Inside a classroom alone at a desk, Joakim rubbed at his temples as the textbook was loaded up onto his communicator. It was opened up to the ‘summary’ section of a chapter, yet despite having read the 30-page chapter three times over, he found it incredibly difficult to believe. He could understand it just fine, but actually accepting it as truth was where he had trouble. How much of it was real, and how much of it was written by scribes commissioned by the Crown to sell to the children of Titan?
“It’s been two weeks, yet you’re still stuck on the most important chapter? Just how much information can your Terran brain handle?” Sindri said, leaning against the door frame.
“If you’re so much better, why don’t you summarize it for me?” Joakim sneered without looking at the browbeat Titanian teenager.
“Summarize? Well, that’s just too easy. We came from the likes of you, and we fought for our self-determination. Only possible because you made us better than you.” Sindri chuckled so loudly it almost seemed he was laughing right in Joakim’s face.
“Thanks, but I didn’t ask if you think you’re better than me,” Joakim said, planting his hands on his desk, pushing his chair backwards and hauling himself to his feet. “And I don’t think I need you to be watching over me like that.”
“I don’t care what you asked for. It’s the truth.” Sindri turned, standing parallel to the door frame above and around him. “Can’t I just kill time? Roll call won’t be for a while. I like watching you. I guess for you, it’ll be like I’m… watching ant antfiguring out how to navigate its tunnels.”
Joakim faced him with his arms flailed out to his sides, even though he was on the other side of the room from the door, about 15 yards.
“How about we test your statement out? Come at me, big guy.” he said with an uncharacteristic smirk on his face.
He knows he can’t touch me.
“I think this…” Sindri stepped forward slightly, gripping the edges of a desk. “…will do a much better job than I can. Want to find out?”
I sensed his intentions from a league away with my Detection. I’ll be out of the way before the desk leaves his hands.
“Try me.”
Just as the desk left the surface of the floor, a stomping pair of feet surged toward them.
“Don’t you two understand what you’re doing here? Instructor here or not, this is a classroom. If you wanted to spar you should’ve gone down to the Great Hall. Do I need to ask who started this?”
The two young men looked behind the doorframe, gazing upon Lucia who had a disappointed look on her face, hands on her hips.
Fuck me, it’s the keeper of justice again, Sindri grumbled, dropping the desk to the floor. The clanging sound it created made it clear to Lucia who had started the commotion if it hadn’t been obvious already.
For once I’m glad to see the girl’s face, Joakim thought, almost smiling.
“Hey,” Sindri pointed at the shorter girl, who was about the same height as Meinrad as a result of her Terran-Titanian heritage. Full-blooded Titan women were usually at least two inches taller, most standing between 6’5” and 6’10” in stature. “You’re not going to tell the instructor, are you?”
“Why would I?” she said softly, staring him in the eye. “Just remember, Sindri. You could’ve been a corporal like Malin and me. Shouldn’t that embarrass you enough?”
Sindri narrowed his eyes, accepting his defeat silently. Lucia had a big mouth, but she always knew what to say. He crossed his arms and walked around the girl. After the boy was out of sight, Lucia returned to her usual warm, cheery demeanour.
“Sorry I’m late, Joakim. Instructor had me help her set up Meinrad and Klaudia’s rooms for when they return tomorrow morning.”
Stolen story; please report.
“No worries,” Joakim yawned, now bored that his constant source of rivalry and amusement—but mostly the latter—had left the room. “I needed some help with this chapter here.”
Lucia wasted no time pulling a chair up to Joakim’s side.
“I know. I heard about it from the hallway back there,” she reminded him of the incident that had just passed. “Let’s see… we’ll start with the years.”
“9,000 BFI,” Joakim answered. “Birth of the first person to have features that are common in Titanians.”
“You’re quick to answer,” Lucia complimented. “Didn’t even have to ask the question.”
“I just want to test my knowledge.” Joakim shrugged.
“So… you don’t need my help?” she asked.
“No, no. I… well, it helps to have someone listen to what you know, right?”
“I was going to stay anyway,” Lucia smiled. “Learning’s a fun thing. Tell me what circumstances led to this birth.”
“Ancient societies needed a new weapon to win over another’s land, water… other resources. Conventional weapons were being overcome faster than they could be developed. The solution of many nations was to create a weapon that could continually evolve on its own and upgrade over time and eventually be produced in mass numbers.”
“So what was this solution? And who created it?”
“They modified and enhanced genes of specially selected zygotes to create people who were faster, smarter, stronger, and more durable than a normal person. They wanted to create super soldiers to mow down other nations and conquer them in ways regular soldiers could never hope to.”
“You need to answer the second part of the question, Joakim.”
“I need a hint.” Joakim feigned having not knowledge.
“You do need my help, after all,” Lucia patted his shoulder. “A hint… Titanians didn’t exist yet. So who were the ones pulling the strings behind these experiments?”
“The forefathers of modern-day Terrans. They were peoples who were centuries ahead of their descendants in technological progress… or technically centuries behind?” Joakim said, genuinely confused at his wording this time around.
“There we go. Was that hard to say?”
“I… I don’t know,” Joakim shrugged. He wanted to get the tutoring session over with. “Next question?”
“And of these collective experiments, what was the aftermath and outcome? As briefly as possible.”
“50 years on, it is said that a total of 20,000 Titanians were born. The initial pitfall was that there were too few successful births to create viable population pools for super soldiers to be pulled from, but in the years to come it was said that their lifespans were considerably shorter than an original Terrans, a possible trade-off for their physical enhancements over their creators. Perhaps the one that displeased the Terrans the most was that the Titanians fraternised with those genetically similar to them instead of the people they were made to serve.”
“So they were deemed failures. How were they dealt with?”
“Let’s see… they were displaced as far away from Terra as they could. Many Terran governments feared backlash from the public if they euthanized every Titanian, so they chose to deport them collectively to Saturn’s largest moon.”
After gazing at the boy for several moments, Lucia began to clap her hands.
“Good job, Joakim. You did have the whole chapter down,” she said, before dropping her arms to her sides. “Why did you even need me down here?”
“The truth is…” he began, before taking a pause. “I am pretty confident in how I learned it. All I was curious about is if it sounded right to someone else’s ears.”
“It did. Why wouldn’t it sound right?”
“Because how much of what’s in that book actually happened? Did we Terrans really create you and dump you onto this moon? Is that why these people ravaged my homeland for so long?”
Is that what Mum and Dad wanted to hide from me?
“The Terran side of this story is lost to history,” Lucia sighed. “There is only one truth now. I don’t believe in anything else.”
“What about your… God, or whatever? The Pizna woman. Did she not make you?” Joakim stammered, remembering a conversation he overheard between Colonel Gerlachus and her superior Brigadier General Brose.
“The Temple and the Crown separated hundreds of years ago,” Lucia answered. “Not everyone believes in that story anymore. Joakim, I know you’re learning this because you have to, but can I tell you what I honestly think?”
“What would that be?”
“The fighting, the killing… I hate it just as much as you do. I don’t like seeing people dying. But as someone with a Terran father, I can tell you that what we’re doing is the only way we can pay for the sins of our ancestors. I remember once my father told me everything that comes around, goes around. I don’t think he was wrong.”
“So…” Joakim picked his head up and finally made eye contact with Lucia. “What did my father die for? My mother too. Were they killed for nothing?”
An image of his mother’s severed head flashed before his eyes, held by the hair in Maedoc Antelius’ hand. The fury in her still agape eyes screamed at him.
“They died defending their homes, I’m sure. Anyone would fight to the death protecting what they love. They just didn’t know. The things their ancestors did were unknown to them. I feel very sorry for them.”
Joakim’s shoulders shivered; his lips slightly parted as he tried to come up with something as a response. But he couldn’t.
Lucia placed a hand on his back and kept it there.
“We have the chance to be better than them, than everyone who came before us. We can do it together, Joakim.”