As the sun peeks over the horizon, I pack up the drums again. I’ve got monkeys to hunt.

Within ninety minutes, I’ve bagged another 53 monkeys in nineteen groups of two and three. One swing, one kill. I’m like Tim Hardaway IV, but with sticks instead of a basketball. Monkey skulls are apparently less strong than what I can manage with sticks.

On the 94th minute, I spot another group of two, and saserface one of them. It turns out not to have been a group of two. It was a group of about 20, and they all come screaming down the trees towards me. This one’s harder, but my speed and echolocation are godsends.

First one that hits the ground dies in a quarter second as I sprint over faster than it can slow down. The trick to the mob, which I probably should be running away from, is to make sure they can’t jump on you. I have to blur out of the way 3 times, as flying monkeys come from the trees, targeting my head. One of the three lands without a head, but there’s still eighteen monkeys chasing after me, and using trees like trampolines, trying to surround me.

There was a clearing back a hundred yards or so, and my rapid retreat is taking me in that direction. Once upon a time, my buddy Xuan told me a story about how his D&D archer escaped from 1000 orcs while starting with only 12 arrows. He ran away some, waited for an orc to pull ahead of the crowd and then shot it in the head. Then he ran away some more, waited for the next orc to pull away from the crowd, and shot that one in the head. By the fourth orc that got a double-ear-piercing, there was no longer any eagerness on the part of any of the orcs to be out front. Running away then became a lot easier, and Xuan was able to make it to the nearest fortified town 36 hours later. He told me later that hadn't invented the strategy, just copied it from somewhere.

I don’t have to run for 36 hours. That’s good because I certainly don’t have that kind of endurance. On the other hand, I am able to use Xuan’s trick with sprints and by the time we hit the clearing, we’re down to sixteen-ishmonkeys, and their new caution means I haven’t had to whack one in maybe thirty yards. It’s hard to count since they’re all moving.

As I back into the clearing, three more rush me together, and Snap Crackle Pop, we’re down to a baker’s dozen. The tail was Pop.

Now I’m in the middle of a circle of angry monkeys, and it looks to me like I’m gonna be using healing gel in another few minutes. They act like a pack of wolves, and nip at my heels any time I’m facing away from one group. Unfortunately for the monkeys, there are two problems with that strategy. First, I can see behind me, so the blindside heel-nips don’t work at all. Second, I’m three times as fast as I used to be; at least twice as fast as they are. So they nip in to get a heel, and I turn and break another skull. Simple overhead strike with a forward rush is an amazingly strong move in escrima if the opponent is both too slow and too weak to stop it.

I still can’t count the little bastards, as they jump about and screech at me. I step forward to threaten the two in front of me, and I miss the step. As I wobble for a sec, five monkeys head in from different sides. I recover my balance, and hit two: one in front and one in back. But it’s not fast enough to avoid monkeys getting to me. In a split second I’m bleeding as my jeans suddenly have a dozen rips in the back of my right thigh. Damn, they have a bunch of claws. At least it doesn’t seem to be too deep. My hamstring is still working. I feel some thumps on my back and I see one sink it’s teeth into my bicep. Or try anyhow. Turns out the Kong jacket is tougher than mini-me’s teeth. I’m able to brain the one chewing my jacket, and I think my stick breaks the leg of the one that was trying to claw my back. Sent it spinning like a corkscrew. The one that got my leg gets away, back to his herd. Herd? Flock? What’s monkeys? A Circus. He got back to his circus.

Eight against one feels a lot better than twenty. Even with my leg stinging and dripping, a dash forward and two side swings is too much for the two front monkeys to handle. A quick reversal, and I do the same thing to the two monkeys trying to hobble me. Suddenly, we’re down to four on one, not counting gimpy. This time I fake a trip, and all four commit. Upswing with my tail stick splits the back monkey’s hip. My thrust up and under the right side monkey’s ribcage ruptures something, to guess from all the twitching on the ground. Left got a strong backhand across the temple. No brains showing, but not moving. And my newly discovered turn defense has the 4th monkey landing on back of my monkey-proof leather jacket. Four limbs of claw against the tough leather gets it exactly nothing. It doesn’t survive the combined push-off and three simultaneous sticks.

B plus.

Sensei Phuc is not good for my GPA.

I gel up my leg, collect the coins from the score of dead monkeys lying around, and consider heading back to Alec to get some drumrest. Nah. Sleep is for the weak. Unless you're super tired, then it's for the week. I continue on.

Three more hours of hunting big groups, and I haven’t been as careful. Mental fatigue is a thing. I’m down two tubes of gel and one leg of jeans but up five more o-thaums. That puts me at nine and change. Worst injury was the monkey that tore a gash on the side of my head. Gel fixed it, but it bled for real. I shouldn't have gotten hurt. That monkey was only part of a foursome, not a big group.

After a bit of knife work, I have one pair of jean shorts, instead of a shredded half-pants thing. Wasn’t that a fashion thing in the 2040s? Whatever; not my thing, then or now. With my new jean shorts, and pile of o-thaums, I amble back home towards Alec.

I get there with no surprises, and settle into a thaum regeneration session. This time, it’s a focus on the Dead. With triple speed and a tail, I might be able to pull it off. I spend seventeen more r-thaums on gear, and spend four hours trying to play both Hart AND Kreutzman’s parts on a Drums into Space riff. By the end, I’m about ninety percent of the way to making it work, I’m covered in sweat, and I’m happy. Drumming will do that to a guy.