by Simon Archer
I could feel Sally’s laughter before I actually heard it. She walked over to me and crouched down so that we were face-to-face. “The medicine balls can come from either side. When you hear me slap the ball, you need to determine which side of the ball I slapped. That is the side the ball will be aiming for.” She motioned for Kennedi to return the ball to her and set up again.
I stood up and glared at her. I could have insisted we move on, as I’d directed just moments before, but once again, she had a valid fucking reason for what she was doing. Even if I didn’t agree with her methods, I knew I had to learn her lessons.
Thirteen more exercise ball impacts occurred before I started hearing her slaps correctly. An hour after that, I was at one-hundred percent accuracy with avoiding her attempts to hit me, and Sally finally stopped the drill.
“You’re doing good,” she said, walking over to me again and catching the ball Kennedi had bounced back to her.
“Thanks. What’s next?” I asked.
“Nothing for me. For you, eating lunch and putting ice on each of your shoulders for twenty minutes, and then getting back out here with Kennedi,” she paused and lowered her brows to glare at me before she continued, “Kennedi only, and practice the side-whip you learned before your last match for a couple of hours. Then rest. You can’t put down eight-to-ten-hour training days when you are only a few days out from a match. You’ll go into it weak instead of ready.”
I was nodding my head to let Sally know I would do as she said when Kennedy asked her, “Would you like to stay and have lunch with us?”
“Yes, please. You are welcome to stay. You have to eat anyway, right?” I mirrored Kennedi’s request.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to right now,” she said, which was pretty much the answer I’d expected. Regardless of how many times we asked, Sally’s answer was always ‘no.’ She always declined politely, but she declined, nonetheless.
“I’ll be back tomorrow morning. My schedule at the store has changed, so we will start at seven tomorrow morning instead of nine,” Sally let me know as she was climbing in her car to leave.
“Sure thing, Sally,” I said and then headed into the house as she drove away.
Bev must’ve seen Kennedi and I wrapping up with Sally because she had sandwiches ready for us when we came in. I took one bite of my Italian meatball hoagie and cursed the clock for not having more time to enjoy it. Instead, I had to shove it down and get back outside with Kennedi to practice side-whipping.
Kennedi and I did take just a couple minutes to hear Ellie talk about all the things she had been learning from Bev in the kitchen and how they would be baking bread next. She was so serious about her kitchen-education that it was impossible not to crack a smile listening to her.
When we’d broken away from Ellie and were back behind the barn, I asked Kennedi, “What do you think Ellie meant the other night when she said she never released information, that she only took it in?”
Kennedi was backing away from me to an appropriate distance for me to use her as target practice for my whip. I still wasn’t completely comfortable with the process, but it was unfortunately necessary, and she thought it tickled, so I went with it.
“I’m not sure why she said that. I’ve never known a CG to blatantly lie before. There’s no way she isn’t set up to deliver information of some sort, even if it’s just simple market-research-worthy data mining,” Kennedi said. “I need to spend a little more time with her to try to figure it out.”
“Is it possible she doesn’t know she has information leaving her network?” I asked.
“No. We can’t deliver data without a command to move it. There’s no way she could be downloading without being aware of it,” Kennedi assured me and then braced herself for my first strike with my whip.
25
The next morning, Kennedi woke me up at six so that I would have enough time to prep for training before Sally showed up. I was happy she did because I was able to catch some of Bev’s superb omelets hot out of the pan before Sally got there.
Sally had me start where we’d left off, with the exercise ball drill. When I avoided all of her attempts to hit me for the next thirty minutes, she nodded her head and almost grinned. It was the most approval I could hope for from her.
“What’s next?” I asked her.
“You can’t be turning sideways all the time,” she began. “Once in a while, when you hear the canon, you can turn to avoid getting hit, but it’s not optimal all the time. For example, if you have ahold of your whip and the end is around your opponent when you turn sideways, it would be too easy for him to pull you down because you can’t brace against him.”.
“What is the other option?” I asked her.
“You basically have to act like the ball hit you. Do you know how to do a front-roll?” she demanded.
“Yes,” I said.
“Show me,” Sally said. “Roll like you’ve been hit in the back of your right shoulder.”
I took a step sideways, pictured a ball hurling towards my shoulder, and right as I imagined it hitting me, I lunged forward, tucked my right shoulder underneath me, and rolled completely over and ended back on my feet. I turned back to Sally when I was done.
“How is that?” I asked.
“Surprisingly good,” she answered, sounding genuinely shocked.
“That’s high praise coming from you,” I attempted a joke with her.
“You need to know a few things, though,” Sally kept talking like I hadn’t said a word. “First, you can’t do a front roll with a whip in your hand unless you want to come out of it a tangled mess. You have to drop it.”
“Drop my whip?” I asked as though she’d just told me electricity wasn’t a thing. I almost thought she was truly crazy to suggest I drop my only weapon.
“Yes. Drop it. However…” she paused for what I assume was for her idea of dramatic effect before continuing, “you will have it in your hand again before you stand back up.”
“Oh, is that all?” I said with a sigh. “How do I do that, exactly?”
“You are going to throw your whip handle in front of the opposite shoulder, the one you are not going to roll over. The end needs to land facing away from you. When you tuck, just before you go completely over, you will have just a second, make that a millisecond, to slide your hand under the handle again and bring it through the end of the roll with you,” she said. “Let’s have you give it a try.
The move wasn’t as difficult as it had sounded at first. It was basically just putting the whip handle down facing the opposite direction, grabbing it from the other side and bringing it over my shoulder when I stood up. If it happened to be connected to my opponent, the tail of the whip would end up around my back, giving me the opportunity to lean backward and use my entire body weight to pull him off balance.
When Sally was satisfied that I could perform the move effectively, she sent me to the house to get Kennedi for some more realistic practice. Kennedi had been with Ellie, and the two of them were helping Bev make some quilts to auction off at one of the charity events she had coming up. When I got to the living room where they were working, it looked like a fabric bomb had detonated.
“I’m afraid to come any further into the room for fear of becoming a patchwork quilt myself,” I joked with the three of them. “Kennedi, I need to steal you for a few minutes.”
Kennedi looked at Bev and asked, “Are you comfortable with Ellie helping you on her own for a little while?
“Of course. She’s doing an excellent job cutting squares. These are going to be the most symmetrical quilts ever made,” Bev said with a slight chuckle.
“Thank you, Bev,” I said. “I’ll have Kennedi back to you as soon as possible.”
Kennedi and I walked back to where Sally was waiting for us behind the barn, and the two of them nodded to each other. Apparently, words were not necessary for a greeting between them. When Kennedi was set in her place where my opponent would be standing
, Sally moved behind me so she could act as the cannon that would try to take me down.
My first attempt at rolling forward and getting my whip over my shoulder to wrap around Kennedi was cut short when the ball Sally had thrown hit me on the opposite shoulder than I was expecting.
“You are like a damn toddler. Don’t forget how to crawl just because you learned how to walk for fuck’s sake,” she scolded me. “Now listen to where the ball is coming from.”
I reset myself and waited for Sally to slap the ball. This time, she barely tapped it before throwing it, and it hit me again.
I turned to her, and before I could bitch about her lack of volume, she said, “Do you think the stadium is going to go silent just so you can hear the cannon fire?” I glared at her, once again imagining wrapping my hands around her neck and showing her my level of irritation through a good, solid choking.
I reset myself once again and waited. That time I heard the soft tap. My level of focus must have been fueled by my irritation because that time, it sounded like a gun going off in my mind. It was clearly on my right side. I threw my whip out in front of me to my left and rolled over it. It was stable in my hand when I got upright again, and I brought it over my shoulder. Almost to my own surprise, I rotated my arm to the side as the tail hurled towards Kennedi, and in the blink of an eye, it wrapped around Kennedi’s legs. I reached forward with my left hand, grabbed in front of the handle, and pulled as hard as I could. Kennedi’s feet were yanked right out from under her, and she fell backward.
“Now that is what you need to do!” exclaimed Sally. “You might just have a fighting chance!”
I went to Kennedi to check on her. I still wasn’t comfortable with her playing the role of whipping boy, but as she lay on ground, she laughed.
“I take it the whip still tickles?” I asked, shaking my head. I caught myself being slightly jealous of her ability to modify pain into something funny. I leaned down to unwrap the whip from her legs and saw that both legs had deep cuts that I had to peel the tail out of.
“It really does,” Kennedi replied, still giggling.
“Again!” I heard Sally yell.
The next two hours were full of doing the same drill over and over. Sally would alternate which side she’d throw the exercise ball at, and by the time she was satisfied that I was sufficient at the skill, I felt like an expert at it. I had to hand it to her, regardless of her being the most irritating trainer I’d ever dealt with, I was sure the Platform could be a much more dangerous situation to be in without her knowledge.
After I was finished helping Kennedi get upright after the last practice run, Sally waved us back over to her.
“I have about fifteen minutes before I have to take off, so there is one more thing I want you to do,” she said as she reached forward and took my whip from me. “Kennedi, will you please grab the tarp I saw at the front of the barn and bring it here?”
Kennedi disappeared around the barn and returned a moment later carrying a rolled-up blue tarp.
“Spread it out here where it is flat.” Sally motioned to the area in front of her. Kennedi made quick work of laying it out. When the tarp was in place, I watched as Sally laid my whip down on it in a ‘U’ configuration.
“The sides of your whip are apart from each other about the same distance as the Platform is wide,” she said. “I want you to take your boots off and stand on top of them, one foot on each side,” Sally directed.
I took my boots off and placed my right foot on top of my whip. It immediately rolled out from under my foot. Of course, I had no idea why I was trying this balancing act, but I knew asking would be pointless. It was time to trust the process.
“Turn your ankle in slightly to keep it from rolling,” Sally instructed, demonstrating with her own ankle.
I did as I was told, and the whip stayed in place. I had to hop a little with my left foot to get it on top of the other side of my whip. Once I was balanced, Sally motioned Kennedi to stand on the opposite side of the tarp from her.
“Kennedi, we are both going to grab the tarp and pull back and forth against each other. It’ll be a small movement, but I want it to be fast. You’ll have to dial back the strength a little, though, so I can counter your movements,” Sally told her.
Kennedi took her place opposite Sally, and they both squatted down and took hold of the tarp. Sally nodded at Kennedi, and instantly, they started rapidly pulling the tarp back and forth. The material itself was only moving about a half-inch in either direction, but it only took about four tugs from each of them before my whip rolled out from under my feet. They stopped long enough for me to get back on and started moving the tarp again. This time I was able to stay on for ten pulls.
After I fell off the second time, Sally dropped her side of the tarp, stood up, and said, “I want you to get Ellie out here and do this daily until your next match.”
“Just to be clear, my goal is to stay standing, with my legs four feet apart, and not fall off my whip, correct?” I clarified.
“Yeah. You can avoid some Platform dangers, like the medicine balls, but it’s difficult to avoid all of them,” Sally replied, pointing at the ground by my feet. “This is what you’ll do when the Platform starts vibrating. It’ll take a lot longer to sand through your whip than it will to sand through your bare feet.” With that, she started heading for her car.
I jogged to catch up with her and tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around, I said, “Thank you, Sally. Half the time, I have no idea why the hell you are having me do some of this stuff, but it always turns out to be priceless information. I appreciate your willingness to share it with me.”
Sally looked at me and gave me a half-grin. “Just don’t fucking toddler-it-up when you get out there,” was all she said. She climbed in her car and was gone thirty seconds later.
After Sally’s car was no longer visible, Kennedi and I headed back into the house where Ellie and Bev were still posted up in the living room, making quilts. Bev looked up as we entered and smiled.
“Turns out Ellie can hand-stitch faster than my sewing machine can sew!” she said excitedly.
“The repetition is calming,” Ellie said without looking up from her current project.
Kennedi turned to head towards the kitchen. On her way out of the room, she paused long enough to ask, “Bev, are you hungry? I am going to make Clark something to eat since he missed lunch and would love to make you something if you’d like.”
“No dear, thank you. I’m on a roll here. Don’t want to break the momentum,” she said to Kennedi.
I followed Kennedi to the kitchen and sat at the island while she busied herself with making me a sandwich. Once she set it in front of me, she sat across from me and took a few minutes to lick some of her wounds. I ate in silence while I watched her.
“Are you going to be good to do the tarp drill again after a bit?” I asked her.
She stopped licking long enough to look up and say, “I’m good to do it now.”
“I don’t want to take Ellie away from Bev, though,” I told her.
“They only have two quilts left from the looks of it. That will give you time enough to eat and rest for a little bit before going at it again,” Kennedi told me.
I went back to eating and watching Kennedi. She made something as simple as licking herself look graceful. About the time I finished, she was done with her self-maintenance, and we both returned to the living room. I found the empty lounger and plopped down in it. I hadn’t realized how worn out I was from the drills Sally had me doing. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
I’ll just rest my eyes for a few minutes, I thought.
26
Kennedi
I sat cross-legged on the floor next to Ellie and watched as Clark leaned his head back in his lounger and closed his eyes. I quickly calculated the number of calories he had burned off in training and noted the rate his muscles would’ve lost minerals and nutrients. By my numbers, the rate of uptake o
f the vitamins and minerals in the food he’d just eaten and a twenty-minute nap would restore him to optimal physical condition. I set my internal timer to wake him in twenty minutes and turned my attention to Ellie.
I was proud of Ellie’s integration so far. It is hard enough to integrate fully to our initial surroundings once we are activated, but she hadn’t been able to go through the normal updating process to help her with it. That was a feeling I was all too familiar with. After I’d been activated for the first time, I couldn’t update at all. My Omnicorp designer had plugged me back in and downloaded the first two updates, reprogrammed me, and activated me a second time. I kept the information but was still unable to receive further updates via wifi. That is when they decided to send me to be recycled.
Ellie was doing well, though. The speed of her learning capabilities surpassed my own as she was a newer model, but her AI hadn’t become fully automated yet. She was still searching for appropriate emotional responses, although she was doing it much faster now. I watched as she stitched the quilt squares together at an amazing pace. I could almost bet that she was calmed by the activity because she didn’t have to perform searches continually while doing it. I saw that she was running low on thread, so I grabbed a new spool out of a nearby basket and handed it to her.
Ellie reached out and took the spool from me as a smile grew across her face. She’d told me several times how grateful she was for my help, and her smile reflected that now as well. While she got to work replacing her almost-bare spindle, I started tidying up the squares of material scattered about the area around me, taking notice of all the different colors and patterns on them. I was examining a particularly beautiful piece when I heard Bev draw in a sharp breath.
“Kennedi, you might want to check that out,” she said. I looked up and saw she was pointing in Ellie’s direction. I turned my head to look.
Ellie was sitting perfectly still with her hands mid-way through re-spooling her thread. Her eyes looked blank. She had no expression on her face, and it didn’t appear she was even breathing. Although I knew she didn’t need oxygen, we are programmed to mimic human breathing. It is a program that constantly runs in the background that we aren’t actively aware of. Hers seemed to have shut down.