The Nerdy Dozen (5 page)

Jones was waiting outside the simulation chamber, seemingly pleased. He stood with the other recruits, fresh off the Decider, and started to brief them for the simulation chambers. Neil stepped out into the hall, and Samantha followed.

“We almost had that one,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Reminded me of that huge team game we had a few weeks ago, yeah?”

Neil froze. Samantha was still talking, but Neil didn't hear her. An otherworldly buzz was raging through his ears.

Of course
, Neil thought.
Samantha
was ShooterSam. The guy he shared his embarrassing stories with, who made him laugh, who knew him better than anyone else in the world. His
best friend
.

Except, it turned out,
he
was a
she
.

NEIL MUMBLED SOMETHING UNINTELLIGIBLE TO SAM AND hurried down the hall to the bathroom. He needed a minute alone to process this. He pushed through the doorway, only to run directly into Biggs.

“Hey, man, slow down,” Biggs said, following Neil back into the bathroom. “What's wrong? You just kicked some major butt on the sim. Almost took that last one.”

“Dude, I'm in trouble,” Neil said, locking himself into a stall.

“How bad? I can get you to Mexico by horseback within a day, tops. I know people.”

“What? No, man, not that kind of trouble.”

“Oh, gotcha. All right, what's up for real, then?”

“It's Samantha.
Sam
,” Neil said, unlocking the door and facing Biggs.

“Ooh! You interested?”

Neil felt himself blush. “No, it's not that at all. She's
ShooterSam
.”

“Yeah, man, you guys play together, like, all the time. Gotta be cool to finally meet.”

“That's the thing. I—I thought . . . well, I thought that
she
was a
he
,” Neil stammered, turning on a faucet.

“You didn't know that she was a
she
?” Biggs asked, confused.

“No!” Neil shouted, and closed his eyes. He thought back to all their conversations. Whenever they'd talked about school, or family, or friends, Neil had always just assumed that the stories he heard were being told by a guy. “I don't know; it just never got mentioned!” Neil said finally. “I mean, we would pause games to both run to the bathroom, but I just always assumed we were both standing up.”

Biggs pondered this for a second, catching Neil's glance in a mirror.

Neil sighed and reached for a paper towel. “I just . . . I'm not really good at talking to girls. The only ones I talk to are the ones I'm related to by blood, and even then I'm not entirely sure about my sister, Janey. I think she's half ninja.”

“Dude, chill. You just need to use some of my Biggs charm,” Biggs said, pulling open the door to the hallway.

“But I don't have any Biggs ch—” Neil began to say, until he spotted Sam leaning against the wall, her legs making a 4.

“Hey, guys, Major Jones asked me to come find you,” Sam said, walking toward Neil and Biggs. “We're ready to be ‘decisioned,' or whatever.”

“Well, you found us!” Neil said, a bit too enthusiastically. He could feel himself beginning to sweat. Biggs glanced his way with a knowing look that only sort of calmed him down.

“
Right on
, I think, is what my excited friend is trying to say,” Biggs added.

“Oookay,” said Sam, smiling a little. “Now, let's pull chocks, boys. We gotta be there in two minutes.”

“How do you know all these military terms?” Biggs asked as he and Neil started after Sam. “I'm just getting the hang of military time. Like, do you say
oh
before every time? Or just sometimes? Can I pepper it in occasionally at the end?”

“You'll get the hang of it,” Sam replied. “My dad's Army, so I've just always been around it.”

“Cool,” replied Biggs. “I'm the same way. My dad lived in a giant fir tree for a year, so I know what you mean.”

Sam blinked at Biggs in confusion, then shook her head as if giving up on trying to understand. She paused for a moment in the hallway, undid her pigtails, flipped her hair forward, and pulled it back into a high ponytail. Her hair smelled faintly of coconut. Neil could see that her ears weren't pierced.

“Neil, you pick up any good terms from your folks?” Sam asked, oblivious to the fact that Neil was staring. “You said one time your dad was a scientist?”

“Oh, uh, well,” Neil stammered. His father was a scientist of sorts. Since this usually ended up with laughs from the likes of Tommy Scott, he rarely mentioned it.

“Yeah, I mean he's got scientist
tendencies
, maybe?” Neil said. “Or something. He works with paleontologists and archaeologists. It's boring, I know—”

“Boring? No way! I love dinosaurs. They're one of my top seventeen favorite things!” Sam beamed. “Does he work with the exhuming? Or on-site?”

“Um . . .” The problem was, Neil actually had no idea what his dad did all day. Every time he asked, his dad just laughed and gave him dinosaur stickers. Neil had given up on figuring it out. “I know that he has meetings, makes calls, wears a tie on Mondays . . . oh, and sometimes he comes home with ice cream?” Neil was never one to talk business, especially once cookies and/or ice cream were made available.

“Well, I'm sure it's really cool. Has he helped discover any new species?” Sam asked, her interest increasing proportionally to Neil's armpit sweat.

“I heard he just made a big find. The ecksbocksosaurus,” Biggs interrupted.

Sam tilted her head. “Oh, wow. That must have just happened. I've never even heard of it. Is it an ankylosaur?”

“Something like that.” Neil shrugged, giving Biggs a glare. If this was the Biggs charm, Neil wasn't sure if he needed much more of it.

“Well, either way, that's cool,” Sam said, plunging her hand into her pocket. She pulled out an oblong, flat rock, which fit perfectly in the smooth palm of her hand. Neil noticed she wore a bracelet of a thin, braided rope and had the faint remnants of purple nail polish still clinging to the centers of her nails.

“This is my good luck charm. It's a trilobite,” she said, opening her fingers to display the fossilized remnants of a creature that lived millions of years ago.

As she held it out for Neil to see, Trevor appeared from around the corner, with Jason 1 and Jason 2 on either side.

“I'll take that,” Trevor said, trying to grab the artifact, but Sam's hand retracted quickly, like a Venus flytrap.

“In your dreams,” Sam snapped, stowing one-seventeenth of her passions away from eyesight.

Trevor mimicked a response and then fell in line as Neil, Sam, and Biggs turned to head down the hallway to the Decider. Neil glanced back at the two boys trailing behind with Trevor. For having the same name, they couldn't have looked more different. Jason 1 was African American, with short buzzed hair. He was only an inch shorter than Biggs, the tallest recruit, and moved with an athletic energy. Jason 2, on the other hand, had a huge, almond-shaped head, with oversize round ears and a small ski ramp of a nose. Moles dotted his pale skin, like Cocoa Puffs in a sea of skim milk. He was quiet and always seemed to have his hands shoved down into his pants pockets.

“Hey, Ashley, if you're lucky, maybe I'll teach you to actually fly one of those fighters someday,” Trevor challenged as he caught Neil's stare.

“Yeah? Well, you're lucky that the sim training was only three rounds, because Neil would have destroyed you in the next one,” Sam retorted.

“Ooh, Ashley's new girlfriend gonna do the talking for him?” Trevor laughed.

“I knew from the way he flies that that kid would be a jerk,” Sam said under her breath, rolling her eyes.

Neil said nothing. He couldn't think about anything except what was up ahead, the mysterious challenge that would determine his fate. The Decider.

“THIS WAY, RECRUITS,” LOPEZ SAID, WAVING THEM THROUGH an open door that could only lead to the Decider. Everyone gulped and then, one by one, filed inside.

The first thing that struck Neil was the bright light. Early-morning sunlight shone through a glass ceiling onto an open, expansive facility. Neil could see the edges of mountains outside the glass, the base securely nestled in a mountain range.

Directly below the glass dome, and taking up the entire room, was a mammoth, snaking obstacle course. By Neil's count, it boasted seven different challenges, starting with dangling tires to crawl through and then segueing into a series of horizontal wooden rails to hop over and crawl under. Next were cargo nets, monkey bars, and swinging ropes, all over a pit of drab brownish water and a springy rectangular trampoline for them to jump across a deep, muddy trench. That led up to a ten-foot-tall wooden climbing wall. At the top was a platform where a cowbell hung suspended from a fraying rope. As Neil studied the course, an air horn blasted, shaking his concentration and his nerves.

“Recruits, welcome to the Decider.” Jones waved an arm at the array of equipment before them.

“In order to fly with the Air Force, every recruit has to finish the course in under seventy-five seconds. But since you may not all have the, ah,
physical skills
, let's just say a completion of the course will suffice.”

Neil rubbed his biceps, or at least the areas of his arms where biceps were meant to be.
I've got physical skills
, he thought.
Like opening bags of chips. Or tricky pickle jars.

“Wells and Lopez will show you all how it's done. To this day, they hold the two fastest times, separated by only a half second.”

The two soldiers calmly bumped their fists together, clearly proud of their records. Neil winced at the thought of how hard their knuckles must be.

“Our first-place finisher is guaranteed a seat on the Chameleon for the mission,” Jones announced.

I'm getting in that jet fighter
, Neil thought furiously.

“Oh, and you also get this,” he added, holding up a platinum-colored cowbell trophy, a sparkling replica of the one signaling the noisy finish line of the obstacle course. “‘The Decision Maker.' Standard reward for the fastest new recruit.”

Neil's eyes lit up, and he wondered how much space it would take up on his living-room mantel. It was as big as at least eight or nine of Janey's karate awards put together.

Jones turned to his men. “Wells, Lopez, let's show them how it's done.”

At the sound of another horn, the two attacked the course. They gracefully slithered through the dangling tires, hopped over and went under the wooden planks with ease, and traversed the murky water with calculated swoops of their arms. In just one step, they jumped the trench and grabbed the top of the wall with only one arm each, hoisting themselves up in a single motion. Then, together, they rattled the metal bell with force as Jones punched the stopwatch in his hand. He looked like a proud father. Neil felt light-headed just seeing it all happen.

“Not your best, gentlemen. But still impressive. Now, recruits, it's your turn. I need to see hustle. Please don't take longer than ten minutes. Otherwise I'm retiring.”

The six kids began shaking their wrists to loosen up, some pulling their arms across their bodies in an attempt to stretch. But then, without warning, the sound of the starting horn filled the room again.

“
Go!
” Jones yelled, his voice hoarse.

The crew dived headfirst for the tires, most of them whining as their faces scraped against the rigid, unforgiving rubber. Neil was skinny, though, and managed to snake his way through.
Pretend it's a video game
, he told himself as he slithered through the last tire and stumbled forward.
Just keep going.

Neil risked a quick glance back and saw that Jason 2 was right behind him, stuck diagonally in the tires and squirming in frustration. Neil grabbed Jason's outstretched hand and gave a quick tug. As Jason's legs pulled free, Neil noticed a full-body spandex bodysuit underneath his uniform. It was green, sparkly, and skin-tight, like a superhero costume of some kind.

“Thanks,” Jason 2 gasped as he wobbled out.

“Is that a costu—” Neil started to ask, but Jason 2 cut him off.

“Shh!” He placed a long, bony finger to his lips and then took off ahead, leaving Neil in his wake. Neil looked up to see Jason 1 waving him on.

Neil frowned in concentration and started on the boards. He rolled under the first and then jumped over the next, continuing as the boards slowly grew lower and higher in comparison to the ground.

The recruits stuck together as they made their way through the course, helping one another through the toughest parts, and eventually, they all gathered before the murky water, catching their breath and studying what lay before them.

“Cannonballlll!” Jason 2 suddenly yelled, and took a running jump into the gross-looking water, splashing all over Trevor.
That's one way of doing it
, Neil thought with a smile as he hopped onto the monkey bars above the water. With Sam, Trevor, and Biggs at either side, Neil moved forward slowly, the skin from his hands peeling against the rough metal of the bars, his bony knees knocking together like human wind chimes.

Finally, they all stood in front of the giant trampoline that they needed to jump on to cross the muddy ditch below. “Me first!” Jason 1 shouted, launching himself off the trampoline. But his jump was too short, and he landed headfirst in the deep pit of mud. Laughing, Trevor started up next, only to fall like a flailing sack of potatoes and land next to Jason 1.

One by one, the rest of the recruits all tried to jump across, but no one seemed to have enough leg strength for a big-enough leap. “Come on, recruits!” Jones was yelling, his face red. But after Biggs failed miserably at a Fosbury Flop approach, Neil found himself the only recruit left standing on unmuddy ground.

This is your chance
, Neil told himself.
You make this and you're in that plane. Maybe even a pilot.

Neil bounced up and down on his tiptoes, then took a running start. He pushed off the trampoline with all his might, his legs extending behind him as he flew like a gazelle over the trench full of mud-soaked gamers, their alligator arms snapping under his frame. Neil landed on the opposite side, his left leg dangling into the trench. Panting from excitement and sheer disbelief, he quickly pulled himself up to examine the final obstacle: a giant, flat climbing wall. There were no handholds or footholds, and there was no way he was tall enough just to leap and pull himself onto the top platform like Wells and Lopez had done. But there was nothing else to do. Neil's eyes fixed on the bell positioned above, and he summoned all the energy he had left in his body. With a grunt, he jumped as high as he could. Within a foot of the top, his hands scrambled for something to grab onto, and finding nothing, he slid back down, landing in a tangle of wiry limbs.

“Neil. You can't get up there alone. If you toss us that rope and let us all up, we can all help lift you to the top of the wall,” called Trevor from the deep, sticky pit.

“Yeah, right,” said Neil, turning back to face the wall. He knew better than to trust Trevor.

“Ignore Trevor,” Sam called out as if reading his mind. “Just let me have the rope. I'll help.”

“No mercy, recruits! Clock is ticking!” Jones hollered from the sideline.

Neil's lungs burned, and while holding his hands above his head for staccato gasps, he caught Jones's eye, which was gleaming with a crazed kind of excitement. Neil wondered if holidays at the Jones household involved some sort of festive obstacle course.

Deep down, Neil knew that Sam was right. Still catching his breath, he grabbed the length of rope attached to the base of the wall and tossed its free end into the pit, twirling it to within Sam's reach.

Sam climbed out first, followed by Trevor and the others all muddy and soaked, like swamp hatchlings that had lost their tails. Jason 2 was the last to crawl out, and Neil reached down to give him a hand. As he pulled Jason 2 up over the edge, Jason's shirt lifted at the hem, revealing more of the jumpsuit that he was wearing underneath. Neil could see a white belt around Jason's spandex-clad midsection.

“I have to ask,” Neil said. “What's your superhero name?”

“The Shrieking Salamander,” Jason 2 whispered as he and Neil hurried back to the wall, where the others were all gathered. “My powers are legendary.”

“Got it,” Neil confirmed as he turned to watch Trevor trying to scramble to the top of the wall first. The rest of the group were jumping up and flinging their bodies at the wall, each of their jumps leaving muddy outlines of their bodies that seemed to get lower and lower as they steadily lost energy.

“Neil,” Sam offered, “how about me and Biggs give you a boost? We would still be stuck in that ditch if it wasn't for you.”

“Totally. I wanna see you win this thing,” said Biggs, who had twisted his ankle in the fall and couldn't leap. “If nothing else as a tribute to the good sideburn hair you lost this morning.”

Neil took an instinctive step backward as Biggs and Sam clasped their hands, creating a step. Experience had taught him that anyone creating a bridge with their hands was preparing just to chuck him as far as they could, like a human cannonball. But then he looked into their eyes and reminded himself that Biggs and Sam were his friends. New friends.
Well, new old friends, sort of.

“Okay,” he said, and put a confident boot on their hands. They hoisted him as high as they could. “Almost there . . . ,” Neil grunted, his fingertips just touching the top of the platform.

“Now try,” Biggs said, lifting Neil up a few extra inches. It was just enough for Neil to grab a firm hold of the platform. His stomach fluttered with excitement. He was moments away from getting a guaranteed spot on that plane.

But just as Neil started to lift his skinny frame to the top, he felt the hands of someone crawling up his back.

“Hey!” Neil yelled. He looked back to see Trevor stepping on Biggs's face and then jabbing his knee right into Neil's shoulder. Using Neil as a human ladder, Trevor clambered over him and then up onto the platform, clanging the cowbell loudly in victory, smirking at Neil. Neil felt like he was going to throw up.

 

Neil and the others reported back to their bunks, quickly throwing their new military clothes into canvas backpacks. They were to bring their uniforms to the briefing session, after which they would either depart for the mission or head out on the first commercial flight home. A nervous, excited energy found its way into every conversation.

As he hurried between bunks, Neil bumped shoulders with one of the kids from the other training group, knocking the neat pile of clothes out of his hands and onto the floor.

“Oh, sorry,” Neil said, kneeling to help pick up the kid's stuff. The boy had short, spiky black hair that seemed capable of stabbing cheese cubes. Neil handed him a pair of camouflage pants that had fallen. “Here ya go. I'm Neil, by the way.”

“Thanks. I'm Jo-yung, but most everybody calls me JP. Nice to meet you. I think we both played in that giant multiplayer game last weekend, if I'm not mistaken.” He shoved the rest of his clothes into his bag. Clear braces were stuck to his teeth, giving him a slight lisp. “I'm jp4343.”

“Oh wait, are you the guy who fell asleep and flew into that bridge right at the end?” Neil asked.

“Ha, yes, that was me. I was in Taiwan for a week visiting family. There's a fifteen-hour time difference, so after a while I totally crashed. In the game, and on my grandparents' basement couch.” He smiled nervously.

“Nice,” Neil said. “You were really good, though, crash or no crash.”

“Thanks. And sorry for any snoring!” JP laughed. “It's cool—if you think about it, I was sort of playing from the future.”

“Did you say you're from the future?” Biggs interrupted from his bed. “Do you know if we ever figure out space travel? Or if we've mastered sustainable vegetarian beef jerky? What are the next winning lottery numbers?” Strands of hair fell in front of Biggs's face as he wrestled to zip his backpack closed. It was stuffed so full, Neil wondered where Biggs had even gotten all that stuff. They had all been issued the same set of gear. “I'm Biggs, by the by,” Biggs said, blowing the hair out of his eyes.

JP looked more than a bit confused as he introduced himself. Neil was beginning to understand that this was something of a typical reaction to people meeting Biggs for the first time.

“Anyway, I think I'm going to head out. It doesn't seem that the major tolerates tardiness,” said JP.

“See you in there!” yelled Biggs a little too loudly from under the bed. Biggs apparently possessed a special kind of messiness that made it seem like he had been on the base for weeks, when it had been only one night. He crawled through his bunk bed searching for dirty socks and shirts like he was on some kind of smelly Easter egg hunt.