7 Days Later Sunday. 08:00. Cafeteria
Alice had seen a therapist every other morning before classes started in the past week. She was still a little shaken up but was feeling more and more confident as the days went on. Navy had a home football game the previous day and won in triple overtime. John was in the cafeteria having breakfast.
“Enough bacon?” Alice kissed John on the cheek as she sat down.
“This is another thing they make well. And it’s so crispy,” John was very excited about today’s breakfast.
“Hey, what are you doing for Thanksgiving next month?”
“No plans, probably stay here for the week.”
“Nope, you’re coming home with me. And you don’t get to say no to that.”
“Aye aye, ma’am,” John saluted her.
John liked her idea, though meeting her family did present a different type of challenge. Alice put her tray down and lightly elbowed him after sitting down next to John. Andern ambled into the cafeteria. If they didn’t know any better, he looked like a zombie.
“Was he out all night?” John laughed at Andern.
“Heard there was a party at the Drunken Cadet after the game. Military police on campus got called in to disburse the crowds not too long ago,” Alice was poking at a pancake.
Andern placed a cup of coffee in front of them. Then set his head on the table and started snoring. Alice and John laughed together. He was in for a world of hurt today.
“He’d be better off drinking a bunch of water, getting some food in his stomach, and going for a good workout. But instead, he’s going to be here for three hours sleeping, drinking coffee, and just making that hangover last all day.”
“John, did you want to go off base for lunch?”
“Sure thing, you got a place in mind?”
“Yeah, I was thinking Valencia’s or Paolo’s,” Alice was poking Andern with a butter knife.
“Either one sounds good.”
Jessica was the next to sit down. She looked in as rough of shape as Andern.
“Oh my god. Did the two of you have drunken sex last night?” Alice blurted out.
“Not so loud. Head hurts.” Jessica was staring at her coffee. “And no, we were at the Cadet. We stayed all night.”
“Well, I’m off the gym. Alice, are you coming?” John grabbed his plate as he got up.
“Yup, lead the way, big guy!”
“Where am I?” Andern picked his head up.
“Good luck you two, be strong,” John said sarcastically as they were heading to the gym.
The gym was pretty quiet. After a couple of hours of working out, combined with a fair amount of flirting and a little grab-ass play the two had called an end to the workout. They opted to swing by the cafeteria just to see if their friends were still there.
“Oh my god. Everyone here is hung over,” Alice was both shocked and appalled.
She wasn’t above drinking. But drinking all night long didn’t seem like a good use of one’s time. Alice poked John and pointed at Jess and Andern.
“Oh, I am taking a picture of this,” John ran over and took a picture on his phone of Jessica and Andern leaning against one another.
“Looks like a war was fought yesterday,” Kevin said as he sat down at the other end of the table.
Nathan was devouring the bacon he had grabbed.
“Football game, they beat Clemson,” John said.
“What?” Kevin asked curiously.
“Sportsball Kevin. Have a good one.” John waved at Kevin and Nate and headed to his room.
Alice was coming with him. When they got back to his room clothes were torn off one another. They needed to get cleaned up, but they needed to burn off some pent-up sexual tension that was lingering in the air for the past week. They lost out on a golden opportunity because of the hotel attack. Today they weren’t going to pass it up.
Monday. 09:00. John’s Room
The group was in John’s room studying. No tests were held on Monday. The first of two midterms per class were to be completed by Wednesday. The PT test could be taken any time during the week. The second PE test and third mid-term for their classes were due by Friday. The tests were random for each student, so one pick and choose when to take tests within reason.
“So, what’s your plan of attack John?” Andern was trying to learn via osmosis.
“PT after chow. Depending on how long it takes, take all twelve of my first tests tomorrow, worst case scenario is done by Wednesday morning.”
“You suck but you know that dear. I’ll be doing the PT exam with you today,” Alice kind of rolled her eyes at her lover.
She wasn’t usually jealous of that memory of John’s, but this week she’d kill for that ability. It was also safe to say that she spoke for the rest of the group too. Everyone would kill to be done with mid-terms as quickly as possible.
Jessica looked up from her book and eyed John, “How the hell are you taking that many tests at once? And why aren’t you studying?”
“Well, I’m ready for the tests,” John just shrugged.
“Name the captain who was responsible for ending the pirate attacks outside of Terra Nova?” Andern muttered.
“Commander Jessik. Strictly speaking, it was in the void outside of the Terra Nova system that the final pirate attack happened, but his squadron was based out of Terra Nova.”
Andern and Jessica were eyeing him suspiciously. John was nonchalantly chewing on a pen and flipping through the different ESPN channels trying to find something half interesting or competitive on. He settled on RC Car racing on the Ocho.
Jessica and Andern began rapid-firing questions on any subject to him. Alice joined in because it looked fun. She knew the secret and decided to use that perfect recall of his to help her study.
“What Captain was largely responsible for forming frigate wing formations against Alliance military?” Andern asked but purposefully messed up the question.
“Admiral Chester. Wasn’t a captain or the alliance, it was the Mercantilists. Page two, third column, the fourth entry on the study guide,” John winced at the video that was on TV, the individual on the video apparently crashed a one-fifth scale remote control airplane which looked hilariously expensive.
“Ok, full stop. We’ve been studying basically since last night. You’ve done fuck all since then. How do you know all that?” Jessica was flustered, dispute her understanding of most things, and was in the top twenty percent of the class but this was too much to handle.
“Huh? I thought y’all knew?”
“Honey, I do, they don’t,” Alice smiled.
“You two are really comfortable with one another. Like way more than normal,” Andern was taken off subject.
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“Ignore that question. John, answer my damn question,” Jessica was now angry that he was exhibiting precisely no effort towards midterms.
Now that Jessica had a moment to think, he showed precisely no motivation in studying besides reading a book. But she’s trying to remember whether or not he’s ever picked up and looked at the same book a second time.
“I have an eidetic memory.”
“You shot who in the what now?” Andern interrupted.
“Photographic memory. I remember everything I’ve seen, read, or understood. So, book tests are rather simplistic for me.”
“I hate you,” Andern and Jessica said in unison.
The group got back to studying. Peppering John with questions, who then answered them immediately as he was laying on the floor watching RC Cars race on TV. Three hours later it was about time to head to chow. John got up, walked into his room, and changed into some more comfortable clothes for PT. The group was packing up books and began walking down the hall.
“So, you ok with meeting up after dinner? Your room?” Andern asked.
“No problem,” John was just going with the flow.
He pressed floor two on the number pad and the elevator was taking them down to the cafeteria floor.
Lunch came and went. It was fish and chips day. After that Alice and John completed their PT mid-terms. Nothing overly difficult. A five-kilometer run, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and a couple of wall climbs. John essentially matched the times he set when the semester started. Alice showed a general improvement across all workouts except for the wall climb. They were walking back to John’s room.
John opened the door and Alice started to strip, “I’m taking a shower now.”
“So am I,” John grinned despite being a sweaty and smelly mess.
This was one of those times when ladies first could be applied. Be John didn’t want to wait for a shower. And he suspected she didn’t want to wait any longer than they needed to be together. That meant something was going to happen.
The shower sex was awkward in John’s room because his shower wasn’t terribly large. All the studying for the tests was overly stressful for Alice. She needed this release. Besides, she wasn’t one to pass over an opportunity to have sex with John.
After the shower dalliance, they sat back down at the table and began to study again. Well, Alice did. John was just flipping through a book looking incredibly bored. Jessica and Andern wound up in the room before chow. Jessica noticed Alice glowing and smirked. She sat next to her and whispered something to Alice that turned her ten different shades of red.
Tuesday. 08:00. Cafeteria
The cafeteria hall was quiet and tense despite nearly being full. Alice, Jessica, and Andern were immersed in various books and picked at food. John looked fully bored and just focused on his plate of eggs and bacon.
Kevin and Nathan walked in late and out of breath. Looked like they took the early morning PT test.
“Morning, how’d the PE test go?” John asked.
“Cold as balls. Barely passed the pull-up bar, could hardly hold onto the damn thing,” Kevin turned back to his food and was devouring it.
“At least it’s done though,” John said.
Nate and Kevin just nodded in agreement. Andern and Jessica planned to do the PT test after they took their first two mid-terms this morning. John wondered why they didn’t just take a break from studying and get the PT portion done when Alice and he had done it. Some answers he was just not meant to know.
“John where are your tests this morning?” Jessica asked, her eyes not leaving the study guide she was scanning over.
“Nimitz building, discussion hall. Naval Tactics and Officer Leadership are in the same room. Physics, calc and station management are in the Welsh room on the third floor.”
“So, you’re there the whole day?” Alice asked.
“Yup, no lunch chow for me. Eight straight hours of tests. Gonna try and talk my professors into taking the third tests if I can finish them up early.”
“John, you’re my friend, but right now I hate you,” Andern looked up, then looked back at his study guide.
John stood up and was getting his stuff together. As he walked by the table, he wished them all best of luck. They agreed to meet up for dinner at 18:00.
John walked alone to the Nimitz building, when he got there, he found the discussion hall and took a front row seat. The professor walked in. Activated the cadet’s terminals and the first test was available to take. Two hundred questions were on the test. You need to answer fifty correct without exceeding a failure rate of thirty percent. The test allowed the cadets up to two hours to take. Most students should finish it in ninety minutes. John was done in only eighteen minutes.
“Excuse me, Professor,” John said barely above a whisper.
“Go ahead, Cadet.”
“Is it possible to take the rest of my mid-terms now as well?”
He laughed quietly, “I don’t see why not; you’ve certainly got the time to take them. I’ll reactivate your terminal.”
The professor clicked a few buttons on his terminal, then saw John’s first test score, a perfect score. He had never seen a student finish a test that quickly or accurately before. Nor did he ever see a student come to a mid-term or final without bringing their book bag into the room. Letting him take the other tests wasn’t going to hurt.
And true to form nineteen minutes later the second test was completed and also scored a perfect fifty questions answered out of fifty taken. The third test only took fifteen minutes to complete. It was also perfect.
“Thank you, sir,” John quickly saluted and headed out of the room.
John checked his schedule; it was time to call an audible. For the rest of the day, he bounced around from room to room taking tests when he could. By 15:00 all his tests were done. And across all the tests he took, John was annoyed that he had a single question on his calc test marked down by one point.
John was walking outside of the Nimitz building and saw Alice walking back to the dorms, “Alice, how have the tests gone?”
“Good, three tests down, nothing worse than a ninety percent,” her smile showed a great sign of relief, “I’m doing the same thing as you, I’m going to take another test at 16:00 and like four more tomorrow. Finish up the remaining tests Thursday morning. Perfect scores for you?”
“Trick calc question, ended up having one point deducted.”
“You're sullen and annoyed for finishing with a score that rounds up to a hundred percent? Honey, my heart bleeds for you. Oh hey, gotta run into the library to study a bit before the next test,” Alice stood on her tiptoes to give him a kiss, “See you at dinner!”
Wednesday. 13:00. Gymnasium
John went to the gym to get a workout in. Everyone else was busy coming and going. Their nerves were a bit frayed here and there, but he tried to help wherever he could. Because he was left to his own devices, John got incredibly bored. He didn’t really want to drink, mainly because there was going to be plenty of that next week.
He decided to hit the weights hard that day. He was doing four sets of ten reps with four hundred fifty pounds of weight for his squats. Five sets of eight reps for bench press with three hundred twenty-five pounds on the bar. The clean and jerk had three hundred pounds on the bar where he did four sets of ten reps. There were some football players watching him do this workout. They came over and talked with him about halfway through his workout.
John did some cool-down exercises with some dumbbells and stretching. After about an hour and a half in the gym, he was calling it good and opted to head back to his dorm to clean up. He said goodbye to the football upperclassmen that he was chatting with and left the gym.
He had gotten about halfway back to the dorms when he heard, “Cadet Lief, a moment of your time please.”
John turned to his right and saw a gentleman standing next to a Mercedes limousine. Looked like a driver to some rich person. He nodded and walked over. The man opened the door, and he heard a voice inside the car, “Please take a seat.”
He sat down and across from him were two older gentlemen. Both appeared to be retired military, one appeared to be in his seventies and the other in his late forties or early fifties. He had never met them but knew exactly who they were.
“We haven’t been introduced,” the weathered man said.
“No need, sirs. Retired Admirals James T. Daniels and retired Captain Timothy R. Daniels. It doesn’t exactly take a lot of brain power to determine what you want to chat about.”
“I had heard you were a blunt object that the Navy has used in the past,” Timothy had a condescending attitude toward John.
“Naval Intelligence actually, I work for the Navy proper now and for the foreseeable future,” John corrected him.
“You did our family a great disservice by disseminating the reports on Donnelly’s folly,” James said.
“You mean the Daniels’ Folly. Neither of you two was involved in the coverup and as such aren’t responsible for the sins of your forbearers. To continue calling that incident Donnelly’s folly is an insult to a man that served the Navy with distinction and honor. Your predecessors and their ilk destroyed a good man to cover up their own fuck up.”
“Now you listen here…” Timothy lost the condescending attitude and was visibly angry.
“No, you listen to me. This conversation is over. Make a move on me and I promise you I will find a way to absolutely destroy your family’s now diminished name. You are both intelligent and well-connected men. This discussion is beneath both of you,” John opened the door and got out but poked his head back in, “Tim, you likely didn’t have clearance on my jacket, but he does. He likely has an inkling of what I’m capable of. You would do well to move past this quickly, I’m not the kind of man that appreciates being targeted, much less attacked. People end up dying when I’m attacked.”
He smiled at the men and shut the door as he headed back to his dorms. The older Daniels wasn’t going to do anything rash or stupid. The younger one had shades of Paul Daniel in his personality, if not intelligence. John figured he would likely be a problem. He began running some threat assessments in his head and figured out a few ways to attack him directly without making the retired admiral collateral damage.
Thursday. 10:30. Cafeteria
The tests were finally over. The group was waiting for lunch to be called after wrapping up their second PE test. They had crammed and decided to take the approach of getting everything taken as quickly as possible. They weren’t quite as fast as John did, but they weren’t a freakish alien like he was.
Alice had finished her last two tests that morning. She didn’t score worse than ninety-four percent in any of them. That solidly cemented her in the top fifteen cadets scholastically in their class. Though her position in the class didn’t seem to matter much to her.
Jessica scored between eighty-five and ninety percent but aced her operations class finals. She was in the top thirty cadets of their class. She was really pleased with the results but felt like they spent too much time studying. Alice had agreed with her that they over-prepared.
Andern didn’t score worse than eighty percent, but it looked like it was a mighty struggle the whole time. He spent too much time early in the year not studying and was clearly behind the curve. Luckily with all these tests he was caught up and finally improved his position in the class.
It had been a stressful week for all of them. Well, except for John, he was very nonplussed about the week’s happenings. Despite the stress, everyone else felt, spirits were hopeful and happy. But everyone was focused on one thing, fall break. Now it was time for a vacation!