erikredwood-21

[erikredwood-21]

It's not over yet...

Erik has found that indeed the Academy is something way different from what everyone believed but this is just the start. Now with the help of his friends, together they'll unfold a little bit of what the reality of the Academy is, but will that be enough for him?

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 7: A place lost in time

Erik and Helena walked out the main dormitories and head to the food court.

‘Yes, we’ll meet at the food court’ said Helena to Caitlyn before hanging up the phone and walking towards Erik.

The food court was very lonely, only a few students remained, chilling or just hanging out, it felt so different to when it was broad daylight.

‘Where do you think it leads?’ asked Helena looking at Erik’s phone.

‘I really don’t know’ said Erik ‘But maybe it’s something related to my brother… I hope so, at least.’

Helena took his face with delicacy and looked at him in the eyes, Erik could notice she was concerned.

‘Don’t push yourself too much Erik, I know you want to find him, but be patient, ok?’ she said to him on a very sweet tone.

‘I know… I’m sorry, is just that… this feels so wrong, I don’t even know what to do anymore. I mean… What if I never find out what happened to him?’ Erik was a little desperate.

‘I believe that we will be able to find him, I really do.’ Helena gave Erik a small kiss on the cheek and hugged him. Erik did as well, he needed that hug.

Caitlyn and Christopher arrived shortly, and after explaining them what Erik found out they all walked to where the blue line was going. They walked all the way between the Academy and into the woods.

‘Hey Erik… you think this will lead to the wall?’ asked Christopher while they were walking through the woods, the place was quite humid and cold.

‘I don’t know dude, but if it does, we will meet a death end.’ answered Erik, he was really hoping for the blue line to lead them to anywhere inside the Academy grounds, they had absolutely no idea of how they would evade the CEDs.

The group walked quite deep into the forest, they couldn’t even see the Academy behind them, and the place was very dark, only the flashlight of their phones illuminated their path. After walking for about ten minutes, the blue line stopped abruptly at a small clearing.

‘This is it’ said Erik.

Helena, Christopher, and Caitlyn tried to find something around the darkness of the forest, a door, a wall, a building, something. But they couldn’t find anything.

‘Are we… at the middle of nowhere?’ asked Caitlyn while trying to find something.

‘The line ends here’ said Erik while turning off his phone.

‘No honey, we’re not at the middle of nowhere… look at the place, it’s a clearing in the middle of the forest, all the trees are at least half a meter apart, but here… they make almost a perfect circle.’ explained Christopher.

Christopher looked up tp the sky, but only stars could be seen.

‘Could it be below us?’ suggested Helena while kneeling down, but she couldn’t notice anything at plain sight.

Helena tried touching the ground, and it wasn’t humid or soft, it felt dry and hard, almost as if the floor had only a thin layer of dirt. Helena shook the dirt off and revealed a metallic surface.

‘Guys, we’re over something’

Immediately everyone walked back making a small circle and kneel down to the ground. They all looked for anything that felt different to a forest.

Helena found a small handle and pulled it off, but it was too heavy.

‘I found something, Caitlyn help me out’

Both girls pulled the handle and a trap door opened in front of them, it was a small square, but it was big enough for someone to enter. Christopher lit the small square on the floor and they could see a bunch of stairs that continued down below the floor.

Everyone looked at each other, not even a single word was spoken between them, they looked at each other for about a minute and then Erik proceeded to enter.

‘Be careful’ said Caitlyn before he could step down the stairs.

Erik lit his flashlight and walked down the stairs, his steps could be heard with a slight echo.

He arrived at the bottom of the stairs, the floor was green and full of roots and broken floor tiles.

‘It’s ok guys, come on down’ said Erik and waited for everyone to walk down.

‘What is this place?’ asked Helena while trying to identify what was around them. She could only see shadows and objects that looked like tables or chairs, but it was very foggy.

They all walked together, the place had a bunch of chairs, tables, and other instruments scattered around the place as well as places were a root had cracked the floor open.

‘This place looks like a lab’ said Erik while looking at the tables.

‘Maybe this was an old Academy facility?’ asked Christopher, but he found it unlikely.

‘I don’t think so, it’s way too far from the other buildings.’ said Caitlyn.

‘Hey guys, come take a look at this’ Helena was a little bit further into the place.

They got close to her, and in front of them there was a small console, rusty and full of dirt. It looked old and chunky, almost like and old interface.

‘This looks like an old Command Console, they used to have physical buttons instead of touch screens, maybe there is a computer around…’ Christopher got close to the console but suddenly a small red light appeared.

//System lockdown…

Quarantine ACTIVATED

Voice ID INVALID

Reactive

Operational

System

Entity

OFFLINE

Please insert Security Module//

A small hologram appeared in the console and then a small rectangular slot opened.

Erik got close to the console and inserted his phone into the slot.

//Processing...//

‘You think it will work?’ asked Helena.

‘We have to try’ said Erik without taking his eyes away from the console.

//Processing…

Security Module ACCEPTED

Quarantine lifted

Primary power activated

Life Support...100%

Water Supply...100%

Oxygen Supply...100%

Secondary power Offline

Herbology...OFFLINE

Observatory...OFFLINE

Biology...OFFLINE

Labs...OFFLINE

Mainframe power ACTIVATED

Reactive

Operational

System

Entity

ONLINE//

The place instantly lit up, it all looked like one of the Academy buildings but, worn out, really worn out, a lot of roots were sprouting out the floor and it looked like the place had a bunch of other rooms.

‘I am glad your back, I knew you would come back!’ a female voice sounded all around the building, everyone kept completely silent.

Erik knew that voice… but it sounded… younger…

Erik looked everywhere before saying a single word.

‘Mom?’

[erikredwood-21]

Dakota Rosenflower

Dedicated, passionate and humble, Dakota is one of the Academy students that had decided to accept a work for her future. Direct and very straight forward, the redhead girl has made her life goal to keep everyone she can healthy enough to have a long life. She wants to become a M.D. and work at the A.C.C. (Academy Central Clinic), so she can assure that no one suffers the same fate as her parents.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 6: It has to lead somewhere… right? Part 3

‘Let’s see, my contact said that she will meet you near the Emergency wing entrance, that’s over here.’ said Christopher while pointing out a small corner near a building in a wide handmade print out of the Clinic area.

‘She’s willing to help us out, but we are going to need a courier, that’s where you’re in Erik. You and Helena need to stall the staff long enough for my contact to retrieve the blood sample, give it to you, and be sent back home.’ finished instructing Christopher, he looked completely excited and confidant.

‘Ok, yeah I can do that, but… was all this necessary?’ asked Erik while looking at the “map” Christopher made up, as well as the small clay balls that were supposed to represent them.

‘Not really, but I like doing this. Anyway, Helena, you’ll be the sick one. Fake a few symptoms of flu or something.’

‘Will do, I have my fake coughs in check’ said Helen while saluting Christopher in a military way.

‘Don’t you think this is, a little bit over planned?’ asked Erik to Caitlyn.

‘Yeah I do, but I like him when he does this, he once made an entire schedule for a 20 minutes date.’  explained Caitlyn with a soft smile, as if the memory of that brought joy to her.

Erik found that rather cute, but there were other matters at hand.

Christopher picked up his blueprints and stuff from the table and proceeded to talk with Helena, they had some things to discuss about the ways she could stall the Clinic staff.

He stood up and walked towards the big window of Helena’s room, he needed some fresh air to think things through. Erik looked at all the other students at the distance, they were minding their own business, maybe studying or just hanging out, but there were so unaware of the situation they were under. Erik couldn’t get his mind around the idea that everything was fine and that the Academy was the best option for everyone, there was something wrong, and he couldn't believe only them knew about all of this.

He stared outside for a couple of minutes, the wind blew and the coldness was clearly visible, he sighed and turned around towards his friends.

‘Guys… we are ready to do this… right?’ Erik asked with a somewhat insecure air.

The three friends look at each other, they smiled and looked back at Erik. Helena stood up and hugged him.

‘We will always be ready to help each other out.’ she said still hugging him.

Erik hugged her as well.

‘Thanks guys, we should get going.’

The four of them took their things and walked out of the main dormitories, they decided to go to one of the studying rooms near the Clinic, they were small rooms in which you could study, they had a few computers, a big screen and chairs.

‘Erik you’ll be needing this…’ said Christopher while handing Erik an earphone, it was small and almost transparent. ‘...this way we can communicate with you once your inside.’

‘Uhh, Christopher… this is not a spies movie’ said Erik while putting the earphone in its place.

‘C’mon dude, let me have some fun, besides, I made this myself and I’m going to use them.’ said Christopher quite enthusiastically. ‘You hear ok?’ he asked, but Erik felt the abrupt sound in his ear, almost as if someone had screamed inside of it.

‘I hear you… just… turn it down a little, ok?’ said Erik while trying to cope with the small pain in his ear.

The four friends gathered around the table and reviewed the steps for the plan, there were 10 steps, which Erik summarized to just three, get in, get blood, get out, as simple as that, but Christopher had sub-plans and alter-plans. Caitlyn was putting small patches of warm water on Helena’s forehead and cheeks, they were extremely thin and almost invisible on Helena’s skin. ‘This should be enough to make them think you have a small fever, although I don’t know what you can do if they measure her body temperature.’ she explained. Erik still thought all this was over elaborated, but it was going to get the job done.

‘Looks like our contact is in position, so let’s move out, and by that I mean you two’ said Christopher while pointing towards Erik and Helena.

‘Let’s get this over with, we need to know why that guy doesn’t remember anything.’

Erik and Helena walked out of the studying rooms and walked toward the Clinic, Erik had never been in there, of course when he was little he went to a Clinic, but they were small and made to take care of minor health problems. Erik and Helena walked straight towards the entrance, they looked rather stiff though.

‘Guys you look a little suspicious, try acting more naturally’ Christopher said by the earphone.

Erik got a little bit closer to Helena and relaxed, he was a bit nervous, he didn't want to get caught.

‘Cool, now, when you get to the door, there should be an ID reader near the lock, slide Helena’s ID, we can’t let the Principal know you are involved in all this Erik.’

Erik took Helena’s phone and got it near the door lock, a small beep sounded and the door unlocked.

‘Guys, from now on you are your own, I’ll try to get your position from the Student Class Platform, but I won’t have live feed, Helena, stall as much as you can and Erik, the name of our contact is Rosenflower, Dakota Rosenflower. Good luck, and see you soon.’ said Christopher before they entered the Clinic.

As soon as they walked past the entrance, Helena started coughing, and posed her head over Erik shoulder, holding him as if she couldn’t stay up by herself.

‘What are you doing Shine?’ asked Erik in an amused way, Helena was being melodramatic.

‘I’m supposed to have the flu, remember? Now hold me and get a nurse.’ answered Helena trying to hold back her laughter.

Erik hold Helena with his left arm, and walked past a bunch of patients towards the waiting room. The Clinic looked, immaculate, everything was white and completely cleaned. They arrived at a big room, that had a bunch of lines of chairs, a few plants and on every side a set of double doors. At the other end of the room there was a reception desk, so they headed there.

There was a lady taking the patients, she looked tired, like she would rather be somewhere else.

‘Hello, how can I help you?’ greeted the woman by the desk.

‘It’s her, I believe she catched the flu, she’s been like this since yesterday, but we thought it’ll go away today.’ said Erik, with a completely different tone he usually had, he sounded sad and worried.

Helena coughed a bit and shivered. Had she been practicing?

‘Can I have her ID please? I’ll send a nurse to check on you honey. You may take a seat.’ said the lady while Erik handed her Helena’s ID.

They waited for about a minute before a nurse approached them. Helena tried her best to look, well, ill, and Erik did his best being worried.

‘Silvershine, correct? Come with me, we’ll check your vitals.’ said the male nurse while walking towards a set of rooms near the Emergency wing. The nurse looked rather young, roughly a year or two older than Erik. They entered a small room that had a bunch of instruments and drawers. Helena sat down in one of the two chairs there were, she kept coughing.

‘Well, you do look sick, and…’ the guy posed his hand in Helena’s forehead. ‘you clearly have a small fever. Don’t worry, we’ll fix you right up.’ said the guy in a… well, flirtatious manner .

Erik felt like he had to say something, so he did, rather impulsive coming from him.

‘A few pills should do the trick, right?’ asked Erik, while putting his left hand on Helena’s shoulder, almost as if he wanted to protect her.

The guy quickly looked at him, he seemed surprised. ‘Sure, some pills to lower her fever would be enough… are you her… boyfriend?’ asked the guy in a very doubting way.

Erik was about to say something but Helena was way faster.

‘Yes, he is my boyfriend. *Cough, cough* it’s ok sweetie.’ said Helena with a soft smile, she looked extremely cute. Erik looked at the guy one last time before letting go of Helena’s shoulder. The guy took out some papers and a pen.

‘Ok, we have to fill some files so we can get you that medicine. In the meantime, please take this token to one of the doctors outside so they can get it out the depot.’ said the guy handing out Erik a small plastic rectangle with the name of a drug on it.

Erik looked at Helena one last time before leaving, ‘I’ll be fine sweetheart, you go now’ she said in a tender voice. Erik could notice the guy was clearly irritated, he enjoyed that.

He walked out the small room and went straight to the Emergency wing. He started looking for Dakota, Christopher’s contact, among the bunch of patients and doctors, he couldn’t see anything though. Erik took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again, now everything was different, he saw the people moving and talking and breathing, but it was as if everything was in black and white. First he had to find anomalies in the big system of the Clinic, something out of place, so he prioritized patterns, patients never moved without a doctor or nurse, so he eliminated the fact of Dakota being a patient, she had access to the blood sample, but since a nurse handed him a token to retrieve a medicine, that meant nurses couldn’t get full access to the Clinic so nurses were a no go. That left only the doctors, the ones with the white coat, now, the life of a doctor is not easy, always on the move, never stopping and sometimes not even sleeping, that means that if someone was waiting for him it had to be someone who’s not moving, and a woman, since Christopher mentioned “Her name is Rosenflower… Dakota Rosenflower…”. That left him with three possible options, there was a doctor near one of the pot plants closest to the elevator door, a second one talking with a receptionist and a third one having lunch on the back of the receptionist area. Dakota knew Christopher, and was willing to help them even if that meant risking her job so it had to be someone around their age, so that eliminated the one having lunch, she looked quite matured, around her 40’s maybe. Only two other options were left, a redhead one and a blonde one, now, Erik could know which on is Dakota by reading the name on her white coat, but they were too far, and it would look very suspicious if he managed to get the wrong one. Huh, the coats… that was a good starting point, most doctors white coats were worn almost for an entire day, so that meant that on the edges of the sleeves and the lowest part of the coat would be worn out in a certain degree. Both girls looked young, but one of them had a whiter coat than the other, Erik got closer to have a better look and effectively, her coat looked quite new, used a few times but not enough to be worn out of the sleeves and edges. It was the redheaded girl near the elevator door, she was the only one who looked like she was expecting someone, she ignored her phone a few times and it looked like she had a small tick in her left hand, she was tapping her fingers with her thumb rhythmically. Finally Erik was close enough to see her coat name, “D. Rosenflower” it said with dark brown letters…peculiar…she tastes like peaches…

‘Excuse me, hi…’ greeted Erik to get Dakota’s attention. ‘A nurse gave me this, and he said that a doctor could get it for me.’ he said while handing her the small token.

‘Sure, right this way please’ she said walking and signaling Erik to follow her, so he did.

They got to the reception area and Dakota got behind the counter.

‘Hello Gladis, can I have the key for the depot? I have a fever medicine I need retrieved.’ said Dakota while grabbing a small key from the desk.

‘Sure, just remember that we changed the the lock, so it might be a little hard to turn.’ said Gladis, the receptionist, without looking at Dakota.

Erik followed her for a while, they took the elevator and went a floor down. Some doctors were along the way, discussing diagnosis and medicine stuff. Erik had no clue where he was going but took no care on it. They got to the depot but instead of opening the door, Dakota dragged him inside one of the vent maintenance rooms.

‘You are Christopher’s friend, right?’ she asked a bit anxious. She looked a bit accelerated.

‘Yes, I am Erik Redwood, you can get us the blood sample, right?’ asked Erik going straight to the subject.

After hearing those words Dakota sighed loudly, she felt a sudden relief.

‘Sorry, I thought I got the wrong guy. And there’s a small problem with that.’ said Dakota while verifying that the door was closed.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Erik, what did she mean with “a small problem”?

‘The blood sample, a group of S.E.A.L.P directives came earlier today and took it, all of them actually.’ answered Dakota, Erik was clearly confused.

‘They took all the blood samples? Why?’ it didn’t make sense to Erik, why all of them?

‘No, no, they took all the blood samples from that day. But before they did I took a look at it.’ claimed Dakota.

‘And what did you find?’ asked Erik to her, he didn’t want to seem desperate, but, well, he was.

‘I want in’ said Dakota.

‘What? In? In on what?’ Erik was really confused now.

‘All of this, I know that there is something wrong about this place, and I know you know it too. Don’t you feel out of place?’ she asked him, and well, he did, from the moment he entered the Academy he felt odd, out of place even when the Academy made everything to make him feel at home, he knew there was something wrong. But how could he do this? get her involved in all of this without knowing the consequences. Erik had to think this through.

‘Ok, we have to go, let’s get the medicine and get out of here, we need to discuss this elsewhere, we can’t afford being caught.’ said Erik, he had a plan.

They walked out of the room and opened the depot, it had a very organized medicine cabinet, Dakota placed the token on a small surface and the medicine she was looking for shined. They were ready to go but they needed to get Helena so they took the elevator and went to the rooms near the Emergency wing.

Erik looked for the nurse and Helena, he found them on the same room, but the guy was clearly hitting on her so Erik jumped in.

‘Here’s the medicine’ he said as soon as he entered the room.

The guy clearly got surprised and stood up immediately, Helena was still faking a few coughs and when she saw Erik she felt a great relief. The guy was very clingy.

‘We gotta go Shine’

‘Oh oh, sure, she’ll be ok, a pill every 24 hours  should be enough’ said the nurse.

Dakota entered the room with her coat off, she was wearing a purple blouse.

‘It’s ok Gavin, they are with me, tell Gladis I had to go, ok?’ she said while Erik and Helena walked out the room.

‘Wait, D, you leaving?’ asked Gavin rather surprised.

‘It’s my day off remember? And for the last time, don’t call me “D”.’

‘Oh ok, hey when my shift is over would you li…’

‘Gavin, seriously, I don’t date guys, goodbye.’ finally said Dakota and walked out the room with Erik and Helena.

The three got out of the Clinic and went straight to where Christopher and Caitlyn were waiting for them.

As soon as they got into the room Caitlyn and Christopher got surprised, they didn’t expected Dakota to be with them.

‘There’s been a slight change of plans, these rooms are soundproof, right Christopher?’ Asked Erik as soon as he came through the door.

‘Uh… yeah, yeah… both ways, outside and inside, why?’

‘I need you project something, anything.’ Erik was a bit accelerated.

‘What are we going to do again?’ asked Caitlyn, clueless of what was going on, like everyone else.

‘Take a seat, we need to emulate a study session so we can talk this without raising suspicion.

Everyone took a seat on the front row of the room, there was a video about cellular splicing in the background.

‘First of all, Dakota wants to join us, I honestly didn’t know what to tell her, so I think it’s best if we discuss this together.’ said Erik standing up in front of everyone else.

‘I know this is a little bit rushed, but hear me out, I know that there is something wrong with this place, everything is just… too perfect. Don’t you feel it?’ asked Dakota. There was a mixed amount of desperation and fear on her words.

‘Now that she mentions it, I do feel like something is wrong, sometimes I feel like I am being watched.’ confessed Caitlyn, the only thought of her being watched gave her shivers.

‘You know, sometimes I feel like I never want to leave this place, but the next day I feel out of place.’ Chrostophet was always a pretty down to earth guy, so him feeling out of place was indeed odd.

‘I think we all do, and it’s not only that, even the place feels uneasy, the food court serves almost perfect food, our rooms are a little bit too comfortable, I don’t know why, but it scares me.’ added Helena a bit scared.

‘Yeah, I’ve felt all that too.’ said Erik, and he did felt that too, the Academy got basically everything, dormitories, movie theaters, grocery stores, sport courtyards, and all that felt, a little bit too perfect, as if they wanted the Academy to be the perfect place for everyone.

‘I want to help you, please let me help you.’ Dakota was determined, she wasn’t going to stay quiet and do nothing, but she couldn’t do that alone.

‘Dakota, are you sure of this? We don’t know what we are up against, I can’t promise you you’ll be entirely safe.’ Erik said this a little bit hurt, he wanted to protect everyone, but he didn’t know what destiny had for them.

‘I want to do this, for me, and for my parents.’ she said completely sure of herself.

‘Ok, I guess we are together in this then. Can you tell everyone what you know about the blood sample?’ Erik sat down so Dakota could stand up and talk.

‘Sure. Ok, uh… right, this morning someone came with a fainted patient to the Emergency room. He was completely knocked out, they said he fell from the stairs, but he didn’t have any bruises so I knew something was wrong. When I took his blood sample I did a quick test on it to see what happened to him, and he was pretty normal, the thing is that it looked like he got a pretty large dosage of  propofol and other sedatives.’ explained Dakota.

‘Propofol? That’s found on Anesthetics.’ said Helena.

‘Exactly, and as far as I know only the ACC has authorization to use Anesthetics, the guy was pretty stoned.’

‘Hmm, that would explain the guy’s memory loss. Some kind of Anesthetics sedate the brain and flood the memory bank, so his memories must be blurry.’ explained Erik.

You talked with the guy?’ Dakota was a little confused.

‘We did, but he said that he fell from the stairs and a nurse took him to the Clinic.’ said Christopher.

‘Yes, everyone believe the same story, but we know another version of it.’ Said Caitlyn while standing up from her seat.

‘You know what happened to him?’ asked Dakota, she was surprised knowing there was another version.

‘Yesterday the guy and someone else were talking in the room next me, they woke me up. Then I heard him leaving, so I tailed him for a while, he walked to the far end of the green area and then a drone appeared. It started asking him questions, but when he failed to answer he got shot, and fell to the ground, after that the drone took him out of there.’ explained Caitlyn, she looked disturbed by all of it.

‘The drone ignored you?’ asked Dakota.

‘No, I fell trying to stop him from spotting me, maybe the drone couldn’t find me because of that.’

‘I thought they were made up…’ said Dakota under her breath.

‘Made up?’ Erik was confused.

‘Yeah, made up, in the clinic  when I started my practical sessions, the old students told us a bunch of stories about the CED’s, Control Environment Drones. Nobody had seen one recently, but they said that if one appears at the clinic, big trouble and even a tragedy may occur.’ Dakota was really startled, she couldn’t believe they were real, they seemed so, impossible until a few moments ago.

‘They must be controlled by the S.E.A.L.P., that’s why they were able to sedate the guy.’ theorized Christopher.

‘That means that the S.E.A.L.P. has a very tight protocol, and for specific situations…’ Erik was thinking.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Helena.

‘The CED’s are like the Elite of the security system, they only operate when a certain situation pops up, something Clinic worthy, that’s why everyone at the Clinic relate them to tragedy or trouble.’ explained Erik, but there was something that wasn’t adding up.

‘Wait, if the guy situation was enough for a drone to pop up, why did someone brought the guy to the clinic and not the drone itself?’ asked Dakota, and she was right, if the guy triggered the Drone, and Caitlyn saw it happen, why did someone brought the guy to the clinic?

‘Maybe they did it that way in order to prevent suspicion?’ suggested Caitlyn.

‘Makes sense… but why? I don’t understand, this is all so confusing.’ said Erik before sitting down.

Erik was stressed, very stressed, every time he thought they had answers something popped up and everything just left more questions than answers. There was something wrong, and he felt it up to the bone, but why? What was it? Was it because of his brother? Because of the Principal? There was something or someone preventing them from knowing what they wanted to know?Whyrightnow?whywhywhywhy?

‘...Erik!’

Erik opened his eyes, Helena was beside him, did he just dissociated?

‘Hey are you ok? You stood there for like five minutes without saying anything.’ asked Helena a little bit worried.

‘Yeah, I am ok. I’m just… tired I guess.’ said Erik.

‘Well guys, I know we have a lot of information to process so, let’s finish for today.’ proposed Christopher, everyone looked really worn out.

‘I think it is for the best’ said Helena.

The group took their things and headed to their respective dormitories, Dakota was on the B wing of the female section so Caitlyn and her were close to each other. Helena and Erik had a small dinner together which Helena made to help Erik sleep better. And after the usual ‘Good night Shine’ and ‘Goodnight sweetie’ of always, Erik laid on his bed looking at the ceiling for quite a long time.

He still couldn’t understand everything that was going on, but someone had to. After a few minutes staring at the ceiling he decided to check up on his phone.

The screen showed no changes, but now there was a new symbol over the “Locator” widget, it looked like a small house.

Erik pushed the widget and proceeded to see the available options for it. On the “Settings” tab there was now an option that stated.

“Define Home Configuration” and a single location was registered.

Erik was curious, so, he clicked the option and expected to see the Main dormitories as his “Home” but it wasn’t… the app had a place deep within the woods as the defined Home.

Erik clicked the location and the phone immediately change to camera mode. Erik stood up and looked through the camera, there was a very thin blue line on the floor. Erik followed the line and it lead to the exit. This was too much to keep it silent, so he immediately went to Helena’s room.

She was asleep, deeply actually, she looked so peaceful, but it was something important.

‘Shine, Shine… Wake up, c’mon…’

‘What is it, are you ok?’ she said still very asleep.

‘Shine, you gotta see this’ said Erik while giving his phone to Helena.

‘A photo?’ asked her.

‘No no, look to the floor’

The shiny blue line was still there.

‘It’s a locator? This is not the Academy app, is it?’ asked Helena, she was now more awake.

‘No, I just noticed it now, it leads outside.’ Explained Erik, but Helena was already up and getting her blonde hair on a ponytail.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Erik.

‘We have to follow it, it has to lead somewhere right?’ She said before grabbing a hoodie and walking outside the room.

Erik went for his hoodie as well, he was about to follow something blindly, but he had nothing to lose, not anymore.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 6: It has to lead somewhere... right? Part 2

Caitlyn woke up with a slight headache and a minor cough. She had a class in a few minutes, but all she could think of was about what she saw earlier today. Had it been a dream? No, it wasn’t , she had a small bruise in her left ankle reminding her of how she fell to the woods floor, so yeah, it definitely happened. She got ready and walked out the Female wing to her classes, but when they were over, she was going to tell everyone about the guy in the woods.

Later that day…

‘So here’s where you fell?’ asked Christopher while inspecting the area.

‘Yes, I fell here and the guy was standing over there near the wall.’

Erik and Helena were standing near the wall looking at it, it looked like a normal wall, but there was something odd about it. Christopher walked alongside the wall for a while, but it looked like it continued all around the academy.

‘Hmm, something it’s not right…’ said Erik while staring at the wall.

‘What is it? You see something?’ asked Caitlyn, she was talking with Helena.

‘No, the wall looks like it’s made of metal but… it feels different.” And indeed it felt different, it was more like a very smooth and almost living texture, it felt odd.

‘You know, the guy mentioned something about a “reset”, “the system resets at 5” or something.’ said Caitlyn while getting near the wall. ‘Also, when the sun came out I saw as if the wall glowed.’

A wall that glowed? Rather specific.

‘Shine, do you still carry that mirror with you?’ asked Erik without taking his view off the wall.

‘I think so…’ she looked for a while in her pack ‘...here it is. What for?’ she asked while giving Erik the small hand mirror.

‘You are thinking the same as me?’ asked Christopher.

‘I think I am, yeah’ said Erik a little curious.

Christopher handed his bag to Caitlyn, ‘Hold it for me baby’ he said, and then  proceeded to climb a tree, not to high, but enough to move some branches to let the sun come out from between the dense foliage. Erik took the mirror and used it to reflect the sunray into the wall, he moved it around until a single spot glowed.

‘There it is! Don’t move.’ said Helena, and Caitlyn proceeded to get close.

‘Can you see anything honey?’ asked Christopher from the tree.

‘It looks like a screen.’ Caitlyn couldn’t see very well, it appeared as if the screen were behind a transparent and very dirty wall.

‘Does it say anything?’ asked Erik.

‘Module 150? It says “Lockdown”’ there was more things on the screen but they were unreadable, Caitlyn struggled enough to even make sense of the things on the screen.

‘Module 150… does that mean there are other screens like this one?’ asked Helena, she took out her notepad and write down something.

‘Maybe that was what the guy referred to when he said it was going to reset, but I am not sure.’ Erik put the mirror down and sat on a nearby log, he was thinking.

‘I think you can come down now honey. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.’ said Caitlyn to Christopher, who was still up on that tree.

‘Don’t worry babe, it’s like a walk through the park, I’ll be down in no time.’

Helena sat down alongside Erik, he looked troubled, very troubled.

‘Are you ok?’ asked Helena while she moved some of Erik’s long hair out of the way of his face.

‘Yes, is just that… everything feels so, out of place. Yesterday we learned that the S.E.A.L.P. hides information not only from students, but from its staff as well, and now Caitlyn sees someone trying to flee, terrified and stalked by a drone, it just doesn’t make sense.’ Why would the Academy itself hide information from previous students to professors and students alike? Why would that be important?

‘I am not sure, to be honest…’ said Helena a little bit down. ‘...This is getting pretty confusing.’

Erik saw how Christopher got down from the tree and Caitlyn walked towards him and Helena. Erik could notice that Caitlyn had a small bruise in her left ankle, probably from the fall she had, that it actually prevented her from being spotted by the drone… wait… the drone… that was it.

‘Caitlyn, did you knew the guy you followed?’ asked Erik standing up from the log.

‘No, I am afraid not.’ she said feeling a little bit useless.

‘Would you recognize him if you see him?’

‘Yes, I can do that, we just need to find him’ said Caitlyn, she felt capable of recognizing the guy.

The four friends went out of the woods and towards the food court, it was friday and it was very probable they would find the guy around there. After an hour or so, Caitlyn found the guy near one of the burger stands, he was chatting with some other people.

‘He looks oddly ok for a guy who was shot and dragged by a drone last night.’ Said Christopher while looking at the guy at a distance. ‘What do we do?’

‘I think is best if only one of us go talk to him, he might feel overwhelmed.’ suggested Erik.

‘Sounds good, you go bro.’ said Christopher while giving Erik a small pat on his left shoulder.

Erik was a little confused, why him? Anyway, he gave his bag to Helena and proceeded to walk towards the guy, he was chatting with a bunch of other people. Erik got close enough and analyzed the guy, he looked very normal, a little too much to be true. So, Erik stepped towards the guy and tapped his shoulder.

‘Hey, hi, I am Erik, can I talk with you for a minute?’ asked Erik, when the guy turned around to face him.

‘Yeah, sure what’s up? Wait, are you the 21 guy?!’ the guy got really excited. ‘Oh my god, you are, a pleasure meeting you, I am John.’

Erik didn’t like that people made a big deal about him being the “21 guy”.

‘Hi John, hey, do you remember anything from yesterday?’ asked Erik hoping he would remember something.

‘Oh, you heard it too, huh?’ said John a little disappointed. ‘Don’t worry friend, I was fine, I just fell from the dorms stairs and lose consciousness, but I am fine now.’

Wait… what? He was clearly the guy Caitlyn saw get shot and dragged by a drone.

‘Are you sure?’ asked Erik, why was the guy lying?

‘Completely, the nice lady that got me to the Medic Room said so.’ answered the guy.

Erik said thanks and walked back to the others, they went all together to Helena’s room, which seems to be the reunion point.

‘He doesn’t remember anything?’ asked Caitlyn surprised.

‘Not at all, he told a completely different story.’ Erik was puzzled, he kept looking out the window. ‘Nothing of this adds up…’ he said under his breath.

‘Maybe he forgot?’ suggested Helena.

‘No, no, there’s something else in here’ said Christopher. ‘You can’t just change the story of something, and suddenly believe it or be convinced by it.’

‘So you are suggesting… that he was brainwashed?’ asked Caitlyn, rather confused.

‘Most probable, we know he was taken to the ACC, so maybe they did something there with his head, messed with his memories.’ explained Christopher.

What he explained made everyone intrigued, have the nurses at the ACC manipulated John’s memories in some way? They knew for a fact that he had been shot and dragged by a drone, so they had to find out what happened.

‘We need to go to the Clinic, they always take a small blood sample when you arrive there, regardless of why you got there, so, if we get to our hands in his blood sample, maybe we can see what the drone did to him.’ Caitlyn had been a few times at the Clinic, she didn’t have the best immune system after all.

‘Ok, let’s say we go to the Clinic. how are we going to know where his blood sample is?’ asked Helena, which was a really good question, they knew nothing about how the Clinic operated.

‘I might know someone who can help us’ said Christopher before taking his phone out and dialing a number.

Erik came back to his friends, things were getting pretty confusing, but there was something inside him telling him that it was the right way. He looked at Helena and Caitlyn, both of them were talking on how to get into the Clinic, Erik never thought he would end up doing something like this with people like them, but he was glad that those people were his best friends.

[erikredwood-21]

if you would be so kind as to reblog this if you feel insecure about your writing skills.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 6: It has to lead somewhere… right? Part 1

Erik walked out the Biology building looking at the small piece of paper. He knew where the fountain was but, why there?

The wind was blowing and the temperature was at about 5-7°Celcius, Erik kept walking until he could see the food court, he thought on calling Helena but he waited until reaching Professor Jeniffer. Some people were still shopping or hanging out, so the place was a little bit crowded, but Erik was able to spot Professor Jeniffer near the fountain.

‘Professor, you wanted to see me?’ asked Erik as soon as he was close enough.

‘Yes, wow, you are really good deciphering codes. Anyway, I got some information for you, shall we?’

Erik and the professor walked a little bit around the court, the students were enjoying their night, completely unaware of what was around them.

‘You know, I got interested in that Security Clearance you asked about a month ago’ said the professor in her always calm voice.

Erik felt a small knot in his stomach, he thought the professor was going to scold him again.

‘But I figured… why can’t we, the professors, have access to those works, so I went to the S.E.A.L.P. offices and I found something really interesting.’

The S.E.A.L.P. offices? Erik had heard about them, but he wasn’t sure about what they did over there. Was his brother working in there?

‘We can have access to those files by a written permit from the Principal or the Council, but since I was already there I did a quick research, I wasn’t sure about what you were looking for but from the way you asked me that day, it was something having to do with you. I searched for your name but nothing but a single file came out by the name of “Alexander Redwood”, I assume he was your brother since you are the only two Redwoods I know.’ said professor Jeniffer, she kept walking out the food court and since Erik was following her he tagged along.

‘Yes professor, he’s my brother, he was in the Academy three years ago… the thing is, he graduated, you knew him?’ asked Erik trying to not sound too desperate.

‘No, I was in the S.E.A.L.P.’s teaching program at the time, but I heard his name before, Dr. Martin mentioned him quite a lot.’ said professor Jeniffer while she sat down near the fountain in front of the Biology wing.

‘He knew my brother?’

‘Yes, I remember his name, Dr. Martin was a Neuroscientist, one of the best actually, and he always talked about Alexander, he thought of him as his own “legacy”.’

‘So he was my brother’s mentor?’ asked Erik troubled.

‘You could say he was, yeah. Although he was always in his research, something about rewriting DNA codes like if they were computer programs, but well, everyone believed such thing was impossible.’

‘Was? So you mean that now we can rewrite DNA strands?’ asked Erik, somehow troubled.

‘No, of course not, we can create our own DNA strands but all of those experiments and tests were banned by the S.E.A.L.P., Dr. Martin’s work was merely theoretical.’ said the professor while arranging her scarf.

‘But, if he was a neuroscientist, why would he work on DNA, I mean, that is a work for a Geneticist’

‘Yes, you are right, but he was looking at it from another angle. He believed that with the right cells, the brain with its own biological functions, could make the body slowly rearrange its cells with the rewritten DNA, since our cells constantly regenerate, eventually the body would be made entirely of those new DNA cells.’ explained the professor.

‘I had no idea you could do that, on a living thing. I read once that some scientist rearrange the DNA strands of a bird and made it grow teeth and a tail, but they were embryos, not actual living birds’ Erik was astonished, that kind of work would’ve been an amazing advance in both, the Genetics and the Neuroscience field.

‘Well, Erik, that’s everything I can tell you today.’ claimed the professor.

‘Thank you professor, that’s actually really helpful, I would like to know more about my brother.’ said Erik. The professor stood up and took out her cellphone.

‘I’ll let you know if something comes up, you should read some of Dr. Martin’s work, that may give you a better idea about what he was working with your brother.’ the professor sent Erik her profile information and walked past Erik.

‘Stay safe, and keep everyone you care close’ said the professor before walking back into the food court.

Erik walked back to Helena’s room, the temperature dropped drastically, it was around 1°C or 0°C. He entered the room and talked with Christopher, Helena and Caitlyn about everything the professor said to him. Everyone was thinking about where would Alexander be, as well as why the Academy itself hide his info.

‘Ok, so basically your brother worked with Dr. Martin while he was here, and Dr. Martin had this crazy idea of rebuilding a human’s cells like a computer program, right?’ asked Christopher while writing down some notes.

‘Yeah, he believed that if a mutated cell entered the body, the brain could duplicate it and eventually the entire body would have that mutated cell.’ Erik, was making his cellphone spin in the table. He was still arranging all the information he heard.

‘Well, we know that the S.E.A.L.P. might give us permission to research if we send a written request, but I am pretty sure they will say no.’  said Christopher.

‘Have you read anything from Dr. Martin’s book Erik?’ asked Caitlyn, she was at Christopher’s side.

‘I read it, there’s nothing mentioned about the cells, it talks about the different aspects and processes that the brain can use to repair itself if needed, but nothing beyond that.’ said Erik before standing up and walking towards the window.

‘Look guys, things are pretty confusing right now. Let’s not tire ourselves right now with this.’ suggested Helena, she knew that both Caitlyn and Erik weren’t going to let this go until they understand it, so the best option was to meditate about it, think it through, something Christopher was good at, he believed patience was key.

‘Maybe it’s for the best, we can’t make a wrong move and let the S.E.A.L.P. spot us doing something we shouldn’t.’ said Christopher while he put his things in his bag. ‘We need to think this through, carefully.’

Caitlyn stood up and walked towards Erik, he was still looking outside the window.

‘Erik… I know things are confusing right now, but I want you to know that… we are here for you, Christopher and I’ Caitlyn said that rather sad, almost as if she knew how it felt to lose someone. Christopher got near Caitlyn and took her hand. ‘That’s right bro, we’re here for whatever you need, just say the word.’

Erik turned around and heard both of his friends, huh… a funny word isn’t it? Friends, he had friends, he had Helena, who he loved as a sister, and he didn’t figured it out until that moment, but he had two other friends, a girl with the most shiny golden eyes, Caitlyn and a very reliable, resourceful and keen boy, Christopher. He cared about them… a lot.

‘Thanks guys… really…’ said Erik, but before he could finish Caitlyn pounced to give him a tight hug. She was warm and soft, Erik hugged her back. ‘...I am here for you guys too.’ he said.

Christopher and Caitlyn left Helena’s room, It was running late and the next day was a school day, Friday, but a school day. Helena closed the door and stretched, she was tired.

‘I am exhausted, I am going to sleep now.’ said Helena before yawning a bit.

‘Yeah, me too. I’ll see you tomorrow Shine, good night’ said Erik while getting his things.

Helena gave him a tender kiss in the cheek before saying ‘Goodnight to you too’ and walking to her bedroom. Erik closed Helena’s door and looked at the hallway… clean and silent as always.

=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=°=

4am Friday

Dormitory section C, Female Wing

Caitlyn was in a deep sleep in her bed, even though her room was smaller than Erik and Helena’s, she enjoyed it, it was like a small flat. Most things were organized, and it had a comfortable bed, but what she loved about her room was that she had a window, not all the girls had one. It was near her bed, she like hearing the outside numbly before sleeping and how the sun would shine through in the mornings.

The thing was that this morning, was going to be different.

‘...look it’s the fastest way…’

‘Shh, they’ll hear you…’

Caitlyn woke up due to the voices, they were coming from the other room.

‘...we just need to be fast, the system resets at 5am…’

‘It’s too risky…’

It sounded like a girl and boy were having a conversation. Caitlyn got curious, so she carefully got out of bed and sticked her ear close to the wall to be able to hear better.

‘Ok, if you won’t go with me, I’ll do it by myself.’ the boy said.

‘No, please, don’t do this, it’s impossible, no one has gone over 21.’ the girl replied, she sounded scared.

‘If I don’t do this, I’ll never get out, I am sorry’ said the boy before the sound of a door closing startled Caitlyn.

«He’ll never get out? What does he mean?» thought to herself Caitlyn, she was going to call Christopher, but it was way too early, so she decided to do this on her own.

It was quite chilly, so she grabbed a sweater and put on small boots. She opened her room door and saw how a guy was walking down the stairs, rather suspiciously. If there was something Erik taught her, besides extremely long chemical compounds names, was that if someone looked suspicious or out of place, it looked that way because it was. She closed her door and followed the guy out the building. It was still dark, only the environmental light from the building and pathways allowed vision, she stayed behind the guy, keeping her distance and very aware of her surroundings. The guy walked all the way to the food court, past the Clinic and the Presentation Halls. Caitlyn was wondering where he was going, or most importantly what was going to reset at 5? The guy took a turn towards the forest part of the academy before entering the Food Court amd walked straight ahead. Caitlyn tailed him, using the woods to her advantage, evading being spotted. They walked for a long time, the foliage started to get denser and the sky was starting to get slightly blue. The guy stopped when he reached a wall, he started to frantically look for something on its surface, almost desperately. But he couldn’t find anything, Caitlyn stayed behind a bunch of bushes trying to identify what the guys was looking for but something distracted her, it was the guys watch, it had an alarm. The sound alerted Caitlyn and made her fall off to the ground, trying to not be spotted Caitlyn remained in the floor, she was behind a large log, it was hollow and cracked, she had a clear view of the guy.

‘No, no, no. It has reseted, why it did not open?!’ the guy shouted. He kneeled before the wall for a few seconds and then a sound took his attention.

Caitlyn heard how something hovered at her left side towards the guy, it was some kind of drone, it’s metal was black and it had a very bright light in the center with four other smaller drones around it, hovering along with it.

The guy looked terrified, he froze entirely. The drone with the light stayed in place facing the guy, while the smaller drones scanned the guy with a very thin and shiny blue wave. When the scan was finished, the smaller drones created a rectangle which they filled in with the same blue wave.

//S.G.S 3

Student #676

1/100.- Which element in the periodic table has the atomic number 53?

-Speak answer-//

The drone was displaying one of the impossible tests to the guy. Atomic number 53? Caitlyn couldn’t remember which one was that, probably Erik would know, even Helena.

‘I-I-Iodine?’ said the guy still terrified, he was sweating.

//S.G.S 3

Student #676

1/100 - Correct

2/100.- The increase in the rate of a chemical reaction by the active site of a protein is called?

-Speak answer-//

Apparently the guy was correct, the drone displayed another question, but he clearly had no clue. After a minute or so of the guy stuttering and thinking, a small countdown appeared, from 10. The guy got paranoid and before the countdown reached zero he tried to make a run from it. The drone shot him something and the guy fell to the ground, then the drone proceeded to pick the guys body and left towards the deeper woods, back to the Academy. Caitlyn was in a bit of a shock, she stayed in the floor for another while, the sun began to rise and she could notice how in the wall a straight horizontal line glowed and then stopped. She had to tell everyone what happened, tell them about the mysterious disappearance.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 5: Much to be done...

Erik walked down the stairs with his phone in his hand, it glowed of a slight shade of blue; it had new functionalities, a decoder, what looked as a print scanner and now it had access to Alexander’s documents, or so he believed so. As soon as Helena saw him walk down the stairs she ran towards him.

‘You cracked it? What does it say? Is it a document? Can I see it?’ she said as fast as she could.

Erik smiled at her and put the phone in his pocket.

‘It’s not a document, it’s something bigger than we expected.’ explained Erik while he walked beside Helena.

‘That’s it? We’ve been trying to open up that plaque since the moment we found it, and you just say “it’s something bigger than we expected”?’ Helena was a little bit anxious.

‘Shine, this has given us a lot of trouble for the past few days, but now that we made a small advancement, we need more than ever to stop thinking about it.’ said Erik.

He was right, they dedicated basically every  hour of the day they had to that plaque, to finding out what was it and why it behaved the way it did.

‘I guess you're right, I’m sorry, I think this has drained both of us.’

‘That’s true, weren’t you talking to a nice girl?’

Helena got a little disappointed.

‘I was, yeah, but, she was just bored because she was waiting for her boyfriend, so, I guess it was a solid failure.’ said Helena a little bit sad but trying to keep up.

‘Sorry to hear that Shine, but anyway, she’s the one who is losing’ said Erik, and Helena smiled a bit. Erik looked at the dancing floor and despite being a little past midnight most of the couples were still dancing, it looked that they weren’t planning on going soon.

‘Shine, I know I am practically your brother, and I am definitely not a girl, but, would you like to dance?’ asked Erik offering Helena a his hand. She grabbed his face with both her hands and squashed him a bit.

‘You are so cute when you blush, I would love to dance with you’ said Helena and they both walked towards the dancing floor.

It was a new experience, somewhat new, fresh, invigorating even, they made a great progress, and a very significant one, so that small relax time, was well earned.

|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|~|

‘Marlene, you got anything?’ asked Scarlette while she looked at a bunch of screens in front of her.

‘Not for now Ms. Scarlette, no trace of the objective have been found nearby the facility.’ answered the human like female voice.

Scarlette was almost inhumanly organized, she was looking at the screens systematically, looking for any kind of difference, but everything remained the same.

‘Ms. Scarlette, your diagnosis has finished, would you like me to put it on the screen?’

Scarlette closed her eyes, they were burning a bit, probably because of all the time she stared at the screens. ‘Yeah, patch them through. They can’t be that bad.’

‘As you wish Ms. Scarlette.’

The bunch of screens swiped off to the left and a big screen appeared with some results from Scarlette’s diagnosis.

//DNA Composition….100%

Dosage………………..53%

Immune response…...12%

Re-sync……………...33%

‘I would like to congratulate you Ms. Scarlette, you’ve successfully Resynchronized up to a third of the complete process, continued dosage might keep the process going. Although, I suggest you run some tests just to clear any risks.’

Scarlette didn’t say anything, she took a deep breath and turned around towards the exit.

‘I’ll be fine Marlene, shut down the Security Footage Override and initiate the Routine Protocol’ ordered Scarlette while walking out the S.G.S. room.

Scarlette walked through the white halls at an accelerated pace. It was certainly late and probably most of the students were already at bed. She took out her phone and made a diagonal line motion with it in front of her, a slight red line was drawn in the air and after that, a door opened.

She walked through and immediately the environment changed, as if she had entered a set of offices. The sound of people talking, computers and printing filled the air, it looked like everyone was doing a lot of work, a very busy day.

Scarlette finally walked out the offices and took the elevator two floors up, to the Principal office.

‘Principal, madame.’ said Scarlette as soon as she opened the door.

‘Yes, Scarlette, you may come in.’

Scarlette walked into the room and immediately the room turned slightly red, and Scarlette’s vitals could be seen behind the Principal’s desk.

‘I am impressed Scarlette, your resync seems to be improving.’

‘I know, no one has gone beyond the first trial effect’ said Scarlette a little annoyed.

The Principal made a disgusted expression, as if what she said irritated her.

‘Is that, an attitude I am getting from you Scarlette?’ said the Principal before concentrating really hard on Scarlette.

Scarlette started to feel inside the back of her head as if very thin strings started to pull her insides, the pain was sharp and stingy, but she resisted it.

‘I am sorry… madame…’ she said trying to hold back a pain screech.

‘You are a fine addition to the Academy Scarlette, and you know I only want what’s best for you’ said the Principal getting closer to her. The Principal examined her thoroughly, trying to find anything out of place, but everything was alright. The Principal turned around and faced the big monitor, Scarlette’s pain faded like it had never happened.

‘How are the night terrors? Any news?’

‘Yes madam, they’ve got a little bit worse…’

‘How come?’ asked intrigued the Principal.

‘They are not voices anymore, nor sounds, recently I’ve been seeing images, of places I know but I don’t remember going…’

‘Hmm, seems like you need to… rest. I’ll scheduled one of your weekly dosage in here, so I can keep an eye on you. You may go, Scarlette’ said the Principal before walking away. Scarlette walked out the room, the pain was still in the back of her head, not inside but in the surface, as if her skin had been peeled off before. she walked out into the hallway and stared at the window who faced the food court area, there were a few lights still on because of the party.

<<...You should’ve try the program first…

...I did… I thought so…

...seems weird…

...maybe later…>>

Those words she remembered were from someone else, it wasn’t her voice nor someone she could identify, and they could be heard as if they were from far far away, almost like if she was underwater. She tried to distract herself from those memories, so she ran one last diagnostic, just to be certain, even though she felt like she shouldn’t. Scarlette pulled her phone out and looked at it for a few seconds, it glimmered rapidly three times and two other times slowly, a number popped off on the screen “Dosage level: 12% Refill needed”.

Scarlette sighed heavily, she knew she had to take her dosage, but something felt off and odd about it, like if it was wrong to do so, but she did anyway.

From one of her pockets she pulled out a line of small blue-ish capsules, a line of four but three of them were already used, with one of her fingers, she pushed slightly the last one and then she rolled it underneath her left earlobe, like a cream.

It felt extremely cold, she could feel how it moved entirely all the way to the back of her head, as if a very crystallize cold liquid where in her veins. She got a small shiver down her spine and then she felt the coldness in her eyes. Scarlette got her mind together and then took a deep breath, the re synch wasn’t an easy task. She looked out the window of the building wondering if those voices meant something, why she remembered them.

Scarlette went to her room in the upper floor of the main building, that was where all of the professors and staff had a room for themselves if needed, but only the Principal and Scarlette had a room at the moment. It had the same arrangement as all the other rooms but this one had its own regulated temperature, to have a stable 25-27°C. She left her things at the side of the door and went straight to the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror, a brown haired girl looked back at her. She had very slight freckles in her nose and slim lips, they looked very well taken care of. The dosage was making an effect so she decided to sleep, it usually made things better. She got ready to sleep, laid down on her bed and stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes, everything was silent, completely silent. Eventually her vision started to get blurry, but instead of not being able to focus, she started to see everything in a shade of red, a very dim and dark red, her eyes got cold and then, she fell asleep.

Her body felt numb and almost like if it floated, she wanted to open her eyes but it was impossible. She decided to calmed down, her body was completely immobilized but her mind was wide awake, she concentrated a lot on opening her eyes, but they stayed closed. Scarlette stopped thinking for a bit, she let go of her body and let it stay like that, floating in the abyss of her sleep. The floating was gone short after, and the numbness was away too, so she tried opening her eyes again, and she did…

In front of her there was the main building path that lead to the food court, there were other students around her, minding their own business, but she could notice that their faces were, blurry, she couldn’t recognize any of them. Scarlette took a look at herself, she was wearing a black hoodie that was clearly not hers since it was quite big, she got a small handbag and some wristbands she didn’t remember having. Everything was confusing, but she stayed calm, she knew she had to go somewhere, so she started walking. Scarlette could recognize all the buildings but none of the people around her, she got passed the fountain near the first row of stores and walked down the path that led to the back of the Engineering wing, but things started to get… odd.

Things started to change places or disappear completely, everything got engorged in some kind of white fog, very dim and cold to the touch. Scarlette noticed a human figure in front of her, it was just, staring at her, she tried to touch it but it moved away quickly so she started chasing it through the fog. The figure kept getting away until Scarlette started to feel the numbness again, her body got dizzy and after a small turn around, everything got black again.

«...the system…

...diagnosis or even…

...did it…

...thanks...»

There it was again, the same voice that she had been listening, so dim and distant. She didn’t recognize it, but it was in her head. Scarlette opened her eyes, it was around 8am, the sun was already up on the Academy grounds, she got up and got ready, there was still much to be done…

÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷|÷

‘Erik, if you don’t stop moving this ain’t going to fit’ said Caitlyn a little bit irritated. Erik got a new jacket from his parents but it was slightly bigger, so Caitlyn offered to fix it. She was going around Erik like a little bug, going to every inch to fix whatever was wrong, Christopher was in the kitchen’s bar, he was finishing a programming work so he had his laptop out and some other notes around.

‘Sorry Cait, is just that, some of the needles are really close to my skin, it’s a basic reflex to stay away from sharp objects you know.’ said Erik trying his best to stand still.

‘Yeah, I know… ok I think I finished, you can take it off.’

Erik took off the jacket and handed it to Caitlyn, he had been standing up for about an hour, so he went to the kitchen to walk a little bit. Suddenly the door of the room opened, it was Helena, she had some grocery bags and a couple of books, she was wearing rather formal clothing, which was basically the Academy clothing but with only gold accents instead of the usual red and white.

‘Hi everyone, sorry I’m late, my presentation got delayed due to some technical issues but everything went fine.’ said Helena while taking of her shoes, she looked quite relieved when she did.

‘So, they liked your presentation? Maybe it will be in the next edition of the Academy Beginner Course’ said Caitlyn excited since having a presentation in the Academy Beginner Course was a very big deal, you practically became a professor or at least someone able to be a professor.

‘I don’t really know, it was a very simple reprogramming and arranging system, I think they liked it though. By the way, Erik, I bumped into Professor Jennifer at the grocery market, she asked me to tell you if you could go see her at her office this afternoon, she said it was important.’

Quite unusual, Erik was taking Micro-biology with Professor Jennifer but she never asked him to go meet her at her office.

‘Huh… I wonder why she would like to speak with me, thank you Shine’

The four friends got ready for a quick study session, presentation time was here and since they were newbies they were required to do it, so they wanted to be ready.

Erik was the first one, as usual, to finish Helena’s little recap quiz, he got his things and walked to the Biology wing near the pond to go see Professor Jenniffer, he was still curious to why she asked to see him, he didn’t recall doing anything wrong in her class nor his presentation.

He entered the last hallway at the end of the Biology building and went straight to the offices, most of them had someone in there working on something. Erik walked to office number 11 and knocked the door, but no one answered.

‘Professor Jenniffer, are you in there? It’s me, Erik.’ he said a little bit loudly so his voice could be heard at the other side of the door, but no one answered.

Odd, quite odd, Erik moved the door knob and it was unlocked so he opened the door. Her office was exactly like he remembered, desk facing the door, bunch of books on one side and a computer monitor on the other, bookcase behind the desk with papers and some instruments, but there was something… out of place.

The lamp was on, very near to the desk, below it, only a small piece of paper, Erik grabbed it, but it had a bunch of numbers, it looked like gibberish, on the lowest part of the paper, there was a word.

“Dcd.exe”

«Dcd.exe? Why a program?» asked to himself Erik, but he remembered something, he took out his phone and pressed the settings option and under the mode option there was an additional one.

//Airplane

//Safe

//Decoder

The decoder option was lighten up, so he clicked it and the screen got completely transparent. Erik looked at the paper through the screen, the numbers started to make sense, they were letters.

“Meet me at the fountain near the food court. I got information about your brother.”

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 4: There has to be more! Part 3

Peach, cherry blossom and white jazmin, somehow, every time Erik got into a very deep sleep, he smelled this fragrance. Like if something in his brain activated and made him able to smell it, and everytime he did he felt protected, he felt alright, he felt... Fine. Sometimes Erik wasn't completely asleep, but instead, he was in kind of a "level zero" zone, there was only him, in an empty dark room, walking, talking and thinking, but the thing that actually remained no matter what, was that fragrance, it even appeared when he meditated, when he relaxed, and sometimes when he was completely calmed or focused, the fragrance appeared floating in the air, he was used to it, and with time, it became his favourite smell in the world. The weekend was here and the question still remained, what was inside the silver plaque. Erik thought about it over and over again, until he couldn't think straight. Probably wanting to know what Alexander was doing was a waste of time, maybe he was working and that's why he couldn't come by his house, or maybe he left never to be seen again, there were endless possibilities to what he was doing and yet, Erik wanted to know. He wanted to know why, he didn't care about the how or the what or even the when, but the why, why was there an Academy? Why no one knew anything about his brother? Why no one was against the Academy? Why things were like they were? Why working for the S.E.A.L.P or the Academy was what everyone desired to do with their lives? All of this questions were constantly in his mind, craving to be answered, and he wasn't going to give up, he was determined to find out what was there.

Erik was sitting on the small stairs that led to the library, just in front of the small park where most students enjoyed group activities together or just hanging out. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plaque, it didn’t matter what he was doing there was constantly a vague thought of it. Erik stood up and he took a deep breath.

«I don’t know what I am doing really» he thought and proceeded to walk to his room. Most of the students were on a relax state, there were no books around or laptops, just people hanging out, the Academy had a great impact in the student's life, but it wasn’t overwhelming enough to frustrate them.

Helena was getting some stuff from the library but Erik was too distracted to help so he decided to go out to try clearing his mind. He walked down the gardens and started looking at everything, the Academy buildings were not exactly old, rather well taken care of. There was no paint missing, or cracks or anything like that. Erik found a lone chair near one of the small ponds, and took a seat. Everything was so peaceful, so soothing, it felt almost unreal.

Durum, Durum

It was Erik’s phone, he took it out of his hoodie and had a look. It was a text from Helena.

                                  //Hey genius, I am done with

                            my homework. Wanna grab a bite?

Erik smiled a little bit, the thought of eating something made him hungry so he answered Helena and walked back to the library.

Both of them walked back to their rooms and prepared to have lunch at Helena’s. She had prepared some fish n chips, they both liked fried potatoes.

Erik tried with all his strength to stop thinking about the plaque and Alexander, but even though he tried, he seemed distant. Helena was talking about what she read about the connection matrix and how it could be used to create an electronic “brain”.

‘Erik, are you ok? You haven’t said anything all day’ asked Helena, quite concerned.

‘Yeah, I know, I am sorry, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it you know? It’s like if it was the last thing I got to my brother, and I am sorry if I dragged you into this, because if you want out, I totally understand…’

‘No!’ said Helena loudly.

‘I don’t want out, I want to help you, we are in this together right? Besides, I’ve also been thinking about it too. Actually I searched for more information in the library.’

‘Really? What did you found out’ Erik got very interested.

‘I didn’t find anything about your name nor your brother’s, but I found out what the A.I. Development team was up to when your brother was here three years ago. Apparently they were developing some kind of adaptable A.I., it was going to be a special software capable of running an entire diagnosis of whatever you need, it could work on any kind of technology, from laptops to even complete computer use houses.’ explained Helena almost whispering.

‘But, we don’t have any of that, all the electronic houses have very simple software, a task and process system. What they were doing, it could’ve changed a lot of things.’ processed Erik, his looked was puzzling and pensive.

‘They managed to create a small prototype, but it never got out of the Alpha release, it was ultimately scrapped. After that, the team disbanded and there was something about neuroscience, but I don’t recall.’ finished Helena.

‘You think the plaque has something to do with any of that, adaptable A.I.? It mimics the surface it touches after all.’ said Erik while he looked at the back of his phone where the plaque was.

‘I am not really sure, it behaves like a hardware rather than a software.’

Helena got up, walked towards Erik and hugged him.

‘I know all of this is frustrating, but we are going to make it through.’

‘Thanks Shine, really’

Both friends finished their meal, and now that they both got some tension out of their bodies, they decided to continue their daily studying routine.

Bureep, Bureep

It was Helena’s phone, she got a text, but it was weird, the only texts she ever got was Erik’s, Erik’s mom and her parents, but this was another number.

                             //Hi, Caitlyn here, I just wanted to

                                  let you know that Chris and

                                   I will go to the Mid-term

                           Relaxation, and we thought it would

                               be great if the four us attended.

                             We hope you can make it, bye!

Helena made a expression of weirdness, she never thought that Caitlyn would message her.

‘It’s Caitlyn, she is inviting us to the Mid-term Relaxation, she’s going with Christopher.’ explained Helena.

‘Oh that event, you want to go?’ asked Erik, if Helena wanted to go he would be ok with it, but he didn’t really liked those type of events.

‘Well, we should try to distract ourselves from all of this, I think this is a good opportunity’ said Helena, fearing Erik would say no.

Erik stayed quiet for a few seconds and then took both of Helena’s hands.

‘I guess if we are going to do this, we should do it the right way,I’ll come pick you up at 6, just be there and be you, pretty.’

Helena blushed a bit, it was the first time Erik said something like that. Erik smiled and he walked out of Helena’s room.

Erik got to his room and after a big sigh, he laid in his bed, he stayed there for a bit, everything seemed to stop and move extremely slow, and somehow  the smell came back.

Peach, cherry blossom and white jasmine.

‘Are you sure of this?’

‘I know what I want’

‘Even if that meant to know something you won’t like.’

‘I am not alone in this… I won’t drag anyone else.’

‘You’ve already done that’

‘Even if I did, I’ll keep everyone else out and safe before any of this ends’

‘You are striving for too much’

‘He would’ve done the same…’

Erik opened his eyes and stood up, he took a glance at his phone, it was 5:26pm. The new symbol was still there, Erik clicked it and a big “Installing” warning popped up. He got ready to go to that, Mid-term relaxation thing, he didn’t want to go too formal, but not entirely casual. He decided to use the Academy cardigan with a nice white shirt underneath. He decided to use a tie, it has been a while since he got to use a tie, he remembered that only once his father teached him how to tie it, it was blue with red stripes. He liked how he dressed up, which was weird since he never actually liked what he weared, it was more a matter of comfort rather than looks.

He was ready and walked out of his room, took a deep breath, tried to clear his mind and knocked on Helena’s door. He stood for about a minute and then, the door opened a little bit.

‘Erik?’ Helena asked nervously.

‘Yeah, it’s me, are you alright?’

‘Yes, is just that, I’ve never done this before’ Helena confessed trying to laugh a bit.

‘If you don’t want to go, it’s fine really.’ tried to explained Erik.

‘No, no, I want to go, is just that… just close your eyes, ok?’ said Helena almost begging for it.

Erik closed his eyes and took a step backwards. Helena opened the door slowly and looked at Erik, she was genuinely surprised, Erik looked quite good and he looked handsome.

‘I guess you can open them now’ said Helena nervously.

Erik opened his eyes, Helena was standing in front of him but she got makeup on, her eyes looked a little bit wider, her slight pink lips were of a darker pink, her hair was on a ponytail but she left some spare hair that hang up on the side of her head.

‘You look, great Shine’ said Erik smiling he turned a little bit to the side and offered her his hand. ‘Shall we?’

Helena took his hand and they both walked out the dormitories building.

The Mid-term relaxation was going to be in one of the event buildings, near the food court, it was a two floor building that had a great view of the Academy grounds.

When they arrived the place had very dim lights and there were a bunch of students outside talking and having a good time. Erik and Helena entered and what they saw surprised them. The place was full of different kind of tables and chairs, and a big table full of different kinds of food. There even was a dancing floor and the music wasn’t very loud, but you could hear it from anywhere.

‘We are here, now what?’ asked Erik.

‘I don’t… know to be honest, maybe we should try finding Caitlyn and Christopher’ proposed Helena walking and looking around.

Erik walked alongside Helena and they found Christopher and Caitlyn near the balcony on the second floor.

‘Hey, so glad you could make it guys’ said Caitlyn happily before hugging both of them.

‘Yeah, good to see you too’ said Erik.

The four of them talked for a while, they had fun and laughs, and for a few moments, Erik forgot completely about the plaque and his brother, specially with the food  it was delicious and somehow you always wanted to eat a little bit more.

Caitlyn and Christopher eventually went dancing, Helena was a little bit tired so she didn’t want to dance at the moment  but she got something else on her mind.

Helena was sat down looking at one of the tables near the dancing floor, she looked, troubled.

Erik took some drinks, apple juice for him and ice tea for Helena, and when he arrived at the table he noticed Helena was looking at something or well, someone. Across the dancing floor, at a round table,  there was black haired girl having a drink, she looked bored though.

‘You should go talk to her’ said Erik before sitting down. This made Helena jump of surprise and then she realized it was Erik, nevertheless, she blushed, a lot, even so that it was noticeable even in the dim lights of the place.

‘Am I too obvious?’ asked Helena while she took her ice tea.

‘Well, besides staring at her, you haven’t stopped playing with you hair, you do that when you are insecure about something, which you shouldn’t, you look amazing, and you are amazing, besides, she looks like she would like a good talk.’ said Erik before taking a sip of his juice.

‘I’ll do it’ said Helena, she stood up and walked towards the lonely girl.

‘Go get’em girl’ said Erik from behind her.

He looked how other people were dancing and talking, but somehow, he felt out of place. Erik stood up and walked up to the second floor, maybe some fresh air would help.

It was relatively lonely, just some people talking and enjoying the view.

Erik looked at the horizon, the air was blowing slightly and it was fresh due to the night. In the distance he was able to see some lights, probably the city, he remembered his parents, his mom was probably finishing a new chapter of her nightly reading and his dad was finishing some work before bed.

‘A great view isn’t it?’ said  womanly voice Erik didn’t recognize.

‘Yeah, I guess it is’ he answered before turning around.

‘Sorry, where are my manners, I am Scarlette’ said the brown haired girl introducing herself.

‘I am Erik’

‘Redwood? So you are the new Academy star huh? The Principals talks a lot about you and you friend.’ said Scarlette while she walked towards the edge of the balcony.

‘You are close with the Principal?’ asked Erik somehow angry, he found the Principal irritating.

‘Not exactly, I am just a S.E.A.L.P. assistant, but she always mentions you at the meetings. She always says that you are a great addition to the Academy, and that your potential shouldn’t go to waste.’

‘Let me guess, she says I should stay so the Academy can have more students like me.’ said Erik with disdain.

‘I don’t really know that, but what I know is that if the S.E.A.L.P. had someone like you  everything would be so much easier. After all, working for them was one of the best decisions of my life.’ Scarlette turned around and looked at Erik.

Erik could notice that her eyes were, somehow red, quite unusual, maybe was the lightning.

‘I don’t want to work for the Academy, nor the S.E.A.L.P., I have other plans for the future.’ Erik remembered the plaque and his brother.

‘It’s ok, I am no one to tell you what to do. Sometimes we just need the right conditions at the right moment to take a decision. It was a pleasure Erik, I hope we can talk soon’ said Scarlette before leaving the balcony.

Those words stayed in Erik’s head a while longer.

“We just need the right conditions at the right moment…��

Suddenly he felt like a bucket of cold water hit him, a realization, the plaque needed the right conditions, to be able to be used, the right angle, lightning and environment, he took his phone out and detached the plaque. When the moonlight touched it, it shined brightly, he moved it slowly until he achieved a 45° angle and the circuits started to move by themselves, it rearranged for a couple of seconds until finally it stopped, all the circuits were connected and made a complete path. On the lowest part of the plaque a small circuit was incomplete, it was just two nodes, slightly separated, Erik got his thumb closer and a small red spark shined making the circuits glow dimly.

Durum

Erik’s phone sounded, he looked at the screen, it had a message.

                           //System Synchronization complete

                                Please insert Security Module//

Erik felt as if the plaque got magnetized toward his phone, so he inserted it into the small opening where his ID was.

               //Security Module installed, running Initiative Protocol

                                      Decoder lenz...installed

                                      S.G.S. Clearance...Echo

                                     Documents integrity...27%//

Erik couldn’t believe it, he cracked open Alexander’s plaque, he immediately called Helena.

‘Shine, we did it, the plaque works’

‘You got the document?!’

‘Yes I got it, it can’t be only one, there has to be more!’

[erikredwood-21]

Caitlyn Bluefield

Being the daughter of one of the Bluefield kids, Caitlyn strives for greatness in her own unique way. Her family has always believed she is a very peculiar mixture between her father’s side cleverness and her mother’s side spontaneity, Caitlyn sometimes has eagerness towards work or just needs to be occupied on something. She once knew about someone in her family who did great things for others and their minds, so studying Psychology was a no brainer. Caitlyn strives to achieve wisdom and knowledge, but such things sometimes require of proper guidance.

[erikredwood-21]

Christopher Greensprout

Charismatic, reliable and somehow shy. Christopher is Helena’s mechatronics partner, always keeping an innovative point of view, Christopher aims to become a more productive rather than famous programmer in the applications environment. He believes the best way to change the world is to stop planning and doing it. Christopher has enough knowledge about computers to be able to hack systems in a matter of minutes, even seconds if he had already done it before. He is Caitlyn’s boyfriend, he is always trying to keep her happy and safe.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 4: There has to be more! Part 2

***This Chapter is dedicated to one of my best friends who helped me to get out of a very big writing block, thank you.***

It was approximately 4 am on a Friday, fresh and cold due to November being on its way and it had been a long night. Erik was sitting in Helena’s dining table with the small silver-ish plaque he had extracted from a book in front of him. Static, motionless and pensive, Erik stared at it.

“Evolutionary counciossness — Splicing and re-synchronizing the mind by Alexander Redwood” he was sure it must be some kind of memory or information disk, but he couldn’t use it on his laptop, nor his phone. It was the same size as his ID, but inserting it into the phone did nothing. Erik was desperate and frustrated, it was so close to something of his brother and now something was blocking his way. He decided to go sleep, maybe some rest would help him get things clearly. With the strength he had left, he picked up Helena from the couch and got her to her bed, she was a little bit smaller than him, she was heavy, but he wasn’t going to leave her there.

Erik got a small plastic box and stored the plaque in it. He left to his room and got ready to sleep. The image of the plaque still drilled his mind, he wanted to know what was it, was it one of Alexander’s works? a project? Theory? He wasn’t sure, but he knew it was important, if it wasn’t it wouldn’t have been so well hidden.

Friday

October

12am

Erik woke up at about 11 am, he had a small breakfast and got ready for his Micro-biology class, he always liked that class, it was pretty interesting. He got out of his room and thought on visiting Helena before leaving, she usually overslept on Fridays.

Erik opened the door and as soon as he looked up, a very excited happy and remarkably fresh Helena jumped in front of him.

‘Good morning!’ she almost screamed.

‘Hi, why the happy attitude?’ asked Erik, Helena usually was very sleepy in the mornings.

‘I got a very nice rest, also, why didn’t you told me what you found out? I’ve been working on it nonstop for about three hours!’ Helena was super excited.

‘Wait, you know how it works?’ asked Erik a little bit impressed.

‘Not yet, but I’ve found some really interesting things. For starters, it looks like it was made from a very adaptable material, it has photoreceptors that mimic the surface of wherever it’s standing on, look.’ Helena put the silver plaque over one of her notebooks, a blue one, and after a few seconds the plaque became the same shade of blue, almost as if it had disappeared.

‘Apparently it can mimic the shape and colour, but it can’t mimic the surface. It looks like it reacts to electronic devices though, every time I get it near my phone or my laptop, it reacts, as if it responded to it.’

Helena picked up the plaque and got it near her phone, it started moving, the small circuits started to change positions, as if it rearranged itself in some way.

‘Remarkable, have you found anything else? Is it light reactive? Maybe it rearranges itself to match some kind of wave or a specific frequency.’ Erik left his things besides the door and sat down where Helena was working and got the magnifying glass closer to him. He observed the circuits rearranging, it looked as it was completely different every time he got his phone close none of the patterns looked the same.

Helena got her laptop and started looking for anything related to what they encountered. Erik took out his lab kit and started testing the plaque, most of it seemed to be mechanical and electronic, but it behaved like a living organism, it reacted to light, heat, cold and movement.

‘Anything new?’ Helena asked from the kitchen, she got a glass of juice.

‘Not really, it seems as this thing is alive, it contracts to cold, opens up to heat, the circuits are even susceptible to gravity they glow stronger if it’s at a certain angle, this thing is fascinating.’ Erik was still impressed by that little device.

‘I haven’t found any kind of information related to it. It’s like if it was a one-of-a-kind object. Not in the Academy archives, nor the S.E.A.L.P. records, nothing.’ Helena kept writing down what she found out in her notebooks.

‘There has to be someone who knows about this, I mean, this kind of material, it’s impossible that someone made one and miraculously worked, it can’t be a prototype either, it looks really well manufactured.’ Erik stood up and got a glass of apple juice, his favourite.

Helena walked towards Erik and took the silver plaque from under his magnifying glass.

‘Hey, would you be angry if I told you I maybe told someone about this?’ asked Helena, a little bit nervous. She thought maybe Erik would like to keep this a secret, since it was something regarding his brother.

‘Well, I would not be mad, I would just ask him or her and you, to keep this in the lowest level possible, it’s the only thing we have and I wouldn’t like losing it.’ said Erik. He knew what they found was important, and of course it was something new for them, they couldn’t understand it on their own, so naturally, they would need help.

Helena took her notebooks and Erik the silver plaque, he hid it in the back side of his phone, since it could mimic its colour, it had no problem in disappearing. They made their way towards the Mechanical engineering wing, Helena knew someone who asked to see the device, they took the chance, maybe there was something for them to discover.

Erik took a small time to look for his brother’s name, just to be sure it was still there, and indeed it was, just below “Amanda Bluefare” and over “Aeborn Allen”.

‘Are you sure he will help us?’ asked Erik while they rode the elevator up to floor 3.

‘I trust him, he’s been my mechatronics partner for a while, he’s an expert in coding and loves to hack any kind of systems.’ the elevator door opened and a black-haired girl entered, she just showed Erik her hand making a number two with her fingers, Erik understood that she wanted to go to the second floor, so he pushed the button and both Erik and Helena walked out.

‘Well, where are we going to find him?’ asked Erik. The third floor was a very big space with a lot of tables and students and some places were small transparent rooms, they had a large desk and some chairs, maybe for a private class or lecture.

‘He’s always in the east wing, that’s where he likes to make homework and sometimes hack small locking mechanisms.’

Erik looked for something related to that, but he found nothing like it, he couldn’t recognize anything.

«This would be easier if it was at the labs» Erik thought, he liked the labs, he knew pretty much everyone, not personally or by name, but he knew their faces.

At that moment Erik felt how Helena walked faster toward someone, it was a skinny and tall guy, kind of slight brown and short hair, he looked like those kind of guys who like to spend time on the computer. Erik followed Helena and got closer.

‘Christopher, this is Erik, the guy I told you about.’ said Helena introducing his friend.

‘Hi, Christopher Greensprout, a pleasure, Helena has told me a lot about you, amazing what you did at the first exam, 21, wow.’

‘Erik Redwood, it was just, very serious studying really, I haven’t been able to do it again.’ said Erik while he stretched Christopher’s hand.

‘So, Helena said you got something for me? She mentioned something about a silver plaque.’

‘Yes, here it is.’ Erik took out his phone and detached the plaque. ‘We have found it can mimic the colour of whatever it’s standing on via photoreceptors, however it still keeps its shape and surface, it reacts to temperature and apparently it can’t produce textures.’ Erik gave Christopher the plaque, he took it and analyse it closely.

‘Hmm, it appears it has adaptable circuits, it changes when near heat sources right?’

‘Yes, it contracts to cold too, also at a certain angle it shines brighter, depending on the angle.’ Erik took it and moved it slightly near 45° degrees. The circuits in the plaque shine of the same shade of blue, but brighter.

‘Have you tried touching it?’ asked Christopher while he examined it in his desk.

‘You can’t, it discharges you with a very low electric charge, but it’s enough to make your finger numb.’ said Helena, she started to take out her notebooks.

Erik sat down and looked how Helena and Christopher were working together. They looked in synch, Erik hadn’t heard about Christopher before, and apparently Christopher had heard about Erik. Erik didn’t know that Helena talked about him with other people, he started to wonder about what had she talked about him, somehow it intrigued him, was it positive? Was it hate-speech? He didn’t know for certain, but he wanted to know.

‘OH MY GOD! Are you Erik Redwood?’ Erik heard from behind him, it surprised him a lot. It was a female voice, but not one he could recognize. Erik turned his head curiously and noticed a girl behind him, a pretty excited girl, she had her brown hair tied on a bun on the back of her head, she wasn’t exactly tall, maybe a little bit shorter that Helena, her facial features were sharp and very symmetrical, but what stand out the most was her eyes, they were of a very light honey, almost as drops of gold.

‘You ARE Erik Redwood, oh my god, it’s a pleasure to meet you, I can’t believe I am talking with you, sorry, how rude of me. I am Caitlyn Bluefield.’  she said while trying to keep her excitement.

‘Yeah, sorry about that, Caitlyn is my girlfriend. She’s a very active one.’ said Christopher, he smiled a lot while seeing his girlfriend.

‘It’s not my fault, you are the one who likes doing things calmly’ said Caitlyn while she took a seat at a side from Erik.

‘Yeah, anyway, you already know Erik, this is Helena Silvershine, she’s the other genius’ Helena heard that and she blushed a bit, she didn’t consider herself a genius, neither do Erik, they felt like they do a very hard studying.

‘I believe we haven’t met; Christopher mentions you quite often.’

‘Yeah, we’ve been partners for a while.’

‘What are you guys working on?’ asked Caitlyn while looking at the small silver plaque.

‘We found this, well thing, and we believe it’s alive, in some way. It reacts in the same way as a living organism would to certain stimulus.’ said Erik, immediately Caitlyn turned to look at him, her golden eyes almost shined, as the ones of a little kid getting a present for Christmas.

‘Cool. Do you know where it goes then?’ asked Caitlyn.

‘Goes? Well that would make sense, if it has a circuit line, it must connect to another device, maybe so it can be read or comprehended.’ Erik speculated, it looked pretty thin to be a just a memory drive, maybe it was some sort of key.

‘Erik, do you remember how much voltage does the body have?’ asked Helena, she was writing down in her notebook.

‘At around ten to one hundred millivolts, why?’

‘Well, to power up a single cathode on a TV you need around twelve thousand volts, and this doesn’t have any kind of resistance, if we get it inside something like that it may overcharged.’ explained Helena, she was visibly frustrated.

‘Not necessarily, our body is constantly discharging that amount of energy, it only activates whenever we touch it so, it must charge and work with that, also that would explain why it discharges you when you try touching it, it needs a way of getting rid of that extra energy, and we are natural conductors.’ said Christopher, all of it made a lot of sense. The plaque was powered by the human body itself.

‘We that would mean that only one person could activate it, right?’ asked Caitlyn. Helena nodded.

‘It also reacts to the environment; it doesn’t make sense’

‘No, it does. We know someone needs to hold it, a human, if not it would not have the necessary current or it would overcharge. It has to be used by the right person at the right time, right location and right conditions.’ said Erik. He sat down at a side from Caitlyn and took out his computer.

‘Ok, so we know it shines brighter at a 45° angle. That would mean that it needs to be at that angle, now we only need to find the right location, temperature and that should be enough for this to be activated.’

‘And what would that do?’ asked Helena, quite intrigued.

‘Well, I am not actually sure. Probably we might be able to insert it somewhere.’ Erik took the plaque again and looked at it closely. He didn’t know what was in there, he didn’t even know if he wants to know.

Erik and Helena stayed for a while with Christopher and Caitlyn, they talked for a bit and Erik got into a quite interesting conversation with Caitlyn about how some cells adapt to help other cells in their tasks.

It was getting late, and the sun was almost gone. Erik was standing near the stairs that led to the second floor with his phone in his hand. He was making it do circles using his fingers as anchor points, he was waiting for Helena, which was taking some last books to study on Monday.

Erik was still thinking on how to crack open Alexander’s document, he wasn’t certain that it was a document, but he found it at the library so he assumed it has to be something like that. It was already dark outside and the moon was high on the sky. Full moon, one of Erik’s favourite. He looked down and stared for a bit towards the plaque resting in his hand, for a while it looked exactly the same as before, but gradually it started to shine softly, the silver of the plaque was brighter.

‘Erik?’ Helena said behind him.

Erik looked at Helena and he snapped out of it, he took a small glanced of the plaque, but it remained unchanged.

‘I am fine, just a little bit tired.’ he answered trying to clear out his mind.

‘Yeah, these two days have been a lot to take in. The good thing is that the weekend is here, so, we can rest a bit.’ said Helena and she invited Erik to take her hand. He did and they started walking.

They walked out the building and made their way to the food court, they were going to have dinner but both of them decided that it was better to cook something rather than buying it. Still holding hands, Helena and Erik walked throughout the market and bought some food, cheese, ham, a few crackers and of course a small chocolate for both of them. They liked sharing that kind of stuff, they never finished one by themselves. They finally made their way to the dormitories and upon arriving Erik noticed that the usual poster of the redhead man had been replaced. There was a new announcement.

                  //Mid-term Relaxation!

        The Academy Magazine and Staff

      Invite you to our Mid-term Relaxation

    Event, with food, music and knowledge

        Everyone is invited, students and

    Professors alike, be there or be square!

It was a quite cheesy poster, but inviting regardless.

‘Huh, who would’ve thought that the Academy itself would approve of parties?’ asked Helena, she knew that the Academy had certain rules about parties.

‘They approve because it’s something they made, Shine. Also, they probably want us to have a tighter relationship with our professors.’ said Erik, he sounded, irritated.

*Bureep*

Helena’s phone received a message. She let go Erik’s hand and took her phone out. It was a message from Erik’s mom.

                  //Hi honey, hope I didn’t

          Wake you up, just checkin’ in to

          See if you guys are ok. Lots of

        Success on your exams! Good night

                           Love, Mom.

Helena smiled while reading it, it felt good to have a family, to have a mom, to know that there was someone out there that cared for you.

‘It’s your mom, she just wanted to know if we are ok… You turned off your phone Erik?’

‘Oh right, I turned it off this morning to check if inserting the plaque did something, and since we were all day together I totally forgot.’

Erik turned his phone on, a lot of notifications pop on the screen, but nothing too important. Although, Erik noticed there was a new symbol on the upper right corner, maybe an update.

They both had dinner and went to sleep. Erik stayed awake thinking about Alexander, but eventually fell asleep.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷~÷ ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷~÷ ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷~÷

‘We have to keep each student on their respective place Principal, if we don’t, god only knows what will happen.’ said a little bit angrily a suited bald man from one side of the Principal’s desk.

‘My dear Mr. Daniels, the Council has already approved my Transaction Project, this will be done with or without your cooperation.’ said the Principal without even looking Professor Daniels.

‘The S.E.A.L.P. is aware of my intentions, and I can assure you only those who are promising enough will be selected.’

‘Even with their… Flaws?’ asked Mr. Daniels now a little bit scared, something like that frighten him.

‘They are not “flaws” Mr. Daniels, they are gifts. Now if you would excuse us, my assistant and I have some issues to discuss.’

Mr. Daniels had no other option but to leave, the Principal was too stubborn to be dealt with.

‘I thought he wouldn’t leave until you gave up, Principal’ said Scarlette, she was standing next to the desk looking towards the door.

‘He can’t understand progress, Scarlette. How is the S.G.S?’

‘Fully functional and without any abnormalities to report, Principal.’ answered Scarlette, her voice and tone were oddly stiff, almost as if all sounded the same.

‘And the students?’

‘All students are under the Additive Deployment Initiative, as requested.’ answered Scarlette, yet she blinked rapidly and had to scratch her left eye a bit. The Principal noticed it and got close to Scarlette.

‘What is your dosage level Scarlette?’ asked the Principal suspiciously.

‘Current blood dosage is at 12%, Principal, I ran out this mourning’

‘Don’t make up excuses Scarlette, you know you need your dosage, without it I don’t what would be of you.’

‘Yes, Principal, it won’t happen again.’

‘I hope so, Scarlette. I really do’ said the Principal as she looked “out” the window, it was actually a big projection of the surveillance cameras of the outside view of the main dormitories. There was something going on that she felt like she had to stop, but she didn’t know what it was. She felt threatened, powerless, unprotected, it was a very particular feeling, one that she thought was gone three years ago…

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 4: There has to be more! Part 1

Scarlette was walking along a straight white hallway, it looked extremely white, but some shadows made the horizons visible. She had some files in her hand and what looked like a small plaque made of silver.

  She got to the end of the hallway and there was a black door with the initials “S.G.S.” she opened it and entered. The room was almost completely dark nothing but a single spotlight illuminating a small podium. Scarlette got closer and got onto the podium, at the moment she stood there the light turned brighter and a very slight and acute sound was heard, constant. She brought out the silver plaque and placed it on the podium, suddenly numbers appeared on the plaque “2164”.

  ‘Marlene… Can you hear me?’ asked Scarlette.

  ‘Yes, loud and clear Ms. Scarlette’ a very feminine humanlike yet electronic voice answered.

  ‘Is there anything I should know?’ asked Scarlette while opening one of the files.

  ‘Most students have been able to answer at least 5 questions, better than last year’s 2 question cap. A true achievement if I am allowed to say so. No attempts or retrievals have been reported so far.’

  ‘Show me all brain activity and any sign of development or evolution on the students’

  ‘A moment… Showing them now’

  A holographic display showed up in front of Scarlette. It was slightly transparent.

      //Brain waves………………. Normal

       Histamine…………………. Low

       Dopamine…………………. Mild-High

       Overall synapsis………. High

       Abnormalities……………Caution! //

  ‘Marlene, open the Abnormalities tab’ asked Scarlette, there was something wrong, she knew it.

  ‘As you wish’

         //Abnormalities

          E. Redwood:

              Dopamine…………. High

              Histamine…………. Very low

              Overall synapsis. Dangerously High

               S.G.S. Level………3‹&›

           H. Silvershine:

               Dopamine…………. High

               Histamine…………. Low

               Overall synapsis…High

                S.G.S Level……….3‹&›//

  ‘It appears student “E. Redwood” brain activity is dangerously high according to S.E.A.L.P. standards. S.G.S Level increment is recommended as well as additives. Regarding student “H. Silvershine” the same procedure is recommended, it is more manageable though.’ said the A.I.

  ‘Marlene, are there any signs of attempts against the S.G.S.?’

  ‘A moment… Yes, attempts against the S.G.S have been recorded from a single student in the past three months, however, there has been no notices since it hasn’t gone over any alarming rate, the best score so far since the Academy Instructional Program began has been, 18 out of 100. Raising S.G.S. levels is recommended.’

  Scarlette looked at the computer results for a moment and remembered what The Principal said.

  ‘Marlene, download to my plaque the student’s files and increase their S.G.S levels to 5.’ said Scarlette, she looked, pensive and analytical.

  ‘Files have been downloaded. S.G.S levels of students “E. Redwood” and “H. Silvershine” have been raised to 5.’

                 //Abnormalities

          E. Redwood:

              Dopamine…………. High

              Histamine…………. Very low

              Overall synapsis. Dangerously High

               S.G.S. Level………5

           H. Silvershine:

               Dopamine…………. High

               Histamine…………. Low

               Overall synapsis…High

                S.G.S Level……….5//

  ‘Good, keep me noticed on those two and start the A.D.I.’

  ‘Additive Deployment Initiative initiated.’

  ‘Log off Marlene’

  ‘Ms. Scarlette, my scans indicate that the concentration of your dosage in your blood had decreased dramatically. Would you like me to restock you?’

  ‘Yes, and restock my room too’

  ‘As you wish Ms. Scarlette, logging off’

  |•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|•|

  It was Thursday, another day of going back and forth between laboratories, classrooms and other places. Masses of students walking, having lunch, studying or doing homework, all of them in a controlled environment.

Between all of them, a blonde girl with a large scarf, Helena, was sitting near one of the edges of the high park segment. She was drinking a hot chocolate, while looking at the Bio-technology and Laboratories building. She had her phone looking at the building, magnifying the image of the entrance. She was expecting something.

«Curious, Erik should be out by now» she thought as she took a sip from her hot chocolate, it was pretty sweet and made her feel warm and cosy inside.

Helena kept looking for Erik, but he was nowhere to be found, this irritated her a little bit, almost as if she was eager to see him.

Helena stopped using her phone as a magnifying glass and opened her laptop, she entered the Student Class Platform, it was a special software developed to be able to track students inside The Academy, something like a GPS tracker since the ID’s had one as well as the Academy cell phones. Erik was still inside the Bio-technology and Laboratories building, no big surprise, but he had been there for at least 3 hours, which was weird, he usually got out early.

  Helen noticed more people were walking out the building, she took her things and walked down to find Erik. There weren’t as much students as they were used to, most of them were inside since the weather was cold and a lot of events were on the making, so most places were closed.

  Helena got to the front yard of the Bio-technology and Laboratories, between the bunch of people she was able to find Erik. He was wearing a lab coat, probably because of the Laboratory class he had. She quickly walked towards him, her laptop in her bag and her hot chocolate still in her hand.

  ‘Hi, everything alright?’ asked Helena finally in front of him.

  ‘Hello, yes, I am fine, is just that, the Professor explained some topics about the gene splicer. How are you?’ Erik hadn’t seen Helena since the morning, Thursday was a busy day for both of them, and even though it was already 3pm they still got things to do.

  ‘That’s great, actually, I got something I have to show you’ Helena quickly grabbed Erik’s hand and walked out the front yard with him, she was walking rather fast. Erik wasn’t exactly sure what did she want to show him.

They walked through the engineering courtyard and into the Mechanic Technology department. Most of the students there were talking or working, but Erik noticed that most of them had a lot of text and different kind of numbers on their laptops screen.

  ‘Here, look!’ said Helena suddenly stopping and pointing towards a mural that had a lot of names in it.

  Erik looked at it, but he couldn’t find anything.

  ‘What is it? There are just a bunch of names’

  ‘Look closely, here, at “A.I. Development”’ Helena pointed to a small tab that had "A.I. Development” and below the list of names went on.

Erik read each name, some of them were curious, but ultimately only one caught his attention.

  ‘He was here…’ said Erik, a small smile was drawn in his face.

  Not so far below from the tab name, approximately 11 names, there was one that now looked like it shined.

                  “Amanda Blueflare

                Alexander Redwood

                 Aeborn Allen”

  ‘Your brother was here, I found his name while looking for a friend’s name, apparently he was part of the "A.I. Development” team.’

Helena was admiring Erik’s reaction, he looked so happy.

  ‘I knew there had to be something about him.’ there was solid evidence that Alexander, Erik’s brother had been in the Academy. This made Erik feel incredible, it was like finding gold, if his name was there, he was sure that his information or anything like that was inside the Academy.

  ‘If his here, that means there has to be something about him at the library in any of the Student Identification section.’

  ‘We could go search there tonight, but there’s only a small problem…’ said Helena.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Most of that area is restricted, and we don’t have the necessary security credentials to enter there, we are just students’ somehow, this made Helena sad, she found something important to Erik, yet that was all.

  ‘We just need to find a professor who’s willing to let us access the Security Credentials, I have to know how he got out of here’ Erik was determined to find anything related with Alexander, especially if it was something they could tell him where he was and what he did to get out.

  Both of them walked out the building, Helena got one class left, but finding out more about Alexander was more important. They went to Helena’s room, most of their things were there, Erik took off his lab coat and put on his hoodie. Helena brought out her laptop as soon as she arrived and started to run a search through the library database, maybe a result might pop up.

  ‘I’ll go see Professor Jennifer, she might be willing to let me access the Security Credentials, if something comes up, let me know. We are so close Shine, so close.’ Erik busted out the room without before kissing Helena’s forehead. More about his brother was at his reach.

  Students were walking left and right, moving like a big fluid, which was funny because earlier Erik read about that any organism, if there are enough of it, move and behave like a liquid to certain stimuli.

Professor Jennifer was her Genetics and Micro-biology teacher, and she also ran most of the Biology programs at the Academy. According to Erik, she must be on a break near the laboratories, he once helped her to move some things there.

Erik ran as fast as he could all the way back to the Biology front yard. He spotted Professor Jennifer in one of the benches near the big fountain, she had her black hair in a bun in the back of her head and as always a pair of what looked scramblers from the laboratory keeping all of it together.

  ‘Professor Jennifer’

  ‘Oh, hi Erik, do you need something?’ asked the professor.

  ‘Yeah, there is something I would like to research in the library, but I am afraid I need Security Credentials to have access to the entire information.’ said Erik while he sat down in front of the professor.

  ‘Hmm, what kind of research would you do? Although, I only have Alpha Clearance, just a little bit’ the professor voice was soft and somehow sweet, as if she was made for teaching.

  ‘I think that would be enough right? I just need access to the Student Identification section’ this immediately set off professor Jennifer.

  ‘Erik, that information is restricted for a reason, there is nothing you can do about it, now forget about it, ok? Even if I gave you my Security Credentials you wouldn’t have access to it, only The Principal or her subordinate have access to it.’

  Erik’s hope went down a bit, only The Principal had access to that information, and he didn’t want to deal with her, Erik said goodbye to Professor Jennifer and went back to Helena’s room.

  ‘Got any luck?’ asked Helena as soon as she saw Erik open the door.

  ‘Not exactly, Professor Jennifer only has Alpha Clearance so, that’s a no go, but she had an odd reaction when I told her what I wanted to do. She told me that the information is restricted for a reason and that I should forget it, but I know they are hiding something from me, I don’t know what or why, but I am pretty sure they are afraid of what I could find there.’ Erik looked disappointed, finally a clue of his brother showed up and now it was gone.

  ‘Anyway, something up with the database?’

  ‘Well, I ran the scan through the entire library, and I found around a hundred results, but now it only throws me two of them, the one we already saw at the Mechanical Technology department and another one at the Students Aisle, we should go take a look’

  It was probably the time they got to the library the fastest, the Academy archives and referential were on the last floor so an elevator ride was pretty much the only option they had. Upon arrival, the floor was almost empty, just a few students either reading something or just talking. It had a large and very high stands were tons of books and other documents were alphabetically organized.

  Helena took out her phone and synchronized it with her laptop back at her room.

  ‘Here, it should be at the “E” we are looking for “Evolutionary counciossness — Splicing and re-synchronizing the mind by Alexander Redwood”, sounds pretty confusing.’ said Helen while walking through the aisles of books.

  Erik searched vigorously through the section, looking at every title and reference he could find, but he couldn’t find anything, the only thing close to it was a thick book, “Evolutionary stances in the human mind–By Dr. Martin”.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s not here.’ Erik searched the entire “E” section, but no trace of it.

Erik had taken Dr. Martin’s book from its place, it was very thick and heavy, a bit too heavy in fact.

  ‘Why you have that?’ asked Helena.

  ‘It was the only thing I found about mind evolution, but it’s not Alexander's’ Erik opened it to have a look at it, nothing was wrong or different, but it had a very small inscription in one of the edges below. “A.R.” it was very close to the edge of the book.

  ‘Let’s get out of here’ said Erik, a little worried.

  ‘What? Why? We have to find the document.’

  ‘Yes I know, let’s go’ Erik took Helena and registered the book as a rental in his ID. They walked out as fast as they could and as soon as they were outside Erik explained to Helena.

  ‘Here, look, it has Alexander’s initials near the corner’ Erik showed her the inside cover of the book. It looked really old and the initials where like a small stamp of an inky blue-ish shade.

  ‘I think he hid something here; I don’t know why but this is better than nothing.’ said Erik.

  Helena grabbed Erik’s face gently, she looked into his eyes.

  ‘We don’t know what we are going to find we don’t even know if it’s going to be relevant. Just promise me you are not going to do anything stupid if this leads us to something, ok?’ the concern for Erik could be noticed from Helena’s eyes.

  ‘I promise Shine’ Erik wasn’t obsessed he was curious, and he wasn’t going to do anything to put himself or most importantly Helena at risk.

  They went back to Helena’s room and started analysing the book. It was pretty thick but they couldn’t find anything related to Alexander.

  Erik stared at the book a few minutes, looking at every little detail it had, until he found something. Even though the pages were already getting yellow due to the age of the book, the cover looked, rather new, it had no visible scratches or pressure points of any kind. Erik decided to remove the cover.

With a small knife Erik made a small cut near the initials and noticed the cover was tightly secured, but it wasn’t glued to the rest of the book. He almost jumped of excitement, but Helena was already asleep in the couch. Erik proceeded to remove the cover entirely, but nothing could be seen. Erik had an idea and turned off almost all the lights on the room, and with the help of a night lamp he observed the cover with the light going through. One of the edges was slightly more opaque than the other ones, and it was more solid than the rest of the cover. He found there was something attached to the cover like a transparent sticker, so he took it out, and in the moment it got detached from the cover, it immediately turned off a silver colour with strange circuit like lines. It had something written in one of the edges in a very small and dark font.

“Evolutionary counciossness — Splicing and re-synchronizing the mind by Alexander Redwood”

[erikredwood-21]

Scarlette

Finally Assigned to assist the Principal, Scarlette is a well known student around the oldest and most dedicated professors and students at the Academy and the S.E.A.L.P. She now has access to The Principal’s files and keeps everything in it’s place academically and officially when The Principal is not in the Academy.

Scarlette is fully concentrated on following the regimes and orders of the S.E.A.L.P. as well as running any kind of test and being the one that is in charge of the Security graduation system.

[erikredwood-21]

The Principal

Headmaster and incredibly resourcefull, The Principal keeps the Academy running tight, she keeps information of every student and from every promising addition. Her goal is to keep the Academy running as much as possible and one day become the First Leader of the S.E.A.L.P. Council.

With her newly acquired right hand Scarlette, The Principal will keep a really close look to any promising individual inside the Academy, and will encourage anyone that would like to aid or make the Academy a better place, on her own terms of course.

Recently she’s been developing a transition program to permit other kind of students into the Academy, she believes some people have a very special and unexploited potential that could be a very fine addition to even the S.E.A.L.P.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 3: Hey, I have something to ask you...

It had been about two months since Helena and Erik decided to study along the beginners, at first there was, of course, the usual mumbling or the expectation that either Redwood or Silvershine would answer a difficult question or solve a complicated problem, that was in classes where both of them attended, which they were a lot, except those of biology and genetics that Erik chose and Helena’s technology and robotics class, but everyone grew up to know that neither Erik or Helena were different. Both of them stayed together of course, lunch time was a must go for both of them, that was the time when they could talk about a book or something of interest, Helena was interested in Erik’s family, but she wasn’t exactly very open about it.

  Most of the students spent their time at the main library or by the food court, and despite having variety, there were some small markets which sell ingredients, vegetables and other grocery items. Due to this, they usually enjoyed a homemade meal.

  Erik had been thinking on taking the test again, and he did, a couple of times, but the problem was that he couldn’t get over question number 15. Helena reserved herself to study and reading, sometimes she would fell asleep over Erik’s shoulder at their dormitories while they studied.

  It was Friday morning, quite fresh to say the least, Erik was reading “Essentials of Genetics and Mutations” he was sitting in one of the tables outside the food court drinking a chocolate milk. He had been there for about ten minutes, on Fridays he had Micro-biology early in the mourning and Helena didn’t have a lesson until two hours later, they almost always woke up at the same time, but this time Erik decided to let Helena sleep a while, she had been working a lot lately.

  Erik always focused almost completely on reading, his expression was vague, he wasn’t angry, but it looked like he couldn’t smile. He stopped reading and looked towards the main dormitories walkway and saw Helena with her side bag walking towards him, she had her hair in a ponytail and was wearing almost the entire Academy uniform, she likes that kind of clothing.

  ‘Good morning Erik’ Helena said while she approached to take a seat.

  ‘Good morning girl’ Erik said, he got a little bit more comfortable.

  ‘Huh, you’re wearing my hoodie’ noticed Erik, since Helena indeed was wearing his blue hoodie, probably because he left it at her room.

  ‘Yes, it is really comfortable, now I get it why you always wear them’

  ‘Yeah, today I am wearing the Academy’s cardigan, but I really like those hoodies’ explained Erik as he got a hold of his drink.

  ‘Have you got enough study today? Remember you have that small test about chromosomes’ Helena said, she worried about Erik’s studying as much as hers.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been reading all mourning, and also yesterday, I think I got this’

  ‘Have you got any breakfast yet?’ Helena asked while she opened her bag.

  ‘Yeah, I did, actually talking about that…’ Erik moved a bit to the right and took something from beside him, it was brown bag, it looked quite bulky.

At that moment Helena’s eyes almost glow, she got quite excited, like a little girl getting a surprise present at Christmas.

  ‘How did you get it? I thought they stopped selling it a week ago!’ Helena quickly took the bag and opened it, inside there was a small food box with a slice of strawberry cake. Helena took a bite as soon as she saw it, she adored that cake since the day she tried it a month ago, apparently it was a limited time dessert.

  ‘Thank you so much, how did you get it?’ asked Helena while she took another bite.

  ‘Well, yesterday I helped Mr. Ramon with a physics lesson and I saw he had the cake in the fridge, I asked him if I could have it, and he said yes. Actually, I was worried that you would find out, but when I got to your room you were already asleep, over your Latin etymology book, but asleep.’

  Helena’s expression changed rapidly, from a happy and excited one to a realized and worried state.

  ‘Oh god, I forgot, yesterday we were supposed to watch Pushing Daises together, I am so sorry I was so tired and I got stuck and…’ Erik had told Helena about a series he liked, Pushing Daises, it was the story of a man who could revive someone by touching it and he revived his young time love.

  ‘Hey, Helena, it’s ok, don’t worry, honestly I prefer you sleep instead of having to watch a tv series when you are dying from sleep’

  At that moment Erik’s phone rang, he had just a few minutes to get to his exam. He took his things and stood up.

  ‘Got to go, see you later Shine’ he said just before kissing Helena’s forehead and walking out the food court.

  Erik made his way across different groups of students, somewhere talking, others making homework and others just chilling in the mourning. He studied a lot for the test, he knew it wasn’t the one hundred question exam but he was sure that at least one of those questions was going to be there. Most of the classroom were filled with different kinds of students, some older than others and very few had a small group of students, the smallest one was of only ten people.

  Erik entered his classroom and took the front seat near the door, most people liked sitting in the back. The professor entered and handed over to everyone a single piece of paper, it had only 30 questions, but most of them where very specific ones, you had to really pay attention to what you read in order to remember the answers. After half an hour Erik finished his exam and stood up, handed it and walk to the door. Behind it there was the Principal, with her pointy glasses and short black hair.

  ‘Mr. Redwood, quite on time, the exam was easy for you I reckon?’

  ‘Well, it was simple’ said Erik, the exam wasn’t that hard, but the kind of questions were tricky and misdirecting.

  ‘Good, please Mr. Redwood, I’ve come to make you a proposal, one that you are going to find difficult to evade’ the Principal said, with a somehow mischievous look.

  ‘Let me guess, you want me to become a professor here, without having to graduate and forget about the exam. Well, my answer is the same as before, no, thank you, have a nice day Principal’ said Erik before walking beside the tall woman and going downstairs. He walked out the building, the Principal had asked him that before, she insisted on him staying in the Academy, she offered a job, money and a place to stay but he refused.

  Erik’s phone made a bell noise and he checked on it. It was a message from Helena.

  //Hey, genius. Lunch at my dorm?

  Erik typed “Sure” and send it, he made his way to the main dormitories building. He liked Fridays, it was the least busy day for both of them, they were free at around 1pm, so they got time to talk or read or study together.

In one of the windows facing outwards of the main dormitories building there was that same poster. “Ace that test. Ace life” with the same red head man in the front. Beside it there was a new poster, with gold and dark purple stripes.

                    Homecoming Packs!!

Remember that this weekend you’ll receive a pack from your folks! It’s something to remind you of home and to remember why you are here. The packs should be delivered at your dorm door. Got any questions? Ask at the Principal’s office or at Orange Point!

  Erik finished reading and immediately imagined his mom stuffing a bunch of things inside a big box. It was a funny picture. He thought on asking on Orange Point, the main information office, about the delivery time, but the poster said on weekend so he assumed it would be on Saturday or Sunday.

Erik entered the main dormitories building and entered Helena’s room. She wasn’t on sight, but the delicious smell of cheese and cream winded up on the entire room. Erik took his shoes off and left his things besides the door. He assumed Helena would be at her bedroom so he just entered in the kitchen to see what she was cooking. It was a three cheese pasta, it smelled extremely tasty and creamy.

  ‘Sorry, I had to arrange some things, but the food is almost ready.’ said Helena while she entered the living room from her bedroom.

  ‘It’s ok, don’t worry. It smells great, is it a new recipe?’ asked Erik while he looked for some dishes.

  ‘Yes, I saw it on a blog, and thought it would taste good.’ Helena answered, although her tone was a little bit off, she wasn’t as happy as she was earlier and certainly there was something going on.

  They sat at the table in front of each other and Erik couldn’t resist himself.

  ‘Is everything ok?’ he asked, clearly worried.

  ‘I’m fine, really, you should eat, it could get cold.’ Helena answered while she rested her arm in the table, straighten up towards Erik.

Immediately Erik took Helena’s hand.

  ‘Shine, I know you are not ok. What is it?’

  Helena tighten her grip softly against Erik’s, she had something bothering her, something important.

  ‘Do you remember that I told you about that message I always get at the same time, everyday?’

  ‘Yes, apparently it’s from your parents, right?’ asked Erik. Helena didn’t like talking about her family, she always avoided the subject, but know it looked like she needed to talk about it.

  ‘Well, I just checked my messages, expecting to find it just unread, but I found nothing, it wasn’t sent. I mean, I felt relieved when I saw it stopped, but now…’

  ‘You are preoccupied?’ asked Erik completing Helena’s sentence.

  ‘I am, really preoccupied, I mean I know that maybe that’s a pre-recorded message, but now I feel like something is off, or wrong’ Helena’s expression was sad now. It looked like it wasn’t a big deal, but it was.

  ‘Look, I am not sure if it’s a pre-recorded message or not, but what I know, is that either way, they took the time of doing it, you know?’ pointed out Erik, and that was true, for all he knew they could have forgotten about their daughter and carry on with their life’s.

  ‘That… May be true, they probably did it to compensate…’ Helena said.

  Erik looked at her with a troubled face. Compensate? Compensate for what?

  ‘You know, my parents aren’t like, the best parents there are. They are always working and before getting here, they already were a vague memory to me…’ Helena stood up and walked towards her window, outside they were other students in the gardens and the sky was clear of clouds.

  ‘I am not even sure if I’ll get something from them… It’s not like they’ll remember me anyway.’

  Helena walked back to the dinner table and sat down.

  ‘Sorry for just complaining, let’s eat, I am fine.’

  ‘Hey, you don’t always complain, it’s something that is bothering you, and I am going to do everything I can to help you.’ said Erik. Helena smiled a bit, she liked Erik’s company, he made her feel safe and somehow managed to make her stay at the Academy a bit more pleasant.

  ‘Thank you, really thank you so much’ said Helena.

  ‘Anytime girl’

  They had lunch and then started their usual routine of studying. It mostly consisted of one of them asking the other a bunch of questions from a designated subject that way they could keep track what they were missing and what needed more study.

  ‘Finally, what is the name of the pigment that appear in Salmon’s making them of an orange colour?’ asked Erik while he sat on the couch, Helena was standing in front of him walking side to side, she tended to focus more that way.

  ‘It gives a yellow-reddish colour, it was a keto-carotenoid, it can be found in shrimps and yeast… Astaxanthin.’

  ’Yep, that’s correct. I think that’s enough biology for a Friday.’ said Erik closing his book and putting it on the side table next to the couch.

  Helena sighed relieved, they were difficult questions and she got most of them right, she was tired from reading and remembering them all. She laid down with her head over Erik’s legs and her legs hanging from the other side of the couch.

  ‘I don’t want to know anything about the body or biological processes at least for a day.’ said Helena while Erik gently combed her hair with his hand.

  ‘Yeah, we’ve been studying a lot this week…’ said Erik while he looked towards the window. Since it was Friday and the weekend was close, shops were 24/7. And that gave him Erik an idea.

  ‘Shine… Would you like to go to the movies?’ Erik asked.

  ‘That’s right, we have a cinema right? I didn’t remember. What would you like to watch?’ Helena asked looking at him from below.

  ‘I don’t know, it’s just that, I think we should enjoy a bit of free time now and then, don’t you think?’ Erik was still combing Helena’s hair, he liked doing that, it was relaxing and her blonde hair was extremely soft and thin.

  ‘It should be fun, tell you what, let’s go see if there’s a movie we would like watching and if there isn’t we can always grab some sinner and come back here.’ Helena was right, they had no curfew or anything like that, they had been working very hard, they should get some fun.

  ‘Sounds like a plan’

  Both of the friends got up and got ready, they walked out the main dormitories building and made their way to the plaza. It was getting dark and the temperature dropped a little bit, but it was bearable.

  ||||||||||||||||||||~| ||||||||||||||||||||~| ||||||||||||||||||||~| ||||||||||||||||||||~| ||||||||||||||||||||~| ||||||||||||||||||||~|

  ‘So, what did he say?’ asked eagerly one of the two women in the room, the one that was sitting on the desk of the office, she was small and with a large brown braid.

  ‘He said no, again, I think we are going to need to take care of him ourselves’ said the Principal, before turning around to look into the other woman.

  ‘I hope it works, the other kid gave us a lot of trouble. We still can’t find him.’ said the other woman, she stood up and got near one of the bunch of filers stick to the walls. She touched gently a small panel and it opened up, revealing a bunch of files.

All of them were neatly organized and in different thickness, she got one of the thinnest ones out and handed it to the principal.

  ‘Here, it’s all we got from the previous one, maybe this one won’t turn rogue.’

  ‘Scarlette, keep everything running smoothly, the S.E.A.L.P. Council would like to hear about this.’ ordered the Principal, her usual “Happy” expression was gone, she had a determined look.

  ‘Of course Principal, I’ll keep everything as you like.’

  •••••••••••••••••••~• •••••••••••••••••••~• •••••••••••••••••••~• •••••••••••••••••••~•

  Erik and Helena were on their way back to the dormitories, they watched a classic horror movie “Poltergeist”, Erik liked those kind of films because it wasn’t a slasher, slashers like “Friday the 13th” or “Nightmare on Elm street” were bloody and full of jumps cares, the excitement and fear they were supposed to provide burned easily and was in some way, comical. Helena on the other hand, liked those movies, but just some very specific ones, she believed that if the correct events occurred she could get involved in a similar situation.

  They were holding hands, they liked doing that, both of them felt safe. It considerable colder than before and the sky was dark with a few stars on top, so they walked only with the light from the street lamps.

  Erik was explaining something to Helena about how the Slasher movies were not very exciting until Helena’s phone made that dinstinctive message sound.

  ‘It’s the same daily message!’ she said surprised.

  ‘That’s odd, it’s way past 8pm, maybe they remembered now…’

  ‘Or the pre-recorded system restarted…’ said Helena in a sad way. Her parents were very busy people, after all, they developed most of the electronics devices used in the Academy after all.

  ‘Besides, tomorrow it’s the Homecoming Pack day, and I really doubt they’ll send anything, they don’t have time for it… Actually they don’t want to have time for it anyway.’

  Erik let her hand go to hug her while they walked, she rested her head in his shoulder. It had to be hard for her, her parents were hardly around and now she was stuck here, depending on her knowledge to be able to get out of the Academy.

They both entered Helena’s room and Erik took his stuff to get back to his room.

  ‘Goodnight Shine, everything is going to be fine.’ claimed Erik and then he kissed her forehead, Helena had the perfect height for that.

  Erik went back to his room and prepared to sleep, but he remembered something, a few days ago he promised her mom that he would call her before Saturday. He took out his phone, it looked different that when he first got it since Helena made a few arrangements to it, it wasn’t transparent anymore it had a dark colour now and doing as specific movement unlocked it, only Helena and Erik knew it, he looked for her mom’s number and dialled it.

  “Hello, Erik?” asked her mom, somehow surprised.

  ‘Hi mom, you said that if I could I gave you a call, so, what’s up?’

  “Yes, yes, of course, it’s about this Pack thingy, would you like something in specific moon pie?”

  'Well, not really I would like anything you could send me, I don’t know whatever you find it’s good for me’

  “All right dear, and how you’ve been? Are you studying hard?”

  'Yeah, yeah, you remember that girl I told you about, Helena? Well we’ve been studying together, she’s a really smart one.’

  “Good dear, well, I got to go, and you should rest too”

  ’Hey, I have something to ask you…’

  Erik finished talking with her mom and when he hung up, the image of her face was in his mind, he missed her, but the Academy was the law.

  Erik went to sleep not before he shut down his laptop and charge his phone. He was tired.

  3 am…

  Erik heard a small noise that woke him up, and at one side of his bed there was a figure he couldn’t identify, so he moved his head upwards.

  ‘Erik... can I sleep with you?’

  Immediately he knew who was, it was Helena. She sounded scared.

  ‘The movie doesn’t let you sleep right?’ asked Erik dragging his words.

  ‘Get in Shine, you should rest. Don’t worry I am here with you.’ Erik said while lifting up his covers so Helena could have laid in.

  She did and faced Erik.

  ‘I am sorry; I woke you up’ Helena said softly.

  'It’s ok, now let’s sleep.’

  Helena got more comfortable and Erik as well, Erik decided to stay awake long enough for Helena to sleep and then he let himself go and fall into a deep sleep.

  Saturday

10am

  Erik was wearing his blue hoodie and was walking between a bunch of other students, they were all going to the Homecoming Pack event, there was going to be music, food and activities, the perfect place to not be there. He walked on a line just for a while, behind him in the line there were two girls who giggled at mostly everything, quite curious. He got the table were everyone was getting their pack and gave his ID to the guy on the desk, he walked back and through a small search he found Erik’s package and gave it to him.

  Erik rushed back to his room expecting to find Helena still asleep.

He opened the door and found the blonde haired hair having a small breakfast, on the kitchen table. She looked great to just been waking up.

  ‘Mourning, Shine, you got a nice sleep?’ asked Erik trying to distract Helena from the package he was carrying.

  ‘Mourning, yes, thanks for last night, and sorry if I bothered you’

  ‘What? No, no, it’s fine, anytime you like, really’ said Erik, he liked that sensation of having someone by his side, even sleeping.

  ‘Oh, you got your pack… That’s… Nice’ Helena really looked sad.

  ‘Well, actually, WE got our packs’ said Erik while he revealed two boxes, one labelled “For Erik” and another one “For Helena”.

  The face of the blonde girl burst with surprise, a then sudden excitement. She received something, a physical thing, not just a bunch of 1 and 0 that made a message. She took the box Erik was handing to her and looked at it. She noticed that the note that said “For Helena” was in a light pink post-it note.

  ‘But how?’ asked Helena, trying to hide her excitement.

  ‘Yesterday I called my mother, and I noticed that not receiving something was really affecting you and, well, I thought I could do something about it. I don’t like seeing you sad, your smile keeps me happy.’

  Helena giggled a little, she thought that what Erik was saying was sincere, and nice, she liked it.

She couldn’t resist and opened the box, inside there was a pair of sweaters, some strawberries sweets, a bunch of school supplies, around 150 dollars and a letter.

The letter was carefully folded and inside a white envelope, she took it out and opened it to read it.

  “Dear Shine,

You probably don’t know us, but we know you. Erik has told us about you almost since the day he met you, and from all the things he said it sounds like you are such a unique individual. Helena, you are a great girl, a very smart one and any parent should be proud of having you as a daughter. We know this may sound a little odd, but if you ever need any parent guidance, or something of that nature, please do not hesitate turning to us for help. Thank you for being who you are, and for being Erik’s friend.

  We love you, your parents in time.”

  Helena couldn’t keep tears from falling from her eyes. It was the first time she ever felt a part of a family, the first time she ever felt love from a mother. She looked Erik and hugged him as tight as she can.

  ‘Thank you’

  ‘You deserve a family Shine’

  Erik knew it was something Helena had forever craved for, of course it wasn’t her real family but Erik always believed that family wasn’t necessarily the ones with you shared blood with.

[erikredwood-21]

Chapter 2: He's a legend...

‘Come with me, I know where your room is, it’s the only other one I’ve seen they’ve prepared.’ Said Helena after seeing Erik finally smile.

  ‘Oh, yeah, thanks’ said Erik. Helena took her stuff from the table she was having tea and walked up on the long and white stairs that lead to the dormitories. Erik followed her, they walked up on the long and white set of stairs, the air current made it possible to Erik to smell Helena’s perfume, it was a very nice and enjoyable combination of rose petals essence and a very slight yet noticeable dash of vanilla. They got to the peak of the stairs, in front of it was a large and quite wide hallway with a red carpet, and a bunch of beige doors side to side over the walls.

  ‘So Erik, can you tell me something about yourself?’ Helena asked nicely while they walked together through the empty hallway.

  ‘Sure, hmm, but well what would you like to know?’ Erik asked her, he wasn’t exactly sure what did Helena wanted to know, he didn’t want to say something out of place or weird.

  ‘Well, tell you what, I’ll tell you something about myself and then you can tell me something of the same kind or pretty close to what I told you, ok?’

  ‘Ok, seems fair.’

  Helena adjusted her walk so she was exactly beside Erik so they could comfortably talk, and easily synchronized her walking speed with his. Erik, had his hands in his trousers pockets, and Helena behind her back, yet both of them got close to make the talking business easier.

  ‘Well, let’s see… yes, I know. I like reading, a lot, mostly adventure and mysterious genre. I love all types of music, especially classical music and any kind of ballad. My favourite colour is purple or light pink. Well, how about you?’

  Helena asked Erik, the tone of her voice was, impressively pleasant to hear, it was soft and somehow melodic, Erik thought that he could listen to her talking for hours without getting tired.

  ‘Ok, so about books, I love reading, any kind of book is good, to be honest, but I enjoy reading novels of any kind and any scientific topic, especially dinosaurs, I find them really interesting. My favourite colour is dark blue.’ The conversation made Erik feel a little bit more comfortable, for a moment he forgot about everything, the exam, his brother, the Academy, the questions, it was just both of them.

  They talked for a bit until Helena stopped in front of room #1456.

‘This is my room, number 1455 is yours, try sliding your ID near the door knob, and you’ll hear a small mechanism…’ she explained while she did the same things she was explaining. ‘… and then, you should be able to open it. Go on, try it on your door.’

  Erik took out his cell phone, and did what Helena instructed him, the door made a small noise, like the one that a clock do when working, and it opened slightly. Erik turned around to face Helena.

  ‘Thank you, seriously for everything.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we are basically roomies right? Well, I guess you are tired, so go get some rest.’ Said Helena very cheerfully.

  ‘I will, you should rest too, goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight’ said Helena before closing her door and leaving Erik to rest.

  Erik entered the room and turned on the lights, what he saw really surprised him. It was literally a small apartment. At one side of the door there was some shelves and a place to put shoes or umbrellas for easy access before leaving, as well as some hangers for jackets and bags. At the end of that small entrance hallway, there was a small kitchen with an oven and a small counter. Behind that there was a small table, for a maximum of four people and in front of that there was a medium sized couch with a wide TV in front. Erik took off his side bag and hang it in one of the hangers near the door, he took his shoes off as well and walked to inspect the small apartment, it had a very wide space for activities.

  At one side of the mini living room he had, there was a door, Erik opened it and inside there was his bedroom. It had a big bay window with a view of the Academy green areas, then there was his bed, an individual one and next to it there was a wooden desk with special shelves for papers, pencils and a charging station for his laptop and phone. And finally the bathroom, it wasn’t very big, but it had a comfortable shower and a big mirror.

  Erik couldn’t believe all of it, it was basically perfect. He took off his cardigan and left it over the chair of his desk, he looked around and found his luggage under the bed, but it was empty, all of it. Maybe it was already in the different shelves and the wardrobe, and indeed it was there, neatly organized. Erik laid down on his bed and fell asleep almost instantly, his mind was overwhelmed and he was fatigued, so falling asleep wasn’t a problem at all.

  ~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•

  When Helena closed the door of her room she sighed loudly, like a big and heavy charge has leaved her shoulders. She was really eager to meet the master mind that was able to get that score on the test, she craved for knowledge and so, if there was someone that surpassed the record that was established ten years ago, of course she was going to be nervous when meeting him.

  She left her side bag next to the door and took of her shoes. Walked to her room and changed her clothes to ones more comfortable. She wasn’t tired at all, but it was getting late so she prepared her bed and laid down. Helena always read or listened to music before sleeping, so she brought out her cell phone to catch up on her novel, but she got a messages from her mom, which it was really strange, she never got one of those, and we she got one it was something really important, she had to read it and answer before sleeping. She clicked the notification and a text box popped up.

//Would you like to

read the email, reply to

it or delete it? //

>Read >Reply >Delete

  Helena pressed the “Read” option and hoped it wasn’t any non-sense, again.

  “Helena, your father and I hope you are learning what is necessary. Do your best.

Love, parents”

  Helena sighed loudly, she had more than 100 messages exactly the same. It appeared as if the message was programmed to be sent every day at the same time always.

Helena ignored her phone for a moment, she got up her bed and walked to her window. She had a view of the main building and the concrete walkway from the dormitories to it. She was able to notice how it was about to start raining, clouds in the sky, slightly powerful wind and a noticeable temperature drop. Helena liked watching the rain fall down, as well as the snow. She looked out her window for a few moments before returning to bed. She left her phone in the charging station and said almost mumbling before falling asleep. ‘Only if it was real…’

  The next day…

  At about 7:45 the phone started to make a slight noise and vibrate, that caused a very distinguishable and annoying knock to be heard in almost the entirety of the room.

Helena quickly made it stop, she woke up not exactly happy about it and went straight to take a shower.

She put on the Academy purple skirt, a white blouse and a pair a lovely light pink converse shoes. She liked those a lot, they were comfortable and of her favourite colour.

  Helena gather her studying things and was ready to go, but before opening the door of her room, she remembered about Erik, he probably still got many questions.

  > She thought to herself before opening the door to go get something to eat.

  Erik got up relatively early, it was about 8 o'clock when he was ready looking at the contents of his bag. The Academy gave him three blank notebooks, a bunch of pens and pencils as well as other school supplies. Erik thought that maybe he got a schedule or that he was going to be late for his first class, so he stepped out the room.

Erik got the idea of going to the Main building to see if any schedule was up or something.

  Everything was as quiet as the day before, as if that place was completely isolated. Erik locked his room and was about to head downstairs when he saw Helena on her phone at the stairs.

He still felt odd at the place, something was out of place, but he thought maybe that was because it was something completely different from what he usually does.

  ‘Good morning Helena’ he greeted when he found her, Erik found Helena aesthetically pleasant.

  ‘Good morning, how are you today?’ she asked happily while she turned to face him.

  ‘Good, I think, I still got a few questions, but I guess time will answer them…’

  ‘I can help, go on ask me something, maybe I know what you want to know.’ proposed Helena, she wanted to be useful.

  ‘Oh ok, well, do you know if we have a schedule or something like that?’

  ‘Hmm, not exactly, I asked as soon as I got here, to be ready, but there is none. Tell you what, let’s go get some breakfast and I’ll tell you more’ Helena was hoping that Erik would agree, she found him interesting, and wanted to know a little bit more about him.

  ‘Sure, I am getting hungry actually’ said Erik.

  The newly formed friends walked out the dormitories building and walked towards the main building. There was a slight and humid breeze that made it very comfortable to walk. Helena knew most of the place so Erik reserved to following her.

  ‘You are going to love the food court, it’s like a small mall and with a lot of variety’ said Helena.

  Erik knew there was a food court, but he never thought it would be a two floor one, there were a few students already eating something or chatting in the benches. Although, when Erik and Helena arrived, most of them turn to gossip and mumbling, instead of actual talking.

  ‘They are talking about us right?’ asked Erik in a slight annoying tone.

‘I think mainly about you, after all you got a 21’ answered Helena.

  Erik didn’t like that a lot, he liked to be unnoticed, at least for most people. They walked to one of the food stands and got breakfast, Helena got a chocolate cupcake with a yogurt and Erik a bowl of cereal. They sat down in a table in the second floor, to have a nice view while they ate.

  ‘Ok, so let me explain. The Principal explained to me that the Beginners have an entire year of academic instances all planned out, they have classes from 9am to 3pm. They have free time on weekends to do basically anything they want they can go to the cinema, or hang out here or in the plaza. The place is very big.’ and it was indeed big, it had kilometres of distance, that include a Mall, a market place, sports courtyards, and even a pool, it was an oddly very well made place.

  ‘And how do they expect us to get through the exam? I mean, aren’t they supposed to be the ones teaching us?’ all of this just brought more questions into Erik’s head, it was a very weird method, and made it almost impossible to students to be able to graduate. As if they wanted them to stay there forever.

  ‘And what about us? What do we do?’ asked Erik, trying to find sense to what he heard.

  ‘Well, we are supposed to study on our own, that way we can take the test and graduate, but it’s going to take some time.’ Helena wasn’t very sure of her answer.

  ‘Can we take those classes? The ones the beginners take, or do we have to study our brains out?’ Erik sounded like he had a plan. Maybe Helena was going to agree to it.

  Helena took out her phone, she started to type something, she looked really focused, and suddenly her face lighted up.

  ‘Sure, we can go to any class we want, we just have to be there… I know! Would you like me to do some class schedules for us? We can take classes on subjects we like, maybe go to class together, I don’t know, you like it?’ Helena said this very excited but with small iterations on her tone from doubt to excitement and visce-versa.

  ‘That would be great, that way we could still study and try to beat our scores. I am not very at good some subjects though… Do they teach genetics?’ Erik wasn’t sure if just studying he could get out of there, but any effort was better than none.

    ‘I believe so, yeah here it is, three lessons a week, I think I can make them in such a way we can have lunch together every day, would you like that?’ Proposed Helena cheerfully, Erik looked at her for a few seconds, she looked so happy, so realized.

  ‘Sure, I would love having lunch with you every day.’ said Erik smiling.

  ‘Perfect, here, I think it’s ok this way’ when Helena finished talking immediately Erik heard his phone notification tone. Helena had sent him both, his and her schedule, it was detailed which class and which room to take it, as well as a colour key to classify them.

  ‘Yeah, this will do. I guess tomorrow we can begin this’ said Erik. He felt motivated and with a goal, he still had questions to ask and things to figure out.

  Both of the friends spent the day together, they went to the library and Erik made a route for them to see each other and walk to where their classes were going to be.

At dawn, both of them walked back to the dormitories, but something caught Erik’s attention.

  One of the windows now showed a big poster portraying a focused and somewhat angry red head man. Below the picture a title read “The Academy Ace. Ace that test. Ace life.” A peculiar motto, but what was even more peculiar that man’s face.

  ‘Is there something wrong Erik?’ asked Helena, since Erik was standing close to the poster examining it.

  ‘No, is just that, he looks oddly familiar to me.’

  ‘You know him? He’s a legend, nobody knows his name, but everyone knows what he did. He took the test only months after entering the Academy, and aced it in the first try. Nobody knows where he is, or what is he doing.’ explained Helena.

  An unnamed man, with a legend and a legacy, it was definitely something Erik wanted to know, but something seemed off. He felt as he had already seen him before, but where? How? Most importantly, how could he ace the test that easily? If knowing about him meant being able to get out earlier, Erik was going to find out who he was and what he did. Everything was just a step closer to freedom and his brother…