My parents’ house was very old compared to the houses around it, with real hardwood floors instead of carbon fiber and actual staircases instead of hover lifts. We all had rooms on the second floor, with mine being the smallest. I never thought that was fair, since I’m older than Austin, but that’s the way it was. My room was also the coldest, which must be why someone had cut a hole in the floor to allow heat to rise up from the first floor. It was covered by an ancient metal grate, with metal louvers that I could rotate using a lever to block the heat from rising into my room in the summer.
The best part was that my room was over Dad’s office, and if the louvers were open, we could talk to each other. When I was very young, he’d sometimes sing lullabies to me through the grate at bedtime. It wasn’t until I was about six-years-old that it occurred to me that I could also use the opening to eavesdrop. The metal grates would squeak if I opened them quickly; so the only way to eavesdrop without Daddy hearing me was to open the louvers over a full two minutes of constant pressure. By the time I was ten, I could open the louvers without making the slightest sound.
Uncle Cameron was visiting all by himself, which was unusual, but he and Aunt Cindi had four kids now, so I suppose travelling had become more difficult. Uncle Cameron had a very clear “mad voice,” and I was surprised to hear him using it when speaking with Mom and Dad.
“You ordered ‘Buried Treasure’ for a reason, Cephas!” Uncle Cameron said. “You’ve seen the reports. You know how many Washed children have been kidnapped this year. What makes you think it can’t be one of your kids next?”
“I ordered ‘Buried Treasure’ to get the intelligence gathering operations up and running, not to make our children into an army. Let them have a normal childhood.”
“Martha? Would you talk to him?”
“Cephas …” Mom said, “… you’ve made it clear to everyone that we’re at war again. Children have been growing up during wars for millennia. They’ll be fine.”
“Four was officially disbanded,” Daddy said. “I signed the treaty. As adults, we can make the decision to break the law, but they can’t.”
“Nobody is saying they’ll be operatives,” Cameron replied. “They just need to be able to defend themselves.”
Daddy was silent for a while; then sighing, said: “Train Austin.”
I wanted to yell about how unfair it was, and I think I may have let out a tiny squeak of surprise and anger; but it wasn’t worth revealing my eavesdropping spot, so I stayed silent.
“They should both be on a full training schedule,” Uncle Cameron replied.
“I agree,” Mom said. “Girls her age are being kidnapped.
“She can do it, Cephas,” Uncle Cameron added. “She’s as tough as Martha, and she’s a fast learner. She could be great.”
“Give her extra conditioning - especially running - but no combat training.” “Why are you being so stubborn about this, Cephas?” Mom asked.
“Do you remember how I learned to fight?” Dad replied.
“You pretty much figured it out on your own.”
“Then let her figure out fighting on her own, just like I did.”
My first “summer camp” with Uncle Cameron came just a few weeks later. While Austin was learning combat with my cousins, I was sent for kilometers’ worth of running in the woods. The thing is, they had no idea just how fast I could complete the course; so I spent hours in the trees that week, watching everyone else train, then practicing the moves I’d seen.
******
Austin and I finish our walk and return to the abandoned house. The house has a high fence and the backyard is surrounded by ancient cottonwood trees that grow along Monument Creek, so it lends itself well to the next part of our daily routine: Austin giving me combat training. Since there’s little chance we’ll be seen as we spar, we remove the living scars and leave them in the sunshine to grow and ooze without us.
This is Austin’s favorite part of the day - beating me. Copying and practicing the moves I saw helps, but it didn’t really prepare me for actual fighting. Even so, I’ve learned that my hands and feet are a little faster than his, but it’s going to take more than that to overcome the fact that he’s bigger, stronger, and more aggressive. He also talks more.
“Joice, hold your hands higher! Turn more sideways! Kick with your left foot more!”
His constant talking usually throws me off, rather than help, and his advice works well for him, but not for me.
We don’t have a scoring computer like Uncle Cameron, but at the end of each session, Austin always announces the informal score he’s kept in his head.
“I’d score that as eighty-six to twelve,” he says, but I’m not listening. I’m thinking about Mom and Dad.
“There’s no way Dad was taken by surprise and ambushed at the house,” I say. “He spent hours every day gathering information and putting together the pieces of what’s happening in the world.”
“Could they have faked the ransacking of the house as a cover?” Austin asks.
“It makes the most sense,” I say. “Even if they were attacked, I’ve seen Mom and Dad fighting side-by-side. It would take a small army.”
“When did you see Mom and Dad fight together? You’ve never been interested in combat. You’d always go off running instead.”
He doesn’t know.
“Austin, I didn’t go off running. I was sent off to run. Dad decided years ago to train only you, but I’d sneak back and watch from the trees as everyone else trained.”
He lets that information sink in for a moment.
“You may have seen a lot from the trees, but you missed the biggest family match ever,” he says. “Dad and Uncle Cameron had the rematch!”
Years ago, Uncle Cameron was the only person in all of Four who ever fought Dad to a draw in hand-to-hand combat. Mom says she could beat them both, but they both claim that they let her win. They talked for years about having a rematch, but Mom forbade it.
“How did they talk Mom into that?”
“She doesn’t know. They did it four months ago, when you and Mom were visiting Great Aunt Kimberley.”
“What happened? Did they let you watch the match?” I ask. “How could Dad even stand a chance? Uncle Cameron is huge!”
“Actually, it was Uncle Cameron who didn’t stand a chance! Dad went ahead on points in hand- to-hand and never looked back.”
“How could Dad beat that kind of power?” I ask.
“It was weird. It was like Dad knew every move before it happened, and was ready. Sometimes he even used Uncle Cameron’s power against him. What I remember most though was Dad’s face. He had the same look on his face that he gets when he’s solving a puzzle. You get it too, you know.”
“I do not … do I?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of like this,” he says, and makes a face that looks like he’s been hit in the head with a stun gun.
I smack him on the arm, which is as good as ringing a bell, signaling that the next sparring session has begun.
Austin is much more powerful than I am … I wonder…
I don’t attempt any counter attacks. I just watch him carefully and block.
Combination attacks almost always start with his right hand.
He gets a curious look on his face when I block.
His eyes are tricky, but his head tilts just a centimeter in the direction he’s going next.
I can see him getting frustrated.
“Hold your left hand higher, Jocie,” he says.
No way. You use that against me. I wonder what other advice he’s given that doesn’t work for me.
I drop my left hand even lower, and instead of turning sideways like he does, I square my body up towards him.
“You’re making yourself a bigger target,” he says
But I’m a tiny person. I’m always a small target and this feels much more natural.
Once I’m squared, I stop favoring my right arm and leg.
Now I’m balanced.
He’s getting ready for a major assault on this new style I’m developing, when I hold my hands up to signal for him to stop.
“There’s someone inside the house,” I say.
“There can’t be,” Austin replies. “All the silent door and window alarms are tied to our coms.”
“I saw a shadow move in the kitchen.”
“Should we bug out?”
“No,” I reply, “but let’s get the scars back on. We can pretend to be just a couple of marked kids hanging out in an abandoned house.”
Once the scars are in place again, we creep into the house. Austin is correct that the security system is functioning, and we both get a signal in our coms when we open the door. Austin motions for me to check the rooms on the left, while he goes into the kitchen on the right. The first room is empty, with the curtains drawn, but through the door I can see that the second room is lit with a bright sunbeam. I approach the doorway, but don’t enter.
The house hasn’t had automatic cleaning robots for years, and in the sunbeam I can see sparkles of dust. Dad loved dusty sunbeams, and when I was little, I enjoyed sitting on his lap and watching them with him. As I watch this one, I can see that the movement of sparkles isn’t random. Someone moved silently through this room, but they couldn’t prevent the dust from taking on a lazy spiral as it settles back to the floor.
“Austin,” I whisper over my shoulder.
I hear the hand move to grab the door frame before I see it, and somehow know that a foot is about fly around the corner; so I lunge to the left and land a kick on the person’s side as they come through the door. If it hurt him, he shows no signs of it. He’s just a couple of inches taller than I am, but has a larger frame. Still, he’ll be no match for Austin, who I can hear rushing back this way.
My attacker is wearing a black leather coat and a hat. If the coat is restricting his movement, he shows no signs of it, as he attempts a karate move that Aunt Cindi likes to use, which I block. My counter-attack is blocked just as easily.
He’s not from The Corps. Whoever he is, he fights like a Christian.
He switches to a martial art form I’ve never seen before. The first punch lands hard on my stomach and the first kick on my thigh, but I somehow see that the next kick will be to my head and deflect it; then land a kick that glances off his hip. He is thrown off balance, and when I move to the right, I can see that Austin is standing in the doorway, watching.
“I could use a little help,” I say.
“From him?” my attacker says, and I realize that I’m not fighting a man. It’s a girl.
She attacks again, using yet another martial art form. Again, her first attack is successful and I compensate, making her follow-up strikes useless.
“I’d have him on the floor by now,” she says. “Why didn’t you use everything you’ve got against him when you were in the backyard?”
She turns her back on me and faces Austin; then in two steps, launches herself into the air in some sort of flying kick.
He should spin to the right.
Austin spins to the left, which avoids the kick but allows her to land a loud slap across his face. She could have hit him with a fist. She backs away, staring at her hand.
“Cool! Can I have some of this?” she asks.
When she slapped Austin, one of his artificial scars was transferred to her hand. I get my first good look at her face and see that she has bruises made with makeup.
Austin’s face is red, both from the slap and because he’s mad. He crouches into an attack pose, but I put myself between the two of them.
“Break it in half. They double in size every few days anyway,” I say. “If you ever grow too much, rubbing alcohol will kill the extra.”
“It’s alive? Even cooler!” she says.
“We’re friends now?” Austin asks.
“She’s obviously washed, Austin.”
“We can keep going - if you want…,” she says, as she sticks half of the living scar to her face and throws the other half back to Austin. “…though I am disappointed. I expected a little more from the great Austin Paulson.”
“I’ll show you more, right now,” Austin says, and tries to push me out of the way. I give him my best ‘big sister’ look, and he backs off.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“I’m Zera.”
“Why did you say it like I should know who you are?”
“How could you not? Your mom and dad are my Godparents!”