Standing orders
Standing Orders
By
Sheffield
"You really need to alter my grade, Doc."
"Like I said in class, there are three topics you can use for extra credit assignments and there's a tutor group for the exams…"
"Look, I just need a lousy C to keep my average. Just give me the C and I'll walk away, OK, runt?"
Dr Blair Sandburg looked up from his books and pushed his chair back an inch or two from his desk so that he could look up… and up… and up… into his visitor's face. Frankie Merrow, six foot three of pure mean, suspended from the football team for failure to keep up his grade average.
"So… you don't plan on doing any work, right? And you want me to change your grade or you're going to…?"
"Hurt you."
"'Hurt me?' Seriously?"
He sighed. "Frankie, haven't you read anything about the university? Don't you speak to your fellow students? Do you have - for example - the faintest idea what I do when I'm not running Anthro 101?"
"Look, I don't have time for this. Just sign the papers or…"
"Yeah, yeah, you're a big old jock and I'm just a little old Professor, right? Frankie, where did you get the bucket of stupid? Have you ever heard of Brad Ventriss? Ten years ago - prehistoric, I know - he raped one of my students and tried to get me fired, and now he's in jail."
"Yeah? Been lucky once…"
"Frankie! Pay attention. Why is he in jail? Because my partner and associate for the past ten years happens to be a big, mean cop with a big, mean temper."
Frankie had clearly drunk deep from the bucket of stupid, because all he did was grin menacingly and lean forward over the desk, into his professor's personal space.
"Yeah, but he's not here now, prof, is he?"
Sandburg patted the big beefy hand resting on his copy of the June 2005 issue of Anthropological Quarterly and said gently, "Frankie, you know I'm a professor, right?"
"Yeah?"
"And what do you think professors do for a living?"
"Teach?"
"Teach. That's it? I swear, I'm going to track down your High School principal and have him arrested for crimes against education. No, Frankie, a professor doesn't just 'teach' - teaching is what we do in our spare time, for the benefit of future generations. What we're actually here for is research. Making knowledge. And what I've been doing for the past ten years is research into people called Sentinels."
Frankie glowered and leaned. His menacing technique ought to work. It worked on everyone else. Why was the little runt leaning forward and patting his hand as if he just didn't care?
"Sentinels were tribal protectors. People with a genetic advantage in terms of their hearing or eyesight that let them act as watchmen or guardians for their tribes. But in the twenty-first century they tend to be people who use their genetic advantages in search and rescue, or firefighting, or medicine or police work."
"Look prof, I'm not here for a lecture. Just sign the form!"
Professor Sandburg took hold of Frankie's pinkie finger, bent it back so that Frankie's arm went with it and Frankie suddenly found his was on his knees on the floor in front of the desk.
"Frankie, next time someone offers you a bucket of stupid, just say no!"
Two people came running into the office and Sandburg stepped back from Frankie so the two could take up position between Frankie and him. "This is Carl and this is Tessa - my research assistants and, incidentally, both Sentinels in training. In training for what, I hear you ask? No? Well, Carl is training - all six foot five of him - to be a fireman, and Tessa is an award-winning karate-ka about to join the Cascade police department. Carl, Tessa, would you help Frankie out, please? I think he feels the need to call by the dean's office and make some changes to his schedule… and then he'd like you to go with him to see coach Bevins and explain he's going to have to cut back on his football in order to get his grades. Isn't that right?"
Three more people came running. "Hi John, Sara, Gurpreet. No excitement, thanks - Frankie is just leaving, right Frankie? And Carl and Tessa are going to help him get where he needs to go."
Sara picked up the phone as Carl and Tessa led the hapless Frankie out of the office.
"Aw come on, Sara, you don't need to do that."
"Captain Ellison please. Yes, I'll hold."
"Sara!"
"Sorry Chief - " Sara wasn't a cop, she was a trainee doctor who was finding her Sentinel senses invaluable in sniffing out cancerous cells, just like John was finding new uses for his senses in microbiological research and Gurpreet was applying them with great success to his art installations - "but you know how it is." She shrugged and then grinned. "Standing orders."