Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story) (7 page)

They had some self-defense/combat sessions in Basic.  They were aimed at developing self-confidence and aggression as well as teaching future warriors how to fight. Self defense dealt with what to do if attacked. If attacked by a bigger, or by a smaller assailant. If attacked by an assailant with a knife. If assailed with a gun from afar they were to seek cover or submit. If threatened with a pistol from very close, and you didn’t think submitting would save your life, you might try to disarm by striking or twisting the weapon in the direction that flexes the attacker’s wrist and relaxes the fingers to prevent the trigger being pulled. Multiple different techniques were taught, based in different fighting styles, many of them “fighting dirty” in common parlance, but
when your life is on the line…

For combat sessions they squared off in marked circles they called “pits,” wearing cushioned headgear and swinging pugil sticks. The sticks were about four and a half feet long with heavy pads at the end.  Of course, Phil thrived at it. His wrestling physique, conditioning, speed, and combative tendencies stood him well. Sergeant Mason, their large black instructor, took one look at Phil and used him for a demonstration bout. Phil and Mason moved through some of the strikes and counters in slow motion and finally went through a very brief bout where Phil tried to break through Mason’s defenses without success. The sergeant then paired off same sex cadets of approximately equal size and they took turns in the pits while the Sergeant Mason bellowed directions. Most of the matches were real flails. At that altitude, after a preliminary run out and around the fields, swinging those big staffs while someone else tried to pound you wore a body out in a hurry. Phil’d been paired with Jason, the other guy who’d done some wrestling, because Jason was almost a physical match. Jason busted him a couple of good ones but Phil knocked him out of the circle without too much trouble. They took a tongue-lashing from the instructor for their tendency to wrestle with the sticks instead of striking with them, but you could tell Sergeant Mason wasn’t really very upset. Phil really didn’t take too much interest in the other matches until the first time Ell got in the circle—then that contest held his rapt attention!

Ell had been paired off with a woman named Joy Denson who had a couple of inches on Ell. Thinking about his parking lot encounter, Phil found himself expecting Joy to be crushed by the bitch. Well they fought like a couple of ladies at tea. Tap, tap, tap with their staffs, no single swing hard enough that the other woman couldn’t catch it on her staff with plenty of time. Sergeant Mason purpled up, looking to explode. “You GIRLS knitting out here?”

They stopped, “No, Sir!” In unison no less.

“Well those sticks aren’t clickin’ together any harder’n my old grandma’s needles! Denson, you afraid you might hurt cadet Donsaii?”

“No Sir!”

“You ladies think, when lives are on the line, that kind of effort’ll be good enough?”

In unison again, “No, Sir!”

“Well then. You ATTACK, for god’s sake, ATTACK!”

Donsaii and Denson turned back toward one another and Denson, Phil gave her credit, she really waded in. She swung that staff, hard as she could, fast as she could and managed to look like her life might actually depend on it. But she didn’t touch Ell. Most of the other cadets probably didn’t notice what was happening out there but it sent a chill up Phil’s spine.  Denson didn’t even rap her on the knuckles. Every swing Denson made struck nothing but wood. Donsaii’s staff magically interposed itself over and over and over and over…  Most of the other cadets thought Denson was wailing on her, and in a sense she was… but not even an accidental whack struck home amidst all of Denson’s fury.

Mason bellowed again, “YOU THERE, STOP! Donsaii!”

“Yes Sir!”

“You ever hear that the best defense is a good offense?”

“Yes Sir!”

“You think you maaght sumday ever take a poke at Denson, or you too afraid she might actually land a blow?”

“Yes Sir… I mean, No Sir!”

“Let’s try it again ladies.” A sneer dripped from the word “ladies.” They turned to face each other and Mason roared, “BEGIN!”

More of the same ensued. Denson flailing away, Donsaii catching every blow. Mason bellowed again and Ell started taking an occasional whack. Phil’s hair prickled on his neck. Every stroke she took hit Denson somewhere. Nary a one of them would have whisked dandruff off Denson’s shoulder, but everyone struck skin somewhere.

“DONSAII!”

They halted again, “Yes Sir!”

“That was pitiful! My old gramma would do better with the aforementioned knittin’ needles for Chrissake! Denson, outta the pit.” The Sarge took Denson’s staff and stepped menacingly into the pit across from Donsaii. “Donsaii!”

“Yes Sir!”

“Hit me with that stick!” He held Denson’s staff in the approved defensive position.

“Sir?”

“Hit me with that goddamn stick! I see you’re afraid Denson might break—do I look tough enough to take a lickin’?”

“Yes Sir!”

“Well. Don’t just stand there, take a swing at me!”

“No Sir! Striking a superior officer is a court martial offense, Sir!”

“Aw fer Chrissake, we got ourselves a ‘barracks lawyer’? I’m a Sergeant, not an officer. You outrank me! You shouldn’t even be ‘sirring’ me. Here I’ll take off my insignia and tell you that if I order you to strike me in the course of training that it ain’t no ‘courts martial offense,’ OK?” He stripped his insignia off its Velcro patch and toss it aside.

“Yes Sir!” Ell took a swing at him. A looping, roundhouse, poofter that Mason, dropping one end of his staff, easily blocked by grabbing the cushioned tip with the palm of his hand.

“My GOD that was pitiful!” Ell drooped while Mason berated her for her lack of aggression, finishing with, “If you don’t get up the gumption to hit me a decent whack you’ll be givin’ me ten laps, ya delicate little puke!”

Ell lifted her staff, staring at him like a deer in the headlights. She was already tired, though it hadn’t taken much exertion to block the strikes aimed at her so far. Ten laps in addition though, would exhaust her. “Sir?”

“Hit me goddammit!” Ell took a couple of medium speed swings that Mason also blocked easily. “Come on, ATTACK! DON’T STOP, DON’T STOP.” She slipped a few blows past his stick but whacked him with the same light glancing blows she had used on Denson. “DONSAII?”

“Yes Sir!” She kept up her attack but still, you could tell, none of those blows would really have hurt anyone.

“May I have your permission to attack you? You see it’s also a courts martial offense for me to strike you without your consent.”

“Yes Sir!” Phil didn’t see how it happened but Ell’s insignia patch flew over to land next to Mason’s.

Mason started swinging at Ell. But just like with Denson, she blocked every blow perfectly. The whole time Mason screamed at her to attack him. “If you don’t hit me a good hard whack I’m gonna wail away ‘til your arms are dyin’. You’ll miss a block and you’ll get hurt… Who’s it gonna be, you or me? Hit me so’s I can feel it! Who’s it gonna be, you or me?” Mason panted and grunted through this last and Phil could see Mason’s swings getting harder and harder, then confusion crossing his face as he failed over and over and over to connect. Blow after blow, swung harder and harder, came down on her staff. They sounded like rifle shots! He was big, and strong, and quick, and Phil doubted that Mason had ever failed to connect in the first few blows when he tried this maneuver with timid cadets in the past.

Now Ell felt exhausted. She’d been in the pit for quite a while now and even just blocking the blows coming at her was wearing out her limited endurance. She realized that when she reached her limit and failed to block one of Mason’s blows it likely would injure her. She tried to let one slip in and hit her so he would stop, but the velocity of Mason’s swing scared her badly and she danced away, though barely. This caused her panic and she slipped moderately deeply into her dreaded “zone.” Well then, she decided that she’d just hit him a medium blow to get him to acknowledge that she had attacked and that might get this over with. As Mason swung a powerful overhead blow she stepped in, deflected it just to her side with the center of her staff and then let the right pad on the end of her staff swing around to lightly strike the side of his head.

Jason watched in amazement as the large, physically fit Mason pounded at the slender girl. “Who’s it gonna be, you or me? Hit me so’s I can feel it!” Mason grunted out that last, and then he slipped and fell down. At least, it looked like he slipped. Everyone thought, like Phil did, that Mason’d just stumbled somehow. None of them even saw Ell’s staff strike him.

Ell dropped to her knees beside Mason. Exhausted, but clinging to her staff to stay upright she said, “Sorry, sorry,
dammit
, I didn’t know what to do!” She looked over her shoulder at Zymonds with big round eyes and said, “Call the medics! Ma’am? Call the medics!”

Phil was staring at Ell, wondering what she was whimpering about but then a chill rushed over him, leaving all his hair standing on end. He slowly realized that Mason wasn’t bouncing back to his feet from his little “slip.” He stepped over to look at him and saw blood pouring out of Mason’s deformed nose. His upper lip was split so wide his upper left canine was visible and his headgear was twisted out of kilter. Mason’s chest still rose and fell, but the lights were completely out!

Cadet Lieutenant Johnson called an ambulance with his AI and had Zymonds take the squad for a couple of laps around the field.  Donsaii was crying and didn’t look like she could stand up. Johnson let Ell stay behind while they ran though she joined them at the next training station.  As they ran Phil watched out of the corner of his eye and saw the MPs asking her and Johnson some questions while the ambulance picked up Mason.

The next day the “official line” was that Mason “deflected one of Donsaii’s blows” onto his own head. “Freak accident.” Mason was to be chastised for engaging a cadet in such “aggressive combat.”

It seemed that no one really comprehended what had actually happened but Phil. Phil? Cold chills washed over him for days… anytime Donsaii came into view… freezing cold chills. Mason was quick, and strong, and taught unarmed combat day in and day out, but when he pushed Donsaii to her limit she just
took him down
. Hit him so hard that, even with that heavily padded stick, it was two weeks before he came back on duty.

Maybe what had happened to me back in Chapel Hill wasn’t so embarrassing after all?
Phil did wonder how such a physical combat monster could be such a whuss at running or anything else that required stamina? Was she just “putting on”?

They received their milspec AI hardware about then.  They’d actually been doing completely without AI for the first few weeks of Basic Training.  It seemed pointless to Phil but he agreed there was something to the concept that you should and could learn to function without AI.  The milspec hardware was something else though. Back when they’d fitted them for uniforms, moulds had been taken of their heads and ear canals and the new AIs fit their heads like they’d grown there and had two earpieces that completely occluded their ear canals.

They were marched into an auditorium. A slightly chubby upperclassman stepped to the front of the room and said, “Listen up smacks. You hold in your hands a true high end AI. I’m here to tell you why it is so much better than the pieces of crap you’ve been wearing your whole lives. The thin tube on a good civvy ear bud fills about a third of one ear canal and all it does is deliver sound from your AI to you.  You may be wearing two eartubes, but the only reason really, for having two is so you can get stereo if you’re having your AI play music to you.  These custom fit milspec earpieces completely occlude both ear canals and produce a 30 decibel drop in sound transmission from the outside. They have a mike at the outside that picks up incoming sound and sends it to the AI. The AI takes that incoming sound and “compresses” it so that loud sounds like explosions and gunshots don’t damage your hearing. Then it plays it back into the depths of your ear canal for you to hear. Even better, say you’re next to an explosion that makes a 160 dB volume, which could really damage your hearing.  That 30 dB drop from the earpiece only gets you down to 130 dB, which is still pretty painful. Well the AI pulls out all the stops and plays an inverse, or out of phase, sound wave into your ear canal that actually cancels even more of that volume. So, on the one hand they’re high performance ear protectors. On the other hand, they can, at a simple “enhance hearing” command, increase the volume of quiet sounds.  And you can have it enhance certain frequencies to pick up things like breathing, or whispering or footsteps.” Algorithms for picking up different things are built into the AI so you need training in how to use them.

“Your new AI headbands are custom fit too.  A lot of you probably have custom fit headbands but they’re for comfort, these fit so they don’t come off if you get knocked around and they’re tough.  You can play rugby in them and, right after a scrum, you look up and your HUD screens will still be right there below your eyebrows.” 

The instructor demonstrated that the cameras were shock resistant by having them put their headbands on, giving them all a feed off his cameras, then he took his headband off and whacked it against his desk! The motion was dizzying, but there wasn’t any of the static and fuzz that had perturbed the record of Ell beating the crap out of Phil back in North Carolina.

“Of course, your new cameras see into the infrared and ultraviolet and can project those images onto your HUD, which is great at night.” Phil noted that the belt packs containing the CPUs were smaller, heavier, flatter and, the instructor said, more shock resistant than civvy ones too. They came generic and then the Cadets could download their own AI’s personalities and subroutines into them. Then software mods brought their AI’s thought processes up to military standards as well.

The instructor went on, “You may have noticed that whenever you change to a new earpiece for your civvy AIs that it messes up your sound perception for a while. That’s because your brain learns how the curls and flutes of your external ear shape sounds and uses that data to determine where sounds are coming from. The sound tube from your AI messes up your perception until you get used to it.  Well it’s even worse with these milspec earpieces because they alter and process incoming sounds a lot more than the simpler effects that that little civvy tube does when it’s occluding a portion of your ear canal. So you’re gonna spend all your time training on your new milspec gear, running in it, fighting with it on, sleeping in it. You’ll also be having training courses in what the military software can pull up and display for you.”