Beyond Our Reach (the Stars Did Form)

[ensou]

Summary: The year is 2354. Your name is Amara. Amy. And in the last week, your entire life has gotten turned upside down: you've tested Talent-positive. Suddenly, you're not just Amy anymore, you're Talented, one of the less-than-one-ten-thousandth-of-a-percent with psychokinetic powers that somehow let you make the natural laws cry for mercy. It's a chance to be more, to do more, to prove yourself and go beyond the limits you had only a week ago. It won't be easy, leaving everything on Earth behind so that you can get proper training and education, much less the problems that may occur along the way, but you know it'll definitely be worth it.

Some Background:
This story (and its world) have been sitting on my computer for five years. Primarily inspired by Anne McCaffrey's Tower and the Hive series (particularly The Rowan) and Hieronym's To The Stars, though there's also a bunch of minor influences from other science fiction. It also has a power classification system similar to Worm if you squint, though I actually developed it before I'd ever heard about Worm.

I had Amara's character (as well as a few other minor ones) worked out and I knew I'd enjoy doing a story with her, but I didn't know where I wanted it to go what end up being. Five years later, I know about quests, and decided that it would be fun to see how Amy's story would play out as directed by SV.

Beyond Our Reach (the Stars Did Form)
An Original Fiction Quest by ensou​

---

August 14, 2354, New York City

"Amy! Get up or we'll be late!"

Mrgh.

You roll over, temporarily unwilling to sacrifice the warm comfort of the blankets around you, even if you had been awake for the past eight minutes.

"Amara Rachel! Do not make me come in there!" your mom yells.

Fiiiine.

With one last grateful farewell to your warm blankets and pillows, you roll out of bed and stand up, waiting for a moment as everything stabilizes before rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and dragging yourself towards the bathroom.

Blinking as you slowly adjust to the light, you turn and look at yourself in the mirror.

You're…

[x]thirteen.
Starting Academy age. Inexperienced, but you adapt fast and it's not as hard to learn new things and integrate them (1.5x skill-acquisition rate). Emotionally immature, and you'll have to prove yourself before people stop thinking of you as anything more than "cute girl" (-2 Leadership. +1 Charisma in certain situations).

[]fifteen.
You learned some things at your old school, but not so much that it would be difficult to break away from those ideas if need be (1x SAR). Smack-dab in the middle of puberty, with all the impulsiveness and craziness that comes with it, still, you'd like to think you're not as crazy as some of your peers and you can step up and be responsible when it's needed. (-1 Leadership, -1 Social due to school transfer mid-year (initially).

[]eighteen.
You're done with secondary education and moving on to bigger and better things, namely higher education… until you tested Talent-positive. Your worldview and base knowledge are pretty strongly solidified, which'll make it harder to learn anything completely new (0.5x SAR). You might still be a teenager, but you're past the worst of it and people are more willing to take you seriously and consider your ideas. (+1 Leadership)

Annoyingly straight dark hair (your mom's), hazel eyes (your dad's), and a lack of any particular distinguishing features (both of them) means you're relatively plain. Your parents won't even let you touch cosmetic mods until you're fifteen, so for now there's nothing you can do about it. Oh, and you're short too. Can't forget short. And that's something you can't do anything about.

The false window to the left is streaming light, showing the familiar sight of the gleaming Amalgam and glass towers that form (Upper) New York's skyline …A familiar sight that you won't be seeing for at least the next five months.

You're leaving Earth. You've never even been up the Atlantic Tether before, but in twenty-four hours you'll be parsecs away from home, en-route to one of the Federated Talent Agency's education programs.

You could have rejected the offer. But you don't know anybody who would. It was the FTA that had made the first interstellar transport and trade possible after coming out of hiding after the Last War, and the Prime Talents who had made it possible were about as famous as you could get. Of course, that was before there were ships that could do faster-than-light travel, but that certainly didn't mean there wasn't a lack of want for the Talented nor opportunities for them to become known.

Besides, the benefits alone are worth the effort. A chance to see the galaxy, free education beyond what could be given at Earth Government-run schools, free room and board, your family guaranteed to live comfortably and securely, an opportunity to become and do whatever you want, all for signing a document saying that you'd consider joining the FTA after you finished.

Like, duh.

A notification pops up in your vision telling you it's seven thirty, the time you normally left to get to school on time. You dismiss it with a thought, and step out of your clothes and into the shower.

You probably shouldn't keep your parents waiting any longer.

---

A/N: This is primarily going to be a narrative quest. No Int/Wis/Luk stats (the numbers above in the age vote are just to give you an idea) or anything. The two things I will give you are an experience system, and a skill tree. Skills will be unlocked both using research/experimenting and with how much use the prerequisites have seen. What this means is that even if a skill doesn't get a lot of usage overall but is handy in rare situations, you can still push through and develop further down that path without being too obstructed. You won't get penalized for trying new things, but there are limits.

As you are now, you don't really know much about your Talent other than a very vague sense of being able to move in some weird direction. More of its base will come out as the story moves forward in the next few updates, but you'll have to play with it to really learn how to leverage it and make it grow.

 

[ensou]

Spoiler: Amy Bailey (You)

Name: Amara Rachel Bailey
Origin: (Midlevel) New York City, East North America, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: ?????
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Short (for her age) with 'annoyingly straight' black hair, hazel eyes, and minor Asian features inherited from her mother.
About: Impulsive, easily teased, and generally good-natured, Amy's had an easy life growing up. Strongly pro-Earth in ideals (though more out of ignorance than anything) and without a real sense of true struggle to survive or hardship, she still has a lot to learn.

Floormates:

Spoiler: Neha (surname unknown) - RA

Name: Neha
Relationship: Residence Advisor
Origin: Bhum, Tiryn
Age: 19
Talent: Empath
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Coffee-toned, with warm brown eyes and hair.
Thoughts: She's made a pretty good first impression on you and seems to know what she's doing.

Spoiler: Elva Taiyo - Roommate

Name: Elva Taiyo
Relationship: Roommate
Origin: Mira, Fengxi
Age: 13
Talent: Healing (specifically restoration), that requires sunlight to work.
Interests: Swimming, spending time with friends.
Appearance: Visibly tanned, with dark blonde hair and green eyes.
Thoughts: She seems easy-going, but you have a feeling there's more to her.

Spoiler: Wei Ning

Name: Wei Ning
Relationship: Floormate
Origin: ?????
Age: 13
Talent: T-9 Telekinetic, approved for use without supervision.
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Shorter than you, with chin-length black hair that has a blue stripe in it and dark eyes. Seems to like wearing black.
Thoughts: Acted anti-social and apathetic, but she agreed to help you immediately and didn't seem to mind.

Classmates:

Spoiler: May Reed

Name: May Reed
Relationship: Acquaintances, not quite friends yet.
Origin: West Coast North America, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: Specialized telepathy focused on sensory information. (Range: Small, Limit: 1)
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Black hair and extremely dark brown eyes, average height for her age.
Thoughts: She seems nice.

Spoiler: Angharad (surname unknown)

Name: Angharad
Relationship: Acquaintance
Origin: British Isles, Norther Europe, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: Tactile Telekinesis, specialized for fighting.
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Dusky skin, bright green eyes, and white hair you're not sure is a mod or not.
Thoughts: Not much yet, but someone you can speak in English with.

Spoiler: Amber (surname unknown)

Name: Amber
Relationship: Acquaintance
Origin: South East North America, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: T-5 Telekinetic
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Brunette, with brown eyes. Light skinned.
Thoughts: Nothing yet.

Spoiler: Grace (surname unknown)

Name: Ava-Grace
Relationship: Acquaintance
Origin: 'Edge of the Deadlands, right up in the middle', East North America, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: Can create a kinetic/electrical shockwave
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Short, with light blonde hair and 'impossibly' blue eyes.
Thoughts: Friendly and Outgoing.

Spoiler: Yue (surname unknown)

Name: Ying-Yue
Relationship: Acquaintance
Origin: Taojiang, Asia, Earth
Age: 13
Talent: T-3 Cryokinetic.
Interests: ?????
Appearance: Dark hair and brown eyes, with strong East Asian features
Thoughts: Amicable.

 

[ensou]

Reserved for setting information.
(You guys are free to post now)

 

[ensou]

Winner:
[x] thirteen.

---

As you finally leave your room and follow the enticing smells of fresh food down the hall, at least half again as awake as you were ten minutes ago, you have to wonder what it is about your parents and major breakfasts on important days.

Like, you'd honestly have been perfectly happy with just some fruit or yogurt and granola, but nooooo, they have to get all fancy with it.

… Not that you're complaining.

When was the last time you had eggs and bacon, anyways? Probably Dad's birthday.

You round the corner and reach the kitchen/eating area and the small table in it, sliding into the bench to sit in front of the empty place set out. Your mom's to your right, with her own empty plate while your dad's at the stove, cooking.

She's where you get the minor Asian influences in your appearance, while dad gave you his hazel eyes.

"Perfect timing, Amy," he says, taking the hot pan off the burner and bringing it over to the table to serve you and your mother along with a plate of toast—one already slathered with strawberry jam for you. The eggs, bacon, and toast is all parceled out, including to your dad's plate across from you, and he puts the now-empty pan back on the stove on one of the other heating spots. You're already reaching for the salt and pepper grinders as he sits down, applying it to your food and then passing it to your mom.

"Did you have trouble sleeping last night? Is that why you were so slow getting up today?" she asks.

You flush at being caught out. "…Yes?"

She looks at you and smiles, passing the grinders onto your father. "A little nervousness is fine. Just don't let it overwhelm you so much that you lose sight of the important things."

You nod, chewing and swallowing before speaking. "Okay."

Agreeing doesn't magically get rid of the still-present butterflies in your stomach, though.

"Besides, everyone else will be in the same boat as you. If they don't look nervous? They're just really good actors," your dad adds. "I don't know a single person who wouldn't be a little nervous."

You nod again, the butterflies settling down at least somewhat.

"Have you decided on all your classes, yet?" Mom asks.

"No," you mumble around the bite of toast in your mouth.

There were so many options. The only real requirements were a class for Common, a math, a history, and either a physical or social science. Everything else was up to you.

Well, you didn't have to make a final decision about anything until you got to the Academy, but it was still something worth thinking about.

Your mom sighs while looking at you.

"…What?"

"I'm going to miss you," your mom says, and holy crap this is unnerving because Mom never gets emotional like this. "We're going to miss you. It's going to be different. We didn't exactly expect you to be leaving until you were older."

What are you supposed to say here?

You look at Dad, hoping for something, but he just looks mildly amused at your plight as the target of your mom's sudden emotional display.

Traitor!

You promptly shove your toast in your mouth and take a large bite, totally not just avoiding responding or anything.

And then your normal mother was back, rolling her eyes and reaching for your face with her napkin, wiping a bit of strawberry jam off that you'd gotten on your cheek in your (successful!) act of desperation.

"Alright, fine. Finish up, your transport's at nine and I'm sure you don't want to be late," she says.

Your eyes widen as you check the time and ohmygoshwhatareyoudoingyouneedtogoit'salreadyeightfifteen.

"Why didn't you say anything!?"

"We just did," your dad says.

"Before," you clarify (isn't it obvious?), eating your food as fast as you can while still trying to enjoy it.

"What did you think I was doing earlier?" Mom asks.

That's not… That's not… So not the point!

There's no time to argue about it either.

You rush through the rest of the meal, stick your dishes in the sink, run to your bedroom to put on your socks and shoes, pop a cleaning tablet in your mouth and grab your bag. Most of the stuff you're bringing is sentimental; practically all your clothes can be refabbed where you're going.

When you finally race out of your room, down the hall, and towards the front door of your family's apartment, you find your parents standing there already: Dad looking at you warmly, and your mom with one side of her mouth raised higher than the other, her eyes bright.

You hold your hands in front of your face to block her view. "Stop looking at me like that, you're being weird."

"Just come on, Amy," your Dad says, opening the door. You huff, dropping your hands and pointedly ignoring your mother because she's still doing it!

You take one last look around, looking at the family room with its faded couch that you could have replaced anytime but your dad refused to, all the weird art that your mom finds, collects, and hangs on the walls, the printed books at the far corner by the false window that you grew up on…

And then you're out the door and through the halls, waiting for the elevator. There's a chime and then the doors open, letting you in. Your dad pushes the ground floor button and the elevator's doors close, cheerfully informing you that it's going down.

The descent takes forever, but thirty seconds later you walk out, straight towards the front doors of the building, your parents following behind you.

Midlevel Manhattan looks the same as always, with its older buildings (though not half as old as Lower-level) and lack of sun thanks to the transport tracks and walkways for the Upper level eight hundred feet above you. The artificial lighting that's set up there does a good job of mimicking it, but it's not the same. And of course, there's the people. Not many on your street, here, but there's never not people around in New York City.

"L or sub?" your dad asks.

"L," you answer immediately. You don't know when the next time you'll get to see everything is, and the L's perfect for that.

Five hundred feet down the sidewalk, your family walking together, you reach one of the Elevators that runs between the levels. At major intersections like Times Square there can be as many as sixteen working together, each with different intervals, separate entrances and exits, and all synchronized, but out here, a single lift every couple blocks works just fine. And in the end it's a tube of metal that lets you go up or down. But, unlike the old elevator for your apartment, these have something so that you can't feel any acceleration, which means it takes only three seconds before the door is opening again.

On the Upper level, the air's not as stale, even if that's not actually supposed to be a thing because of the air circulators. But it totally is.

The sun's shining down, already warming everything and highlighting the trees and greenery that dots the sidewalk. Both Lower and Midlevel have parks of their own, as well, but there's something about the blue sky and white puffy clouds that makes everything brighter, even with all the shade that the tall buildings and apartments around you create.

You don't hesitate in keeping up with your parents as you all walk away from the lift and a block east, joining the uncountable number of people going about their day. Random snippets of muted conversations in Common are constantly audible, people talking, businesses, vendors. Your family's a bit weird in that your family speaks almost exclusively Old English at home, even though you all know Common. It's some sort of tradition your father's family has had that your Mom probably decided to go along with just because she found it funny. It'd be the sort of thing she did.

You know bits of Anglospanish too, just from foreign language classes at school, but you're not even close to having anything more than basic comprehension and competency in it. There are people out there who rely almost entirely on translation software running on their innertech for anything other than Common, but that just feels like cheating to you.

Continuing a half-block south from where you were, navigating through the stream of people, and up onto a walkway takes you over the extremely busy transport lanes to the L platform in the middle. The correct side even.

…At which point you're left standing there, waiting. Fidgeting. Your parents standing next to you just holding hands.

…Are they trying to embarrass you?

Thankfully, you don't have to wait long. Two minutes later, and there's an express train pulling up to the platform.

Unlike the subway, which has been around in one form or another since pre-Collapse (it's one of the things they always mention on the plaques at the bigger stations), the L's newer and —more importantly to you— gives a much better view of the City.

The three of you board the maglev car in front of you, you sitting on the opposite side so you can turn around and see the best parts through the windows.

"Next stop: Rubicon Terminal," your dad says.

"DeVrois Park," you correct without thinking. The Rubicon —the giant pyramidal building that's the single largest interstellar station in existence— is on this line though, so no transfers.

"I was being metaph—" His voice cuts off and you suddenly do not want to turn around.

In fact, you focus quite strongly on the trees and sky and gradually-taller buildings and transport shuttles and definitely not on whatever your parents are doing behind you.

After DeVrois Park is Reginald Square, and you keep staring out the windows, soaking in every little detail you can of the city you were born and raised in.

Earth's all you've ever known, and you're leaving it behind.

Traveling downtown means that the solid, stocky apartment buildings slowly give way to the prettier Amalgam and hardglass highrises, until you're past Bailey Street and it's suddenly almost all metal and glass, in each and every shape imaginable, reaching up, reflecting the blue sky and sunlight like crystal.

You know, in your head at least, that the Tethers are so much taller than this, stretching up past the atmosphere itself. But to you, New York will always beat out anything else, if just because it's home.

Just as you finish passing over the East River you feel a hand on your shoulder, nearly jumping out of your skin in surprise.

You turn and it's only your mother.

Did she really have to do that?

"You did double-check that you have everything you want, right?" she asks.

You blink… and just like that, all the butterflies you'd had a half-hour before are back, even worse.

Thanks, Mom.

Because, yes, you'd double-checked, but now that she's asked again, there's that nagging worry of 'What if you totally forgot something? What if you get there only to realize there's something important missing?'

You hate that feeling, and it's not like you can do anything about it when you're already on the way, which just makes it worse.

Dad gives your mom a look. "Don't worry, if there's anything you forget we can just send it to you."

Right, right. Yeah. You won't be totally isolated or anything.

Forty two light-years away. With nobody around that you know.

Slow breaths Amy, slow breaths.

In. Out. In. Out.

You can do this.

---

…You can't do this.

How did you ever think you could do this? There's no way.

You turn away from the matte metal pod sitting in the transport cradle to look at your parents and practically whimper.

Going through getting your backpack cleared had been easy. Using the elevator to get to the right level had been easy.

But here, standing at your gate and looking at the thing that'll take you to another planet, another solar system, it's suddenly so much more real.

You're going to be all on your own. No Dad or Mom, none of your friends, surrounded by nothing that you know.

Your dad looks down at you and grimaces. "Oh, Amy…"

He crouches down so he's lower than you, looking you in the eyes. "I know it's hard. Believe me. You've taken all this so well, and I know it's scary. The question you have to ask is would you ever forgive yourself for not at least trying."

It's almost hard to think about, with how fuzzy your thoughts feel. But you know deep down that the answer is no, you wouldn't be able to.

That doesn't really make it easier.

"Just remember that no matter what, you can always come home," he says.

You nod, eyes moist and warm as your dad pulls you in for a hug. You grip him back tightly, and let go only after he does. He stands and steps back, your mother moving in to take his place. Unlike him, she doesn't crouch, but still pulls you in to hug her, surprisingly tightly. You return it, even if this is a little embarrassing. "We love you. Remember that."

She doesn't let go.

"Mooommm."

"Sh. If I want to hug my daughter for as long as I want before I won't be able to for five months, I'm going to, thank you."

You don't have anything to say to that, and just give in, hugging her back. You'll be embarrassed later.

It has to be over two minutes before she finally draws back, her eyes a little redder. "Let's get you on, then."

The concourse is circular, with five different equally-sized pods sitting in a circle, end-to-end, and the terminals for them around them. Thanks to all the huge windows, it feels open instead of constrictive or small. The Rubicon is a giant pyramid, all the way down to the lower surface, with hundreds of floors. Each floor lower can hold larger and larger pods. You've seen them in holos and videos before, so they're not anything you don't expect, just basic metal and seats, like someone took a subway car, made all the seats face forward, and removed the windows.

There's other people your age at this terminal, some of them with a parent or two, but also those a few years older, as well as a bunch of normal looking adults.

Well, this probably isn't just for Academy students, but also people who have normal business to do too.

Your parents walk with you to the door of the pod, where a man's standing and seems to be supervising the boarding. When you're close enough, he turns to you and nods, the Rubicon having permission to access your ID and travel data from when you'd gone through security downstairs, retaining it as long as you were in the building.

"Good morning Miss Bailey, you're all set. Please remember that Haeld's gravity is 1.3 times Earth's, and to ask for assistance if you have any trouble."

Your dad gives your shoulder a squeeze as you turn around. "Bye, sweetie. Be safe, listen to who's in charge, and have fun."

"We do expect a holomessage in at least a week, though," your mother adds.

You nod, your throat tight, and turn around, walking the last few feet to the open door of the transport pod.

The inside is… comfortable. Not fancy, but it's also definitely not the subway or L.

There's six seats open next to people your age: an older boy with dark, red-tinted (auburn?) hair and hazel eyes, a girl with black hair and eyes so dark they look black, a girl with light blonde hair and impossibly blue eyes who appears to be even shorter than you, a dark-skinned older girl with dark brown hair and eyes, another boy who has dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes, and finally, in the back, the most striking of all: a dusky-skinned girl with bright green eyes and hair that's white. ...Maybe it's a mod? Either way, white is definitely not a color you're used to seeing.

You almost just want to go sit next to her on interest alone.

In the end though, you're forced to choose fast when someone comes up behind you, and you end up sitting next to the black-haired girl, your full backpack coming off and going on the floor between your legs.

The girl looks at you curiously, but doesn't say anything.

So you decide to. "Hi."

"…Hi?" she returns.

"I'm Amy, what's your name?" you continue.

She smiles a little. "May."

Huh. That's pretty close to your own. "I mean, my name's actually Amara, but only my parents ever call me that."

Usually your mom. Like this morning.

Anyways. "Are you here for the Academy?"

She nods. "Most of us probably are."

"Well, yeah, but I mean like, isn't it better to at least ask?"

May gives a sort of half-laugh and nods. "Yeah."

You turn a little in your seat so you're facing more her direction. "So when did you find out? That you were Talented."

"A few months ago," she answers. "You?"

"…Last week." Her eyes widen. "Right? It's like, I'm sending in my diagnostic data to the doctor like normal, and I get this message back that's like 'please come see me' and I was super confused, though I think my parents might have known something. So we went down to the hospital and did the whole brain-wave testing thing, and it was only after that that they actually bothered to tell me what was going on. Like, seriously. So not even a day later a recruiter woman from the FTA's education department came to talk to us. And it's not like you're going to say 'no'."

"Do you at least know anything about it?" she asks.

You shake your head. "Not really. And I'm not dumb enough to try anything on my own." There are horror stories about people who discovered they were Talented and then tried to figure it out on their own unsupervised. Telepaths who went crazy from not being able to stop hearing the people around them. Elementals who weren't careful enough and accidentally destroyed whole buildings.

No, you're definitely not stupid enough to try anything yourself.

"What about you?"

"Specialized telepathy… senses only. See what you see, hear what you hear, feel what you feel," May explains. "I don't have much range and can only do it with one person right now. I also don't have the normal problem, though."

"Normal problem?"

"Yeah, how almost all telepaths have problems listening to Normals because it's painful?" she says.

Oh. Capital-n Normal problem. Though it's small-n normal, too, since it's common.

Your dad would probably find that pun funny.

Without any warning, the door of the pod slides over and seals shut, and you realize that during your conversation with May the rest of the passengers had gotten on. A check of the time says it's nine 'o clock exactly.

The conversation had also distracted you from your nervousness, but now you're aware of it again, and nothing's happening.

For a moment, you think you feel something, some sort of warm tingling that surrounds you, but then just as quickly, it's gone.

The door opens, and your first thought is that something went wrong.

And then you see past the person who'd opened the door, and the outside is not the Rubicon at all.

The pod chooses that moment to cheerfully thank you for choosing FTA Transit.

You're… there. Here.

That was it?

Whoa.

Forty-two light-years in a single blink.

Suddenly, you understand why Talented are so important. Why some people might be afraid of them.

"Welcome to Haeld," the man who'd opened the door says, stepping aside to let out people who are already standing up and exiting.

You try to stand up, try being the key word. You're not at all prepared for the extra weight you suddenly feel, even with the warning the guy at the Rubicon had given you earlier.

Instead of ninety two pounds, you're now a hundred and twenty, and holy fuzzballs this is not going to be a fun next few weeks.

May's handling it much better, using the headrest of the seat in front of her but also appearing to be doing better than you anyways.

She looks down at you. "…You didn't get a chance to build up your strength. Or go in any weight sims." It isn't a question.

You still shake your head 'no' and even that's weird. Makes you a little dizzy, too.

May frowns thoughtfully. "Here, give me your hand."

What? Why?

Still, you hold out your hand to her and she grasps it, leaning on the headrest she's up against and then suddenly pulling you up with her whole body.

Oh no.

Sudden change was a bad idea. You can literally feel the blood draining out of your head, vision dimming, and ooooh yeah you're feeling faint.

Low blood pressure: you knew you had it but it's never really been super important before.

"Shouldn' a dun tha," you slur, and you're not even sure if it came out in Common or English.

…Now seems like a pretty good time to pass o—

---

A/N: I ended up rolling a 1d6 for the seating selection, at the suggestion of @Alivaril, as there's not really much information other than appearance I can give to you. Don't worry about missing out on potential meetings, we'll be seeing most of them again soon enough, at which point you'll have a little more information and get to choose who to talk to and build rapport with.

 

[ensou]

So! Since there isn't a vote this chapter (being the end of the prologue), I'm instead going to give you the classes you'll get to select either after the next chapter or the one after that, depending. Instead of only a weekend, this'll give you a whole week (or two) and a half to decide what you want to do and come up with a plan, and possibly adjust it as needed based on the next chapter(s).

Freshmen don't have access to all classes (as there are prereqs), with only two elective slots. If you're able to come up with a good enough reason one of those slots may be a self-study period for a topic of your choosing that isn't Talent-use related. However, if the reason isn't reallyconvincing, it's likely to be rejected (you're a freshman, after all, and there are still a lot of classes you can take), and you should have a backup. Self-study will be available in other years as well with increasing likelihood of the idea being accepted, especially senior year where it's not so uncommon.

Your class selection is also very important. You do have four years, so this isn't necessarily set in stone, but your choices now will be used to determine and shape Amy's interests and possible desires for what she wants to do in the future upon graduating.

There are common 'tracks', which are more a general grouping of elective/chosen-required classes that have a particular leaning, though, again, that isn't as prevalent freshman year. Tower (leadership, mostly), Tower support (logistics, and technology/engineering), exploration and settlement, technology (not Tower-related), government (leadership, social, politics, macro & micro economics, languages), etc., are all examples of these. Note that these are just suggestions and you are more than free to make your own path towards whatever ends you want. However, I suggest against over-generalizing yourself, even if having a good grasp on the basics of a variety of things is a good idea. Again, not particularly important freshman year, but something to still keep in mind.

You get eight classes, six of which are required.

Classes (Freshman):

Freshman Seminar [Required]

Common [Required]:

• Common 1 [Remedial]
• Common 1 [Adv] (focus on reading/writing technical skills and basic analysis)

Mathematics [Required]:

• Algebra 1
• Geometry [Adv]
• Algebra 2 [Adv]
• PreCalc [Adv]
• Probability and Statistics [Adv]
• Linear Algebra [Adv]
• Calculus [Adv]

History [Required]:

• Pre-Collapse (Earth-focused, less benefit to Amy, less stressful)
• Expansion Era (last 200 years)
• History of Talents (required to take sometime within next 4 years)

Physical Sciences [Required: one of these or a Social Science]:

• Biology 1 [Adv]
• Chemistry 1 [Adv]
• Physics 1 [Adv] (Taking concurrently with Calculus means less stress and pressure)

Social Sciences [Required: one of these or a Physical Science]:

• Psychology 1 [Adv]
• Sociology [Adv] (leads into Economic, Political, and Anthropology. You can take this year 2 as well.)

One-on-One Talent usage [Required]

Languages [Optional]:

• Old English 1 [Adv] Already native fluency.
• Anglospanish 1 [Adv] Passes requirements
• Anglospanish 2 [Adv] (Second most-common language galactically)
• Old Chinese 1 (Easy class due to Common native fluency)
• Laoren (Common Outworlds regional language)
• Ense (Second most-commonly spoken language on Haeld)
• Self-study (Any 21st Century language, though usefulness is highly limited)

Health/Wellness [Optional, Highly recommended]:

• Personal Fitness
• Martial Arts 1
• Team Sports (Vetoed by the doctor)
• One-on-one training (Requires at least Martial Arts 1, equal proficiency, or personal combat-focused Talent)

Technology [Optional]:

• Foundations of Modern Technology

Performing Arts [Optional]:

• Theatre 1
• Vocal 1
• Group Vocal 1

Music [Optional]:

• Intro to Music
• Ensemble 1
• One-on-one (For students wishing to learn a specific instrument or continue working with one)

Visual Arts [Optional]:

• Intro to Art
• Studio Art 1
• Film/Holo 1
• Film History
• Photography 1
• Tech Theatre/Woodshop 1

Talent Usage [By instructor approval freshman year; Locked]:

• Telekinetic/Telepathic 1
• Elemental Manipulation 1
• Shaping 1
• Energetics 1

Note: You can take any of the core courses as an elective class beyond the requirements (so both Physics and Sociology, for example).

You also get three social actions a day (haven't decided if you choose per-week or per-day), one of which can be a club (and you may assume there's clubs for most of the electives up there). The action slots are: after school (club-time), before dinner (after homework), and after dinner. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner you can choose to spend with certain people/groups, and other people who are curious/interested in you may join you as well. If individuals are attached to you and you move between groups, they may follow you.

Advanced-level courses are more stressful than normal ones, while less intellectual/intense electives mitigate and reduce that. Social actions with people Amy knows put her at ease and are relaxing, while interacting with people she doesn't know can be harder.

If there's any classes you think of/want that aren't on here, just ask me about them and I'll either add it, reject it, or say you can't take it until a later year.

 

[ensou]

You wake up.

…Again?

For a moment, everything's bleary and you're wondering why the ceiling is moving, why you're on a stretcher, and then the details snap back into focus.

Parents. Rubicon. Transit pod. May. Gravity.

…Fainting.

Oh goddddd. You want to curl up in a ball and disintegrate or something.

It was already embarrassing, but everybody there probably saw it happen, and now you're going to be known as 'that one girl who fainted in the pod' for the rest of your life.

…

Checking the time tells you it's only nine-oh-six in New York, so you haven't been out that long.

"Ah, hello, Miss Bailey." The voice comes from behind you, a woman's, soft yet with authority. You almost want to stretch your next to try and see her, but considering what led to this situation, you kind of really don't want to.

"Amy!" And that's May. You can see her just by turning your head to the right a little. She's walking alongside you, carrying your backpack, with what has to be her own bag in her right hand.

She falters for a step, reaching out towards you, but then stops and lets her hand down, continuing to walk with you as you move, biting her lip.

"I'm taking you to the infirmary, okay? It's standard procedure when something like this happens," the woman says. "Please don't try to move or anything."

"Okay," you respond. There's really nothing else you can say.

You're traveling down a hallway with a white ceiling and yellow walls, art hanging every few meters or so. You turn left at corner, and then go a bit further before entering through an open door with a plastic sign sticking out above it with the red cross that universally means something medical-related.

Inside, there are a few hospital beds, along with a desk and a rolling chair at the back against the opposite wall. You're taken next to one of the beds, before moving backwards so that your head and feet match up. …Which also gives you a chance to see the woman for the first time. She's a brunette, with grey eyes and sharp yet delicate features. Aristocratic, you think is the term. An open white lab coat sits over a blue blouse and black pants, which just yells "doctor".

Without any sign, the sheet of the stretcher you're lying on lifts up, taking you with it, and moves so that you're over the hospital bed before setting you down.

Telekinesis.

The woman turns to May. "Thank you for bringing her bag, Miss Reed. Just follow the signs for the auditorium and they'll take you to where they're organizing the other arrivals."

She nods hesitantly and takes it off, setting it down against the hospital bed you're on, before looking at you. "I-I'm sorry, Amy. Really. I didn't even thin—"

You cut her off. "Thanks. It's fine, I didn't either."

May looks over at the woman and then back at you. "I'll see you later?"

You nod. "Sure."

She gives you a sort-of half-smile and waves, before turning and walking out of the infirmary, going right and then disappearing.

"So." The woman starts.

"…So?" you echo weakly.

She stares at you, and you're starting to feel unnerved, before she suddenly breaks off and shakes her head with amused huff. "There's always one of you."

The woman walks over to the chair by the desk and wheels it over so that it's next to your bed and she can sit down. "I'm guessing that you just found out you about all this," she waves her hand vaguely at the walls around you, "very recently, and didn't have a chance to do any preparation for the transition?" You nod. "And you probably didn't even think about how it would interact with your hypotension."

You flush slightly, but nod again.

She shakes her head again, still smiling. "Alright. Well, I'm Doctor Faren, and I'm one of the physicians and healers on staff here. Coincidentally, I'm also the one who's assigned all the A through G last names for you freshmen, so this is serendipitous, in a way. I usually like to get to know all the incoming students that I handle in the first week, but since you're here we can count this as your meeting unless something changes, okay?"

"Okay," you agree.

"Now, let's talk about you. Other than the hypotension, do you have any pre-existing conditions, previously treated or not?"

You shake your head. "No."

"Surgeries?" "No."

"Macro-scale implants?" "No."

She nods. "Okay, good. That matches with what I've got on file for you, then."

You splutter. She already had all that?

"It got you to speak, didn't it?" she counters, as though able to read your thoughts.

…Actually, now that you think about it, that's really not so unlikely here, is it?

That's really going to take some time to get used to.

"No, I can't read your thoughts, you're just very open," she tells you. "I'm just a healer with some useful telekinesis on the side."

"…Oh," you squeak out.

She does that amused huff thing again. "Let's talk about what's going on and what you can do, okay?" You nod. "To put it really simply, your heart's not squeezing hard enough to get your blood everywhere it needs to be. There's a bunch of potential reasons, including just having a naturally low default state, which is probably why it's never been addressed with you before. Now that you're here, though, where it's going to seriously impair you unless you do something, you're going to have to deal with it."

"…Okay?" you agree hesitantly.

Dr. Faren holds up two fingers. "You've basically got two options here. The first is the natural solution. For the next few months, you wear tight, constricting lower clothing. Tights, tight pants, support stockings, etc. And you increase your blood-sugar levels and work on exercising: cardio to strengthen your heart up, and lower limb resistance to increase the strength of your calf muscles, which'll help keep blood from pooling in your legs. After three or four months, you should be able to get rid of the tight pants and be fine, but you'll have to keep up the exercise—which you should be doing anyway, really."

"That sounds… easy?" you say.

She nods, and lowers one finger. "The second option isn't as natural and is significantly more permanent: we give your body a major boost in the form of some extreme-environment nanotechnology intended for people who do frontier exploration and surveying of planets where habitability for normal people is unsure or unknown. It would alter your body and growth to a degree that most people are probably not comfortable with at all, but I don't know about you. Denser bones and muscles, longer time with borderline dehydration and low-quality nutrition, increased surface area of the lungs, strengthened heart, etc. You'd also no longer be able to qualify in any form of competitive sport.

"It is not an instant power-up. It'll take a couple months before it has enough of an effect, during which you'd still have to wear the tight clothes, and be doing the exercise to help promote muscle development and adjustment. Also, they're still unsure if there's any major long-term negative effects as it's only been around for twenty years or so. But if you've ever thought about exploring and visiting lots of other planets like I know some Talents do, this is what you would need to be able to do that," she explains. "Either way, I'm going to have you stay in a wheelchair for at least the next week, maybe two, just so your body can adjust to everything without any chance of hurting yourself, okay?"

You feel out of your depths. "I-I don't—"

This is so big. The largest thing you've had to decide yourself up until now was probably what your electives in middle school were going to be, and that didn't have anywhere near the consequences.

"…You don't have to decide now," she tells you. "You can go with option one and pick up option two any time. However, it's less and less effective the older you get, and twenty's the latest it'll have any effect at all. Your parents have actually signed a waiver that's explicitly for this, which is why I'm even offering it to you at all. This isn't some simple cosmetic mod; it's something that changes your very skeleton, muscular structure, and core organs."

Did… did they predict something like this might happen? Or were they just thinking about the worst that could happen? If they'd known why didn't they tell you? Did they not want to worry you if it ended up not being a problem?

You don't understand.

"Think it over, okay?" You nod mechanically. "In the meantime, there's another thing to talk about, though this is standard offer for everybody:

"If you want, we can upgrade your innertech to something that's developed and designed specifically for Talented. Basically a simple AI system. It integrates much tighter and even uses some of your own neurons to operate, but as you learn to use your Talent and develop it, it adapts to the point where it can help out a lot. Control for those who have problems, even taking on a degree of load for extremely focus-intensive ones. The stronger the Talented, the more advanced it tends to end up once it's done adapting to you, for some reason, to the point where some might even qualify for low-level sentience."

What.

You're pretty sure your jaw is slack.

A-are they seriously offering to upgrade your innertech with possibly near-sentient AI?

Innertech wasn't all that special; most people had it along with medical health nanites. You'd gotten yours on your ninth birthday.

It acted as everything from a timekeeper to a communication tool, data-tracker to knowledge search. How 'good' the innertech you had was wasn't defined so much by functionality, but rather by how seamless the integration with it could be and how well it could do tasks like information gathering and filtering without any input. The theoretical highest-level innertech was supposed to be seamless to the point where usage became entirely instinctual, without any need for explicit actions or prompting like how you had to consciously access the time or notifications were represented as actual items in your vision.

And what she was describing sounded suspiciously similar.

"For most people it just tends to end up being a really helpful basic assistant, just a little better than anything you can get anywhere else. Do you have any idea what level you are?" she asks.

"N-no," you respond shakily, still trying to wrap your head around this. All of this.

She shrugs. "Well then, statistical likelihood is you'll be around T-8/T-9 and end up with something similar to what I've got: something that knows what sort of music I like waking up to depending on the weather outside and a bunch of other little things and when to start my coffee so that it's perfectly warm when I get out of bed."

Dr. Faren pulls one of her legs up so that her foot's resting on the chair, and laces her hands, resting them on her knee. "Oh, and in case you were wondering, your parents signed a waiver for this as well. So. What are you thinking? What do you want to do?"

She must notice how blankly you're looking at her, because she gives a sympathetic grimace. "How about I give you some time to think it over. It'd be easier to handle all this today, since today's the last free-schedule day I have for the next couple of weeks, but if you really want, we can postpone all this when I was going to meet with you originally. But for now, I want to keep you here for a little bit, and I'll be over at the desk working on reports. So if you decide just let me know, okay?"

You nod mechanically, and she stands up and wheels her chair over to the desk, sitting down and starting her work.

You, meanwhile, just lie back and stare at the white ceiling, your thoughts racing at light speed about everything you'd just been told, and, most importantly, the decisions that you now had to make.

What do you want to do?

[][hypotension] Option one. You don't want anything messing with you like that when there's the potential for something to go horribly wrong, even if it's small. You might not be able to visit as many places, but that's alright, you're okay sticking to seeing planets that are very Earth-like in environment. There's never a shortage of jobs or work for Talented, and it's not like you'd be unable to be find something you're interested in on nearly any planet.
[x][hypotension] Option two. You've always thought about visiting more planets and seeing everything you could, and with this you can do that. You're not entirely comfortable with the idea of something changing you, shaping you that much, but it's a small price to pay for the freedom it'll give you.
[][hypotension] …Maybe later you'll want something like that, but for now you'll just stick to the clothes and exercise.
[][hypotension] Postpone decision to original meeting, until after you've had time to see everything else here. (2 days from now)

[x][innertech] Heck yes. You've wanted to upgrade your stuff for at least a year, you just couldn't afford it, and now they're offering to just give you something like this? Besides, you've always been at least curious about AI, how systems grow and learn, and what better way to see that than up close and personal, watching it in action?
[][innertech] Heck no. You're perfectly happy with what you've got. It does what you want and it does it predictably. The thought of something potentially able to think for itself having access to you, literally who you are like that is just not okay—no matter how (not) advanced or intelligent it actually ends up being. Maybe other people are fine with it, but your mind is your sanctuary, and you'd like to keep it that way, thankyouverymuch.
[][innertech] Postpone decision to original meeting, until after you've had time to see everything else here. (2 days from now)

---

A/N: Not a terribly eventful chapter, but important chargen choices are important.

 

[ensou]

Winners:
[X][hypotension] Option two. You've always thought about visiting more planets and seeing everything you could, and with this you can do that. You're not entirely comfortable with the idea of something changing you, shaping you that much, but it's a small price to pay for the freedom it'll give you.

[X][innertech] Heck yes. You've wanted to upgrade your stuff for at least a year, you just couldn't afford it, and now they're offering to just give you something like this? Besides, you've always been at least curious about AI, how systems grow and learn, and what better way to see that than up close and personal, watching it in action?

---

Your first impulse is to just say "yes". To both. It just sounds so cool.

But this is like, Big Stuff. And you don't… you don't want to mess this up and be terrible and prove to everybody that you can't do anything on your own and and…

Rrrrgh. Okay. What would Mom and Dad say?

"Let's do this."

…Right. Your mom's even worse than you are.

Okay so what would Dad say?

"Ask questions. Be sure you know what you're getting into."

Yeah, alright. You can do that.

"Can I ask some questions?" you ask.

Dr. Faren pauses whatever she's doing and swivels around to look at you, rolling her chair closer. "Sure! What're you wondering?"

You blink, and realize you hadn't actually thought of anything to ask, and scramble to come up with something that doesn't sound stupid. Something like… "How many people get the innertech?"

The doctor wobbles her hand a little. "About sixty percent of an incoming class, give or take five percent. There's a number of reasons, such as not having innertech already and wanting it, having a system that may interfere with their talent, or just wanting to get the best they can.

"We ask again after a semester, and there's usually a good fifteen to thirty percent that accepts then after seeing the benefit and for the potential help with a problematic Talent."

Up to ninety percent. So, so a lot. Wow.

Dr. Faren crosses her legs. "There's not much in the way of issues with it, either. I've only known of a handful of people ever wanting remove or downgrade it after getting it in the twelve years I've been working here. I don't remember the specific reasons why, though, sorry."

"Does, does it feel… weird?" Your first innertech installation was really strange to get used to, but they said that was just because it was the first time.

She looks thoughtful for a moment before replying. "It's… unnerving at first. Disquieting. Things don't work the same as they used to, and they aren't meshed perfectly well with your neurology yet. It takes anywhere from nine to twelve months for complete integration, which is at least ten times longer than any other innertech I've studied, but it's because of how the system studies and continually refines itself until it can't any more. It's usable without feeling unnatural within two weeks, at the longest, and things just become smoother and easier beyond that.

"The biggest complaint…" she laughs. "The biggest complaint was when the first version was introduced twenty-five years ago, the year before I came here, which was that it made things 'too easy'. People felt it was an unfair advantage between those who had it and those who didn't, especially in classes that had a practical component as part of the grade.

"Most people aren't really prepared for the long adjustment period. People who are used to having their innertech work perfectly can get pretty frustrated when things don't work the way they should at first."

Yeah you'd probably be in that group, considering how much you use yours.

What else, you knew that something had seemed odd when she'd first told you about it… Oh, right!

"…How is it better for stronger Talents?" That doesn't make any sense to you. Shouldn't it all be the same?

"Do you know what the T levels actually mean? Empirically?" she asks.

"It's how powerful you are, right?" you answer hesitantly.

"Broadly, yes. Specifically, it's a safety system, with each level indicating the maximum amount of energy you can both channel and naturally generate. As a side effect, it's also an approximation of how much you passively… leak within you that goes nowhere.

"Now, this system is inherently designed to work with Talents. That's the whole point, and in theory its ability to learn and become more advanced is limited only by your ability to support it. Instead of using caloric energy like normal innertech, this runs off your Talent itself and that already-more-abundant background psychokinetic energy you're doing nothing with."

Oh. "And the higher level you are, the more that's available for it to use!" you conclude.

She smiles. "Exactly. It's the exact opposite principle as the Generators, drawing on what you're creating instead of you drawing on it."

Wow. That's… wow. You have to stop for a moment and just admire sheer elegance of that: a system designed to learn and grow to work specifically with your Talent, powered by your Talent itself.

That's so cool.

"So the best theory we have is that it's just an available power limitation: you can have greater complexity because there's more energy to use. However, there's been speculation that being saturated and using that exotic internal psychokinetic energy in a growing system actually… changes it somehow and that a greater amount means it's exposed to more and that's what makes it advanced."

She shrugs. "Either way from the outside the result is that the more background energy, the more advanced it becomes. It's actually been the subject of quite a few studies, but we can't know for sure because observation only tells us that it's more complex, not how it got to be that way or why it is."

Huh. …Your brain's kinda starting to hurt after all that.

But at least you know you want the innertech, now. No question.

You've kinda wanted to upgrade yours for at least a year, anyways, and they're offering to just… give you this. Your system as it is now isn't anything more than basic, and, honestly, it'd really be nice to have something better. Well, more like the best, from what Dr. Faren's been saying.

And you've always been at little curious about artificial intelligence. The idea that systems can grow and learn is pretty cool, and you can't imagine doing much better than to see that happen yourself.

So, innertech decided. Now… now for the EE augmentation.

After a second to file all that information away, you collect yourself, focusing on trying to think about what kind questions your Dad would ask again.

"So, uh, about the other nanotech… Does, does getting this mean I can't ever get anything else?"

You're not sure how you would feel about that. You know there's some pretty crazy stuff out there that can be really helpful in certain situations and emergencies. Making it so none of that's possible…

"No, nothing like that. Surgeries and any alterations to your body from a macro scale would be more difficult, if just because you'd be harder to get in to," she says. "Anything that works on a micro- or nano- scale and functions on already-present tissues should work fine if adjusted properly to compensate beforehand. Any that work while you're still developing, like this, would only be as effective as long as you were developing."

Okay, that's really good to know. You're really glad you asked that.

What else… What else…

…You have to wonder if it's like innertech. The way that every so often there's newer improved versions released. Actually different hardware, not… not just structural reconfiguration when you're upgrading the software.

"Is there going to be a better version? Should… should I wait for that?"

You really don't want to get something that's gonna be old in a year, especially if it's doing permanent changes to you.

Dr. Faren shakes her head. "There's been talk of a second, much-improved version for years. It's supposedly been going through clinical trials for the past two, but I haven't heard anything beyond that. Part of the reason for it was to be able to make the same changes to fully developed adults, instead of just late-teens who were exiting high school and wanted to get in on exploration. If it passed clinical trials, it could take anywhere between two and five years for it to become available. Since it would work on both developing and already-fully-developed tissues equally, you'd be able to move from one to the other without any problems, no matter how long you decided to wait to do so."

Hrm. So newer version that you'd be able to take as an adult, maybe.

And then you have a sudden, horrifying thought. "Is this going to change how I look? Am I going to look weird or something?" you ask, your voice climbing.

Your imagination runs wild. Rough, hard skin? Does it make you super-muscular and gross looking? Would you end up flat!?

She gives a small smile and shakes her head. "No, no, nothing like that. Your skeleton doesn't end up any different in outward appearance. Your muscles would be harder and more easily defined, but with us women our subcutaneous fat tends to smooth those things out pretty quickly. You'll weigh more, for sure, with the muscle density increase, and will need a larger amount of calories, protein, and calcium, but it shouldn't cause any abnormal changes. If you see anything like that, come tell me immediately," she tells you seriously.

You nod, chewing on your lip.

"Anything else?" she asks.

"U-uh…" you try to think, but can't come up with anything, so you shake your head.

"Alright, well, I'll be here when you finish thinking." And with that, she wheels away back to the desk, leaving you once more staring at the ceiling and thinking.

Okay. So, that was helpful.

You've decided on the innertech. But the extreme-environment thing…

Your first impulse is to say yes. Because duh. You've always kind of wanted to visit different planets, but that was nothing more than a dream. Now that you're Talented, that's not just dream but a serious possibility. The only problem is that this is the only way you ever could do that, even if you end up not going to tons of other planets.

But, whispers the rational part of your mind, there's no need to rush. You can see what the rest of the school is like before making any life-altering decisions.

Because… this isn't some removable innertech. Not some additions that can be undone at any time. This would change you, your body, your organs, your cells. Irreversibly.

But would that be so bad?

You wouldn't look much different, if at all. Your body as it is right now is just not good enough. Just… just look at you! Not even five minutes on a new planet and you're already incapacitated. It's pathetic!

You've always wanted see everything you could, and as you are now? That's just… not happening.

You're still not entirely comfortable with the idea of something changing you, shaping you that much —even with all of Dr. Faren's answers— but it's a small price to pay for the freedom it'll give you.

It wasn't like waiting a couple days would hurt, though, would it?

You're practically stuck between saying yes, and saying wait when you take a deep breath and let it out.

You really should wait. There's no downside to waiting, but you really don't think that there's anything that you'll find that'll change your mind. And is it really worth stressing out about it for two days and wasting time on when you're going to be trying to get used to school?

If you don't do it now, will you just keep putting it off?

No. You're going in circles. Better to get this over with, so you don't have it looming over your head and making you stay up at night thinking about it.

…You really need your sleep.

Maybe you should have gone with your first impulse after all, but you feel like the questions ended up helping a little.

One last breath, and let it out.

"Okay."

Dr. Faren turns around to look at you. "Okay?"

You nod, resolutely. "Okay."

"To what?"

"Both. The environment stuff and the innertech," you say, even as you try to keep a grip on your nerves.

She gives a small smile that widens into a grin. "Alright, then. You excited?"

You try to give a confident smile, but you aren't sure if it came out like that.

She stands up and walks over to you. "We need to move into the other room for this, then. I'm going to put you back on the stretcher to get you over there, okay?" You nod, and it's only with her warning that you're able to stay still as the sheet and you lift up again to move over to the stretcher.

After that, she walks over to your left, out of your vision, and you hear a door open before you're moving towards her, guided so that you can go through the door she's holding open.

The room beyond is like an exam room, except a bit fancier with a couple of imaging things over on the walls and a number of directional lights, with one on an articulating arm.

Once you're inside the room, she moves you onto the examination table before flipping on a few lights.

"Let me just get everything together, alright?"

"…Okay," you agree.

She leaves the room and you hear her walk through the other room, another door opening and closing. A minute or so where you can't hear anything, and then there are footsteps coming back. She's carrying a tray of various things you can't see very well, her hands now covered by bright purple gloves.

"Have you ever had anything administered by dermal absorption before?" she asks.

"No?"

"It's pretty simple. You put your arm in this" —here a metal canister you hadn't noticed before floats to in front of her— "and you wait four hours and let the nanites in the matrix do their thing. Easy, right?" The canister floats over to settle down on the counter across the room.

It sounds easy enough.

"The innertech, on the other hand…" Some kind of black and metal brace comes into sight and ohmygodwhatisthat. There's a series of tiny ampules that run down it like spines, each of them with a small glob of silver in them, the topmost one entirely full. "I understand it's a little intimidating. Don't worry, you won't feel a thing. That's the whole point. How did you get your current system done? Was it sublingual? …Ah, below the tongue?"

"I-it was just a tablet that dissolved…" you tell her.

You were expecting something like that again. Not, not… this.

She nods. "It's a simple way to get stuff into the bloodstream and to your brain if you're not worried about it circulating around and not all ending up there. Unfortunately, that's not good enough here. This acts fast, and it has to all be in place to activate, and letting it disperse around your body first doesn't do that."

That… kind of makes sense?

"So are you ready? We're going to do the innertech first, because it puts you through at least a single sleep cycle where I can monitor it as part of the calibration, and you don't need to be awake for the other one to be absorbed."

You want to whimper, but nod instead.

Her expression softens. "Hey. Thousands of us Talented get this. It's really not that bad. Trust me, okay? It was a lot worse when they first started offering this. They did it by single-site spinal tap, with needles as long your hand. This? This is easy stuff compared to that. I wish they had something like this back then for me."

You're really not sure if that makes you feel better or worse.

"Now let's get you ready. Can you turn on your side so you're facing away from me?"

Deep breath, and you slowly roll over, giving you a fantastic view of the light-green wall.

"Perfect. I'm going to sterilize your neck, okay?"

"…alright," you acknowledge, and the feeling of something cool and wet wipes down the back of your neck, drying quickly and feeling even colder, before moving to the sides as well.

"It'll be about eight hours before you get very basic functionality back. After that it'll gradually continue improving and adjusting—that's the whole point," she tells you.

Okay, you can handle that. Eight hours without your innertech. Eight hours being like you were before you were nine.

…This is not going to be fun.

"I'm going to put it on now, alright? Can you tilt your head forward into your chest as far as possible?"

You nod wordlessly and do what she asked, staring down at your legs.

Something smooth and cool touches the back of your neck, and then wraps around, spreading out to grip your shoulders under your shirt. There's a series of faint clicks down your throat.

"Deep breath."

You breathe.

A cool numbness spreads out over your neck from behind, and you try to ignore the feeling, focusing on the time that your current innertech is showing to you in your vision.

And then without any warning it disappears.

Apprentice v18
> Are you sure you want to replace the current installation? (y/N)

Yes.

Confirmed. Install-level access granted to new system. Using existing sensory interfaces.
Hyperion platform (HW r14, SW v6.7.2) starting...
Resonant energy field found, tuning... done.
Detecting existing installation... Verschal-compliant system found.
Importing existing data... done.
Constructing latticework... done.
Adaptive learning system initialized.
Refinement system started.
Stage 0 neural integration in-progress.
Calibration sequence loaded.
Installation complete. Dissolving pre-existing structures.

And then there's nothing. No time, no notifications, no network, no nothing.

It was like before you'd ever had your innertech.

It was the thing around your neck popping apart and then getting gently removed that brought you back to reality.

"See, easy, right?" Dr. Faren asks.

You nod, and then yawn.

"It's already hitting you, then. Don't fight it, just let yourself fall asleep. I'll get you absorbing the other stuff while you're asleep."

You yawn again, even as your eyes are closing…

---

You wake up, and the first thing you notice is you're on your back once more, and your right arm feels like it's in something weird. You turn to look at it …and yep, your arm is in something weird. It's stuck in the tube, which contains a bright blue gel solid enough not to slip out of the opening even with the canister on its side.

The door opens, and you tilt your head to look over at it.

Dr. Faren steps through the doorway, closing it behind her.

"The room notified me that you'd woken up. You were asleep for almost four hours after the innertech got you started. It seemed like you needed it, so I decided to not wake you up when all you'd have to do is wait for the second installation to finish." She looked at the canister of gel. "You're pretty much done with that too, if it's that blue, so we can get you out of it."

…What did the color have to do with anything?

She doesn't say anything else, though, instead just gently removing your arm from the gel-filled canister and taking it over to the room's disposal system. The gel didn't stick to your arm or leave any residue behind at all, from what you can tell.

"You should be safe to move about now, if you take it slowly and carefully. I've got the wheelchair I want you to use for the next week or so, both to prevent fatigue and any accidents that are… more likely than not for the next few days since you've never experienced any change in gravity like this. Your reflexes and movements are going to be off and feel very strange, so it's best to just avoid creating any situations where that may cause you to come back here any sooner than you need to."

You nod. "Okay. …Thanks."

She smiles softly. "It's my job. …The other thing I should mention is that you will need to exercise and alter your diet, like I said earlier. Either take one of the physical fitness electives, or make it a priority to regularly visit the exercise room. However, don't do anything that'll force you to keep up with other people at this point. You need to take things at your own pace with something that'll give you more individual freedom. That means no team sports, okay? You wouldn't be able to play for three or four months, which wouldn't be very fun and defeats the purpose of taking it in the first place."

That's… annoying, but you suppose you had to deal with it.

"Now, it's only just after six-thirty in the evening localtime, so I'd suggest going to your dining hall and eating at least a little with everyone else. They'll be able to tell you what happened at the orientation while you were here. I expect you'll get a chance to meet with your advisor tomorrow since you couldn't today, even though tomorrow's Sunday. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Um." You try to think, but nothing comes to mind, so you shake your head.

She smiles reassuringly. "Are you ready to try sitting up and moving to the wheelchair after a bit, then?"

You nod, and she steps closer to the bed/exam table you're on. When she touches something on the side, it begins to lever your top half up slowly. When you're at thirty degrees, she stops. "Doing alright?"

"…Yeah." A little tingling in your fingers, but nothing terrible.

"Tell me when you're ready to keep going."

A few breaths, thirty seconds or so waiting as the tingling fades away, and then, "Alright."

The bed goes up some more, and then stops, and you repeat the process twice until you're finally sitting up properly, at which point she lifts you up telekinetically and places you in the wheelchair next to the bed that you hadn't even noticed. Your bag's already hanging from a hook on the back, too.

"It's got a motor in it to get you where you want if you get tired, but I'd suggest you try to push yourself around as long as you feel you can exert yourself without overdoing it," she says, moving around behind you and pushing you towards the door, it opening on its own for you—her telekinesis again, you'd guess. "I'll take you to your dining hall if you want, though. I'm going that direction anyways."

"…Yes, please," you say softly.

This is so… embarrassing. Humbling? Being disabled like this is something you've never experienced and it's incredibly frustrating.

You really don't like it, and only the fact that you've done everything you could at this point —to the extent of reinforcing your body using nanotech— eases that feeling.

"I suppose I should welcome you to the Academy, since you had to miss the basic orientation the rest of the kids from your shift got. I'm not exactly the person to ask for a guided tour or anything, though," she says, pushing you out of the clinic's door and back into the hallway you remember from your time on the stretcher. "Although I suppose I can take you along the mildly-scenic route."

With that, she turns right at the junction and pushes you down the hallway and then follows it left as it turns.

And then there's a window on your right.

The sight outside… it's both so similar and so different from what you're used to.

It's… open, is the first thing you think. Grass and trees and space. Nearly your entirely life had been in New York City, and the closest you'd get to something like this there was the various parks, but here it just kept going, to the point you could see the horizon.

Everything else, though… the fluffy white clouds, the blue sky, the way the trees' leaves rustle, it's all so similar. Someone could tell you that you're on Earth, and you wouldn't even know they were lying except for the gravity.

Haeld is a super-Earth, seven times the mass and nearly six times the surface area, with only sixty-one percent of that covered by the oceans. It was planets like this that helped save Earth post-Collapse.

"We got lucky," Dr. Farren comments behind you, drawing you out of your thoughts. "Or unlucky, depending on your view, I suppose. Pre-terraforming, the environment was right on the edge of being too inhospitable. Nothing more complex than self-replicating molecules were able to develop. Not even unique or novel ones, either. Post-terraforming, well, you can see the results. One of the greatest success stories of the early Colonization period. Biggest differences are the twenty-eight hour days, the half-years and seasons, and the gravity."

"It's… so pretty," you say softly, placing your hand against the window as if you could reach out and touch it all.

"Mhm," she agrees, slowly starting to push you again, you letting your hand fall away. "You'll have more than enough chance to go out as much as you want. Some of the teachers even like to take classes outside when it's particularly nice out, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of them do that in the next few of weeks."

That would be really nice.

"Do you have any general questions? I imagine your RA and/or orientation lead could answer them better than I could, but I might be able to give you something," she offers.

You think. "What's… what's the nicest place on campus?"

"The garden," she answers without hesitation. "Some people might tell you the west quad because of the trees and grassy hills to lie on, but I consider the garden to be the nicest place we have. It's arguably the most diverse and beautiful garden on Haeld, thanks to the Talented who put their efforts into it."

You'll… definitely have to make that something to go see, then, if it's such a big deal. Then again, you get the feeling that a lot of stuff around here is going to be a big deal.

"And here we are," she says, drawing up to a set of open double doors. You can hear the sounds of chatter and motion inside. "I think I'll let you take it from here. I'm not so old that I can't remember what this can be like. Your RAs should collect you after dinner, although you'll probably have to ask one of them who yours is since you didn't meet them earlier. But I'm sure you can figure it out."

Dr. Faren gives you a small smile. "Oh, and I'll send you some patterns for the sorts of tight leggings you should wear starting tomorrow, okay?"

You nod.

"Well then, it was nice meeting you, though I hope we won't be seeing each other again too soon?"

You laugh weakly. "…Yeah."

"Goodbye then."

"Bye." You wave as she walks away.

Hoookay.

Deep breath, Amy.

There's small controls on the arm for the chair's motor, but you ignore those right now. Dr Faren said you should try moving yourself, so that's what you're going to do.

Hands on the wheels —moving around still feels weird— and push. …Less effort than you expected, really, though you assume that was the whole point of the chair. Moving yourself into the doorway gives you a look at the inside of the "dining hall". It's not like the cafeterias at your old school, there's a multitude of different sizes of tables, all spaced out, and you think you even see it tier down towards the back, where the wall is huge panes of glass looking out onto the campus. The number of people in it, however, immediately reminds you of your schools back in New York.

Nobody seems to really notice you entering, or if they do they just don't pay you any mind, which you are very grateful for.

"Amy!" You blink, and turn to look at the voice that called out your name. May's quickly walking towards you from some place over to the right, waving, before she comes to a stop in front of you. "May… May I help you? …You could sit with us, too."

Us? "Who's… us?" you ask.

"Oh. Some of the other Earthers and I."

You feel a slight weight on your chest decrease at the idea of not having to find a random table to sit at right now. "Yeah, that'd… that'd be nice, thanks."

"Here." May gets behind you and starts pushing your chair towards one of the small alcove areas off to the side of the cafeteria. "Let's get your food first. Do you want the fresh food or the fab?"

"Fresh," you answer. You've never really liked fabfood, and even if it's supposed to be completely identical, it just… isn't. May angles you towards the left, and when you get to the alcove it's more an entrance into an entirely separate area with multiple serving stations that have different items available.

This is way nicer than anything you had back in New York.

You point out the first thing that looks good to May, and head over, get a tray, and get served. She stays mostly quiet throughout the process, and once you've got both food and a glass of milk —Dr. Faren's demand of more calcium had echoed in your head while looking at the drink selection— May pushes you out of the food area back into the actual dining space, and then towards where she came from. "So um. How are you… you know, doing?"

You fidget, tapping at the tray on your lap. "I'm… okay." Mostly.

It's hard talking to someone behind you, whose face you can't see.

"That's good?" You hear the question, but don't know what to say.

You can see the table May's pushing you towards now, though. It's one of the larger rectangular ones, and you immediately recognize the white-haired girl from the transport, along with the blonde girl sitting two seats away a second later.

Oh god.

You should've figured that May was talking about people from the same 'port, but you didn't even think about that.

And then they all —including the other two girls who're there who you don't recognize— turn to look at you, and your face flushes.

…You'd kind of like to melt right now, thank you.

Unfortunately, there's no melting, and May doesn't even seem to notice your feelings, instead just pushing you up so that you're at the end of the table between one of the unknown girls (the brunette) and the white-haired girl.

"Um, Amber, can I switch seats with you?" May asks.

The brunette nods and slides into the empty seat next to her, swapping her tray with the one she'd just gotten in front of. Seating now arranged, May moves from behind you to sit in the free space left behind.

It doesn't look like everyone's too far through their meals. In fact, it almost looks like they'd just started. "This is Amy."

The blonde blinks, and then a look of recognition comes into her eyes and she snaps her fingers. "The fainting girl!"

Auuuuuuuuuugh.

Your face must be as red as a tomato, and you're unable to meet anyone's eyes.

"Stop that!" May hisses, and then turns to you. "Sorry, she's a little… rough. Besides, that wasn't Amy's fault. I-it was mine."

"Sorry, princess." Princess? "I'm not tryin' to offend, though. My name's Ava-Grace. Most people just call me Grace."

"Not that you have any," May mutters.

"Aw, don't be like that. I was just trying to be friendly."

"I'm Angharad," the white-haired girl to your left interjects with an accent you can't place. "I don't have a nickname, really."

"Don't worry, we'll find you one!" Grace comments from next to her.

"Amber," the brunette girl whose seat May had taken contributes. "But you probably already got that."

"Ying Yue," the last girl, on Amber's right, adds in, completing the introductions. "Just Yue is fine."

"She came over on the East-Asian transport that arrived a few minutes before us," May tells you.

"So what's with the wheelchair?" Grace asks.

May just lets her face fall into her hand while Angharad sighs and your blush renews itself.

Taking a breath, you center yourself. "I have hypotension. Low blood pressure," you say, preempting Grace's next question judging by her open mouth, which closes. "Like, really low. A-and I didn't find out I was Talented until only a week ago, so I didn't get a chance to do any environmental preparation or anything. So I um, faint really easily."

"Ah. That sucks," Grace says bluntly.

"Yeah," Amber agrees. "Is there anything you can do? Is the wheelchair permanent?"

You shake your hand. "It's only for a week or so," you say, starting to eat before your food gets cold. "And I, um, already got something to help with it too…"

May frowns. "Like what?"

"Extreme-environment adaptation nanotech," you say, looking around for reactions.

May and Angharad don't show any reaction, while Amber looks like she swallowed something sour. Yue looks interested, while Grace is visibly excited.

"Oh man, you got the double-e-mods already? That's so cool. I wish I could get some of that now," Grace says excitedly. Amber looks at her as though she's completely alien, while May rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, it won't help for a couple months, though, so I'm like this for now," you tell them. "So um, where are you all from? I'm from the City. …New York City," you clarify, realizing that that's not a definite location anymore in an environment with so many people from different places.

"Northern Europe," Angharad offers, and you blink as the accent suddenly places itself.

"You're from the British Isles?" you ask in English, and her eyes widen before she nods. Though you wonder why she came through on the New York transport instead of Berlin, then.

Still, that's pretty cool. At least you know someone you can keep speaking English with.

"West-Coast North America," May says.

"The South. North America," Amber states, clipped.

"Taojiang, Asia," Yue gives.

"All you guys are boring. Geez. Well, I'll give a bit more for you all," Grace says. "Me and my da and Rob, my older brother, run one of the energy farms out on the edge of Deadlands. Right up there in the middle."

You barely hold in your wince. That's… that could not have been a fun environment to grow up in, yet she somehow seems like the most outgoing person here.

"What are your Talents?" Yue asks.

"Me? I've got this energy-wave-thing that goes out, y'know? Fried a bunch of the solar panels and blew some of them away on accident. Da was not happy about that," Grace tells everybody, laughing. "Though he got over it when we figured out what it meant."

Amber taps her finger on the table. "Telekinesis. Not particularly special," she says with a frown. She seems to do that a lot. "Only T-5."

Only T-5? That was… There were people out there who would give away body parts to have access to a T-5 telekinetic.

"Sensory access. Limited number and range, right now," May says, repeating what you'd heard from her before. "T-11 at best. For now," she ends, and she makes it sound like a promise more than anything.

"I am… cryokinetic," Yue says. "T-3."

You swallow, your eyes wide, and you're pretty sure everyone else at the table is staring at her. That… Elementals with high ratings like that are practically forces of natures, calling storms, controlling hurricanes, ending wildfires. And you have one at your table. And she's only going to get stronger, here.

"Damn, girl," Grace says, and you can't help but echo her sentiment. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

Yue coughs. "Yes. Well." She turns to look at the white-haired girl on your left. "Angharad?"

"Tactile telekinesis. Combat-oriented. I… don't know my rating. I've not been pushed yet," she says.

The table turns to look at you, and you shrink, your fork in your mouth with a piece of chicken. You remove the fork, chew, and swallow. "I… I don't know. I only found out a week ago, and it was because my doctor saw something in my diagnostics."

Grace grins at you. "Don't worry, I'm sure you've got something really cool. Can't have anything else with crowd like this."

You wish you shared her enthusiasm and optimism, but you're not sure. What if you just turn out to be some weak, dumb Talent?

No.

No thinking like that. Any Talent is valued and useful, no matter what it is. That's why you're here.

"How many people do you think are from Earth, here?" Angharad asks.

Amber shrugs, while May looks thoughtful. "Supposedly the largest percentage, but less than a third? Earth is still the most populous world, with Mars, Haeld, Tiryn, Fengxi, Ganymede, Venus, and the rest of the Outworlds following. In a class of fifteen hundred… less than four hundred, would be my guess."

Grace whistles. "Four hundred's still a darn big number. There weren't even four hundred living in the closest town to us."

You have a sneaking suspicion that was because it was the Deadlands, but you don't say anything.

Dinner progresses from there, mostly involving Grace telling stories about working on the energy farm, though Yue offers her own descriptions of natural old-style rice farms around her area.

After fifty minutes or so (not that you can say exactly with your innertech unavailable), having finished eating and put your tray back, a large group of older teens —over forty— enters the dining area. At some signal, a boy steps forward and claps. Noise in the hall immediately starts quieting down as attention is drawn to him.

"Yes! Hi! Can we have your attention please?" The murmurs quiet down almost completely, and then there's silence, or as close as you can get with a group of fifteen hundred teenagers. "Thank you! My name is Marcus, and I'll be the head RA coordinator for you all this year!"

You're kind of impressed by how well he's projecting his voice to reach the whole room.

"Behind me are your RAs! You've probably already met some of us at your orientations because we were in charge of that as well! Now! You all should have gotten a card with a number on it! My friends and I are going to spread ourselves out in the room, and each of us will be holding a sign with a number on it that matches your own!"

Even as he's speaking, they start moving, carrying small bags with a plastic stick poking out.

"Please make your way calmly to your group. Once you're all gathered, your RAs will take you to a space and you'll have your first floor meeting," he tells you. "RAs, can you please hold up your signs?"

The signs go up, numbers on large circles at the ends of the sticks you saw. There's rustling as people get out the cards they were apparently given and look at them. May looks over at you after checking her own. "Do you know your number?"

You shake your head. "Dr. Faren said they probably all have the lists and can tell me where to go."

May nods. "I can take you to ask, if you'd like."

You bite your lip, but nod. You probably shouldn't be relying on May this much for moving, but then again you'll have more than enough time to be independent and push yourself around later.

Around you people are standing up, already moving towards the sign-holders.

"I guess I'll see you all later, then?" Grace says. "Tomorrow?"

Angharad nods. "This was nice. I wouldn't mind eating together again." There're varying sounds of agreement from the rest of you.

Grace grins. "It's a plan then. Catch you all later."

With that, your small group begins dispersing, everyone going off in their own directions except for May, who moves behind you and pulls you away from the table, turning and then pushing towards the closest RA, who's towards the side of the room twenty feet away.

There's already nine or ten girls there, milling around, and you stop in the midst of them.

"Um, excuse me?" you say, drawing the RA's attention. She turns to you, and you can see that she's even got a name tag on.

"Yes? Are you in this group?" she asks.

You shake your head. "I missed orientation and didn't get my number. Can you tell me what it is?"

She smiles. "Sure, what's your name?"

"Amara Bailey," you respond.

Her eyes flicker for a moment, looking at something you can't see. "You're in… sixteen, with Neha."

"Thanks!" you tell her, May pulling you back from the growing collection and starting to push you towards the ramp down to the third terrace, where sixteen's nearer the other side of the hall.

"You… should probably go to your own group so you're not late," you say. "I can do this."

May hesitates, but then replies, stopping you. "…Okay. I'll… see you then?" she asks, coming around on your right so you can see her.

You give her a smile. "Yeah! …Thanks for helping me."

She gives you a guilty look and turns away. "It was my fault in the first place."

You shrug, still smiling. It's not like you wouldn't have had the same thing happen without her, even if it was later. "Nope! Still thanks."

She nods, and then gives you that same small wave as in the infirmary, before walking away to the right.

Deep breath.

Pushing yourself there isn't terribly difficult, though navigating through the tables gets a little tricky. Still, you manage it with no major incidents, and count that as an accomplishment.

The girl holding the sign up turns to you when you finally get there. She's coffee-toned, with warm brown eyes and hair, and wearing a name tag with both the phonetic Common characters that spell out her name, as well as below it a flowing script with a horizontal line running through it near the top. Her native language, maybe? You know that some places on other planets Common is considered a second language, usually for cultural reasons. It seems weird to you. Common is meant to be… common.

"Hello, are you with us?" she asks you.

"Yep," you reply, nodding. "Looks like it."

"What's your name?"

"Amara Bailey," you tell her.

She nods. "Thank you."

The groups seem to be organized based on gender from what you can tell, now that they've all clumped up. Neha's eyes run over all of you that are around her, and she seems satisfied because she lowers her sign, resting it on her shoulder.

"It seems we have everyone, good." She glances at the doors on the lowest level —you didn't even see them earlier— where other groups are already exiting. "Let's wait a few minutes before we leave. In the meantime, I'll introduce myself.

"My name is Neha, and I'm from Bhum, Tiryn. I am bilingual, and my first language was Hindi." …So similar to you with Old English, then. "I'm nineteen, and I go to the university here, studying psychology because of my Talent. I am an empath, meaning that I know, and to a very small degree experience, the emotions of people around me. Empathy is one of the most common abilities for Talented, even if the specifics vary, so it is very likely you will meet others with it, maybe even in this group."

Neha glanced down at the doors, which were now free. "Perfect. Let's go."

She leads you to side of the room and down the slope, until you're on the lowest level and heading towards the doors that lead outside. She holds the door open while you all go outside, and you go through last so you don't get in anybody else's way.

Outside is… just as amazing as you thought it would be from looking with Dr. Faren. Everything is so alive, trees and green grass and hundreds of tiny other little things. The yard is open, with buildings at the sides, paths leading to them but somehow not cutting into the sheer openness and feeling of nature the space gives off.

There are groups sitting in circles in the shade of the trees, though they're only a handful compared to the number you saw before.

"Do you need any help?"

You look back at Neha, who's let go of the door and followed behind you.

You swallow, and decide to answer honestly. "It depends on how far we're going."

She points right across the open yard to a large tree that's (thankfully) next to the sidewalk. And then she points to the right, at the second building there. "That's the dorm."

"I'll be fine, then," you tell her, and she nods, walking forward to the front of the group and leading you all down the walkway to the tree she'd pointed out. Once there, she moves next to the tree and sits down against it, facing out towards the grass, motioning for the others to follow.

They do so, and Neha gives you a look that you figure is telling you it's fine to stay where you are, which is right next to her anyways.

"Okay. So, I have already introduced myself, let's pick up from there. Please tell us your name, where you are from, something you feel is notable about yourself, and a little bit about you. If you want to share your Talent as your thing, you may, but do not feel pressured to. Also when I say a 'little bit' I mean a little. I'm sure you don't want to be sitting out here for the next two hours." There's a small amount of laughter at that. "Let's start… on my right, going around."

You blink; that means you're first.

And suddenly everybody's attention is on you.

Eergh

"U-um. I'm Amy Bailey. I'm from New York City, Earth. …I'm an only child. I didn't know I was Talented until a week ago, and I have really low blood pressure and didn't really have any time to prepare, so I'm stuck with this for the next two weeks." You motion at the wheelchair.

Neha nods, and turns to look at the girl to your right, everybody's attention shifting to match.

You let out your breath. That wasn't so bad.

"I am Verity Seward and I'm from Durham, Haeld…"

Everything sort of blurs together beyond that. Too many names, too many details. What you do pick up is you're from all over the place, and you haven't even heard of half of the cities before. Some shared their talents, and but not many, maybe only five, and you don't even remember the specifics of those.

Neha's clap draws your focus back to reality, "Alright, thank you all. As you know, the floors in the dorms here are separated by gender, and your roommates have been selected based on the questionnaire you filled out when you accepted the offer to come here. It's generally preferred to have the door open if you're in the dorm and don't need privacy. There's a certain degree of trust we give you, please don't abuse that. And for Brahma's sake, try not to date anyone on the same floor. It almost always ends messily. Don't make my job any harder than it needs to be." She looks around the circle at everybody intently and then sighs. "Wake up is at seven, curfew is at nine-thirty, lights out is at eleven.

"Now. Sleeping. Your body is not going to be happy the next few days. You're going from whatever day length-cycle is on your planet to one that's twenty-eight hours long, and the body is not designed for those sorts of changes without fairly comprehensive modifications."

…Like the one you just got.

Well then.

You have to wonder how long it'll take to alter those sorts of brain-things, since the impression you got from Dr. Faren was that it only took so long to work on the other things, like muscle and bone, because it directed growth for those.

"For those of you who've done interplanetary travel before, you'll probably recognize these, or something like them." She hold up a pair of… pills? "These are used to regulate, and over time adjust, your biological clocks. One for day in the morning, one for night before bed. The school provides these via the small fabricators in your rooms keyed to your biometrics.

"Now let me say something because there are people dumb enough to think this: these are not chemicals. This is nanotech. Taking more will not do anything. So getting more from your friend or giving yours to your friend is completely pointless. The two other medications that are universally available through the fabricators are a multivitamin and a calcium supplement. Those are chemical, but taking more than suggested also does not do much. If you have other medical needs, the system will have that on file and be able to create whatever is required.

"You do not have to use these. They are highly recommended, but not required. If you choose not to, you will be miserable and it will impact your focus and cognition, and thus your school performance. There was a girl my freshman year on my floor who decided she didn't need them. She lasted two weeks before she had a mental breakdown. So please use them. Even if you have some ethical, moral, or religious issue with nanotechnology, please make an exception for this. I don't want us to start the year off with an incident like that." She's practically pleading, and you can tell that this is a big deal.

…You're definitely going to ask Dr. Faren how the EE system you got affects any of this.

Neha sighs, and puts the pills away back in the plastic bag. "The next three days are 'free' days. They are to give you time to physically and mentally adjust to a new environment and explore. Whether that requires reading in the library, talking to people, or walking around, that is what this time is for.

"I will be eating breakfast and dinner in your dining hall for anybody who wants to eat together as a group. Maybe it could even be a scheduled event."

She stops, and looks thoughtful. "What else… oh, laundry. The laundry machines are in the basement. They are very simple: dirty clothes go in, clean clothes come out. You should already have clean linens in your rooms, and an alternate set on your bed. You are responsible for them, just like your other laundry. Are there any questions? About anything, not just laundry," she says with an amused smile.

One of the girls, …Stelsa? raises her hand.

"Yes?" Neha asks.

"Can we meet the teachers before school starts?" the girl asks.

"They should be in either their classrooms or offices Tuesday, but I'm not sure about Monday. If there is a specific teacher you wish to meet, the best thing to do would be to message them and ask. …If you're not comfortable doing that, I could message them for you."

Stelsa nods, looking conflicted.

Neha looks around the circle. "Any other questions? If you want to ask me privately, I'm living in the room in the center of the south hallway —which is where all of us are— and my name is on the door. Please don't hesitate to ask me questions or for help, it's what I am here for."

Nobody makes any motions or sound. "Alright. We're in Benson, floor four, on the south end. All of the doors have your names on them, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding your room, although your room number should be on the card you got."

She stands up, and the others take that as their cue to follow her. "I'll be going directly to the floor if you want to follow, otherwise you're free, just be sure to be back before nine-thirty."

For a moment you just sit there, letting everything just sink in. Up until now it's felt sort of unreal, but now reality is really sinking in. It's almost overwhelming. Almost.

But you know you can do this.

---

What do you want to do? (For your vote to be counted, you must give at least a minimal explanation of why you're choosing to do this)
[X] Go to your room, get settled in, and meet your roommate.
[] There's supposed to be common rooms on every floor, there's bound to be some of your floormates there you can talk to and get to know.
[] Go to the library. You just need some quiet to think about today and destress. There might even be some older students who'd be willing to talk to you?
[] Stay where you are, outside. Enjoy the outdoors and give yourself time to process everything. Maybe even go to the garden.
[] Find another group. There's bound to be other students hanging around nearby you could talk to. (1d4 roll for group's year)
[] Write-in. (Where? Why?)

 

[ensou]

Whoooo. @ensou, do we know anything about the rough distribution of Talent numbers? I imagine that Yue isn't the strongest person in the room, but how close is she? Top 5? Top 10? How likely is it that there's a T-1 in the class of 1500?

Click to shrink...

Natural Talents (in-the-wild, before training) are roughly distributed in a series where each step up has half the number as the one previous (so powers of two). Thus, you can create a formula for a known number of Talented like this

population * 2^(T-1)/sum(2^(n-1), n=1, 12)

where T is the Talent-level you're trying to find out about.

The problem with doing that for the school is that a lot of T-12s and T-11s tend to get missed or never even find out they're Talented, and just do slightly better than normal people at certain things.

So instead you can remove T-11s and T-12s and then combine the T-10 and T-9 distribution and use that as a pool for the T-9 through 12s.

1500* 2^(T-1)/sum(2^(n-1), n=1, 10)

With that kind of distribution you get

T-1	1.47
T-2	2.93
T-3	5.87
T-4	11.73
T-5	23.46
T-6	46.92
T-7	93.84
T-8	187.68
T-9 to 12	1126.1

Of course, there's still a good degree of further skew to the higher end because higher-level (or larger-scale, rather) Talents are inclined to get found much easier, as they often have a tendency for incidents, such as Ava-Grace's, and the big ones are very, very obvious.

Soooo for this you can safely assume there's at least two T-1s, three or four T-2s, six or seven T-3s, twelve T-4s, etc.

And of course, this is all still before the benefit of stretching themselves and growing stronger.

As she is now, Yue is in the top twelve, if not the top ten.

 

[ensou]

Winner:
[X] Go to your room, get settled in, and meet your roommate.

---

For a moment, you sit there, thinking, enjoying the outside and the breeze.

There's a number of things you could do: visit the garden, check out the library, try and find other people…

But truly? All you want is to get to your room and get out of all this. Too much has happened today, and you need somewhere you can go and just settle down in. You're really not up for handling any more people if the way you just blanked during the introductions is any indicator.

Besides, meeting your new roommate is kinda important…

Mind made up, you put your hands on the chair's wheels and start pushing yourself along the path to head after Neha and the ones who decided to follow her, which was something like two-thirds of the group.

You're thirty seconds or so late to the door, but this one is automatic, and opens for you.

You blink.

Maybe the last one was too and Neha was holding it open as an excuse to ask you if you needed help?

…Your opinion of her goes up a few notches.

There's a few of them still milling around the elevator. It looks like one group already went up, and maybe a few took the stairs?

Two of them are talking, one toffee-colored with shoulder-length green hair that has to be a mod and the other pale but lightly tanned with long, shockingly blood-red hair. You're not sure whether that's natural or not.

They don't seem to notice you, too caught up in their conversation, but the other, a more normal-seeming brunette does and quirks a smile that you return.

The elevator arrives, the two girls getting on first, then the brunette, and finally you wheeling in awkwardly.

The girl with green hair pushes the button for the fourth floor, the redhead falling silent, leaning back against the railing.

The doors close, and you start up.

It's dead silent until you arrive with a 'ding'.

You exit first, getting yourself out of the way, and then the others get off. The brunette immediately goes left, the pair following and starting up their conversation again.

Neha had said you were all on the south end, so if your names were on the door you should just need to go looking at all of them.

You push yourself slowly down the hall, looking at all the tags for your name. It'll probably have 'Amara' on it. Ugh.

A few of the doors are already open, one or two girls moving around, getting unpacked. It's only near the end of the hall on the right that you find your name (sure enough, 'Amara Bailey'). Beside it, though, is another.

'Elva Taiyo'

And that'd be your roommate.

You put your hand on the doorknob and it recognizes your biometrics, unlocking the door with an audible click and a small green light appearing, letting you turn the knob. You push on the door, and it swings open easily.

"Oh!"

A dark-blonde girl spins around from where she's standing at the back of the room by a desk.

She's visibly tan, with a low-collar green t-shirt that matches her eyes and white knee-length shorts. Around her neck is a necklace of worn twine with three cowrie shells at the base, and her left wrist has a woven bracelet of the same material.

The room must be ten feet wide and less than twenty feet long, with two low beds on either side. Immediately to your left and right, entering, there's a pair of built-in cabinets with drawers and a hanger rod. A short bedside… cabinet-table-thing is beyond each bed, and then up against the far end of the walls by the wide window that's the entire back end of the room, are the desks. Additionally, there's a sort of glass panel by where she was standing?

"Hey!" she says, drawing your attention away from the room and back to her. "I'm Elva!"

You smile, finding it hard not to get caught up by the girl's excitement as she strides over and holds out her hand.

"I'm Amy," you tell her, shaking it, and she nods.

"Yeah! I didn't know if you were going to come up here right away or not, sooooo I kinda just chose the left side randomly, I hope you don't mind?"

You shake your head. "Nope! That's fine."

You wheel yourself further into the room, letting the door close behind you.

"There's something in the fab for you, I was going to try and look at it, maybe queue some stuff up, but it won't open for me so it's probably bio-locked," she says.

What? "What?"

She shrugs. "Yeah, take a look."

You push yourself towards where she'd been standing before, looking at the glass panel that's set in the wall. Inside is a chamber, maybe twelve inches deep and eighteen wide, the insides metal with a flat bottom, the build plate. And on the build plate is a small plastic case.

What?

You move closer, reaching your hand out and putting it on the glass, the system beeping happily and then the glass panel sliding up into the wall. You reach out, taking the white pebble-shaped object out and looking at it, finding the clasp quickly and opening it to reveal—

Oh.

"What is it?" Elva asks.

"Lenses."

Dr. Faren must have ordered the fab to make them for you.

"You don't have innertech?" she asks skeptically, and you can hear the unasked 'Why would you need low-grade AR?'

"No, um. Mine's upgrading? A replacement. The school offers it?"

"Oh," she says knowingly. "Yeah I heard something about that. That'll be really nice. Lucky you, getting it before everyone else! You gonna connect the lenses to whatever now?"

You really weren't lucky, you think. Not with all the fainting and missing orientation and being confined to a wheelchair and required exercise and stuff.

Turning back to Elva, you nod and say, "I think so, yeah."

You close the case, using the wheelchair's motor to back up, and turn around, pushing yourself to your desk. The lens case goes on the desk —which outlines it— and you pull the chair out.

Alright. Carefully, now.

"Um. Do… do you want some help?" Elva asks.

You shake your head. You've had that enough today, people taking care of you. You want to do this on your own.

Slowly, you use the arms to push yourself up out of the wheelchair, taking it very, very slow, stopping as soon as you start feeling a little lightheaded and then waiting for it to recede. Eventually, you're able to get yourself to near-standing, at which point you can lean on the desk and shift yourself over to the actual chair. You sit down with a thump despite your attempt to ease into the seat.

Hahhhh.

Okay.

Elva's moving around behind you, probably doing whatever she wanted with the fab, but right now you're focused on this because you could kind of really use it.

Turning the wheelchair next to you around, you unzip your backpack and reach into it, pulling out probably the heaviest object in it compared to everything else (which really says something considering what you've got): your runner.

You put the proc tile on the desk —it getting outlined as well— and turn it on.

It has a 2D screen on the surface, but, well, that's really basic. As soon as it's on and interfaced with the desk, you swipe a line across the surface between the runner and the lens case, a solid black line following your finger to connect the two. The outline around the case pulses thicker for a few seconds, and then returns to normal.

Finally.

You pick the case up and pop it open, picking the lenses up with your index and middle finger, and then holding open your eyes with your other hand as you put them in.

You blink quickly, making sure they're in place, and then they're on and your vision has the normal bits that you like and are used to when working with your stuff.

The desk no longer appears as just a 2D surface, but a fully holographic interface.

It's the work of a couple minutes to make sure everything's connected to the Academy's systems, but as soon as that's done you open up the mail app and slowly tap out a message to Dr. Faren asking if the ee-mods you got will do the same thing as those pills.

When that's sent you close everything down, leaving the runner on the desk so it stays in high-power mode, feeding your lenses and filling in for your innertech for now.

Satisfied (for now) you swivel around in your chair. Elva's started unpacking, which you probably should too, and is currently kneeling on the bed and putting stuff on the wall. The fabricator's running, practically solid silver-looking now, the swarm inside so dense it looks like a liquid.

Elva turns around to move off her bed and sees you. "Oh! All set up now?"

You nod. "Mhm."

"Nice! I'm just making some of my clothes and things for the next couple days. You can probably add whatever you want to the queue and it'll work till the thing's full since none of it's controlled stuff or valuable."

Good idea.

You pull up your blueprint library and start going through it, thinking about what you'll need for the next three days and selecting stuff. Clothes, mostly. A few hair ties. Maybe some things for the walls?

You don't have anything in your library, but you bet you could find a nice poster of the City out there, maybe even in the Academy's database?

You eye the fab, wondering if you could get it to make a large enough folded up sheet of livepaper that you could just stick some stuff on and have it cycle.

You could just have your AR do it virtually, but then you'd be the only one able to see it, and Elva was putting things up physically, so you could too.

For the next few minutes you fussed around with a livepaper blueprint, setting it up so that you'd get a large enough piece and it'd come out folded but not creased.

Satisfied, you sent it all off to the Academy system, which would then route it to your fab.

You turn to your backpack and start unpacking the rest of your things. A few clothes that are special. Your sketchbook and pencils and pens. Your journal. A perfectly smooth rock from Montauk. A geode from the trip to the Southwest Desert. A large shard of Black Glass from when your mother convinced you and your dad to travel through the Deadlands and visit the ruins. And your favorite: a clump of rock-metal that was practically unremarkable …except it was a meteorite.

You still don't know how your mom got that.

At home you'd had some music-fest posters and random stuff on your walls.

…What the heck.

You send the licensed blueprints for a couple of those to the fab as well, along with a few photos of your family and you and your old friends you won't be totally embarrassed by.

But… you still kind of wanted something more. Something special.

On the ceiling in your room at home you'd stuck glow-in-the-dark stars after you'd seen the night sky when camping out on a mesa in the Southwest desert with your family. It's one of your most vivid and treasured memories. That night had ignited within you the burning desire to go out, to see what made that beautiful image. The glow-in-the-dark stars were fine when you were six, but now…

You looked up at the ceiling, and then tilted your head thoughtfully.

"Hey Elva?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind covering the ceiling in livepaper?"

With the way the fab was letting you spit it out…

"Um. Not… really? But how are you going to get it up there?"

Good question.

Ehhhhh. "Details," you dismiss. Something you can worry about once you've got it.

You have the runner get the actual dimensions for the room from your lenses. Then you go back to your blueprint program and finagle another sheet of livepaper all folded up nicely, except much larger, and this one able to emit. And then much more adhesive than you'd gotten for the first sheet.

…Alright.

It should all be done in… an hour and a half. Wow. That was pretty fast for all the stuff you'd given the fab.

…Your last request had added thirty minutes, though.

"So you're from New York City, right? That's what you said?"

You blink, and tilt your head back down to look at Elva, who's sitting on her bed, back against the wall, shoes on the floor, and a single leg drawn up.

"Yeah," you confirm.

"What's it like, being in a city that big?" she asks.

"Busy."

"Busy?"

You nod. "Everything's always moving. It never stops. Not even at night."

"Wow." She draws her other leg up and rests her chin on them. "That sounds so cool."

"Where're you from?" And then you flush. "I… um… might have sort of zoned out for the rest of the intros," you tell her guiltily.

"I'm from Mira, Fengxi. It's a city, but it's pretty small. Nothing like New York City."

"It's still a city on one of the Inner Worlds, though," you say.

She nods. "Yep. It's a port city. …Seaport, not teleport. My house is on the beach. There's five of us: me, my mom, my dad, my older brother, and my younger sister. Me, my brother, and my sister are all two years apart. Do you have any?"

You shake your head. "No, I'm the only one. I think… my parents were happy enough with just one kid."

You're half-sure that your own existence was an impulse decision, but you have to admit that when you're not having a fight they are pretty good parents.

She hums thoughtfully. "What's your favorite movie?"

"The Last Fragments." It's kinda dark, actually, the idea of 'what if we hadn't been brought together after the War? But it was really, really good. And pretty. "What about you?"

"Windchild. I liked the action scenes. And the ending," she says.

You nod, and ask the next question. "What's your favorite thing to do?"

"Swimming. And I like the beach. Me and my friends did bonfires in the summer," she answers. "You? …Let me guess…" She holds out her hand, as though stopping you. "Singing!"

"No!" you laugh, and she pouts. "Drawing. And reading about new things. And I'm kinda interested in technology."

…Thus why you now have an AI system in your head.

"Like, real drawing? Not, y'know…" She taps the side of her head.

You nod. "I have a sketchbook and pencils. It's not authentic paper or anything, but synthpaper's actually higher quality. I've done a little bit of 3D stuff, too."

She grins. "Cool. What's your Talent?"

You groan. But you really should have expected it.

"What?" she asks, her smile slipping.

"Nothing. It's just like, you're the third person to ask me today. And I'd probably totally fine with that, but I don't know," you say. "And it seems like everybody else does but me."

"…Oh," she says. "Sorry."

You sigh. "No, it's not like you knew or anything." You take a breath and then release it. "I guess you know yours, though?"

Elva nods. "I'm a healer."

You stare at her. "Can you heal—"

She shakes her head quickly. "It's… more like fixing someone? Putting them back the right way? I can't… you're normal, there's nothing wrong, so I can't fix it. Does… does that make sense?"

"…Yeah." You try to hide the slight disappointment you feel, though.

"It only works when there's sunlight, and I have to be in it to work the best."

Like a plant, you can't help but think, giggling to yourself at the image of Elva having completely green skin.

"Hey, at least you'll find yours out on Wednesday, right?" she offers.

That's true. You will get to find out on Wednesday.

…You just really hope it doesn't turn out to be something stupid. Ugh.

Something good like… Yue's cryokinesis or Amber's telekinesis.

You blink.

Telekinesis.

"Are any of the people on our floor telekinetic?" you ask.

"Um. I think there was one girl at the introduction who said she was? Wei?" Elva answers, a little off-balance from the sudden change in topic. "…Why?"

You point up, grinning. "Because that's how we'll get the livepaper on the ceiling."

She stares at you blankly, obviously in awe of your suddenly amazing idea.

---

"…I can't believe that worked."

The both of you stare at the ceiling and the awesomeness that is a giant light-emitting livepaper sheet.

Wei, a shorter girl with chin-length black hair that has a blue streak in it dressed in a black t-shirt and matching cargo pants, looks between you and Elva. "Can I go now?" she asks flatly.

You turn to look at her. "Sure?"

"Thanks. Have fun or whatever with your… stuff," she says, walking out of your room and back to hers four doors up the hall, your room's door closing behind her

"So what's the point of it?" Elva asks. "I mean, it can't even play videos or anything, right? Livepaper's too slow."

You shake your head. She's missing the whole point.

"Nono. It doesn't need to. See? Look," you say excitedly.

You set the windows to opaque, turn off the lights, and then you tell your runner to send it the image output of a program you'd spent the last forty minutes searching for —while you'd been waiting for the livepaper to print— that would do it just right.

The ceiling goes black, leaving you and Elva in pitch darkness, and then blooms.

It's… stunning.

What you see on the ceiling is what the current sky above you would look like, if there wasn't a sun or any light around you, Milky Way and everything.

It's so close to the sight you saw on the mesa that it almost makes you homesick.

And yet, at the same time, it makes you want to reach out and grasp it even more.

But yeah… this was totally worth it. It reminds you of why you're doing this.

"Wow," Elva breathes next to you.

You can't help the stupid grin you know is on your face.

"That's Sol," you say, pointing towards Draco and getting your runner to create a square box around the star. "That's where we're from."

It's so small, is what you think. So far away. The light you'd see from there would be 42 years old.

You shake your head and tell the runner to remove the square and fade the livepaper to a different image, and then slowly bring up both the lights and the window opacity.

The ceiling above is now blue, matching the outside.

Though if you want accurate clouds and stuff, you might have to ask and see if you could stick a camera on the roof right above your dorm…

Eh. You'll think about it later.

"So. Worth it?" you ask, grinning, and are pleased with the glaze-eyed nod given by Elva. "Have you ever seen a night sky without all the light before?"

She shook her head. "Mira has… a lot of lights. It's pretty bright at night. So are the other cities I've been to. And my family's never gone camping or anything like that either." That's kinda sad. "Why, have you?"

You blink and turn to her. "Yeah. Me and my mom and dad went and camped out in the Southwest Deserts when I was like six. There's… no light. At all. It's at the end of the Rockies, the mountains between the Deadlands and West North America, and the closest city is Phoenix over four hundred miles away."

You roll forward across the room to your desk, and pick up the halved pomegranate-sized purple geode. "I got this there, and mom had some people back in the city cut it open for me. It's amethyst," you say, handing it to Elva who had followed you over.

"It's pretty." She holds it up, looking at it and then feeling the texture of the crystal-embedded interior.

A notification pops up at the edge of your vision and you glance toward it as Elva hands the geode back. A message from… Oh, Dr. Faren.

You open it as you twist around and put the rock on your desk before moving back out and over so that you're next to your bed. Your pajamas for the night are already laid out on it, the rest of your clothes and the extra sheets in your drawers.

Oh cool, you don't have to take the nanotech pills. Nice. You're apparently just able to… sleep whenever you want now, and once you have your innertech working you'll be able to have that wake you up whenever.

…Your runner's going to have to be an alarm for now.

There's also some fab-patterns for those tights she was talking about. You pull those in and make the program fit them to you and then send them to fab.

You close all the extraneous stuff and then focus back on Elva, who's sitting on her bed now. "Sorry. Message from the doctor about the sleep-cycle pills. I don't have to take them. Um. So don't freak out or anything by me not taking them."

She looks at you curiously. "Why not?"

"I got some of the extreme-environment-adaptation mods installed to help with my blood pressure stuff and they come with it sorta built-in."

"Ohhhh. Okay," she says. "Good to know."

She flops backward, staring at the blue ceiling and giving you a thumbs-up.

You look around the room. Magic ceiling, livepaper poster that'll change everyday showing images of the City and other places you've been, photos and other (static) posters on the wall, rock collection on the desk with your journal and sketchbook, runner set up and connected, (some) clothes fabbed and put away.

All in all, you're pretty happy. You've moved in, met Elva, and had some time to calm down and absorb everything a little. It's past curfew, but you do still have an hour and a half left before lights-out.

"What are you going to do the rest of the night before lights out?" you ask.

She tilts her head up to look at you and gives a sort of shrug. "Listen to music or watch videos probably. You?"

Hm. What do you want to do?

[][Evening] Wander around, maybe see who has their doors open.
[][Evening] Go to the common room, there's probably a couple people in there.
[][Evening] Explore the rest of the building.
[X][Evening] Relax. After the day you've had, you deserve it. (Will further decrease Amy's overall stress and end the day)

And who do you want to sit with tomorrow morning for breakfast?

[-][Breakfast] May and the others, if they're sitting together. At least you won't have to go through introductions all over again, and they've been nice so far.
[-][Breakfast] Neha and some of your floormates. Get to know them a little better, you'll be living in the same space as them for the next year.
[][Breakfast] Follow Elva, if she sits somewhere other than with your floormates.
[][Breakfast] Pick a random group. Maybe you'll get lucky and meet some really interesting people. (Roll of 1d20 for degree of success)

 

[ensou]

Just a thing I'd like to note, @ensou. Earlier, you made mention of a building material called Amalgam. While I am able to suspend my disbelief by telling myself that the meaning of the word has changed, IRL amalgams are alloys of mercury, and generally aren't known for their strength.

Click to shrink...

Amalgam is the brand name of structural material that was developed post-Collapse as part of the Restoration period. It is a complex composite of multiple base materials such as carbyne, carbon nanotubes, titanium, steel, and aluminum.

The first version(s) was a simple chaotic combination of the component materials, an 'amalgamation' (not in the scientific sense, but the colloquial one), which is what the brand name was derived from. By Amy's time the company's leading product is (and has been for over a century and a half), a metamaterial. "Amalgam" is what's commonly used to refer to it and similar-purpose/strength metamaterials regardless of manufacturer, much like "Kleenex" is a commonly used name for tissues today.