Yu-ra put her left hand behind her back.
“Ten seconds. I take either cup, I win. Stay inside the chalk square. No grabbing you, no striking you. Just the cups.”
Jin looked at the square the camera woman had drawn between the benches. Five paces across.
“What do I win?”
“A replacement drink.”
“I bought two.”
“Then keep two.”
Theo made a pleased sound.
Jin allocated his five new points: two Strength, two Agility, one Endurance. His forearms tightened around the cups. He eased his grip before the paper collapsed.
MODIFIERS: STR +4 | AGI +11 | END +5
AP REMAINING: 0
Yu-ra watched the small correction.
“Ready?”
“Financially, never.”
The camera woman started the timer.
Yu-ra's right hand disappeared.
Jin yanked the nearer cup behind his hip. Her fingers stopped where it had been. Coffee slopped over his own knuckles.
Hot.
He squealed, pivoted away and discovered her hand waiting for the other cup.
He nearly surrendered it.
Then he remembered its price.
Jin dropped into a squat.
Yu-ra's fingers passed through his hair. Somebody laughed so violently that a bench leg scraped the floor.
“Two,” the camera woman said.
Two seconds?
Jin backed between the benches. Yu-ra followed, walking. He was doing something closer to fleeing a bee while carrying explosives.
She reached left.
He moved right.
She had not moved her feet. He had.
His heel met a chalk line.
“Boundary,” she said.
He came forward instead, ducking beneath her wrist. The near cup almost touched her jacket. Yu-ra withdrew her hand to avoid tipping it into him.
Three students gasped.
Theo did not. Theo knew exactly what that horrified expression meant.
“He can't afford your dry cleaning,” he announced.
Yu-ra laughed. Jin used the half-breath to turn.
OWN ROUTE ACQUIRED — FIRST SKILL AVAILABLE
The author's own publication page holds this text, but the copy here was made without their permission.
ROUTE REGISTER [F]
RECORD ONE SHORT GROUND ROUTE YOU HAVE WALKED.
REPLAY: ONE COMMITTED BURST ALONG THAT ROUTE.
RECOVERY PERIOD: EIGHT SECONDS.
He had crossed between the benches twice. Three of his footprints lit faintly along the ground.
“Six.”
Yu-ra came around the bench instead of reaching across it.
Jin tried to go back the way he'd come.
She was waiting.
He couldn't make a new gap. He could see the old one, beside her right foot, ending at the scuffed patch where he'd squatted.
He selected the trace.
He planted his shoe on its first mark.
His legs drove.
For a vicious instant he had no spare step to negotiate with. The bench swept past his knee. He reached the scuff, dropped low and turned his shoulders through the narrow space beneath her arm.
One cup struck his own chest.
Coffee shot up his chin.
Yu-ra snatched it before the rim could hit his face.
“Nine,” the camera woman said, then winced.
The timer sounded a second later.
Jin stared at his empty hand.
ROUTE REGISTER: RECOVERING
Yu-ra held the captured cup. One third full.
He held the other. Somehow still half full.
“I lose?”
“You lose,” she said.
Jin sagged against the bench.
Theo caught the surviving cup with his good hand before it became a second casualty.
“Remarkable. You reinvented soup.”
The brand man took a step toward the students.
“As you can see, our coffee withstands—”
Yu-ra looked at the brown streak on Jin's face.
“No.”
“An exceptional level of—”
She lifted her captured cup.
“You drink it.”
The square went quiet.
He looked at the camera.
“It's cold now.”
“Perfect. Nobody wants to be injured twice.”
Jin straightened.
“Actually, that's evidence.”
Yu-ra gave it to the camera woman.
The brand man's hand stopped in midair.
Several students lifted their phones higher.
Theo set the surviving coffee on the table, put his good arm around Jin's shoulders and brought a napkin to his chin.
“There. Presentable enough to be fired.”
“You filmed the original.”
“And look how far you've come.”
A girl at the front whispered, “They're cute.”
Theo dabbed the last drop off Jin's nose.
“He usually makes a better first impression on dates.”
“Send your complaints to him,” Jin told the phones.
Yu-ra took a fresh napkin from the table. She folded it, caught Jin's wrist and wiped coffee from the crease above his thumb.
“That step,” she said quietly. “Did somebody teach you?”
He stopped noticing the cameras for a moment.
“Working on it.”
“Work on the landing.”
She released him. The folded napkin stayed in his hand.
Then she faced the camera woman.
“Keep the whole thing. Especially his face when he realized I was drinking it.”
“Especially?” Jin asked.
“Supervise that.”
The camera woman asked if he would allow his reaction in the follow-up. Jin looked at Theo, then at the phones already pointed at them.
“Depends. Are you offering a job or a charity box?”
She asked for his contact details.
The skill was ready by the time he stood. His legs needed a moment longer.
Theo had finished the surviving coffee. He offered the empty cup.
“For the lucky girl.”
“Which girl?”
“The one you tried to climb into while carrying boiling regret.”
Jin took the cup, missed the bin and tried again.
By lunch, someone had captioned the squat with MANAGEMENT IS BELOW YOU. The brand had announced replacement vouchers. Yu-ra's agent had called her twice; she'd ignored the first call and taken the second walking toward her own team session.
Jin had one voucher, a ruined shirt and a new skill that had driven him through a gap he would have missed yesterday.
That evening he left the phone, napkin and voucher on the counter and returned to the forest.
Kessa was waiting with the man and his picture-board.
This time the man did not bring four coins.
He brought eight.
From farther down the path came the sound of something demolishing the fence.