The Split (The Mayfly Series Book 1)

by Hannah Hopkins

  Ms. Everly moved back to her desk at a painfully slow pace. Emily was desperate to find out where her room would be and, more importantly, who she would become neighbours with. When she reached the desk, she produced a battered tablet from its depths and began squinting at its screen, stabbing it extremely hard with one finger before retracting it again, as though she were afraid the tablet would bite her. Several agonising minutes passed before the message was sent, the foyer erupting in the sound of beeping as everybody scrambled to check their planners. Emily huddled next to Will and Finley, eager to find out how close to each other they would be.

  “I’m in 311!” announced Will as the number appeared on his screen.

  “211,” Emily replied. “We’re not on the same floor.”

  “No but you’re right underneath me,” Will grinned.

  “No late-night dance parties then please,” Emily teased.

  “Only on a Tuesday,” Will retorted.

  Finley cleared his throat.

  “What room are you in, Finley?” Will asked him, glossing over the fact they he and Emily had momentarily forgotten his existence.

  “101,” he responded.

  “Oh, I hoped we’d all be near each other,” Emily sighed.

  “Don’t worry, I’m used to being on a low floor,” Finley said with a weak smile.

  Emily frowned, but she had no chance to console him before Miss Fortem began ordering them to be taken to their rooms. They were divided into three groups, one for each floor, and called over to their designated Prefect. Emily was pleased to see that her group was being led by Sam and not by the loathsome May who had taken them to their Rocket Control class. Her relief was cut short however, by the sight of Rudy strutting over to join them, surrounded by his entourage of faceless cronies. When he noticed her, attempting to shrink into the back of the huddle, he strode over and placed his arm tightly around her shoulders.

  “Hey, Em,” he smirked. “Take it you’re on the second floor too?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Emily replied through gritted teeth, removing his arm from around her.

  “It’ll be just like old times,” he laughed, nudging her a little bit too hard with his elbow.

  She groaned, unable to think of anything worse than having to endure Rudy’s presence on a daily basis. She silently cursed her own bad luck that she had been the only girl from her tutor group to get into the Academy, meaning that Rudy and his insufferable gang of followers were the only familiar faces she had from home. Desperate to escape, she weaved her way to the front of the group, cramming herself amongst the more eager students who were all staring at Sam, awaiting his instructions.

  He led them to the lift in the middle of the foyer and they followed him in, comfortably able to fit inside the spacious interior. The ride to the second floor was smooth and swift, lasting only a matter of seconds. Once they had come to a standstill, Sam escorted them out into the corridor, decorated in a fashionable silver tile that was buffed and polished to perfection, as though it had never had a spot of dirt on it. Thick, blue doors lined each side of the walls, each displaying a number in the school’s favoured gold labelling. With a helpful point in the right direction from Sam, Emily made her way towards her room, which was at the very end of the corridor.

  After a brief walk, she came face to face with her door, the number “211” emblazoned across the middle. She pushed gently and the door swung back on its hinges, having been left unlocked for her access. She took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold, taking in the sight of what would become her home for the next year.

  A Queen-sized bed stood to the left of the door, tucked up snugly in the corner and dressed in fresh bedding that had never been slept in. Against the back wall stood a triple-fronted, black wardrobe with a matching dresser beside it. There was also a desk complete with a large touch screen on a stand, a set of shelves for storage and a comfortable looking sofa. A mini drinks machine stood between two chutes that fed into the wall marked “laundry” and “rubbish”. A small, white door led into her en-suite bathroom, which featured an I-Bath, shower, toilet, wash basin and a round mirror. She walked across the room and gazed at the view of the school grounds that could be seen through her window, pausing to watch the artificial lake as the starlight from the sky above twinkled upon its surface like a million dancing fairies.

  Facing back into the room, she decided to call Will on her Personal Device to see what his bedroom on the top floor was like. He gave her a virtual tour and she saw that it was much larger than hers with significantly more furnishings. His room was light and airy, with all of his décor painted in matching shades of white and beige to give the space a perception of brightness.

  “It’s almost twice the size of mine!” Emily complained.

  “That’ll be Spencer’s dad’s doing,” Will said, rolling his eyes. “Can’t resist making the higher floors better than the lower.”

  The two of them continued to chat while they unpacked their belongings that had been left for them at the end of their beds. Half-way through the conversation, they remembered Finley and added him into a group call, getting a tour of his own much smaller room. Will spent the remainder of the call informing them of which gadgets he was going to ask his mum to send from home- including his virtual reality headset, his television screens and a snack vender. There was some speculation about their new subjects, particularly about which one would be the most exciting. Emily was outnumbered two-to-one on her notion that it would be Technology while Will and Finley both voted for Alien Studies.

  After a while, they all became tired, the events of the first day taking their toll. They said goodnight and Emily got ready for bed, sliding into the warm covers where she now lay. After re-living the past twelve hours in her mind, she finally felt ready for sleep and rolled over to burrowed into her pillow. As she drifted into unconsciousness, she found herself wondering with a feverish delight what the future had in store for her and her new friends, hardly able to contain the anticipation of discovering what new excitement her second day at the Academy would hold.

  8.

  The Study of Aliens

  Kurt Krecher awoke at six a.m. sharp on the morning of his first day back at work and rose straight from his bed to make a cup of strong, black coffee. Still wearing the threadbare dressing gown his wife had bought him for Christmas many years ago, he went and sat at his desk and proceeded to open his laptop – an old souvenir he had kept from Earth. As was customary, he downloaded the files of information Admiral Allance had sent him regarding their new students that year and -though he suspected he was the only teacher to do so- read through the details carefully so he could get to know his new class. Scrolling down the list of names and birth dates, it struck him that this was the first class to ever attend The Academy that had never set foot on Earth. It gave him a strange feeling to comprehend the thought that so many of them had been born on the Mayfly and had never known any other life outside its unyielding, titanium walls.

  As he continued to scroll, he was surprised to find one of the pupils was listed as being from Floor Seven. He had heard rumours that a boy from the lower floors was being admitted to The Academy, but had never believed it could be true. He had always advocated for the school to open its doors to all the children on the Mayfly that were of the right age to attend, but Admiral Allance had vehemently rejected the idea on several occasions. He wondered what, or indeed who, had convinced him to allow this new student in, suspecting a hefty increase in budget from the Governors may have changed the Admiral’s mind. A note in the boy’s file informed him that there had already been an incident with another pupil in his first Rocket Control lesson, in which he had narrowly escaped being launched into Space without any oxygen. A hard lump of disgust formed in his throat that turned the taste of his coffee sour. It troubled him that the rife inequality between the social classes had followed them from Earth onto the Mayfly and would no doubt be transferred to Novum. They had been promised a bett
er world before The Split, but the more time went on, the less Kurt was able to believe in such a dream. No doubt the same suffering that had occurred in the last days of Earth would follow humanity wherever it went. There was no escaping it in his opinion. In all his years of studying and teaching, he had never come across an alien race that was able to inflict as much cruelty onto their own kind as human beings were. Sighing, he made a note of the poor boy’s name - “Finley Campbell”- and committed it to memory. If he couldn’t fight for social justice on a wider scale, he would certainly ensure it was practised in his own classroom.

  He took another deep swig of his coffee and continued to read about the new year group through bleary, bloodshot eyes. His heart fluttered in a funny sort of way when the image of a strangely familiar face appeared on his screen. The picture was of a boy from Alderin class, the name “William James” attached to his file. It took him a moment to place him, his brain desperately searching through the memories of the thousands of students he had taught over the years. As soon as he remembered, he wondered with a slight twang of panic how he ever could have forgotten. The boy was the son of two of the most memorable people he had ever met and his inability to immediately recognise him served as further proof to himself that his mind was softening with age.

  He got up and strode over to the window, looking out pensively as he finished his warm drink. For a moment, he had forgotten where he was, expecting to see the Sunrise bathing the horizon in its glorious shades of red, orange and pink. He imagined he could see rolling green hills, running into each other as they peaked and brayed, creating a sea of brown and green in the distance. He pictured wispy clouds and tall trees and houses with thatched rooves with black birds flying overhead. He hoped with all his heart that he might see such views again one day, but for now there was only the infinite black of Space.

  As he dressed himself in his patched brown suit and silk waistcoat, his mind began to wander. Thinking about William James’ parents had triggered an involuntary trip down memory lane and he became immersed in a powerful recollection of the past.

  The time in which he had first encountered William’s mother, Elsie, and his father, Austin, had been a dire time on Earth. The population was at its lowest ebb, having fallen to around twenty percent of what it had originally been, and the conflict for Earth’s limited resources had been rife and violent as ever. Kurt was a professor at one of only a hundred existing colleges around the country and by a stroke of luck, had managed to find himself a haven. The college was situated in North Wales and was aptly named College Snowdonia after its magnificent view of the Welsh mountains. The Split had not long been announced and as a result, everyone with the slightest bit of intelligence was desperately trying to improve their skills and make themselves worthy enough to gain passage on the Mayfly. Due to the sudden boom of enthusiasm in education, the Government had taken it upon themselves to ensure every college still running received enough food, water and power to sustain itself, with security installed to protect the various campuses.

  The small city where College Snowdonia was based had been almost completely deserted and so the teaching staff and students had had their pick of the empty houses. Kurt and his wife had discovered an old farmhouse in the city’s surrounding countryside and had spent all their free time renovating it until they had created themselves a beautiful, rustic home. They herded animals from the fields around them and were able to live off the land, being successful enough in their farming to donate some of their produce to the other local residents. It had been an oasis of peace in a desert of atrocities. Over time, everybody associated with the College came together to form a tight-knit community and as the days and nights rolled on, it was almost possible to forget that the Earth was slowly dying around them.

  He hadn’t known William’s parents well at first, for his mother had studied Psychology and his father Navigation. However, he often saw them about the stone corridors of the college building, looking like love’s young dream, their awkward friend Alfie bumbling after them, always in their shadow. No one ever would have guessed that he would become Captain of the Mayfly, beating out the other thousands of hopeful Navigation students across the country. Kurt had strongly suspected that his mother’s influential position in society had a lot more to do with him getting the job than his skills, though he had been careful not to voice this to anyone.

  It wasn’t until their final year that Kurt had come into contact with the three, when they had unexpectedly signed up to do a module in Alien Studies. They all claimed to have been struck by a sudden interest in the topic, but Kurt was always suspicious of their true motives. The real reason for their joining his class, however, had been far stranger and more twisted than he could ever have imagined. To even think of it now made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and gave him the distinct feeling that he was being watched.

  Shuddering, Kurt shook the memory from his mind and left his apartment, walking briskly across the school grounds. The cool air filtered around the enclosed bubble of the school, causing him to shiver and hug his jacket tighter about his person. When he reached the main school building, he stepped quickly through the entrance, glancing up at the oppressively large representation of Novum as he did so. Every time he passed under it, he was afraid it would somehow come unattached and fall, crushing him as if he were nothing but a mere ant. On this occasion, however, he had managed to survive, and so he headed into the Dining Hall, intending to reward himself with a second cup of coffee.

  He grunted at the robot at the serving station to give him his usual and sat down at the nearest table, chewing unenthusiastically on a limp piece of toast. They had tried their hardest to replicate Earth's food at The Academy, but the results of their labour could simply not compare to the taste of his wife's freshly baked bread, warm from the agar. Still, he had no choice but to make do.

  The hall was quiet, with only a few members of the teaching staff milling about as they prepared to start their day. Kurt responded to their obligatory greetings with mumbled "mornings" as they passed him to gather in a gaggle on the other side of the room. He tried to block out the noise of their chatter as he read over his lesson plans on the tablet he kept in his inner jacket pocket.

  Once he had filled himself sufficiently with food, he got up and left the hall, his hands shaking from the amount of caffeine he had already consumed that morning. He walked back out of the main entrance and turned left, walking down the asphalt path that led to the Ivory Tower where his lessons took place.

  He reached the tower's base and climbed into the open-topped shuttle rocket that was stationed beside it. The tower had no stairs and was designed to prevent the alien subjects kept inside it from escaping. Therefore, the only way for Kurt to access his office and classroom was by flight. He had always hated flying, finding the whole experience entirely unnatural and he clung tightly to the metal bar around his waist as the rocket took off.

  The driver, Jeff, was a friendly man with a relentlessly positive attitude, despite the fact he spent his days ferrying Kurt and his students back and forth on the same monotonous journey. He was of a similar age to Kurt, his hair grey and thinning and his hands wrinkled and battered from a lifetime of hard work. For that reason, Kurt felt a strange sort of affinity with him and was willing to indulge his inane conversation, which usually centred around his grandchildren back on the Mayfly and how proud of them he was for no obvious reason.

  When the brief ride was over, Jeff parked on the small landing pad on the tower's side and Kurt disembarked, thanking him courteously for his service. He walked inside, dropped his things off on his desk and headed straight for the large Alienary located next to his classroom.

  The vast storage room was the home to dozens of different species, all kept in enclosures that varied in size and design to suit their individual needs. There were cages covered in red dust, with burning lights fixed overhead to represent the scorching planes of far-off desert planets. Others were packe
d with foliage, filled with soaring trees and wild bushes, thick brown grass growing up from the soil-covered floor and tangling to form a dense hideaway for the aliens within. There were high tanks, filled to the brim with the swirling multicoloured waters from different worlds, underwater rock formations providing shelter for their inhabitants. Overhead, there were giant, swinging cages, attached firmly to the ceiling, their winged occupants waiting impatiently to be allowed out onto the grounds to fly. It was Kurt’s favourite place in existence, and he spent his free period that morning doing his usual rounds, ensuring that the alien creatures were comfortable, well-fed and clean.

  He had grown increasingly fond of his captives over the years, caring wholeheartedly for the beings, who’s intelligence matched only that of the animals that had roamed Earth, making them oblivious to their imprisoned state. He wandered through the cages, greeting each beast he met with affection. He petted the ten-legged Timor as though it were a domesticated dog, dodging its snapping jaws with expert precision. He crooned at the feral Runhorn, soothing its angry disposition with a helping of raw meat he’d had delivered from the kitchen. None of the species in the Alienary caused him the slightest bit of an unease or fear. In fact, over the years, they had become his only trusted companions, providing him with relief from his otherwise lonely existence.

  Noticing the time, Kurt began hurrying to collect the resources he would need for his first lesson. Rushing back to his classroom, he placed an unhatched, yellow egg on each desk, eagerly anticipating the arrival of his students. A moment later, the sound of faltering engines and the cheerful hum of chatter outside the door announced it was time for his class to begin. He stood up straight, placing his arms by his side and nodding at the students as they entered and looked around his classroom with bewilderment, gasping with delight when they noticed the eggs. Kurt had become so used to the room that he had forgotten how spectacular it was to behold for the first time. The semi-circular walls were covered with small, paned windows that fitted together like an intricate jigsaw, enabling for an exceptional view of the school below. Sick of the constant darkness, Kurt had requested UV lights be installed outside the building to give the impression of sunlight flooding in. Watching the dust particles dancing in the light reminded him of Earth and provided him with great comfort, inspiring him to start his lesson with a positive attitude in mind.