Nuclear War Club: Seven high school students are in detention when Nuclear War explodes.Game on, they are on their own.

by Triarii, Colt

  The Battle of Waterloo had been won on the playing fields of Eton.

  8.

  “Why did Sun Tzu write The Art of War?” the Teacher asked, as the bell rang.

  Doron Cohen sensed first period after a big football night probably would not find a room full of Sun Tzu scholars. The room was dead quiet. No one raised their hand, everyone seemed to be hoping the teacher would attack someone else. So Doron raised his hand. He was pleased at the relief many students showed when he volunteered.

  Doron enjoyed his status as an urban legend at Barley Union High School. He had read all the World Literature assignments for the whole semester the first weekend of class. That way, he repeatedly explained to everyone, he could devote more time each day to physics, calculus, and writing Apple Apps. As a result, he could compare and contrast books with the Teacher they had not even read yet in class.

  Although Doron was esteemed for his ability to always take a question in class, and usually divert the teacher away from other, grateful, prey, the password protected website “geek-peek.com” was his real claim to fame. The site contained all the teaching and homework assignments for each class scanned in for panicky student who lost their syllabus. There was a smart phone app also.

  Students could only access the site if they personally asked Doron for a password.

  “You have to go ask for an audience with the Godfather, who will one day ask for a favor. And that day will come,” Doron heard student mock in their best Brando imitation, which pleased him.

  To get the password they had to agree to update the website with any daily changes to the assignments from the syllabus, and any “hints” the teacher gave on what would be on the test.

  The website was particularly popular in selecting elective classes based upon evaluations of the teachers. More than one teacher had tried to get into the site, without success, to read their profile. Doron knew, he tracked them. He enjoyed steering some teachers to fake profiles, in which he gave them excellent reviews, under his name. This teacher didn’t know Doron had trashed her, she thought he gave her an excellent rating.

  “Someone other than Doron,” the teacher pressed.

  He watched the Teacher stalk towards David. It seemed to Doron that she enjoyed prolonging the fear, the theatrical grade suspense of which antelope the lioness would attack. Students avoided her gaze, it was absolutely still.

  The teacher made a pretense at staring at her roll, running her finger down the list.

  Doron remembered he had seen her watching his clip, David’s football exploits, on the big screen video monitor in the Teacher’s Lounge before school.

  “If football was not born in Alabama, they kidnapped it right after birth,” Doron had overheard one of the teachers say this morning.

  Doron knew the Teacher despised football, and she loathed Alabama. I bet she wonders if David can even read, and thinks he has not cracked a book all weekend, Doron thought.

  “David Phelps,” she called.

  “Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War to summarize wisdom on how to wage war,” David instantly replied.

  Right answer, Doron thought. He was impressed. This morning’s assignment answer summary was not on geek. peek.

  “What is the theme of The Art of War,” she pressed, trying to pin David down. She quickly walked back to her desk and googled “Sun Tzu Theme” and clicked on the first find. Everyone knew Doron and the other students worked together, like wolf packs, googling, then emailing the answer to the student under fire.

  Doron raised his hand again, waving it this time. He doubted David was ready for in depth analysis. David was likeable, but he was just another dumb jock with limited intellect, Doron thought, he needs help. But the teacher pointed her finger at David again.

  “Sun Tzu explained the 5 essential command decisions for victory: 1. when to fight, and when not to fight 2. how to handle superior and inferior forces, 3. how winners instill morale and spirit among troops, 4. how to prepare, and wait until the enemy is not prepared, 5. how to keep the commander from being obstructed by the political leadership,” David said confidently, numbering with each finger, staring her down until she turned away.

  “It is the gold standard for how to wage war,” David added.

  The teacher seemed truly baffled. She scanned her laptop, looking for plagiarism, without success.

  Doron smiled. He knew David’s Mom had ordered audio book CDs from the library for the entire reading list from the syllabus posted on geek-peek. David had asked him for a password for her, she was the only inquiry on his system log from the state of Alabama. Doron was eager to give her a password, one inquiry from her ip address changed the color of Alabama from blue to red on his traffic web map. David told him he listened to the CDs while weightlifting in the garage and driving to school.

  Maybe he would uplink that tip to geek-peek.com, Doron thought. David’s Mom would be probably be proud if he was a homework hero.

  9.

  There was an unwritten, but clearly understood, protocol at Barley Union High governing where students sat around the identical tables during the ten am morning snack recess. Few students could, or would, intermingle and sit at any table at random. Doron Cohen was a rare “stem cell” who would comfortably mix with any of the different packs in the school. Everyone usually belonged to their own pack, where they expressed their societal nonconformity by dressing in absolute uniformity with their pack.

  Except Karen Wilson, who had just transferred here.

  Doron picked up some bananas, strawberries, and yogurt from one of the four food bars, and searched for her. He had noticed Karen immediately after school began.

  Karen simply radiated good health and extreme fitness. Her skin was creamy white, and seemed to glow. She told him her Dad was very concerned about skin cancer because she spent hours outside in the desert sun, so she always wore long sleeves, long blue jeans, and a cowboy hat when outside with a wide brim and a pink ribbon to prevent sunburn. He was obsessed with the combination of dark green eyes, fair skin contrasted against jet black hair, and a bubbly fascination with horses.

  But what most excited Doron about Karen was she had none of the fleeting, ill-concealed disgust at his appearance he had grown used to at school.

  Doron acted extremely self-confident, but he knew the jokes about him being wanted, dead or alive, for “third degree felony ugliness” with a drawing of him behind bars in an orange jail smock. And the joke about him being whacked repeatedly with an ugly stick when he was born .

  It stung.

  Doron talked to his Mom about it, noticing for the first time both his parents were ugly. She deftly circumvented the question of whether he was ugly.

  “You are brilliant and healthy. So you may never be a movie star. You are smart enough, and you work hard enough, that you can be the Producer and own the movie,” his Mom had said.

  “So, boo hoo,” she said, flicking her hand, dismissively.

  “Get over it,” his Mom finished, pointing to his homework.

  Doron felt better, that was about as sympathetic as Mom ever got. But a few minutes later, when he passed her in the kitchen, her eyes were puffy and red, like she had been crying.

  Doron just knew that ugliness was like pornography, very hard to define, yet everyone knew it when they saw it. And he had it.

  But Karen seemed genuinely indifferent to how he looked. She was warm, open, and interested in what he said, without wanting something from him.

  In fact, she had never accessed his website, because he had checked, desperately trying to find her e-mail or ip address. He looked for her at the football game last night, but she wasn’t there.

  Doron had replayed every detail of their short conversation over and over in his mind, making notes. Then he had texted the notes to himself, so he could review them before their next meeting. Doron had re-read in the text notes this morning that her horse’s name was Missy

  “So how is Missy?” Doron tried to ask casually, as
he sat at Karen’s table.

  “She chased the bus this morning with the whole herd,” Karen excitedly replied.

  Doron could care less about horses, any horses, anywhere, anytime, but he liked the way her bright green eyes glowed and sparkled. He was alone at the table with a beautiful girl who was talking to him. OK maybe not beautiful like Ashley, but very attractive. He hoped people noticed. Doron could feel her excitement and energy when she talked about the horses, and he found it infectious. It was actually a potent aphrodisiac. He would have to write that down on his website, that was deep.

  “The most attractive feature in a woman is her excitement and enthusiasm, it raises her overall attractiveness to the square of her beauty,” he wrote, pulling a small red notepad out of his pocket, stopping the conversation. He noticed Karen seemed puzzled, and but politely acted like she didn’t notice, as David Phelps walked up to their table.

  “Just great,” Doron thought to himself. “The toad gets his big chance with the Princess, then Prince Charming shows up.”

  “David Phelps,” he said, holding out his hand to Karen.

  “Karen Wilson,” she replied, shaking his hand.

  “Doron Cohen,” Doron said holding out his hand to David.

  “I was one of the little people you knew before you became a football media hero,” he said, smiling, and patting David on the back. He actually liked David, he was not dismissive of him like many athletes.

  Zeke Brown sat next to Karen on the other side of the table, “Doron, my password is not working, and I haven’t done my Algebra for fifth period yet,” he desperately interrupted. Doron handed Zeke a small card with a preprinted password without comment.

  “Thanks. Did you catch me leading the class in the California Raisins commercial?” Zeke asked, pointing to the video monitors.

  Mid-morning snack had been instituted so students who over slept would only miss two classes and, more importantly, the school would still get funding for that day’s attendance. Doron got permission for the Film Club to run a video feed through the monitors during snack, and Zeke had been featured singing the classic commercial in history class.

  “A star is born,” Doron said, smiling. The secret to the video feed’s wild success, and advertising revenue for the film club, was just being sure almost everyone got on video sometime, doing something that did not embarrass them.

  Zeke pointed both fingers at Doron.

  “And Karen, here is a password for you,” Doron struggled, panicking, wondering what to say next. He had not planned this conversation, he had no notes, nothing. He swallowed, then added, calmly, he hoped,

  “If you want to check my website out,” Doron said nervously. He was upset his voice had quivered.

  “Thank you, Doron. I will check it out,” Karen said, smiling, as she carefully put the card in the small pocket in her backpack, as two seventh grade girls approached David at the table.

  Doron studied them. They were obviously on some type of mission. Seventh graders, as inferior life forms, normally stayed away from seniors. One girl had glasses and braces, she was shorter, slightly pudgy, and freckled. The other girl was taller, she had blonde hair that had been carefully styled, blue eyes, she was thin, almost willowy. She seemed delicate, fragile.

  “We are in the yearbook club. Here are some proofs of photos for the games last night,” the one with glasses said, looking at the other girl.

  The other blonde girl just stared at David.

  It seemed to Doron the blonde girl was supposed to say something they had rehearsed, but suffered from stage fright.

  “We get to choose four photos of the game for the yearbook. Can’t promise anything, but circle three or four you prefer, text me your selections by number, and we will see what we can do,” the girl with glasses said, handing David four sheets with twelve photos per sheet and a red sharpie marker.

  “Thank you, “ David said taking the sheets. “And what’s your name?”

  “My name is Becky, and this is my friend Angela,” she said matter of factly.

  “But you can sign this enlargement, right now, no need to text it later,” Becky said, taking the letter size photo from Angela, pointing to the spot to sign.

  “And what, exactly, would you like me to sign?” David asked. Doron noted with alarm he was smiling at Karen.

  “Write: ‘To Angela, David Phelps #15’,” Becky directed.

  “So they will know that’s you, by your number,” she explained.

  David signed. But Doron saw Becky was not happy.

  “Angela—A-N-G-E-L-A” she spelled out, “not Angie,” Becky said exasperatedly, handing David another full size print.

  “Pay attention, Phelps,” Zeke chided, looking as if he was enjoying himself.

  Becky checked every letter. David apparently got it right this time.

  “And Doron, geek. peek doesn’t have much for 7th graders,” Becky said.

  “Send me a text,” Doron said dismissively.

  “I require four passwords,” Becky pressed.

  “Why?” Doron replied, warily.

  “To check your website out, to see if it can be adapted for the 7th grade,” Becky said, pausing. “Or, if we will have to set up my own website. 7th graders generate a lot of web traffic,” Becky threatened.

  Geek.peek had the highest unique visit traffic count of any website in the school district, triple the official school site. The School administrators angrily noted parents routinely questioned the accuracy of postings on the official school website which conflicted with geek-peek. Doron had to admit, she was right, obnoxious, but right, he really didn’t have much for 7th graders, who outnumbered the seniors.

  “Who are you again?” Doron asked dismissively.

  Doron was worried, but wanted to be sure it didn’t show. He made money on geek.peek, he didn’t want any websites draining web count. Upscale fast casual restaurants, SAT prep courses, high end clothing stores, and movie theaters paid to advertise on geek.peek with electronic coupons. In addition to electronic deposits to his bank account linked to his ATM card, there were free gifts and perks for Doron. When a high end clothing store let Doron pick the paid student models for their web ads, he was inducted into the pantheon of school popularity among cheerleaders and others of the beautiful people desperate to be models.

  “My name is Becky, B-E-C-K-Y,” she spelled, so even Doron could comprehend. Zeke burst out laughing. This girl seemed to greatly amuse Zeke, Doron thought.

  “I also have a friend named Thor,” Becky said knowingly to him.

  Someone had hacked the geek. peek website and left the name Thor on the homepage. But her? A seventh grader?

  “Tell you what, Becky, B-E-C-K-Y, write your blog for 7th graders, and I will put it on geek.peek and give you a homework hero video, and two passwords,” Doron said.

  Geek.peek took advantage of the fact someone’s Mom or Dad would be a physicist, computer programmer, or scientist and could solve any unsolvable homework problems. These solutions were posted, with a web video by Doron. Simple ways to remember or solve problems were shared, which had dragged many grateful students from a D to a C.

  Credit was given by Doron to the student, with a close up web camera shot of the student’s school yearbook photo.

  “Today’s homework hero is..” To be on one of Doron’s homework videos, or one of the live test prep Skype casts, was heady rock star status for the geek set, especially for their parents who downloaded the videos, burned them on Dvds, and proudly sent them to relatives. Teachers began to realize the power of the website when students gave a standing ovation to a surprised homework rock star during lunch one week.

  “I will give you one month’s blog, then we will evaluate where we stand. But I require eight passwords for me to distribute, and two homework hero videos, one for me and one for Angela,” Becky said.

  Everyone looked at Doron. He paused, weighing his response.

  “Whatever. Agreed,” he said, handing her eig
ht password cards.

  “Email me your blog, and use spellcheck,” he said, as they left.

  Angela took David’s photo from Becky and pressed it to her chest.

  They immediately turned and fled back to their table, where the other seventh grade girls were giggling. Angela had never said a word, he could hear Becky explain, “See, they are just like my brothers, with boys you have to tell them exactly what to do.”

  “Mind if I look?” asked Karen looking at the photos.

  “Sure,” said David.

  Zeke and Doron moved around the table to look also.

  There were 48 photos, and 37 shots were of David. David on the bench, David taking off his helmet, David running to the huddle, David throwing the ball. All David, all the time.

  As far as these seventh grade girls were concerned, the entire football game was just background to photograph David, Doron thought.

  “Circle these two,” Zeke demanded, pointing to two shots showing him with David. David immediately eliminated the ones with him in a clean uniform.

  Ashley Kensington chose that precise moment to make her entrance. Doron saw she was wearing a cheerleader uniform which somehow seemed to lift, project, emphasize, and exaggerate her firm and bountiful breasts. The carefully styled blond hair, deep blue eyes, long legs, and revealing cheerleading uniform made a stunning combination. Doron saw her grin briefly when some ninth grade boys said she was ripe.

  Doron noted Ashley’s eyes quickly swept all the tables, then walked over to their table. After all, Doron thought, David, Zeke, and yours truly were all on the A prime list, worthy of her, where else would she go?

  Matt Dimon saw her, waved, and came over. Ashley bumped him with her hip, and they sat down next to Zeke. Ashley draped her knee possessively over Matt’s leg. He laid his hand on her thigh underneath the edge of her skirt hem under the table, but visible to Doron and the lecherous ninth grade boys in the table behind, as she smiled. One of the boys watched with wide eyes and mouthed “Yes, Yes!” to his friend silently.

  People at other tables turned to watch. Ashley had her audience, Doron thought, as he glanced at Karen. But Karen concealed any facial reaction.