Purity

By Bryant Durrell.

His eyes are so damned blue.

That's what I think every time we go out there, you know. How blue his eyes are. It's what I've thought ever since I met him. Except I didn't used to worry about it as much, neh?

The other day, the old man dropped by and asked us to go take a look at some office building or other; a scouting mission, and Brigette was coming along to keep us company. Well, and to take care of us. He doesn't like to show it, but I think he cares about us, and he doesn't want us to get hurt.

Not like we don't all know we will, eventually.

Anyway, the four of us hopped a bus down to the center of Hong Kong, and halfway there we ran into some of their sendings. Brigette says we can't panic people, so we did the dirt in an alleyway, and she came out all bloody. You know. This great ripping slash all down her left side, and the bruise of a lifetime on her cheek --

I shouldn't say lifetime.

But I looked at her, and I'm not a brave person, but I didn't even think about what I'd look like if I'd been the one it'd decided to pick on. I just thought about him, and what he would have done, and how bravely he would have fought, and how dead he'd have been. We've been hanging out together for a few years, since we met in the old man's dojo. I don't know what it would be like to have him dead.

She didn't even stop. We kept on going, caught the next bus, killed a funny little sorceror down in the basement. No big deal, if you don't count that Brigette nearly died.

The thing of it is, it's been like this for a year now. The old man doesn't make us do half as much as the real karateka, because, well, we're not real. Just students still. But he needs everyone he has, and we're some of everyone, because we volunteered and I wouldn't back out even if I could, even if I didn't think David would be disappointed in me.

That's his name. My friend. David.

So sometimes we have to go out and do what we can. Like right now; David and I are belly-crawling flat on our stomaches across the security zone of that damned office tower. It's midnight. Maybe a little past midnight. The air smells of ozone, and I can tell he doesn't have any more idea of why than I do. I can see it in those eyes of his.

Brigette is not with us today -- tonight -- because she's healing up for whatever comes next. That's OK with me, really it is. I'm worried for David, though. He's sweating a little, and I really want to wipe it away badly, but he keeps glancing over at me like he's scared for me and I don't want to bother him, so I think I'm just going to be quiet.

There's another team coming in the back way. We sparred with them a little this afternoon, just to exercise. And to show off a little, even if the old man hates that. They're only about as good as we are, and I heard Joe mention them a couple of weeks ago, before he died -- I don't want to talk about that, but he said they were students from the Rio school. So I bet they're a lot like us. Sanchez, she's kind of cute, and it's not like I can't flirt just because David has nice eyes.

Whoops. There's a guardpost up ahead. We're going to go around it, says David, using the hand signals we learned so long ago. Down even lower, wriggle wriggle, my blood goes perfectly cold as the searchlight sweeps over my head but it doesn't stop. I look back, and it's past David too.

That smell, the ozone, it's stronger now. It's probably coming from up inside, there, but there's nothing we can do about that. We keep on moving, towards that temptingly open door. I think it's too tempting. I think I just saw a shadow move there, although I am not sure. I think it doesn't matter and we have to keep going anyhow.

Before I can think too much, we're at the door. David's to the left, I'm to the right, and we're sitting up backs against the wall looking at each other biting our lips scared out of our skins. This is about the worst it's ever been, I think to myself, and then I laugh without making a sound, because I think that every time. Just like I'm always thinking about his eyes.

His hiss is as soft as spring's first touch. "Go."

And I move like music, up off my haunches and spin and kick and the door shatters open and I spin again into the opening, into the light that spills out onto the dirt. David's right behind me, going left in an angular mirror of my own movements. The floor is too damned smooth, linoleum or some such, I'm skidding a little and a little more and dear Buddha I'm losing my footing. Somewhere inside me a small voice tells me I'm dead.

I know it's true, too, because I can hear the triumphant yell of a guard -- screaming, I suppose, about as happily as I would if I were in his shoes. I still don't want to hear it. I'm slipping too fast to do anything about it. My ass is about to hit the floor.

David comes past me with perfect form. He's crouched just right, his center of gravity is exactly where the old man would want it to be, and from his face he might as well be doing a practice kata for the hundredth time, he's so relaxed. He plants his left foot, coming around in a meticulous side kick, and as the guard comes in to blow both of us away David kicks the Uzi out of his hand.

I guess the floor isn't that bad, because I find myself coming up off it with a kiai as loud as the lightning, picking the gun out of the air, spinning to send a spray of bullets into the second guard behind us. The expression on his face is completely surprised. I must be moving faster than I thought. He slumps, revealing a bright red spray of blood on the corridor floor behind him, his expression staying surprised all the way to his death.

There's a dull thud from David's direction. It sounds like nothing quite so much as a bone breaking, and while I want to look back rather badly I'm pretty sure I should be watching the hall. So I do. From outside, the noises of the night echo very faintly underneath the sounds of gunfire and screams.

It's lucky I'm watching; another one of them pulls up as she pulls around the corner, so I take a quick little stutterstep forward and feint a kick at her side. She's better than the other ones: she blocks with a flawless arm block, which quickly turns into her counterattack, which turns into me backpedaling as quick as I can. I was cocky, and now I don't have time to get the Uzi up. Might be out of bullets anyhow.

But after a second or two, I remember what the old man said, and let myself limp a bit. She bites at it, twisting to throw a punch at my other side, and I just know she's hoping I'll leave my "bad" leg open. No such luck for her tonight.

I come off that leg in a near mirror of my first kick. She fell for it, and she falls. I take a relieved breath, and turn around, and there's David lying bleeding on the floor. I must have better reflexes than I thought, because I have just enough presence of mind to check his opposite, who's not even breathing anymore.

God. One of his eyes is all filmed over with blood.

Why am I kneeling by him? How did I get there? He's breathing, just, and I think he knows I'm there and I never said a damned word to him about how I feel about him and it isn't fair! There's still gunplay outside; at least it isn't in here, where it might hurt him. I don't think I'm being real rational right now. At least he's still breathing, but that damned ozone smell is getting stronger and I can't help but notice --

I lift my head, and I'm finally remembering what the old man said. Ozone might mean magic, some punk sorceror, something worse. Yeah. There's a guy with a serious aura on, flickering blue all around one hand, and before I can throw myself in the way he lets loose. The whole world is blue-white for a second, and then David's bleeding and burning but I don't think he's breathing any more.

At all.

Damn it, I do not have time to be in love. The first day of our real training, the day the old man told us about the war, it was made very clear to me -- to all of us -- that there was not very much time for anything else but fighting and bleeding from now on. We were expected to avoid making time for dying, if possible. He doesn't make jokes very often. He wouldn't be making jokes right now, not with one of their sorcerors standing not three meters from me.

He's chanting in what sounds a lot like archaic Tibetan to me, but it wouldn't really matter if it was Cantonese or Vietnamese or Latin. He's building up a charge, I think to myself, from the way his sparse black hair is slowly lifting away from his head. He must think I'm stunned, shocked.

A sudden surge of pride picks me up, carries me across that slick linoleum towards the bastard. I am of the best martial arts dojo in the entire world, and I am training under the best teacher no matter what Tomorrow's Immortals may say, and this sorceror has just killed David. David will never watch the world with those perfectly blue eyes in that eloquently questioning way again. This truth has become the focus of my life.

He jumps back, and somewhere a part of me notes that he has had a little training somewhere, but it wasn't very good. The spell he was working on is broken, as he sweeps his arm across his body in a clumsy attempt at a block. I can go around it as easily as I change lanes to avoid the slow drivers, and I do. My hand, fingers stiffened into a point, hits his solar plexus.

I was going to put him down for questioning. I mean it; it's what we're trained to do and it's ingrained in our kata. Sorcerors aren't dangerous enough to kill out of hand. I must have made him really lose control of his spell, though, from the way he's spasming on the floor. And it's also true that I'm not mourning him. He's as dead -- as David.

A heartbeat, and I'm by David's side again, panting. I can't hear a damned thing coming our way. My fingers touch his throat, looking for a pulse, the most intimate touch I've ever given him. Yes. it's there; dear Buddha, it's there.

So faint. No open wounds. Maybe just shock. I can't do much more by myself: it's got to be all right to take care of him. I rip open his backpack, since I know he has a blanket in there. I saw him pack it two hours ago. I can hear him breathing, raspy and slow, as I pull the thing out. Yellow and ratty at the edges, it is. He says he's had it since he was a child. Inane, but it's so wonderful that his childhood blanket is going to save him.

Under the blanket are the dull grey bricks of C4. These are the reason David and I are here tonight. They are the reason he is lying here; they are the reason I am crouched above his body crying. I had forgotten.

I'm frozen, staring at them, when David's labored breath resolves into words.

"You've got... finish."

Silence. Down one corridor, gunfire.

"Finish."

I open my mouth; I shut it. I know David. I could argue, I could waste time telling a dead man that I'd rather save his life than finish the mission. But he's got to know I'm crying over him, since each tear that drops upon his scarred face is another intimacy that I had never before allowed. He's already ignoring those salty, silent pleas.

I try pretending that I have a choice for a single precious second. The hell of it is that I cannot pretend. I used to think moments like this were all about choice. But they're about loss, every single one of them.

He smiles at me and seals my fate. I am still moving smoothly, which is yet another thing that I cannot choose. The C4 and the detonator and the timer are out of the backpack before the pain becomes too great for him to smile. I may not have time to unpack them at the end. I am unable to smile back at him, but I am able to touch his lips before I stand and begin to run further into the building. That terrible pride becomes a part of me again, and I run like the wind.

The next few corridors are free of guards. I am glad that the other students are doing their job, in an abstract kind of a way. When I reach the elevators, I find a cluster of men in blue security uniforms, but they are far closer together than any karateka would be, so I do not break stride. They turn, irregular and ragged, to look at my running form. I come among them with feet and elbows and leave them with blood.

This is the purity Brigette talks about sometimes. I can feel it throughout me. She never talked about where she found it, and I never thought to ask. Not completely pure, though. I am using David's name as my kiai.

As the elevator doors open, I am already turning to twist inside. It's immensely risky to be inside an elevator. We had a tactics class once all about ways to avoid it. Really, elevators are just boxes. I wish I didn't have time to think about this right now, but it's taken me at least a minute to get to the bottom basement floor.

They open again, and I go out low, rolling across the floor. Nobody is there. Anticlimax. The person I was two hours ago points out to me that if I set the C4 now, David will die as soon as the timer hits zero. The person I am now agrees. I'm not crying anymore.

I set the explosives where they'll do the most good.

The elevator goes all the way to the penthouse, and I don't have time to get out of the building anyhow. I find I can make choices again. The old man -- I still love him, but his training was more than I wanted. I choose to go to the top.

Silence is my companion on the journey. From the landing before the penthouse, there is a side door to the stairway, and a trapdoor there that takes me to the roof. To every side, Hong Kong promises pleasure with its neon; Victoria Peak is a dark mass crowned with the houses of the financial kings. I think, very softly, that promises are dangerous things.

In one minute by the watch upon my wrist, the office tower will explode. Why wait? I can't think of a single Earthly reason.

I turn, fluid for the last time tonight, and jump.

Perhaps if I survive, if a miracle occurs, Brigette and I will go killing together.

Last modified: September 12, 1996;