The Musashi Flex Read Free Page B

score of times over, and you want to risk getting your head bashed in or your body sliced into bloody ribbons by some psychotic killer? Can we get a psychiatrist over here, stat?
    The problem was that he wasn’t a natural. Yes, he had trained so that he was better than good. He had rank in four arts before he had come to Baba Ngumi, but at the top levels, the fighters had something more than training. They had some kind of innate . . . something —talent, drive, whatever—that made them more than the sum of their fighting arts. He had seen the best, and they all possessed it, whatever it was. And Shaw knew that this spirit, be it ki, or prana, or tenaga dalam or whatever, was not part of his makeup. He could beat nine out of ten men or mues he was apt to meet on any street on any planet, he was good, but he was not great, and that was what it took to be a Top Player in the Flex.
    Greatness. Whatever it might be called, you had it or you did not, and if you didn’t, you could not buy it. That had been a hard lesson, one he had fought against learning for fifteen years. He was young, only forty T.S. He was in outstanding physical condition. He was smart and he was rich and he wanted it, God, he wanted it! He had believed he could not be denied. He could afford the best teachers, and he had never failed at anything he had truly desired. Business, women, whatever, he set his sights on a goal and he, by Jesu, achieved it! Always had, no matter what the odds against it; always would—so he had thought. He had never had reason to think otherwise. He’d really believed that.
    He had paid some of the best Flexers to come and spar with him, offered them small fortunes to do it. Men who were ranked in the Teens had come to his private school. Beat me and double your fee, he had told them.
    They had all left twice as wealthy as they’d expected. All of them.
    It had been painful. Physically, to be sure, but bones could be glued, torn tissues mended. What had hurt more was learning that he was not going to be able to defeat the Top Players no matter how much training he had. No matter how much he wanted it. Training and desire weren’t enough. He needed something they had that he didn’t. And it wasn’t for sale.
    There had been a time of despair.
    But because he was smart and rich, he came to realize he had other options. There was a way to give himself an edge. If he couldn’t do it one way, he could do it another. And if the fucking rock apes would stop dying, he would get it . . .
    Baba was waiting when he got to the skuli. Just standing there, not doing anything, staring at a blank wall. He was a short, wizened, dark-skinned man pushing eighty-five; if you saw him in a market or at a restaurant, you would not have a clue that he had once been among the deadliest fighting men alive, retired at his peak—Third, amazing for a man his size—and that he still was more dangerous than a bagful of Mtuan vipers. Appearances were deceiving—if you believed this little old fellow was innocuous and thought to push him around, you would regret it—assuming he let you live to do so.
    Without turning to look at him, Baba said, “Position One.”
    Baba did not believe in warming up or stretching. If you had a scheduled duel, yes, you could do that, but if you were attacked suddenly, if you saw a situation coming that was only a matter of seconds away, then you had better be ready to deal with it immediately. You would not be able to hold up your hand to an attacker bent on smashing your face and say, Hold up there, fellowman, I need to loosen up first, okay?
    Knives? Oh, but I left my knife at home — wait right here, I’ll go fetch it . . . Shaw had to smile at the thought.
    “Something is funny?” Baba said. Given that his back was still turned to Shaw and he couldn’t possibly see Shaw’s face, this was, despite the number of times similar things had happened, still amazing.
    “No, Baba.”
    “Then do not break your