Glitch by Curtis Hox Page A

she was grounded in her centering mantras. Her lips moved without thought. She had just finished her psy-kata and sweat still beaded her brow. Joss and Kimberlee had already practiced and were now sitting still. He could hear little Wally stepping through his martial dance. Hutto wanted to look but had already been caught peeking once.
    Agent Wellborn paused. “Hutto, concentrated. Each of the katas is important, but for Alters, binding your entity is vital. You need the right sequence of movements and the correct mantras, and all else follows.”
    Hutto obeyed and continued to mumble the mantra. When he’d heard that Simone was going to enter an unsanctioned glad fight—and do it next week—he couldn’t believe it. At the same time, he was so excited about the opportunity that he’d wear a pink boa if they asked. The Sterling School would be associated with the fight game—something illegal for high schools—and he wanted to be a part of it.
    Their resident ghost, Simone, was somewhere on her own, practicing . Hutto grinned when he thought of what that could mean. The gladiatorial art of violence and conflict had been refined through the centuries, and the idea you could just learn it overnight was ridiculous.
    His father would set them straight, just as he had set Hutto straight from the time he was six. An eight year old had beaten him up while his brothers had watched. The first thing you learned: Getting hit in the face wasn’t so bad.
    He heard someone walk in.
    Hutto turned. His father waited in the open doorway. Coach Buzz stood at attention in his office, peering through the glass at Gladmaster Tarean Toth. Even Agent Nable stood. Hutto’s dad was seven feet tall and strapped with muscle, even for a man his age—and if you asked him his age, you might get a fist of knuckles for lunch. He wore their family’s signature informal battle dress: a ceremonial cuirass of shaped bronze on leather that bore the flaming dragon crest of the Toth fight team. He also wore the jet-black kilt all retired glad-fighters wore in public. The sandals were comprised of straps that reached to his calves. Leather strips at his wrists could be wrapped around his knuckles.
    Without asking permission, his father strode onto the dirt and approached Hutto. He ignored the rest of the people in the room, even as he took it all in. Hutto waited, as he should, allowing his father to observe him for as long as he pleased.
    “You been having some fun, I hear?”
    Hutto stood at attention. “It’s been crazy round here, Dad. Consortium agents, robots, Rogues, all that mess.”
    “Damn waste of time.”
    “When you going to let me fight again, Dad? Don’t make it a year, please.”
    “The Sterling School is a place for you to figure everything out, so you can fight.” He glanced at little Wally and bit his bottom lip. “That’s why I put you here with these … people.”
    “I know.”
    “Good.” He glanced at Coach Buzz, who was now standing in his office doorway. “You look like you got ate up, Buzzal.”
    “And spit back out,” Coach Buzz said.
    His father regarded Agent Wellborn, who hadn’t said a word. The rest of the students sitting like yoga flunkies in need of a whooping stared at him as if he were the Devil incarnate. “What’s this I hear about Sterling entering students in unsanctioned matches?”
    “The IGL will be deregulated soon, Tarean,” Yancey said.
    He waved that away. “Bah, horse-shit rumors meant to stir up the radicals. By the way, how’s that son of yours doing?”
    “Rigon’s recovering in record speed.”
    “Good for him. Shame about what happened to your other boy. You know I feel that way. You never did hear me out on that.” Agent Wellborn moved around her students. Hutto’s father could lift her up with one hand if he wanted to. Still, she approached as if he were no more imposing than Principal Smalls. “You’re a little thing, aren’t you?” He looked around. “Where’s this