Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story) (11 page)

“Cadet Zabrisk reporting as ordered sir.”

“Sit down Zabrisk.” His professor waved vaguely at the chairs in his small office. Phil wasn’t sure if he was actually allowed to sit in the presence of a real captain. After a hesitant movement toward the chair, he remained standing. “Go ahead, sit! I forget how timid you Doolies are; don’t have many of you in my classes.” Phil sat but compromised by sitting at attention like he did in the dining hall. “You’re having trouble in the class? A lot of Doolies do when they test into it.”

“Yes sir, but I’ll catch up.”

“No doubt, but I don’t want you getting buried. It’d be a shame to have to ship you back to 201. How about a little help?”

“Help sir?”

“Sure, a few sessions with a tutor might dig you out of your hole before it gets too deep.”

“Tutor, sir?”

“You haven’t heard about the tutoring program?”

“No sir.”

“It’s another way you can work off demerits. You help cadets in a subject you’re good at instead of ‘marching tours.’ You yourself could tutor in 101 or 102 once you get out of trouble in 202. If you like, I can set you up with a tutor. Usually it’s an upperclassman in a neighboring squadron so you wouldn’t be tutored by someone who’s also responsible for your discipline. If you had a classmate in your own squadron advanced enough, they would tutor you so it would be someone you knew, but there wouldn’t be a Doolie advanced enough to tutor 202.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Good, I’ll put you in for it and the computer will assign a one on one tutor for you. You’ll get a message through your AI to report to a room in study hall for it. Dismissed.”

Phil went to his afternoon intramural session with mixed feelings. He feared that time with a tutor might be time wasted that would have been better spent studying on his own. Especially with a tutor who was pissed off to be working off demerits. An upperclassman would probably treat him like dirt anyway.

During dinner Chuck whispered in his ear that he was to, “Report to room 543 in the study hall at 1930 hours for your tutor session.”
Damn, they were prompt!

When Phil appeared at the appointed time at room 543 he was stunned to see Donsaii sitting there at the table. He had no idea that she was in Math 202! “What are you doing here, I thought these things were ‘one on one.’”

Ell looked embarrassed. “Are you here for a Math 202 tutorial session?”

“Yeah,” he said disgustedly, dropping into a chair across from her at the little table. “Shoulda’ known ‘one on one’ was too good to be true.” He felt he had adequately hidden his dismay that she was also in 202. He had always thought that, despite her phenomenal athletic feats, at least he was
way
smarter than she was. For sure smarter in math than anyone from Donsaii’s hick town.  Actually it seemed pretty surprising that her small town high school would have had the Advanced Placement math curriculum to let her place out of 101 or 102, much less 201!

Ell was horrified! Despite their horrible start, she really liked Phil. Sometimes she wondered why and hoped it wasn’t just because he looked so good with his shirt off. She didn’t want to be “so shallow.” His interactions with the other cadets were humorous and good spirited and everyone thought he was a lot of fun. It troubled her that he was so standoffish with her. This tutoring thing worried her because she knew he was proud and would be sensitive about being shown up. She hadn’t realized that he was in 202 and had never considered the possibility that he might come in for tutoring or she wouldn’t have listed herself available to tutor that level!

Ell hadn’t said anything so Phil looked over at her. She looked a little pinched and out of sorts. “This may be a mistake…”

“Oh, you aren’t in 202?” He kind of hoped his relief didn’t show in his voice.

“Uh, no… I’m working off demerits for painting the West Wall.” Ell practically whispered, as if saying it quietly would make it less offensive.

“
You’re
my tutor for 202!?” Phil was aghast.

“Yeah, sorry.” She grimaced, “We can get you assigned to someone else.”

Phil’s stomach knotted up. How in the Hell had she gotten so, so far ahead? “How? Morehead City schools couldn’t have AP classes that would get you past any of the math here at Academy could they?”

Ell made an embarrassed little shrug, “No. I’m just kind of a math freak. I like it so much I study this stuff on my own. It’s kinda easy for me ‘cause I weirdly enjoy it. Then the testing ‘placed me out.’” She stood and picked up her slate. “Sorry. I don’t think you should have to be tutored by one of your own classmates.”

Phil felt a little tingle run over his scalp.
Just kind of a math freak, huh? That’s not the only freaky thing about her...
He rubbed his head sheepishly. “Naw, that’s OK. I just hope you can help me get my head around this crap. What’s the deal on the demerits, I thought we didn’t get any?”

“The commandant came down on the Squadron. He told Captain Ayers that somebody ‘needed to march some tours for that stunt.’ I heard about it so I volunteered. Painting the wall had been my idea and I don’t mind tutoring anyway. I always understand things better after I explain them to someone else.”

Phil felt a little guilty. “You shouldn’t have gotten stuck with it alone. I can take some demerits too.”

“Aw, that’s a nice offer. But really, someone had to do it and it doesn’t bother me. If you don’t mind having me as a tutor, what are you having problems with in 202?”

Phil laid out his e-slate, “Here’s what I’m having trouble with.” By the end of the hour he was bemused to realize that she had explained the vector translation equations and the following math so succinctly and so clearly that he actually wondered why he’d been having trouble with it to begin with.

By the end of the week a few discrete questions had determined that Donsaii wasn’t in any freshman level classes. Jason had asked Joy and Joy had talked to Ell. She’d found out that Ell was not only taking quite a few 2nd year classes but almost half of her load was 3rd year classes! And, she “was killing them” with a 4.0 GPA! When Joy had asked about it Ell had, believe it or not, asked Joy to keep it quiet “because she didn’t want the other cadets thinking she was “a freak.””

***

Jamal dithered for a few days. Despite years of swearing that he stood ready to kill Americans by the thousand, and somehow even feeling as if he already had, he found that actually murdering another human being lay vile upon his soul.
What soul?
He asked himself over and over.
I’m supposed to be a soulless killer!

He considered fleeing into the vast anonymity of America. Only briefly, for he reminded himself, he really did want revenge. As he lay sweating in his bed he called up memories of Aki twitching in the dirt. Memories of the beetle headed soldier attempting to rape his mother. Memories of finally pushing back the box he cowered under and going out to view the ruined carcasses of his mother and grandfather. His resolve strengthened and he put out of his mind the many kindnesses done for him by new friends in this country. Yet, he could not bring himself to contemplate killing of someone he knew or had to look in the face.

Four of the five days grace had passed before Jamal developed a workable plan. Using cash he purchased work gloves at a hardware store on Grant Avenue. Late that afternoon he put on dark clothing and walked down Speedway to where it crossed over I-10. He stood on the overpass, watching the flow of traffic and dropping pebbles onto the cars as they went past. He chose an exact spot on the freeway below. If a car was at that spot when he dropped the pebble, the falling pebble would strike its windshield as it went under the bridge.

He walked back down off the overpass, put on his gloves and stole a concrete block from a construction site a hundred meters away. One of the hollow ones, the hole making a good handle as he trudged back up to the overpass. He looked out at the flow of car lights passing now that dark had fallen and centered himself over the left side of an oncoming lane.  He heaved the block up onto the rail, waited ‘til a set of lights passed his mark and pushed the block off. The block disappeared in the dim light. For a moment he thought he had miscalculated—but the physics of gravity remained as predictable as ever. The driver’s side of the windshield exploded in a spray of glass and when the lights of the vehicle came out from under the other side of the bridge they had swerved into the next lane. In a moment the vehicle rolled over and began to tumble down the freeway as headlights swerved every which way to avoid it. He realized the car must have been under manual control rather than AI. Even so, he was surprised the AI hadn’t been able to take over and prevent the driver’s swerve from crossing lanes and rolling the vehicle. Alarms were screaming, but by then Jamal had walked most of the way down off the overpass and could no longer see what was happening.  He threw the gloves into the trash bin at a Circle K nearly a mile from where he had obtained the block and walked back to his apartment.

He passed a strip joint on the way and briefly considered going inside – after all hadn’t his soul already been corrupted as much as it possibly could be?

Chapter Four

The sportscasters would later say that Ell “started serious gymnastics” her first year at the Academy.  This made it sound like she had been a “non-serious” amateur before that year. Well she had in fact done gymnastics before… for two years between the ages of three and five! Then her dad died and her mom couldn’t afford to send her to the kiddie gymnastics program anymore. At the Academy, the cadets rotated through a variety of different sports in their Physical Training sessions in the afternoons. They’d spend 4-6 weeks on Lacrosse, then move on to Soccer, and when it got colder, indoor sports like squash or basketball or boxing or… gymnastics. The Academy liked sports that developed reaction times; after all, one of the military Academies’ objectives was to produce fighters. Some people thought they didn’t spend enough time at any one sport to really develop any skill and that was probably true. Ell performed well, but not spectacularly at those sports.  At this point, by working frequently on her control, she was able to go into her own little version of the “zone” any time she wanted or needed her ability. More importantly, she could almost always keep herself out of the zone unless her stress levels were very high. She could usually control how deep she went into the zone as well. However, she still found herself unable to stay out of the zone when really frightened or angry.  The world still slowed down, her pulse a loud slow throb in her ears, other sounds becoming distant and her control-coordination, already much better than most people’s, becoming simply astounding.

After the incident where she had laid out Sergeant Mason, she worked even harder at controlling her speed when she was in the zone so as not to be seen as a freak. Yet, while she was in the zone, it was difficult for her to tell what would be possible for others or even for herself in her ordinary state. She had had enough experience by then to know that what she was capable of in the zone was frightening, not just to others, but even to herself after she came back down. Fearful of being recognized as an aberrant monster of some kind, she “pulled her punches,” so to speak, purposefully and carefully underperforming if she slipped into the zone in order to keep from calling unwanted attention to herself. In order to do this, she carefully watched the other cadets’ execution at whatever new physical endeavor was called for and, if or when she slipped into the zone, carefully used her ability to perform almost exactly, or only slightly better than the normal abilities she had just observed in the other cadets.

However, Ell’s gymnastic rotation started with a video demonstration of a basic, relatively simple routine of moves on the uneven bars, performed by an Olympic caliber gymnast. The moves were shown at regular speed and then in slow-mo to clarify what was happening and how. Of course such an “expert” made those moves
seem
easy. The instructor, like many of their PT instructors, had a bit of a sadistic streak. She enjoyed making it look easy with the video, then watching the Cadets fail on something that seemed like it should be easy. Her tradition included volubly “lowering her expectations” to what this particular group of “uncoordinated bumblers” could be reasonably expected to learn. Maybe a few giant swings on the bars, a good round-off on the floor and perhaps a simple end over vault that landed feet first. By no means “great expectations” but nonetheless, some improvement in physical agility and well worth its while for the average Cadet.

Unfortunately, Lieutenant Mabry looked over her clipboard and said, “Donsaii, up and at ‘em. Let’s see what you can do.” Ell felt shock course through her as she realized that she was the first one called upon to undertake their group’s first gymnastic routine! Ell froze initially so Mabry bellowed, “Donsaii, you here?”

“Yes Ma’am.” Ell stood and walked to the bars, trying to remain calm so that she could simply perform at “her own normal” level of coordination. The uneven bars routine had looked easy on the video but she wondered frantically how another cadet would perform on it. Was this more difficult than it appeared? Her anxiety level rapidly escalated at being first and “in the spotlight” without any guidance on how to perform. She couldn’t stay out of the zone when she was at the focus of so much attention. She realized she had serious stage fright but couldn’t seem to tamp it down. Her heart began to pound but then it seemed to slow down when the whole world slowed down while she powdered her hands. Lieutenant Mabry’s intention was for the cadets to try the mount, which was in fact not a high difficulty mount. Nonetheless, with no guidance, seldom did a cadet actually mount the bar, much less accomplish the second move in the routine. She had, however, shown a video of a complete, though simple routine on the uneven bars. Even though it was a low difficulty mount, the mount alone was quite difficult for the bunch of fully grown, non-gymnasts that Mabry was supposed to have in her class. This was guaranteed to produce amazing and hilarious pratfalls on their attempt. As she stepped up to spot for that expected fall, Mabry was looking forward to deriding the Cadet’s coordination.