* * *
A few times a week 'Becca, Jim, and I would meet downstairs in an abandoned area of the "facility" and practice some katas or takedowns or holds. 'Becca and I were both getting well enough to do some light sparring drills.
One evening while the three of us were practicing, a guard making his daily rounds found us. He stopped and watched for a bit. He asked us if he could join the next night. Anne Marie and Sara followed 'Becca down a few days later. Before long, we had a regular class schedule with students. Jim and I ran the class for a while until one of the regular military fellows watched me make a particular arm bar. It was the sergeant that Tabitha had dressed down weeks ago.
He watched and then politely said, "Uh, excuse me, sir."
"Hey, don't sir me. I'm a civilian. My name is Anson."
"Okay sir, uh Anson sir, uh Anson. I like that technique. But, have you thought about what would happen if you are countered this way?" He reversed the hold from me having him arm barred, to me lying face down with his foot on my neck.
"Uncle!" I cried. We hit it off real quick. Jim and I asked him to jump in any time he wanted to and take over.
After some conversation, we found that his name was Sergeant Calvin Perry. Calvin had been in the security detail for over nine years and had taken multiple martial arts over the years. He had only recently taken on acquisition as one of his duties. His style was more of a useful blend of everything, rather than a set traditional style. Jim and I both liked that. Without explaining the details of why the fight took place, I told Cal and Jim about my run-in with Johnny Cache. I told them how I felt like I should have defeated him earlier, because when I finally did beat him, I was so exhausted that I couldn't have countered anything else. I choreographed the fight as best as I could from memory using Jim as Johnny. Calvin, Jim, and I began shaving off useless techniques. Before long, the three of us were developing simpler more deadly techniques. Calvin had had the advantage of not fighting on the tournament circuit. Jim and I had trained ourselves with too many scoring techniques for tournament fighting instead of deadly ones. Calvin began teaching us to unlearn some of that.
The three of us held these training sessions on our own time outside of the regular class, while we took turns instructing the regular class. Then afterwards we would practice becoming more deadly. Soon, all of the students started staying for the whole affair. 'Becca and I were getting back into real serious fighting condition. I was proud to see her doing somersaults and flips and jump spinning tornado roundhouse kicks again.
"I wish I had a black belt to give her," I told Jim and -Calvin.
"Yeah," Jim nodded.
"You want me to pick one up on my way in tomorrow?" Calvin asked.
Jim and I did a double take with a twist of confusion.
"What do you mean," I asked.
Calvin looked surprised, "I forget that you guys are bottled up down here, under protection and all. Heck, I get to go home every weekend if I want to. There's a martial arts supply not far from where I buy groceries. Besides, the general told us to get you folks anything you want or need no questions asked. I double as one of your acquisition officers, so, I'm authorized to get stuff for you. You guys want anything else?" He smiled and winked.
Jim and I hadn't really thought about it. Until now, somebody had always furnished us with anything we needed after we complained that we didn't have it. But, we had been in camping-out mode and not living mode. Tabitha had personal stuff in our room. I guess I just thought that it was stuff she was able to grab on her way here. Or perhaps she had a friend that picked it up for her. She has lots of friends and connections. I was beginning to realize that we hadn't been taking advantage of our situation. We should at least be comfortable, even if we didn't want to admit this was a long-term situation, right?
Calvin, Jim, and I made out a list of things that we needed to have for a fully equipped martial arts dojo, including kicking bags, judo mats, a well stocked store of uniforms, rebreakable boards, pads, and weapons. Calvin got all of it; it was justified as fitness training supplies. I also ordered stuff for a cookout, including an electric grill. I wanted a real charcoal one but we decided that we might set off some fire alarm system somewhere. And what is a cookout without beer and hunch punch I ask? Calvin laughed when I gave him the order. "Don't laugh, you have first duty on the keg tap," I told him.
I asked Tabitha about our material situation a few nights later when she finally made it to bed at the same time I did. She laughed, "Anson sweetie you are dense. This is a witness protection type program. You people could be the witnesses that save the country and our way of life. If you need to spend some money on R&R why didn't you ask before?"
"Too busy worrying about the country being taken over, I guess. Hey, I have never actually been at war before. Give me a break."
"I love you," is all she said. It's none of your business what we did next.
When we weren't training in the dojo or having cookouts we did tend to the war and Moon base efforts. Without my knowledge, 'Becca and Dr. Smith had squirreled away some of 'Becca's tainted blood and 'Becca and Sara had been studying the blood and the flubells extensively in their spare time. Jim had posed the question when we discovered them as to why hadn't they gone chaotic and exploded. We never got around to studying that. Apparently, 'Becca was plagued with the same question, but only more hauntingly so. The fact that she could have exploded and destroyed a county must have been a lot for her to deal with both emotionally and technically. So she and Sara had set out to solve the riddle.
Soon into their research effort, they coerced Jim into helping them. They kept all of their research a secret from both Tabitha and myself. I had later asked them why and the three of them said that they knew neither of would let them do it. We both scolded them for violating safety protocols and risking their necks; had the outcome been different they could have killed us all. Since the outcome turned out for the good we let it go. Besides, both Jim and 'Becca are good responsible scientists and Sara is becoming one. One of these days Tabitha and I will have to quit looking at them as children, our children. I doubt that day will ever come. At any rate, their research was very successful. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
* * *
It was one of those days where I was feeling useless so I spent it with Tabitha attempting to help her analyze intelligence on our enemy's war effort. I spent a lot of time squinting at satellite imagery ranging from visible to infrared to microwave to radio maps of the Asian continent. The most interesting imagery that we analyzed was one of the launch sites in south China. The site is just south of Canton and is called Hainan Island. The imagery showed a launch vehicle being moved out to the pad and integrated. From the data it appeared that we would be seeing a Chinese launch in a matter of days. There were images of other launch sites at Jiuquan, Taiyuan, and Xichang that showed identical launch preparations. We were still at least a month from the first working mini ECC. We were in big trouble!
More detailed analysis showed that there was massive naval buildup in the Taiwan Strait between south China and Taiwan. There was also major troop movement and buildup on the North Korean and South Korean border. Some bright analyst brought to Tabitha's attention that there was a launch preparation going on in Kazakhstan and near Svobodny, Russia. Was it possible that the two simultaneous Russian launches were a coincidence? The Chinese and the Russians had been allying themselves for years under the auspices of "the enemy of my enemy is my ally" philosophy. The Russians had publicly been our allies for years since the end of the Cold War, but, there had been, and will always be, factions of the old Red Party that will forever despise the United States. The other possibility is that the economically ravaged Russians had fallen into the survival-of-the-meanest mode and were overtaken by organized crime. These criminals would do or sell practically anything for the right price. Who knows the motives? The fact of the matter was simple. The Chinese and the Russians were going to launch at least six different rockets with warp missiles on them within the next day or so. They must have already tested them before we built our detector. They were probably waiting on ECCs like we were—but they apparently could make them faster. Chinese naval vessels were most likely going to mount an assault on Taiwan. And the North Koreans were going to take South Korea. World War III was about to begin.