The Tree of Knowledge

by Daniel G. Miller

  “Roger that, but neither of us is a good enough shot to do that, and they hit me about ten times before I hit the ground. Other than that, I love the plan,” interjected Ying.

  Turner broke up the conversation. “Time’s up. Go again.”

  “What? We’re not done. Can we have a few more minutes?” begged Albert.

  “No. Using the Tree effectively is just as much about speed as accuracy. In the real world, you won’t be able to sit around and draw game trees. You must be able to envision the Tree instantly. This is speed chess, not traditional chess. Go again.”

  Turner raised a hand, and Albert and Ying’s hay bales began to be pelted by paintballs.

  “Grab your shotgun, Ying, I’ve got an idea.” He grabbed his shield and whispered his plan into Ying’s ear as paint pellets rained down on them.

  Albert was the first over the wall with shield in hand. As Brick and Salazar looked on and tried to find a gap in the shield, they gradually noticed that Puddles was not alone. Walking in lockstep behind him was Ying. The shield and Albert’s tall frame easily shielded her short, small body, and by walking backward, she was able to protect their rear flank.

  Brick and Salazar gave each other knowing glances and sprinted out from their walled defense in separate directions. Brick ran along Albert’s left side, and Salazar jogged along to his right. Ying pivoted to her left and fired a round at Sergeant Travis, but he dove behind a hay bale, avoiding her errant shots.

  As Albert looked to his right and left, he knew that they had once again been checkmated. “This isn’t going to go well.”

  Brick raised his gun and aimed at Ying. Albert turned to protect her. He saw the pellets from Brick’s gun spraying against the glass shield, but at the same time could hear Ying’s squeals as she was peppered with fire from Salazar on the opposite side of the range. Seconds later, the pellets began splattering against his back.

  Again, the two stumbled back to their hay wall. And again, they were greeted by a disappointed look from Turner.

  “Two minutes and then we do it again.”

  This time, Albert and Ying ran over to the hay bale on which they had begun the logic map. In silence, they diagrammed together, calculating each move and each reaction.

  While the two partners scribbled on the paper, Turner looked at his watch. He watched the second hand tick away and wondered if he had made a mistake. Should we have just gone to the police? Maybe Fix won’t be able to crack the book’s code. Can these two truly understand the Tree? Albert is a genius but fails to understand people. Ying is equally smart and understands people, but does she have the experience to handle the hundreds of logical calculations needed? Can they deal with the responsibility? The professor turned to tell Ying and Albert that their time was up but found the area empty.

  “Ready, Professor,” shouted Ying. The two teammates crouched behind the hay bale like sprinters waiting to explode from the blocks.

  Turner raised his eyebrows, curled his lips, and walked toward the middle of the shooting range. “Let the games begin.”

  In training soldiers in this game with Brick and his team, Turner had seen several interesting and at times brilliant tactical maneuvers, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.

  Instead of climbing over the hay wall, Ying and Albert tipped it over, each of them rolling a hay bale out in front of their bodies. Ying carried the shield while Albert carried the shotgun. It was clear that Albert had shot a gun before as he calmly strafed Brick and Salazar’s hay wall with paint pellets.

  Before, they had moved slowly, in a straight line. This time, Ying and Albert wove in and out in a fast, unpredictable diagonal pattern, all the while rolling hay bales in front of them. The combination of Ying’s small size, the shield, the unpredictable pattern, the steady roll of hay bales, and Albert’s shotgun fire made it nearly impossible for Brick or Salazar to find a target. Their hesitation gave both Albert and Ying enough time to run three-quarters of the way across the field untouched.

  Sensing he had been outmaneuvered, Brick took over. “Raphael, you stay here. Puddles doesn’t have a shield other than that hay bale, so I’ll take him out first. You stall the girl, and then after I get Puddles, we’ll gang up on her.”

  As Brick emerged from the hay bale to come after the supposedly shieldless Puddles, Albert and Ying began running again and calmly threw each other their weapons. Ying caught the shotgun and quickly fired at the now totally exposed Salazar while Albert grabbed the shield and sprinted toward the goal line. The stunned Sergeant Travis fired at his feet, hoping to slip under the shield, but it was too late. Like a wide receiver running into the end zone, Albert gleefully leapt over the hay wall and screamed, “Wooooohoooooo!”

  All Travis and Salazar could do was stand and watch, hands on hips and guns at their sides, while Ying Koh jumped over the wall and the two of them danced in celebration.

  Turner sidled up to the two vanquished combatants. “I don’t think anyone’s ever beaten you two that fast. Are you a believer yet?”

  Brick bristled. “That was beginner’s luck, Professor. We’ll see how they do in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Yes, we will,” said Turner with a wry smile and a twirl of his walking stick as he strolled toward the victors. “We will indeed.”

  Chapter 14

  Cristina Culebra stood quietly behind the curtain of Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium. Neither she nor any prominent surrogates from her campaign had intended on visiting Stanford during the tail end of her swing through the state, but over ten thousand students—almost two-thirds of the student body—had signed a petition requesting a visit from the future governor of California. Standing in the wings of the auditorium stage with Eric Crabtree, her newly rededicated speechwriter, Cristina Culebra could see that she had made the right choice. She licked her lips like a vampire at the sight of blood. The multilevel auditorium shimmered with red T-shirts and flags. Every one of the appropriately colored red seats held the body of an enthusiastic Culebra supporter. As the head of Stanford University’s RED Party came to the conclusion of his introduction, the crowd’s energy crashed against the walls of the circular room.

  Cristina’s security personnel had warned her not to attend the event. While most of the student body clearly supported the candidate, the campaign had received death threats from certain campus radicals who had called her “tyrant” and “Queen Cristina.” But in typical fashion, Cristina saw this rabid opposition as an opportunity rather than a threat, for she knew what events would transpire on this day.

  I know you’re here . . . and I can’t wait, she thought.

  The candidate entered the stage and waved to the crowd, which rose in near-unanimous approbation. As she walked toward the lectern, Cristina Culebra’s eyes carefully ran across the crowd in search of the needle that hoped to disrupt her campaign. The tree would guide her.

  Cristina’s crowd held seventeen hundred people. Seventeen hundred potential assassins. She had seconds to determine who that assassin would be. An eternity.

  She assessed the crowd, highlighting and discarding people in her mind.

  Eight hundred men.

  American political assassins were always men. The women faded into the background.

  Approximately two hundred over twenty-two years old.

  Most of these kids were college kids, and college kids don’t assassinate. They need a few more years to realize that the world isn’t what they were promised. The chanting college students were grayed out.

  Fifty between twenty-two years and thirty years old.

  Once you hit thirty, your delusions of grandeur fade.

  Now to the logistics. How many could get a shot off? Her mind pushed everyone over thirty into the backdrop until fifteen young men glowed like Technicolor actors in a black-and-white film.

  Fifteen young men were within sufficient ra
nge that they could hit her.

  Fifteen faces. Which one of these is different from the others?

  It took her one moment. The waifish boy stood out to Cristina like a red crab on a white beach. He hovered on the balcony to the immediate left of the stage, wearing a red shirt, but it wasn’t a campaign shirt, it was a stiff, unironed red T-shirt, something you’d buy in a pack of ten. It was a minor inconsistency, but to Cristina Culebra, it was everything. Identifying these minor inconsistencies in every situation she faced had enabled Cristina to always stay several steps ahead of the rest of the world. She read his face. Fear, anxiety, anger. All the other men in the crowd were cheering, while this man stood stiff and still, arms suctioned to his sides, fists clenched as though any wrong move might blow his cover. This was not a true believer. This was the enemy.

  Cristina continued to walk toward the lectern and wave to the crowd, all the while keeping one eye on this disgraceful ode to Booth, Oswald, Hinckley, and the others that followed. The question is . . . does he have the guts to do it? Or will he panic? How will he do it?

  It must be a gun. No way this twig thinks he can get me with a knife. And he couldn’t get a bomb through security. He could get a 3D printed gun through the metal detectors, though. She calculated the distance and angle for his shot. The balcony was about twenty feet above the stage. The lectern was another twenty feet from the edge. The shot would be about twenty-eight feet. Very possible, but tough with a homemade pistol, someone next to him bumping him, and the building shaking with the crowd. He’d have to get closer. He’d have to jump onto the stage. Cristina directed her eyes at the cold, angry gaze of the young man and knew. He’ll try. But he will fail.

  At that moment, the boy leapt from the balcony wielding a gun and landed on the stage screaming, “Sic semper tyraaaaaann—” Before he could finish his cry, the lioness had taken three catlike steps toward him, grabbed his right arm, dislodged the gun from his hand, and shoved him to the ground. The maneuver took less than five seconds. Cristina Culebra paused a moment to absorb the look of sheer shock on his face while her security team sprang on top of him. As she turned, she gave him a wink and a silent wag of the finger.

  The crowd stood motionless as Cristina Culebra calmly straightened her formfitting gray suit and approached the lectern. Her footsteps echoed like the knock on a door. Even her security team just crouched and held the boy, waiting for what would happen next. She grabbed the lectern with absolute poise, looked down at the dark wood grain, and knew that this was her moment. She raised her eyes to the audience and delivered the line that she had written over a week ago.

  “If only President Lincoln had taken self-defense classes.”

  A jet engine could not match the roar that exploded from Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium at that moment.

  Chapter 15

  “A job well done, the two of you,” said Turner after Ying and Albert had ceased celebrating.

  “Thanks, Professor,” replied Albert, wiping the sweat from his face and putting his arm around Ying. “You know, I never played sports when I was a kid, but that was really fun. I kind of wish I had.”

  “Well, there’s going to be plenty more where that came from. I believe Mr. Salazar is ready to give you some weapons training over in the east barn, which, based on Ms. Koh’s shooting performance, at least one of you badly needs.”

  The two of them continued to talk as they walked into the barn, where Raphael sat perched on a hay bale.

  “Yeah, where did you learn to shoot like that?”

  Albert blushed. “Oh, my dad and I used to go hunting all the time in Minnesota. I used to like the shooting, but I always felt bad for the animals. I probably haven’t shot a gun for about twenty years.”

  “And you’re not going to shoot a gun today either, my friend,” said Raphael, eavesdropping on their conversation. He wore an impish smile as he waved the two over.

  Albert and Ying sat down on each side of Salazar and looked on as he stared off into the distance, twirling his toothpick in his mouth. His neck was short and thick, which gave his head the appearance that it was sprouting directly out of his shoulders, with nothing in between, like a snowman.

  “So, you liking the Tree so far?” he asked in his heavy accent.

  Albert and Ying nodded, wondering what exactly they were doing.

  Salazar continued, “Yeah, I guess it’s pretty cool. I don’t really get it, but I think we’re on the right team.”

  Ying glanced at Albert as if to say, “Are you going to tackle this one or am I?”

  “What do you mean, you don’t get it?” she asked.

  “Did you two ever read El Paraíso Perdido . . . in English, Paradise Lost?”

  They both shook their head.

  “Ohhhh, that book’s one of the great ones. You got to read it. The story of the real Tree of Knowledge, from the Bible. The devil, who’s originally an angel called Lucifer, starts a revolution in heaven to try to overthrow God because he’s jealous that God is focusing all his attention on people. So, God kicks the devil’s butt and sends him down to hell with all the other rebellious angels. That’s when the devil says, ‘It’s better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.’”

  “Uh-huh,” said Albert, creasing his forehead.

  “So, while he’s down in hell, the devil cooks up the idea that to get back at God, he’ll screw up human beings. So, he flies up through the gates of hell where he convinces Sin—his daughter—and Death, who’s his son by his daughter . . .”

  Salazar paused when he saw the look on Albert’s and Ying’s faces. “Yeah, I know it’s pretty messed up, but stick with me.

  “Anyway, he convinces his two incest kids to let him out of hell and up to earth. When he gets to earth, he finds Adam and Eve roaming around naked in the Garden of Eden as happy as can be, totally innocent and clueless. So, he realizes he’s going to corrupt them. And the way he’s going to do it is by getting them to eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, so they’ll be aware that they’re naked and also curious and horny and all that other stuff.”

  Ying and Albert looked on, engrossed by Salazar’s odd recounting of this ancient tale.

  “So, as we all know, he changes into a serpent and convinces Eve to eat the apple, and then she convinces Adam, and that’s when the shit hits the fan. But here’s the thing . . . all the while God’s watching all this. He knows what the devil is doing, and he still lets it happen. So, here’s what I’m thinking. God wanted us to have the knowledge. He wanted guys like Turner and you to come up with crazy shit that can change the world. So, when Turner claims that he invented the Tree of Knowledge and all that blah, blah, blah, I just laugh, and say, amigo, God came up with that shit in the beginning; it just took us all this time to figure out how to use it. It’s like rubbing two sticks together and saying you invented fire. Lucky for us, our boy Turner wants to use it for good and wants us to help. But now we got some other people that want to use it for bad. So the way I see it, we and Turner are on the side of God, and your girl Eva’s on the side of the other guy. The rest of this shit is just details.”

  Salazar plopped his round body off the hay bale and turned to face them. “Now, let’s talk weapons.”

  Albert and Ying shook their heads as though they’d just awakened from a trance.

  “Yay! I want to shoot some guuuuns,” exclaimed Ying.

  Salazar shook his head. “Lady, you’re not shooting guns for a while. You know why.”

  “Why?”

  “First off, I saw you out there by the hay bales. That shit was terrifying, Secondly, cuz when you’re in a fight, guns don’t do shit for you compared to some other stuff.”

  “Like what other stuff?” said Albert skeptically.

  Raphael looked past the two and shouted to Ariel, who was walking by the barn entrance dressed in designer jeans, rain boots, and a heather sweater, her pale hai
r pinned up with a silver barrette. She looked deep in thought. “Chiquitita, come over here.”

  Ariel frowned and walked over.

  “How are you doing, beautiful lady?” said Salazar as he grabbed Ariel’s unadorned hands.

  “Why, I’m doing fine. Thank y—” Before she could finish her sentence, she collapsed to the ground.

  “Like that,” said Salazar with a smile.

  Albert and Ying ran to Ariel in horror. “What did you do?” shouted Albert.

  Salazar howled with laughter. “Oh, don’t worry. I just put one of these on her hand.” He held a small green disk that looked like a pull-and-peel sticker. “Just peel it off and she’ll be up in no time.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” snapped Ying.

  “Yep. It’s a poison patch. You simply put it on someone’s pulse point, and they go right to sleep. Not bad, huh?”

  Ariel began to awaken, blinking her eyes. Her chiseled face was the picture of confusion as she lifted herself off the chilly grass.

  “You see, my friends, the point of this exercise was to show you that guns are a very messy business when you have so many other excellent options like this.” He pulled out a jug of lemonade and a couple of cups from beside the hay bale. “For example, would you two like a cup of lemonade?”

  “Sure,” said Ying and Albert, thirsty from the day’s exercises. They grabbed a couple of cups and raised them to their mouths.

  “Wrong,” shouted Raphael, slapping the cups out of their hands. “Never accept a drink from someone. I just put enough Rohypnol in this lemonade to kill a donkey.”

  Albert and Ying shrugged, wondering what would come next from this human tornado.

  Salazar pulled out a gun from behind his oversized belt buckle. The two of them stepped back, and Ariel, who had just gotten to her feet, scrambled against the wall.