บท 184: The Room Modifications
The contractor said that if there were any problems to let him know and he would be back to fix them next week. He's such a sweet man. He kept asking if I wanted to climb up his ladder to inspect the work he did on the ceiling."
Both Neeka and I laughed at that. "How much work could there be on the ceiling? He was just trying to look up your dress," I said.
"There was quite a bit, actually. But if teasing him is what it takes to keep him focused on the work I want done and not wander off to something more interesting or more profitable, then he can try to look up my skirt all he wants."
I was wondering how there could be 'quite a bit' of ceiling work when we arrived at the bottom of the stairs and Bambi opened the door for us. She waited until we had stepped into the room before dramatically turning on the lights.
As they popped on in staggered sequence, I saw that the fluorescent tube fixtures had been replaced by groups of industrial-looking lights recessed into the black ceiling. They filled the room with a cool white light. The color of the light accented the wall graphics, which were the most stunning part of the room. I had expected strong op-art images, but what the contractor had done went well beyond the dazzle graphics that I expected. Instead of just solid, black and white geometric shapes, the painter had created an illusion of depth by adding more geometric elements in shades of gray that appeared between and behind the primary ones. The graphics were carried through the floor in the patterns of black, white and gray carpet tiles. The room looked like a section of an alien city on some distant planet under the white light of a dwarf star. It was impressive, spellbinding, beautiful and disorienting, all at once.
It took some looking before I was able to get past the graphics and see the room itself. I began by looking for things that had been there before and whose positions I knew.
The built-in cabinets were still there, but they had been painted with the wall graphics and seemed to disappear into them. Next to the cabinets was a desk built into a shadowy nook. There were two cushioned office chairs on casters. I flipped a wall switch next to the desk and a set of task-lights came on, spotlighting the desktop.
On the desk were a flat-screen computer monitor, a mouse, and a keyboard. The computer itself was underneath, behind a panel designed to look like a file-drawer. On a shelf above the desk was a radio console with speakers and a goose-neck microphone.
"I asked about a scanner," Bambi said, "but they said they use digital encryption now. Scanners can't pick that up, apparently. They said each set has to have a special code key programmed into it to be able to send or receive. They even know which radio is transmitting by the key it's using."
I picked up a stack of manuals on the desk and spread them out. They were operating instructions for the radio, codes and call signs used by local and state law enforcement agencies, and a manual and password list for accessing the police computer systems. When I flipped the pages of the radio manual, wondering how long it would take me to learn to use the thing - and if I would ever get up the courage to talk on it — a piece of paper fell out. It said that my unit call-sign was DR-1, to be spoken as Delta-Romeo-One on the air.
I put down the books and went back to exploring the room. Bambi had made good on her promise to install my own exercise equipment — there was a sturdy-looking treadmill against one wall and a black leather heavy bag like boxers use hanging on a huge chain from a frame that looked like sections of railroad ties welded together.
When I looked curiously at the support for the bag, Bambi said, "I had them take the bag apart and fill the middle with iron shot. It weighs as much as my car."
She opened the door to one of the cabinets and took out a pair of leather gloves. "Here," she said. "These are to protect your hands when you use the bag. Try it out."
I slipped on the gloves and stood at arm's reach from the big bag. Neeka stepped well away from any potential shrapnel and Bambi followed her.
I punched tentatively at the bag and it did not budge. I hit it harder and it moved only a millimeter. I hit it harder still and it slowly swung away a few inches and then back again. I hauled off and smacked it as hard as I could. The bag swung back a foot and then ponderously forward as the chain creaked under its slowly shifting weight. I put out a hand to stop the swinging and discovered that the laws of mass and momentum worked just fine for little girls and pendulums weighing a couple of tons. Instead of stopping, it pushed me away. I wondered how much force it took to make the bag swing like that and how hard I had had to hit it to make it move. I took off the gloves and went to put them back in the cabinet.
On the shelves where the gloves went were an assortment of protective pads for us to wear while sparring. There were guards for our hands, forearms, knees, shins, feet, and heads. All of this made me feel better about sparring with Neeka. After Master Li had expressed surprise that she was still alive, I had been concerned that I might get through her guard or hit her accidentally and hurt her. With this stuff on, that was unlikely to happen.
On the top shelf of the cabinet was a leather pouch with a set of steel throwing-stars with very sharp points. Next to it was an identical set of practice stars made of rubber.
When I closed the cabinet and reached for the handle of the one next to it, Bambi spoke up, "Let's leave that one for last."
I knew then that my uniform from Mr. Morton was in there. It was very hard to turn away from that door. I wanted to try on that suit very badly.
Past the bag and the treadmill was a section of floor covered with the thick mats I had seen before. They had been laid out the same way I had used them — edge to edge from one wall to another. Only now there were two rows, making an area all of 20 feet square.
When I looked at the walls closely, I could see that there were regularly-spaced holes all over them. I stuck my finger in one and found that it was a couple of inches deep. I looked a question at Bambi and she smiled and handed me a pair of wooden dowels that fit exactly into the holes.
"It's a pegboard climber," she told me. "You put the pegs in the holes and climb up the wall with them. I'd never heard of it before, but it sounded like a good way to use the walls as part of the equipment, so I let them put it in."
I tried it. I had to put in a peg, pull myself up on it with one hand, put in a second peg, pull up on it, take the first peg out, put it into a higher hole and keep alternating pegs to work my way up the wall. When I got to the 15 foot ceiling, I discovered that the area directly over the mats was covered with a grid of metal pipes like a jungle gym. It was all painted black to match the ceiling, so it was hard to see from the floor.
Holding myself up with one arm, I reached out and grabbed a rung of the grid and swung over so that I hung from it like the monkey bars on a playground. I worked hand over hand across the ceiling until I was in the middle of the room, where I let go and dropped. I heard Bambi and Neeka gasp as I fell to the floor and make a three-point landing on the soft mat.
"You scared me!" Bambi said. "Please be careful."
"Don't worry," I told her. "Watch." Neither of them had seen what I was about to do, and I smiled as I bent my knees and jumped straight up into the air and caught hold of the pipe-grid again.
"My goodness!" Bambi exclaimed. "I had no idea you could do that!"
I swung my feet up and hooked them on the pipe next to my hands and let go of the pipe. I hung upside down for a second, then I pulled my feet off the pipe and dropped, this time doing a half-somersault so I landed perfectly on the balls of my feet.
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