“Hey, wake up,” Tamara said, shaking Jonna’s arm.
Jonna blinked her eyes open, stretched her arms, and let out a loud burp.
“Come on, let’s go home,” Tamara said, pulling her roomie up out of her seat.
Jonna looked to a table where the men who’d bought that first pitcher were still sitting.
“You go. I’ll meet you there.”
“What? Come on, we can split a cab.”
“I think I can get someone to get me a cab,” she said as she started to the men’s table. “You should join me.”
Tamara suddenly realized what Jonna meant, and she was shocked. And envious. A huge part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind, to join Jonna in seeking what would soon be impossible. But fear kept her back. It was only partly fear of the unknown—the biggest part was that she’d heard about drunken one-night stands, and the stories were usually how lousy they were. Tamara was drunk, shy, and inexperienced, and she didn’t know any of those men whose eyes were fairly exploding with excitement as Jonna tried to saunter over, only stumbling twice—not that the men seemed to care that Jonna was three sheets to the wind.
It might seem foolish to anyone else, but Tamara had certain ideas on what it would be like, and this wasn’t it. She feared her one and only experience would be something far less than enjoyable, much less ideal. If Victor were there, she’d probably give in, but not to the smarmy men who were helping Jonna sit down at their table.
She didn’t think less of Jonna at all. Jonna had been a basketball star on Pohnjanmaa, and with her pale good looks, she’d been popular, very popular. It was different for her. This was just one last fling. For Tamara, this would be the benchmark, how she would remember sex. And she didn’t want to ruin that.
With a sigh, Tamara made her way out of the bar and into a waiting cab. It was time to go back to her room.
Chapter 13
Tamara drank her fifth glass of passion fruit juice of the morning as she watched the clock tick down the minutes. She thought she could just fit in the 16th and final episode of Season 3 of Lost Opportunities. Elei, who’d even heard of the show before, watched intently, now totally hooked.
Jonna had left for her genmod the day before, and Elei’s roomie, Keiko, had been in that first batch of candidates. Rather than sit alone with her thoughts, Tamara had invited Elei over to binge-watch the entire season. Together, with junk food and citrus juice, the two had kept silent company while Dieter and Penelope had one failed business venture after the other, the “opportunities” of the title, but not the implied opportunity of love (that everyone could see except for them, it seemed).
The trials and tribulations the two characters faced seemed minor, but they served to keep Tamara’s mind away from her appointment. Brooding wouldn’t do her any good. Elei, however, didn’t seem fazed in the least. As one of the largest, if not the largest, woman in the class, Elei would be one of the last to start the process, and when Tamara left in a few minutes, she’d be alone to watch Season 1 on her own.
“Wow, max intense,” Elei said as the credits rolled. “But I don’t understand how they can’t see they are a match for each other.”
“You need to watch Season 1 to see that,” Tamara said.
“And you don’t mind if I hang out here and watch it?”
“No, of course not. You’re always welcome. But speaking of that, I need to hit the head before I go.”
Tamara didn’t need the toilet, but instead, she stood alone in her bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She reached up and touched her face as if seeing it for the first time. She pulled up on her t-shirt and stood half-naked. Her breasts hung large and heavy, and after a few moments, she reached up to cup them with each hand. She pressed softly, feeling their heft, feeling the nipples as if trying to memorize them, how they felt. She closed her eyes for a moment, gathering her thoughts.
With a sense of duty, she let go and slid her shirt back on. She took a deep breath, then left her bathroom and walked back into the common room, trying to muster up a smile.
“You OK, girl?” Elei asked as Tamara walked up. “You want me to go with you?”
“No, I think I’d rather make the walk alone.”
Tamara had expected staff members hanging around, making sure each candidate made her appointment, but they’d been completely ignored. The requirement that every candidate volunteer for genmodding was stringent, and the staff couldn’t even have a hint of coercion.
Tamara took one last swallow of passion fruit juice, draining the glass and saying, “I’m sure going to miss this.”
I’m going to miss a lot of things was left unsaid.
“Come here,” Elei said, arms out.
Tamara only hesitated a moment before she rushed forward to be enveloped in the big woman’s hug. She held it longer than expected, taking strength from her friend.
She finally broke the hug and pulled back.
“Are you going to be OK tomorrow? I mean, we’re almost all gone,” Tamara asked.
“I won’t be alone. I’ve got Dieter and Penelope, don’t I?” she said with a laugh.
The slightest hitch in her voice, though, let Tamara know that Elei was not quite as complacent as she was letting on.
“Well, I’ll see you on the backside,” she said, taking one last look around the room.
This had been her home for the past nine months. While she was in regen, staff would take her things and move them to her new quarters at Sichko Village where she and Jonna would still be housemates. They’d had the chance to either switch roomies or even live alone, but the two did not want to be split up.
“Love you, girl,” Elei said as Tamara walked out the door.
As when she arrived nine months previously, the campus was almost deserted. The staff for Chicsis numbered over 5,000, and there were some 400 gladiators, both in training, in the force, and in retirement on the campus, but rarely was anyone in sight. It took almost 15 minutes for Tamara to make her way to the campus entrance. She looked into the small security shack to see who was on duty.
“Afternoon, Miss Veal,” Jasper called out as if everything was normal.
Tamara knew the staff couldn’t say anything that could be taken as encouragement, but she really could have used a bit at the moment.
“Afternoon, Jasper,” she said as she continued.
At the pond, the swans paddled up to her, honking hopefully. Tamara pulled out a half-eaten packet of Cheese Strings and tossed the wispy snacks into the water. As usual, the swans went into overdrive to snap them up, pushing each other out of the way. Idly, Tamara wondered if they would recognize her when she was a gladiator.
If she became a gladiator, she corrected.
She could still quit. Looking over at the front gate, she could just turn and walk out, and no one would say a word. And even if she did accept the genmod, there was no guarantee that she’d survive it. Statistics were such that probably five of them would not. They would die before ever getting to serve humanity in combat.
She could see Jasper surreptitiously looking at her through the security hut window. She knew he was watching, wondering what she would do.
How many of us walked out that entrance over the last three days?
They’d been kept incommunicado since the first of them went to their appointments. She’d find out later how many had actually made it to the hospital.
As she started to turn back away from the entrance, she saw just the hint of a smile coming over Jasper’s face. He might not be able to say anything, but he was relieved, she knew. And she didn’t think that was just because there was going to be one more gladiator to defend human space. She thought he really cared.
Five minutes later, she reached the hospital. It looked like a resort lodge, with its pastel blue walls and towering evergreens around it. There was none of the usual architecture that screamed hospital. But it was one of the most advanced genmod and regen facilities in human space.
Tamara didn’t hesitate but rather pushed open the front doors. Dr. Whisperjack was standing by the reception counter, and she looked up with a huge smile as Tamara came in.
“Tamara, it is good to see you,” she said, beaming at her.
“Well, it’s my time.”
“Of course it is, dear, of course, it is. We do have this last finality, first, though.”
“Sure, Dr, Whisperjack. I’m ready.”
“Georg, if you will?” she asked the receptionist.
“Please look into the scanner and repeat after me,” Georg said.
Tamara leaned into the retinal scanner as Georg started, “I, state your name. . .”
“I, Tamara Constance Veal . . .”
“fully understand and accept . . .”
. . . the consequences of becoming a Single Combat Specialist in the Combined Human Single Combat Corps. I freely and without pressure or coercion accept genetic modification and boosted regeneration and agree to serve humankind to the best of my abilities. I will abide by decisions made by those assigned to administrate contact with the Klethos Empire. So help me God.
Chapter 14
Oh, dang, that hurts was the first cognizant thought that broke through the dark and troubled dreams that flitted just out of her reach.
Tamara slowly became aware of her surroundings. She was lying down, and above her was a pale blue and lilac ceiling with soft corner lights giving just the minimum of illumination. She was warm, and it took her a moment to remember that she would have been immersed in a high-potency nutrient-and-oxygen-rich bath. She seemed to be breathing OK, so they must have already raised her head and emptied her lungs of the liquid. With lungs like an infant’s, she knew the fluid would have flooded her lungs, enabling them to work with less stress as they grew.
She struggled to look down at her body, but with most of it still under the surface of the dark liquid, and with all sorts or hoses and monitors stuck on her, she couldn’t see much.
“Tamara, I see you’re back with us,” a soft voice said.
Tamara looked to her left to see Dr. Whisperjack and a tech she didn’t recognize standing at the side of her vat.
“Dr. Whisperjack, I—” she started to croak out.
“Easy, Tamara. Your voice hasn’t been used in two months. And please, it’s Ruth. Auntie Ruth, most of the girls call me.”
Auntie Ruth? Girls?
Her voice had hurt when she’d tried to speak. Her whole body hurt. She’d known it would, but not this bad.
“Dr. Tansiri is with Abby right now, but he’ll be in soon to check up on you,” Dr. Whisperjack, no, Ruth, said.
“But you’ve done very well. You’re progressing right on schedule. It’s up to the medical team, of course, but I think you’ll be out of your bath in a few days and into therapy.”
“What . . . what do I look like?” Tamara forced out.
“Lire, do you think . . . ?”
“Sure, I don’t see why not,” the tech said.
She reached over to a control panel of some sort and hit some buttons. Above Tamara, a screen seemed to coalesce out of the air. Slowly, an image began to form, an image of a naked body lying in a tank of blue liquid.
Tamara couldn’t get a feel for her new size, but the body that reflected back at her was obviously bigger than before. It was stockier, too, but without much muscular definition yet. The one glaring difference was that her breasts were almost non-existent.
Tamara suddenly didn’t want to see anymore. She closed her eyes as a groan escaped through her lips.
“Lire, please,” Ruth said.
“I know it is a little much to take in right now, Tamara. But we’re here for you. We’ve got counsellors on hand around the clock, and I’m here, too. If I’m not teaching candidates, I’ll be here in Area 2, ready for anything you need.
“Thank you, uh, Ruth. I’m fine. I just hurt now,” she said, unwilling to admit that the sight of her, of her missing breasts, upset her.
She had to be strong. What was done was done, and she had to look forward to her training. The stakes were just too high for petty vanity.
She was a gladiator now.
Chapter 15
As far as Tamara was concerned, the less said about Module 2, the better. Seventy candidates had started genmod—nine had refused to report to the hospital and quit that day. Four had never made it out of their medically induced comas. For the rest of them, not including the two months out cold and in the aquarium, as they called it, the module was six months of torture. The human body was not evolved for such drastic genmodding and regen, and it protested its abuse every second of every minute of every hour of every day.
If their bodies were not complaining enough as they molded and grew into new forms, the medical staff, their “agonizers,” put them through “therapy” that would put the Spanish inquisitors to shame. Twice a day for the first three months, the agonizers would stretch, pound, and pull on their bodies, then make them do the same on their own.
According to Dr. Tansiri, their nerves had been dampened and their tolerance to pain increased, but if that was the case, Tamara couldn’t imagine what it would have been like without the dampening.
What was worse than the manual manipulation was when they were hooked up to the EMNS, or electromyographic neurokinetic stimulation. This fiendish device ran electrical currents through the body to stimulated the nerve endings and muscles to mesh their function together and then closely monitored the progress. While this machine might have sped up the regen, the process was perhaps the most painful experience during the module.
One of the hardest things for Tamara to accept was just how screwed up her body seemed to be. Simple things like getting up and walking across the room took concentration. Her center of gravity was off, and her bones were different from what she was used to. A heavier musculature in the chest and shoulder compensated somewhat for the lack of breasts, even if the balance was different, but the narrower hips and slightly turned out legs were far more problematic. Tamara had been an elite athlete who was well-attuned to her body, and now, that tuning was out of whack.
The staff assured her that the changes were for the better and through neural plasticity, her brain would adjust so her new body would now be the norm. It would feel as if she’d been born to it. She could see the potential in her new form, but she didn’t have to like it while she built up to that potential.
During the last three months, the afternoon sessions were replaced with physical activity designed to build up strength and endurance. These sessions were bad, worse than anything Tamara had experienced in the Marines or as a track star, but they were a heck of a lot better than the EMNS.
Jonna, when they were still roomies, had remarked that the trainers were trying to make them so miserable that they would all jump at the chance to meet a queen in the ring just to escape the torture.
And yes, Jonna. The two had wanted to be roomies together, but the stress and pain made all the girls, as they called themselves now (not women, not candidates, and they were not yet gladiators, so somehow, “girls” was the norm), short-tempered. The horrible, bland food was no help. The “gruel” was the same every day. Insipid and tasteless, it would not bother their still-developing digestive systems while providing for all their nutrition, but it did nothing for their souls. All these pressures resulted in more than a few blowups, and Tamara and Jonna were not spared. After a month, the two roomies had a fight. Tamara didn’t even remember what started it, only that it escalated until Jonna stormed out of their oversized house. They refused to speak to each other for a month. Tamara missed her friend, her sister, as the girls began to refer to each other, but she didn’t know how to fix the problem. It had taken intervention by Auntie Ruth to bring them back together, and they shared a house again for the last month of Module 2.
The gladiators were a help. Whereas they rarely contacted the candidates, they often mixed with the girls, offering advice and a shoulder to cry on. But they
had their own issues. Three challenges were issued during their time in the module, and two gladiators had lost. Each time, the rest of the gladiators had withdrawn for a few days.
But luckily, Auntie Ruth was there. She was the den mother, friend, advisor—whatever was needed. She was all of 1.5 meters tall, but no one would dare to argue with her. Tamara owed her a debt of gratitude for helping her patch up things with Jonna, and she thought the entire class would have collapsed without her tireless efforts. Finally, the horrible module was over. Sixty-six girls were moving on to Module 3.
As far as Tamara was concerned, it was high time to learn how to fight.
Chapter 16
Tamara held up the blade, sighting down the edge. It looked beautiful with the faint pattern of the Damascus folding evident. The quillon and langets were gold, the grips white in the pattern of the original US Marine Corps mamelukes. She brought it back down, feeling the heft and balance. It seemed more a part of her than her own arms right after emerging from her coma. She knew the blade had been designed for her and her alone, but still, she reveled in the feel.
And she was more than pleased that she’d been assigned a mameluke. As a Marine, she couldn’t have hoped for more. Beth had been insanely jealous, and Tamara understood that.
In an attempt to keep the Klethos off-balance, gladiators were assigned different blade weapons and trained in different styles. Mamelukes and other scimitar-type swords had not been particularly effective, with three wins and four losses, but Tamara didn’t care. She was a Marine, and this was the modern poly-amorphous steel version of one: strong as heck and durable to a fault.
It wasn’t her position as a Marine that left her with the mameluke; that was just a lucky coincidence. Each gladiator was analyzed ad infinitum by both swordmasters and huge AIs that took into account movement and reflexes before the best type of blade and style was selected for her.
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