Molly whispered to Oskar, “Ten! Wow! My poor poonie!”
Several people overheard and laughed. The professor wasn’t amused. “Is there a problem back there?”
Molly had her turn blushing, as she said; “No, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Back to business then. The social structure is planned as a family of 2 adult males, 4 adult females, and as many children as possible. After the first generation, family structure can be changed to whatever seems to make sense at the time, provided all orientations and genders are treated fairly.
Regardless of participant age, reproduction between generations is banned for at least the first hundred years, again for reasons of genetic diversity. There will also be a strict rule against sex with any genetic relative, or the parent of any relative. Once you girls pop out a baby for somebody, no more hokey pokey with them, move along. The second and third children should be produced by the family’s two adult males. After that, find love away from home.”
“Children will stay with their mother’s family and should refer to parents as ‘Mom’ and the mother’s name or ‘Dad’ and his name. ‘Daddy Ross’ or ‘Momma Anchor”, and so on.” The class laughed at me again.
“All parents will take care of all the family’s children equally. Children will not be informed who their biological parents are until they need to know, in puberty. This is to reduce the emotional effect of any losses. Your new home is likely to be a dangerous place. You’ll do everything you can to avoid them, but there will be losses.”
“People will die. Maybe a lot of people.” He paused and let that sink in a moment. “If you can’t handle that, ‘The History of Music’ is down the hall. Class dismissed.”
–
I didn’t think there was any way I would make it. The training sounded very tough, and the other students hated me already. I sullenly walked to the front and spoke to the professor, “Sir, I’m sorry, but I don’t really think I’m right for this. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Miss Enka Karjala, do you know why I picked on you today?” I shook my head. He had pronounced my name correctly!
“To lower the others’ expectations of you. You’re going to be a big threat, once they find out about your abilities. Your program entry scores were only a little above average, but I noticed your history and your score details. You were the top student at your medical school, number one of 104, even though you were the youngest of them by two years. You dropped out after only two weeks as an intern, because a patient yelled at you.
As you might already know, your university entrance exam was the fifth highest score ever recorded. You are NOT some middle of the pack student. You’re an actual, bona fide genius.
Your program entry score was only a mediocre 825. Students don’t get the itemized scores. Out of a quarter million applicants this year, there were only eight perfect 100’s and two of those are yours. Take a look.”
He put his screen on the desk in front of me and pulled up the information.
Program entry exam results – Enka Karjala – 825
96 Math
96 Languages
100 Chemistry
98 Physics
99 History
96 Logic
100 Biology
93 Culture
29 Fitness
18 Social
“In sports, an anchor is somebody reliable, highly skilled, that others can trust as the core of their team. If I can teach you to socialize and be comfortable with people, you’re more than capable of being this mission’s Chief of Science and Medicine. I want to make you this team’s anchor.”
“Thank you, sir. I have an eidetic memory, but nobody seems to like me. Could you help me, please?”
“Do you think I’ll go easy on you because you’re special? Make you the teacher’s pet? Pamper and coddle you? That’s not my job. My job is to give you the skills you need to handle things on your own.
There will be medical instruments and six cadaver simulants in the room tomorrow morning. If anybody gives you trouble, you have my permission to beat their egos to a pulp with your mighty intellect. Tomorrow’s lesson is emergency field surgery, and you’re the instructor. Since you’ll be teaching one class a week, you’ll receive a pay increase, effective today.
Like they say, the fastest way to teach a person to swim is throw them in the water.”
Before I could gather the words to object, he turned and walked out.
–
The next day was terrible. I did my best to teach them, but the rest of the class were downright ignorant and stupid. They seemed to like me even less. Since they knew I was smarter, I seemed like a threat to their chances in the program. It was feeling hopeless.
I talked with Professor Morse at the end of the day. “This isn’t working! I tried the best I could, but they’re appalling! Their stitches are uneven and sloppy. A few of them got nauseous, just cutting into their plastic dummy! At least a quarter of them made mistakes that would have killed the patient!”
As I started to cry, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Enka, other than basic first aid, none of them had any medical training at all. Three quarters of the patients would have lived, instead of none. They went from nothing, to half-assed medics in a day. You did that. They don’t have to love you. They have to know they need you and they can trust you. You need their respect, that’s all.”
–
At lunch the third day, I was in the cafeteria line behind Oskar and Molly. I walked slowly enough to leave two or three meters between us. When they reached the end of the food line, the dessert of the day was ice cream. Molly asked him, “Vanilla, chocolate, or maybe you want a CHUNKY MONKEY, like ANCHOR over there.” The two of them started to laugh.
I’d done enough crying. NO MORE! I stomped over and screamed at her, with my nose nearly touching hers. I vented all my repressed pain and anger.
“MOLLY, YOU THINK I’M A MONKEY? MY SCORES MAKE YOURS LOOK LIKE SOMETHING DONE BY POND SCUM! IF I WAS AN AVERAGE STUDENT, YOU WOULDN’T EVEN BE A WORM!!!”
The whole cafeteria full of people stared at me, but I didn’t care. There must have been at least a hundred. I was vicious, cruel, and totally out of line.
“I’M AMAZED YOU CAN EVEN FEED YOURSELF OR DRESS YOURSELF IN THE MORNING! Your surgery lab yesterday was horrible! You got dizzy and nearly threw up, just cutting into a piece of plastic! Then you severed the carotid artery, trying to do a simple tracheotomy!”
She started crying. There was nothing she could say back to me. She knew it was true.
“Your patient would have been able to breathe, until you DROWNED HIM WITH HIS OWN BLOOD! I’d rather have a REAL monkey operate on me!”
When she ran out, I threw an orange at her and yelled, “Stupid Bitch!”
I blanched in shock, as I turned and saw the Dean in line. There were a General and a Major behind him.
The Dean commented, “Got that out of your system, did you? Good. Your class resumes in twenty minutes. Hurry up and eat.”
–
At the end of the week, we took a quiz and I knew I scored a perfect 100. I wasn’t on the list, and the top score was a 91. I saw Oskar and Molly were near the bottom and smiled.
When classes ended for the day and we started to leave, Professor Morse said; “Miss Karjala, please stay a moment.”