Quicker

by Laurence Dahners

  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.

  That said, Ell didn’t comprehend her instructor’s Machiavellian plan. She’d been shown a full speed, then slow motion video of an apparently easy routine. She had no idea that the gymnast she’d been watching had won a gold medal in the last Olympics. Then without an opportunity to realize that most of her classmates wouldn’t even be able to mount the bars, she was called to the front of the class to try it, while she was deep in her zone due to her anxiety over being singled out first. By now her pulse throbbed very slowly in her ears.

  She paused, hoping to damp down her zone. Mabry yelled, “What are you waiting for? The bars don’t come to Mohammed!” In what seemed like very slow motion to Ell, she ran a few steps, bounced on the mounting springboard, and leapt up to grasp the high bar while intentionally over extending her hips well beyond what the video demonstration had shown. Then she “kipped” by kicking her legs up into flexion and then kicking them back, thrusting herself up to an arms extended position, hips against and shoulders above the bar. Deep in the zone, this felt very, very easy to her. Her movements felt like they were in very slow motion and so she carefully positioned herself in significantly more flexion than had been demonstrated in the video, then she thrust her hips against the bar and kicked up into a handstand on the bar. She made the handstand shaky and wavery, pretending that she could barely balance on the bar and hoping that she wasn’t overdoing it. The Lieutenant hadn’t said anything so far, so she dropped out, under and back up the other side of the bar to another handstand. She swung back down, released for the demonstrated transfer to the lower bar and continued on to perform the entire simple routine that had been demonstrated on the video including the dismount. The entire time Ell continued to perform markedly below her capability, placing her hands differently than she had seen in the video, making unsteady, bobbling handstands, moving off center on the bars, bending her knees unlike the demonstration and then she purposefully fell down on the dismount. She had no idea that the mistakes she purposely made, which seemed large to her, were actually relatively minor and wouldn’t have cost very many points in a college competition.

  Joy was in the class and told Phil about it later. “So Instructor Mabry was spotting for her to fall on the mount like the rest of us eventually did, but Ell just whips on by and does the whole routine! Mabry is just standing there with her mouth hanging open, then getting more and more pissed. By the time Ell fell down at the end, Mabry is red in the face. She’s looking down at her clipboard, then she looks up at Ell and bellows. ‘Cayydet!’ she looks down at Ell’s nametag, ‘Donsaii, is it?

  “Yes ma’am?

  “The info you filled out for PT at the beginning of this semester didn’t say anything about you being a gymnast! If it did, you wouldn’t be in this class! Did you think you could just slip in an easy grade this way?’ And Ell gets a real meek, ‘I screwed up’ look on her face and says ‘No Ma’am.’ And Mabry says, ‘How many years of gymnastics have you had? And Ell, timid as can be, says ‘Two years Ma’am.’

  Ell carefully never told anyone how old she had been when she took those two years.

  Mabry was one of the coaches for the Academy’s gymnastics team and two years or no two years, once she got over her tiff she realized she had a potentially excellent gymnast on her hands. She immediately started proselytizing Ell to try out for the team. There were a lot of benefits to being on a team at the Academy especially for Doolies, not the least of which was a chance to eat at the “training tables” and not spend your meals sitting at attention.

  Ell gave a lot of thought to her resolution to avoid sports and focus on academics. Eventually she decided that during her freshman year the benefits outweighed the costs. Therefore, when they announced that the “sign up” for “walk ons”, for various sports would be in the dining hall after the evening meal, Ell went to the gymnastics team table. Two first class (senior) cadets staffed the table, talking earnestly to one another. Ell arrived and stood at attention for a couple of minutes before one deigned to look up at her and say “What?”

  Ell looked down, saw the cadet’s name was Korsov and said, “Cadet Korsov, I would like to try out for women’s gymnastics Ma’am.”

  Korsov looked her up and down and said, “You’re pretty big. How much gymnastic experience do you have?”

  “Just a couple of years Ma’am.”

  “Oh, come on, Ms.” she looked down at Ell’s nametag, “Donsaii, is it?”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  “We’re not asking just anyone who ‘feels like it’ to apply. You need to have a realistic chance of competing at the collegiate level!”

  Ell focused on the wall behind Korsov, “Yes Ma’am, I believe I do Ma’am.”

  “Really?” Korsov said with a droll tone.

  Ell continued looking straight ahead, “Yes Ma’am.”

  “Well, port me your name and info here and I’ll get you put on the list for the tryout tomorrow at 4. But you’d better not be wasting our time.”

  “No Ma’am.” Ell had Allan send her info to Korsov’s AI and after being dismissed, headed back to her room.

  The next morning she received a posting to the gymnastics tryouts which specified what gear she should dress in and provided an excuse to relieve her from her other duties. She arrived at the gym just before 4PM and was able to watch some of the current gymnasts working on their routines before her tryout. Korsov shook her head when Ell arrived but she and another senior level cadet took Ell and two other “walk on” hopefuls over to the floor exercise mat and simply said “show us what you can do on.” Ell had hung back and jockeyed carefully to place the other two Doolie girls in front of her so they would go first. She watched them tumble across the mat, doing hand springs and a few dance moves. They weren’t as good as some of the college gymnastic videos Ell had been watching on the net but one did do a “double backflip.”

  When Ell’s turn came she was irritated to notice that Cadet Korsov wasn’t even watching her but had focused on one of the team’s gymnasts on the bars across the room. The other senior cadet, name unknown to Ell, waved for her to go ahead though, so she stepped out onto the mat, just slightly into the zone. Ell carefully scaled her performance, much of it consisting of elements she had watched on video but never performed, to be just a little better than the routine of the gymnast who’d been practicing her floor exercise when Ell came into the gym. However, it was far better than the performances of the two other “walk ons.” She finished back in the corner she had started from and found Korsov glaring at her.

  Korsov looked down at her e-slate. “Two years?!”

  “Yes Ma’am.”

  K
orsov and the other senior cadet looked at one another, then Korsov said, “That’s bullshit! But,” she shrugged, “you can ‘walk the walk,’ you’re on the team.” She looked at the other two girls and shook her head. Their shoulders drooped as they headed for the exit.

  Once on the team Ell spent much of her first couple of weeks trying to gauge how “good” she could safely be without attracting inordinate attention. After that, her stress level dropped so that she lost the tendency to immediately go into the zone when called on and once again only “zoned” when she actually wanted to.

  At first Ell watched the other gymnasts already on the Academy team and carefully performed just a little better than the worst girls on the team. After a while she allowed her level of performance to gradually build until she was the number five member by the time they started competing in meets. That was all the higher she wanted to go because Korsov was now number six. She intended to continue competing at that level for the rest of the season.

  Then she got caught up in team spirit at her first real meet.

  She’d missed the team’s first meet, a real shellacking by BYU because she’d had the flu. Therefore, Ell’s first actual competition was against Navy, a high-pressure Academy rival. BYU had had bigger and significantly better team but Navy was more their size and the team was anxious to get a win. Ell’s scores were good but not extraordinary on the first routines. The same was true on the floor exercise and the uneven bars but the competition was wrapping up and Air Force was just a little behind. As she came to the vault the team started rabidly cheering her on, hoping for a good score to result in a little “catch up.” Courtney, the team captain, came up to whisper in her ear. “Stay calm and just do the best you can, a good score on this could pull us even.” A little too excited with all the team fervor Ell decided to do one vault at a pretty high level. She purposefully dropped mildly into “the zone” as she began her run. The world slowed, her stride achieved great precision, she hit the board like a small explosion, then fired off the table into a Yurchenko double with a twist, holding back only moderately from a maximum effort. She stuck her landing but made it look like she might have to take a step by wavering a moment after she landed.