Chapter 14: Rage Bait 101

(True-but-unseen account)

If you are searching for a story about a boy who bows politely to his teacher and learns to throw a proper punch, close this book now. Dear Reader, on a Tuesday morning, Arthur Specter walked into Combat 101 with no gear, no plan, and a mouth that had never once been introduced to consequences.

The instructor stood in the middle of the sand with his arms folded. Scarred knuckles, shaved head, a whistle he clearly never used because nobody had ever dared to ignore him.

"Specter." He said it like a diagnosis. "The ghost on my roster. Three weeks absent. Six sessions."

"Sick," Arthur said.

The instructor’s eye twitched.

"Awakened bodies run stronger than normal humans, boy. We don’t catch colds. We don’t catch flu. So tell me, how did you manage it?"

"Natural talent."

Somewhere in the stands, a cadet stifled a cough that was definitely a laugh.

"I’ll make sure the sickness gets the memo next time," Arthur added, kindly.

"Next time."

"Well, yes. With a better excuse, of course."

The instructor’s jaw clenched. A vein climbed his temple, slow and purple, and Arthur watched it with the clinical interest of a man watching a kettle.

"You mean," the instructor said, very quietly, "a proper justification. And I’ll tell you something for free. Even that won’t cut it. You could run to hell and back, and you still would not skip my class again. This class is more important than your life."

Arthur blinked at him. Then he started laughing.

"Is this a joke? You’re a gym teacher playing gladiator. Where’s the wooden sword, Coach?"

In the third row of the stands, Hadjer’s phone buzzed.

She’d been nervous about this exact thing all day. She’d told him a lot of things that morning, and mostly she’d told him to sit still. She typed with her thumb under the bench, fast and furious.

stop talking

he is going to kill you

ARTHUR

are you even listening to me. you are NOT right in the head

Down on the sand, Arthur glanced up toward the stands. He met her eyes, shrugged once, and turned back to the instructor like he’d been reading a menu.

She frowned.

He read that.

She was sure of it. The little roll of his eyes, the tilt of his chin when she wrote not right in the head. He’d answered every message the instant she hit send.

But his hands were empty. Both of them, the whole time. She’d been watching since the doors slammed.

She scrolled up through weeks of texts. At the apartment, at breakfast, on the walk to Nowhere. He always replied. She’d never once seen him take out a phone.

How did I never notice that?

She’d been so busy not asking questions that the answers had walked right past her in plain sight. She stared at him, at the boy who manipulated her to rent an apartment and changed clocks and tricked Lyra with a barbecue smoker, and the cold knot in her stomach finally had a name.

Arthur is weird. Arthur is very, very weird.

And he’s about to die.

The instructor threw the first punch.

No warning. No wind-up. One step, one hip turn, one fist the size of a mailbox, aimed at Arthur’s face.

Arthur didn’t dodge. He couldn’t have, even if he’d tried.

He called.

It felt like pulling a thread from the back of his skull. A warm tug, a cold flash, and the air next to him folded open like paper.

[PROXY ME — ACTIVE.]

The punch landed.

Crack.

Arthur felt nothing. He was standing two feet to the left, watching a boy with his face and his shirt and his stupid half-smile fly backward across the sand like a thrown sack.

The clone hit the ground and bounced.

"What—"

The instructor stared at his own fist. Then at the clone. Then at Arthur, who was ducking behind it with a faint, apologetic wave.

"Please don’t," Arthur said. "I bruise easily."

The instructor took a step. The clone, running on the Passive’s cheerful autopilot, got up and tried to smile.

He hit it again.

And again.

Left. Right. Knee. Elbow. The sand shook. The clone folded, got up, folded, got up, because the Passive had been told to stand and had no idea how to stop.

Every cadet in the arena had gone silent. Carter was half out of his seat, hand clamped over his mouth. In the stands, Hadjer had gone as pale as paper.

Arthur watched his own face get rearranged.

Okay, he thought. That’s a very detailed copy.

The clone dissolved on the fourteenth hit, soft as smoke.

The instructor stood over the empty sand, breathing hard. Slowly, he turned his head. He found the real boy behind the ropes, ten feet away, and his eyes had gone calm in a way that was much worse than the shouting.

"Clever," he said.

"Thank you," said Arthur.

"I’m going to do exactly that to you now."

"That’s not—"

The first punch came from nowhere.

The wind left him.

Ribs.

The sand came up and slapped him in the face.

Knee.

Elbow.

Stand up.

Stand up.

No.

Somewhere in the stands, someone was screaming his name. He thought it was Hadjer. It sounded very far away.

When it finally ended, he was lying on his back, looking at the ceiling, and the instructor was standing over him, completely unwinded.

"Welcome to Combat 101," the man said. "Class dismissed."

"This," Arthur said, forty minutes later, "is abuse."

Voss didn’t look up from his teacup. "Is it?"

"I’m twelve. I was beaten by an adult. I have a bruise shaped like a shoe." Arthur gestured at himself. Carter had wrapped him in so many bandages he looked like an unfinished mummy. "I want to file a complaint."

"Complaint noted." Voss turned a page. "It was training."

"It was a beating!"

"It was proper education."

"He doesn’t listen! I tried to tell him!"

"He doesn’t listen to anyone. That’s why he teaches that class." Voss finally set the cup down. "Mr. Specter, allow me to clarify something. You walked into my instructor’s classroom, mocked his profession, called him a gym teacher, and accused him of playing make-believe. You are now on his list."

"What list?"

"The permanent one." Voss steepled his fingers. "He holds grudges the way other people collect stamps. He does not like being questioned. By tomorrow he will have read your entire file, and he will find it very interesting. You will not have a traumatic childhood, Mr. Specter. You will have a traumatic life."

Arthur stared at him.

"Wait. He’s not even a real instructor, is he? I didn’t have a Combat 101 on my schedule until you put it there."

"I didn’t give him that class," Voss said mildly. "He made it up."

The room was very quiet.

"Right," Arthur muttered, slumping onto the stool. "That’s probably why I take over the world in the future. To make sure nobody ever does that to a twelve-year-old again."

Voss’s cup paused halfway to his lips.

"Say that again."

"It was a joke."

"Was it?" Voss’s voice stayed perfectly even. He took a slow sip, set the cup down with a quiet click, and pushed a single sheet of paper across the desk. "Because Combat 101 meets twice a week, Mr. Specter, and it meets again on Friday. And this time, the instructor requested you personally."

Arthur reached for the paper.

Under the schedule, in tidy handwriting that was not Voss’s, someone had added one more line.

Bring the clone.

A joke in jest has a knack for truth...

the ones you laugh at are the ones that sleuth.

TO BE CONTINUED...