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Canyon on Earth; when he was, he tuned it to the Bordello Highlights channel. Not that Uncle Sib would care, but it was better to look like he thought Uncle Sib would care.) He noticed that his bed was still unmade from this morning, and pushed the button to make it. He really did have to get his act a bit more together.
     
    The fighting suit flowed into place over his skin, feeling ready and comfortable as always. Down to the gym-and-studio floor of Uncle Sib’s house, Jak took the spiral stair by just dropping the eight meters down the center; in this pricey neighborhood, high up near the outer surface of the Hive, gravity was a bit less than twenty percent of full, and Jak enjoyed the slow drift that gradually became a swift descent.
    The workout room looked a bit like a padded cell, a comparison that Uncle Sib liked a lot, and a little like a wrestling room in which no one was sure which surface would be the floor. Every half meter on all six surfaces, the soft milky lenses of the projectors, a few centimeters across, stared at him; right now a few of the overhead ones projected soft white light.
    As usual, Jak enjoyed the Disciplines. Today he flowed easily into a relaxed, concentrated focus. Almost from the moment that he slipped on the practice helmet in the padded room, the targeting grid that floated in front of his face glowed clear green; his brain waves were showing the clear, attentive no-mind state, free from wandering, daydreaming, worry, doubt, or fussing.
    The targets appeared in their familiar order for the first part, the pure katas. First unarmed: hand strikes, foot strikes, knees, elbows, head butting, and shoulder ramming, each a black figure with a small white target zone, closing in on him. In the induced vision from the goggles, Jak’s body was also jet-black whenever it moved with perfect speed on the singingon trajectory; parts that were too low glowed blue, too high yellow, too far right red, and too far left green. The further off his timing was, the brighter they glowed. Each target was presented seven times, for each blow, and then another seven times for Jak’s left, off side. The seven positions in which the target was presented marked the center and corners of a hex within which the blow would be appropriate.
    First the target glowed on the onrushing figure’s face, and Jak hit it with a clean jab. The figure came in up on its toes, left and right, then from the sides farther away, and finally in a slight crouch. Each time Jak hit singingon, seeing no light or color in his arm. When he had begun the Disciplines, at age four, an absence of lights would have pleased him, and glows would have frus- < trated him; now it was something he just dakked, without concern of any kind, absorbing it all mentally but having no feeling one way or another about it.
    The seven right jabs gave way to seven left jabs, followed by seven spear-fingered thrusts at the larynx, right then left; then hand-heel strikes at the point of the jaw, then hooks and uppercuts. The pace was set to a blow every 1.3 seconds, fast enough to be a workout and to require quick recoveries; Jak’s breathing synched into the process, and he was aware that his heart was working at six beats to the breath, just as it should, without caring very much. His body seen through goggles remained perfectly black, and he continued to strike and strike, through crosses, thrusts, and chops.
    He finished the first section with the right and left shoulder rams to the straight leg, the front-and-reverse two-leg thrust to the jaw, and the standing clothesline blocks. There had been no glows yet. It was a good day, toktru. His body remained black all through throws, locks, chokes, disarms, short blades, long blades, slug throwers, and beam pistols. Jak burned down his last black attacking figure, drawing a neat
     
    line that would have severed the right arm if he had faced a real opponent with a real maser. The score—a personal record— popped up