What Feats He Did That Day Pt. 05

"I don't understand."

"An artist of my era said that one day everyone would be entitled to fifteen minutes of fame. I want mine. Fifteen minutes on your comm channel to talk to your people. To explain why I'm doing this. To let them know who I am."

I was aware that it was an extraordinary request. At our picnic, I had asked Francesca if it were possible to communicate with all of the people on the planet. She had explained the existence of the comm channel, although she had never seen it used.

Council excused me while they discussed it. I had them over a barrel, though. And it wasn't a request in which they could discern any immediate harm. They would activate the comm channel the following evening.

I thanked them and joined Wizen, who had waited in the antechamber.

"What did you receive?" he asked.

"Home field advantage," I answered.

We proceeded to the arena. Balloons trembled at the approach of my flychair. I reached 68 percent.

**********

"So, get any?" Allie asked me on Monday morning.

I leaned back and laughed.

"How quickly do you imagine I work?" I asked.

"The old Rick?" she answered. "The old Rick would still be pining over Shawn Michaels. This Rick? I wouldn't be surprised if you had a threesome over the weekend."

"In my dreams," I said with a laugh. Actually, I had had a threesome in one of my dreams. But that had been several weeks ago now.

"No," I continued. "I just wrote. Take a look."

I tossed the story to her.

"Rick you don't have to do this," she said, gesturing at the byline. By Rick Handley and Alison Coles.

"Read the rest," I said. "Maybe you won't want it there."

We both knew that wasn't true. She grew more and more excited as she read the story. Rachel and Bill came in half an hour later and the two of us joined them in a conference room.

"This is great, Rick," Bill said after he had read it. "Don't you have somewhere you're supposed to be in fifteen minutes?"

"I don't think so."

Bill looked at Rachel and raised an eyebrow.

"Shit," Rachel said. "You're officially the new statehouse reporter. I forgot to tell you."

I stared at her.

"Sorry," she smiled.

"Bitch," I muttered. "I can't make that briefing on time."

They both laughed.

"As long as you make tomorrow's," Rachel said. "You can call up a buddy about today's. Now let's get back to work. It may eventually be a great article, but the middle part is too weak. Back to work, people."

It took until Monday afternoon to get it finished to the satisfaction of everyone in the chain of command. That left my Monday night free to do some writing of my own.

**********

"People of Earth!"

It had sounded a lot more impressive when I had practiced it in front of the mirror. Now it sounded hokey. I decided to press on.

"My name is Rick. Uh, Rick Handley."

Perhaps a public speaking course in college would have been a good idea.

"This coming Friday I am going to do battle on your behalf against a creature called a Morling. The Morlings are from another star system and -- Jesus Christ! Is that a Morling? That thing is twenty fucking feet tall!"

Karsk had put me on a split-screen and flashed a picture of a horrible creature on the other half. It had green, scaly skin and a vaguely humanoid face with a wide mouth stretched in a sneer between two upward tusks. What would correspond to thighs on my body were easily as big as my torso. And it had four arms, an upper set that came from its shoulders and a lower set that grew from somewhere out of its back.

"You are a fucking son of a bitch," I muttered.

"You wanted them to have the truth," he said with a sneer of his own.

I turned back to the camera.

"That's very true. I did want you to have the truth. Your Council believes that you would be better off never knowing about this fight taking place. If I win, life goes on as usual. If I lose, you all wake one morning to find yourselves living under alien rule, never knowing what your Council did, or could have done, to stop it.

"Where I come from we refuse to let our government tell us what was best for us. Freedom of the press, the freedom to find out what our government was doing and let everyone know about it -- is the single most important of our liberties. And as Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders my country, once said, 'They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.' Thomas Jefferson, another founder, said, 'The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being.' I am a member of that press, and it is my job to tell the people what the government wants us to tell them and also what it does not."

I glanced over at Karsk, who was clearly upset at the tenor of my little presentation. It was time to back off. For a little bit.

"But I'm not here to tell you how to run your society. I'm only here to help you try to keep it. And to do that I need you. The fight will take place this Friday in the former Rose Bowl. What I need is your hopes and prayers for my success. I need to know that you're pulling for me. If you can come and cheer me on, that would be even better. I'll fight better knowing that the people of Earth are behind me."

The rest of my little talk went pretty much along the same lines. A paragraph devoted to my handicap. Then a paragraph devoted to the need to study history. A section on the wonderful work done by Wizen to get me her to fight the Morling. Then a section on journalism.

During the last part, the comm channel that I was using to monitor the broadcast went dark.

"You cut it off," I protested.

"Your fifteen minutes was up," Karsk said. "Are you happy with your bargain, my friend? Giving up the use of your legs? Was your little speech worth it?"

It wasn't a great speech. But I was still happy with my choice. I smiled at him as enigmatically as I could. I left the room, picked up Wizen, and headed back to the arena for another session of training.

We didn't speak along the way. But we did pass a man and his son. Their eyes remained on the ground until we got closer. But then the boy lifted his eyes to mine. He smiled. I winked at him.

That evening I scored eighty-one percent.

"Not too shabby," Ken said.

"Nope," I agreed.

"I was thinking about something. You know how I got injured?"

"Something to do with glass and mirrors?"

"I was wondering whether we could turn that to our advantage. If you were to throw your whip at the ground . . ."

"Disarm myself?" I asked.

"May I?" he asked.

He reached for the whip and took it in his left hand. He thumbed it open and waited until he had a ten-foot rope. He turned suddenly and slapped it toward the ground. I cringed, waiting for it to snap back again and slice off his left arm. Instead, he thumbed it closed. As his earlier accident, it took but a single stroke to both glassify the sand and reflect the rope on its chosen path. This time, the free strand of rope flew upward, bursting one of the balloons directly in front of us.

"That's not too shabby either," I admitted.

**********

My article appeared on Tuesday morning.

On Wednesday the Governor of West Virginia submitted his resignation to the Secretary of State. Lieutenant Governor Melissa Stewart was sworn in to take his place.

On Thursday, I was up to 93 percent efficiency with the laser whip. I decided to try Ken's trick. It worked well the first time. But I didn't quite thumb the control closed fast enough on my second attempt. I managed to duck quickly enough to avoid any injury to my arm. But I did feel my cheek sliced open. Blood trickled down my cheek. I turned back to Karsk and Slisken.

"I don't suppose either of you fellows has a Band-Aid?" I asked.

**********

The day of the fight was boring, at least in real life. The excitement of getting a new governor had settled down. She had appeared at Thursday's press conference herself, answering questions about her plans for the next two hours. She had impressed all of us with her knowledge and determination. But Friday morning she had given the podium back to Krissy. And Krissy, newly installed as press secretary, had transformed herself into the very model of an efficient, informed spokesperson. She screwed up only one tiny thing. She must have studied the manual overnight. This was going to be no fun at all.

I spent Friday afternoon finishing the last of the obituaries that I had been assigned. On Monday morning, I would be the full-time statehouse correspondent of the Charleston Messenger.

"Well, I'm off to spend the weekend with Eric's parents. How about you? Headed for a bar to pick up babes?"

"Right," I said with a laugh. "Based on my byline in the paper?"

"No." She shook her finger at me. "Based on the fact that you've gotten so damn sexy in the last few weeks. Even today you look different."

"Lack of sleep," I said.

"That's not it. I mean, I can see that in your eyes. But there's something else. Something sexy."

"Thanks," I said with a smile. "You're nice to say so, Allie. Maybe it's this unshaven look."

I passed my hand over the stubble on my chin. I had been so focused on the fight when I woke up that shaving had completely slipped my mind.

"Or maybe it's that scar," she said. She waggled her eyebrows at me.

"What scar?"

My fingers went right to it, though, even as I asked the question. Right to the scar on the right-hand side of my chin. The one that Wizen had said would always be there after he had healed it with some sort of electric gadget. I absent-mindedly fingered it as I stared off into space.

"So what are you doing this weekend?" Alison asked.

I felt a surge of energy coursing through me as I turned to answer her. I could see the change reflected in Alison's expression. Her eyes suddenly widened and she pulled back, as if I had suddenly grown larger.

My voice was firm and confident. I was conscious of a smile playing across my lips and a twinkling in my eyes.

"I'm saving the planet."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Rick Handley, time traveler. The warrior of the future. God, this was cool.

Rachel and Bill stopped by after Alison had left and invited me to go out for a drink to celebrate my new assignment this week. I declined. I didn't think it was a good idea for my long-term future at the paper to have my supervisors watch me grining like an idiot and touching my jaw all evening as if I had some sort of obsessive-compulsive order.

There had been hints all along that the whole thing wasn't a dream. For one thing, Wizen had explicitly told me that. As I had told Andy, however, that was exactly what I would expect a character in my dream to say. My teachers had always told me that I had an excellent imagination. I could have dreamed it up; that was well within the realm of possibility. Unlike the alternative -- the idea that the whole thing wasn't a dream: now there was something outside the realm.

As I ate dinner and watched a ball game on Friday, the realization that the fight would be real, with real consequences for both me and my descendants, slowly began to terrify me. The result was that when I finally did crawl into bed, I was much too excited to sleep. Halfway through my second sleepless hour of the night, I was suddenly struck with panic. What would happen if I didn't go to sleep at all? Would the Earth perish? Would my descendants be enslaved? I shut my eyes tightly, determined to keep them closed until I nodded off.

Then I remembered that evening with Alison's friend Parker. Wizen had snatched me when I wasn't even asleep, when we were in the middle of foreplay. I didn't need to be asleep for that son-of-a-bitch Wizen to work his magic.

"Is something wrong, Richard?"

I blinked my eyes open. Wizen and Francesca stood side-by-side at the foot of the bed.

"Wrong?" I asked.

"You seemed quite angry when you appeared," Francesca said. "Perhaps he was just steeling himself for battle, Father."

"Right," I said. "That must have been it. I see you guys are going formal, huh? You look great."

Both had exchanged their normal robes for more colorful attire. Wizen's robe was white, and decorated at all the edges with embroidered vines of a color green that I had never seen before. Francesca's robe was an exquisite pale blue with a velvet border on the collar and cuffs that most closely resembled fresh cream.

The robes stood in contrast to their somber expressions.

"You two look like you're going to a funeral," I cracked. It wasn't until I saw their eyes drop to the ground that I realized what I had said.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Poor choice of words. Any last-minute details, Mr. Wizard?"

Council had been in negotiations with the Morling fleet for the past day.

"Your chair has been slowed to that of a normal human run," Wizen said. "And you will not be able to fly higher than the Morling's head."

"So nowhere near as high as one of its arms, huh?"

Wizen's face took on an anguished look.

"Hey, it's no problem," I assured him. "I get nauseous flying that high and that fast, anyway. Well, we'd best get this show on the road, huh?"

"What would you like for your attire?" Francesca asked.

I looked down. I was in the plain tan robe that they usually dressed me in when I arrived.

"How about a pair of jeans?" I asked.

"Jeans?" Wizen said. "What are jeans?"

He turned to Francesca.

"Do you know anything about jeans?" he asked her.

Her blush was exceptionally becoming. Evidently "jeans" were in fashion only among the younger set. She waved her arm and my robe was gone, replaced with a nice, tight pair of Levis.

"And on top?" she asked, gesturing at my naked chest.

"I think we'll just leave it like this," I said. I was as proud of my pecs as I was of my arms. Rambo had nothing on me. Other than functional legs of course.

I brought the flychair over and climbed in. Together we proceeded down the corridors. I could tell that something had changed immediately. We passed another boy, this one walking with his mother.

"Good luck, Rick!" he called out.

His mother quickly hushed him but gave me a shy smile as we passed.

I knew exactly where Francesca turned away every time she escorted me to the arena. When we passed it this time, still three abreast, I stopped in mid-flight and turned to her.

"Your cheering section may be small," she said before I could speak. "But we will do our best to be loud."

But it would not be small either. Even from underneath the Rose Bowl, in the tunnel where I was to make my final preparations for the fight, I could feel the crowd in the seats above me. It was not that they were noisy -- these people were not experienced spectators -- but that their hopes and fears were nearly palpable.

Karsk, Slisken, and Ken awaited me in the room that led to the floor of the arena. They were standing with another flychair.

"We have prepared this one for you," Karsk said as I approached.

"He prepared it," Ken said with disgust. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Because?" I asked Karsk.

"The bottom is mirrored," he answered with a sly smile.

"And it responds to my brain, like this one?" I asked.

"Yes," Slisken said.

The chair rose and dropped in response to my commands. And then it flew toward the wall, slammed into it at full speed, and dropped to the floor, utterly useless.

"I like this one," I said. "But thanks."

Ken offered me his hand.

"Good luck," he said.

"Thanks, pal."

Slisken and Wizen bowed toward me and wished me well. Francesca stepped forward and kissed me on the cheek.

"Thank you, Rick," she whispered.

Only Karsk stood between me and the door.

"On behalf of Council . . ." he began formally.

"Oh, tell Council to fuck off," I said. I turned and winked at my friends and then flew around Karsk to open the door.

I flew into the arena. The cheer from the crowd deafened me. The sunlight blinded me. And then just as quickly the crowd went silent. I knew the reason why. The Morling had entered from the other side. As my vision cleared, I saw him lumber toward the center, his mouth curled in its perpetual sneer. He played his light whip from side to side, as if to ensure me of his mastery.

I did the same as I flew to meet him. I wanted to let him know that he was in for a fight. I reached the center first, of course. The only advantage that we humans appeared to have over Morlings was our speed. That probably went along with our flight reflex, which was doing its best to overcome my training and courage.

"The chair has been explained to you?" I yelled as he closed to within twenty feet.

"Yes." His voice was a hoarse bass. Green saliva dripped from his tusk-filled mouth as he spoke. "It runs away at the same speed as Earthers. It will not help you, Earther."

"Perhaps not," I said with a smile.

I sent the chair into a flip to the right at the precise instant that his lower right arm came forward -- the one he had held behind his back, and to which he transferred the whip in one smooth motion.

It was a standard Morling trick. Right out of the Morling whip-fighting handbook, so to speak. It was not until after my broadcast that it had occurred to either Ken or I that Council would have film of the earlier Morling fights. It had not occurred to Council that it might be important. They didn't have Ken's experience with fighting, however. They also didn't have my unshakeable faith in the infallibility of video replay.

The first fight was of little use to me beyond exposing the Morling's opening move. He whipped out his lower right arm and the whip neatly cut his opponent in half just below the torso.

The second fighter had at least been prepared for that move. He had ducked and rolled. He had struck out with his own whip. And a surprised Morling had not moved fast enough to avoid the lash. But the wound was not close to mortal. A few thigh scales fell to the floor of the arena. And then the Morling had begun to hunt.

He had stalked his opponent across the floor, forcing him into a corner where he could easily cut off the human's escape. The human had retreated, completely negating his speed. Instead, the fight had become a matter of the Morling's far longer reach. The human could grow his whip, but the longer it got, the harder it was to control. The Morling's victory had taken considerably longer this time -- seven minutes -- but was just as certain. In the end, the ugly thing had stood over his second victim and beat his chest in triumph.

As I rolled away in anticipation of the Morling's first strike, I heard his whip whistle by my face, something which my training had never simulated. I lashed out with my own whip and watched it miss by a good five feet.

The fight was on.

Ken and I had decided that I needed to take advantage of the one benefit that the flychair conferred on me: unlimited stamina. Unlike a legged human, I could move constantly, darting in to strike and then moving out to present a smaller target. We had learned, as the Morlings no doubt had known for centuries, that the whips had a break-even point. That was the setting at which the production of new light almost matched the disappearance of the light at the tip. So there was always an optimal distance at which to use the whip. Because of the difference in the length of our arms, that distance was closer for me than it was for the Morling.

Now all I had to do was actually hit him with the whip.

That was proving harder than I would have imagined. The Morling was almost a stationary target. It was way bigger than any of the balloons I'd been destroying. But I had to spend so much time playing defense that my offense suffered. I decided to retreat for a moment to settle my nerves.