Day three of training saw Manny shift his focus from the guard to footwork. For Rof, this proved to be an even more humbling experience. His movements were those of someone who had learned to move for survival - effective, but costly. He was using too much energy and committing to his direction prematurely.
"You're telegraphing your movements with your feet before your hands," Manny pointed out. He paced behind Rof as the latter moved around the ring. "Every time you're about to turn right, your right heel lifts just a fraction of a second too early. Every single time." He halted Rof with a hand on his shoulder. "Okon's eyes will be on your feet before they're on your face. If you step into that ring moving like you are now, he'll know your next move before you've even decided on it."
"So how do I stop it?" Rof asked.
"By ensuring each step carries the same weight. No matter where you're headed next, your steps should land with the same weight. Your feet need to speak a language, and then you need to silence them," Manny explained. He demonstrated, walking around the ring with a consistent rhythm, like a walking metronome.
Rof gave it a go. Manny watched.
"Better," Manny acknowledged after ten minutes, a compliment that, coming from him, was akin to anyone else proclaiming it extraordinary.
They were an hour into their session when the sound of descending footsteps echoed from the basement stairs. Both men turned to see Silas standing at the bottom. He looked different outside the ring. Not smaller, but less guarded. He was dressed in regular clothes - dark jacket, dark pants - nothing that hinted at his profession. His gaze scanned the gym, a habit Rof was beginning to associate with Silas's way of processing new spaces.
Silas's eyes landed on Rof, then Manny. His face softened in recognition. "Manny Reyes," he greeted.
"Silas," Manny responded, neither surprised nor alarmed. It was as though he had anticipated this visit but didn't know when it would occur.
Silas turned his attention to Rof. "I went to the arena. Bellows told me you'd stopped training there. I asked around." He paused. "It took me one day to find this address. You might want to consider that - not everyone searching for you will have good intentions."
"Are yours good?" Rof asked.
Silas held his gaze for a moment, his expression the most open Rof had seen it. "I want to train with you," he stated.
The gym fell silent.
"Why?" Rof asked.
"Because after our fight, I spent seven days analysing it," Silas explained. He moved to the edge of the ring, his hand on the rope, but didn't climb in, seeking permission through his gesture. "I went through every second of footage I have. I have sensors I wear in fights - heart rate, muscle activation, reaction time. I've had them for three years. Built a database on myself." He paused. "In the third round, when you got past my guard - my sensors recorded a reaction time from you that's not possible. Not with training. Not with anything documented."
"So you want to study me," Rof inferred.
"I want to understand it," Silas clarified, his tone the most human it had been. Still controlled, but not from superiority or distance. Now it seemed to come from discipline over something genuinely stirring. "I built my entire career on the belief that everything is a pattern. That every human being - no matter how talented, how trained, how gifted - operates within a system that can be read and predicted." He looked at Rof. "You broke that. In eleven years of fighting, you are the first thing I've encountered that broke that."
"And?" Rof prodded.
"And I don't want to just file it and move on." Silas's jaw tightened slightly. "I want to know what it means. Not as data. As -" he stopped, tried again. "You asked me after I went down why I didn't get up. You suggested maybe stop looking - maybe that's the problem." He met Rof's eyes directly. "I've been thinking about that for seven days. About what it would mean to stop looking."
The gym was silent.
Manny looked at Rof. It wasn't a directive, but a question. Your call.
Rof looked at Silas. He didn't hold onto fights or carry them like baggage. What happened in the ring stayed in the ring. Outside of it, a man was just a man.
"You fight Okon before me," Rof stated.
Silas looked at him, confused. "Excuse me?"
"In the bracket. You're in the bracket. You fight Okon in the quarterfinal." Rof explained. "Or someone else. Who's your first fight?"
"A man named Brecker. German. Former military," Silas answered. "Straightforward."
"So you might fight Okon in the semi." Rof held his gaze. "You train with me, you show me everything you have. I do the same. And if we meet in that ring later—"
"We fight honestly," Silas finished for him. "Full effort. No arrangements."
"Yeah."
Silas was quiet for a moment, then he climbed into the ring.
Manny watched them both, looking at the cross on Rof's chest, at Silas's sensor-watch on his wrist, at the unlikely partnership that had just formed in his basement gym.
He picked up the wooden stick.
"Guard," he commanded both of them.
Silas looked at the stick, then at his own hands, and raised them into a technically perfect guard.
Manny knocked it down.
Silas blinked.
"Again," Manny ordered.
From the corner of his eye, Rof almost smiled.
He raised his own guard.
And so, they got to work.