Master Mok’s Doctrine
INT. FUTURISTIC SHOWER – PRIVATE RESIDENCE, UNKNOWN LOCATION. 12:08 AM.
1nfinity stands motionless in the center of a hyper-modern hydrochamber. The shower's glass walls project a living panorama—a high-fidelity illusion of a mist-drenched jungle, where vibrant foliage sways and exotic birds cry out in the distance.
Above him, an array of precision nozzles unleash a torrent of water—not gentle, but the sheer force of a controlled waterfall, crashing down onto him like nature's wrath made domestic. The water hits with punishing weight, flowing in thick, rippling streams over the chiselled frame of a tall, powerfully built man in his mid-50s.
His physique is that of someone engineered for endurance—sculpted muscle, veined arms, shoulders like stone.
A deep scar traces along his right side, running from the base of his ribs to just above the hip—a pale groove where skin never fully healed. A remnant of something old.
Violent. Classified.
He doesn't flinch.
Instead, he leans into it.
Back straight. Legs braced. Neck rigid.
His eyes narrow, staring into nothing, jaw clenched like he's bracing for war.
Through the neural hum of his Q-Link, he issues a single command:
"More."
The water responds instantly.
The pressure rises—a thundering downpour now—dense, primal, punishing. Muscles in his shoulders and back tighten visibly, straining under the weight. His skin glows under the refracted jungle light, slick with rivulets cascading over every curve, every scar, every tension-wound tendon.
Still, he does not move.
Not to retreat. Not to escape.
The chamber hissed open.
1nfinity stepped out of the hydrochamber, skin flushed in streaks of raw red where the punishing waterfall had pressed down like a relentless god.
His body still chiseled, still formidable, but it bore the marks of a man who welcomed pain as purification.
He moved into an adjacent air-cleansing corridor, where a field of pulsed ionization and micro-vented heat enveloped him.
It wasn't wind—it was intelligent air, targeted and granular, evaporating moisture cell by cell without ever disturbing a strand of hair.
By the time he emerged, his body was dry.
A black silk yukata, embroidered with fractal silver threads, floated across a hanger arm and wrapped itself gently over his frame. It adjusted to his dimensions as he moved.
From a hollowed wall recess, a minimalistic tea bloom chamber unfurled—steam rising from a levitating ceramic bowl etched with traditional Japanese art.
1nfinity retrieved the cup without looking. The scent of matcha and chlorophyll-infused vapors coiled upward like memory.
"Update status on volunteers," he said quietly, sipping.
[Christine] (immediate, flustered):
"Sir, brain telemetry of Subject One is within parameters of the experiment. Advise?"
He tilted his head slightly. A neural overlay flickered into his vision—a three-dimensional cortical scan with shimmering data trails pulsing along axonal pathways.
[1]'s brain lit up in fractal spikes of adrenaline and residual terror.
"I'll begin test in 90 seconds," 1nfinity replied.
INT. SKYLOFT OFFICE – CONTINUOUS
He entered his personal chamber—a space of floating geometry and weightless grace. No desk, no clutter. Just air, light, and command.
He settled into a hover-chair—suspended mid-air like a tethered thought, its frame a seamless curve of carbon fiber and obsidian alloy. A recessed holder caught the tea cup with a magnetic hum.
His eyes closed.
The world whooshed past him in a blur of refracted data. A tunnel of collapsing thought patterns, then darkness, then—
INT. SUBJECT [1]'S DREAMSTATE – OVERLAY ACTIVE
The dream was chaos.
[1] stumbled backward through a blurred jungle dreamscape, replaying his earlier trauma in jagged loops.
The Beast wasn't visible—but its presence was crushing. His breath caught with every step, slipping in mud, hands scraping against bark, dragging himself behind a fallen log slick with blood and moss.
"Preservation is survival… preservation is survival…" he chanted in a cracked whisper, eyes wide, clutching at leaves like they could protect him.
Above the real jungle, in the Nimbus Tent, the spherical shelter swayed violently—responding to [1]'s thrashing. His limbs jerked as if his muscles refused to believe it wasn't real.
INT. 1nfinity's MINDSPACE – MONITOR MODE
"Initiate DreamScape Sequence. Inject Code 16C."
The command pulsed outward.
Instantly, the nightmare bent.
The black jungle dissolved, replaced by a calm void of light and floating mandala-like constructs—shimmering, geometric patterns pulsing in impossible rhythms above [1]'s head.
The air sparkled. Gravity forgot itself.
Soft whispers slithered through the space.
[1]'s face slackened. His mouth hung slightly open, pupils wide but unfocused. His gaze locked on the mandala fractals above.
In the physical world, back inside the Nimbus Tent, he lay still—eyes fluttering—and a barely audible murmur escaped his lips:
"…seek and destroy…"
INT. NIMBUS TENT – MOMENTS LATER
[1]'s eyes flew open.
Calm now. Sharp.
"Seek and destroy," he muttered.
He moved with purpose—zipping up his suit, strapping his boots, synching the arm gauntlet display on his wrist. The tent's internal lighting pulsed a subtle green as it registered full biometric sync.
An echo, faint but unmistakable, whispered in the back of his mind:
Seek and destroy the creature… Seek and destroy the creature…
[1] gripped the zipcord and slid down the tent's anchor rope. He landed silently on soft loam, feet planted, breath steady.
But the camera lingered.
Back in the tent, **his only weapon—**the scavenged zap stick—sat forgotten in the corner, its faint blue indicator blinking.
Chinatown, Manhattan – 2:00 PM
The sun filtered down between stacked neon signs and overhanging fiber-glass awnings, bathing the street in a surreal mix of daylight and synthetic glow.
Tucked among ultramodern karaoke capsules, automated ear cleaning kiosks, and AI fortune parlors stood something older: a traditional wet market, retrofitted for the future but stubbornly real.
Long rows of fresh bok choi and gai lan glistened under UV-preserving lamps, bundled into smart mesh baskets that tagged their nutritional profile in floating text.
Live chickens clucked in tight, wire-stacked cages, resting awkwardly along the edge of the curb—an earthy, biological contrast to the sleek tech around them. Their feathers fluffed in discomfort under heat-dampened neon.
A few meters away, a block of levitating water shimmered in midair—a zero-gravity aquatic display, held in place by magnetic resonance scaffolding and hydroskin tension fields.
Inside, Asian carp, rockfish, and electric eels swam lazily, waiting to be somebody's meal.
Max strolled past, subtly wrinkling his nose at the sour tang of the poultry. He kept his hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed but eyes alert.
Just ahead, a young Chinese boy crouched on the pavement, fiddling with a traditional spinning top. The string coiled around it was frayed, but the boy's concentration was absolute. With a flick of his wrist, the top danced across the concrete, wobbling, spinning, righting itself like magic.
Max paused, a faint smile creeping to his lips.
"Capture and edit, Gips," he murmured.
A semi-transparent screen floated into his field of vision—the boy, perfectly framed, the top spinning mid-motion.
Gipsi's algorithm went to work—auto-cutting, adding a splash of glitch-pop animation, and syncing it with a bouncy remix of an old Faye Wong track.
Max tilted his head slightly, watching the edit finish in real time.
"Post to TikTok," he thought.
Gipsi confirmed with a soft pulse in the corner of his vision.
A few blocks later, Max ducked into a narrow, grimy alley crammed between a noodle vending bot and a stall with a tall stack of bamboo steamers.
He climbed a rusted staircase with flickering edge lights, the sounds of martial shouts and rhythmic thuds rising as he neared the top.
At the corner, a battered neon sign blinked in and out:
"Master Mok's Jeet Kun Do"
— the "n" in "Kun" short-circuiting every few seconds.
Inside, the dojo was dim but alive—a mix of worn-out mats, smart punching bags, and ancient posters with faded Bruce Lee quotes, their edges curled like forgotten scriptures.
At the front desk sat a punky Chinese girl with half-shaved sides and a shock of blonde hair streaked with cotton-candy pink.
She blew a bubble the size of her fist and popped it with a snap as Max entered.
"First time?" she asked without blinking, chewing casually.
Max gave a short nod.
"Okay lah," she said, accent thick and unapologetic. "Sign forms, pay first, go inside."
A prompt popped into Max's neural display:
[Master Mok's Jeet Kun Do Liability Waiver + Pay-per-Lesson Agreement]
Gipsi chimed in:
"Standard liability release detected. Pay-per-session: 38 credits. Proceed?"
"Sign and submit," Max replied, blinking twice to confirm.
Without looking at him, the girl—now clearly distracted by a neural stream of her own—lifted a lazy finger and pointed toward the back room.
The sparring room hit Max like a time-warped wave of sweat, discipline, and memory.
The air was thick with the faint sting of Chinese herbal liniment, old wood, and dried sweat baked into the padded mats. The walls were lined with traditional weapons—staffs, nunchaku, butterfly knives—mounted between holographic training panels and motion capture nodes that blinked slowly like resting eyes.
The floors creaked slightly underfoot, despite the matte-black smart foam layered over them. Ceiling fans spun lazily above, barely disturbing the warmth.
From the center of the room, a compact man—maybe 5'1", all sinew and sinew—turned toward Max with a sharp smile. He looked carved from wire and willpower, no excess on his frame.
White ribbed tank top, black hakama-style martial pants, a faded red sash cinched tight at his narrow waist.
"Ahh… huānyíng," he said warmly. "Welcome."
"First time, correct?"
Max nodded once.
He wasn't built for this. Never had been. He was more quick wit than quick twitch, more code than combat. But something about everything he'd been uncovering—the creeping manipulation, the dark whisper in the net—told him it was time to stop relying only on tech.
Time to learn how to hit back.
The man, Master Mok, gestured casually to a wall cubby.
"Shoes off. Leave your things there."
Max did as instructed, setting his bag down and toeing off his sneakers.
Mok moved toward a wall-mounted touchscreen panel, its interface glowing soft jade green. His fingers danced over the surface, then paused.
Without turning around, he called out, grinning:
"Newbie lesson… or want the fun stuff?"
Max didn't hesitate.
"Let's do the fun stuff."
A prompt immediately bloomed in his Q-Link interface:
[Add-on Request: Jeet Kun Do Movement Protocol v4.2]
Includes: Tactical defense, offensive posturing, footwork scaffolding. Neural-muscular sync required. Approve?
[Gipsi]: "Permission to install Jeet Kun Do add-on to Q-Link?"
Max smirked, his usual deadpan melting into something darker, hungrier.
"Let's do this."
With his command, streams of code began flowing into his neural HUD—light-blue glyphs spinning and locking into place, lines of combat instruction cascading down the edge of his vision.
The sub-protocol initialized next, sending a pulse of energy through his spine.
His nervous system lit up—not pain, not pleasure, but something in between.
A thousand micro-movements triggered across muscle groups, mapping reactions, embedding form. His posture straightened instinctively, weight shifting to the balls of his feet. The balance felt… right.
Like his body knew what to do before he asked it to.
Master Mok circled him slowly now, hands behind his back, nodding slightly as he watched Max acclimate. Then he stepped in close, placed a light palm on Max's upper back, and spoke with the calm authority of someone who'd seen decades of street fights and worse.
"Remember… martial arts is for self-defense. Or maybe…"
He tilted his head, gaze unreadable.
"…to help someone who needs it."
"But never to attack without reason."
Max met his gaze and nodded once, firm and quiet.
No bravado. No empty posturing.
Only focus.
"Understood."
Master Mok's eyes crinkled with approval.