The KNN news that had been muted and minimized was now playing above the dashboard once again as Kix drove the APC to the Private government Prep school.
With nothing to talk about, everyone inside the APC was quiet and just listened to the news.
“Breaking news! We have just learned that the son of Jood, a party member under Mother, has been taken into custody by M1!” said an excited Fela.
“That’s right Fela it appears that he has been temporarily labeled as a Troubled suspect. I am sure that Mother and Father along with the Office of Reason are on top of this matter and will make sure that no stone is left unturned as they search for the truth. Only time will tell if he will be made an example of what not to do.”
“In other news, the W.H.O with all its might has started to normalize the situation in the savage county [Antes].”
Kix swiped his hand over the news, shutting it off as he pulled the APC up to the large para-steel gates that encompassed the entire prep school.
“We better be getting overtime for babysitting this kid,” said Kix in a low grumble.
Two security drones detached themselves from the gates and scanned the APC and the occupants before a blinking green light flashed for several seconds giving the signal to open the gates.
The security drones sent a quick message to each occupant inside the APC.
[By order of the Office of Reason you are to follow us.]
The two security drones flew in front of the APC and only moved at a slow speed as they flew down the narrow road leading the way to their destination.
As the APC passed through the gates, the drab and dreary paraconcrete and parasteel city scenery was replaced by a brightly lit green park that was on each side of the narrow road. Several trees and small ponds with many wooden benches were placed throughout the park.
“Is this really a school?” asked Arron, surprised at the drastic change of scenery.
“Hmph! This backwater school is not even close to reaching the prestige of my school on the 4th level!” said Jepp, his voice full of disdain.
Arron and Kix ignored the mutterings of Jepp and scanned the area as they drove to a large cluster of dorm buildings which all varied in size and colors.
The security drones stopped in front of a small bland gray building that was only one story tall. It was situated at one of the farthest corners away from the many other dorm buildings to provide maximum privacy for special guests.
Kix once again started to mutter curses as he parked the APC in front of the building where the Dean of the prep school stood. He was not alone, several reporters were standing along with him. Obviously, they had spent a large amount of credits or favors to be allowed to enter such a high-class and high-security school.
As Kix got out of the APC he looked back to Jepp and said, “Don’t leave trash in my vehicle. Take that with you.”
“This trash is the lunch you tried to kill me with!” said Jepp, as he grabbed the soggy Synth-dog.
“You won’t be getting anything else until dinner time,” said Arron as he stepped out and looked over at the reporters standing behind the Dean.
As soon as Jepp stepped out of the APC he hid behind Kix while they walked up to the waiting Dean and reporters.
Arron was forced to swat away several of the news drones that were getting too close to them, sending them spinning away. The reporters did not take this quietly and voiced curses at him.
“Why are you guys here? Don’t you have anything better to do?” asks a familiar female voice.
Arron turned his head to see it was Cammy Newsons, the same reporter that had tried to interview them some time ago during rage week.
“I should be asking you that question,” said Kix.
“It’s not our fault that we are still waiting for the Office or Reason researchers to finish working on our next prototype test,” mumbled Arron.
Kix cleared his throat and then glared at the gathered reporters.
“Keep your drones out of our bubble. We can’t have anything happening to the Troubled suspect until the Office of Reason can decide how to Normalize this situation. You know better than to mess with one of the Office of Reasons Troubled suspects.”
The reporters took the silent threat seriously and made sure to stay behind the dean and have their drones hover a safe distance away with the cameras zoomed in to the max.
“Dean?” asked Arron.
“aaa… Welcome to the MaFaGov preparatory school, the most esteemed school in all 11 sectors of the first level. We have made sure to fully clean up and prepare bedding for the three of you in this exclusive building. No other guests are living here so you will not have to worry about any troublemakers,” said the Dean, sweating heavily. He was hastily trying to smooth out the tense situation that had been caused by him allowing all of the reporters to ambush them.
“We hope that will be the case until our job is finished. We don’t need nosy people causing problems for us,” said Kix as he looked at the nearby reporters.
The dean nodded his head furiously, “Yes, Yes, Yes, of course. No one will bother you. Uh… unfortunately there might be a slight problem… the food that we serve here, although it is high class, it is all served at the large cafeteria hall. It might…”
“No problem, we will just order takeout,” said Arron.
“Takeout?” asked the dean confused.
“Just be sure to allow the drones delivering food to pass through the front gate,” said Kix.
“Ah… Yes… I will be uh… sure to do that. If there is anything else you need, please don’t hesitate to contact me,” said the Dean as he flicked his holo-card to Kix.
***
“What is this?” asked Jepp as he looked at the three steaming disposable bowls laying on the table.
The three of them were now sitting around a small wooden table in one of the only two rooms of the building, the other room was the bedroom that had three beds crammed inside.
“Synth-noods,” said Kix, as he removed the lid of one of the bowls and passed it over to Jepp.
Jepp looked at the tan noodles that swam in a brown oily broth.
“This is torture! I really will complain to my father,” complained Jepp.
“I don’t want to hear any complaints, kid. You’re lucky that the chief gave us an allowance to pay for meals, otherwise, you would be eating Energy-jelly for each meal,” said Kix.
“And it would only be the original flavor, not the newest Pickled Pickle flavor,” said Arron.
Jepp silently scooped up a spoonful of noodles and broth and looked at it for a long time inspecting for anything that should not be in his soup. He closed his eyes and shoved the spoon into his mouth and quickly swallowed the noodles and broth without chewing.
“Gahh! Cough! Cough!” Jepp went into a coughing fit as the food went down his throat.
Arron slapped Jepp’s back a few times to try and help the food go down, then he returned to eating his bowl of Synth-noods.
“How can you guys eat this stuff?” asked Jepp as he looked at Arron and Kix.
They both shrugged and didn’t answer as they continued to eat. Jepp watched as Arron poured a bit of red sauce from a bottle into his bowl before once again slurping up large amounts of noodles and broth.
“What’s that?”
“Huh? This? It’s Bechup,” said Arron.
“Ca… can I have some of that?” asked Jepp somewhat timidly.
Arron shrugged and dumped a large helping into Jepp’s bowl.
“Be sure to stir it in real good, it’s quite strong on its own,” said Kix.
Jep stirred until the brown oily broth took a red tint same as the bechup. Taking a small scoop of the broth he tested the new flavor.
“Hot! Hot!” Jepp fanned his mouth as he tried to douse the fire with water.
“Yeah… to be honest, I am not that big of a fan of spicy things either. But… it is what it is,” said Arron as he finished eating his dinner.
“You’ll get used to it I’m sure,” said Kix.
***
In the morning Arron and Kix dragged the groggy Jepp out of the dorm building to head to his first classes for the day.
“Why do I have to get out of bed? Can’t I just attend class from my bed?” asked Jepp grumpily.
“Why aren’t we eating breakfast?”
“Here,” said Arron, passing a neon green package to Jepp.
Jepp fumbled with the nozzle of the package as they walked. Arron and Kix were well aware of the ever-present vulture reporters that stood at the far corners of buildings trying to hide from their view as they recorded Jepp. They all wanted to capture enough footage so that they could spice it up in whatever gossip rag or news segment they were working for.
The half-asleep Jepp started to slurp up the green Synth-Energy-Jelly in the pouch… and immediately started to cough uncontrollably.
“What is this flavor? You guys are really trying to torture me!”
“Hey! You’re lucky I gave you one of my Pickled Pickle flavored EnergyJellys! This stuff might be a rare limited collectors edition in the future! Who knows how long they will be manufacturing this flavor!” said Arron.
Arron was actually quite excited to see how the Prep school was different from what he had experienced in his small town school.
The students in Jepp’s first class did not look at them as they entered the classroom which was filled with over a hundred hover chairs, each having a fold-able desk attached.
Sadly Arron’s expectations were shattered.
“Stand,” commanded the robotic teacher at the front of the room.
Every student stood up and faced the front of the room.
“Repeat after me:
Liberation: Mother, Father, and W.H.O will liberate the world.
Inclusion: Mother and Father will always be with you.
Normalization: Normalize all that is wrong.”
After the chant, the robotic teacher spent a few minutes giving a speech on why the Party of Mother and Father was so great.
This was nothing like Arron’s experience when he had been growing up, not even during the hellish last years of the [Troubles].
The entire day was fairly boring for both Arron and Kix. Each student they met made sure to give them a wide space as they walked from class to class. In each classroom, the desks around Jepp were all empty.
The reporters and their drones did not give up one second and continued to stalk them all day.
Later that night.
“What the hell is this?” asked Kix, as he skimmed through central news portals many articles to get caught up on all the news they had missed.
Arron looked at the titles that were displayed on Kix’s opened e-newspaper.
[The hardships of Jepp under the iron grips of M1.]
[At what point should we consider feeding someone torture.]
[Jepp faces loneliness that we can not even come to understand.]
Arron shook his head and continued to eat his dinner.
On the second day, Jepp was able to make friends with some of the more unruly students of the school who dared to talk to him.
Each student had already had a thorough background check by Tooth. Even though they were only teens Arron and Kix did not want to underestimate them and end up in a bad situation.
On the third day, Jepp started to skip class with his newfound friends.
Arron and Kix didn’t bother to drag him to his classes, as they had only been assigned to watch him.
“I got to use the bathroom. Let’s go to that place you were talking about later,” said Jepp.
“You sure you’ll be allowed to with your nannies hovering over your shoulder?” asked Brue, a large brute of a boy that had more muscle than brain.
Jepp looked at Arron and Kix for a moment, “They won’t care as long as I don’t leave the campus.”
Arron and Kix followed Jepp to the bathroom. He stopped and held up his hand.
“You’re not following me in here, I’m only going to be a moment it’s not like I can go anywhere with this place built like a prison!”
Jepp was right, there were no real windows in this part of the building. So there was no way for anyone to enter or escape. All the windows on the walls were virtual screens broadcasting serene scenes to make everyone calm. It was also done to give the school and the students the utmost privacy on what happened inside.
“Hurry up,” said Kix after he scanned the bathroom and found no one else inside.
Several minutes passed by but Jepp did not come out.
Arron looked to Kix who let out a sigh and slammed the door open.
“Kid, quit playing around, it doesn’t take that long to take a crap!” said Kix.
The bathroom was silent.
Arron scanned the room but to his horror, there was no life signals inside any of the stalls.
They ran to each stall and kicked them open searching for Jepp. They were all empty… but as they reached the far end of the bathroom where the stalls ended they found a brown parasteel door that was slightly ajar with a fresh bloody hand-print on the door.
On the door above the bloody hand-print were the words [Maintenance only].
“S***!” shouted Kix.
“Tooth, this is an emergency! Our target has been kidnapped!” shouted Arron in a call back to the Hq information center.
