Awakenings

 

Story Notes:

Rating: PG

Type: Angst

 

             MI NAM IZ JULES BASHIR.

             The boy printed with painstaking care, but the letters were still crooked.  Teacher, looking over his shoulder, frowned her disapproval.  She bent over his paper and rewrote the sentence correctly.

             “Copy it fifty times, Jules, and we’ll try again tomorrow, all right?”  As he bit his lip, she sighed.  “Fifty times means all the lines on both sides of the paper.  Remember?”

             He didn’t, though the tone of Teacher’s voice suggested that she had told him several times.  Each day he labored over this one sentence required on all his papers, and no matter how many times he had written the sentence the day before, he always forgot something.  Like which direction the letters faced or how to spell his own name.

             As Teacher moved on, Jules glanced enviously toward the other side of the classroom where an excited group of his fellow first-graders were learning to use the computer.  Another group opened their readers, and he listened in fascinated awe.  Amazing that such squiggly lines made words that could be read instead of copied by rote!  He stared miserably at Teacher’s neat handwriting at the top of his paper.

 

#

 

             “Here’s an easy one, Jules.”  Teacher smiled encouragement and held up a card.  “Is this a tree or a house?”

             Jules stared at the picture and chewed his lip.

             “I know!  I know!’’ Around him, hands shot up and waved enthusiastically.

             Jules glanced in dismay at the wise faces that surrounded him.

             “This question is for Jules,” Teacher said to the others.  “Tell us what this is, Jules.  Here are some clues.  We live in it, and it’s made of wood.”

             Wood.  Sunlight pierced through the clouds of confusion.  Jules grinned.  “It’s a tree!  A tree!”

             Teacher shook her head sadly.  “This is a house, Jules.”

             He hunched in his chair, frustrated.  “But you said it was made of wood.  Trees are made of wood, aren’t they?”

             “Yes.  So are houses.  But we don’t live in trees, Jules.  Who can tell me what animals live in trees?”

             She turned her attention to another student, who rattled off “birds and squirrels” without even thinking about it.  Jules blinked furiously and tried not to cry.

 

#

            

             The boys were playing catch.  They let Jules play because Teacher said they had to, but they didn’t throw the ball to him.  He couldn’t catch.  When they ran races, he didn’t win.  He was too small, and sometimes he would trip or run out of breath.  He pretended he was having fun anyway.

             An animal loped into the school yard, interrupting the game.  Jules gathered with the other children and reached out, as they did, to pet the furry head.  The animal swung its head toward Jules and slobbered its rough tongue over his hand.

             He giggled.  “Pretty cat!”

             A boy from the older grades snickered.  The students who remembered Teacher’s warning not to tease glanced at each other.

             “It’s a dog, Jules,” someone told him.

             “Oh.”

             The older boy grabbed a stick and threw it.  The dog chased it, and the boys followed, laughing.  Jules scuffed his shoe on the ground.  How did they know?  Dog or cat, they both had four legs, a tail, fur.  Was there a special way to tell animals apart?  Why couldn’t he be as smart as his classmates?

 

#

 

             Jules crouched at the top of the stairs and listened.  They were talking about him again.  He could hear the worry in Mother’s whisper.

             “He’s only six years old.  Maybe he just needs more time.”

             “I refuse to see our son stuck in remedial education for the rest of his life, Amsha.”

             Father sounded angry.  Jules hunched his shoulders and hugged Kookalaka to his chest.  The teddy bear’s warmth did little to ease the chill he felt.  Father was ashamed of him.  He was a disappointment.  A failure.

             “Are you sure we are doing the right thing, Richard?”

             “We’re doing it for Jules.  That makes it right.  We’ll start a brand-new life.  A different city, a new school for Jules.  No one will ever know.”

             “But it’s illegal.  What if we’re caught?  What if--”

             Father cut off the breathless, anxious questions with a firm reply.  “We won’t get caught, Amsha.”

             “Oh, Richard, what did we do wrong?  What did I do wrong?”  Mother’s voice was muffled, as if she had hidden her face in her hands.

             Jules crept back to his bedroom, full of remorse because he had made Mother cry.

 

#

 

             The doctor at Adigian Prime was nice, and Jules liked him.  He introduced Jules to some of the other patients, a colorful assortment of aliens.  Then he explained how the equipment worked.  Jules didn’t understand much that Dr. Franklin told him, but it didn’t matter.  Mother said the doctor would help him do better in school.

             While Jules explored the room where he would be staying, Dr. Franklin explained to his parents, “What we’ll do is accelerate the growth of neuronal networks in his cerebral cortex.  After two months, the genetic changes in Julian--”

             “Jules,” he interrupted, hearing his name.  “My name is Jules.”

             The doctor smiled in his direction.  “Jules, of course.  The changes will increase his mental abilities and also improve his hand-eye coordination, his stamina, his vision, and his reflexes.  The procedure will probably affect his height and weight also.”

             Mother’s face paled.  She grabbed for Father’s hand.  They both nodded tightly.  The treatments began.  The whole world changed for Jules.

 

#

 

             “Come on!  Come on!”  Jules laughed and bounded past Dr. Franklin.

             He reached the top of the stairs first, even though he had given the doctor a head start.  Dr. Franklin puffed up behind him.  Jules grinned.

             “I win!  Let’s do it again.”

             “Again?!  We’ve already raced up and down those stairs five times.  Aren’t you tired?”

             Jules shook his head.  He was bursting with energy.

             “Well, I am.  Tomorrow I’ll find you a younger challenger.”

             “Can we play a game then?  Chess?  Or jacks?”

             The doctor gave a mock-groan.

             “I’ll let you win this time,” Jules wheedled.

             An intern approached and handed Dr. Franklin a padd.  After skimming its contents, the doctor smiled down at Jules.

             “Your IQ jumped five points again.  What did you think of yesterday’s test?”

             Jules scoffed.  “It was easy.  I did the math calculations in my head.  The coordinator kept using the computer to make sure I was right.  Do I have to take those tests every day?”

             “Just a few more.  We need an accurate record of your progress.  Now that you’ve learned to read and use the computer, you’ll be able to go home soon.”

             As they headed back to his room, Jules slipped his hand into the doctor’s and  dropped his voice to a confidential whisper.  “Know what?  When I grow up, I’m going to be a doctor too.”

            

#

 

             Jules lived in several places over the next eight years.  Father kept finding bigger and better jobs.  Mother fretted that Jules would have trouble adjusting to the different schools, but wherever they went, Jules was the star pupil.  The genius.

             As he grew older, he learned that intelligence could be a hard gift.  He tried not to show off.  Instead, he started giving the wrong answers to questions.  He didn’t like it when the other children accused him of cheating or when the teachers depended on him all the time.  He lost a tennis match once in a while.  Sometimes life was easier when he gave in and pretended he wasn’t a genius.

             He never thought back to those months in the hospital that had changed his life.  He never wondered why his parents had no pictures of him as a baby or as a toddler.  He never asked why his classmates were so slow.

             Shortly after his fifteenth birthday, the truth snatched him from his idyllic life and forced him to look into the face of a monster.

 

            

 

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Disclaimer:  The Star Trek characters all belong to Paramount Studios.  This fanfic is not intended to infringe on those rights and is meant solely for the purpose of entertainment.  All other characters, the story idea, and the story itself are the sole property of the author.