Patricians: Power Politics (2 of 9)

Chapter 17: Altered Reality

Julia awoke in her bed with the same strange feeling she had felt the first day of training. Sunlight beamed in through the small porthole in the room. Yawning from exhaustion, Julia stretched her muscles and sat up in the bed. After every night of sleep, the young woman found herself more tired. It felt like she wasn't getting any sleep at all. Light reflected off the young woman's now toned body. Julia had always been fit, but now anyone could see the powerful muscles buried underneath her smooth skin. Rumbling emanated from her stomach, a telling sign of her hunger from the intense training.

Every day since training had begun, Chaos and Fury arrived with food. Julia noticed she could never seem to determine what the food was by smell. Stranger still, the food was always what she desired. Chaos opened the door and carried the mysterious tray of food in and placed it down before his ward. Looking down, Julia closed her eyes and imagined a rich, juicy steak for breakfast. Sure enough, the food was a steak with all the trimmings.

Julia quietly began eating her food. Chaos knew that the young woman was beginning to understand that she was in a digital world. Over the past month, Julia had been testing little things. None of the Wolf Pack was monitoring the change in weather, room colour, and now food. Chaos questioned Zero on how it was possible to manipulate the program, and the man possessed no answer. Julia's mind was overpowering the entire world, and her ability was growing stronger with each day.

"I must say, your training has come quite a long way, Julia. I am quite impressed." Fury had never complimented the young woman before. During the last sparring match, Julia had moved so quickly that she couldn't be countered. Fury had never lost a hand-to-hand sparring match. Not even Chaos could compete against his second in command. All the normal rules didn't seem to apply to young Julia, who was placing her tray down.

"I just got lucky."

Chaos admired how humility was showing through Julia's training. No matter how bad of a beating the young woman took, she seemed to brush it off. Zero had spent hours monitoring the sleep patterns and had told his commander about the nightmares. Watching the video footage downloaded from Julia's memory, Chaos understood why the trauma struck her so deeply. Julia was her father's daughter, and would sacrifice anything to protect her family.

Understanding from personal experience the effects of post-traumatic stress, Chaos was using the training to undo the damage. Forcing Julia to confront her fears allowed her to overcome them. Training had all but erased the trauma from Julia's mind. Everything in the young woman's body language had changed since that first day of training. Confidence radiated from Julia now. That confidence seemed to be the source of the power to control the digital world, and it was growing stronger at an exponential rate.

None of them was even on a boat anymore. Chaos had moved everyone to a safe house in the Middle East. With the war, it would make it almost impossible for anyone to find Julia. Zhou Yun had told Chaos that everything would be over soon. Every member of the Wolf Pack shared the same fears regarding the situation. Julia could break free of the digital world before that time came.

In the real world, machines were building her muscles with each bout of the training. Julia was no longer the scared girl running on instinct. It was her will to survive that allowed her to drop one of the members of the best mercenary group. Fear was tempered into strong muscles powered by a resolute will. If Julia managed to break free, the team wouldn't be dealing with a scared girl but an intelligent and determined warrior of terrifying ability. Any escape attempt could succeed. Julia just might be a match for the entire team now. Not willing to leave anything to chance, Chaos needed to see how far the training had taken his charge, and there was only one way to do that.