So because this update is
bloody massive (it's at like 7.5k total and not even half-done) I'm going to be chunking it and giving you bits every few days instead of the weekly schedule. It should also give you guys more to talk about, I figure, since it won't overwhelm you and make you process everything at once.
Winner:
[X][Morning] There's a university here, right? With a ton of Talents? And university means professors. And professors means research. And that means Talent research, since this is the Academy. And
that means you'll be able to find a bored professor that can help you learn what your talent is so you know what it'll be when you sign up for classes. That's how research works, right? This is the best plan.
-[X]Drag someone along with you. Two people are harder to say no to. And you might need someone to help with the whole wheelchair thing. (This came down to either Angharad or Ying-Yue, the two people from the original Earth group that you know the least about. I chose Angharad, mostly because I see Amy relating to her just a smidge easier with the shared English-language thing, and because unlike Ying-Yue, who's even brought two new people
in to the group, Amy's noticed Angharad being kinda passive so far, and she's pretty curious about her).
[X][Lunch] The garden.
As you're getting ready to leave the dining room, you have a thought.
"Hey Angie?"
The British girl turns to you. "Yeah?"
"Are you doing anything today?"
She blinks. "… Not… really?" she says slowly. "Why?"
"You want to hang out and do some stuff?"
She looks a bit caught off-guard, but not unwelcome to the idea. "Um… sure? When?"
"Now?" Better to get started earlier, right? "You got anything you need to do first?"
She shakes her head.
"Cool," you say with a grin. "Let's go then."
You lead her out the doors of the dining hall and to the courtyard, Angharad keeping pace with you on your right.
"Is there something in particular you want to do?" Angharad asks.
You nod. "The Academy's not just a high school, right?" you tell her, switching to English. "It's a university too."
She nods slowly.
"And where there's a university, there's professors. And professors mean
research."
"Okay…" she agrees, not seeing where you're going with this.
"So!" You raise your hand, pointing up. "That means research about Talents, because it's a school all about Talents. And
that means that there are probably people there who can help me figure out mine before I have to choose my classes."
She blinks. "You know we've got like a week to swap, right? You could just wait and then switch."
Well
yeah. "But that's… boring. I kind of really want to find mine out as soon as possible." You're going to find out, and you're going to find out
today. …Hopefully. "It feels like I'm the only one who
doesn't know. So
I thought we would go on an adventure."
Angie looks a little less confused. "Alright. But why do you need me?"
"Because you can't have a proper adventure without someone to share it with." That was one of the first things your mom taught you. "And it'll be easier to talk to people when there's two of us."
She nods agreeably. "You know where we're going then?"
You hum. "My innertech's still upgrading. I've only got time and local position right now, and that's with it connected to some lenses. I
do have a runner that should tell us how to get there easily enough in my bag, but it'd probably be easier if you just looked it up."
Her eyes are already moving around subtly, looking at things you can't see. "Um… The College of Talent Sciences?"
"That sounds right?" you agree.
"It's… three miles away," Angharad tells you slowly. "That's like over an hour walking."
You blink. Welp.
It's not even close to the longest hikes you've done, or probably even how much walking you do in a day in New York, but this is also a different planet with different gravity, and you're in a wheelchair.
"We better get started then!" you say cheerfully.
It's a good thing there are twenty-eight hours in a day here, you think. That means you have two more hours than you keep expecting in the morning, and an extra working hour in the evening.
You might end up needing that time.
Still, it means that you have over five hours before noon, and you wanted to eat lunch in the garden that Dr. Faren talked about, which is half-way on the main path between the high school campus and the university. The university probably has its own food too, and you have
no doubt that the school has some sort of way of letting the high school students get food on the other campus, so you can just grab food there and then take it to the garden to eat.
"So what was it like, living in New York?" Angharad asks, ten minutes into your journey. "The little bit I saw from the shuttle between the airport and the teleport terminal was only a small part of it, right?"
You nod and laugh. The path between JFK and the Rubicon was barely any of the city, and it was all in south Queens. "It's busy," you say, repeating what you told Elva last night.
"Busy," she repeats thoughtfully. "Yeah, I can believe that."
"Yeah, so like, there's something like thirty million people living there, right? There's a reason why other people call it the city that never sleeps. There's always somebody doing something there. Places you can get food at two in the morning just as easy as lunch, grocery stores that never close, transports that run around nonstop, and the L and the subway never stop."
She looks thoughtful. "I think it'd be interesting to live somewhere like that. Exciting."
You shrug. "I like it. But it's also the only place I've ever lived. Even if I've been to a bunch of other places, I don't know what it's like to live anywhere else. Where are you from?"
"Aberystwyth, Wales."
Huh. "Where's that? What's it like?"
She looks off, her eyes glazing. "It's on the coast across from Ireland. It's… nice. There's green hills in the summer. And the beach. There's the old castle ruins…" she sounds wistful.
"You miss it?"
She nods. "A little bit, yeah. I always wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else, but I was really just thinking about London," she says, laughing a little. "Now I'm here, somewhere else, like I always wanted. I should like it, right?"
You nod, but also aren't sure about it. You can't force yourself to like something, after all.
"My school was different, too. It was lots smaller. It's… a bit scary here." She hugs her arms to her body and grips them, and it doesn't go unnoticed. "I'm really glad for the group and that I haven't had to be on my own yet."
"Well, you can always sit with me if you're
really worried," you offer, shrugging. "And I'm sure Grace wouldn't mind either. I'd like to say the same about Ying Yue, but I don't know her as well, and May's pretty introverted, but also seems to handle herself? I have no idea what she'll do."
Angharad looks over at you and smiles. "Thanks. Really."
You nod, happy that you've made at least one person feel better today.
"So how long have you known about your Talent?" you ask, curious.
"About three or four months. It was similar to you, actually," she says.
You give her a questioning look.
"I had no idea until my doctor caught something in one of my diagnostics. My Talent is pretty personal, so there weren't a lot of signs. There
were incidents when I was younger, but it was stuff that we ignored really easily like being at the top of the class in athletics, or how I never got tired sometimes and haven't ever had a major injury."
Huh.
"Once I knew it was there, it was easy to learn how to turn it on and off. But I'm far from good at using it, and it was only by chance that we figured out that it gets stronger when I'm struggling or feeling competitive or emotional or whatever. We probably would've kept thinking it was just a low-level enhancement Talent or something."
Angie turns to you. "So, just… don't expect to automatically figure everything out on the first try."
You frown, but you knew that this was going to be a learning experience anyways. At least you'll have an
idea of what it is from getting to use it at least once.
Shrugging, you just say, "Something's better than nothing, right?"
"True," she concedes graciously, smiling.
The two of you are silent for a minute or so, her walking and you pushing (though you're starting to get tired and might switch to the motor soon). And then you suddenly remember something you've wanted to know ever since you first saw her.
"…Is your hair a mod?" White hair would be notable on its own, but it's absolutely
striking when contrasted with her warm honey-colored skin that makes you think of west East Village and the parts of the city with all the good Indian food.
She laughs and then turns to you, and it shimmers slightly in the sunlight. "No… it's natural. Some sort stupid rare genetic thing where the color cells for my hair don't work right and can't make the melanin they should like my skin ones can."
Angharad looks down at the ground and bites her lip. "I used to hate it. Back home there were only a few others with parents who had let them change their hair already. My parents offered to let me get a mod to make it to a more normal color when I decided to come here, but I realized that in a place like this with so many people, white hair probably wouldn't be that weird at all. So… I decided to keep it."
"It's really pretty," you tell her honestly.
She flushes a little and tucks some of it behind her ear self-consciously. "Thanks."
You move forward quietly for a few minutes —switching to the motor because
holy heck your arms are tired— and then Angie speaks up again.
"What's your favorite color?"
"Mmm… Today… sky-blue," you answer, making her look at you curiously. "What's yours?"
"Usually orange. Sometimes red," she responds.
Hm. "Cool. Dogs or cats?"
Angie blinks. "Um. I don't really have a preference? Dogs, I guess? You?"
"Snakes."
She splutters. "That wasn't even an option!"
You give her a smirk. "
Exactly."
Angharad sighs, her palm covering her face for a moment, and you hear her mumble something.
"Have you ever traveled before?" you ask curiously. She'd talked about wanting to live somewhere else.
"Yeah, but not like what it sounded like you've done. One summer we went to Aberdeen up in the North. Another we visited Belfast. I've been to Cardiff a bunch because some of mum's friends live there, and we went to London for a few weeks when I was eight," she tells you. "So I've been around a bit, I guess. But I've never gone out of the Isles. My mum had a conference on the continent once, but that's it."
Interesting.
The two of you talk about trivial things after that—movies, music, games, and weird random topics like the apparent importance to older people of afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches— all while enjoying the landscape around you, the grass and hills and trees on either side of the fairly wide paved path Angie has led you on. There are buildings further out on the sides every so often, with paths leading to them, and you're pretty sure earlier you saw the one that goes to the garden. You only get a distanced look of that, but the amount that you did see already has you looking forward to it.
Soon enough you're on the university campus, where there's older people (well, older than you, at least) moving around much more, though it's not quite what you'd consider busy. You get a few curious looks, but nothing else. Angharad leads you around the various buildings, until you finally come to one that looks, at least from this side, practically identical to all the others, although taller than average: a giant four-story rectangular building of metal and glass.
You can see people in there already, so there
is activity, but not nearly as much as you'd imagine it is during the school year. But you're also not sure you'd be as comfortable doing this when there's tons of other older people around.
You go in the doors that are at the left end, and stand there at the junction of two halls, one that you just saw from the outside.
"Now what?" Angharad asks, looking at you for direction.
You turn to her and grin.
"Now… we
wander."
