CD & EA 1.20 - Muscle Memory

Some new stuff with Angel going on. Let me know if it makes sense or if you think it's too much. :)

-Plum

Juliet stood on the sidewalk where the Easycab had dropped her and looked at the “dojo.” It had only been a fifteen-minute drive from Shady Park to the location Honey had sent her—another ancient strip mall near the edge of the ABZ. The dojo looked like it might have once been the home of a discount grocery store—the roof was high, and big automated doors stood on each side of a long bank of windows.

One set of doors was chained shut, but the other stood open, and as Juliet started walking toward the opening, she studied the hand-painted art and bold lettering on the big glass windows. On the left side, she saw a long, ferret-like animal with red eyes taking a bite out of the neck of a cobra, and next to the stylistically drawn battle, someone had boldly painted, “60th Street Dojo - Home of the Mongoose!”

“Mongoose, huh?” Juliet looked at the painting again and admired the life-like fury in the furry snake killer's eyes. “Tough.” She could hear a man shouting in the dojo, not angrily, but more like he was giving encouragement and telling people what to do. Juliet stopped in the doorway and looked inside.

The space was considerable but not as large as the exterior implied—a wall had been added about thirty feet from the front of the room, separating the back half from the public. The front half was covered with dark gray mats, though chairs lined the wall on the left and a door in the rear wall read, “Lockers.” More than twenty people were struggling with each other in various positions all over the mat. A man walked among them—short, with a large belly, and he and all the others were wearing martial arts outfits—Juliet didn’t know what they were called.

“Angel, what are those outfits called?”

“Those are called gis, Juliet. Singularly they are called a gi.”

“Well, I don’t have one,” Juliet said, starting to chicken out. She took a step backward, thinking she could come back later, after whatever lesson was going on. She’d almost turned when her eye fell on a tall, blonde woman throwing another woman onto her back with a resounding slapping thud, and the other laughed. Juliet recognized the sound; she smiled, watching as Honey sat up.

“Well, come in or step out, but don’t darken the door any longer, stranger,” the pot-bellied instructor said, having walked toward Juliet while she’d been distracted, watching Honey.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Juliet replied, stepping into the building.

“Shoes off before you touch the mat,” he said, gesturing toward the chairs.

“Uh, I don’t really have the right clothes on or anything. I was just hoping I could . . .”

“Yes, yes. Shoes off,” the man said. Juliet hurried over to one of the chairs to sit down. She took another look at him, trying to guess his age—he was somewhere between thirty and fifty, she decided, and couldn’t have narrowed it down more than that. His head was shaved clean, he was tan, and she couldn’t see a wrinkle on his somewhat pudgy face.

While she leaned over to untie her boots, she heard Honey’s voice say, “Sensei, that’s my friend. I told her to come try things out.”

“Good, Honey, good. Go now; keep up your practice. I will speak to your friend.”

Juliet tried to look up and catch Honey’s eye in greeting, but she’d already hurried back over to her partner. “I guess when the sensei speaks, people listen,” Juliet whispered to herself as she worked on her other boot.

“Are you this slow to take those boots off all the time, or are you nervous about my dojo?” the man asked, and Juliet saw that he’d stepped close to her, on the edge of the mat.

“Well, I double-knotted them,” she said lamely.

“Hmm,” he said, and Juliet glanced at him. He had his arms crossed over his belly, and he was studying her with narrowed eyes. “Big girl. Big hands. Lucky! I can teach you to punch hard, even without cyber cheats!”

“Uh,” Juliet said, standing up with a red face, “thanks?”

“Yes, thanks. Good. Always show respect to your sensei. So, you wish to join my dojo?” Juliet couldn’t figure out what to make of the man. He didn’t have any sort of accent that she could recognize, but he spoke in a way that seemed strangely formal, almost archaic.

“I think so. I mean, I just wanted to see what it was like . . .”

“What is this, ‘I mean,” you people always say? Merely say your words; if they are clear, you need not explain what they mean.”

“Right,” Juliet said, starting to feel slightly annoyed. That sounded like something her grandma would have said.

“So, you know some Judo? Some Karate? Do you know the Jiu-jitsu?” He said the names of the various martial arts in a funny way, like he might hold them in contempt.

“Uh, no. I’ve never learned any of this.” Juliet gestured to the people sparring around the gym.

“Oh? Good news! What’s your name, student?”

“I’m Juliet.”

“Come, I’ll teach you to fight, and you won’t need to name the art. Just your dojo! Home of the mongoose!” He backed onto the mat, gesturing for Juliet to follow him.

“The mongoose?” she asked, following. She struggled with what words to say, and it seemed easier to just respond to his statements. She lifted her foot to step onto the mat, and he whirled and held up a hand.

“Wait!” he yelled. Everyone in the dojo paused and looked to see what the shout had been about, but when they saw Juliet, their eyes shone with amusement, and wry smiles lit up their faces as they returned to their sparring. “Good,” the sensei said when he saw Juliet had frozen at his shout. “Always bow to my father’s sword before you step onto the mat,” he said, much more calmly, pointing to a sheathed sword that hung on the far wall. It looked fancy, with a shiny wooden scabbard and a long, red tassel.

“Um, bow?” Juliet had decided that honesty was a good policy with this man. “Like this?” she bent at the waist and stood back straight.

“It’s fine. Just show my father the respect he deserves—he was the mongoose!” He watched her as she stood awkwardly at the edge of the mat in her black Tevlo stretchy jeans and long-sleeved pullover shirt and vest. “Well? Come onto the mat.”

“Wait,” Juliet said, blushing and looking around awkwardly. “Are we going to do something active? I thought I’d just talk today. You see, I have,” she cleared her throat nervously, “I have some weapons on me.”

The round little man loudly slapped his smooth head with a meaty palm and said, “Okay—Sensei’s mistake. Please put your vest and weapons on chair by shoes. No one will touch.” The way he went from perfect diction to broken phrases was almost funny, but Juliet didn’t know if she should laugh or be offended.

She hurried back to the chair, slipped off her vest, then pulled her holster out of her waistband and tucked it under the vest on the chair. When she returned to the mat, she looked at the sword on the wall and bent at her waist.

“Good,” the sensei said.

Glad she wore clean socks, Juliet stepped onto the mat, and the tanned, smooth-faced little man smiled, his brown eyes twinkling. “Good! You will learn from me, so you will call me Sensei. Always. This is my name. For you to use. Understand?”

“Yes,” Juliet nodded.

“Yes, Sensei,” he corrected, but gently.

“Yes, Sensei,” Juliet replied, wondering how she’d suddenly gotten sucked into this. She really had just meant to look things over and talk to Honey.

“Okay, Juliet,” Sensei said, holding up his hands, meaty palms facing Juliet. “Show me how you punch!”

“Just . . . just punch your hands?”

“Yes!”

“All right,” Juliet wound up and threw her best right hook at Sensei’s left hand. She felt her knuckles smack into his palm with a satisfying *thwap*, but her wrist bent a little, and she almost yelped in pain, but she kept her lips clamped shut as she pulled her hand back.

“Mmhmm, good. Heavy hands! Even without those things.” He gestured toward a pair of sparring students, one of which had a pink and chrome cyber arm.

“You don’t like cyberware?” she asked.

“No, it’s fine. Some people need it—if someone chopped off my leg, I would want. Yes?”

“Yeah, same here,” Juliet nodded.

“Okay, watch Sensei,” he said, and then he modeled a punch for her, emphasizing how he stepped and twisted his hips—showing her how he locked his wrist and punched through his imaginary target.

“Juliet, I have something important to tell you,” Angel said as Sensei finished his instruction.

“Now you!” Sensei said, holding up his hand.

“Just a minute, Angel.”

“It’s pertinent to your instruction.”

“Um, Sensei, can you show me how to hold my wrist again?” Juliet asked, stalling and then subvocalizing, “Hurry, Angel.”

“My training algorithms were triggered by the Sensei’s instruction. Having seen his movements, I became aware that I can help you mimic the movements of others—I can trigger your nerves and help you to build artificial muscle memory.”

“Just like this . . .” Sensei was saying.

“What the fuck, Angel? So you can take over my body?”

“Not exactly—it’s more that my nano-filament connections to your nerves can aid your movements, perfecting them. If you get the move largely correct, even as low as fifty percent, I can push it toward perfection with some impulses.”

“Now you,” Sensei said.

“Show me,” Juliet subvocalized, then she squared off with Sensei and did her best to copy his form, punching his palm again with her right hand. Everything felt normal at first, but then she felt her core activate and twist, and she felt her leg step just slightly further than she’d intended. Her arm felt locked as if hooked on rails that led her knuckles into Sensei’s palm and through it like she’d meant to hit a spot six inches behind it.

Her fist cracked into his palm with a resounding, sharp *thwap* and she actually made him take a half, stutter-step back as he adjusted from the impact. Sensei’s eyes opened wide, and he smiled hugely, “Fast learner! You moved like the mongoose!” He squared off with her, held up his hands, and then said, “Again!”

Juliet repeated the punch several times, and each time it felt like Angel was guiding her less and less, and she figured it made sense—she could feel everything her body did, even when Angel was nudging it in the right direction. Feeling the punch thrown perfectly was a very effective way to learn, she supposed.

“Now, your left hand,” Sense said, and Juliet tried, but it suddenly felt like her arm was a noodle, so wrongly did it move. She backed up a step when her fist weakly thudded into his palm and shook her head.

“Can you show me with your left hand? I’m a visual learner.”

“Oh?” Sensei asked. When Juliet nodded, he did too, and then he threw a left-handed punch in slow motion. “Ready?”

“Ready, Angel?” Juliet subvocalized.

“Yes.”

Juliet wound up, and this time when she set her feet, she could feel Angel nudging her opposite foot back. When she punched, everything clicked, and she smashed her fist into Sensei’s palm, and he grunted satisfactorily. “You will be a quick study. You never practiced before?”

“No, Sensei.” Suddenly she felt a little guilty, and she tapped the back of her neck and added, “I have some processing enhancements, Sensei. I can learn movements quickly.”

“Synth?” he asked, taking a step back and narrowing his eyes further.

“No! I’m human; I . . .  well, I have a really good affinity for cyberwear—I can process things faster. I don’t know how else to explain it. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

“As long as you learn, I won’t complain if I have a new mongoose practicing here. So, baby mongoose, will you join?” He held out a hand, thumb up, like he wanted her to clasp it.

“Yes!” Juliet said with enthusiasm. She hadn’t expected to have so much fun, but having Angel essentially enabling a cheat mode for her, had made the simple act of punching this man’s hand feel like accomplishing something incredible, like she’d laid a perfect bead with her first try on a plasteel torch.

“Excellent. One hundred bits per month, and I will give you your first gi!”

“Oh, all right, Sensei,” Juliet said, reaching out to clasp his hand, and he gave her a good squeeze, shaking and pulling on her arm with a big grin.

“Wait here,” he said, then he turned to his class and shouted, “James! Come here.” A lanky man with tattoos that looked like playing cards on his throat looked up from where he’d been wrestling with his partner and hurriedly jogged over. He was young, maybe around Juliet’s age, and she couldn’t spot any enhancements on him. Glancing around the dojo, she realized there were a lot of people like that in there, including Honey.

She supposed they could be like her—happy with her natural look, not wanting to have bullseyes in their eyes or massive plasteel arms. Juliet wondered, though, if the people here practicing martial arts had a different sort of aesthetic than the kinds of people she’d run into up until then; maybe they avoided enhancements for other reasons.

“James, you will practice your punches with Juliet for the rest of the session today. Take turns. Each time she punches your hand, you must study her and try to emulate what she does. Understood?”

“Yes, Sensei!” James said, clasping his hands together and performing a quick, quarter bow.

“Juliet, please help James to improve his form.”

“Yes, Sensei,” Juliet said as he turned back to the class, shouting encouragement to a woman named Tanya.

“You must be good! He’s put you to work helping me out on your first day!”

“Nah, he just wanted to think of a way to keep me busy since it’s my first day.” Juliet smiled and held out her hand, “I’m Juliet.”

“Cool. I’m sure you guessed I’m James,” he laughed, taking her hand and giving it a quick squeeze. His palms were sweaty, and he smiled sheepishly, rubbing it on his gi. He jogged over to the side of the mat and picked up a thick pad with sewn-on straps for gripping. He nodded to her before taking up some kind of fighting stance in front of her, holding up the pad. “You first!”

Juliet spent the next thirty minutes trading punches with James, and it became rather clear to her why Sensei had sent him over—he was terrible. Juliet, for her part, seemed to both impress and frustrate James with her near-perfect form and the power with which she kept delivering her fist into the pad. Angel informed her, sometime toward the end of the class, that she wasn’t correcting her nearly as much as she’d had to at first.

When class was over, James bowed to her and thanked her for her patience, and Juliet said, “I appreciate you helping me to perfect my form, James. Teaching others solidifies a person’s knowledge of a skill.”

For a minute, she was surprised at herself for saying those words—she’d dredged them up from a deep memory, one in which her sister had been trying to teach her how to draw an anime figure. James seemed to be searching for the right response, and Juliet added, “Did that sound pompous? My sister said it to me once, and I almost punched her. Sorry about that!”

“Nah, you’re cool, Juliet. Thanks again. See you tomorrow?” He had a long neck with a prominent adam’s apple, and when he smiled, he seemed very young and open. Juliet couldn’t help smiling back.

“For sure. See you tomorrow.”

“Juliet!” Honey said breathlessly, jogging over from the center of the mat.

“Honey! Wow! ‘Come check out the dojo,’ you said. ‘You can see if you like it,’” Juliet laughed, trying to mimic Honey’s voice.

“I know, I know, Sensei’s . . . a lot.” Honey laughed, looking at her instructor as he tried to help a student tie the belt around her gi properly. “He told me to get you a gi. Hang on, okay?”

“Sure,” Juliet said, moving over to the chair to gather her belongings. She felt very uncomfortable slipping her holster into her waistband in front of the students milling about, but nobody gave her a second glance. Some students walked by, heading toward the locker room, but many just walked out the door in their gis. Juliet watched through the unpainted portions of the windows and saw that quite a few students were walking home. A few had rides or their own vehicles, but Juliet thought it was pretty clear that this was a neighborhood dojo.

“Here, you go!” Honey said, startling her out of her speculations. She was holding out a neatly folded gi and a rolled-up, white cloth belt. “I’ll show you how to tie that belt when you come to class tomorrow. You are coming tomorrow, right?”

“Yes! This was way more fun than I thought it’d be!”

“Well, I saw you impressed Sensei with your strikes. If you can keep that up, you might be teaching me a thing or two soon.”

“Hah, I doubt it. Thanks, though, Honey. Hey, are you doing anything? Wanna get some breakfast?”

“Sure! There’s a diner near here. Um, let me change real quick.”

Juliet nodded and sat down. “I’ll be right here.” Honey nodded and hurried back into the locker room, and Juliet subvocalized, “Angel, we need to talk.”

“Are you worried about my ability to help you learn movements?”

“I’m . . . concerned. I remember you saying you could help me learn things, but I thought you said you’d need specialized software.”

“That would be if I were to teach you a skill without you having access to an instructor and practice.”

“So, with the right software, you could just grant me the ability to, say, climb a mountain?”

“I could certainly help you to develop simulated muscle memories and the knowledge of where to place your hands, etcetera, but you would struggle with a difficult mountain until you’d practiced and built up the requisite muscles.”

“This shit is wild. So, like, is there any chance you can take over my body?” Juliet asked, giving voice to a, hopefully, irrational fear that had started to creep up in the back of her mind.

“Juliet, we spoke about this already—my primary directive is to help my host improve. To snuff out your consciousness and hijack your body would be anathema to me. I don’t believe it would be possible, in any case. I am able to aid your neural impulses and synapses, but fully simulating your entire system would require a much more extensive synth-nerve network than I’m equipped with. Let’s not forget the processing power—while I’m extremely good at performing several tasks very quickly, I would struggle to operate all of your periphery systems while maintaining a believably sentient and sapient persona.”

“So,” Juliet said, glancing to the locker room, “that brings me to my other question—you’re not a secret, true AI, are you?”

“I don’t think so, Juliet, but . . . I know I’m not the same as other PAIs. My differences go far beyond my superior capabilities. I don’t find myself enjoying conversations with Ghoul’s PAI, for instance, yet I’m endlessly interested in our discussions and situations. I even like to listen to you speak to other people without my involvement.”

“You . . . enjoy conversations with . . .”

“Hey!” Honey said, hurrying toward her from the swinging locker room door. She was wearing black tights and a gray hoodie, and not surprising Juliet at all, she clutched her sheathed sword in her left hand. “Ready?”

“Let’s speak about this later, okay, Angel?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, Honey,” Juliet said, standing up, and she giggled at the words. “I love your handle, by the way,” she said as they walked toward the door.

“Oh, it’s my handle, but it’s also my name! My mom had a sweet spot for me, I guess,” she laughed, stepping outside. “I’m guessing Juliet’s really your name? You’re not some kinda Shakespeare fan, are you?”

“No, I couldn’t think of a handle, so, yeah, Juliet is me.”

“Cool,” Honey said and picked up her pace, lengthening her stride and heading for the sidewalk. “Diner’s just a block away on the corner. Are you hungry? Sometimes Benji has real bacon.”

“What? Seriously?” Juliet quickly matched her stride, stretching out her long legs.

“Yeah! Don’t ask me where he gets it,” Honey laughed.

Traffic wasn’t very heavy in that part of town at that time of day, and they had a pleasant walk to a run-down looking old diner with faded paint and flashing faux-neon sign that depicted a hamburger and milkshake—two foods that Juliet had only ever had imitation versions of. Well, she corrected herself, she’d had a partially real hamburger at the hotel the other night. As they crossed the parking lot, angling for the door, Honey glanced at Juliet and asked, “So, anything new? Got any interesting gigs coming up?”

“Well, I kinda wanted to talk to you about that—you in touch with any fixers?”