Part 23

They arrived beneath the flight facility, took an escalator up, and paid the fees at the entrance. Their bodies were scanned while the table they lay on took their weight and determined exactly where their center of gravity was in relation to the rest of their bodies, so that their flight suits could be fitted to them exactly. While their suits were prepared they were given a twenty-five minute lesson that taught the essentials of flight technique, safety rules, right-of-way regulations, flight etiquette, and the locations of med stations. As they were helped into the suits by facility staff they were told of the virtues of the various games arcades, restaurants, snack bars, and flight suit merchants that were located at various 'perches' in the sides of the great cylinder.

Assan led them to a huge elevator built with the flight suits in mind, all of them leaning back a bit to balance their bright yellow beginner's wings held in front. "You want to take off the first time from halfway up." he explained as they descended in the elevator, his voice a bit tinny in the headphones of their helmets. "There's not as much lift available at the top, and there's too much at the bottom. And remember, our communications stay private among our group as long as you talk quietly, but if you yell or scream it gets picked up by the safety monitors and everyone else. It's a safety feature, so you can call for help of warn someone out of your way without having to activate a control for it."

The elevator opened into a large room that was open to the flight area on the far side. The roar of the vertical wind and the huge fans that drove it was powerful, even with sound-blocking helmets and earphones.

Assan led them forward to the ledge, saying; "Just do what I do. Establish a stable glide until you get closer to the middle, then work on banking and circling. When you go to land, remember to use the yellow landings, they're the ones with the softest pads, and there'll be attendants there to help catch you if you overshoot."

With that he ran two steps and jumped off the edge. He fell a few feet till his wings caught the air, then glided gracefully toward the center of the huge space. One by one, they followed.

Only Slin had trouble with his takeoff, as he was too vertical when he entered the air stream, and was blown back into the takeoff room.

"It is hard to not try to keep your feet under you." he muttered half apologetically as he found his balance, then launched himself perfectly on his second try.

Soon they were all circling around the center of the tube, slowly rising, then when they got within fifteen yards of the white grate ceiling they circled wider, and slowly descended in circles around the outside of the air column.

"Gods, this is beautiful!" Pina exclaimed quietly, and the rest agreed.

Then they began expanding their skills. Davdan was found to be the smoothest and most graceful flyer, needing only slight motions to control her flight, while Tika was the most aerobatic, practicing mid-air flips and flitting around like a sparrow.

After an hour they agreed to take a break at the mid-level snack bar, and one by one they alighted in the yellow center of its landing ledge where the padding of the floor was deepest. Naz was a little low, and tumbled to a rolling landing on the rubbery foam that left him laughing in chagrin.

Davdan had her momentum and direction under perfect control as she gently flared to a landing, needing only two light steps to be stopped.

Pina came in a little high and fast, bounced a bit on her toes on the foam twice and still had momentum when she passed the warning line twenty feet in, and was caught by two ready attendants in soft-covered body armor.

Tika swooped in last and flared hard, canceling almost all of her momentum at the last second. Her feet were together when she planted them for a perfect one-point landing, driving them one and a half feet deep into the foam for a moment.

Attendants helped them doff their suits and hang them in racks.

They still found their appearances as Japanese techs to be quite hilarious, and when Tika and Naz began stiffly bowing to each other, they all had to stifle themselves to avoid creating a scene.

They ordered ice cream treats and took a table in the snack bar.

"This is really great fun!" Pina laughed. "And did you see the skill with which those attendants caught me? Like I was a pass in American football!"

"I think I am addicted to blast flying." Davdan stated happily. "After a few moments I was numbed to the noise of the wind, and then it was easy to forget that the air is not still! It seems like you can soar as effortlessly as an eagle!"

"Did you see when I almost hit the wall?" Menak laughed. "My heart was in my throat for sure! I was more scared than I was during combat today! And when I recovered my line, what a thrill!"

"I thought I was going into the net a few minutes ago!" Naz chuckled. "Though I take to this better than I thought I would!"

"You all picked it up real fast!" Assan told them. "Incredibly so!"

"Living wild is healthier and more conducive to fitness and skills acquisition than life as a tech." Pina shrugged with a little smile.

"Yes, but I think you're starting to appreciate our lifestyle anyway!" Assan laughed.

"I am!" she happily agreed.

"The Elf lands will offer the best of both worlds!" Tika grinned. "We could build one of these flight facilities there!"

"We could!" Davdan agreed. "Though I think it will have to wait a few years. You have committed yourself to many expensive projects, under the Elf lands and in space. And this is an expensive facility."

"True." Tika giggled. "But Naz here is an Honorary Elf, and twenty thousand young Elves will need a lot of recreation. Perhaps after he wins the great bet, he may think that a flight center under the Elf lands would be a good investment!"

"This being super-rich is going to be fun!" Naz chuckled. "I think that as soon as I receive the funds from my great bet, I will declare myself 'The Money Genie'! I will grant your wishes, but only if you rub my bottle and say; Oh mighty genie of the immense wealth, please grant me my wish! And I will say; And what is thy boon? And you will say; Oh mighty money genie, I need a billion credits to build the greatest blast flying facility in the solar system! And I will say; And what will you give me for this mighty wish? And you will say; I will give you a big kiss, and eventually repay you with seven percent interest out of any profits we make! And I will say; I will grant it to you, my child! And Shazam! Just like magic, thy will be done!"

"Shazam!" Tika laughed. "Well, that is a little ostentatious, but I think I could work with that!"

"Actually, you do not have to rub for genies in bottles, you only have to pull the cork." Pina laughed. "You only need to rub when the genie is in a lamp!"

"That all changes now! To summon The Mighty Money Genie, you will rub the bottle!" Naz insisted with a grin. "I will have one of your companies build me some nice small bottles for me to give to each of you. They must be very ornate and ancient Arabic looking, with a little window in the front, with electronics inside that place a secured call to my screen when you rub the bottle, and when I answer a little wavering hologram of me in my genie disguise will appear inside the window. And you must speak the request according to the formula!"

"Well, I could build such bottles for you." Tika grinned. "But first you would have to rub my foot, and say; Oh Mighty Tika, Queen of the Elves..."

"Arrr!" Naz mock-growled at that point, and tried to stab Tika in the face with his cherry swirl ice cream cone, but she grabbed half the ice cream with her bare hand and smeared it in his face, then whooped as Jela poured icy milkshake down her back, and the table erupted into an ice cream fight.

The snack bar's staff became quite upset, but Naz gave them a forty thousand credit tip, which convinced them that things were just fine after all.

They had to clean themselves carefully, so as to not disturb their disguises, and then they went flying for another two hours.

After that, Naz and Jela took their leave with Assan.

"We will help Raz and Jena with the hunting tomorrow, and we will all be back here for your matches." Jela said as they prepared to separate at the tube station beneath the flight center. "I know Jena is going to love blast flying, and I do not want her moping around too much."

"Call Ali when you know when you will be ready to go, and he will be there to pick you up." Tika told them.

"And if you want some help with the hunting, remember that any in the zone would be glad to help." Tira said.

"As would any of the Elf-kin." Tika added.

"We will be fine." Naz assured with a grin, and they said their goodbyes.

One of the restaurants in the flight center had three billiards tables, so the six who remained went back upstairs to play.

As it turned out, only Slin and Pina played much billiards.

As they were entering the restaurant, Davdan's screen beeped, as she had set it to alert her when the judges of the Grande Tournament had finished reviewing the day's fights and re-evaluating the fighters, and new rankings were released. "Ah, Menak, you are now ranked sixty-first, and Tira, you are seventy-eighth, among all the world's fighters!" she exclaimed. "They could not place you much higher above your old rankings, since you showed so little of your abilities with your quick victories today."

Tira hugged her daughter warmly. "Thank you, Tika! Thank you for insisting, the day you began to train me! I already stand higher than I had ever really thought I could before that day!"

"It is my pleasure." Tika said, hugging her back.

Tika, Tira, Menak and Davdan spent the next three hours reviewing the remaining fighters and planning possible strategies for the next day's bouts, and only occasionally did one of them play a game of billiards with Slin and Pina.

They returned to their suite in the main stadium after 02:00. They removed their disguises, cleaned up, and went to their beds, and were so spent that only Tira and Menak were still awake three minutes later. They made love for only sixteen minutes, and were asleep within seconds after that.

June 6, 2155

Tika awoke after sleeping only a little more than two hours, as was usual for the last few months, and was busy on her screen when Davdan rose at 07:00. They exchanged smiles and silent nods, and Davdan sat beside her on the balcony and busied herself with her own screen. Tira and Menak rose next, and ordered breakfast. Pina and Slin got up when it was delivered in the mail tube, and the quiet mood was shared by the group as they worked on their screens until 08:15, when the doors into the public seating areas of the stadium were opened, and about two hundred people streamed in immediately.

Another two hundred were seated over the next ten minutes, and then people began arriving in a constant stream of thousands. By 08:40 almost every seat was filled, and the private balconies reached their capacity a few minutes later.

With eight minutes remaining until the official opening of the day's events at 09:00, Tika clipped her screen to her belt and rose, the rest followed suit, and they left the suite to take their places in their reserved seats near ringside.

An Elder fighting judge stood in every aisle leading to the central seats set aside for fighters, their entourages and other V.I.P.s. At their request, the fighters who had been victorious surrendered their ranking ball and those of their defeated opponent from the day before. The great screens overhead had listed them in red lettering, and as each surrendered their tokens and registered for the day, their names in the list turned white. Those whose names were still red at 09:00 were those who had won, but been forced to drop out because of injuries. There were twenty-two of them, leaving one hundred and six fighters, who would be scheduled for fifty-three fights that day.

Tira's number 78 ball was drawn for the twenty-seventh fight with number 87, and Menak's 61 was drawn with number 34 for the thirty-first fight.

"It is ten twenty. I will not fight until after two forty, and Menak around three o'clock this afternoon." Tira stated when Menak had returned from the platform with his opponent's ball. "Though it may be a bit rude to leave before the draw is finished, I would rather get another two hours sleep, I think. That will leave me plenty of time to practice my moves and get ready for my match. We should not have stayed up so late last night."

"The first day is always a long day, since the rankings do not come out until about an hour before midnight." Davdan shrugged.

"All right, we go. I will join you for some more sleep as well." Menak stated, and the group stood and made their way back up to the suite.

Menak and Tira slept until 12:30, and they all ate lunch before the fights started at 01:00pm.

Tika, Tira, Menak and Davdan did not watch the fights, they spent the time discussing only Menak and Tira's opponents for that day, watching their recordings, and preparing specific moves for them. They ignored the roaring of the crowd outside the balcony.

Ali and the rest of the Green Band arrived at 01:35, exchanged smiles and polite nods with the four in the living room, and joined Pina and Slin on the balcony.

"Naz and Jela-Mother told me about the blast flying, and I have viewed it on screen!" Jena whispered excitedly to Pina. "I am sorry I missed it! We must go tonight!"

"I am all for that!" Pina grinned.

"Menak and Tira's victories were fierce and convincing." Raz whispered. "I think they will have struck some fear into their opponents."

"They aim to win, and they will not be deterred." Naz said. "As they have said, they are not playing."

Slin was browsing through the sports nets on his screen. "Here is something interesting!" he announced. "None of those who lost yesterday are dead! The Meds even saved Park Chak, who nearly lost her head!"

"She will be all right?" Pina asked in surprise.

"Well, it is hard to say whether she will ever be completely normal again, but she is alive, and will have at least a partial recovery. Another two were just about as bad, but the rest will enjoy full recoveries, including the two Tira and Menak beat."

"How have the fights been so far today?" Ali asked. "I was piloting, so I couldn't watch."

"They have been great, of course, but nothing really noteworthy has happened yet. There were a couple of minor upsets, and a lot of two arm losses, as always." Naz commented, glancing at his screen, which showed live coverage from the tournament's official website.