAPTER 49.
“God above—wherever ‘above’ is out here,” A.J. moaned theatrically. “I ache all over.” He glared, not terribly seriously, at Petra Masters. “You enjoy our suffering, don’t you?”
Dr. Masters smiled thinly. “If so, Mr. Baker, I must also be a masochist. One point two gravities is a bit much, but we spent far too long in microgravity. Now most of us can stay in higher gravity for significant periods, and after only two and a half weeks I am already seeing a noticeable improvement in bone density.” She pointed. “Are you going to get in on this tournament, or not?”
A.J. tagged in and the 3-D display shimmered to show the Ryu-Chi Warriors tournament matches.
Helen looked on in bemusement. “A.J. and Joe I knew about, and I suppose Mia and Brett aren’t a great surprise but I must confess I didn’t expect you two to be…into these sorts of games.”
Petra Masters raised an eyebrow as A.J. chuckled. “Do you mean that an English doctor can’t enjoy breaking a few virtual bones? I assure you, there are a few patients that make it a quite cathartic release.”
“And I realize it may seem beneath my dignity,” Hohenheim said, “but such games were, I must confess, a staple of my youth. When I wasn’t outdoors doing something more active, that is.” He glanced over. “Ah. I see it is you first, Mia.”
“At least I get a chance to cause you some virtual pain with some virtual gravity,” A.J. said to Petra.
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Mr. Baker. You have yet to reach the finals, which is where we shall meet.”
A.J. tried not to snort too loudly. “I seem to recall you were the one insisting we set the difficulty level at ‘novice,’” he pointed out. Looking up at Madeline, who seemed satisfied to observe on the sidelines, he went on, “Now, if it was our Supergirl, I’d concede.”
Maddie shook her head. “Oh, no, I think you’d probably beat me. That’s a pretty specialized kind of game, and I’ve only played them a couple of times.”
Privately, A.J. suspected she only played “a couple of times” because that’s all it took for her to master them. Instead, however, he said, “Have you gotten any info back from Nick since we left?”
“Just a little while ago, in fact. He said to let everyone know that the proper reception is arranged and we’re to dock at Meru.”
A.J. couldn’t keep a rather sharklike grin from his face, and he saw it echoed on several of the others. “Proper reception arranged” meant that they were ready to move against Osterhoudt and his immediate allies, and that the press conference had been arranged according to specifications. “Eeeexcellent,” he said, steepling his fingers.
The virtual ring echoed to shouts and grunts as Mia, playing the hulking powerhouse Vargas, tried to land a solid punch on her opponent; the computer, being somewhat clever even in novice mode, had put her up against Calamet, a combat dancer who used speed and stealth moves. Finally, though, Mia figured out that broad sweep attacks could brush Calamet’s defenses aside and put him off-balance momentarily, which allowed Vargas to hammer his opponent. “Nice!” he said approvingly. Mia clearly hadn’t played these games very often, but she’d approached the problem like an engineer, and taken her opponent apart.
“So, Doc Petra,” he said, “what about the drugs? Did you get results on them? I know you were testing us with light doses.”
“Good preliminary ones, A.J.; I believe that is partly why we are seeing good progress now. The side effects—though we obviously have a very limited group here—seem relatively minor, except for Dan who had an obvious sensitivity, possibly actual allergic reaction and who has thus not been taking them. It does appear his progress is significantly slower than the rest of you. Because of that, by the way,” she looked to both Hohenheim and Madeline, “I wish to have Mr. Ritter permanently assigned to one of the acceleration cabins. This is the only way I can think of to hopefully get him to match us; since we all have to—pardon the pun—rotate in and out of the cabins, and he will not, this will give him a significantly longer time in high-gravity.”
Hohenheim shrugged. “I see no reason why not, as long as the constant exposure will do him no harm—and as you are the medical officer, that is of course your judgment to make.” A.J. saw Maddie give an assenting nod as well.
At that point Joe’s fighter, the reptilian Orochi, was kicked violently out of the ring. “Ouch! Too bad, Joe. I guess you’ll have to wait for the next round.”
“Or maybe Maddie and I will just head out for a walk by ourselves,” Joe said with an easy grin. Maddie took his hand as he floated over to her. “Well, after the first round is over, anyway,” he corrected himself. “I want to see if YOU make it past the first.”
“Well, well,” A.J. said, ignoring his friend’s feeble barb, “it’s your first round, Doc Masters. Good luck.”
Masters fumbled slightly with the control gestures, but Shun Hashimura, the bishonen martial artist she’d chosen, walked onto the ring with only minimal clumsiness. “Oh, blast,” she said. “I’m up against Ruyken. He’s such a bastard.”
A.J. knew she wasn’t just referring to his personality—though the game backstory certainly made the word fit. He was also one of the best fighters in the game and getting him in your first round was…unlucky.
The two squared off against each other and the refereeing master raised an arm, then let it drop.
Shun Hashimura spun low, long black hair whipping out, twining around Ryuken’s legs before he’d so much as taken half a step; the long-haired boy then did a handspring-kick to Ryuken’s face, landed on his feet and whipped his head about, yanking the hapless virtual warrior around and hurling him so high into the air he disappeared in a twinkle of light. “Perfection in Beauty,” the judge said, with a bow to the assembled watchers. “Victory, Shun Hashimura.”
A.J. slowly transferred his gaze to Petra, whose smile was failing to hide her self-satisfaction. “’Tis true, Mr. Baker, that I insisted on the novice setting,” she said, and her voice was almost a purr, “but I don’t recall in the least that I said it was for me.”
He burst out laughing. “Okay, fine, you had me fooled. Good! See you in the finals—if Brett or the General don’t beat us there.”
“Unlike the good doctor,” Hohenheim said, “I am quite rusty. But I will try to put up a good fight.”
It was Hohenheim’s turn next. A.J. leaned back. “Good thing I didn’t decide to actually go for a bet. I would’ve bet you wouldn’t get past the first match. OUCH.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I’m glad you’ve got good data.”
“Excellent data, and I’ve already written most of two papers I’ll be wanting to present. How about you—Oh, good one, General!”
“Oh, he’ll be feeling that in the morning,” A.J. agreed, watching Onikami trying to drag itself to its feet before the General’s Tankero closed the distance. “Me? Well, I’m not the research and publish type, but I’ve been working with Helen to help put together some of her reports. Joe, too.”
Now it was her turn to look at him with a raised eyebrow. “For a man who isn’t the publication type, you have quite a large set of publications. Two hundred, last I looked.”
He shrugged, a bit embarrassed. “Eh. Yeah, my name is on that many, but in a lot of them I’m just giving people better eyes, I didn’t do a significant bit of the real work.”
“You’re up, A.J.,” Helen said, nudging him.
“Are you reminding me because you want to see me humiliated?”
She laughed and gave him a quick kiss, which was of course what he’d hoped for. “No, not really. I’m glad just to see how we can all just relax for the most part now.”
“Same here,” A.J. said. Okay, Zellie Tenjou, let’s show ’em what you’ve got.
“Yep, I told you,” Joe said as the tiny girl in her pink and powder-blue stepped into the ring, “he always picks the harmless looking cute ones.” He looked pointedly at Zellie’s short skirt. “The ones that kick REALLY high.”
A.J. felt his face go red. “Shut up and don’t distract me, Joe!”
“You’re right, sorry,” Joe said contritely. A pause. “After all, you’ve got all the distraction you need right there.”