Zachary Rawlins - The Academy

His wrists, shoulders and back all hurt constantly, and he spent a considerable amount of time every day in the fitness center’s gigantic spa, hoping that in the hot water eventually some of his cramped muscles might unknot. Three afternoons a week, they ended with weight training, done in rapid and exhausting cycles that left Alex broken down and shaking. He got so used to vomiting in the plastic bucket that he kept nearby that he didn’t even feel self-conscious about it.

All of which, at the moment, wasn’t helping him match Michael’s handstand. With a tremendous effort, Alex straightened out the length of his body, his abdomen shaking with the strain, his legs wobbling but fundamentally straight. Then it all fell apart, his balance shifted forward, putting the strain on his fingers, his legs bent, and he allowed himself to crumple to the ground, which turned out to be much more comfortable than he had anticipated. He decided to stay there.

“I don’t get it,” he said, lying on his back while Michael unfolded himself neatly.

“You don’t get what?” Michael asked, sitting down beside him.

“What the point of all this is. I mean, am I going to go punch a werewolf? Is that the idea, I’m going to go beat these things up?”

Michael looked at him oddly for a moment, and then laughed. Alex had a sneaking suspicion that the laugh might have come at his expense, but he smiled anyway.

“That would be cool, but I doubt you’d survive it,” Michael said, grinning and producing two bottles of Gatorade from the kit bag he brought everywhere. It was impossible, Alex found, to keep himself hydrated, though he drank constantly. “Your body is your most fundamental tool, Alex, the only one you always have at your disposal. Everything starts from there. If you don’t know how to use your body, then you’re never going to understand how to use any other kind of weapon. The idea is this — we will teach you to use anything at hand to fight, and yes, we’re going to spend a lot of time teaching you to use guns and bombs and protocols because that’s what we expect you’ll be using. But just because that’s what we expect,” Michael said, shrugging, “doesn’t mean that’s what it is going to be like. The field has this tendency to surprise you.”

Michael paused for a moment, kneading out a cramp in his calf, and looked almost sad.

“Anyway, we start with what we know you’ll have with you. Once I’m confident you can use that, then we move on to the more likely suspects.” Michael grinned at Alex. “That okay with you, Mr. Warner?”

“You ask me like you care,” Alex said, finishing his bottle and putting it aside.

The pace of the workouts was exhausting, but somehow never quite past what Alex was capable of. Michael offered constant instruction, critiquing his form and movement at all times, tweaking and refining, patient and infuriatingly calm. Alex’s own frustration was muted by sheer exhaustion, and by a growing suspicion that something was not quite right. In the course of a few weeks, Alex gained a few pounds of muscle and a much more prodigious strength. He was somehow, faster, stronger and more capable than he had any right to be.

One day, after a particularly grueling set of wind sprints, Alex asked Michael about it.

“It’s the machines, son,” Michael said with his trademark toothy grin, panting beside Alex on the grass next to the track. “All those little machines inside you, they’re latched on to your nervous system, and they take instruction from your brain, as if they were part of you. So they know what you’re doing, and they’re facilitating the process, helping your body manufacture new tissue, augmenting your reflexes, repairing all the damage that gets done to that sad little body of yours, my friend.”

Michael lay down near where Alex had collapsed, hands behind his head, looking up at the sky and seeming, to Alex, to be genuinely happy.

“For me, it’s the best part of the deal. I played football, you understand, and I wrestled and ran track. I always liked this stuff,” Michael said, sounding almost bashful. “And then when I came here, they taught me how to fight, and it all came together for me. I can push myself so much harder now, and those little machines clean it all up for me. Our ligaments don’t tear, Alex, our tendons don’t snap, and if they did, why, you’d be better in a couple of weeks. As long as you remember to give your body raw materials, you won’t ever overheat or have glucose problems. Plus, those machines enhance performance — they can carry oxygen, or remove dead cells, or form seals around injuries and subcutaneous bleeding. They can tailor nutrients and deliver them. They can even process lactic acid and reduce muscle cramping.”

“Wow,” Alex said, looking dreamily at the hand he held up between his eyes and the weak afternoon sun.

“Yes,” Michael agreed, standing up. “But they can’t do the work for you, Alex. Up and at them. We aren’t done here.”

“I start class tomorrow,” Alex said.

Michael looked surprised, then nodded.

“Was it like this, for you?” Alex asked, looking stricken, his fingers knotting with anxiety. “Were you this nervous when you started, Michael? Did it all feel this weird?”

“Yes,” Michael said seriously. “I think everyone feels that way.”

It took so much effort to get up off the bed, to walk across the room on his aching legs, that Alex gave serious consideration to the idea of ignoring the soft, insistent knock. He only didn’t because he was fairly sure that Vivik would stand there, knocking gently in patient intervals, until the door fell down. Because Michael had told him to keep an eye on Alex, no doubt.

Alex opened the door and then limped back to the bed, leaving the door behind him open and Vivik to make his own way in. He barely had the energy to keep his eyes open.

“You look terrible,” Vivik said, taking the chair at Alex’s writing desk. “They must be pushing you real hard.”

Alex nodded wearily.

“I’m almost happy that class is starting,” Alex said, “because that means only three days a week with Michael, instead of six. I think any more of this might actually kill me.”

“I doubt it,” Vivik said, grinning, “if you’re important enough for them to pull a Board member and department head away from his classes for three weeks so he can personally tutor you, I doubt very much that they would kill you and waste the investment. Or allow you to die at all, for that matter.”

“Well, that’s a comfort. Not to be a dick or anything, but,” Alex nodded painfully at his sprawled body, “since I’m in a lot of pain here, and was thinking pretty hard about bed, did you have anything you needed, Vivik?”

“What? Oh, no, nothing big,” Vivik hedged, toying nervously with a pen from Alex’s desk. “Are you worried at all, about tomorrow? I was pretty scared, my first day. And nobody knew who I was, or anything.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex said, attempting to sit up, and then abandoning the effort partway, when he realized that inclining his head was the most he was currently capable of. “Why would that be any different for me?”

“Well, as a matter of fact,” Vivik said, smiling nervously, “it seems that pretty much everyone knows that you are starting class tomorrow, Alex. Most of them heard about it a couple weeks ago, after you were evaluated and graded. That you spent the last three weeks in seclusion, training one-on-one with Michael just added to the mystique, I think.”

Alex groaned.

“It’s not so bad, Alex. A bunch of the girls want to meet you,” Vivik offered helpfully.

“Yeah?” Alex tried to make sure his voice sounded nonchalant, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was, based on Vivik’s sly smile. “Why would that be?”