Aetheran Child (12 page)

“If anyone asks about your origins, stick to what you know, but you may make up a story. No one will be able to stop you from doing that but we recommend that you stick to what you know. Unless of course,” Thrace chuckled, “You're from Earth.”

Lexan did not laugh, and Thrace noticed. His eyes widened but then contracted back to their original state, “Then you will have to just use your imagination.” He looked rather nervous and left a minute later in a hurry and with an awkward smile.

The boy stayed at the bar, reminiscing a friend who resembled Thrace but was human and was from Earth, a planet too far to even fathom a return journey.

V

“That class is hard, but you know what? I heard Bio in high school is even worse,” the boy said, turning to Alexander.

“We'll see in a couple of years,” Lexan answered without the slightest hint of care. He blew on the snowflakes that made their way onto his nose. The dark knight extinguished all the remaining stars above. Only the moon shone through every once in a while when a cloud passed by. It was one of those nights that Lexan loved so much. All the problems in the world did not matter. Nothing mattered, he realized as he laid still on the thin layer of snow. The cold slowly bit at his cheeks.

“You know what I hate?” The boy brought up a new topic.

“What?” Alexander turned and eyed the boy who looked exactly like Thrace. He had protruding cheekbones, and short black hair that swayed every few seconds as the wind picked up or died down. His skin shone a mellow white in the obscured moonlight.

“I hate how people are fake, you know? I mean, you know Jennifer, right?” Lexan nodded, “She puts on this preppy good-girl look but down in her heart, even I can see it, she's a dark person. It's like she shuts her real self off and puts on this elaborate show. I hate that, man. I really do.” The boy stood up and stretched and looked all around the field. There was no one in sight, “And then people who shut off the outside. People who ignore what's happening and the reality and live in their make-belief world. I hate that.”

“Yeah, I hate that, too. Fake people complicate things too much. They should just come out straight with who they are. And screw what others think, we should accept each other, right?” Alexander stood up too and kicked a small rock into distance, “Can you imagine some alien beings watching us? They'd laugh at how we act, how dishonest we are, and how much we care what others think.” It was one of those nights where both the boys came out with their innermost deep thoughts.

“I don't know, man.” The other boy laughed, “it looks like peer pressure got to her, Jen, you know?” Lexan pushed the boy in annoyance and grinned at him.

“You like her?”

The boy pushed him back, “No.” he paused, “Why are people the way they are? Why do they socialize? Why do they give into peer pressure? That stuff is bull.”

Lexan frowned, “No idea.”

They both nodded in agreement and left the topic hanging. Even though they were so young, they knew the concept of deep worry. Parents told them they had their whole lives ahead of them but that was barely the truth. Lexan had years upon years of schooling left, and after that, he would surely enter the work force, he thought, and live a mundane, boring life as a slave to a corporation or to the government.

The other boy knew that as well. He knew he would give up, or if not give up, he knew he would end up struggling to survive his whole life and that left him bitter. He knew he could change but he knew the reality as well.

Both of them worried about their lives, both of them knew that things were not as they seem to be, and both of them enjoyed long winter nights where these worries disappeared.

The winter breeze blew into the snow and the two boys walked through the field, looking up at the stars in silence.

VI

The bartender refilled Lexan's cup with water. The boy sat quietly and pondered upon the memory. He knew that he will never see the boy again, his close friend, and that he will never enjoy those meditative winter nights he had on Earth.

After a few minutes, he stood up and headed to find his dormitory, “CI4”. The characters burned in his head, they felt familiar but somehow, distant. As if he had a memory of something but someone smudged over it. The journey took Lexan less time than he thought; within half an hour, he found the right sector, sphere, and finally the room.

The boy walked up to the door located in a thin long corridor with light grey walls. The walls lit up with signs of welcome. The “door”, Lexan realized, was not a door at all. It was simply a part of the wall with lights shining around it. The part of the wall disintegrated once the boy pressed his hand against it.

Inside, the room contained two bunk beds, and only a small amount of space to move around in. It was less a dormitory and more a cabin, like one in a submarine. The walls were as grey as the corridor outside and was covered in a thin foam-like substance. When Lexan touched the wall, the substance hardened and felt completely solid. The floor was covered in a similar substance coated in black. And again, on touch, the surface solidified. When Lexan tried to slide down it, he felt the substance change properties and prevent his fall.

Each bed contained a mattress one could lie down on. It adjusted to a person's race, height, and weight with its contour and hardness. The beds were meant only for meditation and relaxation, and that is why they could solidify completely on command. At the head of each bed stood a desk with a screen on it. When the bed solidified, it acted as a chair to the desk, forming a backing when one sat down on it in a proper way.

The room contained three different doors. One to enter, another marked to be the entrance to the washroom, and a third door that seemed to lead into a closet.

The washroom door disappeared to let a boy walk out and then reappeared again.

The boy walked to the bed opposite of where Lexan sat down, “Hey, what's up?”

“Hey,” Lexan started, “I'm your new roommate.”

“Well, alright,” the boy pointed to his bunk-bed, “There shouldn't be any more people joining this dorm, so I'll keep this whole bunk-bed to myself and you keep that one.”

Lexan nodded and lied down, staring at the bottom of the bed above him. He thought quickly, he had three days before school started and still a lot of things to do.

VII

Bran informed Lexan of the credits on his account the next day and the boy headed out to the nearest Shopping Sphere. Among other things, the boy bought extra nanomachines for his nano-constructed computer which was the liquid display screen on his wrist. He also bought extra memory and some simple routines programmable for the “NCC”.

It was Nonusday, the ninth day of the week. Bran created special names for the ten-day week and Lexan slowly adjusted to the new terminology. He had two more days until Primitusday, the first day of the week, and the first day of school.

Trying to catch up to some of the common knowledge of the world, Lexan sat down with a “book” called “The World Today: 483rd edition” and began reading it. The book worked on a strange principle. It had three “pages” that would turn and with each turn, they would change. Most of the text resembled the World Wide Web from back on Earth, with highlighted links leading elsewhere, moving images, videos, and interactive elements. Unlike on Earth, though, the boy was able to press a button that would automatically download all the knowledge of a chapter, a page, or even the whole book into his memory. He would miss the “experience” of reading the book but he would have all the knowledge inside it.

What was the difference? On one hand, the boy would know everything with perfect clarity in the book, on the other hand, all that he would remember were cold, hard facts and he would not remember the joy of learning the new facts, discovering the world through the book. Thus, Lexan read and browsed through the book as he pleased and once he finished it, he would download all of the contents into his brain.

Unfortunately, that plan did not work out so well. Soon after he sat down to read he heard a loud distracting sound.

*thump*

And then, boom! BOOM! BOOM! All in a repetition that created a regular rhythm. It was music, it was loud music that penetrated the walls, and the whole sphere, it seemed.

Screams of joy reverberated through the hallways, and ignited a feeling of rush in Lexan. He wanted to join, he wanted to be a part of such a celebration where thousands screamed loudly and clearly through the school, through the academy, and everywhere else. If sound traveled through space, the boy thought, such screams would be heard all over the universe. Probably not, he thought for a second, but nevertheless, he ran out of his dormitory toward the garden outside for the Sphere's students. It served as a social gathering place.

Lexan turned a few corners until he arrived at a transparent door that vibrated back and forth from the loud music. Thousands had gathered and everyone was jumping up and down, dancing, in a rhythm with the music. They were spread across all five large levels of the garden. Each level larger in area than the last. The skies burned bright orange from the sunset, giving everyone an orange glow, an aura.

The boy pushed the door open and saw the gardens of other Spheres. All of them were blazing bright with the white of lights. Everyone partied.

On the highest point of the garden, a platform on the first level, a young man stood in front of a table. The table had numerous elevated sections with prisms supporting it from beneath instead of regular block legs. Lexan walked closer to inspect what the man was doing. After several minutes of forcing himself through a crowd of sweaty, energetic student, he could see that the table had numerous floating screens and displays on it as well as holographic sensors. The displays and mixers switched places from time to time whenever the man waved his hand in a certain way.

As he neared the man from behind, he saw a screen displayed a directory of numerous music files and samples. The young man moved the files around to fit them into a time line wherein a line crossed to indicate what was being played. The middle screen contained an input/output adjustment controls with buttons and sliders that changed the properties of the music being played. Below the buttons were situated two graph-like controls that regulated pitch, speed, and distortion.

The man's right hand spun fast on the right side of the table. That side contained a hemisphere that responded to his touch and changed the song's properties accordingly. The hemisphere raised and lowered itself every few minutes. The table seemed to be as part of the DJ as his arms and legs. The way the young man moved with determination made him look like a master of the music. The music became a living, breathing extension of him.

Every beat, every sound came from deep within his heart. Everyone around moved, jumped, bounced around to the beat, becoming musical slaves. Lexan walked through the mass of hot, sweaty bodies, the bodies they gave to their musical master. The boy could almost smell the energy in the air.

The sun finally set down and it started raining lightly. The crowds screamed with joy again with a roaring approval. The speed of the music picked up and with that, a jolt of energy gave everyone the ability to dance even faster and harder than before.

Lexan joined others in their dance. The vibrations echoed through his heart, beating with it. His breathing, each inhale and exhale, aligned with another layer of music and he could not stop or change the pace of his body anymore. Minutes, maybe hours, have passed by and Lexan did not tire at all.

He suddenly saw a dancing figure in a blur of blue. Her dreadlocks spun around her, swatting everyone with sprinkles of water and sweat. She danced with great vigor. The boy was surprised to see her, Bloo, again. It seemed to be a habit of their to run into each other.

“Hey,” he approached, “I didn't think I would be lucky enough to be in the same dorm as you,” he smiled.

“Don't flatter yourself,” she started without slowing down her dancing or even casting a look at Lexan, “I'm not, I'm just visiting a few friends and partying with my favorite Music Master.”

'Music Master', the boy thought, realizing that was the name for the 'DJ' here. He traced his thoughts but did not know how he could have guessed the term earlier while surveying the man.

Lexan frowned, he realized he did not know anyone here and everyone, as he quickly looked around, stayed in their groups. He knew no one, and they knew everyone. He knew one, he realized, but barely, and most probably, she regarded him only as a stranger that she keeps running into.

“Yeah, sure, I have to go,” he turned to leave.

“No, wait! Come and dance with me!” She smiled and without waiting for an answer, she dragged him a few meters into a clump of people and they started dancing.

The young boy danced wildly and before he knew it, he was dancing away with a beautiful Shun. She moved to the beat, flawlessly. Her never-ceasing smile expressed her exhilaration. She had her hands up in the air, her body twisting, and her dreadlocks, the thin blue tails, were flying left and right as she moved her head. Bloo became one with the music and soon Lexan did too. The clouds above shifted and swirled, as if dancing with them. Soon, complete darkness came.

A rhythmic visualization pulsed bright and brighter to compensate for the darkness. The mood changed, suddenly, and the lines turned cool, dimming into the background. Large spots appeared and glowed. The whole visual, a three dimensional holographic projection covering the garden, turned into a sphere with a tornado inside. All the colors swirled in a mass of a psychedelic lights. Lexan noticed the projection fill up the space between dancers as well as above them. All the visuals concentrated by the Music Master. Finally, the sphere exploded with a musical climax, showering everyone with blue sparks.
 
Everything slowed down to a halt, the music, the visual, even the dancers. Every Aetheri, the boy noticed, returned to their original form.

Bloo held her breath, as did others, in anticipation. The man behind the music-mixer looked up in expectation. Everyone's eyes followed and they all looked upward. A deadly quiet with a few rumbles, and far-away thunders, solidified the tension in the air. They all waited for this moment, the whole night, Lexan realized. The dark blue, almost black skies, traveled with the wind. No one dared to say a word, no one dared to breathe.