Cleese powered into the home stretch and decided (based on the sun's position in the sky) that it was getting late and he should probably call it quits. He was supposed to meet Monk to review more fight tapes and wanted to grab a quick shower before he caught up with him. He pushed himself to make his legs pump even harder as he approached the Start marker etched into the track. As he crossed the line and stumbled to a stop, his legs went rubbery and he almost thought that he was going to fall, but managed to maintain his balance.

He walked stiffly until able to catch his breath and then bent at the waist to stretch his already tightening hamstrings. They were still sore from the hack squats Monk insisted on him doing the day before. This running s.h.i.t on top of that wasn't doing him any favors. His muscles cried out in protest with every movement. Standing upright and walking slowly over to where he'd piled his gym bag and water bottle, his quadriceps and calves now added their voices to the polyphonic pain opera already in progress. He picked up his stuff and slung the bag's strap over his shoulder. Walking off the track, he pulled the top off his water bottle and drank heartily. Once his thirst had been more or less sated, he opened his eyes and noticed someone standing up by the benches at the side of the track. As he came closer, he recognized the guy. He'd seen the dude at the Holding Pen when Monk had taken him there.

Adamson was his name or something like that.

The guy was lanky and had a distinctly unkempt look about him-as if he'd just said, "f.u.c.k it!" and given up on personal hygiene. Cleese was no fashion plate himself-his taste in clothing leaned more toward boots, jeans, black t-shirts and, if the weather was less than perfect, a beat up old leather jacket-but he at least liked a good hosing off now and again. Adamson looked like he'd not seen a shower in quite a while. His clothes looked even worse.

Cleese wasn't sure what the guy wanted, but it looked as if he was about to find out. As Cleese approached, Adamson straightened up and once again ran his fingers through that greasy hair of his. Cleese idly wondered where the guy got his hair care products. Union 76 was his first guess.

"Cleese," Adamson greeted him and reached out to shake hands.

Cleese grinned, bowed slightly and apologized, "Sorry, but I'm all sweaty. I don't want to get you all slimy." Somewhere deep inside his brain, Cleese thought how ironic it was that here was a guy he didn't want to come in physical contact with.

"Nice day," Adamson said, looking around.

"Yeah... Since coming here, I don't get to see as much of the sun as I might once have. It's good to get out into the fresh air once in a while."

Adamson smiled widely and said, "Preaching to the choir, Buddy. You're preaching to the choir." He smiled and then the expression evaporated from his face like an ice cube on hot asphalt. "I wanted to talk to you, if you have a minute."

Cleese nodded and motioned for him to sit down. Cleese took a seat, his legs singing out in appreciation. As his a.s.s. .h.i.t the metal of the bench, Adamson came around and sat down near him. Immediately, Cleese caught a whiff of the same sour smell coming off of Adamson that he'd encountered when he went into the Holding Pen. It smelled like sour meat and week-old grease. It was the kind of smell that made the stomach churn and the bitter taste of bile come unbidden to the back of the throat. As subtly as he could, Cleese slid slightly further down the bench.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Well," Adamson said and ran his hand through that hair once again, "I was looking over my log the other day. I keep pretty good notes on how many UDs come in, how many go out, and who it is that makes one change to the other."

Cleese nodded. Other than a few of the fighters he'd met, everyone he'd run into in this place seemed to have a pretty advanced case of OCD. It didn't surprise him that the guy in charge of keeping track of The Dead could tell you the exact number of Them he had in his grisly inventory.

"Yeah, and...?"

Adamson stretched his legs out in front of him and scratched at some bit of slime embedded into the fabric of his pants.

"It got me curious... I noticed you're doing more than your share of incapacitating my Stock."

Cleese nodded and said, "Ummm... sorry."

Adamson laughed and his tone brought a chill to even Cleese's jaded senses.

"No... no. It's not that. It just piqued my interest."

Cleese took another swig from his water hoping the liquid would cut the sour taste that was beginning to develop at the back of in his mouth.

"Anyway," Adamson continued, "like I said, it got me curious, so I dug out one of your training tapes."

Adamson turned and gave Cleese the eyeball.

"Impressive."

"Ah, shucks..." Cleese said with just a hint of irony. "'tweren't nothin'."

Again, Adamson laughed and the sight was like watching a corpse kiss your sister.

"Look, I'm not going to bulls.h.i.t you..."

"Good. I hate being bulls.h.i.tted."

"I've seen my fair share of fighters come through this place and not all of them left happy. s.h.i.t, most didn't leave with a proper pulse."

Cleese nodded and figured he'd already heard what he was about to hear again. 'This place is dangerous. This place will get you killed. Yadda yadda yadda...' Not wanting to appear too rude, he figured he'd give this guy about five minutes and then use meeting Monk as an excuse to leave.

Adamson surprised him though by saying, "You're a different kind of animal though. I'm guessing that you'll do fine here. You'll undoubtedly make yourself a s.h.i.tload of money, but I don't think you will make it outta here without some damage."

Cleese looked at him and grimly shook his head. "Well, that's rea.s.suring."

Adamson leaned forward just a bit, "Even if you are able to survive your time in the pit, the damage you need to worry about..." Adamson raised his right index finger and tapped it lightly against his temple. "...is mental. You need to figure out how to protect yourself against that."

Well, Cleese thought, here's a new twist.

"Have you ever heard of someone named Martin Seligman?"

Cleese shook his head in the negative.

"He was this old school scientist who developed the concept of inoculation from stress by studying the learning in dogs. His experiments put dogs in cages that had an electric shock pa.s.s through the floor at random intervals."

"Fun guy..."

"Yeah, well... The dogs would jump, yelp and scratch at first as they tried to escape the shocks, but after a while they'd fall into a depressed, hopeless state of apathy and inactivity that Seligman termed 'learned hopelessness.'"

While Cleese wasn't exactly sure how any of this applied to him, he was now interested enough to keep listening. Besides, he silently hoped that Adamson's story ended with this Seligman clown being ripped to shreds by his own electrified doggies.

He was, after all, a romantic at heart.

"Once that learned hopelessness set in, the dogs wouldn't try to avoid the shocks any longer even when they were provided with an obvious escape route. Some of the dogs were shown a means of escape after receiving some shocks but they were shown the door before they fell into this state of learned hopelessness. These dogs learned that they could and would eventually escape from the shocks. After only one such escape, they would become inoculated against this condition. Even after periods of random, inescapable shocks these inoculated dogs would escape when finally given a means to do so.

"However, and this is the important part, if the dogs were allowed to develop learned hopelessness, they'd sit in their cages and, with a blind sort of resignation, just endure the shocks as if they were an accepted and expected part of their lives."

Cleese looked at Adamson and saw a slowly dawning sense of sadness in his eyes. The guy looked like someone who'd just been given a terminal prognosis.

"As interesting as that is, I don't really see how electrified puppies have anything to do with me," Cleese said clandestinely checking his watch.

"This place... these people... are not your friends, Cleese. These people... they are the one's delivering the shocks, Son. And you... you're a dog who's hopefully smart enough to figure it all out. You need to understand that these are the kind of people who would give Anne Frank a f.u.c.kin' drum set if it meant they'd make a little more money or gain a little more fame."

Yikes, Cleese thought, 'Bitter f.u.c.k, party of one.'

Adamson continued talking, but it was pretty clear he was doing so more to purge his soul than to make simple conversation.

"The language and the culture of The League is designed to help you be able to deny what it is we do here and why the system is set up the way it is, but it's only so that the whole thing will seem more palatable. Do you understand what I'm saying, Cleese?"

"Money..." Cleese said and took another drink from his water bottle if only so he'd have something to do with his hands.

"You're going to have your first fight soon and I don't doubt that you'll do fine. You'll see, afterwards, you feel f.u.c.kin' invincible and wanted and important. Never doubt for a minute though that the feeling will pa.s.s."

Adamson looked up and earnestly stared into Cleese's eyes. His gaze was haunted and had a doomed quality to it.

"I guess all I'm saying is to try to remember who you are and what you really want out of all of this. Then, try to keep in mind what you really mean to these people and decide for yourself if this is someplace you want to spend the rest of your days."

"Well, I appreciate that..." Cleese said quietly.

"There was another guy," Adamson interrupted, "named J. Glenn Gray who once wrote a book called The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle and in it he said, 'Few of us can hold on to our real selves long enough to discover the real truths about ourselves and this whirling earth to which we cling. This is especially true of men in war. The G.o.d Mars tries to blind us when we enter his realm, and when we leave he gives us a generous cup of the waters of Lethe to drink.' Do you understand?"

Adamson abruptly stood up and, without waiting for a response, looked almost embarra.s.sed; as if he'd suddenly come to the realization that it had been a mistake to come here and that he'd maybe said too much. He looked around nervously and then clapped Cleese on the shoulder.

Despite himself, Cleese felt as if he was definitely going to need that shower now.

"Just watch yourself," he said and stepped back. "These people are only here to mine you for what they can. The League does not give up its resources until they are ready. Believe me when I say that they are never ready. Trust me... I should know. I once tried to get out, but... Where was I going to go?"

Adamson turned as if to leave.

"Once The Dead have put their mark on you, Cleese, it's d.a.m.n near impossible to get it off."

"Well, I appreciate that..." Cleese repeated because it was all he could think of to say. All of this fatalistic talk was starting to creep him out. The whole omnipotent corporation thing, the dog torture, and the "sitting this close to a guy who smelled like a crypt" was starting to put the zap on his head.

"And..." Adamson said and took a couple of steps back in the direction of his Holding Pen, "the rest of the world doesn't know how to deal with you now because of the things they know you've seen. You've taken a peek behind The Veil. They can't-or won't-forgive you for that. It's something they refuse to think about... much less try to understand."

Cleese sat quietly and watched as the sad, broken man walked off across the gra.s.s.

"Remember, Cleese," Adamson called back over his shoulder, "we all want Heaven, but few of us are willing to die to get there. A good friend of mine, many years ago, had three things he used to always say, 'Know thyself,' 'To thine own self be true,' and 'Screw the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds before they get a chance to screw you.' You're gonna need to keep your eyes open for your chance to save yourself and, when it comes, you need to take it...."

Cleese stared as the man walked further and further away.

From the distance, he heard Adamson say, "You need to take it before that window of opportunity closes on you forever."

Cleese sat for a long time as the sun slowly set and the birds chirped far off in the trees. Far off, across the stillness, once again Cleese thought he heard the ever-present moaning of the dead coming from the direction of the Holding Pen.

The Art of War The air outside of the Training Hall was calm and cool as the sun made its way over the surrounding hills and up into the early morning sky. Large crows spiraled in the air and came in low across the gra.s.s, landing periodically to s.n.a.t.c.h up a tidbit or two wherever they could. The walkway leading away from the building was slick and coated with a thin veneer of moisture. A shimmer of morning dew threw a patina of frost across the heavy, metal doors which led back into the building.

Cleese had risen at first light and left his crib long before any of the others were awake. He'd wanted to get into the gym earlier than usual since the machines and workout s.p.a.ces always got more and more crowded as the day wore on. There was nothing worse than building up a good head of steam only to be brought up short by someone who was moving along through their workout at a snail's pace. He liked to do what were called "super-sets" which meant jumping from one machine to another quickly in an effort to shock his muscles. f.u.c.king around and wasting time were two things he could never stomach much.

As he stepped into the building, the door closed loudly behind him. The smell of the place, in some weird way, made him immediately feel relaxed and welcomed. It had been a while now since he'd come to the compound and its sights and smells were already making the necessary connections in his brain to equate this place as "home." The whole concept of feeling comfortable, much less "at home" anywhere, was still new to him. h.e.l.l, he'd never stayed put in any place long enough for that to happen.

Bit by bit though, this place was becoming something different.

As he entered the open s.p.a.ce of the Hall, he was surprised to find a group of people already training out on the mats. From the look of things, they were going over some close quarter combat maneuvers; what Monk called "s.n.a.t.c.h and strike" drills and established martial arts like Wing Chun called "Pak Sao." He saw, even at a distance, that this wasn't just any group of fighters: they were Chikara's Budo Warriors.

Cleese had wanted to get a closer look at their workout for some time now, but they did most of their training under the cover of secrecy with late night sessions and, from the looks of things, pre-dawn gatherings as well. He had to admit it-Chikara was doing a fine job of honing her fighters into something very special. Their abilities were evident in their matches and their cohesion as a team could be seen in their tightness as a group.

As he got closer, he could see the admiration for their leader in the fighters' eyes as they carefully watched Chikara explain a technique or concept. It was obvious that, to them, she was more than just a leader. Through her philosophies and training such as this, she'd managed to keep all of them alive in a sport where death was pretty much a given. For that, they were understandably grateful. Cleese figured all of this samurai "I live to die" s.h.i.t was just that-s.h.i.t. No one wanted to die and anyone who said they did was a G.o.dd.a.m.n liar. Chikara was someone who'd kept them upright and fighting and so anything she had to say was worth giving their utmost attention-and their respect.

As Cleese got even closer, he saw Chikara in the middle of the circle of men doling out her knowledge like it was mother's milk. She looked even better than she had when he'd last seen her meditating on the hill out by the Firing Range. Her hair was just washed, her skin showed the blush of exertion. He saw for the first time a bit of the tattoo he'd heard so much about. The intricate lines were visible around the neckline of her shirt and at the bottom leg of her training pants. The tattoo's colors shone brightly and as a result, Cleese's curiosity sat up and wriggled at the back of his skull.

"Now remember," she said as she paced back and forth within the confines of the circle of men, "the UDs will, based on their instinct, want to swarm you. The idea is to let them. They will want to come in close but will be hindered by their own numbers. Jacobson, what is our credo here?"

She looked over to a fresh-faced kid who appeared to be in his early twenties. From what Cleese could see, it looked as if Opie had done some growing up the hard way before leaving Mayberry.

"'They are many, Sensei," the kid recited. "We are one. They are hampered by their numbers and therefore cannot attack effectively. We can strike from any angle, from any position since we stand at the center of the fighting nucleus. We are able to react to the threat around us with im... with im...'"

"With impunity. Correct. Now, the trick is..." she explained as she gently drew one of the other fighter's into the center of the circle. "... to keep your center line constant. You must pull them into your 'sphere'-the circles of influence that whirl around you at all times-in order to control them."

Cleese knew what she was talking about. It was the Aikido concept of "circuits of neutralization." That is to say, every fighter has several spheres which rotate around him at all times: a vertical one, a horizontal one, then two oblique angles. The sphere's energy went in whatever direction the threat was coming. Draw your opponent into one of those spheres and you control his actions. To suddenly reverse that flow could oftentimes be... damaging.

Chikara stepped across from the fighter next to her and dropped into a loose fighting stance.

"Come..." she said to him.

The man took two quick steps forward and made a swift reach out for her throat. In an instant, she grabbed hold of his wrist and spun around in a tight circle, effectively pulling the man's arm around her. She wriggled within his grasp for a moment, did something Cleese couldn't quite see, and then, the other fighter was flipping through the air and landing on the mat with a painful sounding whump.

Cleese had to admit, it was pretty d.a.m.n slick.

"Very nice," he said in a raised voice pitched so that Chikara would be able to hear him across the Hall. Immediately, all of the fighters turned and glared at him. Two of largest started across the mat, looking downright p.i.s.sed. Cleese laughed and absentmindedly scratched at the back of his head.

"Easy boys...," he said, raising one arm like a traffic cop.

"Teiryuu!" Chikara shouted at the approaching men. They immediately came to a halt, but he noticed they did not retreat. She turned from her group and directed her attention toward Cleese.

"Cleese... You are interrupting an important training session. This time belongs to my fighters. If you would like to talk with me, you will have to wait. I would appreciate it if you would move along."

"Hey, no problem," he said as he continued moving toward her, "I was just admiring your skills."

"Well, thank you," she bowed slightly at the waist as she spoke. "Coming from a man of your reputation, I appreciate the accolades."

"I was only wondering though," he said having now come within normal speaking distance, "if it would work on someone a bit bigger than your man on his back over there."

"Like you, for example?" she said with a wry smile.

The Warriors all smiled and stepped back. They'd been around Chikara long enough to know an accepted challenge when they heard one. They also knew when an a.s.s kicking was about to be doled out. Each of them had been easily beaten by her in one previous training session or another. They were all glad that today's punching dummy was to be Cleese and not one of them. What the outcome would be if these two ever were to brawl had grown to be a hot topic of discussion with many of the men in the compound.

In fact, there was even a clandestine pool being pulled together.

"Well, yeah..." Cleese answered, scratching himself behind the ear. "Simple physics contradicts the theory behind your technique."

"Well, come then," she answered and extended her right arm as if to say, Right this way.

Cleese strolled across the mat and stepped into the widening circle around Chikara. Once he got to within an arm's reach of her, he was once again stunned by her sense of power and the way she seemed to occupy one hundred per cent of her body s.p.a.ce. With her Warriors gathered around her, she seemed a lot more dangerous than she had previously.

"Ok, Tough Guy, go ahead." She spread her arms out as if she was going to hug him, but her eyes said the polar opposite. "Hit me."

Cleese smiled, shook his head in amus.e.m.e.nt and then stepped forward. Chikara remained motionless, merely waiting for what she knew was inevitable. Cleese stared deeply into her eyes and saw her eyebrows lower in concentration. Despite all of the bravura, he could tell even she wasn't completely convinced of the outcome of this. Once he caught her attention, he winked at her quickly and then bobbed to the left, caught himself, and then weaved to the right. As his body moved past Chikara, he flicked out a powerless right jab. He didn't want to really hit her, merely to touch her so that she'd know he could have.