Chapter 1: Ordinary Thursday

  ….

  The classroom was oddly quiet.

  Along the austere reinforced concrete wall, a boy sat in a desk. The wall was entirely flush with the desk until the height of his arms, opening up to a window, providing ample support to lean on. He had brown, lustrous shoulder-length hair neatly framing his face—on which a pair of deep-set, piercing green eyes rest. His skin was a shade of medium olive, contrasting the industrially-colored clothes he wore. A gray synth-cotton sweatshirt and navy sweatpants, finished with a black pair of breathable sneakers.

  Valen was looking at the window itself. The rain which had blanketed the world outside for more than an hour had just ceased. Without the constant drone of monsoon-like droplets pelting the pane of glass, he felt the room had become very silent. He glanced down at the wide, concrete sill, where through the wet glass, the rays of the sun split into a deluge of colors. The rain had revealed deep reds, gentle greens, pale purples…

  “Mister Marcelli, are you with us?”

  The brown-haired pupil was directly torn from his stupor, glazed eyes gaining lucidity. “Yes, Mrs. Jaeger,” Valen answered punctually. Man, within two months, this rotation of classes will end, and I will be graduating. Can’t she give me a break… Valen thought dryly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Excellent,” The aged, graying woman with a rather authoritative bearing chirped. “Now, who first proposed wave-particle duality in 1924...”

  Within 20 minutes, Mrs. Jaeger’s Introduction to Classical Quantum Mechanics course, located in room 410b, was over. With difficulty, Valen carefully extricated his asleep legs from the alloy framework of the desk, and hobbled out of the door, deliberately moving with haste as to not be the last student out of the classroom, thus escaping a haranguing.

  Mentally, Valen was in another place. He walked between classes, did various busywork, trying his best to maintain cogitation on the subject at hand. Afterwards, he quietly walked back to the sublevel and ate a standard lunch from the cafeteria—consisting of his usual cold chicken salad sandwich fresh from the prefab machine, an apple, and chilled half-and-half tea.

  Students following the first year of high-school were welcome to leave the cafeteria and eat their food elsewhere. The majority enjoyed themselves in the academy’s outdoors, including a large grass field stretching around a third of the building. That much continuous grass was lavish in the North Pacific Land Habitat, or NPLH for short, even among the richer localities.

  However, Valen thought himself equally decadent. Sitting in the corner of the gray, industrial cafeteria, bearing semblance to a chameleon with his matching sweatshirt—he had the riches of solitude. He remained entirely unbothered, eating his cold lunch in thought.

  One would think the raucous din of first year students would prohibit any peace, but they had couth—far more than Valen remembered his classmates having three years ago. Furthermore, it was rather sparse. There were far less first-years than in the previous generations of students.

  As for why, queue the consequences of the ever-shrinking upper-middle class. Such families often were government servants who had just found purchase. Within a short matter of years, their careers advanced and they needed to have a presence in the capital, leaving their previous lives behind. Half of the tables in the cafeteria were entirely empty. Valen was the only soul near the back-most corner.

  These last two months won’t be without effort… I took and already did well on my EOC exams. It’s extremely hard to pay attention when I have already finished the contents of a class... Valen mumbled inwardly. The reason for this glaring inefficiency was the schedule of modern high-schools.

  Classes usually ran for 12 months of a year, on a three weeks on, three weeks off schedule. Students were eligible to move to the next class and advance their education after earning a passing grade on an end-of-course exam, or EOC. There were two EOC periods—four months into the curriculum, and at the end, or 6 months, for most classes. Valen had already passed his four month EOCs for every single class he had—leaving him in a strange state where he was not learning anything, but still had to attend high-school until graduation day came in two months.

  Naturally, Valen’s peace and quiet would not be everlasting.

  “Mister Marcelli! Are youuu with us?” A honeyed voice teased from the direction of the hall opposite where he was sitting. A short-lived hush fell over a portion of the people in the room as they glanced at the source of the commotion, and then Valen, if they recognized him.

  Immediately feeling the weight of gazes leveled on his back, Valen quivered, pupils constricting, as he slowly turned around. Fuck… years of these antics, she still invents public humiliation rituals for me, Valen smoldered internally. Noticing his shoulders slump and his masseter muscles pull taut, Naomi began laughing.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Almost completely bent over in front of Valen, was a relatively short but stocky girl. Her long, dirty-blonde hair was a curtain, entirely concealing her face. An ornate, patterned white blouse neatly tucked into a pleated black skirt slightly higher than her knees. Where the skirt stopped, thigh-high, stay up stockings began, boasting floral garters. These tucked into laced black military boots.

  As Naomi straightened herself, a fair-skinned, freckled face with two, large blue eyes like that of a puppy met his. In them, there was a mischievous sparkle.

  Valen languidly shifted his body on the alloy bench, splayed his elbows on the tables, and let his right hand catch his temple. His eyes blinking slowly. “Hello, Naomi,” he sighingly said.

  The inexorable girl threw herself onto the bench across him, skirt and hair sailing wildly through the air. Naomi’s lips curled and a toothy, pristine smile emerged.

  “Hello to you too Valen! I was meaning to catch you earlier, but as you know, our classes are on opposite ends of the building this rotation. I heard that one-liner whilst running an errand. It’s a shame, really.

  “A shame.” Valen readily agreed. A look of confusion appeared on Naomi’s face.

  “Wait… what’s a shame… well, anyways. I came down here with the intent of finding you…” She trailed off. After that fleeting moment, Naomi’s typical mania was restored. “Oh! We’re both completely done with credits. Four month EOCs, I can’t believe it’s been four years,” she grumbled, taking a sip of her fizzy drink.

  A long four years at that. Naomi, you have put me through so much—but I think I’ll miss you… Ahh—her grousing infected me, Valen mused thoughtfully. Trying to stay hopeful, “Do you have any ideas about where to head to? I’m sure you got in everywhere,” Valen asked inquisitively.

  “Yeah. I’m thinking about heading to the AAH to continue my studies,” Naomi droned.

  A contorted expression drew itself upon Valen’s face. The Arctic Aquatic Habitat… What a twist of fate. My sister had long left come my running-into Naomi—It would be bad news if Naomi discovered my sister was also over there, interning, trying to climb her way up the ladder of the party’s governance, whatever political hopefuls do… “That’s great,” Valen said through pursed lips.

  Naomi twisted sideways and plopped down supine on the bench, head against the wall as she took a deep breath, eyelids half-closed. “My parents haven’t been badgering me about it as much as expected. What about you? Is Mr. Marcelli a tough case?”

  Valen recalled his awkward, bubbly dad, who wasn’t the least worried with where his son might end up, and alternatively distressed over his cooking skills, following one recipe or another for dinner. “No, he’s been open-minded about the whole ordeal,” Valen mentioned casually.

  “Huh—He seems to be the grades-over-dinner type.”

  “My dad’s reputation as a famed, no-nonsense researcher in the NPLH certainly precedes him, but the truth could not be further.” I get comments about how different I am from my father every other day… Valen thought dryly. If only they saw him at home.

  ***

  Walking out of his last class, Accounting 3 with Mr. Thomas in room 201, a very easygoing teacher who grasped and was lenient about his situation, Valen took in a breath of fresh air. Following a distinct clattering of footsteps seemingly flying down the stairwell, Naomi was in tow.

  Naomi tilted her head upwards towards the sun,“it’s just 15 past 3, and the sun is already in the corner of the sky.”

  Indeed, fiery orange flames were beginning to lick at the corners of the biosphere, indicating the approaching sunset in five or four more hours. Valen’s eyes softened. “The watercolors of the sky are beautiful…”

  It was a peaceful commute from the academy walls, through the spacious locality 19 streets. Families sitting outside on porches, laughing and enjoying the weather, young kids occasionally running through yards, cars parked lazily along streets. Even with the multistory alloy-composite suburban houses, none were able to eclipse the road perched so neatly in the middle of their lots. Valen felt a slight breeze and warm sunlight caress his skin whilst silently walking in tandem with Naomi. She may be ever the energetic soul during the day, but her disposition always turns quiet and sloth-like come afternoon…

  Valen and Naomi casually bade each other goodbye at the subway terminal. Valen kept a cool composure, strolling through the now bustling walkway after descending to the station itself. Ahh… we are of the old fashioned type here in NPLH. Motorized subways, cars… Valen lampooned. This was due to NPLH being the research capital. The Center for Advanced Quantum Field Research, which stood proudly above the cityscape in the heart of the biosphere, housed D.A.W.N. This marvel of modern engineering was vulnerable to having its sensors affected by strong electromagnetic waves, even five-hundred miles away. Any necessary infringing infrastructure was shielded at great expense. Open-air maglev trains and in-air transport were out of the question—This made NPLH the last habitat to widely still use cars, which were left behind as relics when humanity moved into dense country-spheres, and the only habitat to use a mechanized electrical subway.

  One hour and five subsequent stops in the subway, and another ten minutes of walking hence, Valen’s destination had come into view. A three-story house, slightly larger than the two adjacent to it. The now-setting sun clashed violently against the white sheen of the house’s metallic, victorian-styled facade. Valen walked along the concrete pavers, up the porch, and held his hand against the bio-metric scanner.