We'd gone over a hasty plan to get Michaelson's confidence; based on his psych eval, we'd decided that honesty wasn't the best policy. A direct of fer of tutoring would meet with, at best, sullen rejection; the plan involved a gradual building of a relationship—becoming friends first, maybe occasional advice on meditative strategies for Michaelson's upcoming Virtual Acting seminar, then a casual offer to help him with his studies. No pressure.
But now, as I watched Michaelson pump the repcounter up toward 20, each slowing stroke pushing four or five explosive, gasping breaths through his clenched teeth, I flashed on him.
For that bare, eyeflick instant, I was Hari Michaelson, straining under the bar. I became a nineteen-year-old Laborer, with a visceral memory of countless upcaste spurns and the helpless humiliation of knowing that any payback was forever beyond my reach—with a nuclear kiln of permanent rage lodged behind my breastbone, fueled by the searing knowledge that I was failing.
This is one of my talents, the flashing. It's not an ESP thing, more like that powerful and detailed imagination working overtime, but it serves me well enough. In that instant, I threw out Chandra's plan. I had a better one.
As Hari's arms hit their limit, half extended and trembling, his face gone purple and his eyes barely open, I stepped beside him, put both hands on the bar, and lifted it with him. It didn't take much strength; I probably could have done it with a finger, lifting only the kilo or two that was beyond Hari's capacity. When his arms reached their full extension, Hari snarled, "End:' The bar froze in place.
I said, smiling, "Shouldn't press without a spotter, y'know."
Michaelson sat up slowly. I felt his stare like heat from an open fire. "Nobody asked your opinion, asswipe," he said evenly. "Or your help."
"If I'd waited for you to ask, I said through a smile, "I'd have been standing here till the next Ice Age:'
"Yeah, funny:' He squinted at my mask. "What're you supposed to be, Boris Karloff?"
"Boris who? My name's Kris—"
"Hansen. Yeah, I know. Everybody in Shitschool knows who you are, we hear about you all day long. What do you want?"
Shitschool: the derisive nickname Combat students give to the College of Battle Magick, from its initials. "A couple minutes of your time," I said with a shrug. "I want to ask for your help."
Michaelson turned away, toward the weight machine's control pad. "Piss off."
"Hey, ladies." One of the Combat neanderthals came up beside us. "You need some help with this machine? You want a man to show you how it's done?"
Michaelson didn't even turn his head. "Take a fucking hike, Ballinger."
"Uh-huh, right. Excuse me, ma'am?' He casually elbowed Michaelson off the bench and lay down under the bar. Michaelson got up slowly and stood with his back to the machine, very still, except for a muscle that jumped at the corner of his jaw.
The neanderthal—Ballinger--gripped the bar and said, "Weight up. Two-zero-zero. Begin." When the readout had scaled up to 200 kilograms he started pumping the bar smoothly up and down, and said, "See? That's your problem, not enough weight."
"Come on, Hari, let's get out of here," I said. "I really want to talk with you."
"You got nothing to say that I need to hear."
I took a deep breath, held it, then took the plunge. "Typical Labor attitude," I sneered. For an instant I felt like my father.
Michaelson turned like he was mounted on a millstone. "What?"
"You downcasters are all alike. `Fuck off, Jack. It's not my job." It's born into you. That's why you Labor scum never get out of the ghetto?'
Michaelson took one deliberate step toward me. His eyes burned. "You are just begging me to kick your fucking ass."
"Yes, in fact, I am," I told him. "That's exactly right."'
He blinked. "Come again?"
"Which part don't you understand?"
He stared at me while his mouth stretched into a slow predatory grin: all teeth and no humor. "I'm into it."'
"Fine, then. Let's get a hand-to-hand room."
"Yeah, sure. One thing first, though?'
He turned back to the weight machine, where Ballinger's heavy arms, trembling now, forced the bar up through the fourteenth rep. When they reached full extension, Michaelson leaned over him and rapped the insides of both elbows with the edges of his hands. Ballinger's arms gave way, and the bar slammed down into his chest. Eyes bulging, Ballinger tried to gasp "End! End!" but he hadn't enough breath for the machine to register his voice.
Michaelson patted his cheek and said, "Shouldn't press without a spotter, y'know." He grinned at me. "After you, ma'am."
I grinned back. "Why, thank you, miss?'
The line was good, but I felt a chill. I began to comprehend how dangerous Hari Michaelson might be, and I knew I'd better be bloody damn careful.
4
The hand-to-hand rooms are a level higher and directly over the gym. They vary in size and conformation, but they all have floors and walls of three-centimeter Sorbathane to minimize impact injuries. On one wall the Sorbathane's transparent and laid over a mirror, so you can watch yourself shadowbox or whatever.
Michaelson and I met in one. I was already in the required half-armor: a centimeter of Sorbathane protecting elbows, knees, vitals, head, and neck. Michaelson wore that sweaty cotton shirt and baggy black pants, and nothing else.
"You're not wearing armor," I said.
He sneered at me. "Brilliant, Businessboy. What was your first clue?"
To hold on to my temper, I conjured a vivid image of the night sky of Overworld, a dragon silhouetted against the full moon. If I didn't make this work, that mental image was the closest I'd ever get to seeing it.
I said, "Hey, c'mon, armor's required—" but before I could finish the thought he hit me from twelve directions at once.
It was like being caught in a threshing machine—he slammed his knees into my unprotected thighs, his fists and elbows against my ribs, and his forehead into the pit of my stomach and before I really knew what was happening he had my face guard mashed into the floor and my arms and legs pinned somehow and my whole body hurt.
"Tell me again about Labor scum, will you?" His voice in my ear sounded flat and metallic, and I suddenly, stunningly, arrived at the realization that I could die here.
If he wanted to, he could kill me. Easily.
And get away with it: an unfortunate training accident, and he goes right on with his life, while mine is snuffed in an instant.
And he sounded like he wanted to.
It's a funny feeling: your bowels turn to water and all the strength goes out of your arms and legs, tears well up in your eyes—it's a baby thing, I guess, a reflex to appear weak and helpless in hopes that you can trigger an answering parental reflex. But somehow I didn't think Michaelson had that particular reflex.
I sneered into the floor. "Aaah, lucky punch."
An instant of stunned silence; then he had to let me up because he was laughing too hard to hold me. I managed a little chuckle, too, as I rolled over, sat up, and tried to make sure all my joints still worked.
"Jesus. I didn't think anyone could do that; not so easily, anyway. You know I'm near the top of my class in hand-to-hand?"
Michaelson gave a derisive snort. "Yeah. You're near the top of your class in everything. Doesn't mean you know shit about it."
"I know, Hari. That's why I came looking for you."
He sat up and laced his fingers around his knees. "I'm listening," he said, but in his eyes swam naked suspicion, the permanent shifty what do you want from me? of the downcaster.
"I hear you're barely passing hand-to-hand," I said. "And I hear that the only reason you're not failing is that you—like you Labor guys say—can whip shit on every student in the class. I go to Overworld in four months, and I think there's some things you can teach me that I'm not going to learn from Tallman."
"Tallman's a moron," Michaelson said. "He's more interested in making you do it his way than in teaching
you something that'll keep you alive."
"That's the part I want to learn. That part about staying alive." "What's in it for me?"
I shrugged. "The chance to beat the snot out of a Business brat every day for four months."
He measured me with his eyes, coldly, for a long time. I fought the urge to fidget. Finally he uncoiled himself, rising with a smooth motion into a natural stance. "Get up"
"Aren't you going to get armor?"
"You think I need it?"
. I sighed. "Never mind." I got up and matched his stance. I knew he wasn't going to give me the Ready . . . Fight! of classroom sparring, so I was ready when his gaze flickered down to my groin. I dropped my hands to crossblock the kick and he cracked a left hook into my ear that made my head ring.
"Lesson one. That's an eye-fake, Hansen. Every time I see you looking at my eyes, you're gonna get a whack."
I shook the ringing out of my ears and got my hands back up. Michaelson tapped himself on the sternum.
"Look here. Always look here. You can see my whole body—the eyes lie, Hansen, but the chest is always honest. And you don't block a groinkick with your hands, you take it on the thigh. Every time you drop your hands, you're gonna get a whack. You understand?"
"Yes, I'm starting to—"
He whacked me with a right uppercut below the heart that left me gasping.
"Lesson two. Best time to hit someone is when he's off guard. Best time to catch someone off guard is when he's talking. When you talk, you're thinking about what to say next, not—''
I hit him, a good stiff jab right in the teeth. My knuckles stung like a bastard. He took a couple steps back and touched his lips; his hand came away painted crimson, and he grinned at me.
"Y'know," he said, "there's just the faintest chance I could start to like you.
This is going to work, I thought. I'm on my way to Overworld.
5
A week later, I was sitting in Chandra's office, so much of my body mottled with green and yellow and purple healing bruises that I looked like somebody'd spiked my shower with a carton of expired skin dye.
"I want permission to use the VA suite?'
The Chairman looked at me like I was some new species of cockroach. "Vilo screened this morning. He would like to know what progress Michaelson is making. I lied to him. I said everything is going well?'
"Ten days from now," I said patiently, "Hari starts Virtual Acting 102. You want him to pass, don't you? I'd think you'd be a little cooperative, here?'
"The clock is running on you, Hansen. I do not think that allowing your student to beat you senseless every day is teaching him very much."
"Allowing? Administrator, you've never seen him fight."
"His College is Battle Magick, as is yours. Have you even begun work on his visualization deficiencies? Have you begun work on his trancing? You are accomplishing nothing?'
"Administrator, I've been meeting with him for at least an hour or two every day—"
"And doing nothing of value to either of you. Did you think I was not serious, when I told you what was at stake?"
My temper flared. "Then find somebody else! I didn't ask for this job, you forced me into it! I'm doing the bloody best I can!" My face burned. A true Businessman never loses his temper in front of a downcaster. My father would never have done it. Maybe after spending so much time with Hari, his attitudes had begun to color mine.
"No, no?' Chandra shook his head. "You're the top student in Battle Magick. If I have less than the best, Vilo will think I want Michaelson to fail?"
He squinted at me, and I flashed on him.
I'm Administrator Wilson Chandra; I've spent my entire sixty-odd years of life in service, the last fifteen as Chairman of the Studio Conservatory—a position of great responsibility but very little power. I've had to kiss the crack of every Leisureman, Investor, and Businessman to ever walk through the front doors; I've had to coddle their whining protégés, handjob the Studio's Board of Governors, soothe the swollen egos of the emotionally crippled ex-Actors who make up the faculty, and somehow in the midst of all this turn out Actors who will not only survive on Overworld but provide the Studio with the income that justifies my existence.
I've done a damned good job of it for a decade and a half, and what do I get? A murderous little gangster telling me who I can and can't graduate, telling me how to do my job, and a snotty Business brat whining about having to do something his pampered little butt wasn't in the mood for.
I leaned back in my chair, blinking behind the face guard. I under-stood now. He did want Hari to fail: because it would sting Vilo. He wanted to fail me, because I was born into Business. It would be a double slap at upcasters, one he thought he could get away with. Petty and vindictive, it was exactly the kind of underhanded knife his caste had always pointed at those above it. Whatever threat Vilo might have made against his family, he didn't take too seriously, and Hari was only a pawn, a counter in his game.
I, too, was no more than a pawn. His malice wasn't personal at all. I remembered that glimpse I'd gotten of eerie, impersonal hunger behind his eyes: he didn't care about me one way or the other. I just had the bad luck to be conveniently placed for his little psychodrama of undercaste revenge.
Outside the Conservatory, things would be different. On the outside, I was Business, and he only Administration. If he so much as sniffed at me I could denounce him to the Social Police for caste violation—but none of that mattered, here. He had his grip upon me, and I could do nothing to loosen his fingers.
I started to understand from where Hari got his rage.
For a moment, I felt Hari behind me, at my shoulder, whispering in my ear the precise angle for the edge of my hand to slice at his throat and shatter his larynx; I shook my head to drive it away, and took a deep breath.
"I want permission to use the VA units," I said again.
"This, I think is too much. Unsupervised use of the VA suite is dangerous, and Instructor Hammet—"
"Y'know," I said casually, fighting down a queasy twinge in the pit of my stomach, "my father contracts with Vilo Intercontinental." This kind of sleazy Business-club innuendo left a bad taste in my mouth, but I desperately needed some leverage—and Hari's fetch still lurked at my shoulder, whispering violence.
Chandra looked blank, but he knew what I meant.
"You can authorize it. I'll take full responsibility," I said more insistently, because I understood the rules of this game. Chandra had to look like he was doing everything in his power to help me help Hari, so that he can shake his head and purse his lips in virtuous regret when he washes us out.
Reluctantly, he nodded. "All right." He drew a card out of a slot on his desk and swiveled his deskscreen toward me. "This is my duplicate access card. Thumbprint the screen here, and also thumbprint the liability release at the bottom of the screen. Any injury to either one of you is wholly your responsibility."
I nodded. "You won't regret this."
He didn't answer. He looked profoundly skeptical.
6
Hari faced me over the angled tip of his bokken—a wooden practice sword weighted to three-fourths the mass of an Overworld broadsword. He wore the required minimum armor now, as did I; bokken are real weapons, and can kill.
Without warning he lunged at me, forcing down my blade with his; when we came into the corps-a-corps an elbow I didn't even see coming slammed into my face guard and lifted me off my feet. I went down sprawling and my bokken spun away. He stood over me, wooden sword against my chest.
"You lose?'
I slapped the blade away and climbed angrily to my feet. "Goddammit, Hari! You're not supposed to hit me in the face! You could rip my sutures, and you know it. And we're supposed to be working on swords?'
He shrugged and tossed his bokken aside. "Supposed, supposed. You're supposed to be a pretty good swordsman, for a Shitschooler. Then why do you always lose?"
"Because you always cheat?'
To a Busine
ssman, those are fighting words. Hari only shook his head. "Listen, there's no such thing as cheating when you're fighting for your life. A very bright guy once said, `Winning's not the most important thing. It's the only thing." "
He came up to me, an oddly gentle expression on his face. "Kris, you're pretty good, y'know? You're fast and you learn quick and everything. You're better with a sword than I am. If I play by the rules you're gonna beat me. But on Overworld, you play by the rules, you're gonna get killed."
I thought, Don't talk down to me, you low-rent Labor prick, but I said, "Yeah, all right."' I went after my bokken, picked it up. "Let's go again."
"You never quit, do you?" He looked kind of disgusted, and kind of uncomfortable. "I'll hand it to you, you sure can take a beating. But I don't think this is doing you much good. And I think I'm going to need my free period to work on trancing for a while."'
That was almost good news—he'd finally recognized that he'd have to put in extra magickal practice if he wanted to graduate. But practice alone doesn't make perfect you only get perfect through perfect practice. And I knew exactly what he needed. The only way either of us'd ever get to Overworld was if I could convince him to let me help him.
"You're quitting? Just when I'm starting to catch up?"
"Kris, man, I'm sorry. You don't have it, you know?" He started stripping off his armor, every zzzip of parting Velcro driving a needle into my chest.
"What do you mean, I don't have it? Who made you the expert? I took the same classes you did—I may not be as good at it, but I know as much about it as you do."
His penetrating black eyes took on an empty gaze, like he looked through my head to the wall at my back, and his mouth twisted into the kind of half smile you get when you suck on a sore tooth. "You'll never know as much about it. You're too old. And you don't love it."
"Don't give me that crap, Hari. I know—"
"You don't know shit."
I thought about what I'd read in his file, about his father's insanity and downcaste slide from Professional—a professor of social anthropology—to a Temp in San Francisco's Labor slums, and about the physical abuse he'd almost certainly suffered at his father's hands, and for a moment I thought I knew him. "Hey, so you had a rough childhood—"