/ Chapter 17 – Walker Rising /

Frank leaned back in his chair with satisfaction as he finished up the last paragraph of an essay he'd written. He still needed to go back and revise a bit, but overall he felt it was some of his best writing ever. He glanced over at Athena, who was sitting in a chair reading a history book on the Roman Empire (he often noted that she was a very fast reader; he'd love to learn her secret).

March had come to Tomorrowland, and Frank reflected that he liked when they did their work together, which they'd been doing quite often lately. She had such a methodical focus that he felt inspired to keep himself focused, and ended up being more productive.

Athena was inspirational on many levels, actually. She was almost adult-like in her calm and unflappable demeanor, and her sense of responsibility always kept him on-task. The whole concept of "business before pleasure" wasn't a motto to her, it was baked into her at some core level, yet she was always up for fun – as long as it was at the right time. This would potentially be obnoxious in anyone else, but somehow Athena made it okay because she wasn't that way out of ego or some desire to control everyone. It was simply the most efficient, best way to be productive – that was that, and the idea of being less than efficient was so foreign to her that it was simply unthinkable. And she seemed to have limitless energy; she had to get tired sometimes, but she never complained about it.

This was all inspiring to Frank, because while he felt in the past that he was a fairly efficient person overall, he realized Athena was a whole different level. Nothing ever really got her upset or agitated (though she was sometimes annoyed or frustrated, mostly when something interfered with efficiency), but she radiated an attitude that every problem had a solution and it was only a matter of time before it cracked if you applied continuous, steady, calm pressure to it.

And he wanted to be productive. Since Christmas with his new attitude, he'd accomplished more in that time than over the whole last year, and somehow getting more done led to having more free time for his projects and, not least, free time for fun with Athena.

As he was writing, an indicator popped up on his terminal from the school. He was very nervous seeing this, because he suspected it was the grades for his most recent education block. He'd put a large amount of effort into it and was hoping it would pay off, because it would be discouraging if it didn't. He'd had one block since December break (with his new attitude) and he scored a mix of A's and B's. Which was better, but not enough.

"I think my grades just came in," he said.

"What did you get?" Athena asked, looking up from her book.

"I don't know yet," Frank replied.

He noticed with amusement that Athena looked slightly annoyed at this, as though wondering, 'Why, then, did you bring up the subject before you looked?'

"All right, all right, I'll look," he said. "No more fear."

He opened up the message, read it quickly, and grinned. "All A's. I'd been a little worried about that history exam I did orally, but…"

"That's fantastic, Frank!" Athena said excitedly. "I knew that once you got settled, your diligence would pay off."

"Yeah, you were right," Frank said, smiling. "You're always right; it's annoying sometimes. But in all seriousness, thanks for all the support since the beginning. It helped a lot."

"I'm glad I could help," Athena said, beaming.

"Well, I say it's time for a celebration. Head to Chocberry's?"

In the back of Frank's mind, he was saying this almost jokingly, because he figured Athena would want to finish stuff first.

"All right, let's go," she said, closing her book.

Frank stared at her. "Really?"

"Of course," she said, confused. "Didn't you want to go?"

"Yeah, I do," he grinned. "You just never cease to surprise me. I figured you would want to finish everything first."

"It's important to human psychology to celebrate milestones and also occasionally break a routine, as long as it doesn't interfere with overall efficiency," Athena said. "It's just important to not overdo it so that bad habits are formed, which according to many references can happen very quickly, on the order of 14 to 28 days."

Frank cracked up at this, because Athena said it all completely straight-faced. He didn't think he'd ever get bored of her delivering these speeches in her British accent, which made everything sound more proper and official. He highly suspected that she said this deliberately to mess with him, knowing that he expected her to shoot down a visit to the soda shop. It was all part of her quirky humor.

But she did have a point that a celebration of a milestone was in order. "Well, that's settled, then. Let's break our routine, celebrate a milestone and return efficiently so we don't establish any bad habits."

"Excellent plan," Athena said, nodding her head approvingly.

Frank laughed again as they left the apartment.

The months left in the school year flew by for Frank as he made the Nix Picks list, which was the school's equivalent of the end-of-year honor list. He was near the top in student performance, and he might even have been first if he hadn't had such a slow start. Of course, his top grades didn't help with how the other kids viewed him, but he managed to connect with at least a few kids who were friendly, if not exactly friends. Most kids fell into categories of either intimidated or hostile, despite his best efforts to present himself as just a normal kid. But the idea that he was a recruit who'd been handed a pin branded him as a celebrity as far as the students were concerned, and the fact that he had his own lab room just made him all the more unusual. Particularly weird to him was that teachers even treated him with a definite extra measure of respect, especially once he'd gotten his act together academically.

The hostile kids were the hardest to deal with, who were convinced that he was a fraud and never passed up an opportunity to point out every little flaw in Frank's work. They'd been quieter lately since his work improved, but there was still an undercurrent of resentment that he definitely picked up. But he ignored it as best he could. As Athena had said, kids in Tomorrowland weren't all that different, and there would bound to be jerks everywhere.

It was about a week before end-of-year break in June, which was the equivalent of summer vacation on Earth. But since Tomorrowland seasons weren't in sync with the months, "June Break" could be any sort of weather. It still corresponded with Earth's vacation for families who wanted to do summer traveling (in Earth's Northern Hemisphere, at least).

He was sitting in his last class (social studies, which was much more fun than in the past; it was almost all role playing and in-class 'mini society' games) when he got a message that Nix wanted to see him. Frank tried to think of some trouble he might be in, but really, everything was pretty calm lately and his grades were top-notch. He couldn't think of any particular reason Nix would want to see him.

Nevertheless, he found himself sitting before the man himself in his office, though he felt much less nervous than he did the first time. He even looked into some of Nix's display cases, noting an interesting old miniature steam engine.

"Well, Mr. Walker. We've reached the end of your first year," Nix said, lacing his fingers together and leaning back in his chair.

"Yes, sir," Frank said, still wondering why he was there.

"I suppose you're wondering why I called you here," Nix said, reading his mind. "That fact is, Mr. Walker, I owe you an apology."

Frank was extremely surprised at this, not least because Nix didn't look particularly apologetic; mostly he looked amused with his usual look of being unimpressed with anything.

"Your marks are among the highest in the school, particularly in math and the sciences," Nix continued. "I suspect for math you would even be further advanced if you'd started with us from the beginning. I rejected you from coming here and you have proven yourself."

"Thank you, sir," Frank said. Nix seemed sincere, or at least as sincere as Nix ever got, but Frank couldn't help feeling there was a punchline coming somewhere.

"Do you wonder why I rejected you?" Nix asked.

"Well, the thought did occur to me," Frank said, still feeling intimidated by Nix despite his best efforts.

"Why do you think?"

Frank had asked himself this question many times. "I guess because my jetpack didn't fly?"

"A reasonable assessment," Nix said approvingly. "But not ultimately the reason. You clearly put some impressive work into your device. Really, Mr. Walker, the reason was simple. You were too young and we're not equipped to handle eleven-year-olds. Or, I should say, we're not equipped to handle typical eleven-year-olds. As it turned out, you were not a typical eleven-year-old. Athena forced our hand and she was right. Which, annoyingly, she often is." Nix made an annoyed sigh at the last.

Frank idly wondered what else Athena would have been proven right about.

Nix gave Frank an appraising look. "At the fair, my purpose in asking the questions I did was to try and force you to think in practical terms. I asked, 'How does a jetpack make the world a better place?' But set that aside for a moment. Answer me this, Mr. Walker. Who are the people we love in Plus Ultra? What is that special attribute? What's that vague word you've no doubt heard numerous times?"

"Um, you love… dreamers?" Frank asked tentatively.

"Exactly!" Nix said loudly, banging his hand on the desk and making Frank jump. "Dreamers. What does that mean to you?"

Frank almost wanted to say "people who dream," but he doubted that's what Nix was looking for. He racked his brain, trying to come up with a good answer.

"I guess, people with imagination, who want to make the future better?" Frank asked.

"Excellent answer!" Nix said, nodding. Frank breathed a sigh of relief. School tests were nothing compared to sitting in front of Nix. "But for every positive, there is typically a negative. What's the potential negative of being a dreamer?"

Frank tried, but he came up with a blank. Nix had the effect of causing his brain to empty out.

"I don't know, sir," Frank said, feeling like he failed.

But the lack of an answer didn't seem to worry Nix. "'I don't know' is a perfectly acceptable answer, Mr. Walker, so long as you put some thought into it. 'I don't know' is a much better answer than pretending you do know, and then looking foolish when you make up nonsense just to avoid that terrible phrase 'I don't know,' which is not terrible at all. That's where knowledge starts. In any case, in my opinion, dreaming should have an eventual outcome, something to show for all the dreaming. Otherwise, they're just imaginary worlds that stay in your head and go with you to the grave. Who does that help? Even if your dreams are just written down, perhaps that will inspire someone else. But the greatest of us are the dreamers who produce real results that change the world."

Frank nodded, taking all this in. "That's why you asked me how it made the world a better place."

"Yes," Nix said, nodding.

"And why you wanted me to do better than 'fun.' You wanted to see if I had bigger goals than that."

Nix now did one of his thin smiles. "You then gave me an answer of 'it would be inspiring.' That was a better answer, but I still hoped for more. And here is where I'll give you another apology as well. Ultimately, as I said, you would have been rejected regardless of whether your invention worked or not because of your age. But it'd been a frustrating day of meeting with cranks and their delusions of brilliance and I was too harsh with my final rejection. Some encouragement would have been better, though as you've no doubt noticed, it's a personal shortcoming that I don't encourage as much as I should. So, my apologies, Mr. Walker."

He held out his hand to shake. Frank smiled and shook his hand in return.

"Now then," Nix said. "I want to make you an offer."

"Offer?"

"Indeed," Nix said, raising an eyebrow. "My goal in Plus Ultra is to change the world for the better. You may or may not know that my doctorate is in physics. So why am I running the school? The simple answer is that I want to make the most impact. Although I believe I'm an excellent physicist, Plus Ultra has plenty of excellent physicists, since they are attracted to our culture of independence and research. But what Plus Ultra does not have is brilliant administrators, for the simple reason they typically crave power and control. And while our goal is to change the world, practically speaking, it's a long term goal. And people who crave power want it sooner and with, shall we say, more guarantees."

"I guess you're talking about politics," Frank said. "I don't know anything about it, other than my father complaining about farm laws."

"Indeed I am," Nix said. "I learned long ago that I have a certain talent for organization. In strange ways, I almost see it as a physics problem, with human beings acting as particles with certain properties. Nevertheless, I chose the school because Plus Ultra needs to nurture the right people, because it's the future generations that will ultimately fulfill our purpose. Personally speaking, the school is only the beginning. I believe I'm in line to eventually be Governor of Tomorrowland and Plus Ultra."

This was all very interesting to Frank, but he wasn't quite sure why Nix was telling him all this. "What does have to do with me? If you don't mind my asking," Frank added quickly.

"Ah, that brings me to the offer. There are a small group of students that I select who show promise. I regularly meet with them one-on-one and we talk. Similar to what we're doing now, a kind of Socratic-method of teaching. Are you familiar with this?"

"No," Frank said.

"The Socratic method, in a nutshell, is posing questions and thinking about answers to stimulate discussion. So my offer is regular discussions with the purpose of teaching you more than just knowledge, and to teach you what I know and what Plus Ultra has figured out regarding changing the world. And – perhaps most significantly – what we don't know, the great open questions we still debate among ourselves."

"Wow," Frank said, feeling overwhelmed with this idea.

"Of course, this is entirely optional and you may end our discussions at any time," Nix said. "But I'll tell you that the intent is to give you a fast track to ultimately play a significant role in Plus Ultra. Given your proclivities, I would imagine it'll be in research of some kind. One thing you will need to understand is that you may become privy to Plus Ultra insider knowledge that you'll need to keep confidential. The amount of that will depend on how our discussions move along, but it's something you'll need to commit to."

Frank nodded.

"This is also a bit of a risk on my part; I've never invited anyone near your young age. But as I said, you've proven yourself a remarkable boy. So, Mr. Walker, it comes down to this. Do you want to join us and play an integral part in changing the world?"

Frank didn't even need to think about this. "Yes," he said, nodding. "Definitely."

Author's Note: Please review!

The official story site is at www. frankandathena .com for discussions of the story! - T.K.