Exo rig experiments

  “Okay,” Trickster said, raising his voice a bit. “I want each of you to try a little hop. Just enough to get you past your tiptoes.”

  Cole bent his knees and did a gentle hop. He went higher than expected, as if he had caught somebody’s bounce on a trampoline.

  “If you jump hard, you’ll hit the ceiling,” Trickster said. “Try a little higher than the first hop.”

  Cole glanced at Dalton, who grinned from ear to ear. “These are like training wheels for life,” his friend said.

  Turning his eyes toward the ceiling, Cole saw that it had to be fifteen feet overhead. Could he really touch it? That would mean he could slam-dunk a basketball! Where were these rigs during PE?

  Jace shot up into the air, stretching for the ceiling and coming just short. Dalton did a more modest jump, but his feet still went a little higher than Cole’s head. Mira went higher than Dalton but not as high as Jace.

  Cole didn’t want Jace teasing him, so he tried a pretty strong jump. The ceiling came at him fast, forcing him to use his hands to absorb the impact. Fortunately, the exo rig helped brace his effort. Then he fell back down, scared about how he would land, but the rig assisted there, too. It was like his legs had shocks now. Good ones.

  “Follow directions, Cole,” Jace mocked.

  “Whoa, you okay?” Dalton asked, coming to Cole’s side. “For a minute there, it looked like you were planning to find your own way to the surface.”

  “I’m good,” Cole said, feeling a little shaky. “I wasn’t expecting so much power.”

  “You squatted pretty deep before you jumped,” Trickster said. “The rig read that you really wanted some altitude.”

  “The outer defenses have been breached in sector five,” Outlaw said. “Sectors one and three won’t hold much longer.”

  “Keep going, Trickster,” Googol said. “They need the basics.”

  “Okay,” Trickster said. “When you walk or run with normal strides, the rig won’t push hard like when you jump. It’ll flow with you. But you’ll find your top speed higher and your ability to change direction enhanced. You’ll get the feel by experimenting. Now, just with your arms, throw some punches. Don’t actually hit anything. Beat up the air.”

  Cole punched and felt the exo rig moving with him, increasing the force of his blow. He looked over at Dalton who had both hands going really fast—leftrightleftrightleftright. Cole tried it and found he could do the same thing.

  “See, Cole and Dalton?” Roulette asked. “Experiment with quickness. You can be faster. Your reaction time isn’t quicker, but once you start moving, everything is sped up. Try karate moves. Have fun with it.”

  Cole did imaginary blocks and turns and punches. He loved the feel of his new speed and the power behind his movements.

  “Now the bad news,” Trickster said. “If you go punch a crystal wall right now as hard as you can, your finger bones will turn to dust. Punch somebody in the face, and you’ll hurt them, but you’ll also probably break your hand. Cole almost gave us a demonstration. If he hadn’t used his arms against the ceiling when he jumped, he might have cracked his skull and broken his neck. We aren’t invincible in these things. In some ways, we can do more harm to ourselves.”

  Cole gaped at Trickster. A warning about that before he’d jumped would have been nice!

  “As you improve, you’ll learn all sorts of tricks,” Roulette said. “Jumping can be especially useful if you do it creatively. For example, once you get the feel, you can leap back and forth between the walls of an alley to climb.”

  “But you don’t want to mess around with those kinds of techniques yet,” Trickster said. “Practice advanced moves in a controlled environment.”

  Cole couldn’t resist. His jump to the ceiling had given him a feel for how much the rig augmented his leaps, so aiming just above the lockers, he sprang to one side, kicked off the wall, flew across the room, kicked off the opposite wall, and landed just about where he had started.

  “What?” Trickster laughed, clapping his hands. “Are you kidding me? That was tidy! No way was that luck!”

  “I’ve done a lot of jumping lately,” Cole said, unable to suppress a smile. Using the rig felt a lot like leaping with a Jumping Sword. The jumps weren’t as big, but he didn’t have to point at his target and shout a command. It felt easier. More intuitive. “Secret will be good at it too.”

Chapter 11