by J E Kerry
Wang leaves Hai Jun behind and continues his climb under the bursting midday sun, clawing his way up the cliff-face, his skin burned, peeling off the back. The muscles contort under Wang’s exposed arms to drive him upward almost unnaturally. His callused fingers hold firmly to every lose piece of rock as he moves faster without any rope but realizes he is one mistake away from falling to his death.
Wang continues, the goal to get to the peak is all he thinks about, envisioning the mountain top as he moves upwards, his sweaty body glistening due to the sun rays. He knows there’s no room for failure. He is already a human killing machine, contemplating about that all the hate, loss and anger need an outlet and this is the only place fitting for that pent-up anger.
As Wang is reminiscing, he sees a human hand thrust out to help him. It’s Sniper, offering his hand to pull Wang up. He takes it without hesitation. The rest of the recruits are arriving at the top, shocked to see Wang and Sniper discussing like old buddies and appearing as if they’ve just had an easy hike instead of a deadly climb.
Sniper announces a 10 minutes break before everyone starts the long hike down.
The next day starts with a bang, the recruits are going to be put through another nightmare of tests.
An obstacle course runs through a thick mess of trees. There is little recourse for touching the ground or a flat surface. The Activity Parkour is made up primarily of netting, and small rounded platforms not unlike tree branches and with hand-raised bumps to allow for better climbing, cut into the surrounding trees.
At the beginning of a heavy rain fall, heralded by dark clouds and intimidating thunderbolts composing over their heads, Jodie swings on the dangerous ‘Jump Way’, a series of precariously balanced footholds to allow movement from one platform to the other, almost losing balance. Philipe moves wobbling on the ‘Islands’ which consist of several small platforms hanging on four ropes; singing the French version of ‘Drunken Sailor’ and cursing in fear.
"Qu'est-cequ'on fait avec un marinivre; qu'est-cequ'on fait avec un marinivre,” Philipe sings, “qu'est-cequ'on fait avec un marinivre; trèstôt le matin".
Suddenly, a forked lightning hits one of the trees dangerously close to the team, letting Philipe speed like a bat out of hell to the end of his obstacle.
“Punaise!!!!” (holy shoot) Philipe shouts on his way.
Wang on the other hand remains calm and is not the slightest impressed by the storm’s intimidating entrance. Instead, he elegantly makes his way on the ‘Swinging Walk’ and moves forward by passing swinging ‘Round Timbers’, managing all parkour hurdles easily.
The recruits are divided into teams of three, Jodie, Philipe and Wang all form one team. Team names are given according to numbers.
“For the next drill, only teammates will be able to participate at once”, announces Sniper. Jodie, Wang and Philipe are called upon to start the drill. They are supposed to scale 3-meter-high in the space of five minutes and in the midst of a very heavy storm with hailstones.
Wang, Philipe and Jodie sprint simultaneously, and without any protection, to their destination, fighting off the persistent dirt hitting their eyes.
Wang does a precise run up on the wall and turns around, noticing Philipe and Jodie struggling. He had run up higher walls as part of his training when he was just 15, for some of them, he had even carried a bag of stones on his back. Therefore, scaling this 3-meter wall feels like a piece of cake to him.
But Philippe and Jodie had received light training while they were growing up, it is obvious when you touch Philipe’s hand as it is not fully calloused. Jodie has some training in shooting but her perfect body shows no single scar on it like she was made from milk..
Her supple flesh is quite distracting to Wang most times, but he always gets the desires of the flesh under control, Philipe on the other hand is hopeless in that respect.
“You will exercise your self-confidence and the principles of honesty, respect, humility and sacrifice,” Sniper’s words bring back Wang’s mind on what teamwork means and how to use it during this drill.
He reaches his hand out to Philipe, who accepts it, and is pulled up. They turn around to see Jodie far behind and struggling to keep her hold on the wall. The duo looks at each other and they immediately decide to go down and help their teammate. Wang is the stronger of both men, so he steps down first. Philipe stays up to hold Jodie when Wang brings her up. Jodie loses her grip and begins to slide down the wall.
“Come on, Jodie!” Wang cheers to her. “You can do it!”
Embarrassed, but hardened by determination, Jodie retreats several steps and attempts another run up the wall. “Allez hop!” (let’s go) Philipe says.
Jodie finally succeeds and is given a hand by her teammates while the wind keeps beating against their bodies, raindrops hitting their faces like bullets from a rapid-fire machine gun. They finally scale the fence as a team, the only team to still do it in the set time of five minutes. In this moment of joy and relief, Jodie reaches out and pulls Philipe into her arms, squeezing him against her large bosom. He almost melts from excitement.
Sniper looks at the schedule, he notices that they have finished the week’s routine in five days and decides to give them two days to rest and heal their wounds. They would get into more intense trainings by next week and he needs them to be at full power or at least close to that.
The second week leads Wang to an underground training hall, filled with recruits competing in boxing rings.
“The second week,” Wang recalls General Ma’s words in his mind, “your self-defense will be tested.”
Wang is in the ring with a soldier as tall as a Norse giant, who towers over him. He had overheard him say his name to someone in the past week, he calls himself Bjorn.
Bjorn, the Norse giant is over 7 feet tall with a thick tuft of blonde hair. The ring is mostly holographic, brightly lighted with neon bulbs. The lights change patterns after a while. This is part of the training for the recruits as it subconsciously teaches them to avoid distractions and adjust to different surroundings even in the midst of battle.
The ring is protected with electromagnetic bumpers which prevent fighters from falling to their deaths even after being kicked out of the ring. The bumpers can be deactivated at the press of a button.
Bjorn arrogantly directs Wang on the basic steps of kickboxing, but Wang feigns ignorance and listens like an attentive pupil. The soldier tackles Wang and attempts to pin him to the ground.
Wang sees the move, just as he had predicted, and watches Bjorn’s abnormally long arms reach for his shoulders, keeping his cool. He knows he has to learn his opponent’s blind spot before he is dealt a serious blow. Someone like Bjorn would definitely pack a good punch and would have no skills in his lower body region.
Wang’s strategy of playing weak proves to be successful as he lets Bjorn pin him to the ground once again. Bjorn starts smiling, assuming Wang to be done for, and lets his guard down.
“In the ring, your Da, striking,” General Ma echoes again. “Ti, kicking, Shuai, throwing and Na, seizing will show us the sense of space and range, the ability to see openings, reaction time and strategy.”
Wang notices that when Bjorn attacks, he leaves his side open with a full swing punch. Every time Wang already calculates the distance between his arm and Bjorn’s side and how long it will take him hit it twice there. He eventually sees an opening as Bjorn’s punches have become weaker and slower and continues to sidestep his punches without launching a counter.
When Wang satisfies himself with annoying his opponent, he takes a step forward and catches Bjorn’s punch mid swing and bends his arm behind his back, immediately dislocating his shoulder. Bjorn exposes his other side due to reflex, Wang sees it, narrows his eyes and launches his fist in that direction, and without making physical contact, sends a blast of Qi from his closed fist; powerful enough to knock his opponent backward, letting him fly out of the ring.
The basement goes silent, the re
cruits had been told that they have to untap Qi energy, but none of them has been able to summon it except Wang who just did it and didn’t just only do it. He did with so much precision that it was obvious that this isn’t his first rodeo.
After several days of hand-to-hand combat, they are moved to the endurance courses where many recruits drop out of the program due to a lack of commitment.
Wang, Philipe and Jodie crawl 20 meters over broiling fist-sized stones, sharp coral and gravel. Their hands are tied behind the backs and their skin bleeds beneath the thin fabric. With every move, their body leaves a trace of blood on the stones. The gravel tore into their flesh as they advance. Every wriggle is accompanied with muffled screams and grunts. Even Wang whose body had hardened from years of intensive training still feels his skin tearing from contact with the sharp stones. The helplessness of the situation due to their hands tied behind their backs makes it even worse. This is what builds endurance in a soldier, the ability to keep going even when all the odds are stacked against you.
The teams are moved to the forest once again where they are repeatedly punching trees and jagged tin cans until their hands bleed and ooze pus. Wounds gotten from previous trainings are opening up as each recruit keeps punching their designated objects.
Sniper is once again in charge of this training. Even though he is called Sniper because of his long-range skills, he is also a skilled hand to hand combatant just like every other soldier in the Special Forces.
Every recruit who wants to give up is allowed to tap out by ringing the ancient SFB bell in the large courtyard and during this training, Jodie watches as all her friends from other teams approach and queue up to ring the ancient metal.
Sniper notices that his recruits are getting distracted and he directs their focus to a pile of salt. Philipe looks at Sniper, wishing the bags of salt were a prank. But after all he had seen since he signed up to be Special Forces, he knows the bags of salt are only the beginning of another nightmare about to unfold.
Sniper orders the remaining recruits to keep punching until they beat all the salt out of the bag. They face the bags with fresh anger, most of them seeing Sniper’s face in the bag and they finish the exercise by punching it all, cringing through the agony.
In a last drill for the day, Sniper leads his team to a lake near the forest and hands everyone in the row a futuristic 100ml bottle of Baijiu, Chinese rice wine, a highly nutritious beverage that contains an abundance of essential amino acids, sugars and organic acids, as well as vitamins and minerals. The strong alcohol does not only help to forget about their wounds and stimulate their immune system, but it also prevents them from fatigue.
He downs the entire 56% of pure alcohol, shakes off the aftertaste and then looks at the soldiers, expectantly.
Wang consumes his own bottle, but Philipe, Jodie and the others struggle with a single sip, gagging.
“Nom De Dieu!” (bloody hell) Philipe says, the alcohol reaching his nose. “That’s some kickin’ hooch.”
Drunk and unwell, the soldiers are pushed to continue their drill with an eighteen-mile swim in the cold lake. Wang, Philipe and Jodie make it back to the lakeside, dry heaving. Some of the others fail to complete the task and are left behind. Things seem giddy until they start looking for Hai Jun. No one saw him get out of the water, “Did he even enter at all?”, the recruits ask themselves.
Wang does not waste any time; he quickly dives into the dark water with no source of light. After three minutes, he breaks to the surface for air; he still has not found Hai Jun and dives back into the water. Another three minutes later, he reappears on the surface, dragging Hai Jun to the waterfront. After he regains consciousness, Wang warns him “Next time you’re on your own!”.
Drenched from the swim and still a little tipsy, the team continues with a shooting practice. Many soldiers struggle to aim and fire their laser rifles, with one accidentally firing into the air and falling over in the process.
Wang inspects the foreign weapon. It’s clear he has never held a rifle before and needs some help. He looks over to his friend who sings again like a drunken sailor and yet manages to find focus, hitting the target.
“Bulls-eye!” Philipe applauds himself.
He does a rather embarrassing old-school hip-hop humpty dance with his weapon to impress a puking Jodie, wiggling his tail and knees, as Sniper suddenly appears behind him, prompting his recruit with an intimidating look on his face to tiptoe straight back to the line.
Wang tries to shoot at the target, but he misses by a far mark.
Hai Jun breaks into a wild cackle. “The dragon has finally met his weakness, guns.”
All the other recruits burst into laughter. None of them has ever seen Wang being hopeless at something. It is good to know that he is still human.
Philipe steps forward and shows his poor friend the right stance. Wang stands ready and he looks like a turkey trying to intimidate its owner into not killing it.
Philipe shows Wang the stance again, this time Wang gets it, the alcohol level slowly balances, and he is no longer seeing in 2s.
The next day, on top of a snowy mountain, stripped down to their pants, the team undertakes a variety of exercises in the snow, such as sit-ups and push-ups on one hand.
“You will prove your physical and mental condition through strength, endurance and flexibility,” General Ma’s voice howls through the snow as Wang tries to fight the cold and his mind begins to collect and focus his Qi.
Things escalate from hard to brutal as some of the team members collapse into the snow, suffering from frostbite. Wang and Philipe watch them shiver while Jodie struggles with a serious issue in her back and shows signs she might faint, fluttering her eyelids, looking slowly about herself. But instead of giving up and letting her teammates down, she dizzily goes on with the drill, pushing through the terebrant pain radiating from her blade-bones.
Returning to warmer temperatures, the team undergoes a drown-proofing in the SFB indoor pool.
Wang’s hands are fastened with high-end automated cuffs behind him, and his eyes are tightly blindfolded with a simple black fabric. Taking a deep breath, he dives into the pool and allows himself to sink down to the ground. In time, his bracelet switches from red to green, vibrating, and he pushes himself up again, back to the surface with a gasp.
Jodie remains under water with kicking legs, struggling to swim, as the surface suddenly freezes up, and she is unable to get out of the pool. The team must watch her helplessly from the top as she fights for her life, banging her head against the thick layer of ice. A moment passes, and Sniper receives the signal on his HGP that Jodie’s heart rate has stopped.
Complete bewilderment is written on the faces of her teammates. Especially Philipe seems to be speechless, tears in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Sniper checks a countdown on his HWB. As it turns 00:00, the heating system of the pool unfreezes the water. He immediately jumps into the pool and uses a special CPR device, the size of a coin, placing it on Jodie’s skin, right where her heart is located, so a second later, it can bring the flatlining soldier back to life.
Sniper instantly pulls the still blindfolded and shackled Jodie up to the surface and deactivates her cuffs, at which point she quickly turns the game’s tides and fights back, contorting herself around the surprised Sniper and snatching him into a rear naked choke from behind.
“We'll then evaluate your determination under stress and adrenaline rush,” Wang recalls General Ma’s words while watching how Jodie kicks at Sniper, trying to knock him out. With a twist of his own, he wriggles out of her grip and tears off her blindfold. She opens her eyes, shocked to see her team leader, and swims back to the surface as two pairs of strong hands grab Jodie by both her upper hands and haul her dripping body out of the water.
“What happened?” Wang asks, curious.
“I panicked,” Jodie says, her cheeks blushing as she looks over to Sniper who throws a satisfied look at her, smiling. “Are you still in any pa
in?” Philipe wants to know, serious concern showing on his face and she denies blatantly.
Another day has started, and the soldiers are joined by cyborgs, running their drills on a rock-field within the forest.
“The other half of the week, strength against strength will be tested,” Wang recollects General Ma’s instructions as he circles around his cyborg, trying to figure out where he could attack first. “Your reaction to go from being passive into becoming the aggressor will set the outcome of confrontation with your enemy,” he continues.
Underestimating his opponent’s speed, Wang is hit and goes down bleeding. He pulls himself up and focuses his entire Qi on the vulnerability of this biomechatronically enhanced opponent. Wang then clears his mind with General Ma’s last sentences ringing in the air and targets the cyborg’s soft spots by analyzing via his special Taoist senses which body parts would suffer most from an attack.
The same way he took out Bjorn the giant is the way he is going to take on the cyborg, only that this time he has to attack to actually find a blind spot. The cyborg delivers a heavy right hook on Wang’s jaw and Wang spits out blood. “The battle line has been drawn”, he tells himself. “It’s time to deal with this annoying cyborg once and for all.”
“Counterattacking, targeting attacks, and the awareness of your surroundings while fighting, will dominate your survival.”
The cyborg charges at Wang, his fist locked for a punch. He retreats into a sprint up a nearby tree and performs a backflip, landing on the shoulders of the cyborg.
Wang seizes his Qi once more and punches the connection points in between the blade-bones in rapid succession. Slipping down the cyborg’s back to repeat the action on its legs with the same expediency, the opponent is brought to its knees and knocked out in a matter of seconds. A once active terror for Wang is reduced to a head of metal and bones, another reason why the other cyborgs keep their distance from him in the first place.