Breakfast the next morning with Carol was a quiet affair. The good news was that Kate's tray had a mug of passable coffee. Given her fitful sleep the night before, the black elixir was the perfect fuel she needed for what would be another long day. After a short timeout, they were off for the usual run that took them over the same course as yesterday. By the half way point, the familiar miseries were returning as her body heated, sweated, and ached from the pace and the geography of the course.
After a short cool down, they headed to the combat tent where Carol led her to what would be their mat for the day. Once there, both sloughed off their trainers, donned head gear, and fitted their hands with gloves. When properly attired, Carol told her they would be sparing and grappling here in an effort to set a baseline for her future training.
Immediately Carol's blows made it abundantly clear that stings and bruises were going to be commonplace. After that, the punches, kicks, knees, and elbows came in no particular order as a tentative Kate tried to fend off Carol's vigorous attack. Kate quickly realized that her prior training was woefully inadequate here. Luckily Carol did falter, and Kate pounced with a flurry of punches that sent Carol reeling to the mat. Kate was ever so pleased, but prudently repressed any gloating that might incite a very painful response from Carol. As they both tired, the pace of the strike exchanges slowed until Carol broke off contact.
As she rested, a new male trainer arrived, while Carol walked out saying, "Obey him as you would me, Beckett." This guy was much bigger than her, and most importantly, his whole body was fresh. His expertise was in grappling, and after shouting out his intentions, they were on the mat in various wrestling positions trying to forcefully outmaneuver the other. These encounters were worse than the sparing because her spent muscles were now constantly engaged. Needless to say, her body heat rose, the sweat poured, and all her muscles rebelled. The combination created the same discomfort as yesterday, but this time, it was opponent driven.
It only stopped when Carol reappeared, and her anonymous adversary abruptly left. During a subsequent rest break, Carol explained that she would eventually face a couple of trainees in every combat session. That way her opponents would be fresh, while Kate would labor under the cumulative exhaustion from her earlier encounters. "Not a fair fight, Beckett. The idea is to normalize extreme discomfort by repeated contests."
After a second sparing and grappling session, Kate was finally allowed to rest while Carol went over what today was all about. "In our line of work very few targets will cooperate. That will lead to contentious situations where the targets face a choice - talk or hurt.. Most will resist, and you are expected to make that stance awfully painful - no matter how skilled or tenacious they are. If they are nothing more than organized hooligans, we expect a quick resolution. If however, they are trained, we expect you to take a licking and keep on ticking until they capitulate."
That night after dinner lying on her hardly comfortable cot, she contemplated how to mentally cope with her career choice. She had rejected all the trappings of a normal relationship with Castle for something far darker. Her heart was drawn to the battle, and this training would make her a successful crusader against those dark forces. The challenge here was to build strong walls to withstand whatever discomfort Carol threw at her.
Three weeks later, Kate still dreaded her time in either exercise or combat tent though her body was much more equipped to handle the relentless misery that came with each. In both arenas the number of routines and contests was ramped up as her stamina was better able to cope with Carol's increasing demands. By now all sessions in the combat tent included brutal competitions between the trainees where each tried to showcase their new found skills in front of the trainers.
This twist had both a positive and pernicious effect. On the plus side, it definitely upped the game of the trainees. On the other hand, ill feelings from scorned losers could fester and bubble up in the relaxed quarters of the sleep tent. It usually started with some verbal barbs that escalated into shoving and finally impromptu brawls. These were full-contact slug fests, and Kate was no stranger to these impromptu rematches.
Regular evening disappointments did not sit well with Kate's expectation of excellence. After a particularly poor showing, she contemplated the unwelcome feeling of failure. Ever since college she possessed a seriousness of purpose that made her excel in any endeavor. Here though, things were different. Her fellow trainees were not picked because they were pansies. Was she seriously expecting real adversaries to be any less skilled than these neophytes? That realization alarmed her. You cannot fail in this kind of work unless you have a death wish.
In order to avoid that, she felt the intensity needed to be ramped up. The next morning Kate broached her plan with Carol and found a receptive audience. The new more rigorous routine began immediately with a big change in Carol's demeanor. Her former quiet trainer was now barking out tasks at every turn. Running, strength training, and competitive fights were now all done at a faster pace with Carol constantly demeaning her efforts. At first, Kate tried to ignore Carol's bitching, but soon, she was slinging back her own barbs hoping it would divert her mind from the real misery at hand.
By the ninth week, the additional training has improved Kate's strength and technique just like she hoped. She was now winning more than the majority of her fights and had only occasional evening encounters that did go as she hoped. This upswing in successes led her to wonder if the trainers were holding back. If this place was all about expanding your discomfort zone, how would a full contact melee with Carol go?
On the way to breakfast later that week, she pointedly asked, "Carol, how good am I at embracing discomfort? Would I hold up in a confrontation with a real agent like you? Carol listened, but offered no response. Kate pressed for an answer and said, "Carol, this place is all about inflicting discomfort, yet you refuse to let me benchmark my skills against opponents with real field experience. Are you scared of me embarrassing you up where it really counts?"
Carol knew that remark could not go unanswered and told Beckett to head directly to her cot in the sleep tent. Kate was pacing around her cot very unsure about the response when Carol appeared with another trainer. "Tell him you want full contacts fights with me from here on out?"
"That is exactly what I want." Kate saw a slight nod of her associate before excruciating pain blossomed from her gut as Carol's left hand landed with a thud. Kate's torso was careening forward just as Carol's rising knee was on a collision course with her sternum.
Kate's eyes watered as she struggled to regain her composure, and Carol dismissively shouted, "Those sessions will start tomorrow. Hope you're happy, bitch?"
The bouts with Carol were, as expected, most unpleasant. Carol was by far the best close opponent she had ever faced. Her strikes were both powerful and right on target. Her preferred tactic was the heel stomp. The downward motion harnessed the full power of the leg and could be instantly repeated if an you did not take evasive steps. The good news for Kate was that her past weeks of competitive trainee fights had normalized this kind of misery. Frequent powerful opponent strikes spawned a high tolerance that let her continue her offense even when her body was under constant attack. These fights fostered a burgeoning animosity that none of the other trainees had to put up with.
On her last day she was a neophyte spymaster, a competent marksman, a determined exerciser, and most of all a fighter who could endure or dispense unending amounts of misery without a second thought. There was no recognition ceremony, but the head did let slip that she was second in the final evaluation. In her last moments with Carol, Kate hoped for some type of closure, but that was not to be. Instead, Carol's last act was to throw a fierce jab directly into Kate's unguarded gut and silently walk away. By now, Kate was used to Carol's fists inflicting misery, but this was different. It was flagrantly malicious, and something she would never forget. An hour later, Kate was sitting in seat 3B chilly, slightly tipsy, and a tad bit blind. Twelve weeks without air conditioning, liquor, or sunglasses had conditioned her body for a far harsher environment.