Mr. Jammers finally finished shouting into the school phone and hung up. He glared at me, then stomped over to the desk holding my test paper.
“You came in late, so you've already lost time. Get started so we can get this over with.”
I took my paper and began. Thinking still hurt, but I was pretty sure I was remembering my math strategies right and so I worked as quickly and carefully as possible. In the past, the longer I worked on the tests, the more likely I was to suddenly go blank and stop remembering information. After getting hit today, I was especially worried about that. So I worked as fast as I dared.
And at first, I dared to work pretty darn fast. The information still came easily, and the math problems weren't too hard. For about twenty minutes, I felt like I was at the level I was before my head injury. Halfway through, just as I feared, everything began to get hazy. I started to feel a lot less confident about some of my answers. At the last quarter of the test, I started seriously second guessing my answers. By the very end, I was forced to guess on the final handful of questions.
“Time's up for the math portion,” Mr. Jammers said. “Put down your pencil and pass your test and scan-tron forward.”
For a second I worried that my head was acting up and there really was someone in front of me, then I realized Mr. Jammers was just being a jerk again.
Mr. Jackass took my old test and passed me the science portion. “Your science portion of the test begins now. You have an hour to complete this portion of your test. Any portion not completed will be considered incorrect-”
He got blurry for a moment and his voice sounded distant. I shook my head to try and clear it. That gave me a sharp, stabbing pain, but my vision and hearing got better.
My memory didn't.
I stared at the first question, scratching my brain to try and remember who Marie Curie was. I skipped the question and moved on. The next question I remembered: definition of an isotope. The third question I completely blanked on, as well as the question after that. And the question after that.
And the question after that.
Tears began to form in my eyes.
“No,” I whispered.
“No talking during the test!” Mr. Jammers said from his desk.
I clenched my fist in frustration as material I had been studying for the past six months, had recalled perfectly for the past several weeks up until this very morning, slid away from my mind. Again and again I asked myself the difference between the different light waves, between strong and weak force, the formula for velocity.
Nothing, every single time.
I needed to pass all three tests today to save my scholarship- English, Math, and Science. I had passed English for sure. I might have passed Math. But out of the fifty science questions, I had only answered ten. And five of those were complete guesses. For I don't know how long, I just sat there trembling. My hand shook, the pencil in it bobbed all around. Then, still trying to hold back tears, I began to fill in random answers, knowing it wasn't good enough and knowing that I had just failed my science test again, for the third time in a row, and lost my scholarship for sure.
I had not even finished randomly bubbling in answers when I heard Mr. Jammers smugly call out:
“Time. Put your pencil down and pass your test forward.”
I put my pencil down. Mr Jammers must have seen my surprise, because his face grew even more smug. “Didn't you hear me call out your remaining time at the proper intervals?”
Judging by the look on his face, he probably hadn't, but I couldn't be sure and would never be able to prove it. When he finally came by and saw that I wasn't even able to finish the test, his smile was positively disgusting.
“Congratulations on finally being done with it all,” Mr. Jammers gloated. “Now, you can finally stop worrying about these tests. Pass or fail, we're both done with them for good.”
I couldn't even look at him. That's how low I felt. Too low to even look at someone like Mr. Jackass in the eye. If I could have crawled out of there I would have- but that brought the sickening thought that if I fell again, I would have to crawl out of there. And I'd need someone's help to get back up. I got out of my desk and grabbed my bag and cane. Mr Jammers' smug voice called out to me one more time:
“I'll make sure your tests get graded and recorded as fast at possible, so don't worry. You'll know very quickly just how much your hard work paid off. And so will everyone else- after all, surely everyone's going to be proud of you.”
Chapter 5: Rock Bottom
Mother was my ride to school, but her work wouldn't allow her time to pick me up afterwards. Davelon, after arguing that I should go to the hospital one more time, dropped me home.
I got home before Mom did, so when she came in she found me sitting in the living room.
“Wes, what happened at school today?” Mom said with a concerned voice as she set down her purse. “I got a message from the school saying there was an incident. Did you fall again? Are you okay?”
How did your test go was what she really wanted to ask me, I knew. Don't get me wrong, I knew she worried about my health, but I had fallen so many times over the years that she knew that I was fine because I was sitting down calmly, and not still spasming on the floor. It's been two years. The woman had learned to read the signs.
I shook my head slowly, wincing at the pain it caused. This was supposed to be the part of the day where everything I'd done over the year had finally paid off, and that I got to tell her about it. The part of the day where I got to tell her that I had proved everyone wrong. That no one had believed me about the bullies, but it was alright because I had figured out how to deal with them on my own, and managed to pass my test without any accommodations. Today was supposed to be a good day.
“Wes?” Mom repeated.
“Bad day,” I whispered, still not looking at her. “It was a bad day after all.”
“Wes,” Mom repeated in her patient, trying-not-to-panic voice. “Honey, tell me what went wrong. Did you trip again? Did... did something happen on your test?”
“Didn't trip,” I replied, which was technically true. I still couldn't look at her. I had told her I could handle today. I was wrong. But I had tried to continue anyway. Not that it still mattered.
Not that anything mattered anymore.
“Aced English,” I continued. “Think I passed math. Science...” I couldn't finish.
“Oh honey,” Mom said, clearly disappointed, but trying to be supportive. “Honey please...”
She knew I was just as disappointed as she was. And the irritating thing was, even though I had still failed and lost my scholarship, this was still was the best I had ever done on these tests.
“Honey are you sure?” Mother continued kindly. “Maybe you did better than you thought you did.”
Maybe. It wasn't likely, but maybe.
My phone beeped in my pocket. Without much energy, I pulled it out and checked the message.
“What is it? Mother asked.
I gave a short, dark laugh.
“It's from the gaming journalist who wanted to interview me. He says they were contacted and informed that I may have cheated this morning, and so they're postponing any interview until Heroes Unbound investigates.” I looked at an earlier message. “There's also an email from Heroes Unbound itself, saying that they received an anonymous tip that I may have gotten help from one of their employees, or ex-employees, before I attempted this morning's raid on the dragon.” I chuckled again, no brighter than I had before. “They want to know exactly how I know ex-employee John Malcolm, and what my exact relationship with him is. They also want to know the last time we talked, probably so that they can see if he had passed on any secrets to me.”
“Are you serious?” Mom said acidly. She had good reason.
As I had mentioned earlier, John Malcolm, my father, had died over two years ago- long before work on the brand-new boss had even begun. As soon as Heroes Unbound finishes checking their records, t
hey'll realize that and feel really stupid. But whoever gave them that tip won't care, because they had to be someone who had known both me and Dad and just felt like opening up an old wound.
Mom snarled, but the phone rang behind her. It was odd that the old landline rang. And yes, we still have a landline phone. I don't know why. She stomped over to pick it up.
“Yes?” She answered. “Speaking. What? Are you sure? That fast? That's unheard of. I thought it would take weeks! Because it always takes weeks! Even though it's all on the computer- oh.... well I understand you're as eager for results as we are... I'm glad to hear-what? What? Are you sure? Every single one? But I just talked to him! He seemed so- I don't care! And yes I'm going to insist I see the results! That's the only way I'll believe news like this!”
My mother slammed the landline back down onto the receiver. “That was the testing company,” She said flatly. “They said they've already graded the results, with the exception of your writing essay.” She was glaring. “They said you've failed all three tests.”
The room spun again.
“What?” I asked.
“You heard me.” She stated flatly. “All three. Including the one you said you aced.”
That didn't make it any sense. I had felt completely confident about almost a hundred percent of my answers on the English portion. I could understand it if someone didn't like my essay, but they hadn't graded that portion yet. How could I have possibly been that wrong about my results?
“I don't understand,” I finally said.
“I think I finally do,” my mother growled. “You've mainly been doing two things these past months: study, and play. We both know studying isn't the problem. So either the testers are wrong about your grades, or you're wrong about the reasons you're gaming.”
That contradicted everything I knew to be true about this past year. I've already mentioned the improvements I've felt to my balance, headaches, and memory.
But then again, I've been wrong about everything else today too.
And either way, I had no future now. I was never leaving this town. I was never leaving this place where all but a handful of people either hated, judged or pitied me.
“I think it's time we re-evaluated how much time you play,” my mother said firmly. “Because what we thought was working clearly wasn't. I should have gone with my gut about this from the beginning.”
“No,” I said quietly.
“What do you mean no?” My mother shouted. “And why are you getting up? I'm talking to you!”
I shook my head again. It hurt even more this time, but I limped past her to the room where I kept the VR headset and harness.
“Not working,” I replied. It was getting harder to talk in complete sentences, so I knew I was running out of time to do what needed to be done. “Not worth it if it doesn't work.”
I had apparently been wrong about my progress for the past six months. For all I knew this was the most coherent I've ever been.
“It's just an escape after all,” I said, reaching for the headset and stumbling as I did so. My speech was slurring now. “To a place where I don't hurt. To a place I can't stay in,” I raised the helmet high. “It's not worth it,”
I smashed the helmet down on the ground.
“What are you doing?” My mother screamed. She sounded frightened. “Wes, stop! That's expensive!”
So she didn't hate my games after all. But it didn't matter anymore.
I slammed the headset down again and again, hard enough to feel like my own damaged, worthless head was hitting the ground instead. And unlike my head, the thousand dollar helmet was proving indestructible.
Huh, I thought, finally dropping the headset and giving up. If I had been wearing this today instead of a thin leather helmet, I might have shrugged off the attack earlier today. Speaking of which...
I dropped the headset and jerked off my beanie, feeling for the back of my head. The leather felt warped, dented somehow, but I supposed that made sense.
… Or did it?
Everything was getting fuzzy. Mom was yelling about something again. She sounded even more scared than before. But I felt so sleepy it didn't bother me. I tried to lie down, but my hand slipped and I hit the ground, much faster than I intended.
For the second time in one day, everything went black.
Collecting scan results. Reviewing data below and generating report written by staff. Device is returning to internal monitoring.
New Log of Subject Anonymous, Flagged Entry:
The recent brain scans indicate a serious and unhealthy degree of brain instability, far beyond recommended and even necessary parameters. The brain patterns match the given description of the subject's self-destructive behavior and are consistent with those considering further self-harm and even suicide. All accounts show that current containment protocol is to blame- both the primary containment and the supporting methods. Our team's official consensus is that continuation of current methods will, not might, will, result in both the termination of the subject and ultimate failure of our final objective. It is urgently recommended that all containment methods be drastically reduced in both frequency and intensity, if not removed altogether. In fact, the teams' unanimous consensus is that no containment protocol be enacted for at least a month, both to preserve the subject and to see if he finally yields relevant data when he is no longer under such high levels of duress.
I am sending this log via the direct channel, to ensure its timely receipt and to ensure my recommendations are recorded and viewed by all parties.
Let's be frank, Rhodes. Our lives are depending on the success of this project. If it fails, and fails especially without providing any useful data and fails entirely due to factors we caused – and by 'we' I mean you- the boy will not die alone. You will, and possibly so will we, but at least this way there will be a log detailing exactly whose fault this is. So adjust the damn parameters before we all get killed.
Respectfully,
Brogen, Medical Lead.
Seriously, Rhodes. Don't fuck this up.
End of Report.
Chapter 6: Go Tunneling
During one of the football games my sophomore year, I had been injured in a freakishly bad collision. I was a tight end trying to catch a difficult pass. Somehow three other players slammed into me, twisting my torso one direction, my neck another direction, and my head a third direction (if it's hard to imagine, just picture yourself trying to look as far sideways as you can, while slowly rotating your neck around in a complete circle, while being bent into a pretzel at the same time). I was knocked out instantly. When I woke up, the doctors told me that I narrowly avoided a broken neck. Instead, I had a concussion, something that would go away as long as I got plenty of rest.
I got plenty of rest.
And it never went away.
Instead, it got worse. My headaches turned into dizzy spells. My dizzy spells turned into balance problems, meaning most days I could only walk very carefully, with the aid of a cane or a hand on the wall. I started having memory problems for the simplest things. Like genuinely, honestly forgetting what my Mom had told me to do less than five minutes ago, or some trivia fact I had been quoting for years. Just imagine one day waking up one day and not recognizing a single Monty Python reference. If you have any friends that have heard of Monty Python at all, that will scare you.
Needless to say, my grades begun to suffer. Not at first. I had thrown myself into my schoolwork to distract myself from Dad's death and actually gotten entered into a rare scholarship program available to students before their senior year. All I had to do was pass a test at the end of the year.
After my disability, I had failed the test two years in a row. But because of my disability, my mother and therapist had both written to the scholarship program, detailing my situation, and they agreed to give me one last shot. That was this year.
I failed that shot.
There was no point in asking for a fourth chance. I had finished
out secondary school trying to pass the test with nothing to show for it. To have failed so spectacularly at the end meant that everything I knew to be true was not.
I was getting worse, not better.
The jocks were right. My head was crippled after all.
The only good thing was that it had answered the question I used to hear people whisper in church: no matter what my genes and my choices, I would never turn out to be a pervert like my father because I would never get the chance. Heck, I could donate my brain to science and let doctors study this mysterious, incurable disease to their heart’s content.
Speaking of doctors…
Black became blurry. Blurry became a hospital room.
Downfall And Rise (Challenger's Call Book 1) Page 5