As the days flew by, it seemed that with every passing day, Dragan body got a little bit more and more muscular, his abs would define more, and his arms would start to take a more cylindrical shape. We trained every day, with a grueling program.
In the morning, we would run 10km around the village just as the morning sun came into view. Of course, I didn't do much running, only accompanied Dragan in his routine. He was good at keeping pace, his breath would quicken, but it would stay at a steady pace for the good part of the run, after 3 miles or so, he would need a breather, but would quickly recover. During my abhorrent boredom on these trails, I discovered a new skill.
>Notice!
>New Skill
>Hyper Listening
>Allows User
Sybil had spoken - it came as a nice surprise!
The skill allowed me to map an area like a submarine would map out the ocean floor.
As I opened up my ears, the volume turned up on the world, and my eyes shone bright. It was overwhelming at first, thousands of sounds all around us filled up my senses.
"Gaaah! Tone it down!" I shouted.
"I'm not talking -" Dragan spoke in between words.
"Not you - them!" I shouted.
>Hyper Listening: OFF
The world went silent again, and only Dragan's huffs and puff filled me again.
"Sorry - that was weird," I said returning from my shock.
"What was?" he asked.
"Sybil gave me a new skill all of a sudden and the world just turned up it's volume," I said reassuring him now in a calm voice.
"Sounds like you need to turn the volume on it slowly," said Dragan.
With this Sybil went to work.
>Notice!
>Hyper Listening has been programed into a radial system menu.
>Skill can be activated slowly.
"Radial menu, what's that?!" I asked.
My vision suddenly flashed a menu, in the form of a knob, slowly I tried turning it. The sound came back but this time more slowly.
There was a point where I almost had to tune it like a radio.
Then all conversation's around us came into view.
From the old lady's at the market, to a conversation between four people happening a couple feet away, to the smallest drop of water in the back alleys of the building districts.
I could spy on them and quite clearly too.
My heart started racing - and I turned it off.
"What happened?" Dragan asked.
I explained how the new skill had worked.
As I did he took off and continue running.
"You're like a hawk now, you'll now and hear everything!" he shouted as he continued running.
I had a special background skill running just for Dragan, in the HUD of my vision, tucked in a little corner I had a special widget.
It allowed me to keep track of heartbeats and bodily functions, all I needed was to touch the skin of the person I wanted to apply this skill too. And I would instantly know stats and other metadata that I could use. In this case, I used it on Dragan to track performance and create data inside of my head. Which felt a little weird, right now it's all stored in my brain, like little cabinets in a library.
And I could access them whenever I want, but more importantly, I could calculate and create compound decisions based on current and past data.
It was like my memories were biologically linked in a way I cannot explain, not just thoughts but real quantifiable data. And my brain was filling up.
I saw a progress bar filling up. In the lower left field of my vision, when did that get there?
A total of 2.4P, where still free, I'm guessing the 'P' stands for Petabytes.
That last part was frightening.
Nonetheless, with this new skill, the data just sort of moved on its own, I told it what to do, and it created itself. I was always listening to Dragan's heart, like a rhythmic drum in the back of my mind. It was always there always present, he didn't know, and he didn't have to know.
I was tracking him, making sure he could hit peak performance at the right times. He didn't mind, in fact he actually listened to whatever I had to say after the fact.
He tried calling me 'coach' but I wasn't so sure about it. It made me feel weird since we were doing the nasty. So we settled on 'Bro' even though he never actually understood the meaning, and I'm not sure I explained it very well.
One time at home after training, he did call me a 'cutie-pie', I was collecting all the data and making something useful out of it.
That nickname was kinda cute actually, although I do wish he had something more personal for me. But then again, I was fine with him using the first one in bed.
Nevertheless spending time with him was my bliss. And he seemed to enjoy my company too. We worked good together.