Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  Junior year passed, and finally we got word about Radha. She would rejoin us, for senior year.

  I had been at Raven Academy two years and gone through thousands of hours of education, training, lessons, and work. Yet, I still was unsure what the militia was for, or why I was putting in all that effort. I had mastered the GAGS, by having to pass through it at least twice a day. I was proficient with my gimp, as well as all the hand-powered weapons. And I could hold my own in the duties we all shared. From cleaning clothing to acquiring and preparing food. I was adequate to the tasks.

  I even found some time to throw toys for Marie to fetch. That dog was a very hard worker who seemed to love to be involved with us.

  Mom and dad were just as supportive as ever, on the times I spoke with them. Those interactions were on rain days, but I felt further and further from them. They would tell me about stuff on the farm, and I spoke to our sisters, and they tried to fill me in on what was happening in their school, but it was so different from what I was doing. Mom and dad knew even less than I did about why I was there. Of course, mom and dad told me about you. I really do not want to talk about that yet. Maybe, later.

  And then senior year came.

  Radha came back the same day we moved to the third floor. It was very early that morning, and the sky tube was just starting to illuminate our biome. The GAGS that morning was making us do 124 degree rotations and then dialing in a long sequence. Luckily, the sequence had been posted on the daily roster in the dining area. Some mornings the exit and entry code was a mystery, and we had to figure out some kind of mathematical puzzle, or answer some strange questions to get that sequence of colors. Some days there were two different codes, one for leaving and another for entry. Other days, it was the same sequence code. The emulator inside the GAGS always made it feel very real. Yet, after a year of doing it, that strangeness was routine.

  I do recall, now that I am looking back, at the series of questions for that day. The day Radha returned. They were much more important than I realized at the time. It was my morning to “get the sequence” as we called it. I walked up to the roster and there on the display were a series of questions.

  “Please differentiate between octopodes, cuttlefish, and squids. Below are questions you need to answer.”

  At first I thought it would be just a question or two. But, I went through a long series of questions, and called out to the others when I was unsure of an answer. In some, I had to identify various marine life from images on the display.

  After the first seven or eight questions, I said very loudly, “These questions are ridiculous! Listen to this! ‘Unlike other mollusks, octopuses and calamari have lost their what?’”

  “Lost their way back from the Foreigner?” Someone called out.

  “Have they lost the sequence to leave habitat Styx?” Someone else joked.

  “They lost their inhibitions and now are pregnant!” Matkaja surprised everyone by saying.

  We all laughed hard at that.

  “Seriously, I know that one, they lost their hard, outer shell,” Brett stated.

  I entered the answer. Then I read the next question. “Now it says, ‘This structure is completely lost in the octopus, while the squid still retains what?’”

  “A clean pair of underwear?” Carol suggested. She and Timofei were on laundry duty for that day.

  Kulm answered, “A vertebral column or backbone, but do not call it that. They have a fairly rigid structure, called a pen, that gives them support. Not a true backbone or vertebral column, but sort-of does the same thing.”

  I entered the answer and he was correct.

  I went on reading, “Oh great, it gets worse. ‘Which of the following have arms, and which have tentacles? Make your selections with the indicated buttons.’ And then it gives me a list of different types. Here are some, Ancistrocheiridae, Sepia apama, Enteroctopus dofleini, and the list goes on.”

  Carol spoke out, “There is a difference between tentacles and arms. While they are both appendages, in the broad sense of the term, it is an important difference. Tentacles have suckers only at the tips, while arms are generally considered to have suckers anywhere on the appendage. Also, tentacles are much longer than arms, in most species.”

  “But we are in Kansas,” I complained. “There are none of these things anywhere nearby. Why ask me this?”

  “It is the revenge of that tench that you caught,” Tudeng said with a big smile.

  “He already got revenge on me.” I rubbed my leg in mock pain.

  “Let me help,” Carol said and stepped over and just started punching the buttons answering the questions. It took her only a few moments, but then she smiled and announced, “It is finished. The code sequence for today is blue. Just a single blue.”

  Everyone laughed.

  As we took our turns moving out through the GAGS, we descended the stairs and there was Radha, along with Mister Fisher. Marie was sitting next to Radha who was stroking the dog’s head gently. Her light-brown eyes were big as she saw us all approach. She had her hair cut shorter than I remembered, but it was still a frizzy brown mess.

  I was delighted to see her return, but was not the first to reach her. There were hugs all around. As we all embraced her, Marie barked a few times but then moved off to circle around us.

  “Today, you will be moving to the third floor. When you reach there, you will be seniors. Our friend Radha has returned, as you can plainly see. She was not idle in her convalescence. She has met and surpassed all your training, including your physical fitness. I do ask that you not inundate her with questions about the incident. Now, follow me to the entrance for the seniors.”

  I knew we had been getting close to advancing to seniors, but Mister Fisher had refused to set a date for us.

  “Do we go back and get our gear?” I asked.

  “Not at this time. You will be getting some new equipment,” Mister Fisher responded. “Your personal items will be brought up to third floor by an automacube.”

  I turned and began to walk to the door we had always assumed was used by the seniors.

  “Kalju? Where are you going?” Mister Fisher asked. There was a light-heartedness in his voice.

  “To head up to the senior level.”

  “Oh, yes. Fine, just go try that door. Hustle up.”

  I jogged over and looked more closely at that door. It was set into the side of the building, and had an unusual, but not weird door handle. There was no color control pad, nor any other buttons or levers. I looked back at Mister Fisher. He and the others were watching me.

  “Go on, open that door. You are a senior now.” Mister Fisher waved his hand at me.

  I tugged on the handle, but the door did not open. I pushed on the door, but it did not move. I ran my fingers around the seam where the door and the frame met, and it felt very tight.

  Frustrated a bit I called back, “I do not know how to open it.”

  “Exactly. That is because it is not a real door. It is a maguffin, camouflage, a decoy, or a misdirection.” He turned to the rest of the class. “Does anyone else have an idea where the egress point to the third floor is?”

  Everyone started carefully walking around the lodge, and looking at the various places. Long ago we had learned that the clear permalloy door to the stairway never opened. So, we ignored that. I was certain there had been rare occasions when we had seen seniors moving about from somewhere and going somewhere else.

  Kulm finally called out, “I think I know where it is. Here by the wharf.”

  Marie came running at the yell from Kulm. Her ears were perked forward, and she was looking intently around for whatever had caused him to cry out.

  We all walked over and around to back there, but I was certain there were no doors there at all. The opposite end of the building had the armory, whose doors were locked securely. But the wharf end was just a blank wall.

  “There is some kind of space within the wall here.” Kulm pointed to the blank wall
.

  “How do you know?” Carol asked. “I see no controls or evidence of a door.”

  “I have paced off the lodge several times, and compared it to the interior dimensions of the first and second floor. The second floor has space for the GAGS, the actual space for it, not its perceived size. The first floor does not have a space for the GAGS, but both are shorter on the inside than the outside demonstrates. At the other end, the armory is about four meters deep. I took that into account, but the interior floor spaces are still too short on this end as well. Here at this end, there is a hidden chamber of some kind. I think it is about four meters deep, and runs the whole width of the lodge. Well, I do not know if it is hollow, or solid, but comparing outer dimensions to the inner ones shows something is here. I suppose that the wall could be very thick here,” Kulm responded.

  “There are no windows on this end. Not on the first floor, nor on the second,” Jane added. “But you did it all by pacing it off? Comparing the bedroom spaces, bathrooms, and everything? Why would you do that?”

  “It was because of the armory and that GAGS. I was trying to figure out how the GAGS was so big, well, it really is not so big, as it is mostly illusion,” Kulm explained.

  “Utilities could be inside there,” Bartlet added.

  “Right, but that would be a hug space for wiring, conduits, ducts, and vents,” Pilliroog said. It was the closest I had ever heard to him contradicting Bartlet.

  “Who knows how much tech and machinery is needed to run the GAGS, and whatever might be on the third floor?” Bartlet replied.

  “So, how do we get inside?” Kulm asked in a low voice. He reached out his hand to touch the wall.

  A blue light lit up. It was shaped like a hand, and waist high on the wall. I saw that there was a small blue light shining on Kulm’s watch as well. I had touched that wall dozens of times, if not more, and that had never happened before.

  “What are you?” Kulm asked and pressed his hand into the hand-shaped symbol. A blue light engulfed his hand for a brief flash.

  Hidden seams parted, and an elevator door hissed open. The inside was not quite as deep as Kulm had guessed, but it was close. The elevator car was about four meters wide.

  “I found our way in!” Kulm stated.

  Marie barked happily, bounding around and wagging her tail.

  I joined the others as we all got into the elevator. Marie, the dog, did not follow us in, although she really wanted to join us. Inside the elevator, Kulm stood near the controls. There was a column of buttons with common symbols on them. The second from the top was lit up. I assumed that mean the top button was for the third floor. However, there were four other buttons below the one that was illuminated. I wondered what that meant.

  “Head up to the third floor,” Mister Fisher said. He leaned in and pressed the top button which had the symbol of a bed on it. “You may select individual rooms now. Get dressed in the new uniforms, and be ready for new activities in thirty minutes.”

  The elevator doors closed, after he withdrew his arm. It was my first time to ever ride in an elevator, and it was really sort-of a disappointment. We just gently rose up and the elevator opened onto the third floor.

  “This elevator only took up a fraction of the space at the wharf end of the lodge,” Kulm said. “I wonder what is in the rest of that space?”

  “Mysteries, wrapped in riddles, surrounded by puzzles, and hiding an enigma,” Tudeng said in a bit of awe. “I had no idea the end of the lodge contained an elevator. Anything could be hidden around here.”

  “Or maybe just simple and necessary stuff, like just more utilities,” Bartlet said. “There has to be utilities for all these fancy things. The GAGS on the junior level, and this elevator here.”

  “I agree with Bartlet,” Pilliroog affirmed.

  “Look there,” Timofei said as he walked off the elevator and up to a rack of hooks.

  Hanging in a long row were specialized jumpsuits. Each was gray and white colored. They were hanging in alphabetical order, as the names were stenciled on them. I found mine, and snatched it off the hook. It looked like it would fit me perfectly, but it was made from materials I could not recognize. The jumpsuit was soft, and yet very tough. As I rubbed my fingers over the materials, I found that there were tiny fibers embedded into the materials. They were not quite wires, but somewhat of a grid of tiny things inside the material of the jumpsuit. I noted that stacked neatly below the jumpsuits were underwear, socks, and new shoes. Some of the class called them boots, or hikers, but to me footwear are all shoes. Those also had our names stenciled onto them.

  “Private rooms now. Is that what Mister Fisher said? So, I guess that means no more roomies,” Brett clasped my back. “You were a good roommate.”

  “You too,” I replied. I had never had a room of my own before, as you know, and at that moment I was a bit afraid. I refused to let that show, but in its own way, this move to the senior level was as odd as the GAGS had been roughly a year before.

  The senior level was almost all just bedrooms. Six bedrooms on each side of the floor with a long hallway down the middle. There were some closets in between the bedrooms, but those closet doors were locked with color pad controls. So, that meant there were twelve individual rooms, each having a private toilet, sink, and bathtub with shower. I could not tell any difference between the rooms, as they all looked identical. They were big!

  Since all the rooms looked the same, bigger and nicer than I expected, I just let the others take their pick. Some wanted to be on a certain side of the lodge, so as to get sky tube light at a certain angle, but that did not matter to me. I did see that one room would not have an occupant, just as one of the hooks and small shelves had been empty as well. That was Everett’s spot, and seeing the naked hook, and an unused room made me wonder about him. But I asked no questions, nor did I share my feelings with anyone until telling you that here. Gone was gone, as I learned so often later.

  Well, my room had a nice bed, a bigger desk than my prior room, and its small window looked out over the river side of the lodge. That was fine with me, as I was not one to waste time gazing out of windows. None of us had time for that. Oh, did I say it had a private toilet and bath? That was a nice surprise. I suited up and the jumpsuit did fit perfectly. Even those shoes fit well.

  “It is almost the thirty minutes,” Bartlet called out to everyone. She had tied her blonde hair back into a ponytail.

  “You heard her,” Pilliroog added. “Are we all ready?”

  “But for what?” Timofei asked.

  I caught sight of Radha and she was suited up. Her face was not so much stern as it was sort-of just void of expression. I wondered about her, and hoped she was really recovered.

  Mister Fisher’s voice came out from each of our wristwatches. “Seniors, please descend in the elevator to sublevel A. There you will receive gear, and your first training session will begin.”

  The elevator opened and we all stepped inside.

  “What button is for sublevel A?” Matkaja asked.

  “The glowing one, maybe?” Bartlet punched the button, but gave a slight grin to soften her sarcasm.

  Down the elevator descended.

  “Are you pacing off the distance?” Timofei asked Kulm. “That was a pretty neat trick you did to learn about the floor dimensions.”

  “Rather hard to do in an elevator going down,” Kulm replied. “But I wonder what we will find down there.”

  “The garage is below ground. I was there when I arrived,” I added. “Maybe we will be driving vehicles?”

  I saw one student roll his eyes at me, but no one said anything more.

  The elevator came to a rest, and I thought we were one level down from where we had gotten on, but my experiences in the GAGS made me question that. A vast open chamber was before us. It was only dimly lit. Sitting just in front of the elevator was a table with red handguns on it.

  Mister Fisher’s voice came from our wristwatches. “You will each ta
ke a training handgun. They are charged and ready for this exercise. Your mission is to cross to the other side of this room. Your training handgun will function in the same manner as your G1MP does. The training handgun does not shoot an actual projectile, as does your revolver, so I am using the generic term handgun. However, you will treat the training handgun just as you would treat your G1MP. You will need to open the training pistol in the same manner, and insert the training bullets. It shoots an old-style, laser of low intensity. Once loaded, you will have six shots. For this exercise, you will not be able to reload.”

  “There is nothing to shoot,” Timofei observed. “So, this is all for the weight and feel of carrying the gun?”