The Gauntlet

Chapter 08 - It's Not What You Know

Codi winced as the two quarter staffs smacked together, sending reverberations though both her wrists. She wore only her gloves right now while she and Lita free sparred. It had taken another two weeks of training but Vasco finally let them loose on the weapon racks and started training them in a whole new slew of disciplines.

The staffs cracked again as they circled, each searching for an opening in the other's defences. Then Lita stepped in for an attack and gave Codi an opportunity. Leaping inside the swipe of her opponent, she rammed her own staff crossways against the incoming weapon. Another jarring impact sent Lita's staff rebounding away. In the same motion Codi twirled and ducked, stretching out her staff to neatly scoop the other girl's feet out from under her.

Lita hit the ground with a yelp of surprise and Codi stepped over her in an instant, the butt of her staff at the girl's throat. Her adversary scowled up at her for a moment before swatting the staff away bad-temperedly.

"Touchy, touchy," Codi chided.

"You're one to talk," Lita retorted, picking herself up off the matt. "Nice spin."

"A compliment? Really?"

"I'm a bit more gracious than some people."

"Oh, let it go." She flashed a vicious smile before her attention was snagged by a flashing movement across the training centre. Codi watched as Max, for the first time since she'd joined the academy, managed to hit his chosen target with a bolas. As the weapon wrapped around the neck of the training dummy their normally reserved companion let out a triumphant whoop that echoed across the training centre.

Codi smiled at that. Everything seemed to be looking up. Vasco's brutal preparatory rituals were certainly making an impact on the group in all the right ways. Physically she could see the difference in herself and her companions. Although the Gauntlet conditioning was subtle, it was unmistakable.

Everyone looked harder, leaner, their muscles far more defined that when they'd first arrived. And Vasco had also been right about their rising pain threshold. After spending the best part of two weeks, day in day out beating and being beaten by her companions, Codi stopped registering the pain as an anger trigger. For the first time in a long time she felt like she belonged somewhere. The more cynical part of her considered it brainwashing.

The twins took to the mats next, both armed with a training-weight Hacktor. Codi watched with amusement as the brothers managed to last a whole minute before the fight degenerated into a wrestling match, their weapons thrown aside. Neither of the burly pair seemed comfortable fighting with anything other than their own bodies. She, on the other hand, relished the weapon training rounds and had found an instant affinity for the quarterstaff.

"Another school yard brawl," Vasco roared at them from his adjudicating position. "One of these days I'm going to c***k your hollow heads together. Use the damned techniques I've been teaching you!" The twins exchanged sheepish smiles as he continued. "Codi, Lita, grab a Hacktor and show these two dolts how to spar with a weapon."

Not exactly her favourite choice, Codi reflected, picking up one of the discarded Hacktors and facing Lita. Even at training weight they weighed a lot, enough to trouble her if a match stretched for too long. Vasco had already pointed out several times that at maximum length, Gauntlet fights could last for as long as half an hour depending on the weapon system and endurance of those involved.

"Fight!"

Lita deflected her clumsy lunge with an easy sweep and counter attacked. Codi readjusted her footing to parry in turn, mentally cursing the sloppiness of her opener. A few exchanges passed with neither gaining the upper hand before they edged apart and circled. Looking at the other girl, Codi could have laughed at how different their approaches to the weapon system were.

Maybe just from her natural aversion to any kind of authority and sophistication, Codi kept her Hacktor resting loosely against her right shoulder in an easy, casual position. It didn't look threatening – heck, it looked downright lazy – but it was comfortable and easy to maintain. Lita couldn't have been more different, adopting a much more imposing, aggressive base to operate from. She sat very low in her stance and her Hacktor stayed almost permanently at head height, the point thrust forward to intimidate an opponent. Codi was quite difficult to intimidate, however.

They clashed several more times, Lita doing the bulk of the attacking while Codi absorbed the incoming blows with as little energy as possible. Eventually, as usual, Lita got a bit too zealous, overstretching out of her stance and giving Codi the instant she needed to pounce and end the spar.

All at once she unleashed a volley of blows, not stopping to allow the other girl to regain her proper footing. Eventually Lita realised she was being driven to the edge of the ring and stopped back peddling, at which point Codi simply ploughed into her. The Hacktor blades locked together and she lowered her shoulder, shunting Lita off balance and sending her tumbling out of the mat area.

"Not bad, not bad," Vasco commented. "But she got awful close to your chest with the Hacktor when you pushed in like that."

"But she didn't hit me," Codi snapped. "So why does it matter?"

"It matters because the only reason she didn't hit is because you're a lucky little twerp. Don't think that winning a few training spars means you're better than everybody else, missy." He made a dismissive sound before striding off to berate Max about his bolas technique.

Standing fuming, Codi glared at his back. Then she tossed the Hacktor savagely to one side as the twins took to the arena again, this time armed with two short cudgels.

"You know," Lita said. "Rather than getting all snippy with him why don't you just listen? You did get lucky."

Codi shot her a fiery look. "You're just a sore loser."

"And you're not much of a winner." With this parting shot Lita flounced off to take on one of the assault courses. Doing her utmost not to detonate, Codi instead kicked one of the nearby quarterstaffs so hard that pain lanced through her foot. What the hell would it take to get these people off her back? It had taken her some time to adjust, to keep herself in check if she lost a spar, and now that she'd done that they seemed to be even more unappreciative when she started winning.

The morning session wore on and their sparring continued unabated. They rotated every half hour between armed and unarmed, and the frosty atmosphere didn't improve. Slowly though, over the past weeks Codi had found her own style of combat in the unarmed discipline. Even to her it seemed strange, but it worked well enough which was all she cared about. Although she tried to amalgamate in as much of Vasco's teaching to her fighting, the style she adopted could best be described as brawling.

Something about the perfection that most martial disciplines demanded left her frustrated. She couldn't force herself into one pathway so completely as to have a full mastery. Instead Codi ended up with a messy hodgepodge of karate, boxing, wrestling and street fighting that all together formed an ugly and unpredictable style – if the term really applied. Still, Vasco wasn't complaining, so she saw no reason to change.

The rest of the day passed as normal, through the afternoon theory session, through dinner and through the evening practices. However, as the final part of the day – their individual practice hour – drew to a close, Vasco gathered them all together at the door of the training centre. Then as though a switch had been tripped, his manner changed, becoming earnest and low in a way that set alarm bells ringing in Codi's head.

"There's something you all need to know," Vasco sighed, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. "I'm not going to run rings around you. We ship out for the Gauntlet in four and a half months and we're not ready. If we keep going the pace we're going we won't be ready. So, as much as I don't like it, there is something we can do to speed up the learning process." He straightened up then motioned them to follow. "Come with me."

Codi exchanged a dubious look with Max as they followed their instructor through the halls of the academy. She'd never seen Vasco like this before. Even his walk looked uncomfortable as he led them through a series of corridors she didn't recognise until they reached a door. It looked like any other door, but the sign above it read: R.E.M.T. Equipment Storage.

"What's R.E.M.T?" she asked. Vasco didn't answer, instead passing his key card over the lock sensor. A bleep of acceptance sounded, followed by the clunk of a disengaging lock.

The lights of the room flicked on automatically as they entered. The whole space was just large enough to fit the team and the equipment housed within. Laid out on a rectangular white table were five bizarre looking rigs, each one sitting atop a transparent plastic cylinder. To Codi they looked like little more than fancy head sets, with a gleaming silver arch surmounted at each end by a circular grill. However, the body of the rig also had a series of spines protruding out of it in a semi-circle. With uncharacteristic delicacy Vasco picked up one of the contraptions and held it up for them to see.

"I'm not going to lie, I hate these things," he declared. "R.E.M.T. stands for ‘Rapid Eye Movement Training.'"

"Rapid eye movement?" Lita said. "You mean sleep?"

"Exactly." Vasco placed the rig back down on its stand before continuing. "You wear these gizmos when you go to bed. While you ‘sleep' they run your mind through the drills and techniques. They can be programmed with anything you want, any discipline that takes your fancy. What it means is that you'll learn without having to lift a finger."

Codi gave him an incredulous look. "Is that legal?"

"Completely."

"Wow."

"There are side effects," he said. "Prolonged use will leave you drained, and on our tight schedule your use will be prolonged. Although you effectively learn while you're sleeping, you won't be really sleeping properly. The training regimen continues in your head and keeps your mind working just as hard as it would if you were awake."

"But if we just pick everything up in our sleep then doesn't that mean we can just bag normal training?" Lucas suggested.

Vasco smiled grimly. "Afraid not. It's not just about what you know. It's about what you can do. These things will give you knowledge – theoretical knowledge – of how to fight, but they won't do the work for you. You still have to train your muscles. What the rigs are good for is cutting out the middle man and saving time. Right now, saving time is what we're all about."

Codi found her mind in conflict as she took in Vasco's words. She'd heard plenty of stories about contraptions like this. Some of the richer kids at school used them to study for exams instead of doing the work themselves. Her gut reaction, however, was to throw the shiny tin toy into the nearest garbage disposal and get on with training the old fashioned way. Something about using the R.E.M.T. felt like nothing less than cheating.

"You can plug them straight into your data screens," Vasco continued. "From there you can upload whatever combat scenarios you want." His face crumpled into an uncomfortable grimace. "I don't like these things, and I understand if you don't either, but it's this or nothing."