Dusk (11 page)

“It will take them a while, but yeah, they
can make it there. It will weaken our ability to stop the cavalry
though.”

“You couldn’t really stop the cavalry anyway,
right?” Cyrus smiled, and Dr. Jang breathed another chuckle-sigh.
“You have fire attacks on this level, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then there’s the plan. Send the archers to
cover the pass. Divide the infantry, leaving only those necessary
for the fire attack. Send the rest around the opposite side of the
pass and have them double-time it to the other entrance. When the
cavalry rushes in, set the fire attack on the ground in front of
them and keep feeding the flames. By then, your archers should be
in place. Have them wait at the top of the pass until your infantry
arrives here.” Cyrus pointed to the spot the cavalry was charging
from. “Then, have them charge from here to here.” Cyrus pointed to
a spot about three hundred scale meters from the previous one.
“Then stop when the cavalry rushes back to engage your infantry.
Have the archers unload on them. Then, the only way out will be to
charge through a hail of arrows for another three hundred meters
and face fresh infantry, or to charge back three hundred meters and
brave the flames. Any man that makes it out of that will earn a
plume for his helm.”

“It all
sounds
good, but I don’t
know.”

“What do you have to lose?”

Dr. Jang set the plan in motion. He deftly
maneuvered his hand over the hologram, shifting effortlessly across
large spans of battlefield, placing command markers here and there
that gave the troops specific orders to follow. The men were still
frozen in place as the commands were given. Finally, Dr. Jang
turned to Cyrus again. “Let’s see what happens.”

He pressed the holographic button again and
the battle exploded to life. Just as Cyrus had planned, the cavalry
rushed in, stopped at the fire, and was lured into a hail of
arrows. The computer, struggling with three distinct targets,
emulated panic remarkably in the enemies it controlled. The cavalry
spun and twisted as arrows tore through armor and horses in a
well-orchestrated ballet of slaughter and terror. Men fell from
their mounts, horses trampled the living and dead alike, and only
the commander managed to scurry for cover behind a rock.

“Wow,” Dr. Jang exhaled, “it looks like a
totally different scenario now. These guys just rode into the wrong
door at a slaughterhouse.”

“Pause it,” Cyrus added calmly, admiring his
work. “The battle’s not over yet. We still have to take over the
base.”

“Yeah, and we’re still outnumbered.”

“Scroll over to the side again. What was that
structure I saw earlier?”

Dr. Jang scrolled closer to the main base and
over to the right. “You mean this? That’s a supply depot. It
confuses them for a little while if you take it over, but it
doesn’t really help much.”

“There’s only those guys on the inside
defending it?”

“Yeah, but they are pretty strong.”

“Will the men come out of the main fortress
if assistance is needed at the supply base?”

“Yeah, if you are taking too long to beat the
supply captains, or if you set the place on fire. But you have to
do that from the inside.”

“Hmm,” Cyrus pondered the situation for a
moment, “Can your archers help with the fire attack?”

“If you combine them with the fire attack
unit they can launch flaming arrows from a distance.”

“Okay, send your archers to this hill here.”
Cyrus let a feeble yawn escape as he pointed out the hill in front
of the supply depot. “Rush your foot soldiers to the front, but
then stop. When the gates to the depot open, fire your arrows
inside. If the men here are as clumsy as the cavalry, they will
stumble over themselves trying to figure out whether the fire or
your foot soldiers are more important. Have the foot soldiers run
to the back of the supply depot and when the reinforcements come,
set another fire behind them and rain arrows down on them from the
hill.”

Dr. Jang chuckled to himself as he reached to
enter some commands into the game, “We sure are setting a lot of
things on fire.”

“Even people fascinated with fire are afraid
of it. I’d say it’s one of the most fearsome things in the human
imagination.”

Dr. Jang finished entering the series of
commands Cyrus had dictated. He kept the system paused as he turned
back to Cyrus, “Why do you think that is?”

“I think it’s because one way or the other,
everything burns. The trick is getting something warmed up enough
to reach its flash point. But once it’s burned, it ain’t coming
back. Fire is decisive, permanent, and unforgiving.”

Dr. Jang’s eyes focused on Cyrus’s rather
intently for a brief moment and then relaxed as he let out a hybrid
sigh-chuckle. He started to say something, reconsidered, and then
said it anyway, “You ever say anything like that to anyone who
didn’t think you were a twisted freebirth after you said it?” The
words came out rushed and awkward.

Cyrus smiled a little to reassure Dr. Jang he
was not offended, “I said something like that to my wife once, but
she was already indubitably convinced I was a twisted
freebirth.”

“If this long-winded scheme of yours works,
twisted freebirth or not, you have my respect.” Dr. Jang turned
back and was about to let the commands run their course, but he
stopped again, hand hovering over the controls. “Just do me a
favor. Don’t tell anyone about me hacking this game into the
system.”

“If anyone hears it, they won’t hear it from
me. But you’re gonna have trouble keeping it from any other
scientists who venture in here to burn the midnight oil.”

“Honestly, I don’t mind if anyone else knows,
or even plays. That would be stellar if they did. I just don’t want
Dr. Villichez to find out. That guy reminds me too much of my
halabagi.” Dr. Jang exhaled a weak chuckle again and set the battle
in motion, awaiting the conflagration that would push his
streamer-sporting adversary to his flash point.

• • • • •

—
Darius, how did you score in the seventy-fourth
percentile?

—
I don’t know.

—
You don’t know? What does that mean, ‘you don’t
know?’ I would think between the two of us, you would have the
clearest idea. Don’t tell me you don’t know.

—
Why are you so serious? It’s just seventy-four.
It’s still above average.

—
Above average? Where is this coming from? How
would you feel if I took your HoloStation and gave you a Viewdeck
instead?

—
I don’t know.

—
You don’t know again, huh? Darius, ‘I don’t
know’ is the stupid man’s mantra when he’s backed into a corner.
You know full-well what you would feel like if you had to play vids
on a Viewdeck. You wouldn’t like it, would you?

—
I don…

—
Don’t you say it, boy. You own up. You answer me
like a man and stop dodging. Would you like it if someone took your
HoloStation and gave you a Viewdeck?

—
I guess a Viewdeck is okay, if all you got is a
Viewdeck. But if I had a HoloStation, especially a HoloStation
Prime, and it got traded for a Viewdeck, I guess I wouldn’t like it
much.

—
Why?

—
Because a Viewdeck is bunkus compared to a
HoloStation.

—
Exactly. And here you are, a nominee for the
Rothschild Laureate, and you’re handing me scores like a
Freeschooler.

—
Thought you said there’s nothing wrong with
Freeschool.

—
I did. Just like you said there’s nothing wrong
with a Viewdeck. But backtracking is… what’s the word…
bunkus.

—
I don’t get it. Why do I have to be the best all
the time? Why don’t I get a break?

—
You get a break when the job’s done, son. It’s
that simple. And you have to be the best because you are the
best—at least better than most when it comes to understanding and
reasoning.

—
But the job’s hard and it goes on forever. Soon
as one thing’s done there’s some other boring thing to do. It’s not
fair.

—
Fair? What’s not fair is being given the gift of
aptitude and not using it. There’s some kid right now wishing he
were half as capable as you. Why does that Genivere Lim girl always
beat you, huh? Do you even know?

—
Please Dada, not again.

—
Yes, again. Again and again and again until you
get it. It’s because you don’t have the killer instinct. Because
you don’t know how to get the job done under tough circumstances.
Not because she’s smarter than you, but because she wants it more.
She needs it just to get through the day. Needs it because she
isn’tsmarter, and that’s all she has to cling to.

—
Then she can have it.

—
And she will. And you, you will always be second
seed.

—
Maybe second seed is enough.

—
You ever wonder why I never bought you the
HoloStation Prime you’re always asking for? It’s because you don’t
deserve it. Because you don’t get the job done.

—
I don’t see what that has to do with what you’re
talking about.

—
And that’s precisely why you still have a
HoloStation Beta. The day you realize that sometimes you have to do
things you don’t want to get the things you do want, that will be
the day l get you anything you ask for within my power.

—
And when will that be?

—
Ask yourself.

• • • • •

As Cyrus hit the ground, pain struck out from his
shoulder blade, through his wrist and hand, and out his fingers,
letting him know immediately that something had gone wrong. He
rolled over the opposite shoulder and to his feet, avoiding his
right arm completely. As he turned to face Dr. Tanner, he exhaled
starkly, extended his left arm in front of him, and then assumed a
defensive stance. His right arm hung limp against his side.

“That doesn’t look good,” Dr. Tanner relaxed
his stance.

“I can still fight.” Cyrus lunged forward
with a kick, and then, as Tanner blocked, Cyrus ducked around to
the left and fired a left hook beneath Tanner’s elbow. Tanner
dodged to the side as the punch nicked his shirttail.

“Wasn’t expecting…” His sentence was cut
short as he dodged back to his right, under another kick. Cyrus
rotated his body right and fired another kick over Tanner’s ducking
head. As Tanner stepped forward to counter, Cyrus launched himself
into the air, using his momentum to spin and bring his left foot
completely around. Already moving forward, Tanner had to let his
front leg collapse under his own weight to get under the kick.
Cyrus’s foot grazed Tanner’s lip as his head went down, off
balance. Cyrus landed and let the momentum carry his limp arm
around and the wrist of his dislocated arm smacked into Tanner’s
temple. The collision snapped Tanner’s head to the side, and his
body, already off balance, crumpled to the ground. Cold, sharp
nettles of pain shot from Cyrus’s rotator cuff in an arc, slicing
through his elbow, meeting at the tip of his middle finger, and
leaving a glacial numbness in its wake. And then, the glacier
shattered and pain washed over his entire body like a deluge. As
Cyrus’s body collapsed, he imagined he could feel his
consciousness, along with the pain, spilling out onto the body of
his fallen adversary.

• • • • •

“I hate it when you move your queen out in
the opening.”

“The only reason I move my queen out in the
opening is because I know you hate it.”

Tanner rubbed his jaw lightly as he studied
the chessboard. “My jaw still hurts,” he said, stretching his mouth
as he advanced his king-side knight.

“My shoulder’s not doing too well either.”
Cyrus lightly massaged his right shoulder as he considered his next
move.

“Are you always this mean, or do I just bring
the best out of you?” Tanner said while adjusting his jaw and
grimacing.

“You force me to raise the bar because you
know what you’re doing. Honestly, I have to step outside of myself
to even think about beating you, kung fu, chess, or academics. At
least when sparring, I can pretty much forget about winning unless
you slack off.”

“But it’s not all about winning or
losing.”

“It isn’t, but I try to avoid making a habit
of losing.” Cyrus advanced his king-side bishop.

“Sounds like pride to me.” Although
unorthodox, Tanner had seen this opening before, and had lost to
it, yet he still felt unprepared.

“Maybe, but it’s the only thing that gets me
through some days.”

“You know, they say pride comes before a
fall.” Tanner advanced his queen’s pawn one space ahead. He took a
different approach than the last time in hopes it would open room
for his own attack.

“That’s funny, because I don’t really plan on
falling without mine.” Cyrus rubbed his shoulder again and moved
his queen-side knight’s pawn a space ahead, defending his
bishop.

Tanner shook his head. “Always something new
with you. You have to be the most unorthodox chess player I have
ever lost to.”

“I never claimed to be a chess player.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Tanner was in
a chokehold. All the moves he would have wanted to make had been
taken away from him. He moved his queen-side bishop ahead one
space. It was safe, but it felt like a waste. Again his opening
gamut was shot from the second move.

Cyrus could see the lines stretching across
Tanner’s forehead. Frustration manifested itself on his brow the
same way it did on Darius’s face.

“I’m glad you brought a corporeal chessboard.
The holographic chessboards are so… alienating.” Cyrus looked
deliberately at the board as if the key to his next move lay
somehow beneath it.