Arron walked off the packed mag-lev onto the equally cramped and dirty Sector 11 platform. Since it was the weekend the platform was teaming with tens of thousands of citizens trying to use their rare free days to travel.
Many of them would only be traveling to different parts of sector 11 while only a few would be able to travel to another sector to blow off steam before the tough week of work once again started. Most of the people Arron saw were in their late teens up to their 30’s which was not unusual for where he was right now. Of course, every one of them had a C-rank SCS, since D-rank citizens did not have the luxury of many weekends free of work.
Although Arron was not currently in uniform and was not on duty as an M1 officer, he was not here for fun.
He pushed his way through the crowd and exited the dirty station to walk down a familiar road. As he walked down the street the average age of the groups of people he passed was becoming younger and younger.
Akira stopped walking as he came to the end of the street where a large crowd was gathered at the front entrance of the 100-story Everpreen College.
Most of the students in the crowd were all late teens to early twenties with a few older people mixed in with the crowd standing out like sore thumbs.
Akira joined the slow-flowing crowd as it moved through the large doors of the front entrance. No one standing around him greeted him or paid any attention to him since he was a stranger.
When Arron had reached the front doors he stopped to allow the floating security drones to scan him.
[Error! Identification not recognized! Step to the side and wait for security to arrive!]
[Do not attempt to escape!] warned the security drone with its metal claws crackling with electricity.
A few seconds passed before a human security personnel arrived and looked at Arron with a scowl because his nap had been interrupted.
“Who are you and why are you trying to sneak in?” asked the grumpy security guard.
Arron did not say anything as it would just anger the man, he just tapped a few options on his wrist-datapad and pulled up the paperwork he had been given by Chief Chesty.
The guard looked the paperwork up and down several times before looking back at Arron, his facial expression still unchanged, and said, “Wait here.”
The guard disappeared into his office for a few seconds and came back out with a handheld scanner.
He used it to quickly scan Arron and then tapped in a few options before pressing a button and printing out a metal Student ID that was coded for him and the class he had been assigned to.
“Don’t lose this as you need it to get in and out. It is also the key to unlocking your classroom door,” said the guard before waving Arron to enter the building.
Even though it was the weekend the hallways were still packed with people. As Arron walked down the hallway thoughts of when he had first seen these hallways came back to him. Back then they seemed extremely huge and empty but now they were jam-packed with humans.
Arron was looking for a holographic map on the wall or nameplates to help him find his classroom as all the doors had only numbers. At every door he tried to open there was a red light at the door scanner with a warning beep causing those near him to give him weird looks and slowly step away from him as if he had a disease that they could catch if they got too close.
“Excuse me… but…” as Arron tried to ask for directions, the students all turned their heads and walked away ignoring him.
With no other option left Arron was forced to walk back to the security guard’s office at the front of the building.
Knock! Knock!
“Who the hell is waking me up again!” growled the guard.
When he saw Akira standing in the doorway he said, “Of course it’s you! What are you doing bothering me this time?”
“I seem to be unable to find my classroom. Do you have a map or know where it is?”
With a sigh, the guard looked at Arron’s ID again and tapped the information into the security console in front of him. A second later he swiped the directions over to Arron.
Ping! [Start NavGuide?]
A notification from Arron’s NerViz popped up asking for confirmation which Arron did not hesitate to accept.
“Thanks for the help,” said Arron as he waved at the guard.
The guard only gave him a grumpy grunt before closing the thick office door.
With the floating light pixi leading the way he was able to walk through many different hallways until he reached the rear of the building and stopped in front of a maintenance door that had a sign that read [Authorized Personnel Only! Trespassers will be normalized].
“No wonder I was unable to find the classroom…” muttered Arron.
The floating pixie chimed, urging Arron to open the door.
Beep! The door’s holo-lock turned green as soon as he swiped his new ID and opened.
Behind the thick door was a set of stairs that led into a deep dark underground belly of the college.
When he started to descend the stairs the Pixi chimed and disappeared with its task now completed.
Arron had not brought an external light source with him as he was not expecting to be in such a dark place with such a new building. So now he was relying on his bionic right eye’s low light setting to help him walk down the cramped maintenance hallways that led him through many rooms full of humming machines that were needed to keep the building running properly.
As he was walking through the doorway of a room he felt something bump into him.
“Oof!” came the grunt of a man who was knocked back.
“Oh sorry didn’t see you with the bad lighting,” said Arron as he tried to reach out a hand to help the man, but he was unable to see where he was so…
“No need to apologize, I was also not looking where I was going since I don’t normally see people down here.”
A light on the man’s helmet turned on, lighting up the dark underground pathway and blinding Arron for a few seconds in one eye.
As he regained his full vision he was able to see who stood before him.
“Hey aren’t you that professor guy I met several months back?” asked Arron as he looked at the old man.
“Former professor,” said Yuri.
“So you don’t teach here? Then…?”
“I’m a janitor and mechanic for many parts of the machines that keep this university running. Mother and Father would never allow me to step foot in one of the normal classrooms for fear that the knowledge I have up here would corrupt the youth,” said Yuri tapping his helmeted head.
“Ah… yeah I heard some rumors about that… Do you know where the classroom for Officer Training is? I have been all over the place and was told that it was down here but I can’t seem to find it.”
“I see. So you’ve come to get your Indoctrination Certificate?” asked Yuri bluntly.
That remark caught Arron off guard but before he could reply Yuri turned around and began walking down another path making Arron run after the old man.
It only took a few minutes of silent walking to find the classroom which had a basic metal plate above the door that read [Officer and Command Training]. Yuri did not stay a second longer and returned the way he had come.
“Thanks…” said Arron but he could only shrug and turned back to the door, swiping his ID.
Beep the holo-lock turned green and opened letting a warm damp air escape out into the cold corridor.
With a quick glance around the room Arron was able to see there were around 30 beat-up hover-desks crammed inside the small ‘classroom’.
The only light came from a single light strip hanging from the ceiling.
Over twenty faces turned to look at the open door to see who had just arrived. Most of the faces in the room were middle-aged men who all sported some sort of scars or wounds from their time on the job. There were a few female faces but they were in the minority.
“Ah, a new student! Welcome, I am Professor Indacto! Take a seat at any of the empty desks. We don’t have any set seats since that is only for children,” said a middle-aged female who was standing at the front of the room.
Arron was surprised to see that there was an actual human professor!
When Arron was seated, professor Indacto’s smile was turned into a harsh frown as she returned to her lecture.
“Ahem… now where was I? Ah, yes. Everyone here is either from the M1, Police, or security companies that have been allowed to receive officer training. In order for you to be certified and recognized by Mother and Father, you must complete my class. I am not a demanding professor but there are some things I will not tolerate,” said Professor Indacto as she slammed her hand down on her desk and activated a holographic button bringing up a flowing list of words on the black wall behind her.
One of the largest sets of words on the list that Arron could make from the back of the room was at the top of the list: [Separatist conspiracy theories].
“On the matter of Separatism… It is my duty as your professor to make sure that each of you is fully equipped to ward off the temptations of such nonsense conspiracy theories put out by bad actors. These are only vile tricks to try and get you to use your future officer ranks against Mother and Father or the Office of Reason!” said Professor Indacto using an extendable metal pointer and slapping the black wall where the words were hovering.
Professor Indacto continued to talk about the dangers of separatists for several minutes. She also gave a few pointers on how to spot separatists and how to deal with them if you did meet one.
“In short, everyone has a little bit of separatism in them. Over these next few weeks, it will be my job to help you stop thinking like a separatist would and think properly so that you can fulfill your duty to Mother and Father with flying colors. In order to do this, we must go over what is acceptable speech and what is wrong speech.”
A new flowing list appeared on the black wall with thousands of words. There were too many for anyone to remember everything.
“If you use the wrong words you could be falling into a separatist trap which will lead you down the wrong path and could end up with you having to pay large fines or getting your government social media account banned!”
Several of the ‘students’ nodded their heads while a few of the females let out shocked gasps.
Arron didn’t really care much about the talk about social media accounts and only half heartedly listened to the lecture.
“As for using Illegal programs and unsanctioned social media, that is the fastest way to get yourself normalized.”
Arron was forced to listen to the professor’s dry speech about the dangers of separatism for over 2 hours.
“I think that will do for today. Be sure to be here on time tomorrow. We will continue where we left off,” said Professor Indacto.
The twenty-plus students did not stay in the room any longer than necessary and did not say a word to each other. Everyone wanted to get out of the damp room and the large building as soon as possible so that they could spend the rest of the day doing something more productive.
Arron was in no rush so he decided to let the others exit the room first while he brought up the rear of the group as he slowly walked with thoughts of the day’s class filling his head.
In his entire time in the Mega-city NeoTokeyo, he had never heard someone who had so much to say about separatists… and from what she had said only moments before, she was not even close to being finished with her rant.
‘What does this even have to do with officer training?’ thought Arron as he climbed the cramped stairs to the ground floor of the large building.
The college was just as active and cramped as it was 2 hours before he had entered the class, possibly even more crazy as it was nearing noon when everyone would be out for lunch.
As Arron exited the front doors, he saw a large area near the front of the building was blocked off and had several hundreds of students gathering under a holographic banner. Each of the students in the group was wearing all red and were finalizing their outfits.
[COME JOIN US IN A DIRECT ACTION AGAINST SEPARATIST!] Read the holographic banner above the gathered students who were changing their outer clothes.
Arron was not surprised at seeing this as he had heard that such groups were gathering on campus regularly.
He did take a quick picture of the crowd and sent it to both Tooth and Lexa to keep M1 informed of possible disturbances later in the day.
As he walked back to the mag-lev station he turned on the news.
“Today a party member under Father made an interesting post on the government-run social media. I will just show you and let you see for yourself,” said Fela.
The screen switched to showing the post but… only a second later the screen went black.
Beep!
A warning sound came out instead of Fela’s voice.
[Please stand by for corrected and updated news!] said a floating red text banner.
Arron watched the black screen for several minutes as he walked to the mag-lev station.
When the news broadcast returned to normal both Fela and Kommy were looking sternly at the hovering drone cameras.
“We have just learned that a member under Father has been normalized for his treasonous and negative remarks against Mother and Father. We can not say or show you what he said, but it was enough to warrant him being sent to a re-education camp outside of the mega-city.”
