Chapter 4

I love modern education.

When I was fifteen and a half, I tested out of senior high school. You could do this as long as you sign up for further education in some approved course or get a permanent job. I elected to sign up to do several courses online to assist with getting me onto the Police Force.

You can’t join until you’re eighteen and legally an adult, so that gave me almost three years to skill up. Against my father’s better judgement, he designed a fitness programme for me and helped me as much as he could.

I’d been doing several styles of martial arts since I moved to Port Douglas. One of the retired cops my dad knew owned a Dojo, so once I quit formal schooling, I got extra lessons since I was so keen. I was one of his star pupils. Dad said that I’d inherited his lightning reflexes.

I was also signed up for the Pistol Club, the only legal way you can shoot a handgun in Australia if you’re not in the Armed or Police Forces. Dad also knew the Force would look at my progress. Dad and his mates taught me survival skills, and we loved going camping and hunting whenever we could.

One of Dad’s mates was an Animal Control Officer or, more precisely, a professional shooter of feral animals. So, with his help, I learned to handle many different rifles, how to hunt, dress a kill, patience, and drive cars, trucks, and motorbikes.

We didn’t use the new Lingers because they don’t handle so well in tropical rainforests, and you can’t recharge them in the bush. They are low flying, electric vehicles that were designed to replace petrol-guzzling cars. Our bush vehicles and most trucks still run on biodiesel that is made locally.

Dad did get me a Hopper. It is more like a flying motorbike, and they do handle well in the trees, but you did have to be careful of vines and not to flick the arse-end out. They were also fun to use when learning to hunt from the air.

We had a lot of problems with feral animals like pigs and deer getting into the cane paddocks and rooting around in the rain forests. They do a lot of damage to both the ecology and farms.

When you live thousands of klicks away from the densely populated cities, you’re not scrutinised as hard by the goody-two-shoes. They have no idea what happens outside their neighbourhood or what farmers located remotely have to put up with each day.

I was surprised by how fast I screamed through the online courses that I could sign up to complete. They didn’t care about my age as long as I paid. The sessions were designed to be completed at each person’s own pace. Assessments were either online exams or assignments you uploaded.

Dad grumbled at the cost, but he had put Mum’s insurance money in a trust for my education. Technically, she was paying for it even though he had to pay the bills from the trust. I think he was a little surprised that I was happy to keep studying.

By the time I turned up for the Police Officer recruitment testing in Townsville, I was as ready as I could be. I got a bit worried about the psychological assessment, but I passed it.

The psychologist did seem a bit concerned about my blasé attitude towards death. I can only assume that telling him that I grew up in the bush and had to cull feral animals helped me to pass.

Quite a few young people signed up for UNSEC or the armed forces to help them get into UNSEC. Both of which paid better and gave them better access to moving off Earth if that was what they wanted to do.

Also, due to increased terrorist activities in Australia, people shied away from being beat-cops. Hence, the pickings for the Police Force were a lot thinner these days. I suspect the fact that I had indicated that I wanted to stay in the Far North may also have been in my favour.

A lot of city people hated being assigned to the Boony-towns. Most Australians, let alone Queenslanders, can’t tell you what towns exist above Cairns other than the Oak’s Beach Spaceport. They could probably name the bases off planet faster.

So, at eighteen, off I went to get trained.

The hardest part of my training was keeping a low profile.

My preliminary training that started in September of 2092 included fitness tests, the psych-eval and basic literacy and numeracy type tests. I already knew the minimum requirements, so I had to try hard to not overdo it, as they were so ridiculously easy for me.

I didn’t want to shine; I just wanted to make sure I was good enough to get the posting I wanted. The recruit course in Townsville that started a week later was just as bad. I’d already completed and passed many of the courses people thought about once they became a Constable.

Hence, the theory component was drudge work, as I’d already covered most of it. They had my results for the extra courses that I’d done since school but still insisted I had to complete this course, as it was set up.

After the first week, I signed up online for the next couple of subjects of my Law Degree, just to keep from sleeping in class. As long as I kept an ear on the lecturers and remembered to answer when spoken to, they pretty much left me alone. I’m sure they thought I’d flunk the course.

Most of the theory was on the peepers, so after giving it a quick once over, I just studied my other subjects when we were supposed to be studying this course. I think a few instructors were surprised by my scores on the tests, as I know it didn’t look like I paid attention half the time.

By the end of week two, I knew that someone must have checked on me. However, for some reason, they didn’t single me out. Even the instructor who liked to play favourites ignored me unless he got really frustrated, and I volunteered an answer to put him out of his misery.

I did my assignments and written tests with little hassle. The group exercises were a bit of a struggle at first, as I had to force myself not to take over and just do the damn exercises myself. I did get lucky; in that the group I was put with had a couple of smart people in it.

I worked out that they would run with them if I fed them suggestions and a few tib-bits of information. I was pretty sure Vince Campbell was on to me, but since I let him take the top marks at least some of the time, he didn’t let on.