Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) (27 page)

Once I gathered my senses, I was treated to one of the great sights in the history of humanity, a close-up of Apogee’s untrammeled figure, from the cusp between her legs, up through the ridges of her muscled abdomen and between the perfect peaks of her breasts, to the most beautiful face on the planet. I could smell her, feel her warmth against my neck, and my only reaction was to smile.

“I’m trying to be serious, Dale,” she said.

“Then don’t do this,” I said. “This whole ‘I revert to caveman mode’ thing.”

She rolled off, sitting on the sand, and I sat up.

“As far as the other stuff,” I said. “I’m game. You don’t have to beat me up or show me how good of a martial artist you are to convince me that I fight like a drunken bear.”

“I’ve seen drunken bears that would kick your ass.”

I laughed and looked past her, remembering the time in Shard World when we had found a small lake, Cool Hand in tow. In his usual, indiscrete fashion, Cool Hand Luke had pressured Apogee about whether she found me attractive and whether I did the same. It was his method, crass as it was, to play matchmaker.

“Where’d you go?”

I got up and offered my hand to help her up. She took it and we faced each other.

“What I’m trying to say, is that I accept your offer for training,” I said, bowing from my seat in the dirt.

She fought the urge to smile, poorly, and we got started.

*              *              *              *

I got into a ready position, and she paused. “What are you doing,” she said.

I looked around, self-conscious. "What?"

"What is that," she gestured at me.

"I'm knuckled up," I said. "Ready to rock."

"Who taught you that?"

I was ready for the surprise shot. I knew that's what the lesson was. Don't drop your guard, don't be fooled by off-tactics. I kept my guard tight, my eyes wide and ready.

"I'm serious," she said. "When did you learn to square up like that?"

Her hands were by her sides, and I saw genuine confusion in her face. "The last time I saw you fight, you were like a plodding cow," she said. "That looks pretty good."

I chuckled, recalling the brief training session with Focus back in Superdynamic's Tower. We'd spent only an hour or so going over the basics, but I guess some of her teaching had stuck. Apogee hadn't seen me for more than an instant during the D.C. incident, so this was all new to her.

"YouTube," I said, not wanting to bring up Focus.

She shook her head with a knowing smile on her face, finally shrugging and returning to her stance in front of me. "Then let's see how much you've learned," she said, and snapped a lead jab that caught me under the chin and rocked my head back.

"Sonofabitch," I said, rubbing my face.

"They don't teach that online, do they?"

I smiled, "Getting beat up I’m already good at.”

"You need to learn how to fight," she said, with such a definitive tone she must've thought I was as helpless as a newborn.

"I don't have to remind you who won that the last two times we've tussled," I said, and a second later she snapped another nasty jab at my face, only this time I was ready for it. I caught the punch with the open palm of my right hand and slapped it down - something I had seen Focus do when we had sparred.

Apogee didn't like the move, which I followed with a lateral step and a half punch that came within inches of her right cheek. She dropped her guard and stared at me, her jaw clenched tight.

"Who’ve you been training with?”

I didn’t want to tell her, worried about how jealous she’d get about the time I’d spent with Focus. Hell, I had plans for tonight with Madelyne. One word about spending time training with a younger woman and I might jeopardize that.”

"Maybe we should focus on something simpler," I said. "Like the big haymaker. Every big dude does it..." I trailed off, recalling the shot I had received from Blackjack 2.0 that had almost taken me out of commission.

"Right..."

"Well, teach me how to defend against one," I said. "And not just how to get out of the way. I can duck, too. I mean-"

"I got you," she said, moving closer, inspired by my suggestion. "More practical tips. I see where you're going. Okay, so the big punch." She stepped closer and maneuvered my shoulders to block us at proper distance. "Throw it softly."

I started to throw it and noticed she didn't move. She just watched me as I went through the motion until I came to her face, stopping a few inches from hitting her. "Not bad. Now, there's two things that you have to keep in mind when that big punch comes. First, you don't block it. Put your hand back so you're almost hitting me."

I raised my fist right beside her face

"If I do the typical block," she said, raising her elbow to cover her face. "I'm only avoiding the blow, I'm not avoiding the massive force that comes with it. We're not regular humans, Dale. Even a blocked shot can take you out."

"Right," I said. "The problem is I'm not all that fast. I can't bob and weave to avoid punches."

"You don't need to move much," she said, "But avoiding the punch is better than getting hit. The other thing you have to think about is that the big haymaker is usually a setup for the second punch. A lot of people use it like a jab. That second hit comes from the left hand across your jaw and is even deadlier."

Apogee pretended to throw a wide and clumsy right hand haymaker, and motioned for me to block it, then followed up with a sharp left uppercut that she stopped inches from my jaw.

"See?"

"So I can't block it," I said, "and I can't avoid it, and I'm only going to get hit even worse by the second punch. That's what you're trying to tell me?"

She smiled, "Basically. Only I've got a technique that'll stop that crap cold. It's something I'd never think of doing myself - I don't have your physique - but for you it's perfect."

"Fire my rocket boots and run?"

Apogee giggled, "No, silly, but it does involve your feet. You kick them in the stomach."

"That's...I don't know if I can do that."

Flustered, she positioned me again, and motioned for me to hit her. "I'm you in this, okay?"

I threw the punch again, nice and slow, and with the same deliberate speed, she snapped her lead leg forward and caught me softly in the solar plexus. "See?" she said. "It's more of a push than a real kick, but with your big-ass feet, and those powerful legs, you could take someone down just like that. Now you try it."

She threw a slow punch, and I brought my leg up high, the theoretical kick aimed at her solar plexus. It felt awkward and I was still achy and tight from Amsterdam, but I did notice how throwing a straight kick would impede a puncher’s motion.

"Now, it requires incredible timing, so I'm going to teach you a trick that will give you a split second to do it. As we're doing here, you're throwing a kick with your lead leg, but that'll require you to match the move almost exactly, so what I want you to do is use your rear leg.”

"Won't that be harder?"

She again took my shoulders and put me in place. "No, because you're going to side step the punch." Apogee waved me forward and I threw another half-speed punch. She was in a normal fighting stance for a righty, her left leg forward, left arm leading and up beside her face, back hand a little lower and nearer her jaw. As I came in, she swapped positions, retreated a half step back and to her left and throwing the kick with her right leg.

"Now you try," she said. "The footwork is a bitch, so do it slow."

We went through it and I did it perfectly. She caught my big foot in mid-air, chuckling. "You hit someone with this thing and the fight is over." Apogee let go of my foot and looked down at my boots. "You learn that footwork from watching videos, too?"

Another thing I had Focus to thank for.

"So let's do that a few times at faster speed. I want you to see how you're opening up space so you're beyond the range of my punch, but I'm still within the range of your kick. If you do it right, you can't be hit."

I bent over, feeling my legs starting to tense up. Anything physical was a chore these days, and the last few minutes had taxed me.

"What's wrong?"

I shook my head, stretching. "Everything hurts."

“That’s what happens when you go off to fight your duplicate nemesis without the proper training.” She giggled as she came closer, "We can take a break if you-"

"No, I'm good," I said. "Let's do this."

Apogee liked my enthusiasm, but I could tell she was worried for me.

I got in the ready position, and so did she, a moment later hurling herself forward with a full-speed punch. I nailed the side step, but the kick failed me. I was looking at my target, shaking my head.

"What? That was pretty good."

"I can't kick you there," I said.

She looked down at herself and smiled; "Now look, I'm a big girl."

"Yeah, and I don't want to hurt you there."

"Dale, I'm trying to teach you something."

I laughed, "They're the most perfect breasts in all humanity, I'm not going to be the guy that..."

"That what?"

"Look, maybe we should take a break," I said, collapsing on to the sand. "I think I have the move down."

Apogee kicked the sand in frustration, walking away from me, then turned back.

"Get up," she said. "This move is just the beginning. You think everything hurts now? Wait until I'm done with you. Now come on," she came up to me and gave me her outstretched hand. I took it and she jerked me to my feet.

"Okay, but let's do something else."

"No," she said. "We're doing this. We're going to keep doing this until it's like second nature to you...and don’t worry, I'll block your kick so you don't damage the sisters."

I laughed and got ready, finally nodding. She came at me and I did the move, but my kick wasn't what either one of us had hoped. Apogee was coming as fast as she could and still be a normal human's speed, and I was slow in reacting.

"Come on," she said. "You know this is coming. It's the first punch, the opening salvo. One shot and the bad guy knocks you out."

"You're forgetting I'm the bad guy," I said.

"Whatever," she said. "Don't kick like a little girl. Ready?"

She threw another powerful punch and I tried the kick again, but once more I failed to really snap it out.

"Your side-step move is good, but you're moving too far. Remember, you don't have to go back that far."

"My legs are long," I said.

"Then take a half-step," she said, after thinking a while. "Just shuffle enough so you're out of the way of the punch."

We did it again, and with the closer range, I was able to get a decent kick in. Apogee was fast, and threw her forearms across her chest to guard against the incoming blow. I knocked her back a few feet, forcing her to dig in to the sand to absorb the momentum.

"Not bad," she said, then opened her arms and pointed to her chest. "And see? They’re fine. Now let's do it again."

I giggled. "The sisters..."

And we went back at it.

After our training session, I took a shower cleaned up and headed down to the command center. I kept running the moves through my head, occasionally shadow boxing, working the step and the kick. I must have looked like a crazy person. Bubu was off at the village with Sebas and the others, working hard on fixing the code and I figured I’d give it a look as well.

I was lost in thought, tinkering when Apogee came into the command center. She was wearing tight yoga pants, sandals and a loose fitting top that led me to believe she wasn’t wearing her bra. “You need sleep,” she said.

I yawned at the talk of hitting the sack. “I’m just helping the guys a little. This bug list is interminable and we’re still not ready to bring the whole thing online.”

Madelyne leaned in, rubbing my shoulders. “We did good work today,” she said. “Get some rest.”

“Nice,” I said as she used her strong hands to massage my traps, spreading outward on my deltoids. I tipped my head back, pressing against her breasts, but she kept going, moving her hands into the middle of my back and stroking down my spine, sending waves of pleasure throughout my body. Without warning, she came back up and caressed the back of my head, her fingers spreading through the fresh stubble growing there.

“I like you with hair,” she said. “Pretty amazing how fast it grows back. Yesterday you were almost totally bald.”

“And no eyebrows,” I said.

Madelyne stretched into me, letting her body press into my back. “Let’s go to bed,” she breathed into my ear.

I turned around and looked up at her.

“You’re staring,” she said, moving in and sitting on my lap.

“Get used to it,” I said, widening my eyes and giving her chest a long look. Madelyne cupped my chin, tilting my head so our eyes met. She was tired, but also leaden with fear.

“I know what I’m doing,” I said, trying to quell her unspoken worries. “This will all work.”

“Not if you’re exhausted,” Apogee said and moved in, kissing me for a long time. Breaking the kiss and studying my face, running her fingers down the scar on my cheek. “You’re overdoing it, Dale. Come on,” she said, standing.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, looking long and hard at the code. “Maybe you’re right.”

“You just want to get it right,” she said.

I nodded. “Haha’s going to be a tough nut to crack.”

“Start with his motivation. What does he want, anyway,” Apogee wondered aloud.

“You were with him as much as I was.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t listening to half the crap he said, Dale. I didn’t take the stupid rabbit thing seriously.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, tapping away at the keyboard. “Well, I think he wants to bring me some pain that’s all.”

“And he doesn’t have the stones to make himself a little robot to come face you, huh? I love you villains, always having others fight for you.”

I looked at the bug list and typed in the next fix.

“Well, I’m trying to rewrite the book, honey.” I found the next error I’d been searching for and made the correction, then looked back at Apogee who was still waiting for me to follow. “The most important thing about Haha is that understanding him isn’t the point. He’s software, lines of code like this.” I pointed at the screen. “That’s all he is and I know you and everyone else want to attribute to him this great wisdom because he has access to every tome in creation at a moment’s notice….”

Apogee was staring at the screen, lost in the vast code. I could see it reflected in her green eyes.

“See, that’s all he is. Tons and tons of commands. He might be an artificial intelligence, but in the end, you have to emphasize the ‘artificial’ part. He’s a construct with commands telling him what to do. Like old school FORTRAN IF/THEN commands, only a million times more complicated. I’d say we’ve got ten million lines of code running the Castle’s network. I wrote most of it, but the guys have helped some. Well, Haha’s command center might have a billion times more code, all the time looking over and rewriting bad code, writing new code. That’s how you get a monster like Haha.”

“The bigger he is, the easier he will be to find, right,” she said.

“Sort of,” I said. “Remember on Shard World, how scared he was to go into the lake after the big monster thing?”

“Sometimes I wonder if all of that really happened.”

“No kidding,” I said. “Anyway, he was afraid, remember? He didn’t want to risk his main systems.”

She nodded.

“Well, it goes with something else he told me before, about how he functioned that got me thinking. He explained to me that he was stealing access to many varied botnets on Earth.” I paused, waiting to see if she knew what a botnet was, but from her expression, I guessed she wasn’t. “A botnet is a collection of computers, in some cases benevolent, and in others not – like when a group of hackers implant a virus on many separate computers. Take your mom’s computer, for example. She might download a new helper bar for her internet browser and without realizing it, given access to her computer to some Eastern European or Chinese hacker group.”

“Okay, I know something about this,” she jumped in. “It’s like when some big company gets hit with an attack that shuts down their computers.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s called a denial of service attack and it can be as simple as having thousands, even millions of computers trying to login to a system at the same time. It cripples the system and brings it down. Anyway, that’s a botnet, and that’s how Haha operates. He spreads himself across the botnet, and uses it for his nefarious purposes.”

Madelyne laughed, “Nefarious.”

“Like that?” I smiled.

“Yeah, sexy word.”

“Haha’s got all these lines of code telling him what to do, but he’s segmented it, compartmentalized it and spread it across the botnet. At first I thought it was just the encyclopedia, you know, the knowledge stuff that he had partitioned off, but you’re right, he’s too big. With all those many, many functions, he partitions off a vast majority of them – what he doesn’t need at the moment. Like for you and me, it would be like taking the activity of brushing your teeth, all the relevant knowledge and all the memories and storing them off somewhere. When he’s on earth, he has access to everything. He’s tapped into the botnet. Back on Shard World he had only what he could carry, what he thought was important.”

“I get it,” she said. “So he’s got some sort of central command, like a master core of commands that-“

“Exactly,” I said, beaming.

“-Is the most important stuff. And when he goes places, he takes that with him. That’s why he was afraid in Shard World, right?”

“If he lost that,” I said. “Returning to Earth meant nothing. He’d be missing the critical components that make the whole thing work, to tie it all together. I laughed at the idea of him being a coward, but he inadvertently gave me a clue how to beat him. We don’t have to destroy all of Haha, we just have to beat that part.”

“And this base is all designed for that purpose,” she said.

“To catch Haha, yes. It’s a trap.”

“So tell me.”

I shrugged, “I don’t know, Maddie. I don’t want to jinx it.”

“Let me guess, you’ve made it so complicated that you don’t even remember how it works.”

“I guess,” I said. “Not really.”

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “I’m kidding.”

I stared into her eyes, hoping she’d come back for more, hoping she wouldn’t realize I was worried about telling her the truth because I wasn’t ready to trust her, or anyone, yet.

“Anyway, Haha isn’t worth all the effort,” I said, and her face turned sour. She didn’t like the robot at all. “He’s not. See, in the end he’s just a child? He thinks he’s a big boy, but he’s not. He’s a fucking child, Apogee.”

I turned back to the screen, “A child that’s never gone through the effort to grow up.”

Apogee laughed as she moved in and took my hand. “Remind you of someone?” she said, lifting me out of the chair and leading me to our bed.

*              *              *              *