(TOUCHED UP)<br/><br/>One hour and fourty-nine minutes and forty two seconds have passed since her training session began.  Her hands are purpled up with "bruises"... temporary swelling and discoloration created by the nanobots that maintain her dermis; to simulate healing, they are programmed to release biological dyes similiar to squid ink as they consume the damaged layers of material and restore or replace them.  They'll be done by 7:04, by her clock.  If her arm had been flayed to the core, it would take them hours.  If her whole frame burned to cinders, about a week.<br/><br/>She concludes the session by executing the prior week's Brazilian Aki-jitsu combinations in perfect flow from one to the next, battering the high-density plastic of the stocky training bot's striking surfaces with stroke after stroke from fists, elbows, arms, knees, feet, and head... it was repeatedly drawing away on its harness-pivot.  It was almost pretty, insectine and graceful. despite the fractures and bloodstains worked into its surface by hard use, except that its movements were so exaggerated by the arm that manipulated and puppetted it... a mass of hydraulics like a squid's arm, moving it about and bouncing it into attack and defensive postures, like some child playing with a highly-posable Barbie.<br/><br/>The bot bounced in for a return strike-- simulating what would be a new attacker, and Liz smashed its attacking strike aside at the opposite angle she hooked it defensively... the truth of akijitsu was that it was jujitsu's evil cousin... where ju-jitsu redirected an attacker's strength to disarm them, akijitsu used that strength and direction of force to wound the attacker beyond repair... to break everybone and rend every nerve complex they presented you with, then get a kill shot.  Then use that kill shot.<br/><br/>The polymer yielded with what should be a satisfying snap of bone, but was just an awkward-looking fold in half now... then she returned with two strikes to the chest.  Over.<br/><br/>She stood back and watched as the machine returned to its position on the far wall, a hologram of the instructor rattled on about discipline and the will of steel... he's speaking in rapid Portuguese, and she doesn't need to listen any more.  The loop is number 6 of 12 "Encouragement Segments" she's heard since she started this course.<br/><br/>The instructor didn't realize that this was lesson 18 for her, and if he were really there instead of appearing via holodisc, he'd be astounded that the girl had achieved mastery of his forte in 17 lessons... three holodiscs from him, two from a Chinese vendor, and seven miscellaneous fight videos she'd managed to download from the torrentstreams.  The most recognized master in the sport of full-contact was a Vietnamese named Hen Nguyen, age 26 and 4 time title-holder.  She imagined how much fun he'd be to fight... but that'd be risky.  Imagined is a funny word for strategic risk analysis run through a compiler of seemingly random lightning-flashes of stimuli.  Must be what being human's like, she thinks.<br/><br/>Back through the long, fluorescent corridor to the main compound, she can hear that the third tube on the 14th fixture is about to burn out.    Bad ballast, probably.  She's still wearing a black sportsbra and running pant combination.  She doesn't sweat unless certain criteria are met... this wasn't a routine designed to accompany sweating.  She walks steadily, arms swinging loose at her sides. The bruising on her knuckles has faded completely to perfect, pale skin as she swings the door to room B607 inward.<br/><br/>Amazingly bad coffee smells fill the air of the room, set up for a meeting... the brew is like tar mixed with asphalt mixed with warm chicory brew.  She's experimenting again with roasts, beans, and grinds, but can't tell how bad they taste so she's watching for reactions every day.  The most recent data was intriguing, but... more was required.  She processed the coffee first, then the donuts, then her routine... she was a little childish like that.  She did the fun things first.<br/><br/>With a soft sigh, she flicked her eyes to the clock.  She didn't need to; doing so was one of the redundant behavior-ticks incorporated into her subroutines to betray her thoughts... make her more readable.  The database for these ticks was massive, and encrypted.  She didn't know what all was in there.  But it was labeled "Transparency Modules".  How annoying.  Their unpredictibility bothered her almost as much as the insight they gave others into her subprocesses.  For a being with little shame, except what was aesthetically pleasing to display, having her thoughts broadcast through subtle behaviors was more revealing than being fucked raw on a crowded subway.<br/><br/>Was Vivian there already..?  Liz thought it through... this was unexpected, she'd failed to predict an expected reaction from a subject of extreme interest.  Vivian.  The name brought a flush of warmth (another damn Transparency Module) across her breasts... what subroutine was misfiring... or executing perfectly... to have blocked that thought?