New TS fic - Part 1
My muse has been absent for a long while. Suddenly she has returned and plot ideas are swirling around me. I decided to do a TS fic.
"And they shall inherit the earth..."
Part 1/?
TITLE: And they shall inherit the earth…
AUTHOR: Maigret
EMAIL: mlogickAThicomDOTnet
CATEGORY: Alternate Universe, Drama
PAIRING: J/B
RATING: PG-13
STATUS: WIP (1/?)
ARCHIVE: Only at my website and 852 Prospect when completed.
SPOILERS: None
DISCLAIMER: The majority of characters in this story are based on the television show The Sentinel created by Bilson and DeMeo and are owned by Pet Fly and countless lawyers. I don’t own them and get no profit from playing with their creations.
SUMMARY: What if sentinel and guides were identified? What if there were more than two?
NOTES: My TS muse came back bringing quite a few friends with her and I have been having the most amazing dreams. This story came from one such dream.
WARNINGS: None for this section, but there will be some violence further on and some bloodshed.
MORE WARNINGS: This is a WIP and I plan to complete it by mid- March. However I am on deadline for an SV fic challenge, and there is another fic that is yanking my chain daily waiting to be written.
Any feedback is appreciated. It will help me get better and will improve my story.
If anyone spies a beta-reader wanting to chop into a story, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
“And they shall inherit the earth…”
by Maigret
WHAT WAS THEN:
“For a mother it’s better when it’s a son.” Naomi took a long draw of the cigarette and watched the tip burn brightly. Both people in the room contemplated the lengthening ash remnant. Sighing, she blew out a wreath of smoke. “For a father, when it’s a son it’s death to his dreams.”
James Joseph Ellison shifted uncomfortably. “He’s my guide.”
“And he’s my son,” Naomi answered bitterly. “What I didn’t finish saying was - except when it’s me and when it’s my only son. Do you think I want him in the midst of your Sentinel Guide Unification? Cut off from contact and doing who knows what!”
Naomi waved the cigarette and the ash tip finally gave up and fell lightly onto the small table where she sat. “I know what they - the normals - say about the perversions that happen behind the walls of SGU. I don’t believe any of that. My son is being locked - no - taken away. Will he be able to publish? Will he be respected by his peers?”
James opened his mouth to rebut but Naomi didn’t give him a chance. Stabbing the air with her cigarette she continued, “I know he’ll be able to publish under the aegis of that accursed association but my son was going to be world-renowned. The mainstream audience will never consider his work legitimate. So his world has suddenly narrowed. What is he gaining from the high and mighty Sentinel Guide Unification?”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT IS NOW:
The rough slide of hairy skin against his forearm brought Jim back to the present. He glanced sideways at his partner, one hyperactive Blair J. Sandburg.
“It’s almost over, Jim,” Blair whispered sentinel-soft.
Jim nodded. He looked around at the convoy. Three heavily armed Humvees protected one spacious 9-seat passenger van. All the vehicles were black and the rain sheeting outside the van made the entire convoy appear to be menacing. No wonder the normals scared their children with tales of the SGU swooping in and carting them off to the walled city of Inner Cascade if they didn’t behave. Pity the normals never experienced the unending agony of not being bonded.
Peering through the van’s window at the four types of rain currently falling, Jim took in the drama currently being played out in the front of Micah Blaustein’s house. He did not dial up his hearing not needing to give voice to the man gesturing angrily on the porch. Blaustein senior was not happy and he was making sure that every neighbor within shouting distance heard his displeasure.
Micah Blaustein emerged from the house. He was carrying a box and wearing a bulging backpack. The driver of the passenger van, two guides and one sentinel leaned forward. This was always the most dangerous part. Parents faced with the imminent and complete loss of their children sometimes resorted to desperate measures.
Jim clenched his jaw firmly. Idly his mind flipped through images of former collections - some failures, but many successes. Richard Burton, the explorer, had identified sentinels and their counterpart guides over one hundred years ago. As more and more sentinels came on-line and they found their guides, the pairs were identified and fear built up in the general population. No one understood the physiology of bonding or the connections between sentinel and guide. And what people didn’t understand they distrusted. They didn’t understand why bonded sentinels and guides were complete onto themselves, ignored the rest of the population and sought the serenity they found among their own kind.
Wincing automatically Jim remembered the pictures Sandburg had shown him of the early research done on sentinels and guides. Sentinel and guide pairs tortured, separated from their partners. A threatened normal population reacted as more sentinels and guides paired, irregardless of gender. Ccountless sentinel guide pairs were lost in the persecution that followed. Yet for every sentinel and guide pair killed another sentinel and guide pair went on-line.
It wasn’t until forty-five years ago, a brilliant young anthropologist Eli Stoddard collected every piece of data generated on sentinel and guide research and he came to startling conclusions. He established the Sentinel Guide Unification Project and set up a sanctuary for the pairs in Cascade. As the word spread to sentinel and guide pairs across the Northern Americas, Cascade was inundated. But Cascade only had the distinction of being the first city to foster a new form of segregation. All around the world large cities found themselves with separate enclaves where a concentration of hypersensitive humans lived with their bonded guides.
Stoddard quantified the science behind sentinel and guides. Finally a sympathetic public, weary of losing sons and daughters to what appeared to be a random but pitiless contagion and horrified by sanctioned, bloodthirsty carnage, supported legal measures to protect sentinel and guide pairs and the sanctity of their bond. There was backlash and the same legal system also walled off a section of the city of Cascade which was renamed Inner Cascade where all identified sentinel guide pairs lived. Continuing legal challenges by angry normals gave rise to an elaborate bonding dance between on-line sentinels and unbonded guides.
“Don’t go Micah.” The father’s pain appeared to infuse the raindrops
“I have to, Da.”
Jim tracked every facial expression and movement from Micah Blaustein’s father. One of Blaustein’s hands was hidden and Jim knew he wouldn’t relax until Micah was safely in their custody next to Lar.
“It’s going to be fine, Lar.” Blair whispered to the young guide sitting tensely in the seat behind him.
His guide’s voice was subtle background noise keeping him grounded while Jim peered through the raindrops. Micah stepped down onto the path leading to the convoy. As if in slow motion Jim saw the father bring his hand up - a hand that was currently holding a projectile weapon.
“Trank! Trank!” Jim shouted, “The father has a tranquilizer pistol.”
Jerking at the unexpected shout, the young sentinel didn’t waste a moment looking around as he began to run. As long as any part of his body was off his father’s property he could be claimed by the SGU because he showed ‘Intent to depart.’
“Faster, Micah. Faster!” Blair and Lar whispered in unison.
As if that final bit of soft encouragement from his guide was what he needed. Micah put on a burst of speed as he bolted down the path.
In the meantime Jim counted off silently. Blaustein brought up the pistol. Then he sighted his son and fired. As the needle left the weapon, Jim slumped back in his seat. Micah would make it. The laws of physics could not be overcome and with the headstart Micah had, Lar and Micah would be the newest bonded pair added to the Cascade enclave.
Next to him Jim felt Blair relax once he relaxed though Blair continued to stare at fleeing young man.
True to his mental prediction, the needle impacted with Micah’s flesh when he was two strides away from the passenger van. One step further and the young man stumbled but he did not fall. Simon Banks caught him. Lunging forward, Lar wrestled the side door open. Two emergency technicians emerged from the nearer Humvee and slid into the van. Simon took his place in the driver’s seat and the four vehicles drove off in formation accompanied by the heartbroken sobs of Micah’s father.
The entire recovery operation had taken less than twenty minutes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT WILL BE:
Blair woke suddenly. He was careful not to move a muscle. He knew it would disturb his sentinel who would then remember their own bonding and this would be followed by needless worrying that he was depriving Blair of fame and fortune. Smiling wryly in the dark Blair acknowledged that Naomi might no longer be a part of his life but she was certainly not forgotten.
Allowing a small smile to escape, Blair thought about his most promising student. The same way in which Eli Stoddard had mentored him, he was trying to fill that role for Larkindale Watson. The smile broadened. Lar would kill him if she ever heard him use her entire first name.
“Mmmph! Y’ok?” The sentinel tightened his arm across his guide fractionally.
Blair wriggled a scant inch in the embrace. “Yeah.”
He could feel the slow seep of fluid and the sore muscles that always followed energetic sex. After Simon left them at 852 Prospect a few hours earlier, Jim had hustled him inside. Blair had prepared himself ahead of time. He knew Jim would want to reaffirm his hold on his guide and Blair was always a willing participant in that activity.
Casting his mind about for a topic that would prevent his sentinel from spiraling into a pity-the-poor-guide funk, Blair thought about the research he had been pursuing earlier in the day.
“Jim, the further I go back into the anthropological records, the more I’m stumped.”
“Huh? You’re stumped? By what?”
“Why were there suddenly less of us?”
“Because we were no longer hunting game and we’d settled into encampments.” Jim parroted what Eli Stoddard had memorialized in his opus chronicling Richard Burton’s first identification of sentinels.
Pursing his lips, Blair said slowly, “I don’t know if I agree with that. What if we have all the pieces but it’s like one of those kaleidoscopes. What if we’re not putting the pieces together correctly.”
Jim pushed up from the bed and hauled his partner up next to him. “Explain, Darwin.”
Moving easily with his sentinel as his position was adjusted; Blair followed a train of thought that was still quite murky. The guide continued, “We should reverse the question. Why are normals becoming fewer. Lar looked at the statistics recently. Of the babies being born today, both to normals and us, Jim, two out of three will either become a sentinel or a guide.”
Jim rumbled encouragingly as he reached for a bottle of clear spring water on his night table. “What does this have to do with the records stumping you?”
Grabbing the bottle from his mate, Blair sipped and then said, “Maybe, the question shouldn’t be why are sentinels coming back but what destroyed them in the first place? If we use Burton’s explanation of needing sentinels for guidance with scenting and tracking game, then this phenomenon shouldn’t be happening. Humans are socialized now - have been for years - so explain to me why sentinels are suddenly popping up all over the place?”
Blair took another sip while he formulated his words. “Man, what if normals are an aberration? What if the correct - can’t think of better words right now - state of humans is to be either a sentinel or a guide?”
Jim snagged the water bottle and gulped noisily. There was a sudden queasy feeling in his stomach. It was the feeling he got whenever he identified the perpetrator of a major crime. With only the moonlight shining through the skylight in the bedroom limning Blair’s animated features, Jim caught Blair’s chin and stared at him. “Be very sure before you share this theory with anyone.”
Blinking owlishly at his sentinel, Blair digested what Jim had said and heard what he didn’t say.
“You think I’m right aren’t you?” he whispered.
Jim drew Blair into a tight embrace and said softly, “I think that the truce we’ve maintained with the normals will fall apart once your research becomes known.” Sighing he continued, “The normals will feel threatened again and like any animal in jeopardy they will attack. We don’t have enough of a power base to withstand that. A few enacted laws don’t change the reality of what happened to sentinels and guides two decades ago.”
Sentinel-soft Blair murmured. “There’s more, Jim.”
This time Jim tucked his chin into the hollow spot between Blair’s collarbone and his Adam’s apple. He was ever mindful that they lived in Inner Cascade, an enclave where ninety nine percent of the population was sentinels or guides and only two apartments at 852 Prospect housed normals.
“Lar ran statistics on birth rates. Normals are having fewer children and out of those they have one out of two will go online before their second birthday. It’s almost as if something in human genetics has been turned on again.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blair looked out over his 1:00 PM seminar. The room was packed. Checking the time on the wall he noted the sweep of the second hand. When it hit vertical he clapped once sharply then said at normal volume, “Silence.”
Once he received their attention and silence Blair looked down at the class list. “This is Intro to Anthropology. Hearing Enhancement is one flight down in Room 8. Vision Quest, two buildings down in Room 12. Tasters’ Choice is being held in the basement clear across campus in the Tyler lodge. Contrary to the previous announcement the Nature Ramble was not cancelled and participants are currently assembling in front of the garage - of this building.” As the students shuffled and skittered out of the crowded classroom, Blair raised his voice slightly, “By the way, the sentinels are predicting a heavy downpour.” Clearing his throat, Blair returned to reading the list of where the next hour’s classes were being held.
Looking down at his class list helped to hide Blair’s smile. He could easily tell those who were headed for the ramble by the low groans which followed his announcement. He took a moment to look out of the window and note the activity occurring in the rest of the campus. It was the first day of classes and as tradition dictated only the teachers’ possessed the room assignments.
Students were assigned a classroom and it was from the teacher stationed there that they found out where their classes were being held before they would race off to their respective sessions. This tradition had the effect of getting the students knowledgeable about the campus in a short period of time. Though this campus didn’t have the majesty and gravitas of Rainier University Blair was very proud to be a teacher here.
Once Eli Stoddard realized that sentinels and guides were being penned into one part of the city, “for their protection” he would often mock sarcastically, he had approached Lawrence Tyler. Lawrence Tyler was a millionaire many times over whose only child was a daughter named Grace. Grace’s mother had died in childbirth and she had manifested her sentinel attributes at an early age. Stoddard knew that sentinels and guides would have to be educated and their curriculum had to encompass standard educational skills and also special classes to train the sentinels to work with their senses and the guides to work with their sentinels. The future of the SGU - the P had been dropped a while ago - would depend on the sentinel and guide youngsters who were finding each other now.
Tyler did not warm up to Stoddard’s idea until his only daughter was shunned at her grade school and she came home crying. Lawrence Tyler lured Bill Ellison from the ivy-covered walls of Harvard to plan the curriculum and establish the charter school. Some men when given a challenge would barely meet expectations. Ellison met his goals and exceeded every expectation. He was ahead of his time with his ideas about education and the transfer of knowledge. Faced with the challenge of establishing new methods of learning he borrowed ideas from the Japanese traditionalists, the Greek didactics and crafted curricula for each grade from pre-K to post-doctoral studies. Unfortunately William Ellison, Bill’s son was not gifted and though he married Grace Tyler, and she bore two sons, Ellison the younger only succeeded in alienating both children.
Lawrence Tyler had the foresight to put his faith in Bill Ellison and concerned himself only with signing the checks. Aware that what was different was frequently denigrated, Ellison did not even try to compete with current educational models. Sentinels and guides would need smaller classrooms and they would require quiet areas at times so buildings had to be designed differently. A huge tract of land, a prime piece of property on the edge of Inner Cascade which stretched from Cascade Bay and butted up against the foothills of the Rainier mountains, was purchased. Lawrence went to other wealthy associates who found themselves in the same position as himself with sentinel or guide offspring and secured generous endowments.
The school materialized as a planned community and catered to all the educational needs of children and adults in the community of Inner Cascade. Over the years several scholars emerged from The Institute, as it came to be known, who were experts in their fields of study and stood toe to toe with their counterparts from other renowned institutions. However first day traditions established by Bill Ellison continued to this day. When the school was still being built, and buildings appeared to be erected almost overnight, Bill Ellison dreamed up an idea to familiarize the students with the newest changes on the campus quickly. Students were randomly assigned a classroom and they had to find their way back to that classroom at the end of each period to get their assignments for their next class. Bill Ellison would keep this up for a week. Ten years ago the students and staff voted to limit “Space Pursuit” to the first day of each semester.
Looking back up at the remaining students, Blair began, “Welcome to Anthro 101. We will be covering a variety of cultures. I will be passing out a reading list and…”
Blair stumbled to a halt. All eyes focused on the two men dressed in conservative blue suits that entered the classroom. Gritting his jaw, Blair released his anger at the intrusion. The government had come to visit - again. It was part of their periodic surprise inspections to make sure that The Institute was complying with educational standards. Never mind that the students here routinely tested above their grade levels.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"And they shall inherit the earth..."
Part 1/?
TITLE: And they shall inherit the earth…
AUTHOR: Maigret
EMAIL: mlogickAThicomDOTnet
CATEGORY: Alternate Universe, Drama
PAIRING: J/B
RATING: PG-13
STATUS: WIP (1/?)
ARCHIVE: Only at my website and 852 Prospect when completed.
SPOILERS: None
DISCLAIMER: The majority of characters in this story are based on the television show The Sentinel created by Bilson and DeMeo and are owned by Pet Fly and countless lawyers. I don’t own them and get no profit from playing with their creations.
SUMMARY: What if sentinel and guides were identified? What if there were more than two?
NOTES: My TS muse came back bringing quite a few friends with her and I have been having the most amazing dreams. This story came from one such dream.
WARNINGS: None for this section, but there will be some violence further on and some bloodshed.
MORE WARNINGS: This is a WIP and I plan to complete it by mid- March. However I am on deadline for an SV fic challenge, and there is another fic that is yanking my chain daily waiting to be written.
Any feedback is appreciated. It will help me get better and will improve my story.
If anyone spies a beta-reader wanting to chop into a story, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
“And they shall inherit the earth…”
by Maigret
WHAT WAS THEN:
“For a mother it’s better when it’s a son.” Naomi took a long draw of the cigarette and watched the tip burn brightly. Both people in the room contemplated the lengthening ash remnant. Sighing, she blew out a wreath of smoke. “For a father, when it’s a son it’s death to his dreams.”
James Joseph Ellison shifted uncomfortably. “He’s my guide.”
“And he’s my son,” Naomi answered bitterly. “What I didn’t finish saying was - except when it’s me and when it’s my only son. Do you think I want him in the midst of your Sentinel Guide Unification? Cut off from contact and doing who knows what!”
Naomi waved the cigarette and the ash tip finally gave up and fell lightly onto the small table where she sat. “I know what they - the normals - say about the perversions that happen behind the walls of SGU. I don’t believe any of that. My son is being locked - no - taken away. Will he be able to publish? Will he be respected by his peers?”
James opened his mouth to rebut but Naomi didn’t give him a chance. Stabbing the air with her cigarette she continued, “I know he’ll be able to publish under the aegis of that accursed association but my son was going to be world-renowned. The mainstream audience will never consider his work legitimate. So his world has suddenly narrowed. What is he gaining from the high and mighty Sentinel Guide Unification?”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT IS NOW:
The rough slide of hairy skin against his forearm brought Jim back to the present. He glanced sideways at his partner, one hyperactive Blair J. Sandburg.
“It’s almost over, Jim,” Blair whispered sentinel-soft.
Jim nodded. He looked around at the convoy. Three heavily armed Humvees protected one spacious 9-seat passenger van. All the vehicles were black and the rain sheeting outside the van made the entire convoy appear to be menacing. No wonder the normals scared their children with tales of the SGU swooping in and carting them off to the walled city of Inner Cascade if they didn’t behave. Pity the normals never experienced the unending agony of not being bonded.
Peering through the van’s window at the four types of rain currently falling, Jim took in the drama currently being played out in the front of Micah Blaustein’s house. He did not dial up his hearing not needing to give voice to the man gesturing angrily on the porch. Blaustein senior was not happy and he was making sure that every neighbor within shouting distance heard his displeasure.
Micah Blaustein emerged from the house. He was carrying a box and wearing a bulging backpack. The driver of the passenger van, two guides and one sentinel leaned forward. This was always the most dangerous part. Parents faced with the imminent and complete loss of their children sometimes resorted to desperate measures.
Jim clenched his jaw firmly. Idly his mind flipped through images of former collections - some failures, but many successes. Richard Burton, the explorer, had identified sentinels and their counterpart guides over one hundred years ago. As more and more sentinels came on-line and they found their guides, the pairs were identified and fear built up in the general population. No one understood the physiology of bonding or the connections between sentinel and guide. And what people didn’t understand they distrusted. They didn’t understand why bonded sentinels and guides were complete onto themselves, ignored the rest of the population and sought the serenity they found among their own kind.
Wincing automatically Jim remembered the pictures Sandburg had shown him of the early research done on sentinels and guides. Sentinel and guide pairs tortured, separated from their partners. A threatened normal population reacted as more sentinels and guides paired, irregardless of gender. Ccountless sentinel guide pairs were lost in the persecution that followed. Yet for every sentinel and guide pair killed another sentinel and guide pair went on-line.
It wasn’t until forty-five years ago, a brilliant young anthropologist Eli Stoddard collected every piece of data generated on sentinel and guide research and he came to startling conclusions. He established the Sentinel Guide Unification Project and set up a sanctuary for the pairs in Cascade. As the word spread to sentinel and guide pairs across the Northern Americas, Cascade was inundated. But Cascade only had the distinction of being the first city to foster a new form of segregation. All around the world large cities found themselves with separate enclaves where a concentration of hypersensitive humans lived with their bonded guides.
Stoddard quantified the science behind sentinel and guides. Finally a sympathetic public, weary of losing sons and daughters to what appeared to be a random but pitiless contagion and horrified by sanctioned, bloodthirsty carnage, supported legal measures to protect sentinel and guide pairs and the sanctity of their bond. There was backlash and the same legal system also walled off a section of the city of Cascade which was renamed Inner Cascade where all identified sentinel guide pairs lived. Continuing legal challenges by angry normals gave rise to an elaborate bonding dance between on-line sentinels and unbonded guides.
“Don’t go Micah.” The father’s pain appeared to infuse the raindrops
“I have to, Da.”
Jim tracked every facial expression and movement from Micah Blaustein’s father. One of Blaustein’s hands was hidden and Jim knew he wouldn’t relax until Micah was safely in their custody next to Lar.
“It’s going to be fine, Lar.” Blair whispered to the young guide sitting tensely in the seat behind him.
His guide’s voice was subtle background noise keeping him grounded while Jim peered through the raindrops. Micah stepped down onto the path leading to the convoy. As if in slow motion Jim saw the father bring his hand up - a hand that was currently holding a projectile weapon.
“Trank! Trank!” Jim shouted, “The father has a tranquilizer pistol.”
Jerking at the unexpected shout, the young sentinel didn’t waste a moment looking around as he began to run. As long as any part of his body was off his father’s property he could be claimed by the SGU because he showed ‘Intent to depart.’
“Faster, Micah. Faster!” Blair and Lar whispered in unison.
As if that final bit of soft encouragement from his guide was what he needed. Micah put on a burst of speed as he bolted down the path.
In the meantime Jim counted off silently. Blaustein brought up the pistol. Then he sighted his son and fired. As the needle left the weapon, Jim slumped back in his seat. Micah would make it. The laws of physics could not be overcome and with the headstart Micah had, Lar and Micah would be the newest bonded pair added to the Cascade enclave.
Next to him Jim felt Blair relax once he relaxed though Blair continued to stare at fleeing young man.
True to his mental prediction, the needle impacted with Micah’s flesh when he was two strides away from the passenger van. One step further and the young man stumbled but he did not fall. Simon Banks caught him. Lunging forward, Lar wrestled the side door open. Two emergency technicians emerged from the nearer Humvee and slid into the van. Simon took his place in the driver’s seat and the four vehicles drove off in formation accompanied by the heartbroken sobs of Micah’s father.
The entire recovery operation had taken less than twenty minutes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WHAT WILL BE:
Blair woke suddenly. He was careful not to move a muscle. He knew it would disturb his sentinel who would then remember their own bonding and this would be followed by needless worrying that he was depriving Blair of fame and fortune. Smiling wryly in the dark Blair acknowledged that Naomi might no longer be a part of his life but she was certainly not forgotten.
Allowing a small smile to escape, Blair thought about his most promising student. The same way in which Eli Stoddard had mentored him, he was trying to fill that role for Larkindale Watson. The smile broadened. Lar would kill him if she ever heard him use her entire first name.
“Mmmph! Y’ok?” The sentinel tightened his arm across his guide fractionally.
Blair wriggled a scant inch in the embrace. “Yeah.”
He could feel the slow seep of fluid and the sore muscles that always followed energetic sex. After Simon left them at 852 Prospect a few hours earlier, Jim had hustled him inside. Blair had prepared himself ahead of time. He knew Jim would want to reaffirm his hold on his guide and Blair was always a willing participant in that activity.
Casting his mind about for a topic that would prevent his sentinel from spiraling into a pity-the-poor-guide funk, Blair thought about the research he had been pursuing earlier in the day.
“Jim, the further I go back into the anthropological records, the more I’m stumped.”
“Huh? You’re stumped? By what?”
“Why were there suddenly less of us?”
“Because we were no longer hunting game and we’d settled into encampments.” Jim parroted what Eli Stoddard had memorialized in his opus chronicling Richard Burton’s first identification of sentinels.
Pursing his lips, Blair said slowly, “I don’t know if I agree with that. What if we have all the pieces but it’s like one of those kaleidoscopes. What if we’re not putting the pieces together correctly.”
Jim pushed up from the bed and hauled his partner up next to him. “Explain, Darwin.”
Moving easily with his sentinel as his position was adjusted; Blair followed a train of thought that was still quite murky. The guide continued, “We should reverse the question. Why are normals becoming fewer. Lar looked at the statistics recently. Of the babies being born today, both to normals and us, Jim, two out of three will either become a sentinel or a guide.”
Jim rumbled encouragingly as he reached for a bottle of clear spring water on his night table. “What does this have to do with the records stumping you?”
Grabbing the bottle from his mate, Blair sipped and then said, “Maybe, the question shouldn’t be why are sentinels coming back but what destroyed them in the first place? If we use Burton’s explanation of needing sentinels for guidance with scenting and tracking game, then this phenomenon shouldn’t be happening. Humans are socialized now - have been for years - so explain to me why sentinels are suddenly popping up all over the place?”
Blair took another sip while he formulated his words. “Man, what if normals are an aberration? What if the correct - can’t think of better words right now - state of humans is to be either a sentinel or a guide?”
Jim snagged the water bottle and gulped noisily. There was a sudden queasy feeling in his stomach. It was the feeling he got whenever he identified the perpetrator of a major crime. With only the moonlight shining through the skylight in the bedroom limning Blair’s animated features, Jim caught Blair’s chin and stared at him. “Be very sure before you share this theory with anyone.”
Blinking owlishly at his sentinel, Blair digested what Jim had said and heard what he didn’t say.
“You think I’m right aren’t you?” he whispered.
Jim drew Blair into a tight embrace and said softly, “I think that the truce we’ve maintained with the normals will fall apart once your research becomes known.” Sighing he continued, “The normals will feel threatened again and like any animal in jeopardy they will attack. We don’t have enough of a power base to withstand that. A few enacted laws don’t change the reality of what happened to sentinels and guides two decades ago.”
Sentinel-soft Blair murmured. “There’s more, Jim.”
This time Jim tucked his chin into the hollow spot between Blair’s collarbone and his Adam’s apple. He was ever mindful that they lived in Inner Cascade, an enclave where ninety nine percent of the population was sentinels or guides and only two apartments at 852 Prospect housed normals.
“Lar ran statistics on birth rates. Normals are having fewer children and out of those they have one out of two will go online before their second birthday. It’s almost as if something in human genetics has been turned on again.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blair looked out over his 1:00 PM seminar. The room was packed. Checking the time on the wall he noted the sweep of the second hand. When it hit vertical he clapped once sharply then said at normal volume, “Silence.”
Once he received their attention and silence Blair looked down at the class list. “This is Intro to Anthropology. Hearing Enhancement is one flight down in Room 8. Vision Quest, two buildings down in Room 12. Tasters’ Choice is being held in the basement clear across campus in the Tyler lodge. Contrary to the previous announcement the Nature Ramble was not cancelled and participants are currently assembling in front of the garage - of this building.” As the students shuffled and skittered out of the crowded classroom, Blair raised his voice slightly, “By the way, the sentinels are predicting a heavy downpour.” Clearing his throat, Blair returned to reading the list of where the next hour’s classes were being held.
Looking down at his class list helped to hide Blair’s smile. He could easily tell those who were headed for the ramble by the low groans which followed his announcement. He took a moment to look out of the window and note the activity occurring in the rest of the campus. It was the first day of classes and as tradition dictated only the teachers’ possessed the room assignments.
Students were assigned a classroom and it was from the teacher stationed there that they found out where their classes were being held before they would race off to their respective sessions. This tradition had the effect of getting the students knowledgeable about the campus in a short period of time. Though this campus didn’t have the majesty and gravitas of Rainier University Blair was very proud to be a teacher here.
Once Eli Stoddard realized that sentinels and guides were being penned into one part of the city, “for their protection” he would often mock sarcastically, he had approached Lawrence Tyler. Lawrence Tyler was a millionaire many times over whose only child was a daughter named Grace. Grace’s mother had died in childbirth and she had manifested her sentinel attributes at an early age. Stoddard knew that sentinels and guides would have to be educated and their curriculum had to encompass standard educational skills and also special classes to train the sentinels to work with their senses and the guides to work with their sentinels. The future of the SGU - the P had been dropped a while ago - would depend on the sentinel and guide youngsters who were finding each other now.
Tyler did not warm up to Stoddard’s idea until his only daughter was shunned at her grade school and she came home crying. Lawrence Tyler lured Bill Ellison from the ivy-covered walls of Harvard to plan the curriculum and establish the charter school. Some men when given a challenge would barely meet expectations. Ellison met his goals and exceeded every expectation. He was ahead of his time with his ideas about education and the transfer of knowledge. Faced with the challenge of establishing new methods of learning he borrowed ideas from the Japanese traditionalists, the Greek didactics and crafted curricula for each grade from pre-K to post-doctoral studies. Unfortunately William Ellison, Bill’s son was not gifted and though he married Grace Tyler, and she bore two sons, Ellison the younger only succeeded in alienating both children.
Lawrence Tyler had the foresight to put his faith in Bill Ellison and concerned himself only with signing the checks. Aware that what was different was frequently denigrated, Ellison did not even try to compete with current educational models. Sentinels and guides would need smaller classrooms and they would require quiet areas at times so buildings had to be designed differently. A huge tract of land, a prime piece of property on the edge of Inner Cascade which stretched from Cascade Bay and butted up against the foothills of the Rainier mountains, was purchased. Lawrence went to other wealthy associates who found themselves in the same position as himself with sentinel or guide offspring and secured generous endowments.
The school materialized as a planned community and catered to all the educational needs of children and adults in the community of Inner Cascade. Over the years several scholars emerged from The Institute, as it came to be known, who were experts in their fields of study and stood toe to toe with their counterparts from other renowned institutions. However first day traditions established by Bill Ellison continued to this day. When the school was still being built, and buildings appeared to be erected almost overnight, Bill Ellison dreamed up an idea to familiarize the students with the newest changes on the campus quickly. Students were randomly assigned a classroom and they had to find their way back to that classroom at the end of each period to get their assignments for their next class. Bill Ellison would keep this up for a week. Ten years ago the students and staff voted to limit “Space Pursuit” to the first day of each semester.
Looking back up at the remaining students, Blair began, “Welcome to Anthro 101. We will be covering a variety of cultures. I will be passing out a reading list and…”
Blair stumbled to a halt. All eyes focused on the two men dressed in conservative blue suits that entered the classroom. Gritting his jaw, Blair released his anger at the intrusion. The government had come to visit - again. It was part of their periodic surprise inspections to make sure that The Institute was complying with educational standards. Never mind that the students here routinely tested above their grade levels.
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