AN: Hello, readers, and friends! This chapter came sooner than even I expected. Nonetheless, here it is, and it is a chapter I am pleased to have written. This chapter was written after coming to terms with the loss of a dear friend. From that, I desired to turn pain and frustration into productivity and progress. Honestly, I have God to thank for that. There is also a second reason this is so early. This coming week is mid-terms for my college, and I knew I would not have time to write as I usually would due to the crunch time for studying. So, there's not going to be a new chapter this coming week.
I thank all of you for your steadfast support. I would also like to take time to thank reviewers transmetaljohn and FinalKingdomHearts for giving me ideas and overall themes to explore in the recent chapters, including this one. Also, please, feel free to ask questions or propose ideas. I listen to every single one, and I consider each viewpoint as it helps me to grow and consider alternate views of my audience. Please, as always: Read, review, and enjoy! I'll see you next chapter!
Chapter 28
"I can't believe it worked," Yolonda said after a moment.
"Yeah," Emilio replied, "We were apprehensive about it at first. But after a few test-runs, we did find this method to be the most viable. We went one way coming here, and many of us were hoping it wasn't a one-way street, you know?"
"I can see why. What did you use for guinea pigs?" Yolanda asked.
"A couple people here and there. Once we figured out through applying a tether that this travel back was possible, we sent John as our reconnaissance. Now we just must wait and see what changes have occurred over the past decade in our absence. That's what John communications are for. We'll hear more from his logs than him directly—that's to be expected, though."
"So, we don't exactly know what's on the other side?" Yolanda asked.
"We know for a fact it's back home. But we don't know any political changes that have happened in the decade we've been gone. The whole system, in terms of governance, could have changed, we must see. North-Gate anticipated a degree of change and factored it in as inevitable. So, we'll just have to wait to see how our old system held up if it did. The worst part about this is that even though we spent a lot of time cementing our foundation, even if we left people in charge, there's still a lot that can happen in ten years. Anyway, I have a few more diagnostics to run. North-Gate wants you back at Kadic in case our prospective recruits get antsy."
Yolanda nodded, "I'll be on my way."
As Yolanda drove back towards Kadic, her implant popped up Maria's image, "Londie," she said, "I know you're heading back but good news, we were able to secure Icarus for the initiating phases of Project Stein. As oversight officer in this area, how do you advise we proceed?"
Yolanda replied, "Enroll him into the shell. We'll come for him when we have everything primed for his arrival. Access R&D and start research on the chassis as well as prospective applications for the father unit. We want him to have plenty of variety when we introduce him to his new role."
"Do you think he'll accept his new role?" Maria asked.
"We'll ease him into it through various teaching applications the lessons of which will carry over to much of what he will do. We make it pleasurable as we have all things else for those we needed to recruit. It'll be fine. We have the people to make sure this works; we just have to be patient is all."
"Understood. Alright, we'll start the R&D. Anything else you can think of while you have the time?" Maria asked.
"Yes. Start R&D on our ammunition variety. Also, research neural wiring. I've spent time in our records, and I think it would be a very prudent investment considering various environmental factors alone. It would safeguard our forces against real external shocks to the system."
"Consider it done," Maria replied.
Back at Kadic, Jeremy was writing down various schematics based on his work with the supercomputer. He had an idea, but he needed to be sure of it first. Most of the faculty were still on campus due to summer classes starting in a week or so. It was also during this time he'd meet his new roommate. Therefore, he had a full week to see if he could put his plan into action. Jeremy knew fully well that if he wished to move around unencumbered and unfettered, he'd need a surefire pass through most situations. His solution was the return to the past mechanism. Yet, he knew if he tried to exploit that system, that it would further North-Gate's manipulations of the global climate. He knew the formula inside and out. Jeremy knew how to jumpstart a return to the past, even from a base computer. However, he needed a mobile version. Such a version would ensure safe passage, and Jeremy had a week to figure this out with no interruptions. He'd have to make use of the full week if he wished to make the progress, he desired in investigating North-Gate. Jeremy sighed, taking a break from his technical drawings, and he headed out of his room to the main building.
As Jeremy walked along, he looked at some of the remaining students. Some of them were playing games of impromptu soccer. Others were listening to music on some of the benches. Jeremy thought, "There's only a select number of ways I can approach this. I know all the formulas for returning to the past, as well as its independent variables. But what is the actual physical engine that powers it? What makes it tick?"
Jeremy was growing steadily more and more frustrated as he thought about this. However, what Jeremy was beginning to realize was no different than the employee being shown the ins and outs of management at higher levels. Jeremy knew how to plug in the computations for the return to the past; how to wipe minds. But now that he had to do a bit of the hard math about the active components, he was discovering it was a different level of application.
Jeremy headed back to the dorms, and as he was passing by the infirmary, he saw Yolanda reading at her desk. He stopped just beyond her field of vision, and after a moment of thought, he decided to give the ideas in his mind a try. He went back to the infirmary and knocked at the door.
Yolanda looked up at him, "Oh, Jeremy, come in."
As he entered, she asked, "Are you alright? You seem a bit flushed."
"I'm okay. I just had a few things on my mind lately. I actually came to see you to see if you could help settle something with Odd and myself."
Yolanda chuckled, "Well, I don't know how much help I would be, but I'll sure try. What is the disagreement?"
"This is going to sound so stupid, but here it goes. We were watching Men in Black last night, and we got into a heated debate. Can something like the Neuralyzer exist? You know the whole flashing light erasing your memory effect, can it legitimately work?"
Yolanda looked off in thought a moment and said, "It is just a movie, Jeremy. But for the sake of helping you let me see if I can explain. Considering that the human brain is largely a blend of nerve tissue and nerve-endings, you need less of blinding light and more of a semi-direct electrical current. However, you'd have to be specific. You must key into the neural networks chiefly aligned with thought and memory preservation. Mainly the amygdala, the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and cerebellum. It's not impossible. But it would take a very select and precise range of electric current over a precise distance set to equally specific general ratios. The human brain, while on the surface seemingly equally applicable across a broad range, there are, of course, individual components that factor in such an effect differently."
"So, you're saying it can work but not as portrayed?" Jeremy replied.
"It can work. But, to have it work on an individual would be far easier than en-mass. Even then, it would only work so far. The reason I say this is because even if you had that shock to the necessary system, well, that person is built differently on a case by case basis. Even if you wished to nullify an event from memory of a collective, you would have eventual recollection down the line. Albeit, it would possibly be fragmented from your own interference. That said, something would have to trigger that memory, and the memory would come back piece-meal. That's why I never really bought into the franchise. Memory can be repressed, even suppressed, but it is never gone."
At this, Jeremy's eyes went wide slightly, and it was something Yolanda noticed. But she said nothing.
"So, in theory, even though people may have been neutralized, they would remember it?"
Yolanda replied, "Jeremy, remember, it's only a movie. But to answer your question, until the memory has been resolved by the conscious mind through therapy, it will come back, and it will come back with its effect far more debilitating because it has spent so much time in repression. It's inevitable."
Jeremy nodded and said, "Thank you." He stood up, "I hope this hasn't been too distracting for you."
"Not at all. I would take a break from movies like this if it is preoccupying your mind this much. Just a suggestion." Yolanda replied.
Jeremy nodded, "Maybe I should do that." He left the office.
Yolanda patched into her implant, "Did you hear that?"
North-Gate replied, "Everything we needed to. Don't worry, there is a solution. I know what the boy wants. He wants to feel in control again. He feels stripped of it. We'll restore a portion of that power soon."
As Jeremy went back to his dorm, his mind was heavy with thought thinking upon what Yolanda had said. Was it true that instead of wiping the minds of those involved with XANA's attacks, all that they really did was loudly suppress those memories? Even if that were the case, the question remained, what was the trigger to unlock those memories? Jeremy shuddered at the thought of this question. For if Yolanda was right, all it would take is one tiny thread to be pulled, and it would start a domino effect, the likes of which he had never seen.
Even as Jeremy thought how bad this could potentially be, he knew it wasn't his fault. It was his and indeed the Lyoko warriors who believed that to restore the past, not only undid damage; but it safeguarded so much in terms of people's own safety and indeed sanity. Now, to have this shadow cast upon the light of what they were doing, it was disconcerting. The potential that memories weren't wiped that they were just stuffed deeper into the unconscious mind was horrifying. Even then, Jeremy thought, "What other recourse did we have? Let them live with the knowledge of multiple attempts of near obliteration? It would have chaos!" And he wasn't wrong. The mere single instance of one attack to destroy the world would have been enough. But for people to know there had been almost too many counts of attempted annihilation put into motion by a willful, intelligent program, it would have been a source of pandemonium beyond description.
As Jeremy walked, a thought occurred to him, what about Aelita? Had the world known that it was partially for her sake that they were made to suffer such affliction while a solution was being sought against their shared antagonist, the world, Jeremy knew would have gladly said, let her die. But would they? Would the world indeed be so dark and uncaring as to will her death? Jeremy didn't want to think about this, but under these circumstances, he couldn't help it. Ignorance is bliss, that was often what he thought when applying the return to the past. To keep the people from knowing was safeguarding them from the agony of knowing the dire nature of the situation. But now, he couldn't help but wonder, was it also a blessing in disguise for him and for the team? For just as he had safeguarded the people from knowledge of XANA even saving them, in many ways, that action had spared them what would be the unrelenting wrath of the world.
"It's a trade-off." Jeremy thought, "It's a trade-off of the utmost benefit. The people stay ignorant and stay at ease. We stay safe from them and their thirst for retribution. What would they know anyway? They would gladly sacrifice her only to realize that that machine they sated would have killed them of its own accord. Hmph. In many ways, we are the people's guardians. We are the keepers of safety. And you know what? That's its own reward. We stopped XANA, and we'll stop North-Gate. Not for people's love or adoration—but because many would become overwhelmed if they knew the truth. Overwhelmed to the point where they would be able to do nothing. And that is our role: To act where others would be paralyzed by fear or the magnitude of their awful reality. Because against beings such as these, you need to be willing to act, even if faced with absolute decimation."
Jeremy exhaled as he made it back to his room, he had made his peace with what he and the others had done. What Yolanda had said did have its weight. But Jeremy was of the mind that if it meant to keep the people ignorant forever, so be it. Sometimes, even though methods may not always seem ethically pleasing on the sliding scales of the world stage, the great picture had to be realized. The greater picture was peace, stability, calm for the people of the earth. The ownership of that burden was the Lyoko warriors' alone. And in many ways, it felt good. It felt beautiful, in fact, to have a purpose that was beyond what most people saw, let alone thought. Yet, they were the only ones burdened by such knowledge. If that was the trade-off to live in a world without danger, so be it.
Jeremy opened his door, and he saw Aelita sitting at his computer. She went up beside her and asked, "What are you looking at?"
"I took the time to review your sketches here while you were gone." Aelita replied, "So you wish to isolate and then utilize the mind wipe feature of the return to the past?"
"Yes. I figured it would be a good failsafe if we ever had to make a more clandestine move against North-Gate, and we were pushed for time. If we needed to literally disappear from someone's memory, it would be the most reasonable way to do it. That said, I'm trying to figure out just how to isolate it."
Aelita nodded, and Jeremy saw she was digging through his older files, "What are you looking for?" Jeremy asked.
"The backdoor I put into Lyoko. Before we shut it down and before Daddy's sacrifice, I made a coded door so that it would open whenever we needed it to. Think of it as the ability to literally see into the supercomputer, see its changes, and even piggyback on entities like North-Gate. I had a sinking feeling when we first closed the server that we would need my backdoor, and it turns out, I wasn't wrong." She continued to type.
"Wait, are you saying you can piggyback on North-Gate, and you didn't tell me?" Jeremy said.
"As I said, I had a feeling I'd need the backdoor. Piggybacking is just a fringe benefit. And I wasn't wrong, clearly. Besides, I figured that if we ever got separated as a team, I could use the back door and link it to my mind akin to how the original keys of Lyoko were within me. From that, I could manually control select aspects of the supercomputer to at least hold ground until we could reassemble as a team. Piggybacking was a sub-routine that I programmed into the backdoor. I designed the backdoor to assimilate with portions of the CPU should it be re-written so that it could easily camouflage, and I could piggyback without too much hindrance into an otherwise new system."
"But why didn't you tell me this?" Jeremy said.
Aelita stopped typing and looked at him, "Because with you, it was under control for the most part. It didn't matter if we were walled in or otherwise. North-Gate was in a static holding pattern as were we. It wasn't moving. That is until North-Gate conquered the return to the past feature around the time Mom got shot. Until now, I saw no real reason to use it. But considering certain recent events, I must." She resumed her typing.
"So, what's the plan?" Jeremy asked after a moment of silence.
"I'm looking over the entirety of the supercomputer as a semi-active maintenance AI. That's what the backdoor is programmed to look like for now. It mimics an original cleaner and blends in. I see a lot of internal changes across the sectors, even in sector five. Whatever North-Gate is doing, she's doing a massive overhaul. For what purposes, I don't know just yet. All I can tell is that we have significant measurement tool overhauls as well as access to simulation logs. I don't know what they detail. Not much is written in terms of discernible information. But I see multiple tests across all sectors batches of at least fifty an hour every day for the past two weeks."
Jeremy sat down beside Aelita, "What could she be testing that much?"
"I have no idea. All I know is that due to what I see in the data, there are a lot of small modifications and some even smaller, but the effect is quite substantial."
"Can you not as a disguised cleaner, get access to the log to reference the codes to get a better idea of what's happening?"
"I've tried. The cleaners are not given such clearance. Just to clean what is designated a junk. Before you even ask, I dug through the trash, and there's a safeguard that if anything looks too long at it, it auto-corrupts and disintegrates into the system to be reused later."
Jeremy sighed, "She's watching the trash."
Aelita nodded, "Mm-hmm. She's not stupid, not by a long shot."
"Rats. So, what clearance would you need to get access to the information on the dossiers?"
"That's the tough part. I must be very, very careful, Jeremy. She's smart. She outlined this system of maintenance with designated and specific set numbers of cleaners, and the higher you go towards the central nerve center, not only are the fewer, but they are directly controlled by North-Gate personally. So, let me show you."
Aelita typed a few lines of code, and the screen zoomed out to show the entire system.
"Here we are. On the very outer edge of the whole system. Technically we are a lesser even disposable bot in the forest sector. Now, as you know, Lyoko is divided into quarters. Now sending out a pulse." She typed a moment a small wave emanated from the backdoor, "You see these?" they were many low lights throughout the forest sector, "That is them. Official security bots and maintenance higher than mine. I was able to peek at individual sectors and, as I thought, individual security and maintenance bots. The thing is, even though we see it this way, there are regular updates to the bots. So even as I am a lowly bot, here, I can't get to where a traditional tower would be. I can't even see them because it's not in my bot's relay point. It's acting from a substation of a substation."
"Okay," Jeremy said, "So, the bigger bots that we can't see have a lot more power to them. At least, that's what I'm getting from what you show me. But Aelita, what are these little things that your scan picked up?"
"That's where it gets interesting." Aelita replied, "I looked at the dossier, and I do have one word or code cracked, "Sewage." We're seeing is the literal ass end of the central sewer system. I've been all around the proverbial edge of the sector for the forest. It's sewage at critical points here, here, and here. And now, let me show you what really scares me."
Aelita typed in a line of code and said, "When I press enter, keep a note of what you see. Because as soon as I send this signal out, I'm going to send my back door to the ice sector, and we won't be able to see anything for twenty-four hours as it resets into a bot."
Jeremy nodded, and she pressed enter. The view magnified and went forward into the forest sector, and what Jeremy saw amazed him. Entire buildings, entire areas marked off at designated points. An overview of a whole city the size of the forest sector itself. The city was a massive sectored and numbered space. Buildings for commerce, different sections of government, free-trade, official trade, a diet building. There were designated quarters for artisans, stonemasons, builders, farmers, doctors, and fishermen. There were assembly halls at four significant points the size of amphitheaters; there were hydro-electric power stations that fed into the leading network and nodes that would lead back to the towers. The towers themselves were seemingly ordinary, but as Jeremy watched as the overview grew closer, there were various forms of antenna upon them along the length and on the top. At that moment, the screen minimized.
Aelita looked at Jeremy, "She's planning out an entire city, Jeremy. She has all these things in the forest sector alone. There's more though, she's made some changes to the very sensory receptive data most who go into Lyoko would experience. She has taken data away or lessened the intensity of sight and hearing, and she has amplified the feelings of touch and smell and taste. The towers themselves, as you have seen, are modified. And from what I can tell from data fluctuations felt by the back door, it's experimentation in temperature and humidity and how they factor into each other."
Jeremy looked at Aelita, "What have you seen of the other sectors?"
"This is the most I've seen, and every time I send out the pulse, I have to send the backdoor immediately to another sector to hide it as fast as possible. The pulse is just one way of piggybacking on North-Gate's projects to see what she sees. However, there are other methods I have, but I'm glad in a way that I've waited this long. North-Gate's residential power, as I would call it, is for some reason, at only forty-five percent. The rest is up for grabs by us if we can get to one of the towers. What I'm going do to help us along is to send the backdoor bot to bot, and it would take time, but it'd be far quicker than other methods."
"And once within the tower, what then?" Jeremy asked.
Aelita sighed and leaned back in the chair, looking at the ceiling, "We'll know when we get there. But in theory? We'll be able to level our playing field more to our satisfaction. But considering what you have your mind set on, once we get in, I'm going to send a pulse through to scan the internal systems of the return to the past mechanism or as Daddy called it, Nirvana's Cradle. From that, I'll send digital scans with numerical values to a printer, and we can look at the system together."
"How will this take, do you think?" Jeremy asked.
"If all goes according to plan, rarely it does, but if it does, we're looking at roughly oh—sixty hours. The hopping and systematic infiltration of the bots is the relatively easy part. Getting into the tower, that's going to be tedious, very much so."
"What kind of resistance are we anticipating, Aelita?" Jeremy asked as he got up.
"I honestly don't know. I've only seen external changes to one tower in the forest sector. If this degree of programming is any guide, the innards and security around each tower are likely to highly individual. The thing is once I get to tower, I'm going to need uninterrupted time to breach the security that is there. In a way, I will be talking to North-Gate's systems to try and convince her to let me in. That's why I'm doing passive data skims bot to bot."
"It's going to be a lot of work, Aelita," Jeremy said.
She turned to him, "Tell me about it. I kind of miss the old days, you know? As morbid as that sounds. Somehow a mad-dash for your life is less daunting than trying to infiltrate a potentially psychopathic AI bent on social reformation."
"Perhaps I can help. Maybe I can go to John Barrow, and after I talk with him, maybe have an audience with North-Gate to see if she's trusting of us enough to give us a small tour of her changes to Lyoko. If we can glean information in that way, and I keep her occupied while you jump bot to bot, it would be something."
"And risk you ending up like Daddy and I did with XANA? I should think not!" Aelita said, bolting up from the chair, "Noble as that sounds, if you became her prisoner there, I could never forgive myself. No. Talk with Barrow if you must. But go into North-Gate's world? Jeremy, I forbid it!"
Jeremy was taken aback by this, and he remembered. "Of course, Aelita, I'm sorry. Forget I even said it."
"No, no, you're not wrong. I know what you're trying to do," Aelita said as she approached him, "I just can't stand the thought of you being trapped as I was." She gripped him by the arms and then kissed him deeply. After a few moments, she ended the kiss and said, "Go ahead, talk to John. He seems reasonable, but promise you will not go into the scanners."
Jeremy was silent a moment and said, "I won't—" he sighed, "For your sake, I won't."
Aelita released his arms and said, "Good, thank you."
Aelita checked her watch, "Come on, it's nearly supper time."
Jeremy nodded and walked with her toward the cafeteria.
Meanwhile, back in her office, Yolanda was looking at an old photograph. It was back home when the team was a full collective of forty-five people. So much had happened in the time since then. Transitions beyond number; projects that had not yet left their mark on the group. They were all young, ambitious, and many were ready to change the world. It was a wonderful time, a time of contentedness, a time of idealism meeting actuality. Yolanda tearfully smiled as she remembered the main faces of the third row back.
James Kruger, the mentor of the group and master of chess who had gotten to nationals. He was killed in the transition of the government on their first trial by trying to save a young teenage son of one of the then deposed leaders. It was a stupid thing to have occurred, but he loved that boy as he did his own departed son. It hit hard when he was laid to rest in his native land.
There was Amelia Tauber, the fiery and spirited owner of Gatekeeper, the newspaperfor the group. She acted in many ways as the movement's journalism mouthpiece to the world. Her death on the north front from a sniper's bullet hurt Terrance the most. He loved her as his own sister, always motivating her vision. It was from her that North-Gate received its namesake, and her name was the only tattoo that Terrence had just over his heart.
There was Ricardo "Ravin-Ricky" Cortes, the group's beloved crooner, and Yolanda's first love. A gentleman whose eyes were just as charming as his voice. He always knew just what to say and how to say it. He was compassion incarnate with a love of people never once raising a pistol even in self-defense. His namesake came from the passion of which he defended the group's ideals when they got off the ground. So powerful and impassion would he become, he would seem as if he were raving, but it was just his passion for speaking loud and clear. It tore Yolanda to pieces when he was killed by a stupid drunk in a bar because of his "mother-fucking Commie bullshit." She held him in his last moments, and his words still rang within her, "Don't hate them, Dorothy. Don't hate them. They just don't understand. We're not here to force anything." She remembered how she begged him to stop talking so he could conserve blood, but it was too late. The last words he said, "Be patient with them."
Finally, there was Jacob Colton Sanford. He was a troubled kid when he first joined the group. He had come from a tough life and a broken home. He was loved by all the group and known as "Silent Sanford." He never spoke when discussions at the tables were going on, never. He simply sat and listened, never gave an opinion. But oh, how he loved North-Gate. How he loved the sense of power, it gave him. He trained and trained hard on the many forms of strengthening and hand to hand combat the program offered. He mastered many martial arts through the program and, in the eyes of many, was a fantastic fighter. He loved the power it gave him; he loved the recognition. His movements were as smooth and flowing like water, his reactions as fast as a praying mantis with punches and kicks equal to the strength of a bull. He was to many of the group, a combative Adonis. None knew what happened to him, he just disappeared one day. It was on the eighteenth of July, just after the victory celebration that Terrance reportedly last saw him. After that, he vanished like breath on a mirror.
A knock at Yolanda's door was heard, and she put the photo back into her desk drawer and closed it, "Come in." she said.
Jim showed his head after opening the door a bit, "Hi, Yolanda. You're gonna' miss supper, you know?"
"It's alright, Jim. Thank you for keeping me up to date. I'm going to be heading out soon anyhow. If you need any emergency medical help, call number 15 as always."
"Right. Oh, been meaning to ask, how is that prospective night nurse thing coming along?"
"You'll meet him tonight, Jim. He's the father of one of the new students coming to Kadic, Mons. Jude Beck."
"Beck, huh? You've interviewed him as well as Jean-Pierre, what's he like?"
"I'd much rather surprise you, Jim." Yolanda said with a smile, "He'll be here in about fifteen minutes or so, after which I will leave."
Jim nodded, saying, "Mm-hmm. It's a good call of Jean-Pierre to get a second nurse on hand. I would love to get another assistant coach, but we know how the last one turned out." He remembered himself, "Oh, I'm sorry, Yolanda, I didn't mean anything by it."
Her smile had faded, and Yolanda replied, "Thank you, Jim. Is that all?"
Jim nodded, "Uh—yeah, that's all. Just do me a favor and let me know when this Beck arrives. I'd like to see him."
Yolonda replied, "Very well. Enjoy your dinner, Jim." She sat back down on her stool as the door closed. Once it had shut, Yolanda said to herself through grated teeth, "Next time keep your stupid opinions to yourself, you fucking idiotic asshole!"
Yolanda sighed and reflected on the faces in the picture, "It was a great summer that year." She said to herself in the quiet of the infirmary. "So much changed both good and ill. We are where we are, but it sure as hell hasn't been easy. Friends, brothers, sisters, all gone. If victory is truly ours, why the fuck does it have to feel so hollow?"
Yolanda gave a grunt of disgust and abruptly got up from her stool and turned to look out the window into the blackness of the night, "You said don't hate them, be patient with them. Oh, Ricky, if only you knew how hard that is to ask right now." She wept gently as her head began to hang low, "Fuck, I miss you, Ricky. I miss all of you so fucking much!" Yolanda walked over to the bed and sat down, gently sobbing.
A moment later, a hand rested on her shoulder, "Ma'am?" a voice said softly. Yolanda rapidly turned and saw a man, tall and broad-shouldered man with piercing green eyes. He sported a very well-kept beard and black hair kept in a wonderfully done French braid. It was Jude Beck. He looked on her with not eyes of pity but eyes of sympathy and empathy.
She got up and said, "I'm sorry, it's not right I carry on like this."
Jude looked at her and said, "Don't apologize for the pain that has clearly been there for a long time. it is better to work with grief's release as it comes than force it down as you have."
She nodded, and Jude continued, "You've seen war, and you've witnessed the loss of your friends due to that war first-hand, I can see it in your eyes. You can't deny what you feel. It's okay to hang onto your memories but do not be a prisoner of them. I don't think your Ricky would want that for you, nor any of your friends."
Yolanda said, "I know this may sound unprofessional, but may I have a hug?"
Jude replied, "Of course." He gently embraced her, and she took in his scent. It was of a deep earthen smell of pumice and cilantro. It was beautiful; it was as sweet as it was sharp.
She stopped the embrace and said, "Thank you, Jude. Thank you."
He smiled, "It's quite alright. We all need comforters from time to time because well, life gets to be too much. It's not easy, and that's why people are here, no matter how much we may annoy each other."
Yolanda nodded and said, "Our night watchman and coach would like to see you. He's likely still in the cafeteria. If you hurry you can still catch him, it's the central one-floor building between here and the main school building."
Jude looked around and said, "Very good. Thank you. Is this the infirmary?"
"Yes, this is the infirmary. Most tools you need will be in the top cabinets. From left to right are bandages and bandaging tools, there are also stitches and staples. We keep those because some parents don't like the cost of hospital visits. Next, that are a few pairs of clothes for male and female if we have any unfortunate accidents or tearing of pants in some situations. We also have a sewing machine to mend those pants in the lower cabinet under the sink. Finally, we have several heat-pads for calming inflamed guts, for which I recommend at least an hour of rest with those pads set to high. We also have various painkillers from traditional ibuprofen to more enhanced drugs such as Excedrin for severe migraines. There is Claritin and the like for seasonal allergies. In terms of major outbreaks of colds, we have eucalyptus vapor-rubs in bulk, which you can send an invoice to Nicole, the principle's secretary, to get more. Also, if you notice that there is a school-wide flu or I will likely leave a note in that regard, we have various recipes to give Rosa Petitjean our head cook. The recipes are very spicy and often are what is known to the students in flue epidemics as the Sweat Trays."
Jude nodded, "I see, and do these instances of school-wide flu happen often?"
"More than you would expect, honestly. With the close proximity of most students and sadly lack of cleanliness and hygiene among younger pupils and even as it pains me to say it, the upperclassmen, it turns into a snowball effect."
Jude shrugged, "Well, this will be an interesting tenure, that will be for sure." He said with a chuckle.
Yolanda laughed as well, "Oh if only you knew the half of it. Oh, before I forget, we have various students who may actually have specialized medications due to whatever reason." She went to the lower drawers and opened them, "These baskets are sorted by grade. Thankfully typically, there are few students with the necessary medications they need to take. So, it's not uncommon to have four medication students per grade in later grades. The younger students not so much."
"I see." Jude replied, "and of course, I dial twelve if I need an ambulance? In case there is something I cannot handle?"
"That is correct. However, most problems with children can be resolved here. The most severe you'd come across is a sprain or a twisted ankle. In which case, we have wraps to stabilize and crutches in the closet just over there. However, if you have more serious aspects arise, yes, twelve is your go-to."
Jude nodded, "Excellent. Is that all I should know?"
"For now, yes. That's the general layout of the infirmary, and I'll be here to guide you through the school year. The best thing to help you along in this line of work, as with anything, is experience working."
"Very good. Well, it that will be all, I am off to see your fitness instructor. Who am I looking for?"
"James Morales but he goes by Jim. He's a man built a bit like yourself. He has brown hair and he keeps a band-aid over a scar he got back from his time in the service or so he claims. If you don't see him at the dining hall, he will be at his room in the dorms in room twenty-four."
Jude nodded, "Thank you. I'll head out there presently."
As he turned to go, Yolanda said, "Jude, thank you for being so understanding. Especially a few moments ago."
Jude smiled a great white smile, "It's what I'm here for." He departed.
Yolanda took the photo of the old group out of her drawer, folded it neatly, and put it into her inner coat pocket. As she left the infirmary heading outside, she felt a great sense of relief, and as the fresh air filled her lungs, she felt contented. Approaching her car, Yolanda got in and started the ignition. As she pulled out and headed down the main road from the school, a beep sounded from her radio.
Yolanda patched into her implant, "I received the notification. What's going on?"
Enrique replied, "We've heard back from Terry. It's a lot of good news, Londie. Meet us at the house, and we'll show you what we have. Also, another good piece of news, the boss was able to isolate the transmission signals after Terry made it through. Londie, we can now listen to most of all major broadcasts from back home!"
Yolanda couldn't help it as she screamed, "Yes! Oh, that's wonderful! Can we still listen in on the Diet?"
"We'll see when you get over here, we're still going through the substations. Come on, Sweetie, there's a lot to celebrate, and Maria's getting hangry!"
"On my way!" Yolanda said, and she accelerated the car through the quiet street, disappearing into the night.
