by Laer Carroll
That was obvious even before everyone turned toward Rocio's car. There was a huge banner stretched across the front of the school, strategically placed so that the cameras from three TV camera vans could see the engraved Oceanside High School sign above it. The banner read WELCOME HOME OUR OLYMPIC HERO.
Sasha was annoyed, touched, embarrassed, and cynical all at once, the last because the school administration was jumping the gun on her selection for next year's Olympics. This way they could bias the process a bit and gain publicity for their connection to the separate but affiliated Sports Training Facility in which Sasha trained.
Sasha was fairly sure she would be an Olympic pick. In the US National Sports Association trials earlier this year she had won gold in all three of her events. But it was not certain. There was still a lot of politicking and observation of the candidates' training ahead.
Rocio pulled the Mercedes up in front of the school and Tina jumped out to open Sasha's door. She reluctantly got out. Off to one side the school band, or a section of it, began to play. Cheerleaders off to the other side began a chant. And a row of football team members in full uniform and helmets rose from a crouch in front of the school and rushed her.
Time slowed. The world grew bright, with sharp edges. Sound almost ceased. Adrenaline spiked. All her skills in Olympic competitive Judo came online. A path through the football players which would leave them broken behind her presented itself.
She relaxed and stood straight. The players scooped her up, protesting but laughing, and carried her up the school's front steps to deposit her in front of the school's top administrator amid three TV crews with shoulder-mounted cameras. Two female reporters and one male reporter crowded near-by, microphones poised before the administrator.
"Sasha, welcome back to the school. We are happy to see you safe, and proud to call you one of us."
She went on like that for a minute or so more, then turned the reporters loose on Sasha, warning them that they could ask only a few questions.
"Sasha, how do you feel after your terrible and heroic ordeal?" one reporter asked. The other two let her get her question out and remained silent. Evidently the three had worked out a round robin interview deal so each could get their sound bites and quotes before rushing on to some other breaking story.
"I feel incredibly grateful to be alive." Short and sweet and innocuous, that was the way to answer. She had become a skilled interviewee years ago, with the help of her coaches and her mom, an astute politician from her years as a district attorney.
The next two reporters then asked pretty much the same question and Sasha gave pretty much the same answer. She was "happy." She was "glad she could help someone."
"Sasha, how do you explain the fact that you were declared dead?"
"I don't. I'm an athlete not a doctor." She was a veteran at acting stupid and uttering platitudes. But the next reporter asked the same question, not surprisingly.
She threw him a tidbit. Scratching her head, she essayed a puzzled look. "I dunno. One doctor guessed my lungs shut down to protect me from smoke inhalation."
Her hearing sensitivity was turned down to normal and filtering out the low-voiced comments of those around her. Almost. But she heard the familiar sound of Tina snickering at her performance despite the distance the Twins stood away from her.
She almost smiled but caught herself. Serious, stupid. Serious, stupid. That was her on-TV persona.
"How is your family taking this?" was the next trio of questions in various wordings. Patiently she gave the standard variations on "happy."
By now she was getting impatient and she knew the reporters had enough for a few morning and evening sound bites. But she held still for the next question: her brother's reaction since he had skipped part of his training to be with her. She owed it to him to give him a little publicity.
When further questions became even more personal and started to involve her family Sasha glanced at the school administrator and let her face show impatience. That worthy had a few times had dealings with Sasha at her most intransigent. And once with Sasha's mother. She smoothly and diplomatically ended the short press conference.
Sasha's next ordeal was to suffer through what was left of the first period in a ceremony in the huge and well-appointed school auditorium. The seats were packed with students and there were plenty standing around the edges. Apparently all the first-period classes had been canceled. She guessed not a few teachers would be pissed at this.
None of them seemed so. At all the rest of her classes for the rest of the school day each teacher expressed at least cursory praise and greetings when the classes began. Except for the last.
Her chemistry teacher was young and earnest and had an unfortunate overbite and receding hairline. He acted as he always did in class.
Sasha stayed after the class ended. She wanted to minimize any hard feelings.
As he turned to her from wiping the white board she said, "Thank you for not embarrassing me in front of the class. And I'm sorry about this morning."
He was quiet a moment. "I quite admire your exploits, Miss Canaro. Don't think otherwise. And I appreciate a student who applies herself, as you do. Unlike several other of our star athletes. But I've always wondered at the celebration our society so loves of people who do exactly as they ought."
He made to return to clearing the white board. But Sasha, in a rush of gratitude and affection, interrupted him to give him a hand shake. She wished he looked better. She imagined he must have always had a tough time, looking as he did.
Something passed out of her hand into his. It went by very fast, but her system slowed time so that she caught just enough to know that incredibly complex instructions passed into him. Over the next few years his hair would grow luxurious and his jawbone would recede to an average shape and his teeth would never decay.
Even as time returned to its normal flow for her she realized that she had held his hand too long. She shook it once more and dropped it, leaving the room with a cheery goodbye.
But she was shaken. What had she done to the poor man? She had to talk to Dr. O'Neill about it. And until she did she must take care not to touch anyone, or at least not to wish for something while she did so.
The Twins met her outside her class. The three friends all knew each other's schedules as well as they knew their own.
On the way home Sasha was unusually quiet, barely attending to what the Twins said, thinking about what had happened with her chemistry teacher. Finally they became quiet also. Then Rocio spoke.
"Are you mad at us for something?"
Sasha was roused from her mood by this. She said sweetly, "Why, no, of course not. You two could not POSSIBLY have anything to do with embarrassing me in front of the entire school. And TV land."
She knew no such thing. She would not put it past them to have come up with the idea of this morning's circus and making it happen. They were past masters at behind-the-scenes rabble rousing and getting things to happen in all the venues in which they participated.
She joined in with obviously fake enthusiasm in their latest conversational gambit. She would not do anything to them. But they knew she could and might. She had been known to play elaborate practical jokes.
Just letting them wonder when the shoe would drop on them would be punishment enough if they had engineered her back-to-school ordeal.
On the weekend Dr. O'Neill eased her mind a bit and cautioned her as well. It seemed he healed by imagining a desired result and wished for it to happen while touching someone. His power was weak and he had to supplement it with physical intervention. Hers was likely much stronger. But nothing would happen without her explicit wish.
Still, he suggested that she think very carefully about just what she wished for, anticipating difficulties and thinking of limits, especially time limits. The greater the power the more harm as well as good it could do. With great power came great responsibility.
By Monday of the next week matters at school
had returned essentially to normal. Sasha breathed a (metaphorical) sigh of relief. She went back to being the best athlete she could possibly be.
Yet life was different at school. Despite perfect control of what she sometimes thought her "super senses" she saw more and heard more. Or maybe she just noticed more.
One day she saw two boys harassing one of the nerd herd at his locker. The harassers were some of the self-styled tough guys of the school, not that in this upscale school they were all that tough or that many.
Anger flared within her, and a savage desire to hurt those who would hurt others for their own pleasure.
She pushed in between the two boys and their victim, who quickly made his escape.
"This is the way you spend your time? Bullying the weak? Why don't you take me on, you sorry ass-holes? "
"Well, look who we have here. The great hero." The taller of the two pushed her. Or tried to. Time slowed and trained reflexes took over. One of her hands, the farthest from his companion, had him in a painful wrist-lock before he, and for that matter she, knew what was happening. He squeaked and rose on tip-toes as she applied pressure.
His friend made the mistake of trying to strike her. In a flash, to him, she had his arm behind his back and he was on his tip toes also.
It had happened so quickly no one else had noticed. But now a few other students began slowing to watch. A couple stopped.
She brought the two close together, whispered into their ears. "I could break your arms, you know that? And the next time I see you bullying someone I will."
A male teacher had noticed a change in the traffic flow in the hall as a few more students slowed or stopped to watch. He walked toward the three. He was behind Sasha but from a dozen cues she knew someone in authority was coming, chief among them the alarm which joined the pain on their faces.
She relaxed her holds then released them. The boys would have left but the teacher was too close.
"What's going on here?"
"We were just disagreeing on something," Sasha said. The two boys nodded.
"Well, disagree somewhere else."
The two boys nodded and hurried away trying to discreetly rub strained muscles. The teacher stood looking at Sasha. She looked back.
"Were you starting a fight, Ms. Canaro?"
"No, sir." She had just ended one.
"Get to class. "
"Yes, sir."
The rescued boy did not appreciate her interference. Sasha knew something about male pride and prepared for a clash. Finally the boy confronted her outside the school at day's end a few days later.
"I did not appreciate your interference, Canaro."
She raised her eyebrows.
"I could have handled it!"
She snagged one of his wrists. "Then start working out, Hal. You've got good muscles in those arms. Develop them. Take a judo class, or wrestling, or boxing. I know you're smart enough, disciplined enough to do well."
At the same time she made the wish she had planned. Grow strong quickly, she told his body. Stick with your program despite the pain, she told his subconscious.
He stared as she released his wrist. "You really think so?"
"I know so," she said. "You've got a lot of potential."
She turned to walk away, then turned back. "You brought it on yourself, you know. Rolling your eyes in disgust when Guy answered that question wrong. Then giving the right answer in that snotty voice."
Hal flushed and she left him.
Months later the two boys had mended their ways. And they and Hal, newly buffed and their tutor, were friends.
Chapter 3 - No Yakuza !
After she became too tall to manage the somersaulting and aerial twists required by the four Olympic women's gymnastics events she had tried several other Olympic sports that did not require so much agility. She had chosen trampoline and shooting fairly early.
Then she had dithered between taekwando, which involved a lot of kicking and striking against a padded opponent, and judo, which was a grappling event. She had finally chosen judo. It had seven weight classes against four for taekwando. There were more choices to choose from if she had another growth spurt.
The week after Labor Day weekend Sasha flew to Japan with her Judo coach. They joined the other members of the USA team, making 21 competitors, three for each of the seven weight classes.
She won all her first several matches but two. In one she was disqualified when she stepped over a boundary. In the other she lost on points. In both cases she had grown bored with how easy it was to win and gotten careless. In the next several matches she grimly paid attention.
Maybe too much attention. She won the matches within a few seconds of the Hajime —Start—command.
Her coach asked her to have dinner with him in the hotel "celebrity" dining room high above the night-time streets. They sat at a table with a curved wall of glass to one side through which they could watch the flash and flow of traffic below. The canyon of buildings stretched for miles, all alit.
After they ordered he looked her over.
"Sasha, are you trying to make enemies?"
She was startled out of her brooding, a habit she had fallen into.
"No!"
"The last several matches you seemed contemptuous of your opponents. Was it necessary for you to humiliate them by such quick wins?"
"I thought the idea was to win."
"It is. And it's an obsession with some who want their country's athletes to win so badly they will bribe judges. For others it's big business and they will cheat to win. But I'm old-fashioned. Or naïve. I believe these events should be a way for nations to come closer. That you and I should be ambassadors for our country."
Sasha stared out of the window. Huge commercials shown on the sides of some buildings. Some moved and flashed and blinked. Red, green, blue.
Ideals had never been a part of her athletic world. It was just what she did. All her thoughts and strivings were focused on the little everyday details of training and competition.
Sasha had been volatile even before she became, if she was, superhuman. In an instant she was her usual happy self, brooding behind her.
She smiled at her balding stout coach. Such a plain man, almost thuggish. Such a lovable man underneath.
"You know, I think this trip might be fun after all."
From then on she treated each match as a chance to play. It didn't matter that to her opponents the matches were serious business. Sasha took her time, occasionally winning quickly, more often giving opportunities for her opponents to vary their approaches and exercise their repertoire of moves. Sasha became ever more versatile in her technique. She used less speed and brute force and more finesse to win. Close watchers of the sport took notice. Reviews became laudatory.
The martial art became for the first time for her an art.
When she could, she watched all competitors in all seven weight classes. She came to especially appreciate a Russian and a Frenchwoman in two weight classes other than her own. In her class she came to appreciate a Japanese woman.
Saya Otonashi was at the very lightest of the middleweight class. Every match she improved. Her technique diversified. This occasionally happened in competitions. You might spend hundreds or even thousands of hours of practice, making slow improvements. Slow because you were not stretched by meeting people as good or better than you were.
In Sasha's last competition she faced this woman. The winner of this bout would earn the gold medal, the loser the silver. The audience was big. Only one time before had any USA competitor come even close to winning the top medals. Japan usually had the most winners, and the highest medals.
They moved around each other, focused on the other, gauging slight changes in motion. Neither made the first move. Often the one who did lost. Much of judo focused on responding to attack, to defending. The best defense in judo was usually NOT offense.
Sasha focused more than usual on Saya as she "danced" with her. For weeks now
she had been able see body language that ordinary humans could not even perceive. She could hear another's heart beat, smell sweat and other secretions. Read the genetic code from cells which floated on one's breath or wafted off bodies by air currents.
As if she could read Saya's heart she felt her fear, of losing not pain. Her absolute focus of will.
Sympathy stirred within her. This girl could be one of her sisters.
She knew Saya was trying to read her. Sasha displayed symptoms that would be read as focus. And contempt.
Saya responded with anger, damped it down as quickly as it appeared. Her fear washed away.
Good. That's what Sasha wanted.
She took another sideways step. Saya glided a step to mirror her. Took another step. A deep calm settled over the Japanese girl, along with a hawk-like alertness to Sasha's body movements and balance .
Sasha took another step. In that instant her opponent flashed forward, grasped her shirt near the wrist. Sasha broke her hold, secured one of her own. Saya returned the favor. And for several seconds the two essayed grapple and counter-grapple before parting in the same instant.
The audience sighed. They were seeing great art.
For a time the two circled and feinted, then flashed together as if at the same signal. Sasha let herself be thrown but flipped in the air and threw Saya, who recovered too fast for Sasha to try to pin her. Then for several seconds they tripped each other and recovered to counter-trip the other. They ended up near the edge of the mat and simultaneously broke to crouch, eyeing each other and panting. Sasha's distress was fake. Her energy reserves were vast, her strength much greater than that of an ordinary human, and she used energy so efficiently her reserves were only barely tapped.
Again they circled and feinted. And closed and struggled against each other. And circled. And closed.
Several times one or the other came close to a clean throw of the other onto one's back. Sasha allowed the first one, then followed by throwing Saya. Several times each pinned or almost pinned the other.
