BOUNDARY(76)

Today, A.J. was dressed in a gi and running through katas. Off to the side, the physical trainer was watching with a well-educated eye. Sergeant Skonicki was also the NASA installation's martial arts expert.



While Madeline warmed up, she studied the blond imaging specialist's movements. His file had mentioned that he did some aikido and some Shotokan karate, although apparently he hadn't been attending formal classes in some years.



He was quite good, she thought. The smoothness of his movements, the precision of the strikes, blocks, and counters, were something a novice, or even someone of intermediate skill, wouldn't be able to emulate. He wasn't a true master, but the source of his evenly-muscled build was now evident.



A.J. finally noticed her watching him. "Hey, Madeline. What's up?"



"Just coming in for my own exercise. Got to keep in shape."



To his slight credit, A.J. managed to restrain some comment involving shapes. While Madeline was skeptical of classifying people into types, she couldn't help doing so in some cases. A.J. was clearly the type of young man easily distracted by pretty women. True, that was a large class of males, but A.J. was of the subclass "geek" which meant that he was perfectly safe for the woman to be around, aside from the annoyance factor. And, as a rule, could be easily manipulated into following said woman's directions.



Sometimes it's just too easy, she thought wryly. A.J. wasn't the type of man whom she found attractive. But keeping him distracted played perfectly into her plans.



She did feel slightly sorry for him, but not much. There were at least two other women on the Nike project who evidently did think he was their type, and he didn't appear blind to them either. So any damage to his ego would be temporary.



"You into the martial arts, too?" he asked.



"For a few years now, yes. Care to do some sparring?"



"Sure."



At that point, Joe and Helen entered. Joe had recovered quickly from his misadventures in Chinook, and was getting back up to his normal form. Seeing A.J. and Madeline facing off, he sighed. "A.J., I see you've still got it all wrong. The expression 'hit on the girls' is not supposed to be taken literally."



"Oh. I knew I kept confusing things." A.J. turned to Sergeant Skonicki. "You want to call it, Stash?"



"Sure." He cocked his head, considering. "Okay. Madeline, you're going to be aka; A.J., you are shiro. I'll be using Shotokan rules, sorta—I mean, we don't have an official setup here. That okay, Madeline?"



"I can live with it. What about throws and such?"



"I'll count those as full points, if either of you gets one. Try to avoid rude blows, but you can take whatever targets you think you see; we won't force you to just hit the chest. First to three points wins. We set?"



Skonicki waited for both to acknowledge him. "Okay. Enter the ring area, please. Bow to the judge. Bow to each other. Ready . . . Hajime!"



Maddie sidestepped, watching A.J. critically. He was smooth, but cautious. He wasn't stupid. He didn't come charging in thinking that his size would automatically be an advantage. It would be, used correctly, but men against smaller women often made the mistake of using it incorrectly.



A.J. was waiting for her to move. She had to come past his reach, which was quite noticeably greater than hers, in order to get to him. She stepped up and tried several combinations, but A.J. blocked and countered quite efficiently, nearly nailing her once.



Time for a different approach. If he was thinking in Shotokan mode, especially Kumite . . .



Suddenly Madeline dropped to the floor, extending her body outward and sweeping A.J.'s legs completely out from under him. "Whoa!" she heard Helen say involuntarily.



A.J. fell poorly, having been caught completely off-guard. She rolled and hit him with a (checked) elbow smash before he could gather his wits.



"Yame! Aka, first point!" Skonicki called out. "She suckered you on that one, A.J."



The imaging whiz nodded, getting to his feet. "She sure did."



The two bowed to each other again. "Hajime!"



This time A.J. came in for the attack, starting with a kick-punch kick combination. Madeline blocked them easily enough, but when she tried to turn the second kick into a catch-and-throw found that A.J. had anticipated the move and barely evaded having her head kicked.



She was getting his measure, now. One advantage she did not enjoy was chivalry. A.J. might be easily distracted by her good looks normally, but in the ring he apparently didn't care who you were or what you looked like. He wasn't pulling his punches any more than he had to, so to speak.



Fair enough. She spent the next few moments surviving a barrage of attacks, measuring his patterns. Then she slipped inside his guard and punched hard.