From: li@Data-IO.COM (Liralen Li)
Subject: A Use of the Danger Room
Organization: Data I/O Corporation
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 00:08:15 GMT

   As the party wound slowly to a close, Liralen sneaked off, on her own,
carrying the black and silvered blue parcel with her.  She disappeared for
a moment, in the bathroom labelled "Folks" and came out in shorts, flat
soled tennis shoes, neon green socks, and a black tank top.  The tank top
showed surprising muscles on Liralen's upper arms, for a girl.  The shorts
revealed ugly looking bruises on her right thigh, her right ankle, and her
left shin as well as a string of three scars on her right knee and leg. A
long time Patron, when asked about them said, reassuringly, "Soccer player."

   Liralen was smiling as she opened the door to the Danger Room.

   The door closed behind her and her new toy, and there were no sounds.

------

   "O.K." she said, as she set the package down.  "Let's see what you can
do."  She pulled the ribbon.  The snap made her jump a little, the
nervousness and adrenaline made it simple.  It'd been a while since Liralen
had really exerted herself and she was looking forward to it.

   The silver blue android bloomed from the box.  When the gold eyes
looked at her, Liralen shivered; and when it moved with its simple
expression of energy, she sighed.  If she could even learn to move as it
moved...  "Tai chi chuan, short Yang form." she said, and placed herself
behind the manniquin.

   Floating Hands started the old, familiar sequence... and Liralen found
her breathing slowing, deepening. Slow in through the nose, gentle, long
out through the mouth.  Her legs relaxed into flow of movement and weight,
and she found her shoulders, arms, and back relaxing into the natural
curves and flow of the movements.  She snuck glances at the manniquin as it
moved, comparing placement, length of steps, breathing rhythms, and it was
reassuring to fall into the old, slow, dance of tai chi.

   The blood flowed a little easier, the mind cleared with the extra
oxygen, and by the time they'd reached Around the World, a final Pheonix
Spreads Wings, and back through the Floating Hands into the beginning
stance, Liralen was feeling good.  They did it again, deeper, slower, each
step a little further, each sweep a little more complete.  By the end of
the second round, Liralen was sweating.  The third round was slower yet,
the placement of each foot, each balance point a deliberate, muscle
achingly slow continuation of the eternal flow of the ever-changing
movement.  The fourth, "Full-speed."  And what was a slow, stately dance,
suddenly showed itself as a kata as well as the two whipped through the
strikes and blocks that were the basis of the rounded movements.  

   "Sword Form.  Yang, again."  The manniquin grew a sword, Liralen looked
around, suddenly realizing that she didn't have one.  The manniquin walked
up and handed her its sword, hilt first.  Liralen looked up, startled, her
hands on the warm, smooth metal.  The sword was exactly her length, with
the rounded feminine hilt, different from the inwardly curved masculine
hilt.  The hilt that the android carried was a flat bar.  The blade was
made of the same veined metal of the android, and glittered with the same
simple, stark beauty.

   They started with both hands on the hilt, and moved together in the
smooth dance of the sword form.  This time, Liralen gave the manniquin
almost five feet of clearance.  They needed it, especially when it came to
Horse Crosses Stream and the thing that Liralen can only remember as the
whirlwind, a sequence of seven steps that whirls a person around three
timea and puts them in *exactly* the right position for a horizontal shot
that makes use of all the momentum at the end.  Li isn't nearly as
accurate with this sequence as she is with the short form.  In fact, for
the first three times through, she asks the manniquin to repeat several of
the movements several times, and she watches it from all angles before
trying it again.

   By the fourth repeat, she managed to go through the whole sequence
without having to stop.  With the fifth, they go at it full speed... doing
that kind of pure movement mesmerizes Li until all she sees is her partner,
and all her concentration is through her body which is also the sword....

   Liralen's concentrations shatters.  

   The android stops to see if she needs clarification of a movement.

   It breathes.  It breathes as she does, the chest moving in almost the
same time that hers does.  Of course it breathes, what good is an
instructor that doesn't teach breathing techniques with the movement?

    But... 
    
    It breathes.  The breath is life...

   "Query.  Status." it asks.

   "I'm O.K.." Liralen says, still panting lightly.  "I just..."

   It waits and breathes.

   "Can I call you by a name instead of just 'it'?"

   The neutral voice says calmly, "Entering Naming status...  Please repeat
name and spelling twice to confirm."

   "Argent." Liralen says without hesitation, "A-R-G-E-N-T.  Argent.  
A-R-G-E-N-T"

   It cocks its head at the instruction, and then nods, "Confirmed.  You
may now call me Argent."  

   Liralen looks at it a touch oddly, "Can you lose the computer speak?"

   "Accuracy of communication cannot be guarenteed if local idiom is
employed."  It says.

   "You can't guarentee it with English anyway..." mutters Liralen.

   "True. I can..." Argent pauses, "squawk."

   "Oh God." says Liralen and hides her eyes.

   "Damn right." says Argent with a smile on its metallic face.  "I kin 
camo lingo to sitch."

   Liralen brightens a little.  "O.K.  Fencing, then.  Occidental,
AFA competition rules and equipement for electronic foil."

   "Oui, Madam." and with a sweeping bow, holds its hand out for Liralen's
sword.  She hands it to Argent, and the sword disappears.  Out pops jacket,
mask, glove, long socks, a breast protector, and knickers all in that
marbled metallic.  The cloth, though, to the touch is soft and resiliant.
A cord for the slender foil with the electronic contacts. 

   "I take it that the jacket already has the necessary conductivity?"

   "Oui.  500 gram weighting of the points, and non-conductivity of
non-target."  The equipement just appears on the now rather slenderer
Argent.  It's height is now only a little taller than Liralen's 5'10".

   "Mass conservation for equipment?"

   It only nods, as it busyies itself with generating the scoring machine,
strip and reels.  It shrinks to Liralen's size.

   "Cool," says Liralen, "Equivalent reach."

   Argent just smiles from behind the darkness of its mask.

   The two slender figures salute each other.  Argent adds a sweeping loop
at the end of its salute.
   
   "Engarde."  

   And the Danger Room is filled with the ringing of steel on steel...

-----
Liralen Li & Argent
li@inigo.Data-IO.com