Recompense

EIGHT

Maybe I should have swallowed my pride.

The next week, Captain Alston ramps up my training schedule. We alternate speed and mileage in the mornings, sometimes running as many as a slow ten, other times a ridiculously fast three. My wind steadily improves, but always he is pushing me to my uttermost limits. Hard enough that, despite my improvements, he can scorn me for not being as good as he thinks I should be. And no matter how I try, I cannot catch that elusive five-mile Military time limit on the rugged mountain terrain.

Other parts of my training begin to go much better. Along with the additional weapons time slot, I have been given explosives training and problem-solving scenarios. I am far better at these. They both have a certain logic to them that I can grasp hold of. I'm also happy to learn that I work with Opie in the kitchen at noon, so the hour skates by. And after so many futile sessions practicing hand-to-hand combat skills, I am moved on to the firing range to try my hand at ballistic weapons—single shots, automatics, heat-seekers, radioactive bullets. I'm not certain if Captain Chase just gave up or if we simply ran out of time. Actually, I prove much better at weapons I can just point and shoot. That don't require me as their power source.

On Wednesday morning, I see my first test scheduled on my holoband. It is to be held in Willoughby's office just prior to lunch. When I arrive, Willoughby is seated on his couch speaking with a black man perhaps fifty years old, who wears glasses and a lab coat. His graying hair forms a perfectly round pouf.

"Here she is now." They both rise as I enter. "Jack, I'd like you to meet Dr. Rykerk Skynner."

"An honor," I mumble.

"Likewise."

We are seated, and Willoughby begins explanations. "Dr. Skynner has come at my request and agreed to spend a few weeks with us."

"A few weeks?" I ask in surprise. "Just how many tests are we talking?" I'm not keen on the idea of being a long-term lab rat.

"Just one, which is to be performed here. Now. But Dr. Skynner will be staying on for the next two weeks to guide you in the practice of meditation."

I take a closer look at the doctor. He smiles at me benignly. "Like sitting with my legs crisscrossed while I hum in Tibetan?" This has the potential to be even worse than drill with Norvis.

Willoughby's lip twitches. "A little more practical perhaps. Dr. Skynner is a mental health specialist, not a Buddhist. The exercise he will perform today is designed to probe into the closed portions of your mind."

I back up a step. "Hold on a blinkin' minute." I borrow the expression from Opie. "I am not a mental case."

"No, you're not," Willoughby says. "Not in the traditional sense of illness. But if you allow Dr. Skynner a look into your memories, I believe you may hold a clue to matters of national interest."

I stare at Willoughby. "I'm just a kid off the street who ended up in Settlement 56. What do you think can possibly be in my brain?"

"We aren't entirely sure, but we'd like to have a look, with your permission."

"And if I say no?"

"Then I will regret a significant lost opportunity."

"You mean you won't force me?"

"No, Jack. That isn't how I operate Axis."

The doctor cuts in with a deep, smooth voice. "Miss Holloway, let me assure you that memory mapping is a noninvasive and entirely painless process. You simply sit with your head immobilized within a computerized scanning unit while ultrasonic waves map and analyze the chemical makeup of your brain. The computer then interprets the data, giving us a 3-D visual image of your hippocampus, the part of the brain that retains memory."