Iron Heart (The Gauntlet #2)

Chapter 3 - Fighters or Fakers

 The first day of training at Battlecast would have put a military boot camp to shame. Codi stood in a line with the nine other members of group Cyan, facing the iron haired, granite-faced instructor, Thradd Winters. The man gave off waves of hostility, a kind of controlled savagery that harkened back to early days of Gauntlet competition. When he spoke it sounded like someone had replaced his vocal chords with a piece of heavy machinery.

"Endurance is your greatest weapon," he stated bluntly. "You can be as fast, as talented, as pretty as you like, but if you can't go the distance your chances in the Gauntlet are nil." He walked down the line, eyeing the recruits dangerously. Some averted their eyes, their exuberance now quashed by Thradd's ferocious manner.

Codi held her head high and met his gaze. She'd never backed down before and by black holes and supernovas, she wasn't going to start now. She looked into Thradd's eyes, slate grey and unflinching. His jaw seemed to slide from side to side as he looked at her. A grunt that might have been approving or dismissive slipped out and he carried on.

"Get used to it, lucker," Gareth muttered from her right. "This isn't going to be a stroll in the park."

Codi ground her teeth together until they hurt but didn't give him the satisfaction of a response. She would wait until the instructors unleashed them to spar. Then she would show the entitled rivet-head what happened to people who underestimated her.

Suddenly Thradd shot out an arm, pointing. "All of you, onto the burners and get running till I tell you to stop. They're keyed with an auto setting. If anyone lowers it I'll personally throw you out the God-damn door!"

She joined the rest as they scrambled to obey, and it looked like Thradd's mantra of endurance was an accepted doctrine as the other groups followed suit. The "burners" were essentially high tech versions of the treadmills that Codi had used in her old academy. These models could simulate terrain surfaces, create inclines, reduce or increase friction; even thin the atmosphere in a localised sphere to simulate altitude.

Codi braced herself and stepped through the outer film that surrounded the box-like machine. Immediately she could feel the thinner air and her limbs seemed to have gained weight. Moving on the glittering, transparent running surface felt awkward and clumsy. She took a moment to move around and let her body adjust to the unpalatable environment. Then, preparing for what she fully expected to be a brutal opening session, she thumbed the machine's activation switch.

The surface slowly began accelerating beneath her feet, forcing her into a walk, a stride, a jog and finally a flat run. And it didn't slow down. Codi gritted her teeth and matched the pace, fully aware that she more than anyone couldn't afford to screw up, not this early. Adrenaline flooded through her and, driven by born determination, she ran on.

Minutes crawled agonizingly by, and she began to full understand why Thradd referred to the treadmills as 'burners.' Already her leg muscles were screaming at her as she forced the heavy limbs to keep moving. Her lungs ached from the oxygen starved atmosphere bubble and she struggled to keep her breathing regular. How long had it been? Looking around she couldn't see any kind of clock or timer.

Lowering her head, Codi tried to clear her mind. Don't think about it, she told herself, just get on with it. She soldiered on through the pain, every second that passed piling on more and more pressure. In the back of her mind she suspected Thradd had no intention of telling anyone in the group to stop. He'd drive them to see who could go the longest...or to see who wanted it the most.

Her prediction was proved abruptly correct when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her left eye. Glancing in that direction she saw that the boy alongside had simply given out and been flung off the treadmill. The machine's auto safeties caught him and deposited him gently on the other side of the field, whereupon he crumpled to his knees, sobbing for breath.