Elite (25 page)

Not so invincible now, are we?
He thought to himself.

Still, there was no doubt in his mind that he was going to make it to the top, and that once he did, he was going to get himself through the ninth stage of the course.

Now that his body knew what it needed to do, he began to lose himself in his unconscious mind again, directing his body to keep itself from failing the task at hand. By the time his left-arm began emulating it’s counterpart with searing pain, he had already reached the top.

Daniel pulled himself to his feet on the flat surface at the top of the ramp, immediately pulling his arm out of the pack that now felt as though it were the size of a rhinoceros, and kicked it over the edge, watching it go tumbling down the ramp and hitting the floor of the complex. He never wanted to see that devil-bag ever again.

As he stood at the top, he began swinging his arms out to his sides and rolling his shoulders, trying to loosen himself up. That obstacle had taken a lot out of him, and no matter how hard he tried to mask the pain, he felt it.

There was no time limit in which he needed to complete the obstacle course, and several of the other agents had recommended he take his sweet time after the Pack Climb. He now understood why. Obviously he couldn’t stay up there the rest of the day, but he figured a short five to ten-minute rest was in order.

Especially since the next stage was the Pedal Cable – the same stage Charlie wrestled with trying to complete his first several times through the course. Daniel better understood why after the climb he had just finished. In fact, he couldn’t understand how that skinny little prick had managed to make it this far. Richfield wasn’t lying when he said that he recruited the toughest men and women around.

It was at about this point that Daniel looked at Norma. She had also been able to complete the first nine stages after a few tries.

That is one badass chick,
he thought.

Daniel turned to face the ninth, and almost final, obstacle in the course. If he could figure this one out, he would join an elite few
who  had managed to complete the first nine stages in their very first attempt.

He walked up to the cable, which was strung at eye level across a thirty-foot gap –
another gap
– until reaching a secure platform on the other side. Richfield was apparently a big fan of these high-wire acts.

Sitting on the cable was a pulley system which looked like an upside-down unicycle, with the wheel resting on top of the wire and the pedals hanging down. The object was to hang form the object, using your hands to pedal it, in-turn turning the wheel on top of the cable and moving yourself across the open chasm.

Daniel decided to take a few more minutes before attempting the trial, breathing deeply and absorbing as much oxygen as possible out of the stale air in the room. He sent neural signals to his muscles, commanding them to fully relax themselves. This mixed with the intense flow of fully oxygenated blood and other chemicals he was sending from his brain created a sensation that was remarkably soothing. He didn’t know how the rest of the agents got by. They were clearly tougher than he was.

After the burning in his muscles had become tolerable again, Daniel grabbed ahold of the pedals and pushed himself off the edge of the platform. The trick now would be to avoid ending up like Charlie, and figure out quickly how to make the pedals turn.

It should not be that difficult,
he thought to himself, knowing very well that he was about to be proven very wrong.

The way he was currently gripping the pedals, the pedal in his left hand was at the top of its rotation, while the one in his right was at the bottom. He could feel them both start to rotate back and forth as he
shifted his weight. With the force of his weight pulling it downward, the wheel was surprisingly stable atop the cable.

Daniel deduced that if he lessened the tension he was currently placing on the right pedal by pulling up on the left, then he should be able to successfully rotate the pedals and turn the wheel. As he pulled up with his left arm however, the pedal came down the wrong direction, rotating the wheel backwards and moving him back a couple inches.

“Shit,” Daniel muttered under his breath. How was he going to direct the pedals to rotate the way he wanted them to?

Then he figured it out. He needed to try and push up with one hand as he pulled down with the other. This would help direct the pedals in the right direction.

It took a little push from his brain power to create the necessary amount of strength to complete the rotation, but once he was able to do it a few times, it started to become easier with every crank.

It wasn’t long before the burning in his arms began to set in again, but his brain quickly began sending the necessary signals to his muscles to compensate for the added stress, this time without having to lose his conscious mind in the process.

The phenomenon caught Daniel a little off-guard, and for a second he completely forgot about the obstacle course. His abilities were beginning to work on auto-pilot it seemed. He feared the kind of permanent effect that could have – if his involuntary functions would now operate at full-capacity whenever they sensed they need to, possibly destroying his heart. But he could feel that his conscious mind was still connected, only now it gave the commands almost…unconsciously. It was like typing or texting and not having to look at the keys – or getting lost in a deep thought while driving and suddenly coming to once you’ve arrived at your destination, not really sure how you got there or if you ran over anyone along the way.

Coincidentally, once Daniel had finished contemplating the subject, he found himself on the other end of the cable. He pedaled his way up over the platform and slammed his feet down on the surface, signifying the successful completion of all nine of the primary sections of the course.

The last part of the course was not an official obstacle, but rather a fun way to end the journey by sliding down a thirty-foot slide that went almost completely straight down before curving five-feet before the bottom and throwing you onto the floor below. Daniel did not even try to land on his feet as he reached the bottom, deciding instead to somersault across the floor.

As he stood up he heard a single cheer come from the gallery.

“Yeah!” Charlie shouted as he slapped his hands together.

This drew a glance from Daniel. Charlie stood with a mixed look of embarrassment and horror on his face as he noticed that Richfield and Blank had still not moved or shown any change in expression. Shifty covered his face, trying to hide his laughter. Robby stood with his arms folded, staring at Charlie and shaking his head, unamused. Norma had a full – though still
teethless – grin on her face, but she was looking at Daniel rather than Charlie.

Horchoff
had his hands in his pockets and was rocking back and forth nervously. He seemed rather concerned. Daniel knew he was most-likely less nervous about Daniel’s upcoming attempt at the Pipe Ladder than he was at how big a toll completing the course would take on his body – particularly his heart.

Daniel had made sure to keep his under control however. He had to crank it up a few times to increase the flow of oxygen to his muscles and create the strength necessary to complete some of the challenges
he had faced, but in his workouts with Robby Daniel had learned ways to do this without increasing his heart rate to dangerous levels – just unordinarily high ones.

He also only had one challenge left to go, and in all honesty, it was one that Daniel never had any intention of actually completing. Completing all ten stages in his first attempt – that was a milestone he was willing to let Titan claim all to his own. He had only been concerned with getting past the first nine. His plan all along was to try the Pipe Ladder just to have the experience, and then he would come back later in the week to climb the entire ladder individually before trying to complete the entire course in one shot.

And so Daniel walked over to the ladder, completely satisfied with everything he had already been able to accomplish. Everything from here on out was just for fun. He stood under the cross bar that was resting on the first pair of teeth, and looked straight up, a tower of small metal teeth on either side of him. If he hadn’t already accepted the fact that he was not going to complete the tenth stage, he was sure he would have been intimidated.

The bar rested within his reach. He guessed the height of the first set of teeth – referred to by the other agents as rungs – were put at the height it was so that people shorter than him would also be able to reach the bar. He figured he could easily get to the second pair of rungs if he simply picked up the bar and jumped, but feared such a thing would be considered cheating. Instead he bent his knees, enabling him to hang from the bar. He looked up at the second pair of rungs, a foot above the supports the crossbar currently rested on.

He had seen Jitters attempt the obstacle just a couple weeks before, and knew that gathering momentum was key to making the jump from one set of rungs to the next. He began swinging back and forth, and prepared his upper body to pull himself upward. After a few swings he felt he had sufficient momentum and pulled up his knees, crunched his abs and swung his legs up in front of him while simultaneously pulling up on the bar with all of his upper-body strength. When his chin passed above the crossbar he used the strength in his abs to throw his legs downward and lifted the bar up off of the rungs, rapidly moving it up over the next set.

“
Agh!” He belted with a ferocious might as he pulled himself upward on the bar. Suddenly the pain that had accumulated throughout the first nine stages of the course came rushing back to him all at once.

As gravity pulled his body back down to Earth the crossbar landed firmly on top of the second set of rungs, Daniel’s body now hanging from it. His feet now hung above the ground with his body fully extended.

Daniel’s eyes opened wide as an incredible sensation came over him. It was unbelievable – like nothing he had ever felt before.

The intense amounts of adrenaline and hormones coursing through his veins had created a response that made him feel as though he had achieved the perfect high. The pain no longer bothered him. He
liked
this new sensation – he
craved
it. He wanted more.

Staring straight ahead with his eyes wide he went deep into the back of his mind and began pumping up his heart to extreme levels. He took quick breathes, but was somehow able to fully expand his lungs with each brief inhalation, taking in major amounts of oxygen. His pituitary gland was working overtime, cranking our hormones like an assembly line.

He repeated the act of gathering momentum, swinging and then lifting himself upward before throwing the bar up and over the next set of rungs.

Daniel was no longer performing these actions consciously – at least not in a normal sense. He was lost in the depths of his brain, sending an onslaught of neural signals all throughout his body.

He began to do much more than simply telling his legs to swing and arms to pull. His thoughts had even gone beyond
expand
and
contract.
He now began to function on a different level. Daniel was lost in his neural impulses. He was controlling his actions through basic ones and zeroes rather than commands typed out in words on the screen. His consciousness had traveled to the part of his brain that held the very root of his existence.

He continuously analyzed and adjusted, programming his internal organs while on the outside his body climbed higher and higher on the ladder.

He felt soreness and burning somewhere within him. The pain was there, but it didn’t matter to him. What he was doing – all those hormones – all that oxygen – it felt so good.

Then, suddenly, it all stopped. He was no longer climbing.

Then, a fragment of his conscious mind managed to sneak its way back to his frontal lobe, reminding him of the functions that had been voluntary to him since birth, such as eyesight.

He began shaking his head, trying to figure out what was happening to him, as though he were a blind man who had just been given the gift of sight.

His conscious mind finally came back to him, and he became aware of his surroundings.

He looked down. He must have been at least fifty feet off the ground.

Then he looked up, and there was nothing but ceiling above him. It took nearly a full minute before Daniel’s mind finally began to comprehend the situation.

He had made it to the top of the ladder.

He glanced forward and noticed a platform in front of him, with a traditional ladder extending down to the floor. He swung forward – consciously this time – and steadied himself onto the platform. He leaned forward with one hand on one side of the tower for support, and pulled off the metal crossbar.

Somewhere within him he had known what
was occurring all along, and the overwhelming excitement and joy emulating from that part of him suddenly began to spread to the rest of his mind, causing him to chuck the bar across the room and let out an passionate scream.

“
Whoo!” He shouted.

“Yeah!”
He heard from below him.