Schooled

by Pamela Ruth Foland

  He nodded at her and cracked a smile. He looked like an approximately twenty-five-year-old human. His hair had deepened from chestnut to ebony, and seemed to want to fall across his face. His eyes were grayer. He was thin, almost anorexic. “Different from you expected?”

  Lyla nodded, “How about you?”

  He cleared his throat, “I was expecting more of my father. I have been blessed with this.”

  “Did it hurt?” She took up a seat in the bedside chair.

  “I feel like I was hit by a bus full of personal trainers. My muscles all ache, even the ones I didn’t know I had,” Goru answered, “Still, I want out of here. Tina, the doctor, wants to keep me for a few days.”

  “She is probably worried about complications. A lot of things could have gone so wrong. Have you seen the videos of the first children Briaunt engineered going through their metamorphoses? Their bodies tore themselves apart. There is a lot of scary videos on the net!” Lyla babbled.

  “Is this your way of saying you were worried about me?” Goru prodded.

  Lyla rocked back in the chair, “Yes! We could have lost you!”

  Goru chuckled, “Is everyone else this worried?”

  “I don’t know, I have been pacing outside of the infirmary since three am,” Lyla admitted.

  “You didn’t sleep?”

  Lyla squirmed, “I didn’t become unconscious per se, but I rested for a few minutes.”

  “Does anybody know where you are?”

  Lyla blinked, “I don’t know.”

  Goru facepalmed, “Lyla you come in here lecturing me about what could have gone wrong and you haven’t taken care of yourself?”

  Goru tapped the call icon on the table. Within moments, the doctor appeared, “What appears to be the problem?”

  “Tina, Lyla here hasn’t slept. She has been too preoccupied with my condition to consider her own.”

  “You went without sleep during the test,” Lyla accused.

  Tina smiled at them both, “Here is what I am going to do. Goru we wanted to keep you for a few more days, but if you insist on leaving I for one won’t stop you. You will have to keep the IV glove on and wear a monitoring device, but you can leave. Lyla I am placing you both on medical restriction. Neither of you can access your coursework or other ‘command’ level decisions until it is lifted. I want you both to rest. I won’t have you two establishing bad working habits this young. Lyla your mother is notorious for working herself past exhaustion. I personally have had to sedate her on numerous occasions.”

  Lyla eyed Tina. “Really?”

  Tina nodded, “Really.”

  “So I can go?” Goru asked as he started to get out of bed wearing the hospital gown.

  Lyla cleared her throat and pointed to his state of undress.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  Tina smiled, “You’re six foot three inches. You don’t have any, none of what you own fits anymore. Feel free to order something from the delivery cupboard. Come on Lyla, let’s let him dress.” Lyla followed Tina into the hallway. You can wait here for him and walk back with him. I do mean walk. No teleporting, it could lead to metamorphic complications. His mind is learning to position itself in space-time. Teleportation or even the use of a portal could mess with his psychic equilibrium.

  - - - - - - -

  Beaker sighted along the crossbow carefully. Then he pulled the trigger. The bolt hit the target squarely in the middle of the bullseye of his target. Milo and Stone each had bulls-eyes bristling with crossbow bolts. Beaker struggled as he reloaded his crossbow. Without his glasses the up close work was more difficult to see. He lifted the crossbow and sighted along the arrow. He hit the target again. It didn’t seem fair, Milo and Stone were able to shoot at a much nearer target. Because of his visual acuity Jinn had Beaker shooting at a more distant target. There was more he had to take into consideration in hitting the target, a breeze, gravitational pull, loss of momentum. Beaker sighed and struggled again to reload. He wasn’t sure the advantage of distance accuracy would serve him well enough to counter his slow reload in combat.

  Beaker wasn’t certain he wanted to be in combat. He enjoyed studying the various devices now available to him for biological and geological study. He especially enjoyed Millie as his lab partner. After another ten minutes, Beaker finally emptied his quiver. Jinn trotted over from his observation chair, “Milo and Stone are at the wall climb simulator. Go ahead and join them. I’ll get the bots to gather things up here.” Jinn handed him back his glasses. Beaker put them on substantially relieved that he could see nearby things again. He couldn’t wait until his adjustable focus lenses were ready. Of course Jinn would still make him take them off for target practice.

  Beaker walked down the path to the right of the sports field into the forest surrounding the school. At the path’s end there was a large simulated rock wall. It could be set to replicate almost any cliff climb discovered in the old omniverse. It was set on The Nose route of El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley of California. It was Stone’s favorite route. It seemed like every time he got to the simulator first that was what he chose. They were halfway up the face, free climbing it. They were able to do it without fear thanks to a piece of factor tech called a personal net. It protected its wearer from injuries resulting from a long fall. Theoretically it could work as well as a parachute at saving someone when they jumped from a plane. Beaker didn’t want to test it that far, but the past week he had been glad for it a few times.

  Beaker grabbed a net from the peg at the base of the cliff face. He wrapped it around his waist and brought the final strap up between his legs. With two clicks, it was in place and activated. He was about to attempt the climb when he heard Goru hollering from the path, “Hey! Beaker!”

  Beaker waved at him and waited for Goru to reach him, “What’s up?”

  “I have been medically released. Jinn wants you to show me the ropes… pun totally intended,” Goru replied.

  “Actually, there are no ropes,” Beaker pulled a net off of a peg and helped Goru strap it on.

  “So what? this pulls me up the cliff?” Goru asked.

  Beaker laughed, “I wish. You pull yourself up the cliff. This just keeps you from breaking yourself if you fall, or rather when you fall.”

  Goru nodded and began attempting to climb the wall. He did fairly well. Beaker was about to start up the face after him when he noticed the texture of the pink granite of the rock wall. He flipped through his readings on the geology of the Yosemite Valley in his mind. Reviewing that information was by far more interesting to him than the idea of climbing the simulated wall in front of him. He stood with one palm to the wall, remembering the various geological epochs that contributed to the form of the cliff face.

  Beaker was shaken from his internal review by Jinn placing a hand on his shoulder, “You have been here for forty-five minutes and haven’t climbed five feet. You may as well head on to your next class.”

  Beaker eagerly unstrapped the net and headed back towards the main campus. The walk cleared his mind a bit. It didn’t wipe away the focus of his thoughts. His next class was geochemistry. He checked his watch. Actually, Beaker wasn’t running as far ahead of schedule as he thought. He sped up. If he hurried just enough he could meet up with Millie as she left swim practice and headed towards geochemistry.

  He passed the pool building and spotted Millie rushing towards the academic building at a good pace. “Millie!” Beaker shouted. She stopped and turned to face him with a smile. Beaker sped up to join her. “Ready for class?”

  Millie held up her book bag, “Finished the readings this morning.”

  “Great! Today I think we are going to get to study lunar regolith today. I have never gotten to look at a sample of lunar soil before,” Beaker rubbed his hands together.

  “It isn’t actually soil. The term soil implies an organic component. There is no life on the moon,” Millie corrected him.

  “Look who did her readings.”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, but there is a big difference between readings and actually running tests and experiments. I have never really done much experimental science,” Millie responded.

  Beaker smiled, she was so cute, “Honey, It isn’t dissecting a frog. We’ll be doing simple step by step procedures. As long as we follow directions we can’t screw this up.”

  Millie eyed him with her wide doe-like eyes, “Have I mentioned, I love you?”

  Beaker blinked, “Not in so many words.”

  She pouted and offered him her lips, “I love you.”

  He kissed her and then confirmed it was mutual, “I love you too.”

  - - - - - - -

  Sport stalked the deer through the woods. He followed it by scent and by the spoor it left behind. It was wounded, not by him, but by the remnant of a barbed wire fence. Sport sniffed the air. It was significantly different than the canned air within the asteroid holding the school. Sport focused on the smell of blood. Sport glanced behind him at Cammie. She was Sport’s mentor, a razorwolf from the Palmfoot tribe able to walk on two or four legs with opposable thumbs which allowed her to use tools. Most comfortable for her was a natural four legged trot. She regularly brought him to the history of the Earth alternate that shared the Preserve with the school and many other worlds and asteroids. They hunted the countryside searching out wounded and sick animals needing their help.

  The animal population of the planet was around one quarter of what it had been before it was sucked into crunchspace by the universe devouring power of a crunch bomb. It was taking serious intervention by the students to help the life of the Preserve to establish stable breeding populations. They knew they were successful because in the future the planet had been restored to a pastoral paradise full of animals and plants overrunning ruined cities with their natural growth.

  Sport caught a fresh whiff of the deer’s blood. It had reopened its wounds. He worried if he didn’t locate it soon it might not make it, no matter how good at healing Faith had gotten. Ahead he heard a rustling in the brush. Cammie hopped up on two legs and drew her tranquilizer weapon. Sport spotted the deer and began edging around to cut off any escape. He was aware of her careful aim and was ready when the doe bolted from her hiding place after the shot. She didn’t get far, her legs crumpled beneath her. She lay panting with her breath slowly calming.

  Cammie approached the doe. It kicked at her before settling down completely. Sport trotted up to join her. She pierced the deer’s ear and placed an identification and location tag. Then she recorded the location of the capture and triggered the automatic transport function that would send the deer back to the school for medical care.

  “Good capture Sport,” Cammie thought to him. She didn’t have the physical capability for verbal speech.

  “Thanks, I was worried we were going to lose her,” Sport stated.

  “We got lucky, If we had been traveling through more open ground she would have had us,” Cammie thought.

  “What is next on our list?”

  Cammie pulled a tablet from her knapsack and tapped at it, “How do you feel about bobcats?”

  “I have never tried to track one!” Sport answered excitedly.

  “Then we are on our way to Colorado!” Cammie tapped her tablet and tossed a small floating cube into the air in front of them. The cube settled in at hovering six feet from the ground. Then it extended arms to either side and dropped a loop of cable. With a flash the loop turned into a portal. Sport stepped through and waited for Cammie. On the other side or the portal Cammie grabbed the cube and toggled the switch that retracted the portal. “This time we are going to use a stasis loop to transport the animal back to the school. Your job will be to herd the cat through the opening to the loop.”

  “How bad is the cat’s injury?” Sport asked.

  “It got caught in a snare. Its paw is in bad shape according to the survey bot,” Cammie stated.

  “Okay let’s get going!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Uh, Hi?

  Natto had been surveying the campus for weeks wearing a thin membrane over his face which could imitate almost anyone’s face. It was called a morph mask. Most of the students were too small for him to imitate them, but he had a sampling of young men’s faces which allowed him to go most places on campus. Of course the androids and robots could detect the mask, but they wouldn’t report him. They had no instructions to do so. It was wondrous what magnificent blind-spots these trusting fools had.

  Goru had run Refuge with an iron grasp. He had every last person and program watching each other suspiciously and reporting all anomalies. He would have stopped cold anyone behaving as he had. If he had been in charge, a dissident like himself would never have made it into the Preserve undetected. DNA tests would be mandatory on entry. Everyone would wear a remote pin programmed to keep track of their movements and conversations. Telepaths would be charged with patrolling the population and detecting subversive thoughts and telepathic communications. Nothing would get past him.

  He was not in charge. It took him three days to find his daughters. Ibu and Inu were housed in the purple dormitory unit. He followed them easily and learned from their discussion that Goru had been moved to the red dormitory. Finding him was much more difficult. Only nine students lived in the red unit, four females and five males. Of the males he had seen, none resembled Goru. It wasn’t until he took into consideration the concept that Goru might have gone through a metamorphosis that Natto detected his son.

  Goru looked nothing like Natto anymore, not even his coloration was the same. Natto followed his children for weeks, especially Goru. The only courses Natto really approved of were the physical conditioning courses. Goru was shaping up into an excellent marksman. Goru was enrolled in classes designed to indoctrinate him to Mae’s personal agenda.

  Speaking of Mae, one of Goru’s dormitory mates resembled Mae to an extraordinary degree. If Natto weren’t absolutely certain that Mae had not had a daughter, he wold be sure that brat was her spawn. Surely Mae would be unable to keep a pregnancy secret. The way the media followed every step she took out of her office. There were blogs about her meal choices at the various restaurants she visited. If she had born a child, why would she educate that child with the offspring of her personal enemy?

  Natto decided he needed to extricate his son and daughters. They were becoming too well entwined into the culture of this place. He had seen them smiling and joking with their peers. It turned a knife in Natto’s gut to see the Mae-child and Goru deep in pleasant debate of inane subjects. Surely Goru saw the resemblance!

  Given Goru’s friendly banter with his roommates, Natto decided to approach his daughters first. Ibu and Inu regularly hiked out into the woods to sketch nature in their journals. They offered the best opportunity for contact.

  One afternoon just before they were due to go on their hike, Natto headed out to wait for them in their favorite clearing. He chose the face of an unimportant student to make contact. Their giggling was the first sign of their approach, “Inu we can’t use that fabric for the bodice, it is too stiff it won’t cling to the curves.”

  “I like the look of it though. The embroidery reminds me of silver veined Tanerian roses,” Inu responded stepping out into the clearing, “Sorry Mikhail, we’ll find somewhere else to sketch.”

  “No, I wanted to talk to you,” Natto removed the mask, his voice didn’t match this “Mikhail,” so the ruse was ruined.

  Ibu gasped in fright, “Who are you?”

  Natto smiled, “Take a whiff.” He knew his offspring could recognize him by his scent.

  Inu sniffed the air, “It can’t be! He’s dead!”

  Ibu looked at her sister, “Who?”

  “This man is our father,” Inu replied.

  “Oh no, he died with the last omniverse! If he were alive, he would have stopped mother long before Andrea did!” Ibu argued, tears were forming.

  “I’m sorry. I had no way to extricate you from your mother’s
custody. I would have had to reveal myself and Mae Amante would have had me jailed,” Natto apologized.

  Ibu ran towards him and began pounding on his chest, “You let her beat us! We had to scrounge for food. We wore rags!”

  Inu stayed back just glaring at him, “Goru hates you now! He is going to become a factor and work for Mae! And it is because of you! If you had saved us, we could have been a family!”

  “I am here to take you away. There is a whole omniverse out there. We can still be a family!” Natto argued

  Ibu stopped pounding her fists and wrapped her arms around him. She hugged him like a lifeline. “Don’t let us go. We’ll come!”

  “I want your brother to come too,” Natto stated. Never-mind that if he had to choose one child to accompany him, it would just be Goru.

  “That is going to be tough. He is one of the headmistress’s prized students. He and his friends did something or other during the stupid placement test. She chose them out of all the students to be her personal students,” Inu stated, “He doesn’t even pretend to care about us anymore.”

  “I want you girls to offer up an olive branch to him. Invite him for a picnic. I’ll be waiting and will introduce myself to him like I did to you,” Natto outlined a plan.

  “He is going to want to report you!” Ibu warned with concern.

  “They make you out to be a monster! It is like he believes them!” Inu agreed.

  Natto nodded. He expected that much. Actually, he had expected more resistance from his daughters as well. “I’ll give you both stun capsules. If he starts to get too agitated, you can just stun him. Then we’ll put him through a loop until we can get him out of the Preserve. Outside we’ll have plenty of time to deprogram him.”

  Ibu and Inu nodded, “When are we going to get him?”

  “The sooner the better. The longer he is with these people the more lies they can tell him. Remember this is for his own good, so we can be a family. A real Family!” Natto smiled broadly.