Kazin

I feel the power surge through my body. My veins are quivering; and I begin thinking that this Norbu guy has nothing on me should I choose to escape. He might have bioEnhancements of his own, but I am not sure I care. The ecstasy of power is fresh in my mind, and I feel like nothing can keep me down.

But before I can lunge away, Damera reaches for my neck and plucks something from it. Just as quickly, I’m crumpled onto the ground, and all the strength has left my limbs. Yukia and Damera lift me back onto the hoverChair. I realize then that they have taken my spinalChip from me. An overwhelming sense of hopelessness sweeps over me, as if a great prize has been snatched from my clutches. I begin wondering if the spinalChip is some sort of battery.

“Before you got any ideas,” Norbu explains. “The initial surge of power often makes even the weakest grunt believe themselves a dragon. There is danger in that, for pushing yourself too far can further destroy your body.”

"What do you mean?" I ask cautiously.

"The enhancements may provide you with unbelievable power," Norbu says, "but there is only so much your body can take. Push yourself too hard, and your nerves themselves will burn, forever depriving you of the ability to use them, with no hope of recovery."

Of course, I think to myself. Power is never free, and never without its limitations. I chide myself for having been so foolish, and I realize that I’ve just narrowly avoided doing something unbelievably rash. This man is a Joryoku commander, from what I’ve gathered. He probably has hundreds, even thousands of men and women like me under his command, all trained and blooded. I couldn’t have escaped even if I had tried.

He walks towards me, eyes glinting with something that seems uncannily close to satisfaction. “But believe me, Kazin. You are no grunt. You are Kashniro’s son. Mayako’s son.”

I look up at Norbu at the mention of my mother’s name. This is already the second time he’s mentioned her—the first time was when he remarked on my appearance, and now this, the second time.

“How did you know my parents?”

“Your father was my brother,” he says. “The brother I had chosen by blood of the covenant.” I can sense bitterness in his voice. “We were both of the Yamda, bound by the oath of clan and brotherhood, our bond strengthened through hardship and battle. Some covenants may be forsaken, but others may not. He may have chosen to break with me, but I never made that choice.”

Norbu kneels beside me and places a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You are as my blood. I cannot return to you your father or your natural body, but I can offer you vengeance. Would you like that?”

I nod. Vengeance. The word tastes sweet on my tongue. “I want vengeance.”

“You cannot go about it alone. You must join the Yamda. Are you willing to do that?”

Yamda. The Yamda clan. I can tell from the tone of Norbu's voice and the glimmer in his eye that I don’t have a choice in the matter. But I don’t care. He’s offered me something that I know I cannot hope to do alone.

“I’ll do anything,” I say. I want Sangsum to watch as I take from him everything he holds dear to his heart. Then I want him to look at me as I take from him his life.

A chilling smile curls on Norbu’s lips. “Good,” he says. “Very good.”

***

After that, I focus on my healing until the bioEnhancements are fully a part of me. I gorge myself on double servings of food; I wolf down my bioRejuvenators. I work myself during my physical therapy sessions like I have never toiled before. I was never a physical guy, but these bioEnhancements have spurred something new in me. I have a strength in my body I never knew I had, and they can do things I never thought possible. Damera still deprives me of the spinalChip following each session so that I don’t overwork myself behind their backs and damage my still-healing body. But a part of me doesn’t mind. It means that Yukia can stay with me, keep me company. I’ve come to enjoy our silent days together, peppered with the occasional joke and snarky comment.

Weeks pass, and I can stand on my own two feet now. I begin training with Norbu with the flameSword. He keeps to the old ways of honor, he says, and an honorable Joryoku knows how to wield a flameSword. I almost ask if there’s truly honor amongst thieves, but I bite my tongue and remind myself not to grow too comfortable around this guy. He may have been my dad’s, and even my mom's friend at one time if what he claims is true, but he is a Joryoku commander still. I have a feeling he would never forget a slight. Nor forgive it.

Over time, I learn that each Joryoku fighter has an inhibitor built into their enhancements to control the extent to which they can use them, in order to prevent an overSurge of power that would destroy their nerves—mine is specifically built into my spinalChip.

Norbu is beyond powerful—as we duel, I can see the glow of his own bioEnhancements beneath his robe. I can’t even hold my blade against his, because his strikes are too powerful.

One day as we are training, I fall on my back from a powerful double-handed strike to my flameSword. My blade disappears into the hilt, and the weapon clatters across the wooden floor of the training hall. I lie there, discouraged. Norbu offers me his hand. I take it. He hauls me to my feet.

“The objective is not to defeat me, Kazin,” he says sternly. “But to gain ability in the movements of the blade, to become one with it, to dance the motions until they become habit and you can do them without thinking. Do not be discouraged.”

“Why do it if I can’t win?” I ask.

He smiles. “There is yet much you do not understand, particularly concerning bioEnhancements. Continue with your training, and come your first assignment, I am sure you will be powerful enough to win.”

“Assignment?” I ask, trying to keep my excitement under wraps. “Am I ready to set out against the Shampai Group?”

Norbu shakes his head. “It is not so simple as that, Kazin. Trust me, obey me, and I will maneuver so that one day you may strike at the head of that snake.”

I swallow my impatience and nod. I continue to focus on my training, and it’s in the next several days that I understand what Norbu meant when he said that I don’t fully understand the nature of bioEnhancements.

We’re having a sparring session, fighting with the martial art of Hankido. This is something I find I have a talent for—Norbu says it is no surprise, as my dad was one of the most adept at the fighting style within the Yamda back in his heyday.

Norbu swipes at me with a roundhouse kick to the head. I’m too close to back out properly. I raise my arm to block my head. His leg crashes against my bioEnhanced arm, and I feel no pain. One of the many advantages of bioEnhancement. The force of his kick was powerful though, and I slide to the side from the strength of the blow. I regain my balance and rush him, my legs powering each of my strides to inhuman speed. Even Norbu is taken off guard by how quickly I reach him. I punch him once, twice, quick, like knife stabs. He dodges. It doesn't matter. I do a knife swipe with my hand to his jugular, and he blocks the strike by raising both of his arms. Bingo. I turn and do a reverse kick, right to his chest. The blow knocks the wind out of him, and he reels backward and onto his back. Time for the killing blow. I gather power into my legs to launch myself into the air—it comes as naturally as if I’ve always been bioEnhanced—and just as I am about to leap to smash his head with a downward fist, my legs power off.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What the—", I squeak before toppling forwards onto my face. I try to move my arms to soften the fall, but they won’t budge either, and I land square on my nose. I hear Damera and Yukia giggling in the corner. They always accompany me wherever I go, so that they can monitor my vitals and my bioEnhancements. I find myself wishing they weren’t here today. I wanted to impress Yukia, yet here I am, on my face, embracing nothing but the ground.

“What’s going on!” I complain.

Norbu laughs as he climbs back onto his feet. “I thought you had me there for a moment, Kazin.”

“I did!” I exclaim.

He makes his way to where I lie and rolls me onto my back.

“So here is something you must beware of, Kazin,” Norbu says. He beckons to Damera, who draws out her cTab and makes a call. Within the next ten seconds, I suddenly feel strength seeping back into my limbs, and I can sit up on my own.

“What is that?” I ask. I'm not sure if I am referring to my sudden inability to control my body, or the feeling of energy flowing into it again. Maybe both.

“There is a cost to any bioEnhancement,” Norbu says. “bioEnhancements make a man or woman far stronger than they could ever be. The procedures are deadly, but if one makes it through the surgery and the subsequent healing process, their movements are more powerful, inhuman in their strength and speed in a way that a fully organic human could never hope to match.” Norbu helps me to stand. “However, bioEnhancements are artificial attachments to the body, Kazin. They provide strength, but like any form of technology, energy must be transferred into it for it to function.”

“So, like a battery?” I ask.

He nods. “Yes.”

“But I thought that was what my spinalChip was for,” I say warily.

Norbu shakes his head. “Your spinalChip merely completes the connection between your nerves and your brain so that you can move as you do now. Your injury was very great, and constructing this artificial connection was the only way we could have saved you. A novel technology, and a risk we took.”

I’m unnerved by this revelation. If someone gains access to my spinalChip, they would be able to control me however they wanted to, so long as they somehow obtained it. I don’t mention any of this to Norbu, however.

“I see,” I reply.

“What Damera has just done at my command,” Norbu says, “is to switch on the energyTower located within our compound.”

“What’s an energyTower?” I ask.

“It is a wireless charger, if you will, to our bioEnhancements.”

“Charger?” I ask, bewildered. Then I scowl. “I’m basically a cTab.”

Norbu laughs loudly at that.

“You had it off?” I ask.

Norbu nods. “I had the energyTower deactivated a couple of days ago. I thought it would make a better lesson as to the gravity of losing power if you endured a switchOff yourself, mid-fight, rather than if I had merely explained it to you. It is important to remember that should you venture out into the city, that you do not linger outside of the Yamda territories more than a couple of days. It would be a terrible thing if you were surrounded by enemies and your body decided to fail you, as it did today.”

I nod. I fully understand. Norbu was effective in his teachings concerning the importance of energyTowers and their connection to bioEnhancements.

“But wouldn’t it be better then,” I say, “to just not utilize bioEnhancements at all? We’re basically at the mercy of energyTowers then.”

“We Joryoku cannot avoid bioEnhancing our bodies, Kazin—that is why we all go through the procedures, even though many die in the process. But without these bioEnhancements, we cannot hope to resist our enemies either. This technology has become a necessary evil in the world that we of the clans live in. In the past, the clans that refused to alter their bodies, the ones that resisted change and instead remained wholly organic, were entirely wiped out, destroyed by those clans which adapted quickly.”

Norbu beckons to me, and he leads me out to a balcony looking over the pond that the training hall sits atop. “As I have said—an organic human is no match for a bioEnhanced one. But we bioEnhanced fighters also cannot be trusted to always remember to recharge our energy. So, what you will find is that each clan has built and hidden energyTowers all over the city so that their members may move, fight, and use their bioEnhancements as they wish.”

The realization dawns on me. “So that’s what is meant by base of operations.”

Norbu nods ponderously. “Precisely. Byanza Quarter, the Kargu clan’s base, is where their main energyTower is located, though extensions of that tower now pepper the city as they slowly expand. That is how warfare and strategy works within our ranks. We locate the energyTowers and their extensions, then either hijack them or destroy them, according to our needs.”

Norbu motions to his side, and I notice for the first time that someone is standing there in the corner, watching us converse. It’s a girl with long, black hair. Strands of it have been dyed purple. Her eyes are a deep violet, and she has a cold, terrifying look to her, like a stalking wolf in the night. She’s dressed in the modern style, but she wears a breastplate of polycarbonate. The hilt of a flameSword hangs on one hip, the handles of two cracklers on the other. bioEnhancements are paneled up both of her arms, around her neck, and even on her left cheek and eye. It glows blue when our gazes meet.

“This is Kala,” Norbu says in introduction. “She is the captain of your division, Kazin.”

My chest suddenly feels like it will burst from the excitement welling up inside me. “So you’re finally sending me out on my first assignment?”

“The first step in your vengeance, Kazin,” Norbu says with a warm smile. “But baby steps, my friend. Follow Kala’s direction, and when you are ready, you will be sent out on other missions. Ones that you might find more fulfilling.”

I’m dizzy with elation, and I find that my hands are trembling from anticipation.

“I have prepared for war with the Kargu for a long time, Kazin,” Norbu says softly. “And though we have declared war, they have remained silent. Waiting. They want me to provoke them. And I will indulge them.” Norbu turns to me. “Can I trust you to follow Kala? Will you obey her absolutely?”

“Yes,” I nod. I clench my fists.

“Good,” Norbu says. “Then prepare, and get some rest. You will want your bioEnhancements fully functional when you head out tonight. You are entering enemy territory."