by Dima Zales
“Oh no,” I say sarcastically. “Poor me.”
Thalia crosses her spindly arms across her chest.
“Leave it to you to upset your brand-new sensei,” Nero says caustically. “Thalia decides when you get to go home today. I’ve suspended your work allotment as an extra reward for that punch.”
The nun looks meaningfully at Nero, then assumes the fighting position I’ve been trying to learn.
Seeing her do it makes me doubt all my progress. When Thalia does it, her stance brings to mind those female insects who like to snack on the hapless males after coitus.
The nun proceeds to execute a couple of moves with a speed that rivals Nero’s—except he’s supernaturally fast and she allegedly isn’t.
“I think she’s saying she will let you go when she likes the progress you’ve made today,” Nero says, deadpan.
Thalia nods sagely.
“There’s no way you could’ve gotten that information from what she just did,” I say. “She wrote this out for you beforehand, didn’t she?”
Looking impressed, Thalia fishes out a cell phone from her primitive-looking underwear and mimes texting.
“Clever,” I say. “But doesn’t it break the spirit of the silence vow?”
Thalia shrugs, then walks over to the corner of the room, puts down her phone, and pulls on a pair of gloves.
Uh-oh.
Those aren’t punching mitts. Is she going to hit me back?
Then again, how hard can she actually hit? She looks like a strong wind could knock her down.
“I have a plane to catch,” Nero says to us. “Have fun.”
To my surprise, I realize I don’t want him to go.
I guess I really don’t like the idea of being left alone with this strange nun.
That’s it.
No way would I miss Nero, of all people.
Thalia walks up to me and fist-bumps my gloves with hers in a ceremonial fashion.
She then takes the stance.
I do so as well.
She looks me over, shakes her head disapprovingly, and punches the air in the style I’ve been practicing all week long.
I repeat the gesture.
She shakes her head with slightly less disapproval, lifts the gloves in front of her face, then points one at my face and the other at her own.
“You want to spar for real?” I ask.
She nods and pantomimes for me to start.
I cautiously try to punch her. On the one hand, I know how fast she is, but on the other, I’m worried that if my punch lands, she’ll snap like the twig she resembles.
My worry is unnecessary. Her face is nowhere near where I hit.
She winks, then hits me in the face.
White blotches dance in front of my eyes before I collapse on the mat.
Chapter Fourteen
I come to my senses and realize I’m not in my bed. This is the mat, and I was knocked out.
By a skinny nun.
I lie there long enough that if this were a boxing match, the referee would’ve easily counted to ten.
Did Nero lie about this woman’s lack of powers?
How could someone with so little muscle tissue knock me out so easily—especially with padded gloves? What’s even more mysterious is that I don’t feel like anything in my face is broken.
It doesn’t even hurt anymore—well, except for the deep wound to my pride.
I struggle to my feet.
She pantomimes a blocking movement.
“Neither Nero nor Bentley taught me how to block,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and shows me how to block in slow motion.
I mimic her, and she executes her strike again—much slower and with less impact this time.
“Taking the punch on the block is a lot more pleasant than on my face.” I smile at her.
She winks, then strikes again.
I try to block, but her hand smashes into my forehead anyway.
I plop onto the mat again, the white blotches dancing the same jig in front of my eyes, but I don’t pass out.
Knees shaky, I struggle to my feet.
She shows me the block again, but then hits me before I can even hope to block her.
I get up. Again, surprisingly, my face doesn’t seem damaged, but I’m starting to get a headache.
I wipe my nose and narrow my eyes at the nun.
If I had an AI speaker nearby, I’d request the “Eye of the Tiger” song, because I feel as though I’ve fallen into a Rocky movie—except with martial arts invented by nuns.
Thalia proves my point by repeating the whole ordeal of knocking me down at least ten more times. Each hit is slightly different from the other—so even when I manage to put my hands in a way that would’ve blocked the previous punch, it doesn’t work.
Throughout all this, Thalia ignores my non-Rocky-like complaints about my growing headache.
On the twentieth fall, through the haze of what is now a migraine, I recall my powers and the Focusall coursing through my system.
I stand up and face her.
As she starts to wink, I attempt to go into Headspace.
Nope.
I hit the mat again and lie there for a second.
This really blows.
Even Rocky didn’t get knocked down this often.
When I get up and try reaching Headspace again, I get punched in the face one more time.
Maybe I need to even out my breathing preemptively?
Though it’s hard to do after so many hits, I slow my breathing and stand up again, facing the dreadful nun.
She starts to wink.
I reach Headspace mid-wink and just float there, enjoying the lack of headache that is a pleasant side effect of not having a head in this place.
Now that I’m here, how do I initiate a vision that will help me win this fight?
Do I think of the exercise room or my lithe torturer?
How did Nero even convince some nun from the mountains on another world to come train me? With their vows of silence and fasting, these nuns do not strike me as material girls. If not money, how did he entice her?
A set of shapes shows up, interrupting my musings.
These shapes look and smell different from the ones I used to deal with Nero, yet close enough to be their distant cousins.
When I touch the one closest to me with my ethereal wisp, I get exactly what I hoped for.
Tilting her body thirty degrees, the nun strikes me, and I start to fall.
I snap out before my back hits the mat in the vision.
My hands instinctively block the hit I just witnessed.
Her punch lands on my gloves, and she looks at me approvingly.
She pantomimes for me to hit her.
Given what she’s been doing to me, I now really want to land a punch, no matter how fragile she seems.
Correction, I hope it hurts when I hit her.
The problem is that when I try to hit her, she doesn’t even block it. She just dodges as fast as Nero did.
Well, I just have to use the same solution.
I start to hit her again and try to reach Headspace.
Sadly, Headspace eludes me, so my fist whooshes completely off the mark.
She sticks out her tongue at me, like a five-year-old.
If someone had told me I’d so desperately want to hit a nun in her stupid face, I wouldn’t have believed them.
I attempt to reach Headspace yet again as I throw another punch.
Again, nada.
I take in a deep breath. Being pissed-off isn’t very Headspace conducive.
Exhaling the breath, I focus with all my might… and end up in Headspace once more.
Repeating all my thoughts from the last time I was here, I summon nearly identical shapes without much effort.
The closest one does the trick. I see where the nun will be when I try to punch her.
As soon as the vision ends, I do to the nun what I earlier did to Nero—except my gl
ove smacks her square in her until-that-moment-smug face.
She looks stunned.
Crap.
Did I overdo it?
I hope she doesn’t need 911, and if she does, I hope—
She grins at me.
If my punch hurt her in any way, she doesn’t show it.
Are the other nuns in her order this freaking tough?
She pantomimes for me to defend myself.
I do, and get smacked like before, over and over, until I finally manage to use my powers to block her.
She then makes me hit her, which follows the same script.
This loop of blocks and hits continues for what seems like twenty of the worst hours of my life.
She ignores it when I complain about thirst, and she scoffs when I gripe about hunger.
“I have to use the bathroom,” I lie after I block her punch one more time.
She pantomimes getting hit in the face five times.
“If I hit you five times, you’ll let me pee?” I ask, not hiding my annoyance.
She shakes her head and points at the door.
“If I hit you five times, you’ll let me leave for the day?” I say with a lot more hope in my voice.
She nods.
“Okay.” I steady my breathing and reach Headspace—which lets me score my first hit.
The next three hits follow the same basic formula, but something goes awry on the fifth.
I’m unable to reach Headspace no matter how hard I try.
Oh no.
Did I use up my power already?
I do my best to hit her without using my powers.
After a hundred failures, all I accomplish is that I’m barely standing on my feet from exhaustion.
My muscles are frozen lead bricks, and the air around us seems to have turned into molasses.
Is this the hunger and thirst playing tricks, or did swinging my arms get me this tired?
Worst of all, though I lied about needing the bathroom before, my bladder feels like it might explode any second now.
My agony must show on my face because the sensei rolls her eyes and lifts her gloves tauntingly.
If she could speak, I bet she’d say, “You’re worthless. Fine. Hit me and leave.”
I tap her gently this time.
She rolls her eyes and walks off the mat. Taking off her gloves, she picks up her phone.
Her thin fingers dance as though she’s about to text someone as she walks over to me.
Smirking, she shows me the screen.
You’ll have to do better on Monday.
“I’ll do my best,” I say. Under my breath, I mutter, “I’ll also make sure to eat an extra big breakfast, drink like a camel, and probably wear adult diapers as well.”
“That’s the spirit,” she writes, her expression unchanged. “I’ll see you next week.”
I beeline for the bathroom with the gym gloves still on and learn how hard it is to take off one’s pants with such a handicap. Cursing, I pull them off, do my business, and then attack the water cooler, nearly choking on the blessedly cool liquid.
When I come back to leave the gloves, Thalia is no longer at the gym.
Not willing to test my luck, I rush to the limo.
“Hi, Kevin,” I say to my apparently capable-of-speech driver when he opens the door. “You know, it wouldn’t be very professional of you not to say hi back to me.”
“Hi, ma’am,” he deadpans, his expression as blank as a moment ago.
I don’t believe making a client feel old is professional either, but I decide we can argue that point when I’m less starved.
Leaping inside, I attack the food bar with one hand as I hold a paper towel filled with ice to my face with the other.
By the time I stumble into my apartment, the Bluefin tuna sushi I gobbled in the car reaches my belly, making me want to crawl into bed and pass out.
I check on Fluffster and the cat, then say hello to Felix using my last ounces of energy.
“Do you want Golem to carry you?” Felix offers when he sees my sorry state.
The half-finished robot in his room now resembles an old-model Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Metal carapace covers its torso, arms, and legs, but it has no head yet—which is among the many reasons I refuse Felix’s generous offer and get into bed of my own accord.
At least something good comes out of all this brutal exercise.
My sleep is blissfully dreamless—and thus Nero-free.
Chapter Fifteen
I wake up at eleven a.m. and stumble into the bathroom.
Though I feel no pain in my face, I check it for bruising.
I find none.
Did Thalia’s gloves shield me from getting marks?
No. That doesn’t help boxers.
Either the nuns developed a kind of non-damaging fighting style, or Thalia somehow took it easy on me. That’s a scary idea in itself, though. I’d hate to see what she can do if the gloves come off, both literally and metaphorically.
I’m just about done with my morning routine when someone rings the doorbell.
I tie the strap of my bathrobe and go answer it—only to find that Felix has already beaten me to it.
“Hi, dears,” Rose says to us, smiling. “I’m back, and I’m here to get Luci.”
As though waiting for that exact moment, the cat strolls into the hallway with her furry head held high.
Fluffster follows her, his shoulders down.
“Does she have to go?” he asks mentally.
“I’m afraid she does,” Rose says kindly. “She misses me like crazy.”
I look at the cat’s placid expression and back at Rose’s super-eager one, but keep my mouth shut.
For the next hour, Rose, Felix, Fluffster, and I turn into cat herders as we try to put the beast into her carrier. We manage it with no fatalities, but the casualties include a cut on Rose’s wrist and a self-inflicted bump on Felix’s forehead.
“I owe you two brunch,” Rose says to me and Felix after the monster is tamed. “And I’ll bring you the amazing walnuts I got on the trip,” she tells Fluffster.
“Deal,” Felix says. “You’ll have to also tell us about your vacation.”
Poor naïve Felix. Does he really want to hear about Rose and Vlad’s sexcapades? Because I bet that was probably the core of their vacation.
“Let’s get dressed for the trip to rehab, so we can go there right after we’re done at Rose’s,” I tell Felix as I turn to go to my room.
“I’ll need a few minutes,” Felix says to my back.
“Sure,” I say over my shoulder and enter my room.
After I dress, I use the few spare minutes Felix gave me to contemplate a magic effect I can perform for Ariel in order to cheer her up—assuming she’s conscious and is in any condition to enjoy such things today.
To really impress her, it has to be something big.
Something I’ve been saving for the TV show that will never happen now.
I scan my drawers until an almost psychic intuition draws my eyes to a pin cushion filled with sharp, shiny needles.
Bingo.
The effect in question is my twist on a classic that the likes of Houdini have performed. It’s gross and shocking—perfect for getting a great reaction from Ariel.
The only reason I was saving this for the hypothetical TV show is that the regular public (especially at my restaurant gig) wouldn’t have been as appreciative as Ariel.
I take out what I need, replace the lockpick set in my tongue with a device for this effect, and configure everything as I earlier designed it.
Deciding a quick rehearsal is in order, I walk to the mirror.
During the actual performance, I’ll have the needles examined for realness and have them counted, but for now, I just pantomime extending my hand.
Next, I open my mouth wide to show there isn’t anything there—except for an innocent-looking tongue piercing, of course. On the TV show, I was going to ask a dentist to do
this, but for Ariel, I’ll just show her under my tongue, my gum line, and the roof of my mouth.
This is the point where my friends will realize something gross might happen and squeal—Ariel in excitement and Felix in horror.
Smiling in anticipation of all the reactions, I put the first needle into my mouth like a hungry masochist.
Then I put another needle in, then another, and another, until the cushion looks like a bald porcupine.
And then comes the best part: I mime swallowing it all.
When I do this for real, I’ll act it out more, with gagging and a pained expression on my face. If I remember to get water on the way to the rehab facility, I’ll chug the needles down with that as though they were pills.
If I’m lucky, Felix will faint at that point. Ariel would get an extra kick out of seeing that.
Next, I unwrap a ball of thread, cut myself a long strand, “swallow” it, and do another set of pained expressions.
At this point of the effect, the classic route is to pull the thread out of the mouth—and reveal that all the needles have somehow threaded themselves on the thread. It never fully made sense to me what we’re asking the spectator to believe when this happens, but it looks really cool.
This is also where some newer versions deviate from the classic. For example, Criss Angel pulled the thread out of his stomach on TV.
I begin with the classic approach and pull the thread out of my mouth with the needles already attached.
When it’s out and I can speak, I’ll have my mouth examined yet again and the needles counted—which is when we’ll find one is missing for some reason.
I’ll make a shocked face and act like I’m gagging for the last time and even have blood pour out of my mouth—another chance for Felix to faint.
Eventually, I will spit out a needle and have it fly right into my index finger, piercing it in the process.
For real.
It will hurt, but the realness of the finger injury will make everything that preceded it seem all the more genuine.
If Felix doesn’t faint at that point, he will be considered officially cured of his weak stomach.
I practice spitting the last needle, but catch it in the cushion instead of my finger. I don’t want too many puncture wounds when Ariel examines my hands.