“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

  —Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy

  function annotate208(){ codex.updateEntry(“Excellence Ethical? | Repetition to some is excellence; to others it is death—here it is both.”); }

  // Aristotle wrote Nicomachean Ethics. Durant gave us a precis. The Crucible’s Nico-Machinean design returns excellence to all.

  The sad thing was, balance wasn’t even the first real training module. A fact that Nel delightfully brought to his attention during one of the many times Remi found himself on the ground.

  Nel: Stop lying around, lazybones.

  Remi imagined he could hear her laughing; an impossibility given she was communicating through the HUD.

  Remi: Thanks tips. I’ll get right on that.

  Nel: Good. As trying not to fall over isn’t actually the point of this first module.

  Remi winced, getting to his feet. The red impact mark from the last kick faded to skin tone quickly as he healed. He’d discovered it was a room feature: rapid healing for endless combat reps. Unfortunately, while the damage didn’t last, the pain sure as hell did. He also didn’t seem to get as tired.

  He didn’t need a break, but he asked for one, anyway. Amihan rolled her eyes. “We need to get moving, Guro, we need to move on to strikes.”

  At the mention of the word strikes, a quest notification appeared.

  VWEEP!

  [TRAINING MODULE 1 - QUEST UNLOCKED]

  Title: STICK STRIKES 101

  Objective:

  ? Land 100 successful strikes using both kali sticks.

  ? Avoid repeating the same move twice in a row.

  Reward:

  First Stick Rune

  Nel: See, told you.

  Remi: I want to respond with some witty repartee, but all this mental typing is annoying. I wish we could just talk directly.

  Nel: We can if you ask your room for it. I did eons ago and was just waiting for you to come up with the idea. I didn’t want to seem pushy.

  Remi smiled, “You never!” Even though he knew she couldn’t hear his response, it felt better actually saying it. He really just wanted to talk with her.

  Remi: How?

  Nel: Just ask the room. Remember the Bradbury story; the room is like that. Think it, and it will usually do what you want it to. Within reason.

  Remi thought about seeing and talking with Nel. He wasn’t sure if the space needed a verbal command, but he gave one just in case. “Can we talk to each other directly? Seeing her would be nice too.”

  The training room responded immediately. The wall that separated their two adjoining spaces shimmered. A translucent pane slid open like a digital window, revealing Nel’s training cell on the other side. Remi could see a computer lab, dimly lit, but with multiple screens behind her. Nel was facing him and tossed him a wave before returning her hand to the laptop, which was docked in a station on her desk.

  “Finally,” she said as she raised her eyes from the screen to look at him over the top of her computer. Her voice came through some sort of hidden speaker apparatus. It wasn’t exactly her voice, but it was close enough. He could even hear the sarcasm. “This will be much more efficient,” she said, continuing to type. “As I won't have to stop what I am doing to comment on your…” her lip twitched in the pause, “balancing skill.”

  "He has that down," Amihan interjected, "but now that you have a line of sight, I have been told that you might be able to assist with some tech enhancements to the training module."

  “Yes,” Nel responded. “I generated some visual pattern overlays for his HUD. I believe you will instruct him on the basic Kali patterns next.”

  “Correct.” Amihan folded her arms. “Explain what you’ve done.”

  “Well, I figured you’d want to show him the patterns first,” Nel said, glancing up to meet Amihan’s gaze. “Then he can practice them repeatedly—without you having to reset the environment each time. My overlay will record his strike trajectories and compare them to your recorded reference model. Once I grab them. He’ll get color-coded feedback in real time: green for alignment, red for deviation.”

  “Acceptable,” Amihan said, though her tone suggested that she was faintly impressed. “Well, let’s get him started.”

  She turned to Remi, indicating that break time was over. Once he’d joined her in the center of the room, she drew a triangle on the floor with one of her sticks. “The first thing you need to understand is we practice triangles.”

  “Sounds like math class,” Remi chimed in.

  Her frown clarified that she would tolerate none of his typical joking behavior.

  “Sorry.” His quick apology was met with a nod, and she moved on.

  “Imagine your opponent’s body as a triangle. Head is the top of the triangle; a line between their hips is the base. Your first triangle will be forehand, backhand. This will form an X, and then across the base.”

  She modeled the movement.

  “I have the form recorded,” Nel said. “Do the other patterns, and I'll grab those too.”

  Amihan quickly showed five more patterns. She added numbers to mark angles and movements. She moved so quickly that Remi lost her about halfway through.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I missed some of that.”

  “To be expected,” she replied. “That was for Nel; we'll move a little slower for you, Guro. Let’s start again with the first one.” She showed him again, slower. “Now, you.”

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  Remi attempted to duplicate her movements. His stodgy rhythm was far from the smooth, kata-like movement she’d demonstrated. Where she was water, he was flipping a rock up a hill. His effort was visible, awkward, and jarring.

  As his stick passed through the air, he could see the line of his triangle appear in front of him as he swung. Each stroke appeared red.

  “Again,” Amihan said.

  He swung, this time to her triangle, which Nel had helpfully put in front of him on his HUD. He still missed it.

  Amihan stepped forward and lifted his right elbow slightly with her stick. “Here. Again.”

  He swung again. And again. And again. Hours blurred. His right arm finally obeyed; then they switched to the left. This was even harder. More hours passed. Each triangle came with new angles, new mistakes and new corrections.

  He kept going, stubborn as gravity. Like Sisyphus, each time he reached the top of the hill, the stone rolled back. A new labor awaited. Each task a new rock to roll, each tumbling back with a thump.

  But time smooths rock, and even Sisyphus learns that every climb is just rhythm.

  * * *

  As with all skills in this place, its acquisition came with a system notification.

  VWEEP!

  [TRAINING MODULE UPDATE]

  Pattern Progression: 6 of 6 Triangle Patterns Completed

  Physical Memory Threshold Reached

  The HUD pop-up was fine and dandy, but it was the nod of approval from Amihan that truly made Remi feel like he’d accomplished something.

  “Good job, Guro.”

  Her simple acknowledgment meant a lot to Remi. Even Nel’s snide commentary as she laughed through the window, “Congrats. You’ve officially leveled up from danger to self and others to mild liability,” couldn’t dampen it. In fact, he took the gentle ribbing as her personal mark of approval.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Now what?”

  Amihan looked at him for a long moment. “Well, now we spar,” she said.

  “Or…” Nel said.

  “Or what?”

  “Or we can give him more practice, without you having to be his sparring partner and coach at the same time.”

  Amihan looked interested. “Explain.”

  “Have you ever played Beat Saber?” Nel asked.

  “No.”

  “OK, I’ll show you.”

  Remi stood back and watched their exchange in awe. There was no artifice in their dialogue, just an impressive economy of language. Neither expended any more words than absolutely necessary. It was less people talking, and more like two powerful personalities interfacing.

  He couldn’t see the demonstration Nel showed Amihan, but he could imagine what it looked like. He’d played Beat Saber. In fact, it was one of his favorite games to play when he took Bea to the VR arcade. She always selected Job Simulator. For some reason he couldn’t fathom. Remi, on the other hand, preferred swinging lightsabers at floating boxes in time to music.

  Finally, Amihan said, “I understand, but there is no risk in a video game. My sticks hurt; floating blocks don’t.”

  Nel’s lips twitched in the way that Remi learned meant bad things for him. “I thought you might say that, so I tweaked the game a little.”

  Yup, Remi thought. I definitely don’t like the sound of that!

  * * *

  He did not. The lights in the dojo dimmed until only the floor grid glowed beneath his feet. A low electronic hum rolled through the air—then the first beat dropped. Are you shitting me!

  “Wake me up inside!”

  Why did she pick this song?

  Remi looked up just in time to catch her cheeky grin.

  The far wall fractured into a tunnel of color as the lyrics to the Evanescence song kicked in. Blocks of light burst toward him in time with the rhythm, each tagged with glowing arrows that pointed where to strike.

  “Time to wake up, Remi,” Nel said with a giggle.

  Distracted by her commentary, he neglected to swing. The neon object struck his chest, but it was not light that hit him. It slammed into him with the force of one of Amihan’s kicks. And once again, Remi found himself on the ground.

  The music cut out.

  “See?” Nel’s voice echoed through the room as he tried to catch his breath. “Gamified pain. Both educational and entertaining.”

  “Yes, I do see,” Amihan said as she approached Remi. She once again leaned over Remi’s prone form. “This will indeed be entertaining for some of us. Now get up, Guro,” she said with the first genuine laugh Remi had heard from her since the real world. “Try not to drop the beat.”

  * * *

  The room pulsed once. Then the damn song started again.

  Colored blocks streaked toward him in time with a pounding beat. He didn’t have time to think, only to swing. He barely raised his sticks before the first cube came within range. Whack! With a clean slice, the cube exploded in a cascade of sparks.

  Another came—lower, faster. He swung again, stumbled, and the next one slammed into his shoulder with a crackle of static. It spun him completely around as he once again crashed to the floor.

  Nel’s voice again floated to him from above. “Get up, Page. This is only level one; we’ve got a long way to the epic finale.”

  “Fantastic,” Remi grunted as he got back up.

  The next block caught him in the ribs. He doubled over and gasped in pain.

  "Pause," Amihan said.

  The music cut, as blocks froze mid-air, suspended like insects in amber. She walked through them, swatting a few away like flies. They parted for her like she wasn't part of the simulation at all.

  "Your elbow is dropping again." She tapped it with her stick. "Fix it."

  She stepped to the side; the music resumed, and the blocks again moved. Remi barely got his guard up in time.

  He was ready for it this time; he lifted his right elbow high. I’m going to nail this. That was, of course until he realized Nel had secretly doubled the tempo.

  * * *

  Even though Remi didn’t physically need a break, he took one anyway. While his body could keep up with the training, he found that, at times, his mind hiccuped. He wasn’t sure if the human mind was built to process this much learning at one time. Or maybe it was just his old-ass brain that struggled—old hardware clashing with new code. Someone younger, someone more like Nel, who was mentally more agile, could probably just download all this stuff and be good to go.

  Remi, not so much.

  Her brain was full of fiber optics, while his thoughts were running on old-school dial-up. Rife with the painful whirr and static hiss before the connection finally caught. Every new skill came with that same lag, that same screech in his head before something deep down finally answered.

  Normally, these moments were pleasant. Filled with conversation and banter between the three of them. This one, however, was different. As he finished his penultimate level, he was expecting something. A bit of adulation. A crisp high five. Actually, Remi wasn’t really sure what to expect in the gap before he attempted Nel’s last level, a challenge she’d referred to as Ultimate Elite Hard-mode for a while now.

  With a name like that, anyone—even Remi—would have expectations. What he got, however, was nothing he could have predicted.

  As he smashed the last box, having ducked between two laser walls and was covered with a shower of sparks, there was no applause. Instead, Nel’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Amihan, I need to talk to you. Could you come to my window so we can have a conversation?”

  He’d just begun to stroll over to join them when Nel’s voice had snipped his movement.

  “Not you, Remi,” Nel added quickly, “we need to have a private chat.”

  “Oh.” His shoulders dropped before he could stop them. He drifted to the far side of the room, sat down, and pretended to stretch. Trying his best not to look as crestfallen as he felt. He snuck a glance as he leaned over his right leg, working out a tense hamstring, and was shocked to see them arguing. He could not make out what was being said; the distance masking the hushed but animated whispers. Amihan was shaking her head, and Remi could just make out her imploring face. Her hands were gesturing, and finally, he watched Amihan’s head bounce in reluctant assent.

  As she turned and walked towards him, her expression was grim. By the time she reached him, it had morphed into the countenance he was used to seeing.

  “Okay, Guro. This is it, she tells me. If you finish this level, you will have completed Module 1. Then we can start—,” she hesitated. “Move on to the next module.”

  “Sounds good,” he heard himself reply. His mind was still spinning, trying to piece together what they might have been talking about and what might have upset her so much. But he didn’t have time to think about it, as he got to his feet, Nel started the next module.

  [Ultimate Elite Hard-mode]

  Another song. Faster.

  Da dung a da, dun dun dun, da da!

  Of course, it was dubstep.

  Remi had no more time for thoughts as the light dimmed once more and the first of many blocks rocketed towards him. He needed to focus if he hoped to get a perfect one hundred strike combo, and in a matter of seconds, there was shit flying everywhere.

  Colored cubes erupted from the far wall in synchronized waves—high, low, diagonal, spinning. The tempo pounded against his heartbeat. He could barely breathe, but the rhythm carried him.

  He stopped thinking and just moved. Hundreds of hours of muscle memory came into play.

  Each swing connected: whack, whack, whack. Light shattered around him in a kaleidoscope of sparks. Blocks split cleanly, one after another, each hit sending a pulse through the floor grid. The lines of his earlier triangles wove as he followed their unseen pattern perfectly. With each strike, seamlessly moving to the next, he followed the arrows, matching their angles and directions.

  The beat climbed higher. His body moved without hesitation now; sticks tracing rhythm and geometry in equal measure.

  Remi’s arms burned. Sweat stung his eyes. And then, on the final note, he split the last block. It was a double block actually, which he split cleanly down the center, his two sticks coming straight down. Remi had needed to time a jump over a small laser wall and bring his weapons down simultaneously. The blocks detonated in a burst of golden shimmering light that spiraled towards the ceiling, lighting the room like a sunrise.

  VWEEP!

  [ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED - Pattern Mastery Achieved]

  RUNE ACQUIRED: Glyph of Ember (Permanent Ability)

  The music cut out. Thankfully! He really did hate dubstep. The room was blissfully silent.

  Remi had just successfully completed a perfect game. He’d dodged and jumped and completed one hundred strikes in a row. He’d made no mistakes. That is until this very moment, after what he considered the hard part was finished, and as the system counted down to the end of the module.

  [System Message]

  Module 1 will complete in five seconds. FIVE…FOUR…

  “Sorry Guro. No choice.”

  THREE…T—

  He was not sure how Amihan had gotten behind him, but as he turned to look at her, his face had followed the direction of the whisper, his perfect level ended. As Remi turned, he just had time to process the stick as it hurtled into the side of his head.

  It struck with a sickening thump, followed by the sharp crack of his skull shattering. Amihan’s weapon drove bone shrapnel deep into his brain.

  The mind is a marvelous thing. The countdown continued somewhere inside that crushed skull.

  —TWO…ONE…

  Even as the world collapsed, it could produce a final thought through the static: Finally, the signal dropped. Its connection severed.

  Then, once again, silence.