What Feats He Did That Day Pt. 01

"Mornin' Al. Good weekend?"

"Eh. Eric had to work all weekend. So I rented some movies and kissed the diet goodbye."

"This was the . . .?"

"Cabbage diet."

"Ick."

"Yeah, I didn't like it much, either. No loss. It wasn't working that well. So how 'bout yours. Get any?"

"No, I didn't get any," I answered, just as I had every Monday for the past year.

"You're smiling, though. Date?"

"No." I shook my head, conscious that I was still smiling.

"Tell me," Alison urged.

"Just a really good dream," I admitted.

"Buddy, we have got to get you a girl," she said.

"I keep waiting for you to see the light and dump Eric."

This banter was another usual part of our Monday mornings.

"You're funny," she said quickly before turning thoughtful. "You know, I've got a sorority sister coming into town this weekend. You wanna double with us on Saturday?"

"Hey, if she's willing to date a cripple, who am I to say no?"

"God, Rick. You have such a bad attitude. But this will just be a practice date. She's getting married next month and needs to escape for a bit. Give you a chance to work on that attitude. Ah well, back to the grindstone."

Bad attitude. You spend nine years in a wheelchair -- your junior prom, your graduation, and all of college -- and you see what kind of attitude you have. Bitch.

I could feel my face reddening. Alison was my best friend at the paper, and I couldn't believe I had even thought that about her. Fortunately, she had moved on to her own cubicle to tackle today's police and courthouse beat.

The rest of the staff quickly followed.

"Hando."

I didn't look up. Dan Edwards, who covered city hall, was a jerk.

"Dan the man."

The next set of footsteps approached, the high heels clacking on the linoleum floor. That would be Shawn Michaels, the statehouse.

"G'morning, Shawn," I said.

I heard her usual exasperated sigh, the noise that said she couldn't believe the New York Times still hadn't called, and that she was still working here with these cretins. She mumbled something that might have been "good morning" but that could just as easily have been "go fuck yourself."

I didn't look up for her either, although I did lean back and inhale that glorious scent that followed in her wake. I was tempted to take a peek after she had passed me, to see that perfect little butt in whatever short little skirt she'd painted on this morning, but I knew that as soon as I did, Allie would lean back in her chair and catch me. And then she'd start laughing.

"Good morning, Richard. Hello, Alison. Shawn. Hi, Dan."

"Rachel."

We acknowledged her in unison as if we were greeting our teacher instead of our editor, a blend of my ennui, Alison's cheeriness, and Shawn's resentment. Only Dan's usual effusiveness was missing, replaced by the aural equivalent of a leer.

An IM sprang up on my monitor almost before I could form the thought.

"DE + RL????"

I stared at it for a while. Rachel Langhorn and Dan Edwards? That couldn't be right, could it? Rachel was the paper's glamour girl: assistant editor at the age of thirty; management darling; and the arm candy of what passed for glitterati in Charleston. Dan was only two years out of college and not exactly the most literate book in the library. The best dust jacket maybe and the most checked-out, yes, but Dan Edwards and Rachel Langhorn? That was depressing.

"Well?" Alison's hiss was accompanied by a breathy giggle.

"Ew," I answered, knowing it was what she wanted to hear. She laughed.

The morning passed in lonely work. Alison was meeting Eric for lunch, so lunchtime passed in eating alone at the deli on the corner. The afternoon was broken only by a staff meeting, at which I tried hard not to stare at Rachel's legs as she perched on a credenza in the conference room. And then it was home, dinner, the nightly news, and a novel.

**********

"Hello, I am Inigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die."

"Excuse me?"

"Draw your sword, dog."

I stared at the man only a little longer, at his mop of black hair, his dark complexion, his mustache, the long sword he was pointing at my face. I was dreaming again.

"I will kill you whether you draw or not," he said in a confident and surprisingly friendly tone of voice.

"I know you," I said. "Give me a minute. You're --"

"Inigo Montoya," he interrupted me. "The son of Domingo Montoya. Now draw your weapon!"

I looked down and found a sword at my waist. I slowly pulled it out and held it in what I took to be the appropriate stance.

"You know, I really don't think --"

He knocked my blade aside and I stared in horror as the point of his own returned to my chest. As if time had slowed down, I could see every detail of his lunge toward me, the flex of his thigh, the tightening of the muscles in his upper arms, the murderous intent in his eyes. And then the blade itself, tearing easily through the vest and thin shirt that I was wearing, slicing into my skin, and sliding between my ribs. The pain was unbelievable, far worse even than the pain when I had awoken in the hospital after the accident. This was the pain of death, a prolonged agony of life-ending shock. I stared at him, my eyes wide and my mouth open in mute horror as I felt the blood gushing out of my chest and running down my stomach.

"So what did you learn?"

The lights came up gradually this time. Wizen was there again at the foot of the bed, poised to hear my answer. It took me a while to catch my breath, to let my heart stop pounding from the nightmarish pain. When I finally answered him, I laced my voice with as much sarcasm as I possessed.

"Don't get killed."

He waited for more, in vain.

"That's it?" he finally asked.

"That's it." I smiled at him. "It was a short dream, Mr. Wizard."

He rolled his eyes and waved his hand.

I had the same dream the next three nights. On the third night, I left my sword in place and turned to run. Inigo caught me in three strides and knocked me to the ground. I died again.

"What did you learn?"

"Don't get killed."

"You don't seem to be taking the lesson to heart," Wizen said with a sigh.

"It's much easier to say than do," I said. I pulled myself to a seated position on his cold little table. "Do you mind telling me what your interest is in this, anyway?"

He was taken aback. He studied me for a while longer, just as I studied him. He was a man of indeterminate age, his dark hair flecked with streaks of gray. His mustache and goatee were even grayer. It was his eyes that drew me in, though. They were blue, an almost electric blue, and they appeared to shine with intelligence and humor.

"I didn't make that clear on your first visit?" he asked.

"You mentioned something about training a champion," I answered. "But frankly, unless your champion is going to write obituaries, I really don't see that I'm going to be much of a help to you. I can't even keep Inigo Montoya from killing me. Although in all fairness, he is a wizard."

I had finally figured out where my opponent came from. The Princess Bride, a good movie and an even better book.

Wizen looked a little disappointed, as if I was supposed to be a little smarter than that. I found myself embarrassed that I hadn't lived up to his expectations. He sat down on a stool at the foot of the bed.

"Very well. First off, I should tell you that we are four centuries into your future."

"Time travel. Very cool," I said. These dreams were just getting better and better. "So what do you want with me?"

"I need to tell you a little of the intervening four hundred years. The Earth of your time was a very warlike place, was it not?"

"Sure. Somebody was always fighting somebody else."

"Humankind finally conquered that impulse. By the beginning of the twenty-third century, we had eliminated war. The peoples of Earth were at peace."

"That's great," I said, nodding my head. "Well done."

"Yes, but it came at a price. We were wholly unprepared for invasion."

"But you just said that the peoples of Earth were peaceful," I protested.

"The invasion did not come from Earth."

My eyes widened.

"Aliens?"

He nodded his head.

"From the Epsilon Eridani solar system, ten light years away. They call themselves Morlings, and they possess technology, or at least military technology, that is far superior to ours."

"O-kay," I said.

"You are wondering why they haven't conquered us yet?" Wizen asked.

"Well, I was actually wondering why, if you can travel through time, you wouldn't just take off?"

"Ah, it is a valid point. Unfortunately, the time travel device only allows me to bring someone forward in time. And even that requires an enormous expenditure of energy. Once the flow of energy stops, you simply return home."

"Got it," I said with a nod. I was going to have to write this down when I woke up. This would be a bitchin' science fiction story.

"So why haven't they conquered you?" I asked.

"You are familiar with a battle by champions, are you not, as a means of deciding a war?"

I stared blankly. I was familiar with wars decided by countries pounding the shit out of each other's armies and bombing their cities.

"The Philistines, for example, in the Bible of your time," Wizen said. "Goliath was their champion, and offered to decide the outcome of the contest in a single one-on-one battle. David was the champion of the Israelites. There are similar examples in the Iliad of Homer."

"So you mean if you beat their champion, they'll just go home?" I asked. "Because to be honest, that sounds a little stupid."

Wizen gave a shrug.

"We surmise that it is a part of their code of honor. Or chivalry, if you will. But you are quite correct. They could annihilate us quite easily."

"So you're looking for a champion?" I asked.

"The Morlings have offered three such battles," he explained. "We have failed in two. Our people simply have no skills for such combat. We must look elsewhere for a champion."

"So you want me to find one?" I asked. "In a movie? Why don't you get somebody real? Somebody like, I don't know, that David guy?

"I considered him. He lacks the technical skill to understand the weapons."

"Okay. So I don't get it. You want somebody like Kenneth Branagh? Or Inigo Montoya? Because I mean, it's just a movie. They're just actors."

"No, my friend. I believe I have found the person we want. The person we need."

He looked at me with an air of expectancy. I matched him with an air of ignorance.

"All I need do now is train him," he said.

That didn't help me much.

"You are Richard Handley," he said.

"Well, yes."

"The video gaming champion of the Charleston Video Gaming Club?"

I felt myself blushing, from embarrassment rather than pride. I hadn't even let my colleagues on the newspaper know about that. I could just see the mock obituaries that would be circulating on the paper's intranet.

"So?" I asked, perhaps a little defensively. "It's just a bunch of video gamers who rent from the club. Then we have these tournaments. So what if I've won a couple?"

"It has never occurred to you that the games at the Charleston club are far more advanced than those you could obtain anywhere else?"

"No," I said. "Charleston? Seriously?"

"Mr. Handley, I have been working on this project for nineteen years. Ever since our second champion was defeated and the Morlings announced that they would give us two more decades to find a third. I am the inventor of every single video game that you have ever played."

"Oh, get out."

"Obviously, I have allowed others of your century to think the games their own ideas. But believe me, they were all mine. I bring the inventor forward, instill the idea, and release him. Just as the tracking system in each game is mine, and has relayed to my computers the result of every single game played in your time."

I was sitting up by now and staring at him, absolutely unable to speak.

"As the games became progressively more and more sophisticated, I winnowed down the group of potential champions. I made sure that they all gathered in one city, so that they could try out the games that would finally let us decide which one of them would stand the best chance of success once he -- or she -- was finally given sufficient knowledge and training."

"So this champion you're looking for --" I said, my voice dropping to a whisper, "--is me?"

He nodded.

"At the very least you will be my recommendation to the council. There are many others working on this program. They will likely have recommendations of their own."

"So you want me to fight one of these Morlings?"

"I would like to ask you to do so, yes. Obviously, the choice is yours."

"All right!" I pumped my fist. This was a kick-ass dream -- or series of dreams, to be precise -- after all.

"I beg your pardon?" Wizen asked. "So you will continue?"

Fuckin-A I would.

"For mankind?" I asked. "Oh, sure. Look at all the great things it's done for me. First, though, I guess I have to figure out a way around this Inigo Montoya wanting to kill me every time I show up."

"Yes," Wizen said. "I had hoped that you would learn something of the sword from him."

"I have to fight this Morling with a sword?"

"No," he answered. "I believe the training would be helpful, though. Why does he want to kill you?"

"He keeps saying I killed his father."

"Why does he think that?"

That was an excellent question. I sat there on the table, my mouth open in mid-answer. Why did he think I killed his father? I needed to read that book again.

Wizen waved his hand and it was Friday morning.