Chapter 5: Sonovovitch
Aly barreled into her room, nearly tripping over Kimmy in the process. "Agghaa!"
"Abba?" Mia asked, looking over her schedule on the other side of the room.
"No, they kind of made it hard for Aly to speak," Zahira panted, catching up.
"How?" Kimmy asked quizzically, picking herself up off the ground, as well as her own schedule.
"You don't want to know," Zahira said grimly and flopped down on the bed.
"You're sitting on your schedule," Kimmy informed her, and Zahira immediately rolled over and grabbed the (slightly crumpled) piece of paper.
"Lessee, lessee…what do we have…" She scanned the schedule. "Oh, hello. 'What's In A Name? 101. Lecturers: Various'." Zahira looked up. "Starts at 7:30…crikey, that's ten minutes from now!"
"Ehhis ih?" Aly asked.
"New Headquarters Building, room 232-A," Mia said, reading off of her own schedule. "Where are we?"
"The Old Headquarters Building," Kimmy said glumly.
Zahira stood up, clutching her schedule. "Come on, then, what are we waiting for? Let's shake a leg!" The four girls hoofed it out of their room, trying to find where they needed to be. There were no convenient signs this go-round, just the occasional floor plan. They all ducked out of the edifice, searching for the New Headquarters Building.
"Theh!" Aly said, pointing at a rather snazzy-looking structure with much glass.
"Yeah, that's got to be it," Zahira said as they changed course.
"Why? 'Cause of all the other students headed that way?" Mia asked, catching sight of several other roomie-groups.
"Well, yeah, and also 'cause it looks just like the opening of American Dad!," Zahira admitted. The four of them dashed into the building, and ran right over the seal. As Aly examined it, it differed somewhat from what she remembered the seal of the CIA looking like. There was a shield, all right, with that sixteen-pointed compass rose in it, but it was divided into four quadrants, each of which had what she assumed was an Academy pillar in it. Upper-left, a gun and bullets; upper-right, a computer; lower-left, a drawer of passports and cash; and lower-right, a fist with a cartoon 'Kapow!' bubble around it. Instead of that weird little braided thing above the shield, there was a pencil, and in lieu of the eagle's head was that of a jackal. Aly gulped. There was something written in Latin along the edge of the circle the crest lay in, as well as the Academy's name. Scriptio est memoriae, and potestas, astutia, sollertia. Whatever all that meant. She'd ask someone later – that is, when she didn't sound like Russian!Viggo Mortensen had been putting cigarettes out on her tongue, like in that movie.
"This way!" Mia said. She'd found a stairwell, and the four of them immediately ran and tromped up it. Once they were up on the second floor, it took them a mercifully short time to find the classroom. One by one, they slipped through the door. Thankfully, they were all there on time.
Aly slid into a seat next to a rather curvy college-age girl with red hair. Crikey, was everyone here older than her? "Hi," she said. At least it was possible for her to say that word without sounding like a total weirdo.
"Hey," the red-haired young woman said. "Do you know what this class is about?"
"Ih's…Whah's Ih Ah 'Aim, I 'hink," Aly mumbled. She realized she hadn't changed out of her pajamas since she'd gotten here.
"What?"
Zahira came to the rescue. "She got on the wrong side of the staff this morning. They made it hard for her to talk. She says it's What's In A Name. I'm not sure what it's about either." The Bostonian grinned and tweaked the bill of her Red Sox cap down. "I'm Zahira."
"Rebecca," the redhead said.
"Ahy. Haice hu hee' hu."
"She's Aly," Zahira translated. "And she says it's nice to meet you."
This could definitely get old, Aly realized, and took out a piece of paper to write on if she had anything to ask. "So, when's it supposed to start?" Zahira asked, glancing around the lecture hall.
"Looks like right about now," Rebecca said, as two people trooped into the front of the room, presumably from an office at the bottom of the lecture hall.
"Yay," Aly said with effort. She noticed that Zahira had already sat up a little straighter – she must have been interested in whoever was teaching today. Aly squinted, but she didn't recognize the two people, one of whom was carrying a cane and limping. Neither of them looked like they came from the movies. Beside her, Rebecca chuckled a little bit.
"Looks like we're off to a good start," she said, nodding sagely. Noticing Aly's blank look, she dropped her voice and said, "They're from the books – it's Alex—"
But before she could finish, there was a loud rapping noise. The limping guy had banged his cane on the desk, shaking the boombox on it. Both of them looked ancient to Aly – why, they must have been at least fifty-five. Who was that old at all in spy stuff, except Dame Judi Dench? "All right, pay attention, students," he said, putting a certain twist on students that meant that he at least thought this was funny. The class quieted down very quickly.
The other man, salt-and-pepper-haired and somewhat stockier than his slender companion, smiled a little. "Allow us to welcome you to FAIL," he said. He had a pronounced Russian accent, Aly noticed. The Cold War was so last century already. "And particularly, this class: What's In A Name."
"Now, we know you can't all be perfect," the limping man drawled, moving from behind the table at the front of the class. Aly stared – what's up with his foot?! – because the man's right foot was obviously a prosthesis, and not of a recent vintage, either. "But you're going to have to get a better grip on spelling, at least. So we thought we'd start you off with a specific kind of name first."
"Most of you cannot even spell the simplest of names, proof that your American public education system is inferior—"
"Oh, for God's sake, Kruppie, give it a rest," the slender guy sighed. "Anyway. I'm Alex Conklin – " Aly gulped involuntarily; so this was the book-version of that jerkface – "and this propaganda-spewing Soviet here is Dimitri Krupkin." Zahira's hand had shot straight up when Conklin had introduced himself. The instructor raised an eyebrow and pointed at her. "Go ahead."
"Except that's not your name, is it, sir?" she asked him, though without accusation – just a statement of fact. "Mr. Aleksei Nikolae Konsolikov. Though I must note that your middle name seems to lack a patronymic ending."
Conklin and Krupkin looked at each other, then Conklin looked back at her and smiled a little. "Pretty astute. Looks like someone read the books."
"Yes, sir," Zahira replied, practically beaming with pride.
"Okay, I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you're…" Conklin glanced down at the table, upon which was presumably a roster of some sort. "Hakim, Zahira F.?"
"That's me!" she said, beaming. "How'd you know?"
"We have Ways," Krupkin said, smirking. Aly could see that Zee nearly fell out of her chair.
"Ways!" she mouthed to Aly, clearly floored. Rebecca chuckled. Mia rolled her eyes. Aly was just confused, but decided to roll with it.
"Anyway," Conklin said, leaning on his cane. "Today's lesson is about Russian names in particular. Of course, there are more Russian characters in the books than in the movies – ourselves included. But that still shouldn't preclude you all from knowing the basics of how Russian names work."
"You won't have to spell anything today, but consider this an introduction to the class," Krupkin added. "Try to enjoy it."
"God knows we will." Conklin grinned. "Kruppie, would you do the honors?"
"I'd be glad to, Aleksei." He tapped the play button on the boombox, and a light steady ch-ch-chch-ch percussion beat began.
"You see," Conklin began, "Russian names are a kind of a game."
"There's a first and a last and a middle name," Krupkin said, keeping the beat.
"Giving the first name is the mama's chore…"
"Like Boris, Alexander, or Fyodor."
The door swung open suddenly. "The last name comes from the family…" David Webb said, jogging down to join the two at the front.
"Like Pushkin, Basilov, or Porfiry," Krupkin elaborated.
Conklin grinned. "With the middle name, now here comes the fun: the papa gives his first name to the son!"
"He then adds an '-ovich' or a '-yevich' to the end," Krupkin said.
Webb nodded. "Here's an example so you comprehend."
"The papa's name is Sonov," Conklin said, "now here's the switch:"
"The kid's middle name is Sonovovich!"
All three joined together for the final verse: "Yes, the kid's middle name is Sonovovich!" The recorded drums became a comedy riff and stopped. The three professors engaged each other in an elaborate system of high-fives.
Zahira was practically pissing herself with laughter – she'd fallen off her chair. Aly was trying to keep it in, and failing. Mia had bitten her lip, trying not to grin. It wasn't working.
Since everybody was laughing, they didn't notice that the professors had started looking around the classroom in a predatory way. "Mattesych!" Conklin roared, pronouncing the name 'matt-uh-sick'. An auburn-haired girl in her mid-twenties froze, looking terrified. "If your father's name was Ivan, what would your middle name be?"
"Uh…" she stammered. "Iv-Ivanovich?"
"Wrong!" Conklin shouted gleefully. Aly revised her opinion of him closer to 'jerkface' than it had been. "You're a girl – it would be 'Ivanova'!"
"But that wasn't in the song," a teenage girl across the room said.
"Just because it wasn't in the song doesn't mean you shouldn't know it," Webb said, his slight smile inspiring far more fear than it should have, coming from a fifty-year-old professor of Oriental Studies as it did.
"Really, Aleksei, your American public education system…" Krupkin shook his head.
"Yeah, it is a little lacking, isn't it, Dimitri?" Webb asked, leaning against the table.
"That was depressing, and speaking as someone who had his foot blown off by a land mine, I mean that," Conklin said, shaking his head. "All right, class dismissed. As homework, I want you all to translate your names into Russian. No points will be awarded if you use the Roman alphabet. We require Cyrillic."
A groan arose from the class. "'hohally hah hair," Aly muttered.
"Of course it's fair, Haskell," Conklin said, smirking. Aly looked horrified that he'd not only heard but understood her. "And you're lucky I don't make your punishment in particular worse, given how you've treated my counterpart."
Aly gulped.
"Get out of here, go on. If I'm not mistaken, you have another required class in…" Conklin made a big show of looking at his watch. "Six minutes."
"And it's on the other side of campus!" Krupkin said, far too much glee in his voice for a character nobody even cared about, Aly thought.
"Shit!" Zahira shouted, having picked herself off the floor, and there was a mad scramble for the door. It took about one minute for the packed lecture hall to clear entirely.
Once the students were gone, Webb gave his friend a sidelong glance. "There's no required class at Old Headquarters today."
"Well, what do you know?" the old spook said with feigned innocence. "I guess I was mistaken."
"You're a real Sonovovich, I hope you know."
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Hi all! No, I'm not dead. Just been busy, and I lost the file for this, but I found it, so update! Ah, the stuff I've been up to…you wouldn't believe me. Suffice it to say I'll be making much more of an effort to post from now on - for this and other fanfics.
Also, points if anyone can discover the original source of the name song. Because it's just so much win I had to share.