Making it to another friday

Ivo tried to stand still as Davi spread the cool gel over the expanse of his back, focusing particularly on his shoulders. His touch was firm but soothing, making Ivo feel as if he could just melt into the bed and fall asleep between one blink and the next.

Perhaps it was the the relaxing lull of the repeated movements, that made Ivo ask, "Why are you being nice to me?"

Davi's hands stilled. "I'm not. It's for the gig. You can't show up with red skin."

"Oh."

Davi resumed massaging the gel as a flaming wave of humiliation burned its way up Ivo's neck. He buried his face deeper into his arms, hoping Davi wouldn't see it. He should never have asked. He felt foolish.

"Why can't I have red skin? Why does it matter?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

Davi's hands stilled again, but this time with a finality that meant the moment was over. "You'll learn soon enough."

He got up from the bed and took his towel off the rack they used to dry them between showers. "I'm going to wash off, you should go to sleep."

Ivo waited for him to leave before crawling into bed, hoping he would have already fallen asleep by the time Davi returned.

---

The next day saw more training.

They went through target practice quickly and then Davi taught Ivo how to change magazine cartridges quickly, how to take cover, how to cover someone else. For now Ivo really felt like he was making the most progress with guns, he felt fairly confident that if someone was shooting as him he could shoot back.

Davi threw cans in the air and had him shoot at them before they hit the ground, and he too seemed fairly confident in his ability to hit moving targets.

"The important thing is that you don't freeze," he insisted, while explaining how to pull the gun quickly out of its holster. "You might end up in the middle of a shootout and freezing is a sure fire way to end up dead. Look for cover and regroup if you ever find yourself outnumbered."

In a situation like that Ivo thought the best course of action was probably to run away and try again at a different time, but he kept that thought to himself; lest he end up on the receiving end of Davi's unamused scowl again.

The afternoon was taken up with brawling, brazilian jiu-jitsu techniques, and, surprisingly, playing dead.

"Smear your face with blood and lay still," Alina instructed him, while pacing around his still form on the dirty terrace floor.

"Space out your breaths," Davi added, "your chest can't move. If you don't think you can be still enough lay on your stomach."

"If no one is after you in particular, playing dead might save your life." Ivo could feel Alina's eyes boring into him as she dug the heel of her boot in his side to see if he'd move. "No one wants to waste bullets on a corpse."

Over the following days training got more brutal, but eventually Ivo improved to the point Alina declared him "not entirely hopeless".

He had an inkling bladed weapons would never be his first choice, but it was a relief to know he was finally competent enough not to slice off his own fingers.

"Maybe after this gig you can train with Thiago and Alina and get a taste of netwalking," Alina suggested, back to her usual friendliness now that Ivo wasn't constantly failing to live up to her standards.

"What's that?"

It was Davi who answered, but not without first glaring in Alina's direction. "It's what we call the people who hack networks, from closed circuits to public nets. It's how Yunmi can disable security cameras, or any other surveillance system."

Davi saw the spark of interest in Ivo's eyes and was quick to shut it down. "It's more complicated than it sounds. The public nets are a nightmare, and heavily surveilled, if you don't cover you tracks you'll have Parallax's goons breathing down your neck in seconds, honed in on your location."

Night had fallen outside, and the steel-grey sky had turned a deep black, lit up by the neon lights of the city around them. Ivo kept getting distracted by the colourful flashes in his peripheral vision and losing his focus; to Alina's and Davi's annoyance.

They had stayed out longer than any other day, and Ivo was about to ask when they were going back to the apartment when the door leading down to the elevator banged open and a throng of people streamed up into the terrace.

The new arrivals gave them a wide berth and occupied the opposite side of the rooftop. They set out folding chairs, plastic tables, speakers, coolers with drinks and plates of uncooked food.

Ivo watched them in silence, until an elderly man, with a shock of wild grey curls dumped a sack of coal into the sawed off oil drum and lit it. "What are they doing?"

"It's Friday night," Davi said, "they're celebrating."

"Celebrating what?"

Davi gave him an unreadable look. "Making it to another Friday."

Someone raised a beer can towards them and Alina waved back. "I'm off," she said, patting Davi on the shoulder.

So that was why they'd stayed later today.

"Do they all live here?" Ivo asked Davi, keeping his voice down.

"Some of them. Others are guests," he nodded into the night. "Look there, we're not the only ones."

Ivo looked at the tower across from theirs and saw a similar set up. People arranged around an open fire, cooking over the flames, or waiting for them to turn to embers, while others danced with drinks in their hands.

Along with the bright city lights, on top of each building floating bonfires were starting to pepper the night sky. Fire stars against the velvet backdrop of night.

Someone managed to set up the speaker system and a seductive, fast-paced voice spilled into the air, singing about dancing the night away, and all the way down the floor.

People started pairing off, in twos, threes and whole groups, moving together to the music, letting its rhythm guide their movements.

Alina was dancing with a beautiful girl, who wore a tight-fitting dress and a loose smile. The cloud of her dark curls hid Alina's face when she whispered something in her ear.

Ivo watched from the sidelines, wanting badly to join but not knowing how.

At his side, Davi reached into the bag of weapons and took out a cigarette pack, he shook one out and raised it to his lips. He patted himself down but didn't find what he was looking for. "I'm going to see if anyone has a light, you coming?"