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chapter 46 excerpt titled “Lunch Box: Breakfast of Cyborgs*” from the novel in progress “Isaiah Jones versus the Sea (A 21st Century Odyssey) by Joey Da’rrell Cloudy:

Lunchbox: Breakfast of Cyborgs*

‘Lunch Box’

“Next motherfucker’s gonna get my metal.”

-Marilyn Manson

The following morning Eiichi Tarō returned to the Hanzō home to speak with Isaiah after breakfast, he caught the young mathematician in the back training in the garden working out on the Mook Yan Jong (the wooden man), his shirt hung on a fence post near the entrance to keep it clean as he practiced a Chinese style everyone recognized Wing-Chun with a mix of Muay-Thia and MMA. There were moves he did not recognize from the Asante war masters’ training. The tall, lean Akan warlord’s body was covered with the tattoos of the Asante warlord master of war blades symbols etched into his body.

The staccato rhythm of his punches and kicks drumming into the body and limbs of the wooden man surrounded by the bamboo groves, waterfalls, and summer foliage of the centuries-old garden of his wife’s ancient family estate. In the spring, the cherry blossoms would bloom here, for now, there was the shade of the plants and trees and the sound of Isaiah training. The saffron-robed brothers from the Buddhist temple in China were all volunteers from the resurrected Sholin Temple, the first to begin to train Africans in traditional Sholin kung fu almost two decades ago. Now, there were thousands of orange-robed robed shaved-head black monks training at the monastery at all times.

The brothers had all petitioned their sect’s leader for permission to join the AUA defense force and were assigned to guard Sumiko and her family, which they have done since the formation of the AUA for the last seven years. The fact that his wife was a Shinto priestess in bad favor with her order did not bother the Afro-Chino monks of the order. They had one mission protect the family of the Emperor Jones.

After Isaiah finished his morning routine while the elder scientist sat and watched, sipping green tea served by the monks. The black monks should have been the oddity, but what stuck out was the lone Gaijin girl training with them. She was tall even for a Westerner, 5-foot eleven, gangly, feral-looking with huge brown eyes and curly shoulder-length brown hair. She wore the same saffron colored robes as the brothers but did not shave her burnt umber curls.

The two men had lunch together and later, as they strolled through the grounds. Eiichi in good spirits, making a point, waving his cane-wielding hand as they talked, each knowing they would end up at the helipad. General Intelligence Joint Actuated Autonomous Neural Exoskeleton, GI JANE, or just the Jane as the techs at the labs where Sybil’s exoskeleton was constructed call her. The titanium-plated hardware anyway, was manufactured right here at Taro Tech Industries Subterranean Facilities in our own black site Laboratories. Hiding in plain sight rather than a remote location where the traffic to and from the facility would stand out. We built the laboratory over an abandoned silo long forgotten after the war. By locating it here, its supplies and deliveries blend right in with the day-to-day operations of the above-ground, pun intended, facility. Our location has not been compromised, but there is someone on the street-level factory, an employee, or a contractor, snooping around.

We need to find them before they discover our other activities, regardless of who they ultimately report back to, we can’t do anything rash, but we need to convince them that there is nothing unusual going on here. Isaiah thought out loud. If you could distract them with a decoy location, they might move on. It would need to be a believable target and not an obvious distraction; they need to feel clever, as if they’ve uncovered the evidence themselves. Eiichi nodded at the young mathematician in agreement. I think I have an idea for who could play the perfect patsy, Knocks Industrial LLC. They have their fingers in the pie as a mid-tier US defense contractor.

Trey Knocks is an amoral bottom-feeder with a morally questionable past and big enough with enough skeletons in his corporation’s closet, they could spend a lifetime investigating this slippery bastard and save themselves the cost of the airfare to Japan. Good, Isaiah said. We’ll get to work right away. Relax, Sumiko has taken Sybil and the children into town to do some shopping before you leave this evening. And we will need Sybil’s help to get the rat out of the house. This is a fine cigar, Isaiah. I have not had a good Cuban in quite some time. Thank you. the old man said as they sat across from each other, gazing out over the garden as the light danced through the shadows of the leaves and branches. It was a picturesque, centuries-old house that had been in Sumiko’s family for eleven generations.

Did you know that not only is Sumiko a degreed expert on Edo period art, weaponry, and history, but her family served the Toshinaga Shogunate for their entire reign during Japan’s cultural peak; the Edo period. Thiers was the most coveted position by every blacksmith in Japan, and none in or outside of Japan have ever produced a blade that cut as well as those made by the Hanzō family. Even to this day, in the age of machine guns and synthetic polymers, the Hanzō swords are the most highly prized weapons of their kind, coveted by those who have ever practiced the art of war, sword in hand. Eiichi said, thinking aloud as they drank ice-cold bottles of Sapporo Premium and smoked.

Isaiah looked up from the screen of his phone after reading Aeon’s message. “Hey, made it to Havana without incident. We are in the company of an old acquaintance of yours here in Havana. Her name is Naomi. Mau Mau and Penny send their love. We will see you soon. Xoxo Aeon.” He turned off the phone, having read the message from Aeon and Penelope. He wasn’t worried about the Exodus with those two at the helm; they would enjoy the day in Havana, and he would see them both tomorrow after a 15-hour flight from Japan to Cuba.

He picked up his pencil and began to sketch a pair of shoes for high-speed cyborgs that could withstand the intense heat and pressures of Mach one plus speed cyborgs could achieve. It starts with materials it needs to be able to withstand the heat of an arc welder or molten lava for the few seconds the greatest heat and pressure is during the activation of the hyper speed software.

It needs to blend in with what she wears, whether formal dinner or hiking in the woods. Then we are talking boots, knee-high to calf-high boots. We use the carbon color; those made of the right material would work and be the most practical for the most practical of designs. Isaiah sighed. You know, she actually prefers those clunky platform things all the girls are wearing here. Well, you know your sister better than anyone else, and there is not much use in making her a pair of practical footwear if she is not going to wear them. Look at what we have become to grown men discussing women’s shoes with all of the solemnity of casket shopping.

She can just keep a pair of flip-flops in her purse in case of a shoe emergency. Eiichi laughed at the young man’s suggestion. That is a cost-effective and practical solution, but finish the design for the boots and send it to my direct line. I will make them anyway, should she ever need them. I’ll show you what we can do with shape memory stored in metals without creasing, folding, or fatiguing the material by sending a charge through the metal after using robots to sculpt the material with pressure on both sides without creasing or folding the metal, then sending the opposite charge through the new shape. And it goes back and forth between the two shapes at the speed of electrons.

This is how the cyborgs we developed muscles are able to achieve such high speeds to jump into the air at Mach One, reaching over 3 miles into the air before returning to earth one minute and ten seconds later for a 314-pound mass of Sybil’s chassis. But it was the landing that destroyed the steel-reinforced cement of the helipad last night, he said with a grin. Isaiah shook his head and smiled. Mach one, and she stuck the landing, returning to earth to land on the exact same spot she launched from. It looked more like a meteor struck the helipad than a sinkhole. The three-foot-deep radial crater demolished the center of the cement landing area.

Sybil sent a message she wants us to meet her at the lab this afternoon. Ok, then I guess we know what we will be doing this evening. Eiichi leaned back in his chair, puffed the cigar, and kept his thoughts on why she might want to meet at his factory to himself. Eiichi and Isaiah exited the embassy car and entered the building’s atrium on their way to the lobby when they heard Sybil’s voice come out of the shadows, Take the casket to cold storage bay 51. I’ll meet you there after. He never saw her, but he heard her move fast and knew she was gone before he could ask after what.

The two men continued into the front entrance to show their badges and sign in the register. Even Eiichi signed the ledger, and he owned the company. A courier entered as they signed in; he was delivering a crate large enough to hold a casket on a hand truck. The safety yellow 4-wheel contraption was raised to a sixty-degree angle, and on the extra set of smaller rear wheels, kept it up at the proper tilt. The brown uniformed delivery man headed towards the desk to have the crate signed for, and as he left seen only by the receptionist behind the large circular disk in the center of the plasticated exhibit-filled lobby.

The courier’s ID fell from the pocket of the delivery driver for Knox Industries. The company’s private courier had dropped the lanyard with his ID card and electronic key card at the secretive corporation’s facilities in Kentucky. The large crate looked ominous as the air around it swirls with clouds of condensation drifting around the super-cooled crate. Eiichi took a look at the invoice personally before he signed for it, then followed the techs as they wheeled it into the private elevator.

The receptionist walked to the front door after the area was empty and picked up the Knocks Industries lanyard that their courier dropped, and put it in his pocket instead of calling the company or placing it in the lost and found box. Sybil watched from the shadows in the atrium before she dropped her delivery boy disguise and walked into the lobby, disguised as one of the lab techs, security, and the receptionist had seen when they stepped outside for a smoke a minute ago.

Sybil opened the door to the elevator that only went down to cold storage. The elevator like the rest of the old silo had no remote sensors Wi-Fi internet cordless phone it was a black hole for ai. All analog or disk drive or flash drive only on signals, not even radios, the lines down here were directly wired to this site only. Eiichi followed the techs to a door marked cold storage. The techs donned parkas and cold-weather gear before entering the foyer for decontamination before entering the morgue. The elevator door opened behind them, and both men were happy to see it was Sybil.

Well, Isaiah asked impatiently Did it work? Yes. He took the bait. Sybil replied with a wide grin. The agent at the front desk stole the ID and is reserving a flight to Kentucky tomorrow to investigate Knox Industries. He’ll be busy investigating the new lead. It was a clean break. Well done, Isaiah, but what was in the crate? A chimpanzee corpse under dry ice. It makes everything look very mysterious. Eiichi, good work. Sybil, you were unrecognizable as the courier. Thank you.

You can take the rear exit from here and get back to street level unseen; your car is waiting out front. Well, it was an interesting two days, but I must be going now. I will see you when she returns for overhauls in six months. Good, I look forward to seeing you both again soon, and remember to keep your eyes open. There are players in motion in the shadows, I have no idea who or how many, but they are certainly others on the move. Be careful, my friend.

The two men shook hands and Sybil hugged the old man before they left him standing at the threshold of the exit leaning on his cane as the two made their way down the long narrow cement tunnel, the lights activating in front of them as they hit the motion detectors and going off behind then as timers ended, leaving them sandwiched in darkness between the dark entrance and exit in a bed of light. As much as he was enjoying his time in Japan, he would be glad to get back to his ship. The Exodus was not just a ship; it was his home.

[Note 1] [Master Shi Yanya teaches African students kung fu techniques. Shi Baoyin / China Daily Shaolin training builds body, mind By Shi Baoyin and Qi Xin in Dengfeng county, Henan | China Daily Africa | Updated: 2016-08-26 09:49

Ancient temple’s kung fu camp for African students enters its fourth year Ngalle Emmanuel stands on stage in the traditional gray robes and canvas shoes of a Shaolin monk. He takes a deep breath, and then with a scream launches into a flurry of rapid-fire punches.

The 29-year-old from Cameroon has lived and studied at the Shaolin Temple, the ancient home of Chinese kung fu, for four years.

African students watch each other’s kung fu performance. Feng Dapeng / Xinhua

Master Shi Yanya teaches African students kung fu techniques. Shi Baoyin / China Daily

“The important thing I’ve learned is not to be afraid of hardship. The more you practice, the better you will be,” he tells his audience at the 1,500-year-old Buddhist temple in Central China’s Henan province.

Listening intently is a new class of 20 students from Africa.

The Ministry of Culture launched a Shaolin training program for Africans in 2013 as part of efforts to strengthen cultural exchanges. Eighty students from more than 15 countries have taken part, with classes running for three months.

Amadou Lamarana Bah, 28, was in the audience at the welcoming ceremony for the new class on July 6. A former bodyguard from Conakry, the capital of Guinea, he says it is his dream to study with Shaolin monks.

“Going to the birthplace of kung fu is meaningful,” says Bah, who has studied martial arts for eight years. “Some moves (in Shaolin kung fu) are a little different from what I learned before. Most importantly, we also learn about qigong,” he adds, referring to a system of traditional breathing exercises.

In addition to various techniques, the students are also taught about meditation and given Buddhist principles to guide their actions.

“Kung fu is part of the Chinese culture,” he adds. “I want to learn the most I can before I leave the temple, and to let all my friends see the changes. We should all follow the discipline of Shaolin.”

Shi Yanya, a master at the temple, says teaching the students about meditation helps with their training and their mental state.

“Africans are strong and have excellent physical fitness, but they need to build endurance, to keep still while doing the actions,” he explains. “Learning kung fu is not something you rush, it requires patience and persistence.”Peace Emezue was part of the first class in 2013 and is now a personal trainer in Nigeria. She says living with the Shaolin monks changed her life.

Although it was a tough transition at first, the 35-year-old recalls the monks’ simplicity, discipline and encouragement. “I learned humility, good conduct, and how to be appreciative,” she says. “My experience there worked on my personality. I’m a lot calmer, patient, and I’ve learned how to be serious with my work. It’s an experience no one can take from you.”

Sadow Sow, 28, a journalist from Conakry, says he plans to teach kung fu when he returns home after completing this year’s program.

Si Hongyu, an associate professor of physical education at Zhengzhou University, says Shaolin kung fu has an important role in Chinese martial arts, as the temple has integrated the wisdom of Zen Buddhism and traditional Chinese medicine to create a cultivation process that is good for mind and body.]

-About the author

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals; Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, Tx.