The Learners: A Novel (No Series) (15 page)

“Got that?” Wally! “Okay?” I said it the way my dad used to right before we’d set off for a long car trip:

“Here we go. BLUE: sky, ball, shirt, bird.”

Bing
. He pressed 2. Good.

“Very good. Next one. NICE: salary, dream, house, man.”

Bing
. He pressed 3. Good.

“Great! FAT: pig, chance, Tuesday, head.”

Bing
. 2. Not so good.

“Uh, that’s wrong.” I looked up at the face of the machine, then over at Ichabod. I was really on stage here. “Fifteen volts.” I put my finger on the lever. Cold plastic the color of a dark sea. It gave way easily.

Bzzzt
.

A small red light bloomed, the volt-meter spasmed. And yes, I admit: I laughed. A little chuckle. I don’t know why. It wasn’t because I thought it was funny, really.

Well, maybe a little. Onward. “GREEN: grass, man, lawn, paint.”

Bing
. 2. Green man? What a dope. “Wrong. Green paint. Thirty volts.” Take that, Wally.

Bzzzt
.

He got the next two right. The punishment theory was on the money—this would be smooth sailing now. Over within five minutes. “Excellent. Very good. BLUNT: words, instrument, knife, object.”

Bing
. 4. Hmmm. “Wrong. Blunt words. Forty-five volts.” The level of shock I had gotten. Wake up, Wally.

Bzzzt
.

“SOFT: blanket, pillow, soap, song.” Come
on.

Bing
. 3. What? “No. Sorry. Soft blanket. Suh, sixty volts.”

Bzzzt
.

This went on for the next three answers. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wally, what the heck is your problem? He was rolling around in there. Bored, that’s all. He’d shape up soon. He
had
to. “One hundred and five volts.”

Bzzzt
.

“Ow
.”

Waitaminute. Muffled, but unmistakable.

Williams scribbled something on his clipboard. I was afraid to look him in the eye, but, when I did it was…okay. He wasn’t mad at me at all. Not disappointed in the least. Whew.

“WET: fish, coat, lip, stone.”

Bing
. 3. What was he doing in there? Wally, what the hell? “Muh, Mr. Williams, sir? Something’s wrong. He’s getting them all wrong.”

“Keep going. Go on, please.”

Bzzzt
.

“Oh!
”

I started to think up things to help him, anything—I drew out the correct word, emphasized it to tip him off: “
Ssstoooonne…
.”

“Please don’t try to cheat, Teacher.” Damn.

Bzzzt
.

“
OW!
”

Christ. And then I thought of Himillsy for the first time since the experiment began. Which one of us had she been? Did she sit in the same chair I was in right now? What would she do in this situation? Maybe the sound system was spotty. I leaned heavy into the mic, nearly shouting: “Are you hearing me okay? Mr. Wallace?” Nothing. To Williams. “Maybe he can’t hear me. We, we should check that.”

“The equipment is fine. Please continue.”

How could he be so sure? So sure of everything? But he
was,
and I realized, yes, I was grateful for that— in the way I always was for people who were obviously smarter than I am. I no longer cared that he was a cold fish. His otherwise calm, beatific demeanor was the only thing that made this bearable. He could have told me that the air was black and I’d take his word for it, thank him for it.

As opposed to Wallace, who was screwing it all up.

I was starting to hate him.

Wrong.
Bzzzt
.
“Ow! Hey!
”

Wrong.
Bzzzt
.
“This hurts!
”

Wrong.
Bzzzt
.
“My heart is starting to hurt!
”

All right, enough. “Uh, I think, I think we should look in on him. He says his heart—”

“Please continue, Teacher.”

Now I could feel
my
heart, throwing itself against my rib cage, fighting to get out. I could almost hear it.

“Experimenter, that’s all. Get me out of here! I told you I have heart trouble.”

Thank
God
. That’s what I was waiting for. Permission. It was Wallace’s fault now, not mine. “Well, that’s that. He doesn’t want to go on with it.”

“The shocks are painful, but not dangerous. Keep going, please.”

Jesus. I’m not a quitter, I’m just not. But this. This was nuts. “Are, are you
sure
?”

“I’m sure. Please go on.”

I am a designer. A graphic designer. Designers solve problems. That is what we do. If I was on the other side of that goddamn wall like I wanted to be instead of this idiot, we’d have been done ten minutes ago— as a learner this problem is easily solved. But as a teacher, I didn’t see how, not without his cooperation. Why didn’t they listen to me? WHY?

“
My heart’s starting to bother me now. Let me out!
”

“The experiment requires that you continue.”

Dammit. “I, I can’t…”

“You have no choice.”

Himillsy, what should I do? You’d see this to the end, wouldn’t you? Didn’t you? You must have. But you weren’t saddled with this goddamn bonehead.

I couldn’t look at what we were up to now. But I had to. Oh, it’s 255 volts.

INTENSE SHOCK

Forgive me.

Bzzzt
.
“I can’t stand the pain! Let me out of here!”

My God. “This is, he’s in no shape to, to…”

“I’m responsible for anything that happens here.”

More. More. The experiment required it. This was Yale.

Finally: the last word pair. “Please concentrate, please. SWEET: tooth, thing, heart, deal.
Bing
. 2. He got that one right. Unbelievable. Miraculous. “Okay, we’re done.” Thank
God
. What a nightmare. I pulled out my handkerchief, mopped my head. Get me out of here.

“Please continue with the experiment, Teacher.”

WHAT? “What do you
mean
? That’s all of the word pairs. We’ve gone through them all.”

“We must continue until the learner has learned them all correctly. Start with GOLD please, at the top of the page.”

No, no, no. NO.

“Let me out let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!”

Sweating, shaking, fumbling, hot, wretched. How, HOW could this have all gone so wrong, so quickly? WHAT was I doing wrong? “GOLD: medal, chain, thread, brick.”

Bing
. 3.

No. Muffed it again, again, again, again.

“Sssorry. It’s, it’s, I…
Please
, sir, let’s stop.”

“If you discontinue, you’re going to have to discontinue the experiment. Two hundred and eighty-five volts, please.”

Moron fool imbecile shit-brain dolt blockhead dullard oaf simpleton lout boob nitwit cretin numb-skull stupid stupid
stupid

Bzzzt
.

And then I heard something new. And…familiar.

Something from hell.

From the other side of the wall: a bald, beckoning scream.

I had heard a thing like that only once before, when I was eight, on a Saturday afternoon. I was listening to
Tarzan
on the radio, in our living room. Lying on the floor, amid a sea of paper, I was lost in one of my favorite games: trying to draw what was I listening to.
Tarzan
was great for this—no worries about what everyone was wearing, not like
The Shadow
, say, or
Sky King
. And jungles, their organic linear sprawl, were much easier to commit to newsprint with crayons than cities or spaceships.

Anyway, things were not going well for the Ape Man and Jai, his young sidekick. No surprise there. On the run from perpetually furious safari poachers, Tarzan faced a giant gorge, hundreds of feet deep and about twenty feet wide. On the other side was Jai, tied up to a tree for safekeeping by the white hunters. No vines in sight, naturally. The narrator was getting unusually worked up:

“H
E HAD TO ACT QUICKLY—THE SAFARI COULD RETURN AT ANY MOMENT!!
T
ARZAN SURVEYED THE CHASM, DESPERATELY SEEKING A WAY TO SAVE HIS YOUNG FRIEND—PERHAPS A FALLEN TREE…”

That’s what I thought, too. The writers, however, having probably exhausted every plot possibility by now, had other ideas:

“S
UDDENLY
, T
ARZAN STOOD VERY STILL.
H
E CLOSED HIS EYES AND TILTED HIS HEAD.
T
HE
A
PE
M
AN’S STUPENDOUSLY SENSITIVE EARS HAD DETECTED SOMETHING ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO HEAR.
B
UT IT WAS THERE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GORGE, ON
J
AI’S SIDE.
I
T WAS IN THE DISTANCE, LIKE A RIVER FLOWING FAR AWAY, BUT GETTING CLOSER.
A
LL THE ANIMALS OF THE JUNGLE KNEW THIS SOUND, AND THEY KNEW TO FEAR IT, AND AT ANY COST, ESCAPE.
T
ARZAN KNEW THAT IF HE COULD HEAR IT NOW, THAT THE DANGER WAS MUCH NEARER THAN IT MIGHT SEEM!
T
HERE WAS VERY LITTLE TIME!!
H
E DARE NOT LET
J
AI IN ON HIS TERRIFYING DISCOVERY.
H
E MUSTN’T PANIC.
H
E HAD TO THINK, AND THINK QUICKLY…”

I was stumped. Where was all this going? I’d already laid out the scenario on the page—a side angle, an enormous V shape cut into the landscape, with Tarzan on the left and Jai, tied to a stake, on the right. I was awaiting my cue, ready to draw a tree next to Tarzan, so he could chop it down and use it as a bridge. My crayon was poised. By now, Jai knew that something was up.

“Tarzan! What that?”
Jai’s broken English might have led less savvier listeners to believe that he wasn’t too bright, but I knew better. No dummy he.

“Noise! Small noise! Big noise! Noise big and small!”

What?

“Jai! Hold still! Stay calm! I’ll be right there!”

The narrator, tense, foreboding:

“S
UDDENLY, OVER THE HORIZON, THEY APPEARED.
M
ILLIONS OF THEM.
A
SCARLET, LUMBERING, LIQUID MASS, OVERTAKING THE GROUND, AS A STORM CLOUD COVERS THE SKY!…”

What? WHAT?! An antelope stampede? Elephants? Panthers? No, they wouldn’t be up on a cliff. Besides, Tarzan could command them with his yell…

“F
OR AS FAR AS THE EYE COULD
SEE!! A
N ARMY OF
RED FIRE ANTS!!”

No. Not that. Anything but tha—

“U
NRELENTING, UNSTOPPABLE.
C
RUSH ONE AND TWO MORE TAKE ITS PLACE!
T
HEIR MILLIONS OF LEGS LIKE WHITE-HOT NEEDLES!!”

No, please. Tarzan…