The Tournament

Copyright © 2012 by Dean Giles

All rights reserved. No part of this story (eBook) may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles or book reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are either a

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by TWB Press

Edited by Terry Wright

Cover Art by Terry Wright

ISBN 978-1-936991-47-1

~1~

by

Dean Giles

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other students, I scanned

the hundred-metre length of the training hall. Sunlight beamed in

through windows that wrapped around the entire building. From the

other end, Master strode towards us, past murals of ancient warriors

painted on the stone walls and racks of weapons: spears, swords,

sticks, and chains. This time I wasn’t going to get my ass kicked.

I took a calming breath of air tainted with the smells of floor

varnish and stale sweat. Students cheered Master’s arrival. The old

man followed the time-honoured ways and wore traditional gung-fu

garments, a purple tunic and loose fitting black trousers. When he

moved, his clothes snapped, a hint at the power this man could

generate.

I glanced at Zasha standing down the line. The black sash tied

around the waist of her orange uniform disguised her powerful frame

with delicious curves. She smiled her crooked little smile at me. My

only friend in this academy of hard knocks.

Master shouted. “Klay, you’re up. Tank, you’re up.”

~2~

Adrenalin pumped through me, hot as the cook fires that burn in

the kitchens.

Not Tank. Anybody but Tank.

These sparring sessions were getting tougher, full contact with

gloved fists until only one fighter remained standing. Technical

knockouts were rare. I’d rather pilot a Class Nine Shuttle with one

blown thruster and no servo boost through a dead-man spin. That

didn’t scare me, but Tank, he was another matter.

I took hold of the rising fear in the pit of my gut. My body was

telling me: fight or run.

I would fight.

The adrenaline buzz flowed through my veins, heightening my

senses. I accepted the challenge with a bow to Master.

Tank’s wide mouth curled into a wicked sneer that revealed his

pleasure in having me as his opponent. His hulking frame bulged with

pumped muscles. Shovel-sized fists clenched and opened in

anticipation of bludgeoning me to unconsciousness.

Zasha touched my shoulder and whispered into my ear. “You

can take him. Remember, bend like the wind. You are faster, stronger,

and fitter.”

I repeated her words in my head: faster, stronger, fitter, bend

like the wind. But Tank possessed something I didn’t have, a killer

instinct and a joy for causing pain.

Under a barrage of chants: “Tank, Tank, Tank,” I stepped to the

fighting mat.

“Don’t listen to them, Klay,” Zasha shouted. “Klay, Klay,

~3~

Klay.”

Students surrounded the mats. Their furore grew. “Tank, Tank,

Tank.”

To hell with them.

I faced my opponent and held Tank’s stare. His solid eyes

overflowed with hatred for me and my kind. He stood a full head

taller, one-hundred and thirty kilograms of lean muscle, a full fifty

kilos heavier than me and augmented with military-issue muscle

builders. His forearms were covered in needle marks where he had

injected the nano-machines that fed his muscles additional complex

carbohydrates and proteins.

“If you lose,” Master announced, “It is kitchen duty. You win,

your name goes on the pick list for Earth Government final trials. Any

questions?”

I shook my head and glanced at Zasha. She beamed with pride.

Wouldn’t she love to be in my place? The warrior academy could do

with twenty more just like her, but zero of me.

Tank growled and shook his bulldog jowls. We were supposed

to touch gloves, but he bashed his fists into mine. The recoil almost

knocked me out.

“Fight!” Master ordered.

Tank pumped the air with his fists to the chants of his name,

feeding off the crowd, like I was no more than a fly in the room.

I took the time to relax my body; I shook my wrists, my hands,

and my fingers, loosened up and cleared my mind. Bend like the wind.

My carbon-impregnated skin cells oozed an alcohol-based form of

~4~

nano-sweat that would help keep me cool. I wound up my knee joint

motors and shifted my weight back and forth, from front leg to back

leg.

Tank whipped around and delivered a flying front-kick, his heel

aimed square at my face.

I slipped the strike like a shadow and pivoted left. The students’

chants faded from my awareness. Only Tank and I existed.

He attacked with a quick jab. I rolled under it and returned three

of my own, two to his exposed ribs and one to his solar plexus.

That got a gasp out of him and a couple swear words Master

would not approve of him uttering.

He powered forward with two heavy hooks, left and right. I

jumped back to avoid his sledgehammer blows. But I’d backed up to

the edge of the mat, and with Tank steaming forward, I had no time to

recover, just duck.

His fist took out three students behind me.

I revved my knee joint motors and flipped over him.

He swung around and grunted.

I landed on one foot, twisted right, and snapped out a back-kick

to his mid-section. Air huffed from his lungs. I sprang backwards,

bouncing on the balls of my feet, fists ready.

Tank spit a loogie on the mat. “Come here, you freak.” He

screamed like a girl and followed up with a side-kick that would have

smashed the ribs of a regular-bred human. My tough carbon enhanced

skin absorbed the impact, but I stumbled three steps back.

An ugly smile grew across his face. He lunged in for the kill,

~5~

lashing out with a flurry of punches.

I ducked. I rolled. I slipped. I saw an opening, and unleashing all

my augmented power, I struck out with a right-fisted hook to his chin.

He stopped. He wobbled.

I followed up with two jabs to his throat and a round-kick to his

temple.

He stumbled.

Another fist square on his nose knocked him to his knees. He

looked up at me with a raw expression of disbelief. All the anger and

hatred drained off, now replaced with wide-eyed defeat.

I had won. No need to deliver the final knock out blow. He was

finished. I actually felt sorry for him with all that pride, all that

bragging now reduced to shame.

The sounds of shouting students crept back into my awareness. I

scanned the wrenched faces all around me.

“Get up, Tank... take him apart...”

Zasha's waving arms caught my attention. “Klay!”

I smiled and shoved a victorious fist in the air.

Her face radiated terror. “Look out...behind you.”

Comprehension dawned on me like a board across my forehead.

I spun round.

Tank’s tree trunk leg flew toward me. His hoggish foot landed

squarely on my right knee, followed by the rapid ratchet-clicking

sounds of newly stripped joint motors. The malfunction only

staggered me, but his bucket-fist to my mouth knocked me to the mat

and reacquainted me with the coppery taste of my blood.

~6~

***

I hobbled down the deserted corridor from the kitchens toward

my room, savouring the feel of cool, rough stone beneath my bare

feet. The sun would be up soon. Around here, losers got kitchen duty.

I knew the cooks by their first names.

Inhaling a deep breath, I carried the weight of my existence like

a broken toy. No parents. No siblings. No home. The authorities

brought me to this place, after the genetic experiments.

People often feared what they didn’t understand. They looked

down on those who were different. Though most of the students never

said anything to my face, I had seen their disdain for me in the flicker

of their downcast eyes. I had heard it in their muted conversations as I

passed them by. Most had taken a cheap shot at me, one time or

another, and they’d even targeted Zasha for being my friend. “Zygote

lover,” they’d said. I caught a guy once, mouthing off, put him in the

hospital.

Even still, I was the butt of all their stupid jokes.

The raw sting of rejection was constant.

My knee joint throbbed with each step, thanks to Tank’s

blindside kick. My fat lip felt like an Inflate-A-Raft under my nose.

Tank and the others could make life miserable for this resident genetic

freak, but I wouldn’t let them see me suffer.

Doors lined both sides of the corridor. I glimpsed into an open

room. Smiling photos covered the walls, family portraits from happy

days. Multi-coloured fabrics hung from the ceiling, an extension of

~7~

the occupier’s vibrant personality.

I reached the end of the passageway and pushed open the thin

wooden door to my room. My walls told their own story: bare and

grey stone. A dark blue sheet hung from a rusted curtain pole to hold

back the coming sunrise. My bunk was no more than an inch-thick

foam mattress. A single wooden trunk under the window held all my

belongings, clothes mostly, a toothbrush, but not a single picture or

memento of my past.

But as much as I didn’t fit in here, this was my home, a sorry

pin-prick of a planet, somewhere south of the lower sector where

warriors were trained for intergalactic service. I had never asked for

any of this shit.

I lay down and rubbed my aching muscles. My skin was pale in

tone with a subtle metallic texture, impregnated with a complex

mixture of carbons entwined into my genetic code. The bioengineers

should have made my heart out of the same stuff.

***

I woke to the sound of hurried footsteps. Zasha skidded into my

room barely coming to a stop at my bed.

“Klay, it’s time.”

“Time for what?” I asked with more than a little irritation,

sleep’s warm embrace fast becoming a cold memory.

“You’re going to finally get some real action.”

I pulled the sheet over my head. “I did my kitchen duty.”

“No really. Final trials.”

~8~

My heart lurched. The desire for sleep washed off me in an

instant. If what she said was true, I would be informed at morning

training, so how did she already know? Unless the little sneak... I

tossed back the sheet. “You’ve been eavesdropping on Master’s study

again?”

“I wish it was my time for final trials.” Her soft voice didn’t

mask her seriousness. “I heard him forward a request to the Grand

Master that you be recommended for your first assignment.”

If she was right, training was over. I rolled off the bed, dread

ploughing through my chest like a mudslide. “I’m not ready for final

trials.”

“Of course you are. You beat Tank good.”

I slipped into my robe. “But I didn’t finish him. If I can’t knock

out my opponent in training, how can I kill someone in battle?”

“’Cause it’s kill or be killed.”

“Yeah, some choice.” I worked my knee joint motors. Few

students made it as far as we did, Zasha and I, before their bodies or

minds were crushed. To pass the final trials to become an Earth

Government warrior was something everyone here aspired to,

everyone except me. “Do the others know?”

Zasha showed me her crooked little smile. “I wanted you to hear

it first.”

A bang at the door sent a shockwave through me. “Five minutes

till roll call, people. Move it!”

She jumped up. “I’ll see you down there in five.”

I sat on the bed. “I’m not going.”

~9~

~10~

About the Author

Dean lives with his wife and two young children in Surrey, UK. He owns a business jointly with his father, developing and manufacturing fibre optic components. His day job consists largely of shining light through fragile glass fibres, and trying to glue very small things to even smaller things.

A 2nd Dan Black Belt in Kickboxing, Dean has won national and international titles in the sport. In 2003 he spent a few months living, and training at a Shaolin Kung Fu academy in Northern China. He enjoys running and mountain biking, but now does most of his training in the local boxing gym.

Dean writes science fiction and horror, and his short stories have appeared in webzines in the UK and US.

~11~

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