Specimen 23: Control

PART I

THE MIRROR

Chapter 1

Jeff Rourke had been talking about the obstacle qualifier for three months. Now that they were standing inside a converted warehouse at seven on a Saturday morning, he was pretending the whole thing had been Allen's idea.

"I want that on the record," Jeff said. "You made me do this."

Allen Fletcher looked at the number pinned crookedly to the front of Jeff's shirt. "You sent me the registration link."

"Could've been hacked."

"From your phone?"

"Very sophisticated operation."

The line in front of them moved two places. Somewhere beyond the temporary wall, a crowd erupted, followed by the flat electronic buzz that meant another competitor had hit the water or the padded floor.

Allen rolled his shoulders once and looked toward the course entrance. The warehouse had been stripped down to concrete, steel beams, temporary bleachers and bright television-style lighting that made the place feel warmer than it was. Chalk dust hung over the warm-up area. Volunteers in black shirts moved competitors through check-in while an announcer tried to keep several hundred people interested in strangers failing in increasingly creative ways.

Jeff glanced sideways at him. "You're already casing the obstacle course."

Allen looked at him.

"Don't deny it. I know that face."

"I'm standing in line."

"Sure you are."

Allen ignored him and let Jeff have the joke. They had trained for this for ten weeks, mostly because Jeff had refused to accept that turning thirty-seven meant their competitive years were supposed to be behind them. Two evenings a week they had traded the regular gym for a climbing place north of the city. Saturdays had become grip work, rope transitions, balance drills and whatever homemade obstacle Jeff had found online and decided could be reproduced safely enough to avoid explaining an emergency-room visit to Amy.

The training had also given them back a version of a friendship that work no longer arranged for them automatically. Jeff still wore a uniform to work and preferred it that way. He liked the radio and the neighborhoods, liked getting to a call before it had been cleaned up into a report. Years earlier, when Allen came to BPD after the Army, the two of them had ridden together long enough to learn which silences meant concentration and which meant somebody was about to do something stupid. Allen eventually moved into detective work while Jeff stayed where the calls began, which meant seeing each other now required intent.

Friday had been typical for Allen: one interview that ran long, two follow-up calls that produced less than promised, a warrant return that created more paperwork than evidence, and an hour at his desk after most people had stopped pretending they were going to finish anything else before the weekend. Jeff had texted at six thirty.

Tomorrow. 0645. Don't be late because you're emotionally attached to reports.

Allen had answered:

0700 check-in.

Jeff had replied:

Exactly. 0645.

Left alone, Allen could fill a Saturday without noticing it was empty: a run, the grocery store, laundry, maybe his parents in West Roxbury if his mother asked directly enough that pretending not to hear the invitation became work. His condo did not feel lonely to him; it felt orderly.

Jeff considered those the same condition with different branding.

So they trained. Jeff had called it fun. Allen had eventually stopped arguing about the definition.

A volunteer raised a hand. "Rourke?"

Jeff exhaled. "If I die, tell Amy I was brave."

"If you die on a padded obstacle course, I'm telling her exactly what happened."

Jeff pointed at him as he backed toward the start gate. "This is why nobody likes detectives."

"Your wife likes me."

"My kids like you. Amy tolerates you because you bring dessert."

The gate closed behind Jeff, and Allen moved to the rail. Jeff was a good athlete. Not exceptional, not anymore, but good enough that Allen had spent the last two months assuming they would either both get through the local round or both go home. He was quick over the opening steps, clean on a hanging traverse, then almost lost his feet when a rotating platform moved faster than he expected.

He recovered with a laugh Allen could hear from twenty yards away.

Allen watched Jeff reach the three suspended grips between platforms. The first two were fixed; the third traveled on a short track and had to be driven forward with a hard body swing before release.

Jeff caught the traveling grip too low. His first pump improved his position, but on the second his hips drifted behind his shoulders. He released anyway. For half a second it looked salvageable. Then his fingertips slapped the edge of the platform instead of closing over it, and the buzzer sounded as he dropped onto the mat.

Jeff rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. When the crowd applauded, he lifted both arms as though accepting an award. Allen smiled despite himself.

A minute later Jeff came through the side gate, breathing hard but grinning.

"Course malfunction," Jeff said. "Grip moved. Hostile design."

"That was the design." Allen handed him his water bottle.

Jeff took a long drink, then looked toward the course. The smile stayed, but the disappointment underneath it was real.

"You saw where I screwed it up?"

Allen nodded.

Jeff held up a hand. "Keep it to yourself. My coaching plan is faster and don't fall."

Allen nodded solemnly. "You should charge for this."

When the volunteer called Allen's number, Jeff's expression changed almost instantly and the joking dropped away.

"Hey."

Allen gave him his attention.

"Don't start doing math because I missed. You make it, you go."

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. I know your face."

Allen had spent enough years in patrol with Jeff for that to be true. They had known each other before Allen made detective, back when most of their conversations happened in a cruiser between calls and neither of them had children, mortgages or enough seniority to complain convincingly about younger cops.

Jeff had changed less than Allen had. Or maybe he had simply changed in ways that were easier to see from the outside.

"Go," Jeff said. "I'll be right here making fun of you."

Allen stepped through the gate, and by the time he reached the start platform, the noise had flattened. The narrowing was familiar even if the lights and crowd were not. The Army had taught him to separate what mattered from what did not, police work had reinforced it, and wrestling had probably started it before either one. Once something required his full attention, the rest of the room tended to disappear on its own.

He flexed his fingers against the chalk as the starter counted down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Allen moved.

The opening section rewarded speed, but not enough to justify being careless. He took the first platforms in rhythm, shortened his third step when one surface shifted under him, and reached the hanging traverse without breaking stride.

The larger grips helped, but they were farther apart than the ones he and Jeff had trained on. He let his body swing instead of fighting it, transferred left, then right, and reached the next platform with his forearms already tightening.

A short balance section followed. He crossed it faster than he had planned because slowing down made the moving surface worse.

Then came the obstacle that had taken Jeff out.

Allen jumped, caught the first grip and moved through the fixed pair toward the traveling grip. Jeff's mistake had been releasing when the hardware reached the right place instead of when his body did.

Allen caught it high and let the first swing go. On the second, he drove his hips forward and waited through the return. Somewhere behind him the crowd grew louder, but he stayed with the movement.

On the third swing, he released. The landing platform came under him instead of toward him, his right foot hitting first, his left half a step behind. He kept moving.

A cargo-net climb burned the rest of his grip. A low wall forced him to use his legs instead of pulling. Then he was at the final ramp with the clock running above it.

He took three steps, planted hard, ran two strides up the face and caught the lip with both hands.

His shoulders chose that moment to remind him he was thirty-seven and did not appreciate the pull, but he got over anyway.

The finish buzzer sounded beneath him.

Allen stayed crouched for a second, breathing through the burn in his arms, then looked at the clock. He had no idea whether the time was good enough, but Jeff apparently did.

"FLETCHER!"

Allen found him against the rail, both arms in the air, shouting louder than he had for his own run.

The announcer said Allen's name and something about the current qualifying line while a volunteer pointed him toward the exit lane. By the time Allen reached Jeff, his breathing had mostly settled, and Jeff grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him into a quick one-armed hug before Allen could object.

"You're going to Hartford," Jeff said.

Allen checked the board. "There are still people left."

"And enough slots that you're safe unless the next twenty guys turn into Spider-Man." Jeff shoved the water bottle into his chest. "Drink before you find another objection."

Allen took a long swallow as the next competitor hit the opening steps. "You all right?" he asked.

Jeff glanced at the obstacle that had ended his morning, then shrugged once. "Annoyed."

"You should be. That release was terrible."

Jeff stared at him until Allen took another drink.

"There he is," Jeff said. "I was worried success might make you pleasant."

Allen handed the bottle back. "You were supposed to be coming to Hartford too."

"Yeah. I was." Jeff looked at him for a moment, then nodded toward the course. "And now I'm not. Doesn't change your part."

Allen said nothing, and Jeff's mouth tightened into the beginning of another grin.

"Besides, somebody has to coach you. Clearly you can't be trusted alone."

"You fell."

"Which means I now have specialized knowledge of failure. Very valuable."

A cheer rose as the competitor cleared the traveling grip, and Allen watched him move toward the final section. Ten weeks earlier, Hartford had meant nothing to him and Atlanta even less. Jeff had found a competition, dared him into entering, and given him something physical to train for that had nothing to do with work. That was supposed to be the whole point.

Jeff bumped his shoulder. "You're going. Hartford first. Then we'll see how stupid this gets."

Allen looked back at the course. "Fine."

Jeff smiled. "That's the spirit."

Allen had entered mostly because Jeff would not stop asking. Walking out of the warehouse, he was already thinking about Hartford.

Chapter 2

Brian Maynard had told Jenna the qualifier was an excuse to visit her. She had not believed him then, and she believed him even less now.

"You're doing that jaw thing," she said.

Brian glanced away from the temporary course built across one of UCLA's recreation fields. "What jaw thing?"

"The one you used to do before kickoff. You stopped having fun five minutes ago."

"I'm having fun."

Jenna smiled. "Sure."

Jenna's expression softened for half a second, and Brian looked back toward the course before she could say anything about football.

The qualifier had been an easy sell when he saw the announcement online: a weekend in Los Angeles, a reason to be back at UCLA, and a reason to see Jenna that did not involve comparing calendars and deciding which of them had time to spend six hours on Interstate 5. He had signed up in under two minutes, with the competition itself secondary until he walked through registration and saw the course.

Now he was watching a former college gymnast fail a suspended ladder by less than an inch, and every part of Brian that had spent years studying film, reading angles and believing the next play could still be won had switched back on.

Jenna watched the gymnast drop. "You know you can do this without turning it into film study."

"I can," Brian said. "I probably won't."

Brian smiled. Jenna stood beside him in jeans, sunglasses and a UCLA sweatshirt she had owned longer than they had been dating, her hair tied back and a tote bag hanging from one shoulder with a laptop inside because she had informed him on the drive over that, unlike some people, she had actual work to do this weekend.

Brian had graduated the previous spring, while Jenna still had one year left. That difference had felt minor when they were both living in Los Angeles, but it felt larger now that Brian was back in Santa Clara, sleeping in his old high-school bedroom and answering some version of the same question every few days.

What next? His father asked it directly. His mother tried not to.

Medical school was still the obvious answer. Brian had the biology degree, the pre-med coursework and parents who made medicine feel less like a dramatic choice than something that had always been nearby: his mother was a pediatrician, his father a dentist. He had always been good at science. That was not the same as knowing he wanted the life that came after it.

For most of college, football had supplied the structure: practice, lifting, film and travel, with classes fitted into the spaces the sport left behind. He had been good enough to imagine an NFL team might see something worth developing. Nobody did. There had been no dramatic collapse; the draft ended, the calls that mattered never came, and an identity Brian had expected to lose gradually disappeared all at once.

Medicine had become louder in the silence. He had the prerequisites, volunteer hours, an application calendar and years of shadowing behind him. He could picture himself treating patients. He was less certain about stepping into the decade of training around that picture simply because the calendar said he should.

Two weeks earlier, over breakfast in Santa Clara, his mother had asked, "Are you thinking this cycle or next?"

Brian had looked over his coffee. "That's a very pediatrician way to ask when I'm getting my life together."

"I asked which application cycle."

His father had been reading something on a tablet at the other end of the table. "Take a year if you want one," he said without looking up. "Once you start, everybody owns your calendar for a while."

His mother had nodded. "A year is not a failure. Drifting because you don't want to choose is different."

That was the problem with having reasonable parents. Rebellion required more imagination.

Brian had told them he was thinking about it, an answer that had been true and almost useless.

Medicine still appealed to him for reasons that had nothing to do with his parents. He liked biology when it became a human problem instead of an exam question, and he liked understanding enough to make something frightening less abstract.

Football had made decisions simple. Practice happened at three because practice happened at three. The team flew Friday because someone else had built the schedule. There was always a next game until suddenly there wasn't. Now every reasonable path required Brian to choose it himself.

Jenna had already started calling him on the hesitation.

The night before the qualifier, she had been working on an internship application at the desk in her apartment while Brian lay across the end of her bed scrolling through obstacle videos.

"You know I'm not moving back to Santa Clara to entertain you," she had said without looking away from her laptop.

"I didn't ask you to. Very supportive relationship, by the way."

"I have senior year. You have your existential crisis. We can both be busy."

Brian had thrown a pillow at her. She caught it one-handed and kept typing. He wasn't going to turn her final year at UCLA into his plan for avoiding one.

A volunteer waved toward the next group of competitors.

Jenna checked the number on Brian's shirt. "You're up in three."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you've been staring at that ladder like it insulted your family."

"I'm figuring out the swing. You could try being supportive."

"I stayed awake while you drove us here at seven in the morning. That's support."

"Heroic."

She leaned closer. "Don't tear anything."

"That sounds supportive."

"Your mother will blame me."

"She likes you more than me."

"Correct."

When the volunteer called his number, Brian handed Jenna his phone. "If I don't make it, delete all evidence."

"I'm posting everything."

"I trusted you."

"Your first mistake."

He walked toward the start gate smiling, but as the official clipped the timing tag into place, the old focus came back.

The course was shorter than the ones used on television, five obstacles instead of the elaborate national setups the competition posted online. The first was a series of angled platforms that rocked under each footfall. The second required a rope swing to a narrow landing shelf. The third climbed through a set of offset horizontal bars. The fourth was the suspended ladder Brian had been studying. The fifth ended at a steep finishing wall.

Nothing about it resembled football, yet enough of it did.

The starter raised a hand. Brian bounced once on the balls of his feet, and when the buzzer sounded, he attacked the opening platforms before they had time to move beneath him.

One foot. Next. Next.

The third tilted harder than expected. His right knee opened outward, but he corrected with his hips and pushed off before the platform could take him farther.

At the rope, he jumped high, caught it with both hands and used the first swing instead of waiting for a second. His shoes hit the edge of the landing shelf. For an instant his weight stayed behind him.

He threw his chest forward and recovered.

Somebody in the crowd yelled his name, probably Jenna, though not only Jenna. He had already seen two former teammates near the rail.

He hit the bars fast.

Left hand. Right. Skip one.

The choice saved time and cost more grip than he expected.

By the time he reached the suspended ladder his forearms were awake.

The obstacle hung at an angle over a padded pit. Each rung could rotate enough to punish a bad catch, and the final gap was wider than the rest.

The gymnast before him had tried to build a perfect swing. Brian did not wait for one; he moved through the first rung, then the second.

The third rung twisted under his right hand, dropping him several inches and swinging him sideways. As the crowd reacted, Brian kicked through the swing and reached past the next rung for the one beyond it.

His left hand caught hard, taking all his weight until he could bring the right up. The announcer raised his voice, but Brian was already moving. He released the final rung, landed with a skid of his left foot and drove toward the wall.

Three steps, a hard plant, then the run up its face. His fingertips caught the top edge. He pulled over, slapped the finish pad and turned toward the clock.

The time meant nothing to him by itself; the green indicator beside it did.

QUALIFYING POSITION.

He bent over with his hands on his knees and laughed once, mostly because the reaction arrived before he could stop it.

By the time he came through the exit lane, Jenna was waiting with his phone.

"That was recreational," he said.

"You skipped a rung you absolutely did not need to skip. It saved time right up until it almost dropped you."

"But didn't."

She handed him the phone. "You're impossible."

Brian took it, then looked back at the leaderboard.

His name sat comfortably above the projected cut, with a regional event in Las Vegas listed beside the advancement information.

Two hours earlier, he would have told anyone who asked that he had entered because he wanted a weekend with Jenna and because obstacle courses looked fun.

Now he was calculating how much better he could be by Las Vegas.

Jenna watched him read the screen.

"There it is," she said. "The look."

Brian slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Vegas isn't that far."

"From Los Angeles?"

"Exactly. Convenient."

"And I suppose you're doing this one for me too."

"Everything I do is for you."

She gave him a flat look.

Brian smiled and looked at the leaderboard again.

What had started as an excuse to come back to UCLA no longer felt like an excuse for anything.

He wanted the next round.