Tactical Genius

[TRING-TRING]

The alarm hits like a proximity alert I forgot to arm.

I slap it quiet and stare at the ceiling. Comic-book heroes look down like they already finished their worksheets.

Last night I erased one asteroid and answered three problems.

Then I "rested my eyes."

The rest ate the night.

[THUD]

My feet hit the floor anyway. Socks slide. Hallway. Kitchen.

Dad is behind the newspaper again, tea steaming like a calm reactor. Mom flips a pancake with the kind of accuracy that should be illegal before sunrise.

"Captain," Dad says without looking up. "Today's the day you channel that tactical genius into actual numbers."

He says it warm.

It still lands like a targeting lock.

"I studied," I say, which is technically not a full lie if you count staring at problem four like it owed me money.

Mom sets a plate down. "Eat. Bus won't wait for a briefing."

I shove pancake in my face and invent a mid-battle fuel stop in my head so chewing feels heroic.

Outside, the air is clearer than yesterday. The torn backpack still hangs wrong on my shoulder. Zipper still jammed. Universe still unpacking me one frayed stitch at a time.

***

[HISS]

The bus groans to a stop. I climb on. Nobody saves me a seat like I'm expected. I take the one near the back where the window rattles and the world can be stars if I squint.

Leo waves me over halfway down.

"Did you finish the worksheet?" he whispers.

"...Mostly."

His face does that tiny falter again—the hull-breach blink—then he nods like engineering can patch anything if we move fast enough.

"We've got five minutes before first bell. Show me what you've got."

I dig the crumpled sheet out. Three answers look confident. Two look like I guessed while under fire. The rest are blank space pretending to be strategy.

Leo winces. "Okay. Okay. Emergency protocol. Fractions first—"The bus jerks. My pencil skids. A kid across the aisle glances over, sees the worksheet, and smirks like he just scanned a low-level NPC.

I fold the paper half-shut.

Leo keeps talking anyway, soft and fast, walking me through one problem with his finger as a laser pointer.

For thirty seconds, I understand.

A girl with glitter phone case films her friends two seats up. Their laughter is bright and closed. I watch for half a second too long, then look back at Leo's finger on the fraction like it's a docking clamp.

Then the bus hits the school lane and the understanding scatters like debris.

We spill into the hallway current. Designer backpacks. Cologne clouds. Someone laughs too loud near the lockers.

"Space cadet," a voice floats behind me—not even aimed carefully. Just leftover from yesterday, still in orbit.

I keep walking.

***

Far corner. By the big windows. My quiet seat.

Safe haven with a countdown timer.

Math is second period.

First period is easy to disappear in. I doodle a thruster diagram in the margin and tell myself it's planning.

It is not planning.

[RING]

Second period.

The teacher—Ms. Carter, glasses that catch the light like cockpit glass—sets a stack of quiz papers on the desk with a neat little [THUP].

"Clear desks. You have twenty minutes. Show your work. Channel your brilliance, people."

My stomach does a barrel roll.

Leo mouths from the next row: You got this.

I do not got this.

Paper hits my desk.

Numbers stare up like enemy signatures I can't identify.

Question one is friendly. I answer it. Tiny shield recharge.

Question two needs the worksheet brain I abandoned for sleep.

I write something. Erase it. Write it again uglier.

My knee bounces under the desk. I force it still. Captains don't bounce. Captains calculate.

I try to remember Dad's tea-and-newspaper calm and borrow it. It doesn't fit my size.

By question five, my pen is doing that thing where it moves without belonging to me. In the margin, almost by reflex, a tiny Vanguard silhouette appears.

I catch myself.

Erase the ship.

The quiz is not a dogfight.

It still feels like one where the controls stick.

Around me, pencils scratch in confident rhythms. A girl two seats up finishes early and inspects her nails like the battle already ended. Someone behind me sighs the sigh of people who studied for real.

I am not those people today.

Time thins.

Ms. Carter calls, "Two minutes."

My page is a half-rescued distress call.

Leo's eyes flick to me, then away, then back—like he wants to toss me a spare battery through open space and knows he can't.

[RING]

Pencils down.

I stare at the incomplete burn marks of my answers and feel the hallway laugh from yesterday climb back into my ears for no fair reason.

We pass papers forward. Mine leaves my fingers like a failed launch.

Leo leans a centimeter closer while the stack travels. "Hey. Whatever happens—same couch after school. We'll—"

"Mr. Hale," Ms. Carter says, not unkind, just precise. "Eyes forward."

Leo snaps straight. I do too.

Class continues. I hear approximately none of it. My brain replays every blank line like a damage report.

When the bell frees us, the hallway becomes engines again. I move with the traffic, bag biting my shoulder.

Near the water fountain, two kids from math compare answers out loud, loud enough to be a broadcast.

"That was easy."

"If you actually did the homework."

They don't look at me.

They don't have to.

Leo catches up, bouncing less than usual. "Lunch. Now. Damage control."

***

In the cafeteria, the wealthy clusters take their usual tables like assigned hangars. I sit with Leo at the end of a half-empty row. My sandwich tastes like cardboard and regret.

"I blanked," I say.

"You didn't blank all of it."

"Enough."

Leo unwraps his own lunch like he's defusing a bomb. "Listen. If she pulls you aside, don't vanish into your head. Just… stay on channel. I'll be right there."

Stay on channel.

In a sim, that's easy. In a cafeteria under fluorescent suns, it feels like docking with no thrusters.

[RING]

Afternoon classes blur. Silk Road maps haunt me from yesterday. I copy notes I won't remember. I do not draw asteroids. That feels like progress and punishment at the same time.

Last period, a student aide brings a folded note to Ms. Carter during the last five minutes of study hall. She reads it, then looks—inevitably—toward the quiet corner.

"Dave. Stay after for a minute."

The room makes that tiny collective shift people make when someone else gets named. Not loud. Not cruel. Just a ripple that says seen.

Leo's shoulders tense.

I nod.

***

When the bell dumps everyone else into freedom, the classroom empties fast. Chairs [SCREECH]. The quiet left behind is huge.

Ms. Carter sits on the edge of her desk, quiz stack beside her, mine on top like a flagged distress beacon.

"You're not in trouble the way you think," she says first.

That sentence alone almost knocks my shields offline.

"Your quiz shows you started. Then you drifted. I've seen your doodles, Dave. They're good. But they can't fly this class for you."

Heat crawls up my neck.

"I… I meant to finish the worksheet."

"I believe you." She taps the paper. "Meaning to isn't the same as doing. So here's the deal—not a disaster, not a free pass. Make-up set. Due Friday. And tomorrow's study hall, you sit up front with me for the first twenty minutes and work with the door open. No disappearing into the window."

Study hall debt.

Up front.

Door open.

Where people can see the space cadet doing fractions in public.

"Yes, Ms. Carter," I say.

She softens a fraction. "You can do this. Ask for help before the controls freeze next time."

That last part hits too close to the dream.

I nod again because my mouth forgot language.

In the hallway, Leo is waiting like a loyal escort fighter who refused to leave the grid.

"Well?"

"Make-up. Friday. Study hall up front tomorrow."

Leo exhales. "Okay. Then tonight we study for real. Couch is still there after. Short mission only. Then numbers."

"You don't have to—"

"Captain's not flying solo," he says, and bumps my shoulder the gentle way—not like yesterday's bump. "Don't argue with engineering."

***

Outside, sun hardens the puddles into bright traps. A group by the fountain shouts a nickname across the courtyard.

Nobody shouts mine.

I almost say something to Leo about that—about nicknames, about wanting one, about how quiet can feel like disappearing even next to your best friend.

The words line up behind my teeth.

Then I swallow them.

On the walk toward the gate, my bag strap digs in. I imagine swapping it for a reinforced hull plate. The fantasy helps for three steps. Then the make-up packet corners poke my ribs through the torn pocket, real as gravity.

"Friday," I repeat under my breath, like a jump coordinate.

Leo hears it anyway. "Friday. We burn now so Friday isn't a crash."

I adjust the torn bag and walk.

Tonight: worksheet ghosts, make-up packet, a short sim if we earn it.

[SQUEAK]

***

Home gate complains. Kitchen light on. Mom will ask how the quiz went. I will say "fine" in the vague way again—unless I don't. Unless staying on channel starts at dinner.

Dad will lower the newspaper. He won't be mean. That almost makes it harder.

Tomorrow: front row, door open, twenty minutes where disappearing won't work.

In my head, the Vanguard's warning lights tick amber—not red yet.

In the real world, Dad's joke has become a mission I can't skip.

Tactical genius, I tell myself.

One thruster burn at a time.

Even when the burn is math.