Mirror: Chapter 12

"This your boyfriend, kid?"

Alita sucked in a breath, and her face started to pinken.

"No," Adem answered for her, almost immediately.

Then she closed her eyes, clenched her jaw and curled her fists.

Coach narrowed his eyes and glanced between the two of them, "Well, what, or who, are you then?"

"I was her opponent two nights ago."

Coach straightened up and leaned back a little, "You're racer number 12?" After a bit of scrutiny, Coach then said, "Well, I thought you'd be shorter and uglier since you wore that mask all the time."

Adem twisted his mouth and shrugged a shoulder.

"So, what do you want? I'm already Alita's coach, and, if you hadn't interfered, she'd be in the advanced echelon already."

"He doesn't want anything," Alita said, "He's not racing anymore."

"You sure you're not his girlfriend?"

She raised her fist to Coach's face and tightened it with a loud creak.

"Okay, I get the hint, no more teasing. Then, I take it you're here to figure out what the next step of your Motorball career is?"

After she nodded, Coach screamed while leaning in her face, "You don't have one, you screwed up your placing again, try again next year, coaching you is like coaching a runaway cat, and I quit!"

"Okay, easy, calm down," Alita said, wincing and putting up her hands in surrender, "Isn't there anything you can do?"

Coach huffed, "Are you not listening? Solo-racing is done for the year. It's over."

"But team racing is still going on, correct? Are two racers enough for a team?"

Both Coach and Alita glanced at Adem with different expressions: Coach looked like a lightbulb went off over his head, and Alita's face darkened.

Alita flashed Coach a very tight smile, "Excuse us a second."

"Good luck, Mr. 12," Coach said.

She snagged the sleeve of Adem's coat and yanked him out of earshot. Hearing the intense whirring of her cybernetic body, Adem decided not to resist. He could struggle free, but the tug-of-war would tear the coat. She was stronger, anyway.

With a snarl, she shoved him hard enough to bounce him off the wall, "What the fuck are you doing? We just pulled you from the brink of death!"

"I'm trying to pay you back."

"How's that? By killing yourself again? Are you brain damaged?"

"If I recall correctly," Adem said with his head down, but his eyes lifted to stare back, "You were the one attacking me."

His eyes didn't waver, and Alita found herself looking away.

He followed up, "I'm the most experienced player in the intermediate league, with one-hundred games."

"It's not one-hundred yet! What about your sync, and what about being a cybersurgeon again?"

"It's not going to be a problem, and it's you that picked this middle-ground body for me," for emphasis, Adem held up his hand, "I'll do both."

After taking a deep breath, Alita smoothed out her hair then shoved Adem again, "You're being an insufferable moron! Don't you hate fighting?"

His hand pressed against the wall, feeling the low rumble of the music, "Yeah, I thought so, too. But now that I'm here with you, I realize it's not something I can quit, yet."

"I'm going to pull my hair out, and dad's going to trashcan you with his rocket hammer."

After a half-smile Adem called out to Coach, "Get the paperwork going."

"Uh, yeah, before that kid you got to try out for the team."

Alita flashed Adem a victorious grin.

After Adem swapped out his feet for borrowed rollers and took off down the practice track, Alita frowned then covered her face with her hands.

"He's doing terrible."

Coach grunted in agreement.

Beads of sweat broke out across his brow, concentration twisted his face, and he was panting even on simple curves on this track. He was still as accurate, mostly, but uninvited wobbling diffused over his form.

When Adem accelerated up to the first spike obstacle, his torso slammed into it. He bounced off it like a brick.

"That looked like it hurt," Coach laughed, "Racers that rely on cheap tricks have it coming. I hate his type."

She leaned forward and gripped the rail of the spectator box.

After twisting to get up, he tried navigating the spiked obstacles at three-quarters speed, swaying like wheat in the wind. He did fine, at first, until the fourth spike. His shoulder clipped it, forcing his upper body to spin, and he collapsed to the ground before he could catch himself.

"What the hell?" she whispered, "Coach, what's going on with him?"

"You're the know-it-all martial artist. You tell me."

"Coach!" Alita snapped, giving him a quick yank on the shoulder.

"I keep forgetting you never have to work on your synchronicity, so you don't study this stuff," Coach's tone became technical, "It's his new eyes. The visual cortex has the highest rate of neural plasticity of the brain, right? He's been using an electromagnetic locator for over a year, and he adapted to three-dimensional model-space. Right now, he can't remember how to process two-dimensional images, so his world-space has knowledge gaps and lacks error-correction."

"English, Coach!"

With a snort, he said, "Your boyfriend see different, so he fall down. There's a saying amongst us coaches, Alita: change your racer's perception, change your racer's identity. He's trying to race like the machine he was instead of the man he is now."

"Can we do something?"

"Kid, that ain't his only problem. He's breathing hard because he's mismanaging his cyber core's resources, he's missing easy paths a beginner would hit, and he's letting it frustrate him so he can't mentally compensate for his lack of cyber-instinct. Not to mention, his new body isn't going to allow for any of the tricks he used before. He's going to have to relearn his entire fighting repertoire."

"When I changed bodies I didn't have these problems!"

"Sometimes I hate your natural talent," Coach seethed, before spinning on his heel, "You waste it. Look, it's what you wanted right? Now you have an excuse, send him home and stop whining."

"Shit," Alita whispered as she watched Adem picked himself up again.

Coach stopped before leaving, "Not what you wanted?"

"No. Doesn't matter now, though."

"Hey kid," Coach yelled, "You're done! Up here!"

Adem was bent over, gasping for breath, and propping himself up by holding his knees. Sweat poured off his forehead.

Gasping, he demanded, "When do I come back?"

"Tomorrow," Coach said, "I'll get the paperwork ready."

"Are you kidding me?!" Alita screamed, "Not a chance!"

"Ain't your call, it's mine. You want off the team? Walk away so I can go find another team member," Coach squared up to her, "Oh, and another thing, the primadonna crap stops. Before it was fine because it was just you risking your own life, but now you'll get someone else killed with your recklessness. Next time I tell you I quit, I mean it. You two clear on that?"

"Yeah, Coach," Adem breathed out between breaths.

Alita blinked in confusion, before a meek, "Okay," spilled out of her.

"That's the spirit!"

"Wait, he could die," she put her hand on Adem's shoulder, "You could die, Adem."

"Kid, I sign possible death warrants every day, even yours."

Her hand slipped off.

"One thing I don't get," Adem asked, finally catching his breath, "Was why the try-out? I get the feeling you were going to let me join no matter what."

"Well, I actually was checking your skill level, among other things. You have potential. Primarily, I was watching Alita, see if she'd accept you as a team member. After all, if the two of you don't mesh, then you're toast in this bracket," Coached waved, "See you at practice tomorrow. Oh, and welcome to the Right Side of the Valley, Mr. 12."