1.
To Umi, studying was like refilling an air tank and the world outside school and her parent’s home was the sea. The air of freedom was traded for with results and the cost would only raise. In kindergarten it was building blocks, in second grade it was soldering circuit boards, literally. Force-fed her parent’s trade, she was enrolled in a school for mechanical mastery. If she didn’t commit, she’d be labeled as ‘junk’ and discarded as such.
Computers, robots, vehicles, monitors- she didn’t see these as friends, fountains of knowledge, or things worthy of respect. They were her victims. Taking hostages, inhumane interrogation, and mugging- in her mind, that was what she was doing. She’d learn what she’d need from machines and pass them on to her employers (teachers). It was work and nothing else, which would result in her getting her allowance from her supervisors (parents).
Despite her displeasure,
An example, in the school courtyard, a conversation that happened while she was in seventh grade, completely unbeknownst to her:
“Isn’t that the girl who made that chimera?” said a guy pointing to Umi.
Mid-sentence he turned from pointing to her to pointing toward a couch-sized chimera robot. It had two front heads and a snake tail. The snake tail was drinking from a nearby water fountain.
Another guy was pushing the goat head’s jaw back with a water bottle and it was spewing out a black fizzing liquid. He responded, “Yeah, that’s her.”
“Sweet,” said the first guy before drinking from a water bottle with an orange fizzing liquid in it. He'd gotten it from the lion's mouth.
This large, intimidating, three-headed machine was made for one purpose- providing soda to people in the school courtyard for free. In addition to drinking from the water fountain, it would also be found sunbathing (charging with solar panels) in the grass and stalking the lands for people with empty liquid containers. Though if you pet its back, you’d be able to find the button for having it dispense a bottle for your use.
Soon after the chimera’s tail left the fountain and the whole thing walked away to meet others who may be in need of refreshments.
her reputation was good. Screwing around helped her get through it.
As a matter of course, her grades were good. So, it might not have been of any surprise, but still a cruel twist of fate that put her here at the end of Middle School. It was stage seat during graduation.
“So bored,” thought Umi, looking up at a massive crowd shrouded in darkness, while seated under the spotlight. She wasn't the type to get stage freight, at least not with these people. Her fellow students didn't feel like "peers" to her. Not in the way that Umi was arrogant. It was in the way that she didn't feel a sense of connection with them. Loved by the community, that she didn't love it back. A deep part of her wished they would reject her, but she feared the consequences of what she would need to do to earn that rejection. Frequently all she could avail herself was to run away when she could.
There was a sparse amount of camera flashes, exit signs, and cell phone light on faces. It vaguely reminded her of staring out at the city on a train at night. She tried to ride the reality escape train in her brain, but there was a delayed departure. Jealousy was getting in the way of corrupting her vision of reality. Umi wished she could be wasting time on her cell phone instead of being forced to behave on this stage. Maybe it was time to (mentally) build a device for a batting cage that can "easily shoot cell phones to be crushed while I swing at them with a metal bat!" Umi was smiling
A speech ended and there was applause, not that Umi was really paying attention. Her body was on autopilot to do what everyone around her was doing. The group stood to clap and so did her body.
The principle spoke, “Now the valedictorian of the mechanical mastery program, Umi, shall give her farewell address!”
"Silence. How nice." Now Umi could focus easier on hittiing- smacked on the back!!
Umi was hit on the back. The bop echoed for a moment but was done so quick and stealthily that most assumed it was something insignificant like a balloon popping. But Umi knew and looked at her attacker, her mustachioed homeroom teacher, who with a stiff, forced smile and dilated eyes was already looking at her. He said, “No need to be nervous. Your speech.”
Umi's smile grew more warped as she thought what she’d do with the (imaginary) broken cell phone parts for the moment before she walked up to the podium.
“Hello and congratulations class of 3X20,” said Umi in monotone. Saying it out loud to so many people really hit her hard about how strange it was that she still doesn’t know what the “X” is supposed to stand for. Maybe they explained it in a different program.
After a moment of looking quizzical, she continued saying, “My, where had the years gone? We’ve shaped ourselves like circuit boards and attained a completely different forms by gathering pieces of knowledge onto ourselves. So focused that the concept of time seemed to be lost. We've been accelerating from the 5 miles per hour of our early years. 300 miles by the end of our elementary years. Now our best goes at 10,000 miles per hour as we leave middle school!" Umi was getting exciting and it showed in her voice as she was mentally aboard her reality escape train from earlier. Flying out from the auditorium, the train crashed through the roof (again this is imaginary) and soared through the sky and out of the galaxy in less time than it would take to read this sentence. "Looking back at where we once were, we now seem to be at an entirely different solar system!" this Umi said like she really was looking out of a window from inside a train drifting through space.
There was applause, it brought her mind back to the auditorium and her voice returned to monotone. “We of the mechanical mastery class are the future of humanity that will be locked deep in society, unseen and unappreciated. But our potential are the arms of our society, to reach out to new possibilities. This potential of ours hasn’t been close to realized. This goalpost we’ve worked so hard, so very hard, to reach is only the start of showing what we can do. It was the groundwork for even harder years to come, but we can do it. We were made able to do this and unable to do anything else, but succeed…”
The homeroom teacher had taken out a tablet and pressed “launch” button. A dozen neon rockets flew out from the top end of the stage spewing confetti that dissolved into sparkles. They flew around in circles, kind of like a swarm of gnats. Eventually as a group they in unison aimed for the back wall. Mid-air they transformed into two-foot-tall, neon, humanoid robots. Having lost them most of their aerodynamic design, they lost momentum and did superhero landings on the wall without damaging it. Gravity then took its turn to bring them to the actual floor. They then sat in some reserved seats nearby (this really happened).
The audience clapped. The rest of the ceremony was a blur to Umi.
Before her speech, she’d slightly paid attention so she could be ready to give her speech when prompted, which she failed. Now that it was over she felt like “whatever”. With that done she’d been free to zone out as freely as she could without letting her posture or smile slip. Else she’d be hit by her teacher again. There were a few warning pokes over it.
At some point after, everyone else was standing, so Umi started standing. She was handed a certificate. The paper felt like a handcuff chain, keeping both of her hands parallel to each other. She was now in the forming line of former middle schooler inmates (graduates) moving from one facility (middle school) to another (high school). Soon she would have to suffer humiliating mug shots (graduation pics). This agonizingly boring ceremony might have been the easy part of what was to come. She’d wished that she could be anywhere but in this place. Anywhere at all. What God, that her deeply non-religious parents didn’t tell her about, would she need to pray to make it happen?
As she stared at the certificate that read “EIGTH GRADE DIPLOMA” and her full name, “UMI”, the despair sunk in deeper. Four more years of dependency. Four more years of this mechanical stuff that she was sick of. What would she even be able to do once those four years had gone? All she wanted to do was go somewhere to not think about it. But for now, it was gnawing at her like a search hound following her attempted escape from reality.
Down the steps she went with the other valedictorians from the other program who actually had ambitions and passion for what they were doing, supposedly. They’d given speeches to cover the achievements for the past few years. The achievements that this paper was supposed to represent. Her view of the paper in her hands began to distort, like a disturbed puddle. Umi thought, “Oh, I’m crying, am I? Everyone watching me must think these are tears of joy.”
As she moved her hand back to wipe her face and as she moved her foot forward to walk onto the last step off the stage, the step she was still on was gone. She fell backwards and the person behind her was gone. The fibrous paper she held in her hands was now a red slimy ooze that had slipped entirely out of her fingers. The dark auditorium was now covered in light but nothing had a form to be seen. Her reflex was to scream. But even as she stressed her throat, she could not hear more than her muffled voice.
She’d fallen but had not dropped. Stationary, in what was too bright to be the deep see and too formless to be the middle of the sky. It was simply red. Still, she looked to the place that felt like where she’d seen her parents sitting before the lights were shut off. They weren’t there. It was like they were never there to start with.
2.
Yep, naked from the neck below as she was the day she was born. The clothes she was wearing were gone too. Gone with everything she’d worked toward for her entire life. Umi fist pumped in celebration.
“Yes!” she screamed, knowing she did, but not being able to hear it. “Also, gross! Reeeeeally gross!”
The red that surrounded her was a slimy ooze. Kinda like lotion mixed with eggs or mud mixed with milk. It was also lukewarm. Not the worst sensation imaginable, but weird. Weird and was everything. Weird and she could breathe in it.
There was a full-face scuba mask over her face. It was strapped down pretty well, as well as tangled in her hair. Her hair that was supposed to not go past her shoulders, but was now swimming around in what felt like potentially a yard in multiple directions.
“Groooooss-eeeew.” She wasn’t that interested in figuring out the how or why at the moment.
Experiment 1: Swimming up
Result: No matter the speed she tried flailing her arms, no progress seemed to be made.
Umi’s Conclusion: I’m being held in place by the mask. It’s attached to something that is above and below me.
Experiment 2: Removing the mask
Result: Stopped ten seconds into starting.
Umi’s Conclusion: Will drown. Must calm down. This is still comparatively nice to the graduation ceremony and what would come after. Waiting for a moment would be fine. I’m not regretting my prayer to not be there. Not worried about what divine being might have intervened.
Experiment 3: Feeling around her body
Result: Found something protruding from her waist.
Umi’s Conclusion: There’s a feeding tube going into my gut. Wouldn’t want to move that around too much. Definitely naked, minus, or rather, plus a mask and feeding tube.
Nothing else came to mind to try. Speaking of mind, her psychological prison had been replaced by a physical prison. The physical prison being a bright red abyss. With no change to stimulate her senses, it was like a prison's solitary confinement. Even if her mind was free, how long would she be able to remain sane? Umi was not acquainted with knowledge in the psychology field. But she did begin to worry. What if every day was this? Would this not be a fate worst than death?!
Concerns that wouldn’t end up mattering much, considering the red ooze was draining. She was slowly fed more wire from the above portion and was dropping at a slower rate than the ooze. But her legs reached the finish line first, the bottom drain. Her awareness was second place. A familiar face was looking at her with its lime green eyes, her face. It was a reflection of her face seeing her see herself. It was an incomplete, translucent reflection and she wasn’t as she last remembered her looking, but she knew her own facial features.
How long ago was it since she appeared in there? Five minutes ago? Fifteen minutes ago? Felt like her sense of time was multiplied by some unknown variable.
Those concerns aside, her dark blue hair looked as long as it had felt. It reached her knees. It was also covered in slime, the same slime that was finishing draining to get third place. For the moment it was miscolored by the ooze. The next moment a shower began to pour over her from above. Again, lukewarm. But the color of her hair began to look right.
The thing she was in was like the human equivalent for a goldfish bowl. There wasn’t a lot of room, even if the red made it seem like it could go on forever. Red she could see because of the light shing from the round bulbs shining above and below her. It also had a functioning water dispenser on the top, hence the water pouring on her head, as well as the drain that kept the bowl from refilling. There seemed to be a lot of automated equipment on this thing for a multitude of options.
In fact, after being hosed down for a minute, not enough time to feel clean, especially without soap, a gust of hot air blew from below. It felt like a bathroom hand dryer, but bigger and uncharacteristically focused around the nether regions. The experience was fairly unwelcome. Genuine warm would be welcome following the non-heat-committing spray, but she was also feeling water trickle up her body, which felt bizarre. Worst, her thick, long hair seemed to want to drag her around like an umbrella in intense wind.
The human fish bowl split open following the air stopping and her still not dry yet hair fell back to her like she was being rammed into from several directions by multiple dog-sized sponges. The bowl apparently had a door that opened like a domestic dish washer, except it kept going. The door now functioned as a glass walkway connecting her the outside floor. A floor that couldn’t be easily seen because the room was so dark. It had the ominous feel of a dying city at night due to the array of blinking and steady lights scattered about. These was also an overhead light, like a street lamp, which was too weak to light the entire room and was alone in the pursuit, save for the three shadowy, humanoid figures that stood before it.
Umi covered herself with her arms upon learning she wasn’t alone. Before engaging them, she wanted to get a clearer understanding of the shadowy figures in the distance. First, they were about two or three cars length away from this human fish bowl she was standing in. Second, from the light behind them she could make out enough of an outline to tell they were all skirts. So they were, probably, all female. The two on the sides were roughly Umi’s height. The one in the center was as small as an elementary schooler. This paragraph of observations only took about two seconds to compile in her mind.
The third second in, black hands stretched out of the in-reach darkness. Two on the left and two on the right, symmetrically exactly the same positions, one hanging on the glass bridge and one on the glass wall. Fourth second in, the hands catapulted in the main bodies, blurs of white, green, and orange. One of them had pure black eyes. Sixth second in, they were behind Umi now. So were Umi’s arms, which were supposed to be protecting her modesty. It was not the touch of human skin she was held by, but the feel of leather.
From the trio of shadows, two broke off leaving one in the distance as they moved toward Umi’s bowl. Screams continued to be muffled by the scuba mask over Umi’s face. The two in front of her continued their approach calmly, seeming indifferent to her struggles. They were very indulgent with their travel time and even stopped a few times for no apparent reason. Eventually the duo broke apart and one of the silhouettes came into the light.
Now in view, Umi saw a girl roughly her age. Her amused smile didn’t project any compassion. She had crimson eyes with dark eyeliner, green hair put into a braid, and a purple and white sailor uniform with tall boots. All this girl chose to say was, “This will feel weird.”
The girl got on her knees. Umi knew what she was after. The two behind Umi tightened their grip as she began to reflexively jolt around and blocked off any attempts to kick the one dressed in purple by putting their legs in front of hers. Powerless and completely at her mercy, Umi felt the stranger put her hand softly on her belly before adding, “This will be a lot easier if you relax.”
What she said first was true. Umi really didn’t like what this stranger was doing. Relaxing would make this easier, at least she understood it’d be over faster if she did. But the intense desire to not be in the situation to start with had her stuck there imprisoning herself in it. Frantically she continued to shake like a fish yanked out of water with a hook stuck in it.
It was around that time the second third of the shadow trio, and other half of what was now a duo, came into the light. This one was another girl in purple. She had light pink hair and dark skin, looking at her reminded one of cherries and chocolate for some reason. Her movements were unusual, she was approaching walking sideways with an instinctually clear intent to get there without looking at Umi, who was naked, naked and held in a way that revealed everything.
“Sherry,” whined the greened haired girl on her knees without looking back. “We’ve all had to go through this. You’re only making this more awkward by making people wait.”
“S-sorry, May,” said the other girl in purple. Then she forced herself to face Umi, showing clearly her green eyes on a face that matched the sorrow of a whining puppy. She added, “I’m sorry to you too…um…”
Despite not seeing this girl’s eye' until now, Umi fell in love with her instantly. To her, this strange sweety “Sherry” became an angel to Umi as she turned to show she was bringing clothes with her.
POP
The feeding tube that May was pulling on came out. That’s all she had been doing. Nothing naughty or perverted. Shame on you if got any strange ideas.
“Finally, you relaxed your muscles.”
3.
The clothes she brought, with a towel on top, were set on the glass walkway.
“Be happy you had someone to do this for you,” said May as she was bandaging up the hole going straight to Umi’s stomach with gauze and medical tape. “I had to do all of this to myself.”
Umi asked for details and could hardly even hear herself. It all came out as muffled gibberish. Sherry was at least working to fix that as she was working on removing the scuba mask. Being positioned behind Umi's head, Umi seemed to be speaking when Sherry said, “We all appreciate the work you do May.”
The girls holding her down seemed to turn to Sherry when she said that. Girls... oh, now that the excitement was over, Umi noticed they had breasts that were pushing up against her, perfectly symmetrically felt on each arm. Sherry after a moment to sense their thoughts said, “You do great work too Pax, and you too Norma.” Her cheerful tone left as she added, “But I really never want to have to do what May does.”
May walked away without giving any sort of response. Sure, her work was done. She had taken out the feeding tube and covered up the leaking hole that Umi wanted to forget about as soon as possible, but where did she get off being so standoffish. It made Umi wanna yell what could only be heard as muffled gibberish with the mask over her face. But she wanted her thoughts understood and at that moment,
“Get me outta here! Get me oooout!!”
was heard in the room. It being said just as the mask was removed, wasn’t what happened. It was even more evident by the fact Sherry began to be less concerned about not pulling Umi’s hair to get the mask off. Sherry was hurrying now and it was causing Umi a lot of physical pain. The internal monologue yell came from outside this human fish tank.
Was this tank an experiment pod that gave Umi the psychic power to project her thoughts into other locations? Well, it sounded nothing like what Umi thought she sounded like, but that’s basically normal right? Everyone thinks their voice sound different when they hear it recorded.
When Sherry succeeded in removing the scuba mask, Umi opened her mouth and get out a syllable, before Sherry had bolted out the tank after May. Along the way she shouted, “No questions!” Heading out of eye’s range she added, “Captain’s orders!”
This left Umi alone with the two Sherry called Pax and Norma. By this time, they’d already let go of her. One of them said, “The complete order was, ‘Answer no questions until everyone is dressed.’”
They then let go and ran after Sherry, bumping into Umi’s shoulders on the way out, symmetrically. Their outfits were the same but different from May and Sherry’s outfits. Green replaced the purple and they wore leather gloves, but the rest was the same. Their height was taller than those two too, by the same amount. They had the same hair color of dark orange hair, worn in different styles.
Now Umi was alone, which was nice since she was still in her birthday suit. It was time to grab the towel from the top of the stack of clothes, which was gone. The clothes were still there. The towel was gone.
“What the -REDACTED- is going on!” yelled out Umi’s internal monologue, allegedly.
Boldly Umi dropped to the corner of the bridge and peaked over to see if it just fell over with all the running that had gone on. There she saw a girl who, like her, had ridiculously long hair, black in this case. She was almost hard to see in the dark room since said black hair was covering a large chunk of her form. Also, like Umi, this girl was unclothed, except the towel wrapped around her and a second one she was using to further dry her hair.
“Who the -REDACTED- are you?! The -REDACTED- are you doing?!”
After a pause with exchanged glances, the girl Umi was facing said, “Aal. Call me Aal. I’ve stolen your towel.”
“I can see that, but I’m not the one who asked, probably. Should I ask why you stole my towel?”
Without answering, Aal bowed her head like she was apologizing. Then she pushed her hair forward. Then she put Umi’s towel on the back of her head. From there she twisted the towel over her hair, wrapping it up, somewhat. It was clear she wasn’t apologizing.
A wordless scream could be heard from Umi’s supposed, loose, internal monologue from the other side of the room. This gave Aal no pause as she effortfully pushed the hair wrap behind her, which slapped her on the back with a thud.
“Isn’t it better if at least one person is happy, rather than having everyone be miserable? One towel simply isn’t enough.”
The body dryer from earlier wasn’t enough for as much hair was attached to them to get dry and it made the already great weight much worst. The last point was true, but that logic was incinerated in the intensity of Umi’s fury before it could reach her mind.
Aal could tell she was unmoved and preceded to remove the towel that was around her torso. Female. She tossed in onto the glass bridge, which landed with a moist splat. With a smirk she said, “If you want a towel so bad you can have that one. Yours for mine with a bit extra. You really lucked out miss.”
For a moment Umi looked over to check that prospect. Poking into the towel similar to how you’d feel for a pulse from the neck, she felt a reverberation come into her body from the resulting revulsion.
“Uwwergewwiiii!!” it had her mumbling gibberish again.
“Aaaaaah!! Ouuuch!” said the internal monologue, expressing the incorrect emotions.
Looking back towards Aal, she saw nobody. That sneaky girl ran off the second Umi took her eyes off her.
Urged by anger she at least threw on the underwear from the clothes pile. Getting these alone wet was better than getting the whole outfit that way. It gave her some pause her some pause how they fit perfectly. But she worked through it with hair that felt like a rolled-up rug on her back.
From there she’d started off the glass walkway. As she was about to take the last step off, she brought her leg back. Exactly how much time had it been since she was walking off the graduation stage? Would she end up somewhere else again the moment her foot landed? What happened to everyone? She turned back to look at the mask she’d had over her face, which was still attached to the mechanical part of the human fish bowl and hanging above. Her steps now went back to it, back to the examine what had been strapped to her face.
"This device must be a..."
4.
Umi made her first step into the room outside of the human fish bowl and kept on moving. She didn’t have any reason to pause anymore. The path she was taking matched the one that May, Sherry, Pax, Norma, and Aal, as well as the unknown shadow took. It went around the room going to her left. Had she gone right, it’d have immediately hit a wall. It was close enough to the bowl that it could be seen easily.
First thing she found was another human fish bowl with Aal standing on top of this one’s glass bridge. Umi gave the stink eye to Aal, who was buttoning up her uniform’s blouse with her back to our main character. The uniform was exactly the same as Pax and Norma’s uniforms, a green sailor uniform with black leather gloves and boots. Her guard was down, Umi could try pushing her off the bridge. She’d land headfirst onto that now compressed pillow of her own hair. Tempting, but Umi decided to save revenge for later. This moment would be bard to succeed, the time Aal would be vulnerable was going to be too short and Umi wasn’t able to run. It made Umi think though.
How did Aal even manage to steal it with so many possible witnesses? Simulating the conditions that matched her own, Aal had nothing after awakening in the human fish bowl. After the pod was drained of the strange liquid, she was hosed down and partially dried. Next, in likely the same way she was restrained by Pax and Norma, had the feeding tube removed by May, and clothes brought over by Sherry. They then left her all alone to put her clothes on.
Oh, her hair is black. She just used her black hair to hide in the dark like she was wearing camouflage. If she crouched like characters do in video games her whole body would be covered pretty easily. It’d also have her sweeping over the floor like a mop. From enough distance she could keep an eye on the happenings and wait until the right moment to take the towel once the population had dwindled to only Umi around the tank.
Umi had started this train of thought while having gone about 60° around the device her and Aal’s bowls were attached to, Aal’s bowl being at the 90° point. A third human fish bowl could be found at the 180° point, which she noticed around the 160° point. That’s because she was so distracted by the thoughts above that she ran into someone.
It was the none of the girls she’d met yet, clearly the last of that trio of silhouettes in the distance, that was comprised of May, Sherry, and whoever this short one is. Due to the run in, the one who was run into tipped over and slid, while letting out a feminine sounding, “Woah!” It was followed by a different voiced, “Ah!”
The rest of the scene began to enter Umi’s awareness as the scene’s population began to focus on her.
““CAPTAIN!”” yelled Pax and Norma, in unison, who were restraining an unmasked girl with incredibly long white hair, just as they had Umi. May was on the bandaging phase as the yelling made her yank the gauze off by accident. The silhouette of Sherry was actually right next to the person Umi ran into and that person was knocked into that silhouette. The formation was fairly different than how it was earlier
Things began to change even more. Pax and Norma abandoned their duty to keep May’s “patient” still. Symmetrical as usual, they let go of the girl they were restraining and sped around the two other girls that were in the bowl. So very quickly, they reached the glass bridge out of the human fish bowl at the same time. This resulted in the two of them crashing into each other in a much worst way than the crash they were heading toward. This sent them bouncing off each other and off the sides of the bridge.
“That was unlucky,” said the voice of Umi’s past internal monologues. Each time it was said to be an internal monologue so far, it was actually this long, white-haired girl currently in the human fish bowl in the nude. This was the realization Umi had as she saw the girl speak with her own mouth. Although, she basically already knew.
Said speaking girl then proceeded to knee May in the nose and power walked away as the water weight from her hair kept her from running. In less than a few seconds she was in the dark, not fully obscured as her white hair made her stand out a bit more.
The silhouette that was addressed to as “CAPTAIN” said toward the Sherry silhouette, “Go take care of that please.”
Trembling voiced, she replied, “But she not wearing any-”
“We agreed it was your job to make certain all of them got their clothes.”
After a pout, Sherry ran to the bowl that held the chaos to grab the towel from a stack of clothes left on top of the glass bridge. You could assume she was the one who brought that stack over like she did for Umi. Next, she chased after the “runner”.
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"Leave me alone!” yelled the “runner”. “I’m getting out of here!”
You could tell from the sounds of her footsteps that she wasn’t going very fast.
“There IS no escape,” replied Sherry, not sounding the least bit intimidating with how she said it. “Why did I agree to do this?”
Umi’s eyes had followed the happenings. This was until she heard the captain make a move and aim a device at her. It had a similar shape to a ray gun and... the captain was pulling the trigger and... Umi tried to dodged back with hardly any time to respond and... it was just a flashlight.
After getting a full look at Umi, the captain aimed the flashlight at her face showing the frown on her now face in a spooky sort of way. The captain had a bright yellow eye, a large captain hat that was turned over her right eye, coral-colored hair mostly in a really long side-tail, the same green uniform as Pax and Norma, and freckles.
In a voice more mature and dignified than anyone else so far, the captain asked, “Why is it you’re in your underwear?”
“The black-haired girl stole my towel,” replied Umi, harshly. With a softened, frustrated, tone she added, “Though, I agree with her that one towel was never going to be enough in the first place.”
“Wow,” said a black-eyed monster, aka Pax with her sunglasses, that came into the light of the flashlight from behind the captain,. “I complained about the same thing last time. How the heck did we make the same mistake twice in a row?”
Melted back into the darkness, Pax added, “Defender of the peace, Pax, is on it!”
A gateway of light burst into existence from seeming nowhere. Before it was Pax who waved back toward the captain and Umi as she walked through. Once she was fully within the gateway, it closed back up behind her with a mechanical hum.
“That’s where the exit is!” said the girl fleeing Sherry, slowly. She’d picked up the pace to head towards where the gateway of light was. A moment later you could hear the sound of her running into the wall near it.
“Why is it so dark in here?” Umi asked the captain.
“The reason is quite simple,” replied the captain, with a bit of an excited smile. “This room has specialized light fixtures. Not one of us could figure out how to change the light bulbs.
“Don’t give me that look. It’s a reason why we’ve really needed your help.”
“Well then, where are we?”
“Debriefing for information of that nature will begin after everyone is dressed.”
“But I’m still wet.”
“-and I’m dressed first,” said Aal coming into view of the captain and Umi with a dab. She was as fully dressed as the captain, with the towel in place of the captain’s hat.
Umi gave Aal a glare. Aal gave Umi a smug sneer. Umi gave Aal a hug.
“Huh,” went Aal. But then it soaked in. The moisture from Umi’s hair was going into Aal’s clothing. Umi had carried hair with each arm and was now squeezing it onto Aal.
“Somebody stop her!” yelled Aal.
The captain, with her flashlight that was aimed at the scene, gave a weirded-out side-glance then turn her focus and her light away. Aal screamed as she was swallowed in darkness.
5.
Umi had done all she reasonably could and let go. Aal was weeping on her knees with Umi standing above her. They were now the silhouettes as everyone else was now standing by the last human fish bowl.
For at least this particular device the three bowls so far were connected to, it had to be the last. Umi’s bowl and this one were against the wall, the device only went around for half a circle, likely because it needed to be connected to an outlet.
After the earlier chase, Norma was tasked with dragging the “runner” back to the bowl she came out of. From there she got patched up more than everyone else by May. She even got her knees bandaged together. No chance of her getting hurt by running off again.
Sherry, was told to keep an eye on the occupant. Nobody seemed to care that Sherry kept avoiding looking at her out of embarrassment. The occupant herself was laying around on the ground like a worm, now with a towel wrapped around. Her expression was like that of a dejected dog.
Since it was the best source of light currently in the room, the captain, Norma, and May were clustered together not far from the bowl. Norma was getting looked at for her fall.
“I won’t sacrifice my happiness for you,” said Umi. “Don’t try to tell me what’s for the best.”
“Well, if you won’t listen to my advice,” responded Aal with a trembling voice. “I’ll just use your clothes!”
Swiftly Aal turned toward the curve to Umi’s bowl and got in a quick runner’s starting position. From there, she catapulted herself off that spot into motion. Umi was starting to get ready to give chase as Aal reached the light of her own bowl en route. It was at that moment Aal was grabbed by a black, leather hand on her collar. This caused her to fall back and onto her butt on the floor.
“I am Norma, keeper of the law,” she said coming into the light. “Nobody may have a different department’s uniform, as per the captain’s order. You are permitted leniency until we formally submit you as crew and will likely be forgiven for your earlier theft. However, as a fellow command officer, you may not be in possession of a machine officer’s uniform.”
“From my title, I sure sound more important than her,” said Aal, weakly.
“You’re really not.”
Soon after, Pax can back in from the gate of light, that had a mechanical opening and closing sound, with a stack of towels that reached over her head. With those towels blocking her line of sight, she first walked toward the occupied human fish bowl and yelled, “Sherry, duck!”
Luckily, Sherry was fully aware of Pax’s presence since she was completely neglecting her duty of keeping an eye on the girl in the bowl. Rather than have her back to where Pax was, she had been standing sideways on the glass bridge and instead jumped off when told to duck. This barely got her out of the way as Pax frisbeed a towel at the occupant.
“Eep!”
Then she threw another.
“Eep!”
“Seriously, Pax,” said May.
“The captain said we can be as rough as needed during processing,” replied Pax.
Pax’s next started toward Umi, who was still a silhouette in the dark. As she was walking off the bowl, the captain walked up toward the occupant with a sigh. Umi flinched in seeing the incoming approach and she waved her arms around trying to figure out how to guard against a possible attack.
“Here,” said Pax with a stack of four towels held toward Umi. “You get an extra for good behavior.”
“Oh, thank you!” said Umi with an unseen smile.
She and Pax ended up walking together for a moment after that. The third stop in Pax’s towel delivery was to Aal after all and she was headed toward Umi’s bowl to steal her clothes, which Umi wanted to wear after drying off.
Aal was being held in place on the ground still by her collar. Pax and Umi split off once near her as Pax stood over Aal with one towel left. Aal looked up at Pax as that towel was dropped on her face.
“Might I ask your name?” said the captain who was helping the white-haired occupant dry her hair with the towels than Pax had flung at her. “My name is Sally, I’m the captain here.”
“Captain of what?” asked the white-haired occupant. “Are you a pirate or something? Is that why I’m here? Are you going to use me to get a ransom? My family isn’t rich.”
“Such a wild imagination you have,” said captain Sally. “I promise I have no evil intentions for you. I’m simply the captain of the pioneer vessel we’re on.”
“Pioneer vessel? Do you mean we’re in space?! How can I be on a pioneer vessel? I was leaving the graduation ceremony!”
“I guess I gave that detail a little too soon. I can’t give you all details until everyone else is ready to hear it too.”
“Don’t give me that! There was a big party planned. I was so excited for it. We’d been so preoccupied with finals that I’d barely seen most of my friends for the last few weeks. Did it already happen? Or is going to happen without me with everyone wondering where I am? I don’t want it to be ruined by people worrying about me. -REDACTED-! -REDACTED-!”
Sally said nothing. She simply looked at the oxygen mask that had been over this girl, like she was expecting it speak the answers for her, as she continued to use a towel on wet hair. It wasn’t even mentioned how the captain’s clothes were getting soaked as well.
“I don’t even remember getting to show my parents my diploma. From the second I got it, I wanted to see the look on their faces. The look of pride they’d have in me." She stared at her trembling hands, miming that she was holding a piece of paper that wasn’t there. "Why did it melt away in my fingers? Why’d the ooze it became get sucked away into this drain I’m sitting on?
"Vista, it said,” said the white-haired girl, Vista. “I want it back so badly. I worked hard for it.”
6.
It put a bad taste in Umi’s mouth, but she was able to finish getting dressed with the same towel trick Aal used to get the hair out of the way. Her uniform was a sailor uniform with white and goldish yellow, unlike any of the uniforms seen up to this point.
“A machine officer, was it?” she said aloud as she walked off the glass bridge of her bowl. Following a sigh she added, “Suppose that IS how it ought to work.”
On her way to the halfway point, Aal’s bowl, she approached with hypervigilance. Softly to hear movement. Slowly to avoid a possible trap. Her eyes darted around, though she couldn’t see much of anything in the dark.
Suddenly, a light was coming around the corner. Umi was mentally unprepared for such a direct approach by her enemy and got into a stance for defending herself. The approaching light was coming over so fast it felt like a subway train coming at her and she was petrified like a deer in highlights.
“You trying to do karate or something?” said the user of the flashlight that spooked Umi, May, before she yanked Umi forward by her shirt collar. “Don’t quit your day job.”
“Don’t stretch my new uniform before I get to see how I look in it!” said Umi as she tried to tear May’s hand off her clothes. “I’ll keep up, I promise. Stop pulling please!”
Back at the front of Vista’s human fish bowl everyone was now gathered. Like it was a stage, captain Sally stood on top, above the front and only two rows comprised of a standing audience of her “crew”. It also looked to be a captive audience as Norma stood behind Vista, who was now dressed in the same goldish sailor uniform Umi was wearing. Pax stood behind Aal, who was still dressed, but now with a towel sticking out from under of her shirt.
For a moment May was with Umi. But as soon as she was sure Umi knew to stay still there, May left Umi to stand by Sherry who was next to the bridge, kind of like they were the music band for the production. Umi felt a bit lonely to be the only non-performer standing on her own.
“I see everyone is now ready,” said Sally. “I am Sally, captain of the Starcell 33, the ship you’re currently on. I promise you all that it was for the best that you all are at least dressed for what I’m about to tell you.”
After saying that she was silent to allow her solemn warning to sink in.
“Is nobody else going to question the fact that we’re getting this ‘serious news’ from an elementary schooler captain?” said Aal. “This is all a prank isn’t-”
Promptly she was tabbed painfully on the side of her torso by Pax with a police baton.
“I’ll have you know that I won’t be allowin’ any insults to my captain. You understand?”
Aal could see her own terrified expression in Pax’s pitch-black eyes (sunglasses) above a smile that seemed to be inviting Aal to make the very mistake her words warned not to do. Aal nodded.
“There’s no need to get rough over that Pax,” said Sally. “I’ll let her have it today. She is after all a birthday girl.”
“Birthday girl? My birthday isn’t for another-”
“Seems I went too far,” said Pax coming into Aal’s front. With a bow she added, “I’m very sorry birthday girl 1.”
“It’s Aal, and what are you talking about?”
“We’ve all been brought into this without any warning,” the captain said, but she was clearly hesitating to say what “this” was. She was clearly worried about saying it the wrong way.
“We were all born from those artificial wombs,” said Umi walking into Aal and Vista’s view and onto the start of the glass bridge. She pointed up to the machine, the human fish bowl, which had the function of making babies from a bank of sperm and eggs. Outside of Umi’s mind, it was usually called an ‘artificial womb’.
“How’d you know?” asked May in wide-eyed surprise.
“Well, she is a mechanical master,” commented Sherry.
“That’s ridiculous,” shouted Vista. “I look like my parents! I didn’t come from a machine!”
“It was obvious from the set-up,” Umi said, answering May’s inquire. “The first red flag for me was the brainwave scanners attached to the masks we were wearing. It screamed M.E.T.A.”
“Meta?” asked Aal.
“Mechanically Enhanced Thought Accelerator- it’s a device to experience time like its going faster than it really is by using a supercomputer to handle a lot of the processing. The catch is, you need to be wired directly to the computer for it to work. So more often than not it’s used for VR experiences.”
““VR,”” Aal and Vista said at the same, concern in their voices.
“Yeah, VR. We, me, you, and Aal, weren’t teleported here. For as long as we’ve existed, we’ve been in this room, thinking we were someplace else.”
Aal fell to her knees with her eyes to the ground and from that spot said, “You’re joking right? This is some sort of revenge?”
“She stole my thunder,” said captain Sally. “But she hasn’t lied. I’ve been waiting for you to join us since you all were conceived by this machine.” With a bashful bow she added, “You could say, I’ve known each of you three since before you were babies. The same could be said for everyone else in this room, besides May.”
Vista went straight to yelling, “None of you could be more than a year or two older than us! But you’re making it sound like you were in charge from before we were born!”
“That’s exactly it!” said Sherry, sounding proud for Vista.
“Cut the crap! You’re saying the captain ran this place as a one-year-old baby?!”
May responded, “I would be able to say it if you remove the term ‘baby’.” Facing Sally, she added, “We’re on 338 days captain. Can’t we round the year up now and say we’re one-year-olds?”
“No. First, we’re counting from the day we came out of the womb. So, it’s 226. Second, even if we did count the time in the pods, 338 days do not make a year. Please don’t confuse everyone for the purpose of being called a year older.”
“I’m not understanding any of this,” said Aal.
“The captain and May are 226 days old,” answered Sherry confidently. “These pods accelerate the development of the body as well. We have the bodies of fifteen-year-olds, but those bodies were made in only 112 days.”
“Sherry, Pax, and I are 113 days old,” added Norma. “The machine waits a day before making another batch.”
“A batch of-?” asked Vista, she couldn’t finish the question though.
After a pause, Norma replied, “A batch of people.”
“So, we experienced 15 years in 112 days?” said Aal. “It was all virtual reality?”
“Yes,” said Pax. “Now you’re here with us in reality.”
“You’re saying everyone I’ve ever known has been a video game character?!” shouted Vista. “My parents who would proudly display my work in the house?! My friends who I’d skip class with?! My little brother who would ask me for advice about girls?!”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Pax.
“No fair!” shouted Umi. “How did you have a siblings and nice parents! My folks woulda put me in the electric chair if they ever learned I skipped class!”
“The -redacted- is your problem!” replied Vista.
“My problem is, ‘How did you have it so well?’ I struggled to get the slightest bit of freedom and happiness in that world. It’s-” Umi began cry. “So nice to be outta there! You should be grateful you had it good in there!!”
“Hey! Get off of me!” said Vista trying to push off a now clamped on Umi. First attempt was against the shoulder. Next, pushing on the wet face. Last, pulling on the towel covered hair. Eventually, she lost the will to try. “Ok, yeah! Thank you! Mom, dad, bro! Party on without me pals!” Vista too began to cry. The two golden (uniform) girls gave each other a hug.
“Is that even possible?” May whispered to Sherry. “Do you think the simulation resets every time or continues on without us?”
“I feel I’m happier not thinking about it,” whispered back Sherry.
7.
“For being a good girl, you can be first,” said captain Sally, pointing toward Umi with a pair of hedge clippers. The black gloves had already been removed. Next to her was a stool over a long sheet and a music stand, which had scissors, a comb, and a mirror sitting on it.
Around her and the crew was what appeared to be a small farm. Tomatoes, apple trees, and many other edible plants were growing from where they could see. It was warm, you could smell the dirt, tiny things were flying around flowers, there was a breeze, but you couldn’t see the sky.
The crew were sat at a picnic table with a few magazines spread about. Umi in particular had eye buried in one before she responded saying, “Sure, I found one that’s close enough to what I had.”
Earlier, after Vista and Umi had been hugging out their pain for a few minutes, the captain stated, “I’m sorry, but it’s time for us to move to the next item on our itinerary.”
“Can’t you see we’re having a touching moment,” said Umi
“Can’t you see I’m in no mood for your -redacted-,” said Vista at the same time.
The captain was a bit unsettled with that response and started out saying, “I’m sure you’d be happy to know-”
“It’s haircuts,” interrupted May.
Without even looking at each other, Umi and Vista broke apart, stood straight and with mismatched poses, Umi with legs together saluting and Vista with legs spread arms behind her back and her chest held high, said, “Ready captain!” in unison.
Thus, the gate of light opened again and everybody left the dark room of false reality. The gate of light was of course simply an automatic door leading into a much brighter room.
“If you can light that room?” asked Vista this time. "Why is this one so dark?"
"I asked the same thing earlier," said Umi.
“None of us could figure out how to change the light bulbs,” said the captain without shame. “It’s dark, the roof is high, and we couldn’t even tell which specialty bulb we needed.”
There was an office on the other side of the door. No workers. Computers were there though, a few that is. Most desks had been entirely bare or, in one case, instead had sheets, pillows, stuffed animals- the makings of a bed on top of two desks slid together.
Strange, but not attention grabbing enough to give Vista or Umi pause. They followed behind the captain like sheep eager to be sheared. Aal on the other hand took the sights in as she slow walked and began falling behind.
Sherry walked into the path of Aal’s view with an awkward smile and said, “This is where I usually sleep. Please don’t think too much about it.”
“You sleep on top of desks?” asked Aal.
“Well, I get a fair amount of privacy here. Plus, this is where I usually work. So, I can crawl into bed in a moment’s notice.”
“Still seems like a strange choice.”
“Don’t call it strange! It’s almost like camping.”
“Camping indoors?”
“We’re in a space ship! Everything is equally indoors!”
That seemed to satisfy Aal for the time being and the together began chasing back after the group that had already walked into the next room. As the two of them walk into the next room, which was separated by two sets of automatic doors like you’d see in a big store, was of course, nature.
It was more nature than Aal had been present for in her entire fake life. City girl as she was, it wasn’t a high bar, but it was an exponential difference, like N15 (N=Number of plants seen in Aal’s simulation). Overgrown grass. The very cement walkway they were walking on was deteriorated and weeds were growing through the cracks. Trees as tall and wide as buildings, yet their shade didn’t cover the ground in inescapable darkness. Plenty of smaller plants grown wildly to fill the space between the trees.
Aal asked, stopped by the jarring difference, “Y’all made it sound like we were in the middle of space! This is all earth stuff, isn’t it?”
Sherry turned back toward Aal and answered, “Yes, that’s right. Everything you said is correct. These are plants from earth and we’re in space. Is that strange somehow?”
“If we’re on a space ship, why does it feel like I just walked into a forest?”
“That should be obvious, shouldn't it be?”
“What’s obvious?”
“This is the ship’s greenhouse.”
“Greenhouse? Don’t be dumb, this place is huge and there’s a breeze.”
“The breeze is from the vents. What good is a ship’s greenhouse if it doesn’t take the oxygen out to other parts of the ship? As for the size, where do I even start?”
When there was silence between them, Aal began to hear it in the background, the mechanical humming from above. She tried to block out the sun with her hand to examine the sky, only to find that she couldn’t.
“Why are there multiple suns?!”
“The idea is to simulate the movement of the sun. I’ve heard it’s easier to just turn them on and off with a circle of lights rather than have a machine that moves a light in a circle. If you look behind you, they’re off back there.”
Aal did as she was advised and saw what one could be called several “eclipsed suns”, or, to be accurate, shut off blubs along a wall with windows. It was like the building was hunched over the “planet” the two had walked into, or, to be accurate, the greenhouse they’d walked into was shaped similar to a snow globe with upper floors being able to appreciate the view. To Aal it was surreal, despite being entirely real. Despite it seeming outside to Aal at first, this greenhouse felt more sealed and “indoors” than the rooms that were beyond the windows now, at least with this perspective.
“Larger mature trees can provide enough oxygen for multiple people,” said Sherry. “In the reverse, it takes many hundreds of small plants to provide enough oxygen for one person. For a ship of this size, we need something of this scale to meet the need. Though it's also not the only source of oxygen. Um, did you hear me? I can’t tell with you looking away like that.”
Sherry grabbed Aal on the shoulder and turned her around to face her. To what she saw she shrieked.
Face scrounged up and filled with tears and a snot, Aal said, “I was still holding out hope, sniff, that this was all some sort of prank. When I saw this place, sniff, I was starting to feel really confident it was the case. So, sniff, I’m really stuck in this place?” Her voice was pretty squeaky.
“That, that is what we had been saying!” said Sherry with wide-eyed concern. “It’ll be alright though! It took me some time to adjust too, but it’ll be alright! Let’s get you cleaned up!”
8.
Aal and Sherry arrived at a space that appeared to be a break area near a vegetable garden where everyone else was gathered.
“You two took your sweet time,” said May, harshly. She was standing
“Sorry May,” said Sherry giving a bow.
“What’d I miss?” asked Aal, looking bored. “Sniff.”
“I started getting my hair cut by the captain,” said Umi. She was sitting on top of a stool with a cape over her front and Sally behind her actively trimming. “They had magazines ready for us to look through on the picnic table.”
Her hair was already cut to shoulder length. A pair of hedge clippers was currently sitting on the ground by a thick pile of hair clippings.
“The captain explained what this place is in detail,” said Norma, who was standing.
“Sherry was the one who was supposed to explain,” said Pax, who was standing.
“Sally really did introduce this place with pizazz though,” said Vista with four open magazines in front of her as she was sitting alone at the picnic table.
““Don’t make our captain out to sound strange!”” said Pax and Norma.
The captain took a break from cutting and said to Aal, “Sorry we started without you. I decided not to make these two to wait any longer than necessary.”
“It’s not a problem,” said Aal before joining Vista at the picnic table. She sat shoulder to shoulder with her, which made Vista scoot away for space with an accompanying glare. Aal’s sideways glance met her gaze for but a second before returning to the magazines without granting any concessions.
“So, this is what you looked like in the simulation?” asked the captain as she was examining the magazine that was left on a music stand. “There weren’t any little differences that would make a world of difference is there? I’ve made it to roughly the same shape.”
Umi was now seeing herself in a mirror the captain was holding in front of her. To that she responded, “That’s a great question. At the salon I went to, I had the same person reserved each time. So, I expected them to put it back to ‘normal’ without a second thought.”
“Why did you keep getting a ‘normal’ haircut?”
“Suppose I didn’t feel the need to impress anyone with my looks.”
“I feel I could interpret that a lot of different ways.”
“The boys around me always seemed to have one thing on their mind. Whenever they came to talk to me, it’s the only thing that came up. Honestly, I found it pretty disturbing.”
“Oh, wow, the boys I’d met hadn’t been nearly so brazen. Was it because my body is so-?”
“What’s this about your body? I was talking about robots!”
“Robots?”
“Yes, the boys were always coming to me about their robot designs, inviting me to come see their giant robot battles, asking me to provide my voice for robot maids! Disgusting!”
“I have to agree. At least for that last one.”
“The girls were hardly any better! Maybe I should have put in a bit more effort into my looks and tried asking someone from your department. I suppose I had enough freedom while at school to at least make the attempt.”
“Yes, there were many dashing boys in my class and I do believe even as your ‘normal’ look goes, your beauty would have done well at catching the eye of one.”
“Aw, that’s sweet of you to say captain!”
The captain and Umi continued talking for a while about an assortment of subjects until her hair matched the picture. As Umi got up Pax started a slow clap, which swiftly caught on to everyone except Aal, May, and the captain. The captain’s hands were now full with the hedge clippers she’d picked up off the ground. As Umi stood paralyzed by the attention, the captain stabbed through the air next to Umi with the hedge clippers aimed at Vista, which from a certain angle looked like she stabbed through Umi, and said, “You’re next!”
“I’m not ready yet,” replied Vista, still applauding. “You can let her go before me.”
The captain shifted her arm slightly to point at Aal and asked, “Are you ready now?”
“Sure.”
With a few uses of the hedge clippers, Aal now had short hair too. Using the tip of the clippers the captain slid the mound of hair out of tripping range and tossed the clippers themselves outside of that range as well. After switching her equipment to the scissors and comb combo she asked, “I never actually got your name.”
There was no response as she started working on matching her hair to the magazine page Aal had shown her. So, the captain continued speaking after getting into it, “I’d actually planned to do introductions in that dark room as well. But the moment didn’t seem right with the state Vista and Umi were in.
“You’re wondering how I learned their names? I learned Vista’s in the dark room and I learned Umi’s on the walk over.
“No, I don’t fault you for getting separated from the group. I had full confidence in Sherry to get you here. It is a lot to take in, isn’t it?”
“Aal,” finally spoke Aal.
“All?” asked the captain.
“No, Aaaaal. A-A-L.”
“Oh, Aal. I’ve never heard of anyone being called that, but it’s a pretty name.”
“Why are you the one cutting hair?”
“As a twist of fate, I’ve ended up as the one with the most experience in this subject. Although I’ve only trained in the school of ‘practice makes perfect’, I’m confident in my experience and I value the chance to talk with my crew this way.”
“Is that because you were part of the ‘first batch’?”
This time the captain was not quick to answer. Aal continued saying, “There’s eight of us here. I’ve caught on from conversations that the girls in purple are May and Sherry. The girls in gold are Umi and Vista. You’re Sally. Those twins are Pax, defender of the peace, and Norma, keeper of the law, right?”
“They don’t consider themselves twins. You are correct on everyone’s names though.”
“Is this everyone?”
The captain continued to work silently following that question. Aal saw the captain’s flustered expression and the captain was aware it was seen. It wasn’t until she turned her back to Aal to look at the reference picture that she replied, “This is everyone. We can do proper introductions after I cut Vista’s hair.”
9.
At the end of the second haircut, the captain was then slumped over the stool, knees laid over the cut hair and her face paralleled to the ground. Aal was playing with her new hair style holding a mirror in front of her. Casually raking up the clippings with a rake, Pax slipped closer to the captain. Once next to her, and having cleared the hair on her aimed spot, Pax dropped to one knee and whispered into the captain’s ear.
“All you need to do is give me the order to attack.”
The captain replied in normal volume, “A captain-hairdresser’s responsibility is to listen to her crew-client’s concerns. I was expecting, but unprepared for the tough questions. This punishment is deserved only for me.”
Aal then came back to the music stand next to the stool to grab a second mirror. Angling both on them, she was looking at the back of her head. What she had was a bob cut with a lot of volume.
“You’re pretty good captain. Hard to believe you’re really self-taught.”
“Well, I’ve felt it important for everyone to look how they recognize themselves when they got here so I’ve practiced a lot.”
“What have you been practicing with?”
The captain did a push-up against the stool and Pax raked away the large clumps of hair away.
“I use what we have.”
As soon Pax was done, captain Sally returned to her position, belly over the stool. Then she raised her right arm and Norma, not a second later, placed one of the hedge clippers’ handles into her hand.
Sally pointed with the blades of the hedge clippers forwards, without looking up, saying, “The moment cannot wait any longer, the time of your haircut is now!” The clippers were currently aimed at a faraway bush. Grabbing the other handle, Norma turned the clippers toward the last ‘customer’ of the day, Vista.
Vista herself even after hearing the declaration was too absorbed in arranging paper tear outs to notice the mistake and didn’t look up from the picnic table she was sitting at. The feel in the room was like a game of chicken to see who would lift their head first.
Nearly half a minute went by before the captain lost the game and said, “Vista, I’m talking to you! Insubordination means the non-issue of supplies! Be a good girl or you’ll be going to sleep without dinner tonight!”
Vista then slammed the table before angerly ripping a page out of the nearest open magazine. In a shout that quickly brought the captain to her feet she said, “It’s not like I can keep this going if you’re going to keep pestering me! Let me starve, I don’t care! But if it means you’ll give me quiet, I’ll take the -redact-ing haircut!”
Captain Sally was catapulted off the stool and onto to her feet and dropped the clippers as a result of the shock of her sudden outburst. Vista was stomping on her way to the stool as she spoke. So, the transition from gut to butt on chair was near instantaneous. The captain timidly took the torn magazine page Vista thrust toward her and put in on the music stand.
“I can,” the captain started both in words and in the act of slicing through a huge chunk or the hair with the hedge clippers.
THUD, went the first big chunk of hair.
“I can understand wanting to have your hair look exactly the way you want. We were all used to having a lot more time and media to compare ourselves to.”
“You’re talking about in the machine, right?” said Vista. “It’s not like there’s much of anyone to look good for around here anyway.”
“You seemed pretty excited for your haircut before.”
That was the last spoken word for a while. Sally had long finished with the hedge clippers and tossed them aside. The back was mostly done. Now that she was fixing the bangs.
“So why do you have physical magazines anyway?” finally spoke Vista. “You had to go to antique book stores to find them in the-”
She had trouble getting out the last word, "simulation". The captain was of course practically in her face as she clipped away. A new pause started, but wasn’t nearly as long as the first.
“You’ve already answered the question yourself,” responded the captain. “They’re just antiques we happened to find.”
Vista glanced back at the table she had been sitting at, where she’d been tearing magazines to pieces.
As if responding to something said, the captain replied, “Apparently, someone really liked to collect them since we found multiple vacuum sealed storage containers filled with those magazines. Don’t worry, we won’t have to worry about running out of them any time soon.
“I should say it now as well, I’m sorry for rushing you. I lost my composure and had become impatient. I could have just offered to have taken off most of the weight and left enough that we could style it another day.”
“I already said I don’t care about how I look now,” replied Vista. “I decided on this style before pink hair and black hair even caught up with the group.”
The captain wondered about that statement. The entire time that Vista had been sitting down at the picnic table she’d been tearing out magazine parts and assembling them. Her assumption was she was putting together a look for herself. If the whole page she had picked was what she wanted since the start, “Then what were you doing with the clippings?”
“I was trying to assemble a portrait of my family, before my memory of them has a chance to fade.”
“You’re a very good girl Vista.”
The work was almost done for the last haircut of the day. A last silence continued until the end, but this quiet was much warmer.
10.
Umi asked, “So why didn’t we get our hair cut before leaving that human production room? Our uniforms wouldn’t be so wet if we did that first.”
They were all still in the greenhouse that gave the false impression they were outside. Not much time had passed since Vista’s haircut was done. Most people were seated at the picnic tables.
Captain Sally replied while sitting on the stool, “Last time we thought we’d try cutting the hair first, but all three of them were so spooked already that they panicked at the sight of the scissors.”
“Norma kneed May in the gut and sent her tumbling down the glass walkway,” said Pax, while sweeping the huge clumps of hair into a large trashcan.
“Pax shanked the captain in the arm with her scissors,” said Norma, while holding the trashcan in place.
“And we’re all closer for it,” said the captain. “Not that we ever want to repeat it.”
“So I see,” said Umi. “It all makes sense now.”
“You’re really going to just accept it like that?” said Vista, facing Umi. “Seriously, what the -redacted- is wrong with you?”
Vista’s hair was curvy and only down to her shoulders now. She had the appearance of a refined girl. Her appearance had not yet reached its final form.
“What about Sherry?” asked Aal.
“She dropped to her knees and cried,” replied May. “Hers was first so it set up a false expectation it’d be easy. The entire time she used her arms to cover herself up, instead of attacking us. If only she put up some resistance, maybe we wouldn’t have let our guard down so much.”
“I’m- I’m so sorry May!” said Sherry.
“Let bygones be bygones,” said the captain. “And let us begin introductions while our new members dry off.”
“Once again, I’m Sally, captain of this vessel,” said Sally, now standing with her arms crossed, a confident smile on her face, and a leg raised by stepping one of the stool’s footrests. She was far too short to reach the top. “If you want to know my qualifications, I graduated summa cum laude from the Complete Commander program.”
For a brief moment Pax and Norma clapped. Sherry got a few claps out before they stopped and she was clapping alone. With all eyes on her, Sherry stopped clapping and said, “I’m Sherry, I graduated summa cum laude from the Everything-to-the-Smallest-Detail Ecology program.”
“May,” said the girl sitting next to her who was staring off into space. “I’m a Holistic Healing grad. Summa cum laude like everyone else. I’m the ship’s doctor. Please get hurt so I have something to do.”
“What was that May?” asked Sherry.
“With the direction we’re going you should be next,” said May, pointing to across the table.
“I’m Umi, nice to meet you all.” She then faced Vista who was the next person in the order with a bright cheerful smile.
Vista stated, “You’re not done yet.”
Umi’s face quickly sank into a deep frowning dread as if she’d been tossed into the sea with an anchor tied to her leg. With this expression she said, “Mechanical Mastery program with summa cum laude.”
With eyes now filled with gloomy, she again focused on Vista who was too dumbfounded to immediately respond.
“…I’m Vista. I graduated summa cum laude from the Absolute Artistry program.”
“An artist, how nice!” said Umi with a lively smile.
Vista shouted back, “I’m an artisan! Get it right! I can craft ya whatever you need! I’m not about painting pretty pictures! My soul burns bright like my forge!”
“So cool!” replied Umi.
“…Who’s next?”
“Graduated summa cum laude, Omni-Potent Navi-Communication program. Aal.”
““That just leaves us,”” said the look a-likes, Pax and Norma.
“I was in the Elite Law-Enforcement Entirety program, ditto with everyone on the rest on that,” said Pax.
“I’d achieved summa cum laude from the Monster-Level Martial Arts Mastery program,” said Norma.
The Summa Cum Laude they stated, Latin for “with highest honors”, meant that they were among the best of their class. With them all saying it, the point was illustrated without needing to be explained. Each girl was made perfect to fit a role. Their past lives were manufactured to give them the skills, experience, and mindset to be what was needed in this moment, their path in life was set before they were even born, and even the genetics that composed the cells of their bodies were specifically chosen meet this result. It was a fact that the five that had been here before this day had time to process and the three new arrivals now had to soak in as they came to the realization. It was less a branching tree of thoughts and more a turbulent storm of emotion, complete with struggle to find something to grab onto to stay afloat of this cruel reality’s attempt to drown them into dark depths. This was at least the case for two of the three.
“What about the non-school stuff?” said Umi. “I don’t want to be defined entirely by the career my parents pushed me into. Does anyone here have any hobbies?”
“I cut hair,” replied the captain, raising her hand.
"I like to travel," replied Umi.