He began to lean away from the binoculars, halted, then rotated them in the other direction, slowing and adjusting the focus as the roof-topping lip of the Herakles stadium slid sideways into view…
MENTOR
As she sprinted out of view to the right, Downing noted the way Opal pumped her arms from the shoulders, and he thought, she runs like a man.
He advanced until he could see the entirety of the track, but remained in the shadows of the entry. As she crossed what would normally be the finish line, she picked up the pace to a near sprint: the last lap, probably.
She heals quickly. Tans nicely too; gold-bronze, despite the fair skin and light brown hair. Feet and hands so small that you could almost call them dainty. Torso proportionally long and flowing: shapely but lean.
But her shoulders and her pelvis were square and strong, her legs well-muscled, and she moved with a slight, forward-leaning tension: she was a spring coiled in readiness. It would be easy to miss those hints of an incongruous, even unexpected strength. Her dossier indicated that more than one adversary had underestimated her-either on a battlefield or in a briefing room-and she had been quick to capitalize on those mistakes. Good: that was part of what made her perfect for this assignment.
If only she embraced it. That, so far, had been the sticking point.
As Opal entered the last turn, her sandy bangs were wet at the fringes, her chin tucked down. Still pumping her arms, she leaned into the turn until she emerged onto the straight again, huffing through the last few meters and over her self-imposed finish line. Downing emerged from the archway-
But she had already turned around. “Do you approve of my training, Mr. Downing?”
He had watched her eyes as she ran; she had never looked over in his direction. Impressive peripheral vision. “Captain, I’m sorry if I surprised you-”
“You didn’t.” She was walking toward a towel hung over the spectator railing. “I’ve come to expect your scrutiny. Tell me: do you enjoy watching women exercise?”
“Captain-”
Rubbing her hair briskly, she laughed through the towel. “You fluster pretty easily. Must make it easy for your wife to keep you in line.”
He didn’t like her insolence; he liked the stinging accuracy of her insight even less. “I assume you’re finished with today’s PT.”
“Yep. About twenty minutes ago. Just putting in a little extra work: I need it. And I’ve got nothing better to do, since you won’t give me any reading materials.”
“That changes today.”
“So you’ve said.”
“It’s true.”
“That’ll be a first.”
Downing felt a thin line of heat along his brow. “I have not told you one lie about this assignment. Not one.”
“Okay. You haven’t lied about this assignment. But you’ve evaded. Declined to comment. Makes me feel real welcome here in the fabulous future.”
“I’m sorry its been such a-a disappointing beginning for you, Captain.”
“Yeah, I’m sure your heart is just bleeding for me.” She stopped adjusting her shoes, turned quickly. “I apologize: that was uncalled for.”
“No need for regrets, Captain. May I call you Opal?”
She thought for a second, looking off into the green scrub hills to the north. “No, I don’t think so. Not yet. Maybe never. We’ll have to see.”
“About what?”
She looked directly at him. “About whether you turn out to be someone I can trust. Downing, I might one day come to tolerate, even like you, but I’ll never like what you do. Oh, I know it’s necessary: I’m no idiot. There’s no way to get rid of the need for covert agencies and operatives: I’ve seen enough bad shit to know that well enough. And you might even be one of the good guys, the way you say you are. But you lie for a living. And now you want-you’re ordering-me to do the same.”
“I’m sorry you see it that way. You may find that it’s something you’d want to do anyway.”
“Yes, but I’m not free to find that out for myself.”
“True. You were also not free to choose which of your combat assignments you felt were justified and which weren’t.”
“Look: I volunteered to serve my country as a combat soldier, not a courtesan.”
“But it seemed as though you liked Caine-”
“So you tell me, but now I can’t even remember him. That whole first week is pretty much gone.”
“I’m not surprised. Emergency wake-ups are very hard on the nervous system, on brain chemistries. You can lose a lot-”
“Or it can be taken from me, as well.”
Oh, bloody hell. “I beg your pardon?”
Her eyes were an unblinking challenge. “I mean, if the wake-up memories are fragile, it must be particularly easy to erase them-if you wanted to. Maybe with drugs, or maybe that’s why I seem to recall shock therapy-”
She’s right: I lie for a living. Lie number one: “There were no drugs.” Lie number two: “As for electroconvulsive therapy, you might be misremembering cardiac stimulation: your heart stopped twice during the first surgery.”
She had not stopped looking at him. “Could be. But I seem to recall something a lot less benign than a few zaps with the paddles.” She broke the accusing stare, picked up her gym bag: “Anyway, I’ll never know if you’re telling me the truth or not, so I might as well let it go-but that’s the problem, isn’t it, Mr. Downing? I never know if you’re telling me the truth.”
He couldn’t bring himself to contradict her: that would be just one more lie. “You can be sure of this: today you’re free.”
“Free to do what? To become a commando-courtesan for a man I don’t even know? You’ve got a mighty strange definition of ‘freedom,’ Mr. Downing.”
“Captain, you’re not a civilian-and nor am I. For us, freedom isn’t a blank check: it’s a limited, occasional luxury-that we buy for millions of others at the expense of our own.”
She looked up: he hadn’t realized that the tone of his voice had become so sharp. Then she nodded: “Okay, you’re a true believer. I wasn’t sure until right now, when you got pissed off at me. Took two weeks to find out, but better late than never.” She rose, walked over to him, put her hands on her hips and looked up into his face from only a foot away. “Nothing else could make what you do excusable. I still don’t like you; I still don’t trust you. But I can accept a person who feels he is performing a necessary duty.” She extended her hand.
Downing looked at it, smiled, was grateful, but also thought: I should find out how good she is.
He extended his hand toward hers, but at the last possible moment, reached past it and grabbed her wrist-
— but she had seen, or felt, it coming. She let him pull her in-he had the advantage of height and weight-but stepped outside and past him. With surprising-fearsome-speed, she had her right leg snugged behind his right knee. He felt her trapped hand recoil sharply, tugging him toward a forward fall-but the instant that he leaned back to pull away, her left hand came up, grabbed a fistful of his right shoulder and shirt, and added a sharp push to his backward reflex.
Flat on his back, Downing looked up at her. “Textbook,” he grunted. “Well done.”
“Wish I could say the same for you, Scarecrow. That was pretty predictable.”
He rose to his spare elbows. “Just a basic check; sometimes, after extended time in cryosleep, reflexes go along with short-term memories.”
“Not in my case. Here.” She extended a hand to help him up.
He smiled crookedly, reached across with his own right hand-and again, snapped it down sharply on her wrist.
But she rolled her wrist around and out of his grab, even as she once again allowed herself to be pulled forward by him, this time into a trajectory that carried her across his body. But as her right wrist finished rotating, the outer edge of her hand came up around his own wrist, clasped hard. She landed on the far side of his body, breaking her fall with her right knee, and using her left hand to secure a double grip on his wrist. She tugged towards herself sharply with both hands. Downing felt his elbow snap straight and then strain uncomfortably: his upper arm was tucked unyielding against her right tibia. Four or five more foot-pounds of backward pressure on his forearm from the combined pull of her arms and his elbow would snap.