“Okay. I think I’m ready. I’ll probably have to call you with problems that crop up.” He shook his head and chuffed a laugh, “I was thinking I’d get a little more experience with you before I was thrown to the wolves.”
Gunnar chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “The big boss thinks you’ll do fine and I’m sure you will too. Hell, I did my first one of these with no one around to show me how.”
Gunnar’s confidence in him made Emmanuel feel good. He hoped he could live up to it. Then some worry crept in as he thought, Gunnar’s not supposed to be able to talk to X, is he? Is he just saying that to make me feel better?
Chapter Five
When the class was over, Kate Warren caught Kaem by the sleeve of his gi. “Seba-Kun, I wanted to talk to you when there weren’t other students around.”
He nodded, “Sure, Sensei, what’s up?”
“It’s probably not lost on you that you’re learning much faster than the other students?”
“Um… okay?”
“You’ve really never had any karate training before?”
“No, but I am a fast learner.”
She cocked her head. “What’re your goals?”
He shrugged. “Get some exercise. Be able to defend myself.”
“Would you like to enter some competitions?”
“Oh, no. Not at all.”
Kate tried to hide her disappointment. “Okay. I’m worried you aren’t being challenged in this class. Even though I’m sure you could pass, we can’t let you test for your yellow belt until you’ve been training for three months, but we could move you to a more advanced class?”
“Oh, sure. I’d like that… Wait. What night would it meet?” He didn’t want to run into Arya at the dojo.
“Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Could I just come Thursdays?”
“You could, but the fee would be the same. Normally we’d say that you’d probably have to be in that class a lot longer if you go half time,” she shrugged, “but the way you learn you probably wouldn’t have to be in it as long as most.”
He grinned, “I don’t mind the excessive fee. How do I sign up?”
As he left, Kate watched him pensively, thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to learn anything after one lesson. None of this repeat and repeat to set it in muscle memory like the rest of us poor sods, she thought.
~~~
When Kaem left the dojo, he turned back toward Staze’s building, enjoying the cool evening.
He’d just started to jog for a little more exercise, something he was finding he enjoyed, when his phone chimed, “You have a call from Sophia.”
He said, “I’ll take it… Hi Mom. How are things in Valen?”
“Lonely,” She sounded a little down, “Bana’s at WVU. Your dad’s down there with you. I’ve got a few friends, but it’s not the same.”
“When are you gonna move down here? We’d love to have you around. Dad really misses you.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it, but… are you’re sure his job’s secure?”
“Oh yeah!” Kaem said enthusiastically, “Everyone loves him here. He’s been doing great work.”
“And you sure the company’s stable?”
“As sure as anyone can be of anything.”
“I’d hate to give up my job here, then get down there and have Emmanuel lose his job too.”
“Momma, you worry too much. But, if that happened, you could both move in with me until you found more jobs. They’re easier to get here than they are in Valen.”
“If they had to lay off your dad, surely they’d also lay off a part-timer like you.”
Kaem bit his lip while trying to decide how to answer. Finally, he said, “If we had to, we could all live on my scholarship.”
“I thought you were using every spare penny from your scholarship to send Bana to school?”
She catches me at every turn! Kaem thought, working hard to keep from breaking out laughing. Finally, he said, “What happened to my mother who married a young soccer player from Tanzania, then pulled up stakes and moved to the States?”
His mother sighed, “She got old.”
“Mom! You’d worry if I had a ton of gold in my closet! Move down here. It’ll be fine.” He sighed, “You and Dad can both stay with me until you get a job.”
“Well, maybe. I’ll have to think about it.”
She’s been thinking about it for months already! Kaem thought exasperatedly.
~~~
When Kaem got to Staze, he entered the big building and flipped on the lights. It was eerie at night with no one there. He went over and pulled Gunnar’s human stazer prototype away from the wall, then plugged it in. While waiting for the new electronics he’d installed to do their self-check, he set his phone up on a little tripod and put it on record. Self-check passed, so he hooked his laptop up to the stazer and logged into the system. He set it to create a Stade that would last a kilosecond (16.7 minutes). He’d added a couple lines of code to the program that afternoon that let him tell a stazer to wait a specified number of minutes before stazing—like a photo timer. After setting that timer for three minutes, he took off his shoes, got in the stazer, lifted its sidewall into place, then turned to his phone and its camera. He said, “I’ve decided to test stazing on a human. To be specific, on me. While I’m sure it’ll be okay, if it doesn’t go well, I want everyone to be able to watch this video and know I did this of my own free will and no one else is to blame.”
He pulled the lid shut and closed his eyes, trying to relax as he waited to be stazed.
~~~
Richter and Joe
