Chapter 11 : War-Games

<What are we doing there?> Mark asked. Looking around the bar which seemed to be dedicated to ultra-lights. The display surfaces were showing some incomprehensible game between the rocketeers and the sky pirates. Winged skull motifs decorated the place and the patrons, giving a strong hint that the bar's clientele were sky pirate fans.

"Speak out loud and speak in 23rd century English," Fury replied.

"We can't enjoy alcohol. The bar games are a little simple for our upgraded reflexes. The gender balance of this place is seriously skewed. You're one of the few women. It feels like a biker bar." The rotgut in a glass before him might have had some redeeming features if his body had responded to alcohol as it used to. Mark glanced at the displays and winced as one of the flying players slammed full speed into the wall of the arena. <Quidditch with jetpacks?> he thought.

"Just do what you think is reasonable."

"I think blowing this place would be..." Mark started. He was interrupted by a heavy hand descending on his shoulder.

"You are in my seat," declared a heavy set man, his face a tattooed skull. A red headed man with lightning bolt tattoos around the eyes approached Fury from the other side.

"Is there any reason for us to stay?" Mark asked Fury with a sigh.

"Does the pussy-whipped wimp need permission to scratch his balls?" asked Skull Face.

Mark peeled Skull Face's hand off his shoulder forcing Skull Face back and to the side in order to avoid a wrist lock.

"Ouch! Watch it!" complained Skull Face.

Mark slipped off the bar stool. He bowed slightly and gesture towards the stool. "All yours."

Fury slipped off her stool as well.

"No need for you to go, lady," said Lightning Face reaching for Fury. Fury intercepted his hand putting him in a wrist lock and forcing him to the ground.

"Race you to the door," said Fury with a smile. She dodged to the side as one of Lightning Face's friends tried to intercept her and tripped another with a sweep.

Skull Face took a swing at Mark. Mark stepped back out of the way of his fist. A small shove sent the already over balanced Skull Face into the path of his friends. The altercation had received negative attention from the bar clientele most of whom seemed to be Skull and Lightning's friends. Everyone seemed to be converging on Mark except for those in the path of the swiftly moving mayhem that was Fury.

Mark endeavored to follow Fury. A man with a flying skull tattoo on his chest moved to intercept him, swinging at his face. Mark ducked and snapped a reverse punch into Skull Chest's sternum as he passed. Next his way was blocked by a hawk- nosed fellow with chain tattoos on his arms and a blonde with hanged man tattoos. Mark took out Chains with a front kick and Hanged Man with a spinning reverse kick. Unfortunately, this slowed him down, allowing his pursuers to close with him and although his strikes disabled his opponents they were still blocking his way. Mark barreled between them pushing them to the ground with open handed strikes. This slowed him further. As his enemies closed in things became a blur and he struck automatically as targets came into range.

A half grab / half shove from behind threw him off balance. He was hit hard from behind and the side. He spun around and blocked a punch from a tall lanky black haired man with barbed wire tattoos. He was fast and strong but Mark was used to sparring with the deceptively graceful Fury. He knocked Barbed Wire out with a three punch combo. Someone tackled him from behind. Reaching behind and grabbing his attacker's head, Mark leaned forward sharply, throwing his attacker over his hip. Then he was buried under an avalanche of bodies.

The scene dissolved around him. "I have seen enough. Shall we debrief?" asked Fury as the debrief room coalesced around them. A 3D top down view of the fight appeared in the table display.

"You are putting too much power into your strikes. A conflict is made up of a series of windows of opportunity. If you do too much during one of these windows you will either be out of position to take advantage of the next window or you will miss it entirely," she lectured.

"You also need to adjust your techniques and strategy depending the circumstances and on the goal. What was your goal in this scenario?" she asked.

"To get to the door," he replied.

"Correct, it was not beat the crap out of everyone in the room which was what you seemed to be intent on doing. Also you need keep moving. You paused here, here and here and you came to a complete stop here," she manipulated the playback to show the examples she was talking about.

"To fight effectively you need to plan and think ahead, but by this point you were merely reacting, and by the time we got to here, you seem to have forgotten you were supposed to get to the door," she continued.

"You need to be able to assess the threat level of your opposition. Here, while you were distracted by these low level mooks, you allowed the heavy hitter here to catch up with you," she said. "I will teach you to recognize the amount of physical upgrades an opponent has by the way they move."

"Also you managed to kill six of your opponents and seriously injure seven others. It is easy to forget how much stronger you are now, and how fragile baseline humans are. I wanted to take you to Newstock in a few days' time. I figured that it hardly mattered that you were half trained as there was unlikely to be trouble. However I can't take you while you're getting results like these."

She ran through a quick lesson using many examples and then tested his ability to identify a Tarkika's physical abilities by studying how they moved. After grilling him mercilessly for almost an hour she sent him several tarka service tokens and he accepted them. A number of exercises and scenarios appeared in his already overcrowded work item backlog as homework. Then she brought up a fighting area scene reminiscent of the Coliseum and had him work on techniques appropriate for opponents of different physical abilities and had him practice getting the amount of force correct. Then she sent him more homework.

"Did you understand the purpose of the bar scenario?" she asked as sat down on the hot sand of the arena.

"I must admit the purpose escaped me," he said as he joined her on the sand.

"The purpose was to practice moving though crowds, even crowds that are hostile. What is our most potent weapon?"

"Our ability to think ahead and anticipate our opponents' actions," he answered.

"That is very good answer. I was thinking of something a little more specific to our situation, though. The time jumper opens up a wealth of strategic and tactical possibilities. What would happen if we jumped from the middle of a crowd?"

"Unless we expanded the field to transport all of them, people would be cut in half, either killed or maimed."

"All an opponent would have to do to immobilize us would be to surround us," she declared.

He did not have to ask if it would ever be permissible to cause death in order to escape. "Who exactly will be our opposition?"

"That is a good question."

The debrief room dissolved and a black room littered with white boards took its place.

A board labeled "Threats" caught his eye.

The top item was "Time Loop Macro Quantum Interference".

"I think we have already covered this one. Basically, don't do something stupid like going back in time to kill Hitler or your own grandfather or anything that might cause a contradiction. Also keep your eye out for improbable events and stop trying to do whatever they seem to be preventing you from doing."

The next item was 'the governments of 2299'.

"If 2299 gets time travel it is game over for us. They will hunt us down and kill us. We might be able to hide if we did not do anything important but that is a different type of game over."

"I have a very important assignment for you. It comes in two complimentary parts. First you need to figure out how to obtain more Chowdhury-Shmakov particles. Second, how to prevent 2299 from getting any Chowdhury-Shmakov particles. We need a particle for you and I also have a few other people I would like to give particles too. I would start by upgrading your Physics knowledge from your current 2016 baseline to the 2299 equivalent, then treat it as you would any other research project."

"I am not going to be able to learn 300 years of science overnight," protested Mark.

"One. You have already proven that you can learn Physics. Doing it a second time should be easier."

"Two. With your expanded capabilities, you will find it much easier to study."

"Three. You have eternal youth and access to a time machine. Time is not a limitation. I know I said you could live 200 years but that is a rather pessimistic estimate. The technology is so new that no one knows how long we will live."

"Four. You can recruit other experts as needed to help you," she finished.

"This sounds like an enormous project," he said.

"That is one of things you are going to have to evaluate - the scope of the project."

They stopped in front of a board marked "Projects". There were three items on the board 'Rescue parents', 'Rescue Nightingale', 'Rescue History (e.g. Mozart etc.)'.

She inserted 'Control supply of Chowdhury-Shmakov particles' in between the Nightingale and the history projects. Then she sighed and put 'Rescue Selena' in between the Nightingale and Chowdhury-Shmakov particle projects. She then rubbed 'Rescue Selena' out and wrote in 'Kidnap Selena' instead.

"This is where it all started. This is where my life turned to crap, with the disappearance of my first love Selena Seager. I searched for years trying find out what happened to her and who was responsible. Now I think I know. It was me. It was me all the time."

"You are not making a lot of sense," complained Mark.

"Unfortunately my life does not make much sense. I going to commit the ultimate act of masochism. I would say that I can't believe I am going to do it, except I know myself well enough to know that I will. I am going trigger the events that caused the destruction of everything my sixteen year old self held dear, the death of my parents and so many of my friends. I am going inflict 11 years of pain and misery upon myself. I am going to kidnap Selena Sager from 2288. But before I do that to myself I need to know that I can undo the damage I have done, that I can save my parents and gain back everything I have lost." As Fury talked, her face twisted in pain and her tears flowed. Mark held her and tried to comfort her.

"If this is going to upset you so much then don't do it."

"No. Despite all the pain I made a difference. I changed things. I can't help myself. I always rock the boat and I wouldn't have it any other way. Even without Selena's disappearance I still would have run afoul of authority eventually. This is the life I wanted. I won't hide behind the excuse that the time loop give me no choice. It is all my fault! I am the monster that did this to me. There is no one to blame but myself. I really did love her you know and now I have lost her forever." she said as she squeezed Mark tightly.