Quicker (an Ell Donsaii story) (25 page)

“All but family.” She said with a grimace wondering who was trying to get through now. She’d gotten so many contacts from reporters and news agencies since the second attack that she’d blocked all but “close family” and all of her first degree relatives were with her in the room.

“Would you make an exception for the President?”

“President of what?”

The chief grinned. “These United States, I believe he’s your Commander in Chief?”

“Uh, yes sir.” She sat up straighter and focused straight ahead as she heard the well known voice of President Teller in her headset. “Yes sir… Yes sir… Thank you sir… I appreciate that sir… Yes sir, I do have one request… That Jamal Assad be given asylum and put into the witness protection program for his help today… Yes sir, thank you sir.”

Chief Bowers said, “Sir, I would like to nominate her for the highest civilian medal there is… Uh yes sir, I do know that she’s a member of the military, it had just slipped my mind… Yes sir, I do believe that the Medal of Honor would be appropriate, the terrorists were indeed ‘enemies of these United States.’”

When the call was concluded Phil burst out, “I’m gonna have to salute you?! That’s going a little far!”

Ell, currently being hugged tightly by her mother and grandmother said, “What?

“Everyone, no matter their rank, is supposed to salute Medal of Honor winners!” He paused, then rose to his feet, said, “What the hell!” came to attention and rendered a sharp regulation salute. “At least I’ll be able to say I was first,” he grinned at her.

Ell squeaked as her mom hugged harder, “But I haven’t got it yet!” she whispered.

Chief Bowers rose to his feet, said, “You will, and I’ll be able to say I saluted you second.” He rendered a sharp military salute. “Semper Fi! Hope you don’t mind getting a salute from an old Marine?”

After a lot more hugs, tears, smiles and back patting, Phil took his leave, as did the Chief after introducing them to their guards in the hall. Ell and her mom and Gram talked for many hours alone, Ell appreciating their attentive concern as she described her agony over having killed the guard by the drain and the man in the parking lot and doing serious harm to so many others. Even though she could abstractly agree that they deserved what they’d received, she hated having been the one to mete that punishment out.

Eventually Ell went to bed in her mom’s room but then, unable to sleep, laid awake staring at the ceiling, reliving the events of the day over and over. Ultimately she resorted to her usual practice of considering possible mathematical descriptions of her postulated small dimension through which entangled particles and double slit photons were connected. As she drifted off her scalp abruptly prickled when she realized that the odd mathematical convention she’d just tried actually did fit the known data she’d been trying to tie together! She sat bolt upright, then spent hours recording formulas and having Allan run them against known experimental data pulled in off the net. It was nearly dawn before she got to sleep, grateful that the math breakthrough had taken her mind off the trauma of the day.

Epilogue

Nearly a year had passed since that fateful second day of the Dallas Olympics. President Teller had agreed to give the commencement speech at the Air Force Academy. After Teller had spoken and the Cadets had received their diplomas in the traditional fashion, the Commandant of the Academy said, “Now I have the privilege of turning the podium back over to the President of the United States. Mr. President?”

The President stepped back to the podium. “I am sure that most of you will not be surprised to find that my next words have something to do with a most unusual cadet that you have in your ranks. Ms. Donsaii, ‘front and center’ I believe is the usual command at such times?”

Everyone waited patiently as Ell got up from her seat out in the audience and marched her way to the front. She approached the podium and to her surprise she suddenly recognized Chief Bowers and Jamal Assad seated among the dignitaries on the stage! Despite a mental hiccough she turned smoothly and saluted the President.

He returned the salute, then turned back to the audience and cameras. I’m sure you are all aware that Ms. Donsaii won
four
back to back individual gold medals in Gymnastics at the Olympic Games last summer before her participation was interrupted by a terrorist attack.” He paused for thunderous applause to surge up and gradually die down.

“Unless you were living under a rock, I’m sure you are also aware of the role she played in frustrating the plans of those terrorists. After escaping to warn us, she  purposefully allowed herself to be recaptured by the terrorists and then single handedly killed or disabled eight extremists, thus saving the lives of twenty-eight Team USA athletes including one of your fellow cadets and Olympic Silver Medalist, Mr. Phillip Zabrisk.” The President paused again for tumultuous cheering to rise up and then gradually die down.

“Today I am proud to announce that, in the name of the Congress of the United States, I am awarding Ms. Donsaii the Medal of Honor ‘for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of her life, above and beyond the call of duty, while engaged in action against an enemy of the United States.’” He picked up a case from the podium, opened it and pulled out a ribbon with the medal on it. He held it up to the crowd for a moment, then turned and put it around Ell’s neck. Turning back to the microphone he said. “I believe the tradition is that everyone, regardless of rank or status is encouraged to salute Medal of Honor winners. I wish to be first to do so.” He made a creditable left face and rendered Ell a sharp military salute. Out in the audience Phil elbowed Jason, “Actually, I was the first,” he whispered.

The President turned back to the microphone, “Company, ten hut!” With a crash the military personnel on the stage and in the audience stood and came to attention. He turned again to Ell and said, “Present arms,” and he, as well as all the military personnel present rendered their sharpest salutes. “At ease, and please be seated.

“Now I suppose you think that we have rendered Ms. Donsaii sufficient honors for one day. However, there are a few things that you probably
aren’t
aware of. Ms. Donsaii is not only a physical phenom, able to perform athletically at a level no one had really dreamed possible, but she is undeniably a genius as well. By now many of you are aware that the Academy’s rules were bent to allow her to enter at the unheard of age of fifteen. Some of you may be aware that when she entered, she essentially tested out of the first two years of the academic curriculum here at the Academy. A very few of you are aware, though many of you will be unsurprised to learn, that she has completed the remainder of the academic coursework requirements for graduation in the two years that she has been here. She is still under the age of eighteen! Furthermore, I am able to announce that today the prestigious scientific journal Nature is publishing a paper that she submitted entitled ‘A Possible Mechanism for Quantum Entanglement through an Unperceived Dimension.’ I am assured by those who understand this science that this paper will stir up the world of physics like few papers since the publications of Albert Einstein more than a century ago.”

The complete stunned silence of the audience was palpable. The President grinned and reached into the podium again. “Thus it is my distinct, if unusual, privilege to award one more graduation diploma today, two years earlier than expected, to Ms. Ell Donsaii. And to inform her that she has offers from MIT, Cal Tech and numerous other schools to enter their graduate programs in physics. I also inform her that her country believes it is in the best interest of these United States that she attend such a graduate school prior to serving her time on active duty.” He turned to Ell and handed her the diploma, then saluted her once again, holding it while she returned the salute. They both held their salutes until he whispered, “I’m holding this salute until you drop yours first.” He winked. She dropped her salute and the stadium erupted.

The End

Hope you liked the book!

If so, please give it a positive review.

Try the next in the series, “Smarter (an Ell Donsaii Story #2)”

Author’s Afterword

This is a comment on the “science” in this science fiction novel. I have always been partial to science fiction that posed a “what if” question. Not everything in the story has to be scientifically possible, but you suspend your disbelief regarding one or two things that aren’t thought to be possible. Then you ask,
what if
something (such as faster than light travel) were possible, how might that change our world? Each of the Ell Donsaii stories asks at least one such question.

“Quicker” asks,
what if
an individual had a mutation allowing them to have faster nerve transmission than the rest of us? Our nerves send their messages along axons, which are incredibly long process that stick out of the main body of the nerve cell. Some of these axons are several feet long (from your spinal cord to your toes). Conduction of messages along these axons aren’t very fast unless the axons are coated with myelin, a coating that allows the message to “skip’ from one node to the next on the surface of the axon. An example of the difference in conduction speeds between myelinated and unmyelinated fibers that you might have experienced occurs when you smash a finger. When the hammer first hits the finger you feel the “thump” which is conducted along myelin coated sensory axons. The pain comes a few seconds later when the unmyelinated pain fibers conduct that sensation up to your brain much more slowly. So a mutation that made you faster would need to affect the myelin, rather than the neurons themselves, perhaps by making the nodes that the message jumps along farther apart.

However, for Ell to be able to
move
faster than the rest of us she must also have powerful muscles capable of moving her limbs more quickly than our muscles do. It is recognized that we all have both “fast twitch” muscle fibers that move quickly but have little endurance and “slow twitch” muscles that move more slowly and have better endurance. For the purposes of our story Ell inherited a tendency for a much higher proportion of very powerful fast twitch fibers from her athletic parents. My thought is that her father already had a gene variant he passed to her that gave him much stronger and faster fast twitch fibers than the rest of us.

Thus Ell’s nerves send messages much more quickly to her limbs which can move very quickly because they have a very high proportion of extraordinarily powerful fast twitch fibers. For this capability she has sacrificed endurance because she has a low proportion of slow twitch fibers.

It has been argued that humans cannot become more intelligent because, if we put more neurons in our skull they will be farther apart therefore slowing down our thought processes because communication among neurons is slow (i.e. giant headed aliens from SF movies might be smart but would think very slowly). But Ell’s new myelin mutation makes the coating on the axons thinner. Therefore, with less myelin in her brain, there is more room in her skull for extra neurons that can be close together. This, in combination with the faster transmission rates provides her with more and faster processing that results in her genius level intelligence.

So, we have a novel exploring the question, “What if a young woman was extraordinarily quick, well coordinated and intelligent?”

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the editing and advice of Gail Gilman, Elene Trull and Nora Dahners, each of whom significantly improved this story.

Chapter from Smarter (an Ell Donsaii Story #2) - a free teaser

Ell had mixed feelings as she entered the out-processing office at the Academy. She felt excited to get on with her life, especially with grad school. She hoped to join a good experimental physics team that would provide her with the tools to investigate some of her quantum theories. Yet she felt sad to be leaving behind many friends among her cadet classmates who all had another two years to go.

Not unexpectedly, when she arrived at the office she found herself assigned to wait. It was frustrating that this couldn’t be handled over the net but in the military, formal events like comings and goings still required signing of actual papers with an obligatory period of “heel cooling.” As she looked around the waiting room she recognized that a number of other 3rd class cadets were also waiting which puzzled her. Then she realized that they were leaving the academy, taking advantage of the opportunity to quit without owing the active duty commitment which accrued as soon as you started your junior year.

Ell had just begun to wonder how much active duty commitment she would owe when a clerk called her name. When Ell sat down the clerk glanced up at her 3rd class shoulder boards and asked, “You’re seeking early departure?”

Ell said, “Well kind of. I graduated yesterday.”

The Airman took another startled look at her shoulder boards. “What? But you’re a 3rd class cadet!”

“Yes. But I completed the requirements for graduation so they gave me a diploma yesterday at the graduation ceremony.”

Now the clerk glanced at her nametag, “Oh! You’re Donsaii! I heard about that.” He looked up at her face for the first time, “I’m sorry, I should have recognized you from watching you in the Olympics. The 3rd class uniform threw me off. Let me have my AI pull up your file.” He stared at his monitor for a moment. “Ah, OK. Here, I’m sending it to you. You’re being assigned to detached duty for grad school. In addition to your five year commitment for the Academy you’ll accrue three more years of commitment for each year of grad school. I’m printing out the document for your signature now.”