Bullet and a Target: When Our Athletes Stay Too Long

Michael Phelps got smoked by Ryan Lochte and two other guys in the 400m Individual Medley swim final at the 2012 London Olympic Games, completely missing a medal.  You saw it.  I saw it.  The whole world saw it.  Lochte put four seconds on him by the end, on the same guy who owns the world record in the event.  I didn’t get to see much of the Sydney Olympics, being a college kid without ready access to cable TV at the time, which was the last time Phelps failed to medal in an event.  Watching this Olympics, this Michael Phelps, I couldn’t help but think that the writing was there on the wall for all of us to see, but as usual, hindsight tripped my reckoning.  The bright comet we cheered for in 2004 and 2008 had vanished, trailing nothing more than the dust of a vaunted career.  That dust emerged from the pool the other night with the shocked look of a man who didn’t see it coming.  Silly, really, if you stop to think about it.  By his own admission, Phelps hadn’t trained nearly as much for this Olympics as he had for Games in the past, his motivation was a bit lacking, he wasn’t going full-bore on his swim schedule this time around, and Lochte had beaten him in the 400 IM up and down the pool ever since the Beijing Olympics.  Still, Phelps thought he had it in him to stand on the podium once more.

This is not an isolated occurrence among Sport’s elite.

There’s this Texan named Lance Armstrong who is a pretty good cyclist.  Good enough that Trek Bicycles probably owes him a lifetime annuity for the amount of revenue he’s generated for the company by riding its product offerings.  All he’s done is win 7 consecutive Tour de France overall titles, a feat unmatched by anyone else in history.  In 2005, he retired on top, securing his final title in the French grand tour, riding off into the sunset of unmatched, forever remembered as being at the pinnacle of road racing’s best… and then he came back.  Almost immediately, the acrimony between him and his team’s new hotshot, Spaniard Alberto Contador, flared up.  Leading up to the Tour de France, the speculation around the cycling world was Lance was going to take the fight to Alberto and ride for himself.  On a mountain stage in 2009, the type of stage Lance was famous for, he tried to do just that.  He set a pace intended to crush the soul of Contador and all the other hangers-on in the pack, the same thing he had done to the Jan Ullrichs and Ivan Bassos while in his prime.

Alberto rode away from him.  And then he did it to Lance again in 2010, riding for a different team.

How about Michael Jordan and his stint with the Washington Wizards?  Who else remembers that?  Truth be told, I really remember only three things about His Airness during those two seasons, and if I hadn’t watched him play in his prime- all those scoring titles, MVP’s, and championships- I would have wondered why this guy was such a big deal.  Recollection number 1- Watching him in a Wizards uniform for the first time, seeing the bags under his eyes, noticing he was a little thicker in the waist and thinking “When did he get old?”  Number 2- Hearing an ESPN announcer refer to him as “Floor Jordan” in reference to his diminished leaping ability.  Number 3- This really ties in with Number 2, but seeing Michael blow a wide open dunk because he had started his jump too far out, the ball clanging on the back iron and ricocheting back out to nearly half court.  I remember him smiling after the miss, but it seemed as if Jordan was flabbergasted the dunk didn’t go down unlike thousands of his dunks from seasons before.

This brings us to the crux of the matter; why do the best athletes not quit when they are so completely ahead?  Phelps has 14 Olympic gold medals in his hip pocket, Lance has his seven Tours, and Michael his six championships.  To a man, all of their returns signaled nothing more than getting old is inescapable and youth is fleeting.  So why do it?  The only thing I can figure is it’s a combination of a winner’s competitive ego and an extremely short memory.  Ego is obvious.  Each of my athlete examples possesses the drive to not only want to win, but to want to win big.  They’re used to it, they love the feeling of domination, and they don’t think it’ll ever end.  When they decide they’ve had enough, the short memory comes into play.  All three athletes basically took the same approach to making their comebacks: Shut it down for a couple seasons, work themselves back into shape, announce their return.  The problem is, being the best of the best in a profession is hard, and the game is always changing.  That's where the lack of memory comes in.

It takes an incalculable amount of work behind the scenes to perform above all others with millions watching throughout the world, and that level of stress is ultimately unsustainable.  It has to be.  If it wasn’t, Michael would have stayed with the Bulls and won a couple more championships after the lockout season, Lance could have made it eight, nine, or perhaps ten Tours in a row, and Phelps wouldn’t have got photographed smoking pot (no big deal in the grand scheme of things, other than it was an early indicator that he wasn’t in the right headspace to continue his ownage of his opponents) and done that whole Hamlet-esque “Is this really still for me?/ Should I or shouldn’t I?” routine.  Meanwhile, others were stepping up.  Kobe Bryant realized his potential.  Ryan Lochte buckled down so hard on his training that he looks like he could chew nails and shit steel.  And Contador?  Well, I told you about him.  And while these new superstars are putting the world on notice, the old guard is sitting in a gym, or on a trainer, or in the pool, convincing themselves that their natural talent and competitive drive will overcome gaps in their conditioning and rust from their sporting hibernation.  They’ve forgotten what freeride mountain biker Darren Barrecloth put so eloquently in the action sports movie Seasons: “It takes a little bit of talent and a whole lot of determination to get to where you want to be.”  That determination manifests itself in Lochte flipping 650lb truck tires, Contador flying up a hill, and Bryant working endlessly on both sides of the court, even as it fades in Phelps, Lance, and Michael.

Time waits for no man, but these three champions would swear it waits for them.  As fans, I think we fall into a similar trap by almost irrationally expecting generational superstars to remain at the top even as their prime wanes.  I’m probably guiltier than most.  I certainly couldn’t have foreseen Phelps missing the podium in a discipline he once owned, and I believed it was very possible Lance was going to put time into Contador as soon as a mountain stage came about in the Tour.  Ultimately, the signs of an athlete’s diminished greatness are always there, but we have to choose to read them.

Here’s hoping Phelps takes it to Lochte and the rest of the world one last time anyway.

Scotty Mac

"But what you've done here/ Is put yourself between a bullet and a target/ And it won't be long before/ You're pulling yourself away" ~Citizen Cope

Finding a Groove on Chaparral

It has been a while and a half since I posted last!  For the handful of you who follow this blog, I'm sorry.  Time slips before you notice it's gone.  Oh well, lament over, on to new stuff!

My riding buddies will know this feeling, but pretty much anyone who has played a sport or has a hobby can relate as well- sometimes you have a good ride that stays with you.  During and after the time spent on the dirt, it just feels different, and it's worth remembering.  That was my experience at Chaparral Open Space trail the other day.  It's not an epic trail by any means, but everything just sort of came together.  Below are my recollections of the ride, written the day after as that good feeling would not leave me alone.  Enjoy!

The best thing about riding at Chaparral Open Space on June 4^th, 2012?  The weather conditions.  There was only a slight breeze that morning and the temperature was comfortably in the low 70’s.  What I don’t get is why I would feel better there, where no shade can be had, than under the exact same conditions on Falcon Trail the previous Friday, where one rides beneath the trees for the majority of the lap.  I guess it’s true when they say the day makes the difference.  Or something to that effect.

I did 5 laps of the 2(ish) mile loop, and my times were as follows: Lap 1 – 10:57, Lap 2 – 10:53, Lap 3 – 10:10, Lap 4 – 10:02, Lap 5 – 9:40.  My goal on the first time out was to do around a 12 minute lap, in order to get the blood flowing.  Even though I felt like I was taking it easy, I still came in under 11 minutes, which I took as an indication that I was feeling good and the trail wasn’t as loose as it sometimes is (thanks to a quick rain shower the night before).  I decided on the fly to make each successive lap faster than the opener, and as stated above, I met my goal and then some by going “negative” on each lap.

Lap 2 was hampered slightly by hikers, joggers, and their dogs, forcing me to slow down and/or move off the trail until they passed.  My rhythm was thrown off just enough that I was unable to clear the last switchback on the backside climb, the only time that happened, and I’ve got the nasty scratch on my left arm from a stubby branch on the inside of the turn to prove it.  That anomaly aside, I have to attribute my newfound ability to clear that switchback as having come from the time I recently put in to doing track stands at Gunnison last week.  Working on my balance by doing track stands makes tight turns like that seem less daunting.

Laps 3 through 5 were within 30 seconds of each other and would have been a bit closer had I not decided to go for broke on the final lap just to see what I could do.  I focused primarily on not coming into the corners too hot, and staying smooth so as not to have to push my single gear unnecessarily.  The Open Spaces lap rewards fluidity much more than it does violence in all mountain biking aspects: braking, cornering, accelerating, climbing, and descending.  In other words, your “tiger style” is good, but my “dragon style” is better. 

When I pulled off a 10:02 on Lap 4, I knew I would go harder on 5 to break the 10 minute barrier for my first time this year.  I was still relatively fresh, so I knew I was capable of going sub-10.  I attacked the opening climb section, since other than a couple corners that require some braking, it’s fairly straightforward.  Cresting the ridge, I added a little more speed than the first 4 laps, but not a lot because of the loose, off-camber turns.  Flowing down off the ridge, I stayed in control, and passed the marker on the back side where the switchback climb begins and is also where I take my time “hack.”  I was approximately 30 seconds ahead of my Lap 4 time at that point, and felt good going into the climb.  The climb itself is pretty short, but the switchbacks add an element of difficulty, exacerbated on a singlespeed.  The first redirection is pretty benign, but they grow increasingly tighter until the last one, a left which requires you to come to almost a dead stop before making the turn.  On a geared bike it’s not hard; you simply click to a gear you know you can spin up and out of the turn.  With only one gear though, the situation becomes a “grunt and gasp” sort of affair.  With two agonizingly slow pedal strokes, I left the switchback behind for the last time.  Topping the climb and crossing over to the front side descent, I was still 25 seconds ahead of my Lap 4 pace, so I settled into the run.  It’s a short one, with a hard, scrubby left robbing most of the momentum right before the bottom.  From there though, it’s a fun series of corners and kinks of varying arcs which really let you practice digging in, leaning over and understanding what your bike feels like when it takes a set.  It also serves the purpose of letting you recover from the backside climb.  The final 300-400 meters is a climb back up to the start point, but excepting one corner it’s wide open; you crank as hard as you want.  When I saw 9:40 on my stopwatch, as stoked as I was, I was also a little surprised.  I knew I was ahead of my Lap 4 time the whole way, but I had figured that my penultimate lap was about as clean as it was going to get.  In truth, it was cleaner than my 5^th lap, as I had to dab a foot on the 3^rd switchback due to an error in judgment. 

Knowing the shape (for the record, round is a shape) I’m in now, and knowing how blown out that trail can get, I’d say that was about as good as it’s gonna be for me until I improve my conditioning.  That being said, on a singlespeed at least, I think the ceiling for lap times for me is going to be somewhere around 8 minutes, though I’d love to prove myself wrong on that score.  Because of the sandy, off-cambered nature of some of the corners on the flats and downhills, there aren’t many spots I can go much faster, so time will have to come off the climbs.  As I get stronger, I’ll be able to hammer that one gear on my Kona much more effectively, and the time will fall away on the opening climb (Climb 1) and the finishing climb (Climb 3).  The switchback climb (Climb 2), however, will be the most difficult of the three to improve upon, as it requires hard, energy- and soul-sucking accelerations out of each switch to really do damage.

I was happy that I cleaned the last switchback on the backside climb more often than not that day.  The trick seems to be to stand up slightly and then let the front wheel clear the switch, which is probably not rocket science, but it finally clicked for me there that day.  After getting through the hairpin, I put the power down and got my singlespeed moving, back to the ridge.

Chaparral Open Space is most definitely a non-technical, fitness lap, but I think it’s also a much underrated “flow” lap.  So much of the 2 mile loop requires a deft touch that maintaining smooth inputs throughout is the key to being quick; less effective is going after a fast lap using a “hammerhead” approach.  If I can keep that frame of reference, this easily-accessible trail from my house and my bike shop will hold a ton of value for me in the years to come.

Scotty Mac

Extraction

Hello All!

I successfully completed the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge earlier tonight, writing 50,000 words for a story in less than 30 days.  It was an incredible experience and left me eager to find out more about my characters, as their story is far, FAR from over.  More on my plans to make that a reality later.  As a final post for the novel this month, I felt it was only fitting to leave you as I approached you: with an action scene.  Enjoy, and thanks for all your support!

Scotty Mac

The violent part got its wish.  To my right, the remnants of a door swung open quickly, crashing against the stop.  Out of the dark, depthless portal poured Beloved by the dozens, their eyes directly on me.  I tried to think of a smartass comment to mark the occasion, but my mouth was suddenly dry as I looked at their faces, a unified mask of hunger and rage.  Instead, I pulled the flash bang off my vest, pulled the pin, muttered "Game on," threw it at the enemy and then looked away.

            The noise and sound was brilliant and sent the Beloved reeling, howling in pain.  I jumped on the pedals, sprinting further into the bowels of the downtown buildings, working to open a gap before the group regained its senses and charged after their dinner.

            I weaved through the abandoned cars, throwing the bike into turns, inside foot held out for balance, the breath running ragged in my throat.  I could hear their feet slapping the ground and their breath coming in grunts over my own wracked, dry sobs.  I was maxed out on the flat ground, legs spinning in a blur, the pace unsustainable.  I needed a plan, and I needed one fast.

            Swinging east, I could see the city's capitol building coming into view.  Risking a glance behind me, I saw I was being pursued by at least fifty Beloved.  Jesus, they were like cockroaches!  I couldn't make a stand out in the open, they'd just surround me and take me down.  Somehow, I needed to force them into a narrow area where they couldn't outflank me and I could make each round from my .40cal count.

            The capitol.  What about the capitol?  The underground entrance, Brandon.  Yeah, that was it, the staircase that led down to the entrance was pretty narrow.  Dad had shown me around there when I was younger while he was home from D.C.  If I could get down there, I could set up, force them to come at me two abreast at most, and plug the corridor with dead or dying bodies, giving me enough time to escape.  Yeah.  That might work.

            I turned north onto Capitol Boulevard and there it was, that miniature of the White House.  Putting my last energy reserves into a final sprint, I bolted headlong for the steps to the raised entrance.  I prayed the glass wasn't bulletproof.

            In one fluid motion, I jumped off the bike while still surging forward, landing on a dead run and hoisting the bike to my left shoulder.  I took the stairs three at a time, imagining Beloved hands tearing at my exposed neck the whole way.  They were closing on me.  Off the bike, I had switched from being a hare to a tortoise.  Seconds that felt like a year later, I made it up the last step.  Not stopping my run, I reached for my gun and fired into the glass doors.  The first round hit, causing a crack.  The second round sent those cracks racing around the glass, and the third finished the weakening process.  I crashed through the door, leading with my right shoulder, pivoting the bike on my shoulder so it wouldn't hang up on the door frame.

            Shards flew every which way and I skidded across the glass on the ground, nearly losing my balance.  Climbing back on my bike, I pushed off, the mass of Beloved hard on my heels.  I had to get to the back of the building.

Winter Games

The book written by the NaNoWriMo founder says that when in doubt, "just add ninjas."  I went one better and added some Irishmen.  Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the Flaherty brothers!

Three days is a long time to sit in that little death-cottage, waiting to unleash some mayhem.  To stave off boredom, we talked about all the real food we would eat when we got to the house, rigging the shower timer so we got more than two minutes of hot water, and the biggest game, what we would do when ‘it’ was all over.  That morning, it was more of the same.

            “I’ll tell you what, Brother.  I’m gonna head for the mountains, get one o’ those cabins, put a fookin’ rocking chair on the porch and just sit.  Hell, I may even rock in it after awhile,” Sean was saying to his twin brother Patrick.  The Flaherty brothers were, improbably enough, Irish college exchange students Mom had agreed to house for the year, the last year that something like higher education mattered.  When the outbreak started, she had convinced them with her typical, kindly forcefulness, that returning to Ireland was no longer in the cards.  The brothers had called their parents in County Cork, told them they were staying for another year, and hung up, sobbing.  They took to their roles well enough, and proved to be excellent shots with the big machine guns and assault rifles alike.  They wouldn’t stay silent long enough to get the twenty feet from the pillbox to the cot area though, so external work was out.  Fucking Irish, I thought.  They sing sad songs and fight happy wars.

            “That’s all well an’ good, Brother.  But what about ma’ and da’?” Patrick wanted to know.

            “Come off it, now!  You know well as me that they’re fookin’ zombies.  Ain’t nothin’ ta be done about it.”

            “What do you think, Brandon?  D’you think our ma’ and da’re fookin’ zombies?” Patrick asked me.

            “First off, how many times do I have to tell you guys, the Beloved are not zombies.  Zombies are animated corpses- a bullshit, supernatural figment of fiction.  The “undead.”  There’s nothing ‘dead’ about the Beloved except their ability to control their hunger,” I explained for the umpteenth time.

            The Flaherty boys looked at each other.  “Fine, fine.  So they’re alive Beloved zombies?  Is that any better than bein’ a dead fookin’ zombie?” Sean inquired.

            “For fuck’s sake, guys, it doesn’t matter what you call them, your parents are most likely lost!” I snapped angrily.

            “Well, why didn’t ya say tha’ in ta first place, boyo?” Patrcik chided.  Jesus, what a pair.

            “My mistake.  All right, back on track.  When this is all over, I’m going to read all the books I’ve been meaning to read in the biggest armchair I can find, and I’ll only leave to eat, go to the bathroom, and stand long enough to keep the blood from pooling in my legs.”

            “Ha!  Y’hear tha’ Paddy?  Brandon Archer, a fookin’ bookworm!” Sean slapped his knee, cackling.  I rubbed my temples which had started throbbing in the last couple minutes.  I increasingly felt like I was living in a poorly-acted movie.  “Give over, Archer.  What would ya really do?”

This was Me, Then

The latest.  In this section, we're getting a sense of why Brandon is the way he is.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the blanket Lindsey offered me.  “Trying to tell a story with chattering teeth would be counterproductive.”

            “I bet.”

            “Oh, you’ll find out.  Servant or not, I’m going to ask you one of these days for your story.  Fair’s fair.”

            “Fine.  Now, stop stalling and get on with it.”

“I was twelve years old when I got in my first fight.  Wasn’t much of a fight.  I got my ass kicked.  Three boys in my class did the kicking.  They had it in for me, for a couple of reasons.  Telling them to fuck off when they asked me to do their homework for them was probably reason number one.  Anyway, I never had a chance.  I was scrawny back then, hadn’t yet hit my growth spurt, and knew more about dinosaurs and algebra than fighting techniques.  I loved to read.  Mom and Dad encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, and would ask me deep questions when I was done as an exercise to help me remember details.  It was kind of a game.”

            “So I got jumped at final recess one day.  They all had at least four inches and thirty pounds apiece on me.  I remember the first punch I took.  The kid’s knuckles bit into my cheek, laying the skin open.  My face was warm, but whether it was from the blood running down or the sting of the blow, I couldn’t tell.  Everything sped up beyond my reckoning then, and the next thing I remember I was waking up in the hospital.”

            “Most of the damage was superficial; they were kids after all and didn’t know how to hit to injure.  I had two black eyes, a broken nose, my cheek was cut, my lower lip swollen, and I was missing a tooth.  Luckily, sort of, it was a baby tooth and so wasn’t terribly missed.  I had bruised ribs and my stomach was tender.  The doctors figured I probably got kicked in the abdomen a few times, but there wasn’t any internal bleeding.  Small favors, right?”

            “The beating was over before any of the teachers noticed what was going on.  When I regained consciousness, they asked me if I remembered who had beaten me.  I saw each face clearly, their likenesses etched indelibly on my brain, but I played dumb.  I said I couldn’t remember.  The doctors chalked it up to the trauma of the attack and that was okay by me.  Twelve years old, and I finally understood that being smart would only get a person so far.  I needed force to back up my words.  A few weeks later, I started studies very much different from paleontology and math.”

            “Boxing was first.  There were plenty of weight classes, and I was just big enough to be a flyweight.  I would get up in the morning, before dawn, and go pound the pavement.  I would run the two miles to our gym, work out with a trainer Dad had hired at my insistence, run back home, and go to school.  Back at home, once Mom was satisfied I had accomplished my homework, I went to the basement and continued to change.  I jumped rope to work on my coordination, hammered the speed bag to improve how fast I could throw my hands, and finished off with five rounds on the heavy bag.  I did that for two years straight, and each time I hit the bag I imagined their faces deforming from one punch after another.”

Claiming My Kill

Hey All!  Here's a section from the latest chapter.

I smiled.  This was going to work.  With the same care as before, I brought the rifle to my shoulder and looked through the scope.  The low light properties of the scope gave me plenty of four legged options to choose from.  It was still dark enough that I wouldn't have to worry about the sun affecting the picture.  So many variables.

            The doubts faded, the potential repercussions of what I was about to do melted into the background.  My finger slipped over the trigger, and I took a deep breath, steadying the nerves.  I had my target.  Execute.

            The shot shattered the silence of the valley, the sonic signature reverberating off the sides of the foothills.  The buck went down.  At least I was fairly sure it went down, because as soon as I had fired, the time for stealth and caution was over.  The next part of my plan would achieve fruition only if I could move quickly enough.

            I slung the rifle and started down the hill at a half-run, half-slide.  The window was a minute, maybe two.  Maybe.  I had to get to the buck.  I hurled aside thoughts for personal safety, trusting my agility earned over the years to carry me down the hill, picking my spots for me as I leapt from one patch of ground to the next.  The herd was moving south away from the fallen comrade.  Their numbers and frantic running away from the valley masked my headlong scramble toward the kill.  The human eye would be attracted to the biggest scene.  I hoped.

            The slope ran out, leveling off as it neared the valley.  I took my eyes off my route for a quick glance at the town below.  Sure enough, I could see people moving inside the rundown houses.  They had heard the shot and would be up at my position in a matter of moments to investigate.  The fallen elk was just ahead of me.  I still had a chance.

            Still at a dead run, I slid down behind the elk, putting its mass between the town and my prone figure.  I gripped the rifle close to my chest lest a rattle should betray my position.  I was gasping from the effort, my heartbeat was playing percussion on my eardrums.  I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, calming my wheezes as best I could.

            Voices from below carried to my position.  Less than a minute I figured, and they'd be on me.  I could pick out individual people from the different pitches in speech, and my mind raced as I heard that intelligent, slightly wry, supremely confident feminine voice that had branded itself in my mind.  She was coming.  Twenty seconds now, at the most.

            I moved my right hand off of the rifle to my chest.  I was definitely outnumbered, and movement into view would get me shot.  They would have weapons trained on the buck, ready to shoot if he was still alive.  I would have to tilt the field in my favor.

Harvesting Plans

Things are starting to take shape in this story.

The next day I started preparing for the hunt.  I took my time cleaning my rifle, honed the edge on my sword, and ran around gathering each piece of my protective gear.  I grabbed an MRE from the pantry, and filled up my hydration pack.  I picked out an extra layer of clothes, something warm and with muted tones.  It was critical that I blend in with my surroundings, and the foothills were predominantly sage green and a grey-brown from the soil and sand.  I made sure my fighting knife was as sharp as my long blade, and snapped the hollow-point rounds into my .40cal.  I was so focused that I didn't hear Grace at the door until she whispered "Hey."

            I jumped a little, almost guiltily.  "Hello.  Didn't hear you come up.  You're footsteps are getting quieter," I said lightly, trying to make her smile.  Her eyes were flat and her mouth held none of the flirtatious humor that drew people to her.  Then, just when I thought she might never smile again, her mouth twitched.

            "Well.  Recent events have lent weight to your insistence that I learn to move about more quietly," she said in her best impersonation of British understatement.

            "I can see that.  What's up?"

            "I was going to ask you the same thing.  Looks like you're rolling out."

            "Only for a couple days.  I'm going hunting."

            "Are you?"

            "What do you mean?"

            "I think you're going hunting.  But you're not bringing back an elk," Grace pronounced, her prescience rocking me back on my heels.

            I struggled to remain impassive.  "What makes you say that?"

            "Thanks for not denying it, lying right to my face.  Brandon, before we left on the sweep, Sheilah told me to keep an eye on you.  She said you were all broken up about that Bandit getting the drop on you.  You're going back there, aren't you.  You're going to get her."

            I sighed.  Ninety-nine problems... "Yes.  I'm going to get her.  And in doing so, maybe I'll get that piece of myself back that she stole away.  Don't worry, Grace.  I'm not going into this half-cocked, it's not a blind-rage vendetta.  It's more than repairing my pride.  We need her."

            "We need her?  Why do we need her?" Grace demanded.

            "We need her and her people on our side, simple as that.  We don't win the war against the Leaders and the Beloved without them."

            "Bullshit."

            "I thought so, too.  It's a losing game, Grace, don't you see it?  Casino's odds.  They have us outnumbered at every turn.  An alliance with the Bandits gives us a hell of a lot better chance of overcoming our fate.  I don't know about you, but if you told me that by getting the Bandits on our side I wouldn't have to kill another person ever again, I'd do anything to make that a reality."

            Grace remained silent, eyes searching mine for any trace of disbelief or a lie.  I gazed back steadily, not mad at her for questioning.  It was all of a sudden important to me that she understood what I was attempting to undertake.  She must have seen what she was looking for, because she nodded once, then came up to me and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  She turned and left.  From the doorway, she looked back at me with a grave smile, her eyes clear and her words simple.

            "So go get her," she said, leaving me to the task of claiming my kill.