Stephen's Secure Blog #31
These stories about Stephen began was when he was 10 years old, and
moving to a new part of the country to attend a special school for
gifted students, in the 1950's. This was from a time before computers
would fit on a desk, and when people communicated with friends in other
countries by actual letters sent through the postal service. He wrote
225 of them to a friend. He stopped writing to his penpal, but found he
still wanted to record his life, in case he lost his memory again, and
wrote 30 entries in his first logbook. Then he wrote to an artificial
intelligence called Geenee, in the master computer in his school for
gifted students, which he started attending in 2016. Now it's 2018 and
later, and he's continuing to save his memories in a secure blog.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
The stories may not be posted in chronological order.
Stephen is 12 in this story, in the Summer after year 2 of his special
school.
Stephen's Secure Blog #31 "Mongol"
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I said, "There's something else I'm not good at." I waited, and Cress
had to ask, "What's that?" I said "Keeping my swim suit on in the
water. It came off in the dive, and I had to find it and put it back
on, before I came up. I think Speedos are better for diving, or moving
fast in the water. Much less drag. The same thing happened to me at
summer camp last year, when I tried out a new way I thought of for
swimming, in the bay. I didn't notice what was missing until I stood up
in the beach. A counselor brought me a towel." Cress said "You weren't
embarrassed?" I said "Not at all, and I had to explain that to the
counselor, Dexter, who was the one who was embarrassed." She said "But
he was a boy!" I looked at her father, who shook his head very
slightly. I got the message. I said to Cress, "We are all different in
a lot of ways. Being all the same would be really boring. I could tell
he was embarrassed, so that feeling was right for him, just like not
being embarrassed is for me. We should respect other people's feelings,
just like we want them to respect ours. That's why I put the towel
around me then, even though I thought it was stupid to cover up what
people know is there, and already saw. That reminds me. I saw you dive.
What about swimming?" She said "I'll show you!" She did a lap of
freestyle. I said "That's pretty good. Can you do other strokes?" She
said "What other strokes?" I said "Do you want me to show you?" She
said "Yes!" I said "Alright, but you'll see better if you stand up
outside the pool." She got out and did that, while I dove in. I said
"This is the breast stroke." I did that for two laps. "This is the back
stroke." Two laps. "This is the butterfly. It splashes a lot." Two
laps. I said "I can do another way of swimming which is much faster,
but my suit will probably come off." She said "I don't care, I want to
see you do it." I looked down said, "I don't think glue will work."
After a second of thinking about it, she laughed. I said, "After I get
another suit." She said "Okay."
Her mother said, "You might want to put more sun blocking lotion on,
after all that swimming." I said "Thank you for your concern, but I'm
not using any. I have a different way of keeping UV off of my too pale
skin." She said "Oh! Good." Fortunately, Cress wasn't paying attention
to that little exchange, and instead said to me, "Please teach me the
back stroke." I said "Sure. It's not hard, if you can float on your
back. Can you do that?" She said "Sure. See?" I said "Fine. All you
need to do then is to add the scissors kick, and reach back over and
behind you and pull in the water toward your body, with one arm, and
then the other. In between, you breathe when you want to. I'll do it
slow, and you watch." She did, and then she tried it. I said "That's
very good! Great for the first time. Are you sure you never did it
before?" She laughed so hard, she had to hang onto the edge of the
pool. Her family all grinned with her. She said "I'm sorry for what I
said before." I said "That's alright. I understand." She hugged me. I
said "Thank you. Want to try something else?" She said "Sure!" I got
out of the pool and reached to help her out, and just pulled her out of
the water like she didn't weigh anything. She said "Wow! How did you do
that?" Rose noticed it too. I said with a grin, "Very carefully." She
said "Argh! I didn't mean that." I said "We exercise a lot, and that
makes us strong. Knowing how muscles and bones work together, helps,
too. The kick for the breast stroke is a little complicated, so it's
easier to show you on land, where you can see it better. It's called
the frog kick, because that's what it looks like. We just don't have to
croak while we're doing it." She giggled. I stood on one foot, and
moved my other leg in the proper motion. She held on to me, and copied
the motion. I said "In the water, you do it with both legs. Here is
what the arm movements look like." She copied them. I said "Lets get
back in the water and see if we can combine them. It's harder to learn
than the backstroke, so don't be disappointed if you don't become in
instant expert in it." She did very well, after I showed her the rhythm
and how to breathe. I said "VERY good! You're the best swimming student
I've ever had." She said "You teach swimming a lot?" I said "Er, no.
You're the first." She laughed and splashed me. I made her chase me
around the pool. We had to dodge Rose and Hawk a few times.
Back in the house, after getting dressed, we sat around and talked.
After a while I said, "I think we should have a pool at the school. We
work very hard, so we need to have some fun, too, to help keep us
balanced. I'll tell Pete." Hawk said, "Scholar Pete, the head of the
school? TELL him?" I said "Sure." He said "I don't understand. He's in
confused. I said "They should know. I thought you already told them."
He said "But not like that." I said, "It's official now." He said to
his parents, "He owns everything. The school, the parent corporation,
everything. He grew up with the current Senior Adepts, and trained them
to be that, in his previous incarnation. They KNOW he is really who he
was. He invented all our advanced technology, then and now. He really
is the boss of it all. Not because of all of that, but because with us,
the best able is the boss, and he's the most intelligent, most
knowledgeable, and most powerful of us all. That he's really cute and
lovable, doesn't hurt one bit." While his parents were still in shock,
I said to Hawk, "I think you did a little too much with that. I don't
think I'm cute." He grinned and said, "Everybody else does, so live
with it." Cress said to Hawk "I like him. He's funny and nice. That's
all I care about." I said "Food, too. Right?" She laughed and said,
"Alright, I care about that, too. And my animals, and my family." I
said "And learning?" She said "I care about that, too." I said "Great!
I love learning. I'm very happy you care about that." Rose was looking
at me in a different way than before. I looked at her to let her know I
saw that, and then wiggled my eyebrows at her. She laughed. "Yes, I
agree with Cress. You're funny and nice. I have to like you for that."
I got up and performed a fancy bow for her. She smiled and nodded to
acknowledge it.
We went to eat. I could see the cook was from Mexico, so I thanked
her in Spanish, with a Northern Mexican accent like hers. She was
surprised, and I couldn't help grinning. She couldn't completely hide
her smile at that. Hawk's mother said to me, "You're a real charmer." I
said, "Not so much intentionally. I love people. ALL people. I can't
help showing it." Hawk said "Everybody in the school knows when he's
feeling love. He really broadcasts it. Nobody complains." His mother
said, "I can understand that." Rose saw I was embarrassed and changed
the subject for me by asking, "You were a Mongol Warrior?" I nodded my
thanks and said, "Yes." She said "Can you tell us about it?" I said
"Sure, after we finish eating. But I have to warn you, all lives end in
much the same way, or there wouldn't be a new life after it." She said
"I understand."
After supper, we sat around and talked. I said "Before I tell you
about that life, I have to warn you, all lives in that time, and in
most of history, were very hard. Brutally hard, and Mongols were the
most brutal, vicious and cruel, probably in all history. There are
things I can do to help with the story, which might be a little
surprising, and involve some special abilities, such as projecting
pictures into the air from my memories. Do I have permission to do
that?" The father said, "Yes, within limits." I said "Thanks, and I
understand the limits. Before I start, I have to say that all this, the
story, and how I tell it, is a family secret. Do you agree?" Rose and
Cress nodded. I said "Here is a map of the world, and there is where we
were. It's called Mongolia now. It's cold and VERY windy. We had more
words for different kinds of wind, than any other language ever had. We
rode horses. We lived on horses. We did EVERYTHING on horseback. I'm
sure you don't realize what that means, but you'll find out. Here is
what a Mongol warrior looked like. I can't show you me, because I never
saw myself like that. He was my friend, as much as he could be to
anybody, which wasn't that much. Here he is doing some fancy riding
practice. Notice him hanging on the side of the galloping horse? We did
that in battle to keep from being a human pincushion. Arrows. We had
the best bows in the world, which could shoot arrows as far as 2
kilometers. We used swords and spears, too. Now that you've seen our
horse riding skills, and he was the best, you can understand better
when I said we did EVERYTHING on horseback, when we were on the move,
which was most of the time. We cooked, we ate, we washed, we did
I said "We hunted for food, and for sport. We didn't plant or harvest
any crops, but we did like bread and porridge. We stole those things
from people who had them, and if they resisted, we killed them
horribly. That's right. We were NOT nice people. But as a People, we
were not that nice to each other, either. Each tribe fought against the
others, for status among the tribes, and for er, stealing girls to
marry. It wasn't good to marry within the tribe too much. Not healthy
genetics. Tribes which did, declined, and that was noticed. The killing
which happened with intertribal fighting, kept down our population
some, which the townspeople didn't mind at all." Hawk said "I can
understand that!" We laughed. I said, "Here is what our tents looked
like. The openings always faced south, so the cold north wind wouldn't
blow inside. There wasn't much wood around for fires. Anybody want to
guess what we burned for cooking?" Hawk said, "I can guess, but I don't
want to." I said "Right. Animal er, droppings. You do get used to the
smell. We had goats. We used them, and the horses, for milk. We made
yogurt and cheese with it."
I said "All the games the boys played, involved fighting skills. I
was the best at them of my tribe, and the most popular. While I was the
best at fighting skills, I was not the best fighter. I didn't like to
hurt people. So, I hid my abilities as much as I could, but my family
knew the truth, and were a little ashamed of and for me. Then things
changed. There was one tribe which was more powerful than the others,
and had who everybody though was the best fighter. His father was the
chief of his tribe, like my father was for mine. Some of the smaller
tribes were joining the bigger, stronger one, which became even bigger
and stronger, so no other tribe could stand against them. Our tribe was
small, so our elders decided to join the big one. I was 17 then, and a
full adult. Most of us young warriors didn't want to join, but we had
to obey our elders. Then we discovered something which made it worse.
Their best fighter liked to prove it, with challenging the best fighter
of the new tribe to join them, and killing him. My best friend was
chosen to fight, and didn't stand a chance. I'm not going to show you
that fight, because I don't want to relive it. Sorry. He died. A few
months later, the man who killed him, who was 18, picked me as a
training partner. We became friends. He wasn't the friendly type, but
he liked me as much as somebody like him could. I always let him win in
practice and contests. Most people did, too, out of fear, or because he
really was better. I let him win, even though I could have beaten him
most of the times, because I didn't care about winning, and he did, a
lot. We became really good friends, even though a few times we loved
the same girls. But, our parents, his and mine, didn't like any of
that."
I said "He was popular because he was powerful and a great leader. I
was popular in a different way. I was helpful and nice. His parents
thought my popularity was a danger to him. My parents were really upset
I didn't kill him in a duel and take over the whole nation. They
pressured us to fight, and we ignored it. Soon, it became too much,
because the whole nation got involved. So, we had to fight. To him it
was real. To me, well, I could have killed him easily, but couldn't
make myself do it. He was my friend and I loved him. It was a long
fight, and after a while he figured out I was holding back. That made
him angry, and he did something we weren't supposed to do. Yes, even in
duels, we had rules, mostly to protect the horses. He rammed his horse
into the side of mine, and knocked us over, and I was pinned under my
horse. I'll show you that." There was some surprised "Ohs." I said
"Unfortunately, that broke my back. I knew it was broken, because I
couldn't feel or move my legs, after my horse got up. Temujin got off
his horse and was ready to keep fighting with me, when he noticed I
wasn't moving, and knew why. He knew what he had to do, and cried.
Among the Mongols, people who can't ride or move, were put to death. I
said to him, 'You must. I want you to, and not another. I trust you to
do it cleanly.' He cried some more, which I'm showing you, in the last
projection. Then he did it. Sword in the heart, cleanly. The last thing
I heard, was him saying, 'Brother!' If I could have, I would have cried
for his loss of his closet friend, his only true friend. Like now." I
cried. Hawk came and hugged me. So did Rose. Cress just cried a little.
After a while, I continued, "He had three brothers, and was close to
them. He had never called me brother before. It was a great honor."
Hawk's father said, "I recognize the name." I said "Yes. History says
he went on to conquer a lot of territory and nations, with the most
extreme brutality in history, and became a Great King, which in his
language is Genghis Khan. I think I was fortunate to die when I did. I
wouldn't have liked to have been a part of that. All things considered,
it wasn't a bad life."
They decided that was the end of the evening, and we went to get
ready for bed. I told Hawk, "I have a watch set on the door. It won't
open till I let it. I expect we will be sleeping naked." He grinned and
said, "And other things." I grinned and nodded. We did those other
things twice, with very good squirting in the link. We hugged each
other to loving sleep.
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Grant
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