Balance by Kurt Bartling

Author:Kurt Bartling [Bartling, Kurt]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781300190646
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2015-12-29T05:00:00+00:00

Finishing her meal in private, Mr. Black having left shortly after Michael stormed off, Rena has a chance to look around the dining hall. She notices a couple new faces, nervous young faces. She considers their odd looks of discomfort. “Oh crap!” She exclaims out loud. Turning, Rena scans the room for the aggressors, spotting them right away. A table of four; ‘roiders, three of the ones she and Michael matched up with on their first day. Watching them, she notes that no one seems to have taught them any new tactics, repeating the same distract and flank strategy.

The targets, two males and a female, both men are mid-twenties and physically fit. The girl, slight in frame, can’t be much older than eighteen. Rena suspects she might have spent some time in the flesh trades.

The distraction works, the first ‘roider gets the drop on one of the guys, getting him in a headlock, the recruit already turning blue. Enrapt, Rena watches the ‘distraction’, the ‘roider walking to the buffet, drive a fist to the back of the head of the second young man, collapsing him to the floor, unconcious.

Then the girl does something stupid and incredibly brave. Taking her butter knife, she drives it into the forearm of the first ‘roider. She gets either very lucky or very unlucky, depending on how you looked at it, hitting a major artery in the process.

Screaming in pain, bleeding profusely, he releases his hold on the young man.

The two ‘roiders at the table quickly join the fray. The girl looks terrified as the three predators surround her.

Rena suspects they too must have made the flesh trade connection, as they start trying to pull at her clothes, like vultures trying to steal pieces of meat from a lion’s fresh kill. They succeed in tearing her shirt, exposing her under garments, increasing the girl’s fear and elevating the ‘roiders’ frenzy. Not wanting to watch, Rena can’t leave. The young girl is in a place she shouldn’t be, but through some horrible twist of fate, she ended up here, surrounded by monsters, now on display. Suddenly Rena notices it; no one watches from the balcony, no one to stop it if they wanted to. The rest of the tables remain idle, unwilling to get involved. No one intervened the night her and Michael were attacked either.

Michael, likely in their quarters, is too far away to help. Takada might have stopped it if he was here. She’s on her own.

Without contemplation, Rena enters the fight, hoping all the time Michael spent training her, pays off. She advances quickly, like a dancer, every move of the sequence appearing in her mind, anticipating the reactions of each of the ‘roiders.

Un-noticed, she glides in behind the first target. Never slowing her advance, she pirouettes backward. At the last second she kicks her leg out with remarkable velocity, performing what Michael calls a snap whip kick, striking the side of the ‘roider’s knee.

On Takada’s order, Michael taught her how to generate more power and energy from compact movements.

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