Flash! Click! Click!
The sounds of the drone’s photo shutters, the flashes of their lights, and the hums of their small hover engines filled the air in every direction in front of Arron and Kix as they walked down the narrow red-carpeted path leading to a large white building.
Several large colorful searchlights continuously flashed against the building and into the sky making it look like a wild rave party and not the high-class event that it actually was.
The photos and videos that were being taken were not of Arron and Kix, but of Buck Boomer who was walking behind them.
Buck Boomer had once again changed his outfit and now wore a fancy deep red flying suit with a matching red tophat.
“It’s him! He’s here!” several people shouted.
“Mr. Buck Boomer! What are your future plans!”
“Will you be here later to see the first students start their year of education?”
“What about education?”
The vulture media reporters crowded the edge of both sides of the path. Their recording drones hovered far too close to Arron and Kix for their liking but they could do nothing about it.
Buck Boomer ignored the reporters and ordered, “Keep moving, we have to get to the dinner so we don’t make the others wait.”
The reporters continued to hurl questions as they walked down the red carpet path.
“Mr. Boomer! Your new rival under Father says that you should not be throwing stones in glass houses since you have said many troubling things before!” shouted a female reporter on the right side of the path.
Buck Boomer stopped and looked at the reporter with a blank face, “I have no idea what you are talking about. It just sounds like he is trying to be a wise guy to try and make me look bad.”
“So that interview he says you gave last month never happened?”
“Look, I already said it never happened so it didn’t! You can search the e-newspaper archives along with the holo-news archive portal and you will not find anything out of place. I can guarantee it!” said an agitated Buck Boomer, his face turning slightly sour.
As if realizing something his eyes glanced at the drone above her head and his expression immediately changed to a calm one.
“You. Follow us. It seems we need to clear up a few misunderstandings. I will give you a few minutes for an exclusive interview,” said Buck Boomer pointing to the female reporter.
The reporter looked confused but followed behind them with her drones. She was not sure if this was a chance to make it big or if she had just permanently blown her reporting career off the tracks.
When they passed the large white stone buildings entrance the large thick parasteel doors closed behind them blocking the noisy commotion from outside.
The large open room they had just entered was covered in plush red carpet, with hundreds of red couches and armchairs that already had people sitting in them chatting among themselves.
Unsurprisingly everyone that Arron saw was wearing nothing but red.
Some of the people looked to be in a daze as they smoked wooden pipes that had an odd-colored misty smoke coming out from them.
Despite how big the room seemed, it was only the waiting room outside of the ballroom where the dinner party would be held in.
With the thick carpet and cushions everywhere the large room was surprisingly quiet even with its size and the number of people inside.
“Let’s talk over there,” said Buck pointing to a secluded corner.
The people inside the large waiting room noticed his arrival but made no motion to come over to talk with him as they saw the reporter walking behind him.
The corner walls of the waiting room were covered with a carpet-like lining making it even quieter.
When Buck boomer positioned himself in front of the wall and turned on his charm. Azistant gave the female a thumbs up to start recording.
“Mr boomer you said you would like to clear up a few things, what might those be?”
“Yes, I wanted to do this short interview to allow others to know the truth!”
“About what?”
“My new rival should know better to spout off falsehoods without proof. Barkery college should really be ashamed to have him as a former student. Their reputation will be tarnished if things keep going on like this. They should do something about this.”
Azistant quickly motioned with his hand for the reporter to end the recording.
As the female reporter was about to leave she noticed the invisible Arron and Kix for the first time.
Seeing them gave her a light-bulb idea and quickly started recording them and asked, “As citizens of the first level, how excited are you for the new college to be opening for all to have free education!?”
The two stood quietly not saying anything. They only looked to Buck Boomer who was getting ready to leave.
Upon seeing this awkward situation Buck Boomer quietly hissed with gritted teeth, “Answer her.”
“Cool,” was all Kix said, his voice echoing out the speakers of his light exoskeleton.
The drone turned to Arron.
“Hard to say… ‘Such wow!’ might describe it,” said Arron.
“There you have it! The reaction of real authentic people on the first level!”
With that, she happily left the building to start editing the gold mine of new recordings she now held.
Azistant motioned for Arron and Kix to come over to him.
“Both of you are to stand guard outside the ballroom doors and make sure that no unwanted people or nosy reporters enter the Ballroom. This is a private event and we want to ensure the comfort of everyone inside,” said Azistant.
Buck Boomer and his guards were the first to enter the ballroom. The several hundred red-clothed individuals all rushed to the doors only to be blocked by Arron and Kix.
“Hands out,” ordered Arron.
They were surprised that they had to do such a base thing as have their NerViz cloud chip scanned. Did these guards even know who they were!?
Even if they felt slighted there was nothing they could do if this was an order from a party member on the 4th level. Soon two lines had formed one in front of Arron and the other in front of Kix.
They were quickly processed and let inside. Meeting such a large number of high-ranking people in charge of the first level was an eye-opener for Arron.
Among such people, there were a few that had tried to alter their appearances to crash the dinner.
The ballroom security drones were quick to normalize them.
When all those who lined up had been processed, there were only a few people left slouching in the armchairs and couches with glazed eyes.
The room was now quite empty.
Arron soon became bored so he opened the news-portal to read a few articles.
At the very top of the news-portal was the latest short interview with Buck Boomer. It had exploded and was on fire with comments pouring in.
The majority of them were calling for Barkery college to take back or rescind the diplomas given to the recent politician who did not agree with the commenter’s ideas.
Arron swiped to the next news article about the new applications for Everpreen.
When he reached the end of the article there were a few sentences that were in an extremely small font which was easy to miss if you didn’t look closely.
[…All who sign the application must agree to pay back the free loan to receive their diploma.]
A similar thing happened in the article describing the new [Level 1 Education and Safety act].
[… a new tax has been added to the monthly living cost of all Level 1 citizens to keep the new Everpreen college running.]
Arron closed the news-portal and let out a long sigh.
“What’s with you?” asked Kix.
“You’ve seen the recent news articles right?”
“Yeah, it’s all just a scam to get back more credits from everyone. Even if you get this new degree those who live on the 2nd – 4th level view these colleges with disdain. Compared to their prestigious government-funded colleges, the first level’s two colleges are nothing but 3rd rate institutions. We are little more than barbarians to them.”
Arron looked around to see if anyone had heard Kix. But there was no one that he could see and the waiting room had a suspicious lack of cameras and microphones recording. Most likely to protect the privacy of the many high-ranking people that had gathered.
Kix just shrugged his armored shoulder and said, “But that is not unexpected. Now that technology is taking care of many of our human needs and the politicians have everything anyone could ever want on the 4th level they have all turned to other made-up problems to spend their time worrying and fear mongering about.”
As Kix said that a few boisterous voices could be heard approaching the doors from inside the ballroom.
The doors were slammed open as a small group of low-rank party members came out to have a smoke break after their meal.
“Ah, I’m so poor. I can’t afford the newest model of the WMB flying car. I might have to sell my old model to get the money.”
“Why buy the new one? Isn’t your model just a few months old?”
“Yeah, but what would people think if they saw me driving in an old model? I might have to put off buying the new limited edition flying suits from the 4th level.”
“You sure have it rough.”
Arron connected to the secure com’s and asked, “Isn’t that Puormaen, who always puts out those ads about being the poor common man’s friend? Isn’t his motto, ‘Stand with me, fight for the common man!’”
“Like I said before, they’re all shams,” said Kix with a shrug. He had seen this happen so many times that he was not fazed by it.
Arron was still learning and experiencing how the megacity worked. He hated that people who were well off pretended to be poor just to get sympathy from others.
In his view, such people were one of the worst types of people that he could think of. Real poor people do not advertise that they are poor as it was not a badge of pride but a thing of shame.
