What Thunder left behind by DT Martin 9 Silence of Thunder
11:23 AM Friday, September 20th Intro to Computer science.
Let me guess. James says, whispering
theatrically across his laptop. Today's the day we finally
hacked the Pentagon. Tammy doesn't look up.
You can't even format your code without crying.
I cry for justice, Tammy. Miss Lynn is already writing
something elegant and untranslatable across the board.
Nested loops or recursive functions, each line flowing
into the next. Water under glass.
The room is warm from too many bodies and too few working
vents. A buzz of static lingers beneath
the hum of fans. OK.
James says, eyes on his screen. But if I make this turtle draw a
dragon again, I expect full credit.
I thought you accidentally drew something that looked like a
squirrel in pain, I murmur, still watching the board.
A squirrel who was struggling. He corrects.
An allegory. Tammy snorts.
It looked. Like it was running from its
taxes. Missus Lynn claps once at the
front. Today you'll be working with
nested conditionals and exception handling.
If you've ever made a decision and immediately regretted it,
this is your syntax. James leans over.
Did she just subtweet my dating history?
Tammy reaches into his bag and steals his granola bar.
You deserve that and worse. I smile behind my hand.
The lab settles into a hush, broken only by the tapping of
keys and Miss Lynn's voice explaining the difference
between indentation and consequence.
For once, Tammy relaxes her shoulders and James types with
only two fingers, narrating his internal monologue in a soft
British accent. Try, accept, fail, cry, repeat.
Print. I'm sorry, Miss Lynn.
Tammy mutters. Print This loop is a metaphor
for my emotional codependency. James whispers, typing it in.
My screen remains blank for a few seconds longer than it
should. I blink back into focus, write
the function, close the loop, catch the exception.
Beyond the glass. A storm system continues its
slow approach. The world outside shifts again.
Yet laughter lingers here. 5:30 PM Friday, September 20th.
EDGES Trial 03 Controlled isolation.
The chamber breathes sealed and silent.
Every surface is white, walls curved without seam, ceiling
recessed above featureless light panels, floor stripped of any
edge that might suggest direction or exit.
The space feels larger than it is, too still, too clean.
At its center weights A narrow table of etched steel and a low,
hard chair fixed to the floor. The console embedded into the
table is dark, reflecting only the overhead glare and the grain
of my skin. When I lean forward, I take my
seat back straight. The chair doesn't adjust, it
expects me to. My hand meets the scanner.
A pulse of light recognizes my touch and triggers the
interface. Trial 3 Controlled isolation
objective. Sustain logic under deprivation
Time markers suppressed sensory equilibrium, Disrupted
termination condition. Voluntary or cognitive drop.
You may begin. The text fades.
No logic array unfolds, no instructions appear.
The console offers nothing but its own silence.
Someone already set the parameters hidden behind glass
code and expectation. I fold my hands in my lap and
count 230 three 1448950534 21. The sequence helps at first,
lending shape to time, letting me pretend there's still motion
beneath the stillness. I repeat it twice, 3 * 4, but
the silence expands with every breath pressing back against me.
A blink and my arms have shifted, wrists sliding forward
across the table. I don't remember moving.
Focus slips. The next number drifts out of
reach. I start again, 1320130455 89144.
The edge of my vision stutters, a pulse beneath the
fluorescence. The light never changes, but
perception warps. My body interprets the absence
of variation as noise. My ears fill with pressure, a
sensation like altitude. Thoughts begin to fracture.
I adjust my posture. My spine stiffens, palms pressed
together harder than necessary, searching for something solid.
Time folds inward. A low ache gathers at the base
of my neck. My knees float.
Breathing becomes a problem I can't quite solve.
The console remains dark. The room tilts.
A blink, and between one breath and the next, I am no longer
sitting. Or if I am, my body is
elsewhere, suspended, disassembled, unmoored.
I try to speak. I reach for a word, any word,
but my tongue feels thick and directionless.
My throat refuses to open. My pulse ticks up.
Something inside me begins to break surface.
A memory, a noise, distant Thunder already felt once this
week. Still waiting behind the walls,
I reach for a corner to anchor myself, but the room offers none
then. Lily.
His voice doesn't crackle. It doesn't echo.
It simply exists. The sound wraps around me,
measured in tone, unmistakably human.
A voice I've memorized without meaning to Stephen.
Whatever rules built the trial, this voice wasn't among them.
Focus on the weight of your body.
The sound of him fills the room without moving the air.
Your heels, table edge, knees, thumbs.
Pick 4. My breath catches but doesn't
splinter. Feel each one.
Trace where you end and the room begins.
I obey. Slowly.
My left heel presses into the floor.
My right thumb twitches under the pressure of the other.
The corner of the table touches the soft skin below my wrist.
My breathing slows. The moment sharpens, not through
logic, but through contact. I close my eyes.
You're still here. The words settle into the space
between thoughts, quieting what they don't name.
He says nothing more. The lights remain unchanged, the
room holds steady, but something inside me begins to return. 4:23
PM Monday, September 23rd The Maple Tree dinner arrives and
take out cartoons from the food hall.
Noodles, fried tofu, seaweed salad, and a single fortune
cookie portray campus whimsy fulfilled.
The tree shades us in gentle gold.
James sprawls across the grass, a fallen Prince, his carton
balanced on his chest, chopstick suspended midair as he laments
the structural failings of the salad.
See this. He says, pointing at a stray
shred of carrot. No cohesion, no narrative
integrity. This salad has the emotional arc
of a dead raccoon. You say that like it's a bad
thing. Tammy replies, elbowing him as
she folds into her usual cross legged perch beside me, her hair
pinned up with a pencil, her sweater slipping from one
shoulder. Raccoon arcs might be
underappreciated. My shoulders finally relax.
My tray rests on my lap, still untouched.
The Maple branches hold the last light of the day, glass and
flame, and the quiet between jokes almost softens the pulse
still humming beneath my skin. I'm serious.
James continues, now gesturing with his chopsticks like a
conductor. MIT should require all students
to take narrative engineering. You want us to solve future food
shortages and build moon habitats, but don't teach us
plot. We have writing seminar for that
Ioffer. Writing seminar is an emotional
hostage situation. He replies.
Tammy snorts, nearly chokes on a sesame noodle, and leans into me
as she coughs, laughs. I press my shoulder against
hers. For a breath, I pretend it could
stay like this. Then it happens.
That shift in the air, the kind that arrives before Thunder.
Stephen steps into view. His movements are quiet,
precise. He doesn't look at me, doesn't
speak to any of us. With a nod to James.
Then his hand rests lightly on Tammy's elbow.
She goes with him without a word.
They move behind the tree. I keep my eyes on my tray,
willing myself not to listen. The murmur of their voices
doesn't carry, but the silence between phrases says enough.
James plucks at a seaweed strand, strumming it like a harp
string. Do you think fortune cookies
ever lie or do they just underachieve?
I laugh under my breath. It's brittle.
Tammy returns a few minutes later, expression composed but
distant. The light catches in her
earrings, scattering brightness, but her eyes reveal nothing.
Whatever passed between them remains unspoken.
And I let it stay that way. James fills the air with
nonsense. Bless him, a whole speech about
the shrimp cracker lobby and why it's secretly running the
student government. Tammy grins on cue.
I try to match her rhythm, but something inside me is already
tightening. You OK?
I ask. She nods too quickly.
Had better days but yeah I'm OK. I need a minute before lab
rising slowly. The trace shifts with a soft
clatter against my knees. My hands tremble, barely, but
enough to feel it. Each breath thins in my chest,
and the air itself slips further from reach.
Part of me wants to run, disappear into the sidewalk, let
someone else carry my name. For the next hour, I reach into
my bag and find the Green Eyes cat, the worn cover warm against
my fingers, shaped by years of touch.
My brother's book, Anchor Memory and the quiet thread that still
holds me together. I inhale and I walk. 5 O 3:00 PM
Monday, September 23rd Lab 32-218-R.
The walk from the Maple tree to the lab stretches longer than it
should. Each step echoes with what I
didn't say, with what I'm still afraid I can't hold.
My book rests in my bag. A steady pulse.
I focus on that weight, the promise inside it, and let it
carry me through the reinforced glass doors of Lab 32-218-R.
Inside, everything hums. Cool light pools across the
floor. Terminals blink with dormant
prompts. The walls reflect too much.
It's cleaner than usual, suspiciously so.
The other candidates are already here.
Space, like chess pieces waiting to be moved.
Jeff leans against the steel column, arms crossed, smirking.
Carter watches a scrolling feed on the back panel, his face
unreadable. Three other students, a girl
with braids, Priya, a round boy and a tall boy with a nervous
tap, stand straight, stiff, expectant.
Steven slips in through the side panel, crossing to the far wall,
eyes averted. Then Hachette steps in.
Silence, folds around him. A cloak.
His coat rustles as he moves, fingers curled loosely at his
sides, the worn leather data pad tucked beneath one arm.
He scans each of us, then taps the pad.
The door seals behind him with a hush of vacuum lock.
Your scores have been reviewed. He says without preamble.
Placements are final, no discussion.
Jeff straightens, almost smug. Carter and Jeff.
The smirk drains from Jeff's face, color leeching from a
screen. Wait, what?
Carter remains still. A blink, perhaps nothing more.
Hachette doesn't repeat himself. Jeff's jaw tightens, his voice
low but edged. I thought we'd agreed, Steven
and I. You assumed.
Hachette replies, not bothering to look up from his data pad.
And assumptions are not currency here, Steven and Lily.
My throat locks. Stephen doesn't flinch.
He nods once, mechanical. Hachette continues listing
pairings, but I don't hear the names, only the rhythm of my
breath and my ears and the way the air sharpens between me and
the far wall. Jeff steps back, arms tense at
his sides, muttering something beneath his breath.
I don't need to hear the words to understand their shape.
The candidates begin to break off into pairs.
Carter casts A brief glance towards Stephen, subtle but
weighted. Stephen offers no reaction.
The nod passes a closed circuit. I walk toward him.
He doesn't step forward, doesn't smile, doesn't meet me eyes
until I stop in arm's length away.
When he does, his gaze is pale and precise.
I pushed for this. He says, voice low enough that
only I can hear. So don't waste it.
I brace myself. You have potential, but I don't
work in potential, I work in execution.
His tone holds neither kindness nor cruelty, only pressure, cold
and controlled, measured in vaults.
You keep up, you deliver, or you're out.
He turns before I can answer, and so the partnership begins.