Rood | Page 8

"It's an old martial art based
on joint locks. With all the free muscle you can buy out there these
days it's one of the few arts left that'll still take somebody down. It
doesn't rely on strength." Tonx stuck his arm out in front of him. "Here.
Grab my wrist."
"You're doing kung-fu now?" asked Fed, raising an eyebrow.
"No, dude. 'Eye-key-dough.' I told you, it's an old martial art. It's sweet
shit, for real. Relies on knowledge of physiology and timing instead of
raw strength. It's for people with brains. Come on, try to grab my arm."
Fed grabbed his brother's wrist. Tonx's smile widened, and he gently
put his free hand on top of Fed's. "It's easy," he said. He slipped the
fingers of his bottom hand on top of Fed's and pressed softly.
"FUCK! YOU! BITCH!" yelled Fed, falling facedown on the concrete
floor in front of Tonx's shoes. Tonx was laughing, doubled up against
the wall holding his belly. The door behind him opened and the
Chinese girl from earlier looked down at them. The floor she stood on
was a foot higher than the floor of the hallway, thick blue mats
covering its surface. She looked at Tonx and then down at Fed, now on
his knees pressing his wrist between his thighs, tears welling up in his
eyes.
"Tried that shit-ass nikyo on your brother, Tonx?" she asked. She
turned toward Fed. "Don't worry about it, man. Your brother's the

biggest wuss we got on the mat. Stick around and you'll see him get
his."
Tonx reached a hand up and let her haul him through the gap, his hand
lingering against her hip as he stepped in. "Hey there sweetheart" he
murmured. "You dissing my nikyo?"
"Your nikyo ain't shit, baby," she murmured back, hopping down into
the hallway and helping Fed to his feet. "Give me that," she said,
grabbing his hand and pushing gently against the inside of his wrist
with the ball of her thumb. She ran her fingers up his arm, pushing
deeply into the muscle. Fed felt his arm relax, the pain dissipate. "One
of the rules is, 'you break it, you fix it,'" she informed him. "So I guess
this means your brother owes me."
She still smelled like smoke, and up close Fed noticed she was about
his height. He pulled away, his cheeks hot, mumbled a thank-you as he
scrambled up into the room. He heard her chuckling softly behind him.
The room was roughly forty feet square, no windows. Bare concrete
bore witness to a poor job done steaming off wallpaper and paint, tiny
knobs of colored polyplasticines clinging here and there. The blue mats
covered the entire floor, and two plain white doors stood on either side
of the far wall. There was a low shelf on Fed's right with a little picture
of an old guy and a huge scroll with a single Japanese character
splashed on it hanging above. Fed flipped on his goggles, scanned the
scroll and ran a query, got a quick answer.
"Love" the scroll said. Fed wrinkled his nose.
"What's this?" he asked Tonx.
"You mean the kanji?" Tonx asked, waving his hand at the scroll. "It's
Ai, means love. Aikido is called the art of love. Kind of funny at first,
but it makes sense once you've been doing it a while."
He swung around, his arms taking in the whole room. "This is our dojo
- it's actually the back of the shop. We've got practice later, you can try

it out. But first I want to show you something."
"You going to show him your fishies, Tonx?" asked Cass, letting her
hair down and pulling it up again into a ponytail.
"Yeah" said Tonx, turning to give Fed that familiar half smile. "I'm
going to show him my fishies."

Chapter #5
Tonx's room was a simulacrum of the one they had shared at their
Mom's place. A futon sat on a frame covering the majority of the floor
surrounded by a dense layer of clothing, printouts, discount reference
books and bits of electronics. One wall was covered in gorilla racks,
sturdy industrial-grade shelving. A thick data cable snaked out from a
pair of rack-mount computers; pizza-box-sized systems Tonx had
paired up to handle the throughput required for the VR he used to
manipulate his bio work. A black plastic helmet of the same make as
the one in the shop hung from a hook nailed into the wall over the bed,
the data cable attached via rubber bands to nails in the wall.
What got his attention, though, were the tanks. The gorilla racks
contained at least a dozen fish tanks of varying sizes. Each had a big
metal canister like a coffee dispenser