Gym Class
I glanced around the high school gym. A little worn and dirty, but still in
relatively good condition. I saw a man, most likely McCallen, and a group of
scrawny high school students completing warm-ups. At the sight of this, I had
inescapable flashbacks to Manticore. From the looks on their faces, the others
did, as well. I pushed Manticore out of my mind.
"Mr. McCallen." Zack called out to the man.
"That's Colonel McCallen to you." he replied.
"Yes, sir!" we all responded, snapping to attention.
No salute, just attention. He gave an amused smile.
The man looked older than Lydecker. He had short brown hair that was becoming
very gray and brown eyes that looked like they had seen everything.
"We are here to ask you a few questions." Zack continued.
"As long as you are in this gym, you are part of this class. Finish warm-ups
with these guys and then maybe we'll talk." McCallen informed us.
We all glanced around at each other. Krit shrugged his shoulders. Why not?
We moved to join the group of students who became an ocean of murmuring waves. I
could pick out a few snippets such as:
"Who are they?"
"CIA, I bet."
A group of girls in the back were giggling.
"Brunette." one said
"No, no. The blonde." the other replied.
"Class, pay attention!" McCallen said in an incredible C.O. voice.
Everybody's head snapped up.
"Push ups. I start the clock when everyone is down."
We all moved into ready position. This was child's play.
"Go."
We all began repetitive push-ups. The rest of the class seemed to be having
trouble, barely able to complete five. We continued on happily.
The rest of the class seemed to have faded out. We continued pushing.
"Okay, okay. Stop." commanded McCallen.
We all sort of cocked our heads at him, questioningly, waiting for our next
command. McCallen was looking at us with interest. I could tell he was wondering
how far he should push us.
"Laps?" I offered.
"That's right. I almost forgot. Laps." he agreed.
The rest of the class groaned loudly.
"But first," McCallen interrupted their groaning, "jumping jacks."
They groaned louder.
"Everybody up. Count on when your hands hit your sides. Everyone counting or you
do more. Everybody stop on twenty-five or you do more. Ready? Begin." he said
quickly.
This was just too easy. I glanced at Zack with a raised eyebrow. He rolled his
eyes in response. He thought it was easy, too.
I smiled as I heard Krit and Syl competing to see who was louder. My money was
on Syl. The girl had a set of lungs, alright.
We reached twenty-five and all stopped with a slap as our hands hit our sides. A
few students forgot to stop.
McCallen shook his head, looking disappointed.
"Twenty-five more. Everyone say thank you to Reese, Jones, and Miss Smith."
There were a few grumbled, sarcastic thank you's before McCallen shouted "begin"
and we started again.
By the time the entire class stopped together, we had done over one hundred. I
could hear panting coming from the students. None of us had even broken a sweat.
"Laps." McCallen reminded everyone, "Go!"
I guessed that we were running laps around the gym so I started off at a
reasonable jog. Apparently, my reasonable jog was much faster than the jog of
the students. Our group ended up some strides ahead of everyone else.
"So this is what regular kids do?" I questioned Zack.
"Yep." Zack nodded.
"You go to high school?"
"Off and on." Zack shrugged.
I took that to mean he had showed up for a few days here and there between
traveling across the country looking for the X5's.
"Kind of like Manticore for normal people." Ty commented quietly.
"Uh huh." Syl agreed.
"It's not so bad." Max argued.
"What, high school or Manticore?" Krit teased.
"Smart ass." Max grumbled.
"So I've been told." Krit agreed.
I suddenly noticed that the entire class had stopped and we were the only ones
jogging. Everyone was staring at us. I slowed to a stop and the others stopped
behind me.
"Class, go get the basketballs and set up in your teams from yesterday."
McCallen instructed.
The class filed out of the room, presumably to get basketballs. McCallen strode
over to us.
"You said you had questions?" he said.
I bet the entire class had questions by now.
"We came to ask you if you remember the names Lydecker and Royce." Zack said.
McCallen froze and stared at us.
"Son of a bitch, he actually did it, didn't he?" McCallen said quietly, his
voice sounding amazed.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Zack frowned, although he obviously
did know what McCallen was talking about.
Did everyone know about Manticore or was it just me?
"A simple yes or no would do." I supplied.
"Yes." McCallen said stiffly, "I remember Deck and Royce. They were under my
wing for some time."
"Sounds like you three were pretty close." Krit commented, his eyes narrowed.
"They were close. They called me their mentor, but..." McCallen trailed off.
"When was the last time you saw Deck?" Max pressed.
"Not for a long time." McCallen shook his head.
He sounded sincere enough.
"And Royce?" Zack stepped in again.
"Almost as long." McCallen answered.
The door to the gym opened and we all whirled around, tensing up. I relaxed when
I saw it was just a kid with a basketball. The rest of the class filed in behind
him. We got a mixture of looks from them as they moved past. McCallen fell back
into his role as gym teacher and ignored us while he put the students back to
work.
I glanced to the side as I picked up on a conversation.
"You go!"
"No way!"
"Go on! You're not afraid are you?"
"Of course not!"
"Then, go!"
"Oh, alright, alright."
A kid was forcibly separated from his group as he was shoved in our direction.
He looked pretty nervous as he walked up to me.
"So are you guys like...FBI or something?" he asked.
"Or something." I agreed.
"Oh." he said and looked down at the floor for some time.
I was beginning to think he wasn't going to say anything else when he suddenly
spoke again.
"Are you guys aliens?"
I smiled, "Not quite, kid."
"Oh. Okay. Are you army? 'Cause they're like aliens."
"Uh...sort of."
"Are you here to recruit people?"
"Definitely not."
"You think the short blonde would go out with my friend? He wanted me to ask
you."
I glanced over at Syl and then at the boy that the kid pointed out.
"Not a chance." I said honestly.
The kid smiled.
"Didn't think so." he said and ran off.
I smiled again as I turned around to see Zack and Krit were being assaulted by
most of the girls in the class. Zack looked about to panic. Krit looked rather
amused. Zack saw me looking at him and silently begged me to save him. I debated
on how long I should let him suffer and decided that it would be too cruel to
let it go on for too long. But that didn't mean I couldn't go over and enjoy it
while it lasted.
"How old are you anyway?" a girl was asking Zack.
"Twenty three." Zack said, trying to regain his composure as I walked over.
"Wow. You don't look more than nineteen." the girl continued, "I'm eighteen, you
know. I'm a senior."
"No, she's not! She's a junior." another girl ratted her out, "I'm the only
senior in the class."
"I really like the tattoo." a third girl said, "What's it mean?"
Zack clamped a hand over the tattoo on his arm. He was probably really wishing I
hadn't stolen his jacket this morning now.
"You have a tattoo?" a fourth girl shuddered, "You know, they do those with
needles!"
"Girls! I don't see you running basketball drills!" McCallen snapped, making the
girls immediately disperse with longing looks at Zack and Krit.
"I want my jacket back." Zack said.
"Nope." I said with a grin, folding my arms.
"Zackie boy doesn't know how to respond to being hit on by high school girls, do
you?" Krit teased.
Zack glared at him and Krit ducked behind me. I was getting looks of death from
all the girls now. Probably because I was standing between Krit and Zack.
Practically a Zack and Krit sandwich.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that." he said quickly.
Zack took a menacing step forward and Krit quickly moved off to join Syl. Not
Ty, amazingly enough. Ty was with Max, still attempting to get information out
of McCallen.
"You could have intervened." Zack pouted.
"Could have. But, sorry, sir. Your orders weren't clear."
Zack frowned at me and I stuck my tongue out at him. I moved past him, shoving
him lightly with my elbow as I did so. He followed behind me.
This mission wasn't half bad.
***
All we could get out of McCallen was that Lydecker had had this dream of making
a better soldier. Royce had thought he was nuts and they had gone their separate
ways. That was about it. At least, that was all McCallen would tell us.
I was getting very distracted by the way the other girls were treating Krit. It
must have been obvious since I repeatedly glanced back in that direction, but
Max didn't comment. I couldn't help tuning in my hearing to hear what was being
said.
"So where'd you go to high school?" a girl asked.
"Different places." Krit said, "I travel a lot."
"How interesting." the girl said, making eyes at Krit.
"So who are the girls you came in with?"
"Well, she's the boss's girlfriend. And the blonde over there is my best friend.
And the one over there is an old friend, practically my sister." Krit said and I
assumed he pointed out Cade, Syl and Max.
"What about her?"
"Her? Well, she's...she's...."
"You like her, don't you?" a girl interrupted, "That's so sweet!"
"Hate her." two other girls chorused.
"Girls! I don't see you running basketball drills!"
At the sound of McCallen's voice, the girls ran off.
I glanced at Krit and saw he was looking at me. Quickly, I looked away. He
hadn't denied liking me, but he hadn't agreed either. Krit had been acting weird
ever since they'd let me out of my room. And truthfully, I didn't know what to
do about it. I didn't know how to act around Krit after what I'd done while I
was in heat. What did Krit think about me now? Oh, god. Why did that have to
happen? Damn feline DNA.
Suddenly, the doors to the gym slammed open. I jumped and snapped around to see
men in black uniforms pouring through the doors.
"Not these guys again!" I heard Syl complain.
I immediately saw the gun aimed at McCallen and pulled him to the floor.
"Down!" I yelled.
The high school students all hit the floor. Zack and Cade were closest to the
doors and engaged the enemy first. Max was a blur as she ran at the guy with the
gun and disarmed him. Max doesn't like guns.
I stayed with McCallen. If the guy with the gun had been any indication, they
wanted to take McCallen out. Which meant he could be useful to us.
I had time to watch as Syl rolled over Krit's back and punched a guy in the
face, Cade jumped and delivered a double kick that sent another guy reeling
backwards, Max ran up the wall and took out a third guy, and Zack probably broke
ribs with a hard punch to a fourth guy's stomach. Then, some of the black
uniforms made it to me. I picked up a basketball and sent it flying into the
first one's face. His nose broke and started gushing blood. I turned my
attention to the two with him. A well-placed kick broke a kneecap. Another kick
did some damage to the other guy's jaw. I grabbed a shirt collar and flipped
"damaged jaw" over to land hard on the gym floor. Another blow and he was
unconscious.
I turned around just as "broken nose" came up behind me with a gun. I heard
cracks as I snapped the gun out of his hands. I swept the guy's legs and he hit
the floor. I dropped, a knee pressed down hard on his chest and a hand at his
throat.
"What's your mission here?" I demanded.
The guy just sneered at me through the blood still gushing from his nose. I felt
disgusted and knocked him unconscious, as well.
I turned to see that the uninjured men who weren't engaged in fighting were busy
dragging away their injured. They didn't want us interrogating anyone. Although,
judging from the one I had just talked to, they were well-trained enough not to
break easily anyway. These guys were professionals.
I heard a click and whirled around. More black uniform men had come in through
the back. One of them had a gun leveled at me.
"Freeze, damn it!" he growled.
I froze.
"You may be able to dodge bullets," he continued in a low voice, "but I doubt
you could dodge bullets coming from six guns at the same time."
Immediately, the five other men with him pulled guns and cocked them, all aimed
at me. Everything in the room stopped.
"None of you move, you damn freaks!" the guy yelled, "One of you move and
everyone in this place gets turned into Swiss cheese."
"What do you want?" I asked slowly.
"Just don't move." the guy snapped.
He was nervous. We scared him. So obviously he knew what we were capable of.
I doubted Royce would condone the shooting of a bunch of high school kids. So I
guessed that this guy had panicked. Which made him dangerous. Especially if the
rest of these black uniform guys listened to him.
"I'm not moving." I said.
"Well...good." he said, his eyes darting from me to each of the others.
I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. The rest of the black uniforms
were taking the remaining injured out. One of them slowly approached McCallen,
his eyes on me. I twitched, but didn't move. The guy had a gun.
I reacted, moving as fast as I could. I grabbed the gun, knocked the guy out,
and leveled the gun at the guy in charge.
"You shoot and I shoot." I said evenly before the guy could react and pull the
trigger.
The guy was sweating. He didn't know what to do. He knew my reflexes were
faster. He knew he was dead if I pulled the trigger.
"No one fire!" he yelled suddenly, "Retreat!"
The black uniforms quickly disappeared out of the building. I sighed with
relief. I popped the clip out of the gun before throwing them both to the
ground. Slowly, McCallen and the students got back to their feet. Everyone was
silent.
"Um..." one kid said, his voice making me jump, "Is this going to be on the
final?"
Everyone unfroze and noise seemed to flood the room. I saw Zack run out the
door, probably to see if any of the black uniforms were still around. I decided
that I now completely understood why guns made Max nervous.
"Ty?"
I jumped again and whirled around to see Krit standing behind me.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I almost let myself fall into his arms, but I didn't. I just looked at him.
"I'm fine." I said, "I know why Max doesn't like guns."
"Me, too." Krit agreed.
"I was worried that guy might hurt these kids." I said, gesturing at the
students that were now in a clump around McCallen.
"Yeah. The kids." Krit said slowly without looking at them.
This was very awkward. I ducked my head and moved past Krit to join the others.
I heard Krit follow.
"I really don't like this Royce guy." Max said.
"This has got to stop." Cade agreed.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked.
"Yeah." Syl said.
"I'm okay." Max nodded.
"Zack's fine, too." Cade said.
"Krit?" I turned around and saw that he hadn't quite made it over to us.
The girls had sort of intercepted him.
"Are you okay?" I heard multiple girls asked him.
"Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" a few kept chorusing.
"That was so cool!" one girl said.
I was distracted as Zack walked back in.
"They're gone." Zack announced.
I saw Cade grin as she pushed Zack towards Krit and the girls.
"Krit needed to talk to you, honey." she said.
"Damn it." Zack muttered.
He bravely strode through the group of girls to Krit.
"What, Krit?" he demanded.
"Huh?" Krit asked, confused.
"You needed to talk to me?" Zack pressed.
"No."
"Oh, Cade's gonna get it." he said.
I think that's when he realized that he couldn't get out of the swarm of girls
now that he was in it. Then, I noticed that the guys had swarmed around Syl and
Max.
"I knew you guys were aliens." one guy said.
"Take me to your leader." another guy said meaningfully.
"Oh, god." Max said.
The rest of us all rolled our eyes.
"Uh...Ty? I think we better bail out the boys." Cade said, pointing to Zack and
Krit.
I looked back in that direction and saw that some of the girls were now
touching, placing hands on Zack and Krit's arms or chest.
"Zack, honey." Cade called, pushing her way through to him, "Here's your jacket
back."
I couldn't recall the last time Zack had looked so appreciative. Or the last
time I had seen someone look at Cade with that much animosity. I was suddenly
glad that they no longer had basketballs.
"Krit, are you okay?" I asked, staging worry.
I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him. I could sense Krit's surprise. I
broke off the kiss when I felt someone kick me in the foot. I was on my toes and
it made me stumble slightly. Krit caught me, looking worried. Probably thought I
had hurt myself or something. I almost cried out in surprise when he picked me
up and carried me out of the cluster of girls. I chose to ignore the names they
called me.
"I knew you weren't okay." Krit accused.
"Krit, really, I'm fine." I said, "You can put me down."
"But..."
"One of the girls got a little jealous and kicked me. That's all. I'm okay." I
said.
Krit looked at me skeptically, then slowly put me down.
"Zack's gonna kill you." I said.
Krit glanced at Zack.
"Only if he makes it out of there alive." Krit joked, brushing it off.
"Okay, help me save Max and Syl now." I said.
"They're hitting on Syl? Aw, man." Krit groaned.
"What?" I asked.
"Syl's gonna mess with their minds. Poor, stupid kids." Krit said, "Poor, poor
fools."
"That's not very nice."
"She's my sister. I'm allowed to talk about her like that."
I rolled my eyes again and headed in that direction.
***
Alright, these girls were gonna kill me if I didn't make an exit soon.
"Zack, we should talk to Colonel McCallen and get home." I reminded him.
"Okay." Zack agreed, allowing me to lead him out of the group.
I looked at him questioningly when Zack jumped about a foot in the air.
"One of those girls touched my...!" Zack said, eyes wide.
I tried not to laugh and just continued to pull Zack towards McCallen. He broke
away and headed towards the others when he saw what was going on with Max and
Syl. He scowled at the high school boys and they slowly dispersed.
"Call me!" one of them shouted to Syl.
That taken care of, we all turned to McCallen.
"Alright. Those guys attacked for a reason. They want you dead. Which means you
know something." I insisted.
McCallen sighed.
"Royce wants to do what Deck did. He wants to create his own perfect soldiers.
Him and Deck have always competed. Royce can't stand it that Deck might be one
up on him. Which he obviously is." McCallen said, looking at us.
"Man, you guys need to get a life." Max said.
"We weren't here." Zack said firmly.
McCallen nodded silently. We all followed Zack out the door.
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