Aetheran Child

by Antonin Januska

  As a student, Lexan had the obligation to report to the Grand Hall. Twenty-five thousand other students from this dorm-sphere alone will sit with him and watch the GrandMaster talk. There were a thousand students from this dorm-sphere alone. The whole planet hosted over four billion staff and students combined that were split into four thousand sectors, then further into dormitory spheres. Each then split into individual rooms.

  Lexan read about the Grand Halls. Bran pulled up the schematics to show an airport-sized space

  He walked outside of the room and followed a crowd of Students. His eyes mindlessly searched for Bloo, the only person he knew. He thought she lived in his sector but it was a waste of time, he found out. He walked on toward the ceremony that would start within an hour.

  He walked through the halls into the central sphere that contained all the transportation net-points. People jumped and walked into the white clouds of nothingness and disappeared with it.

  “Alexander, Miss Bloo is trying to communicate with you. Do you wish to open a channel?” Bran announced. Lexan mentally requested she no longer called him Alexander and agreed to the open channel. He saw Bloo’s avatar appear in front of him, slightly transparent to indicate it was simply a projection.

  “Hey Lexan! Sorry to bother you but I was thinking that you could sit with me at a table in the Hall, if you want.” She asked a bit nervously but excitedly at the same time.

  “Yeah, I can do that,” He did not wish to be alone now especially at such a large, confusing event.

  “Just wait for me at your dorm-sphere,” she said and disappeared.

  Bran informed Lexan, promptly, that he did not turn on the Degree I vision, a special type of vision filter that showed holographic images and people’s avatars. Instead, he simply saw figures in silver suits walking around quietly. He did not bother learning about the different filters and let Bran switch them as was needed.

  Some filters, she taught him, showed extreme colours, labels to specific things, and other such visuals. While other filters, showed secondary avatar images, directions to places, and an exhaustive list of other features. Again, he did not bother to learn them or try them. Bran automatically defaulted, then, a Degree I vision for all normal activities and a Degree II vision when in unfamiliar settings, which provided Lexan with the necessary labels of objects, and information he could mentally access.

  II

  Lexan met up with Bloo and they traveled to the Grand Hall in their sector. The Grand Hall could hold the entire population of a sector, which numbered to one million people. Today, though, the Grand Hall will hold only a fraction of that population.

  The boy noticed the value of Bloo’s calming presence. In a world with no friends, her company proved to be priceless. Without her, he would have been terribly concerned and nervous about the event.

  When they entered the Hall, they lost each other, unfortunately, in the large crowds. They held onto each other by their hands but too many people passed them and split them apart. No matter, he thought, and left to find a seat, without his companion. He looked around and found out that people still sat with their own particular cliques, just as was the habit on Earth. Outsiders and new people who did not know anyone were forced to mix in with people of other groups or else they would suffer isolation.

  The Hall’s layout featured at least a hundred long tables next to each other, disappearing into the far vastness of the building. Each table had chairs on each side facing a hovering screen. The tables were made out of the same material as the rest of the facility, a dull white plastic, it seemed, with ridges that glowed in different colors.

  The boy looked around again, and noticed a couple of free spaces. A few Octids sat by those seats. Their octagonal bodies lay on top of the seats while their tentacles wrapped the stool-legs. Their spider-like bodies hosted a very complex neural structure that made the Octid race highly intelligent. Two eyes in the front scoured the environment while two horns on the top of their bodies vibrated ceaselessly. They used those to communicate between each other in several different electro-magnetic frequencies.

  No one sat by the Octids for a reason, it seemed. Around every group of them, several seats were left unoccupied. The closest Octid to Lexan had three seats on each side free, and four in front of him on the other side of the table. He sat opposite the creature that somehow ended up separated from the others of his or her race.

  “Degree II vision turned on,” Bran announced, informing Lexan that this particular vision type allowed communication between the two races. Humans could not naturally see and interpret the horn-vibrations that created colors beyond the visible spectrum of light.

  As soon as the boy’s view adjusted, he noticed banners floating up in the air, all around. All the Octids around changed their body colors and their horn vibrations created continuous streams of wide-range hued rainbows.

  Many people’s avatars gained complexity and a new dimension. They glowed, and swirled in the air. Some had clothing pieced that melted in and out of their skin and some whose clothing defied gravity altogether. Such clothing was possible to make in reality, Lexan noted, but it would be both impractical and probably expensive.

  “Hello, is this seat taken?” He asked the Octid who looked up, startled.

  “It is not,” he answered slowly, “May you be seated.”

  A Shun girl that sat a few seats down from them looked over and grimaced in disgust. Many others around her followed suit but the boy did not sway in his resolve.

  “Can you tell me what this is about?” He motioned all around.

  “Yes, it is a ceremony of opening regarding the school year's beginning. It is only for students.” The Octid answered; the translator seemed to have many imperfections, most likely in both ways in translation.

  “I am Lexan, what's your name?”

  “My name is Charles.”

  There was a short, awkward silence as both students tried to come up with a follow-up topic.

  “May I ask you?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why have you taken a seat here? Humans sit with Shuns, no one takes pleasure sitting with Octids. Do not misunderstand, I enjoy your company, Lexan.”

  “There was no other seat free. I am new to this culture, can you tell me why no one will sit with you?”

  “They fear us since we are different. They are many Shuns and only a few Octids. Numerous other species such as Ritiels and Gurlls are not even present. If they were, they would be treated as we are treated. I am the most ostracized, personally I think. I am from the Cardinal Regions. Neither Octids nor Shuns will accompany me.”

  “I am from the Cardinal Regions as well,” Lexan was a bit shocked, meeting this many Cardinals so early after his arrival. They must be common, he thought.

  Charles watched the boy closely.

  “Among the million in this sector, there is only a handful of Cardinals. Three in our grade, as far as I know, and ten others much older, including one teacher. I cannot believe I met the second of the three.

  “I know the third as well.”

  “Oh..interesting.” The Octid put two of his tentacles on the table and twittered around with them. His horns vibrated for a few seconds but the translator did not translate.

  Both of them sat quietly until a large screen appeared above the tables and showed an image of a single figure. The smaller screens in front of the students showed the figure as well.

  “Hello all. My name is GrandMaster Kosig, and if you did not know, I am the principal of the Athiris School. I am the head of this school and probably the only GrandMaster you will ever meet.

  “I hope there are only 1st and 2nd years out here, no apprentices!” The man chuckled, “In the next hour or so, I will discuss the school rules, expectation and other information with you so get comfortable.

  “First, shift your eyes to your individual screens, the rulebook should be there and ready to be read. Follow along with me.”
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  Lexan looked down, the small floating screens had descended, and a frame was constructed around them with nanomachines. Upon viewing the screen, he connected his NCC with the computer and downloaded the rulebook file. GM Kosig started reading through the book, highlighting important passages, re-reading parts, and pointing out important information.

  “Please store your items under your bed area, on un-used beds in your room, or wherever you can fit them until you closet privileges are assigned to you.” GM Kosig continued on for about another hour or so, just as he said he would. Students would turn their heads, flip through the rulebooks and follow along. Some showed signs of boredom while others did not. Lexan was sure they were enjoying some kind of entertainment invisible to others.

  “Last of all,” The bald man on the screen ended his long speech, “You will have your schedule transferred to you momentarily. I wish you all well and have a nice year.”

  Lexan’s scheduled showed up on his NCC and prompted him to head to his first class.

  III

  Lexan arrived at the classroom too early. Most of the Students ran around, looking for the right place to be, or simply wasting time. The teachers waited outside of the disappearing doors but where Lexan had arrived, no teacher was around. He entered and saw the room could hold about twenty others without much discomfort.

  Various weapons and shields covered the walls, strangely, this included swords, whips, knives, and other manual, up-close weapons. Little of them were long-range, or even guns. The boy heard a couple of droplets hit the floor, so he looked up to see the teacher looking down on him.

  “What gave me away?” The limber man asked.

  “Sweat.” He pointed at a small puddle.

  “Simple mistake. I guess you'll be one of my bright students then.” The teacher said and pulled off a large cloak. He was tall with short buzz-cut hair. His face was marked with battles and his arms with hard work. Scars lined his skin.

  The class started minutes afterward.

  “Hello everyone, I am trainer Agre. In this class you will learn the basics of combat, discipline, and weapon-yielding. You shall unleash your power and control it. Those are the main points. Let me give you a little demonstration,” He moved to a side of the room, “There are two main styles of combat. The first one is Brutal and the other is Gallant.”

  He moved back and a figure appeared out of nowhere. The nanobots scattered across its surface and formed a weapon for it.

  Trainer Agre closed his eyes and put his hands in front of him. His muscles started to twitch and bulk up while his posture shifted forward in a predator-like manner. His clothes ripped in a few places and a darkened -red aura traced the vibration of his body. Tr. Agre grew larger and larger with his arms as big as thousand year old tree trunks. He summoned a large hammer, that appeared from thin air, not even nanobots could create it that fast, and he swung it onto the nano-person. The hammer flew through the air with a devastating impact that disbanded all the nanomachines. Tr. Agre finished his horizontal swing with an indent in the wall. The wall reddened with heat and automatically repaired. The students were quietly surprised at Agre's strength, he turned to them and a couple of students in the front yelped. His body slowly shrank back into to its original form.

  “That was an example of the Brutal combat style. As you may noticed, my body swelled up with strength and I used an extra-ordinary amount of power to destroy the dummy-bot. The Gallant style is very different,” The nano-bot reappeared. Tr. Agre did not turn into a monster this time but instead simply took out a long and thin sword. He held it in a defensive position then swung it twice, once upward and on the downward swing, he curved the cut. The nanobot fell into several pieces and disappeared once again. Not as many people were in awe, certainly no one understood such an easy strike to be part of a larger style.

  “The Gallant style focuses on quick finishes with the least power used,” Tr. Agre sheathed his sword upon which the sword disappeared as well, “You will learn the basics of both styles this year. We will be going over the differences and similarities throughout the next few weeks. Next year, you will have the choice of the style you would like to pursue further.” The Students started talking among each other, discussing which style they would like better, which style looks better. There was a definite preference for the Brutal style because it seemed to show-off rather than be efficient.

  “Also, in this course, you will learn how to wield different weapons and once again, at the beginning of your second year, you will choose from a category of weapons to specialize in. I know it may seem rather rash to have only one year to make such a decision but you will see that your Aetheri instincts will naturally stick to one kind of weapon and one style.”

  The trainer kept talking, discussing all the different weapon-types and history of each. Lexan drifted off and stared at the wall in front of him near-brain-dead. The bell woke him up and he continued to the Crafts class. According to the description on his schedule, this class involved the crafting of weapons that were later to be used in Combat classes. Trainer Teg taught this class.

  There was barely any time to move between classes, so Lexan had to move with haste.

  “In this class, you will learn how to craft simple weapons from metals and alloys native to this universe. Here is an example,” Tr. Teg summoned a steel bar in front of him. The bar glowed red, then blue. The shape of the alloy shifted and took on a shape of a sword. The teacher moved his hands slowly around it to give it more detail, “As you can see, most of the work relies on heat control and shape control. You will master these simple techniques in this class. As well as many other useful tricks.” He smiled weakly.

  The rest of the class flew by pretty quickly. Another bell announced the end and the boy ran to his Sports class. The only point of that class that day was just running around in circles. It mostly focused on getting into a good physical condition.

  After that came two hours of recess where Lexan enjoyed eating nutritional cube. He tried to contact Bloo but she was in middle of Sports class and was running laps. That made him smile.

  History came afterward.

  Professor Creflung introduced history as a subject of myths, legends, and stories that either happened to be true, that are factually proven, or believed hard enough to be true that everyone assumed were true.. The class looked puzzled but then the Professor explained that the history contains many amazing events that seem too untrue to have happened.

  “I will teach you about the six elders and their prophets. Those are the most interesting and fundamental stories,” Many students groaned at this moment, a few shouted out that they have learned that many years ago, “Calm down, calm down, you will learn the historic facts, not the fairy tales your parents told you when you were just little kids. The historic events that took place are very much different from those stories. Also, you will learn about the basics of the government and politics. By the end of the year, you should know how the all the three main empires or unions have started out. Next year, you will learn about the struggles and international tensions that lead to numerous wars.”

  The professor then explained how his class system works and all about the class etiquette, the same way all the other teachers did. Prof. Cretlung let everyone upload a copy of the textbook soon after.

  “This is just a copy. You will get a digibook at about the time you master dimensional warping,” People eyed him closely, “you will understand that later on,” his raspy voice continued, “You will get a digibook from most of your teachers though, some prefer that you have an only copy on your NCC.”

  The old man finished the class, and let the students go before the bell. He pointed out that the bell system was in place only at the beginning of the year for the 1st years.

  Biology came next with Doctor Phaceutic. He taught a little about the fundamentals of modern biology. He expanded on some key issues but Lexan, surprisingly, did not pay much attention. He made a bad h
abit of exploring his display views and NCC settings when an uninteresting issue came up.

  After the bell rang, he once again, headed off to another class. This class though, was unlike the others, it was called “Transformation”.

  Lexan knew it meant transforming from a human to an Aetheri, but taking a class on something like this for a whole year seemed a bit ridiculous. He remembered how the second year, and even some first year Students transformed with mindless ease at the party a few nights before. It cannot be that hard.

  Nevertheless, he stepped into the classroom and sat down on the floor. The fact that most classes did not have regular desks or chairs did not bother the boy, just yet.

  The teacher came in unnoticed, the students kept on talking when he started, “Hi, I’m Master Trance and I will be teaching you Transformation,” he said to the class, “you will learn efficient shifting from your current from to the Aetheric form as well as different types of Aetheri, and several tricks to help you along.

  Everyone’s eyes shifted toward the large Octid teacher at the front. They all singularly turned on the Degree II vision, and everyone’s profile turned off. They had no reason to keep it working because the teacher cared less about avatars, and most people in the class appreciated the privacy. It seemed that the avatars were a part of the etiquette though not for the Octid culture. Some also had avatar filtering, Lexan realized when Bran asked him about his profile, that showed their avatars to some people but not others. Their name tags though, still hung peacefully above their heads.

  Lexan touched his NCC to mute himself. The thought-controlled computer proved to be too much of a challenge for Lexan especially since Bran usually misinterpreted the neural firings.

  “Bran?” He called up his suit computer.

  “Yes, Lexan? What seems to be the problem?” she asked.