Hawa walked back to the table and sat back down in her chair, then grabbed the cup of coffee and let out a long sigh. Maybe now that brat would let her have her peace. She wasn’t even looking for an apprentice, much less one so young.
“That was brutal.” Akin mumbled with some reproach. “You know, I actually met her yesterday. We took the same shuttle and waked to town together. She seemed like a good kid. Very passionate about biology, she went on a tangent explaining the need for a biosphere and how to adapt it at our destination.”
“She’s too young.” Hawa complained.
“She’s thirteen.” Akin clarified. “Why don’t you tell me again that story of how you set up your first bio-lab at your parents place? How old were you again?”
“I’m a genius.” She persisted.
“Humble.” Akin retorted.
“She’s extremely rude.” Hawa added in a desperate attempt to convince her husband. “Why can’t she just send a motivation letter like everyone else? But no, she’s calling me at random times, unscheduled, interrupting my work instead.”
“She is rude?” Akin asked, pointing an eyebrow at her.
“Alright, alright!” Hawa finally gave up and took another sip of coffee. “I’ll talk to her next time I see her. Happy?”
“Why not right now? She’s still at the door.” He said.
“What?” She turned around and looked in the direction of the door. There she could see someone standing in front of the door through the frosted glass on the wall. She creased her brows, a little bit taken aback. “Okay, okay. Lets do this now then.”
She sighed and stood up, then walked to the door and opened it, freezing on the spot. Outside was the same girl from before, standing exactly where she left her. Her shoulders were slightly raised, arms tensed up and she was looking down to the floor, trembling and quietly crying.
“Hey… Gwendolen right? Are you alright?” Hawa asked.
She was not sure what had gotten into the girl. Sure, she had been a bit harsh, but the girl was overreacting a bit in her opinion. Then she went from silently crying to disconsolately sobbing, making Hawa freeze on the spot without knowing how to react. She’d never been good with kids.
“I’m sowyyy….” Gwen said while crying out loud.
“The meshages… I can’t, just can ushe dem…” She barely managed to croak out.
Hawa very awkwardly remained frozen in place, not sure about how to react. It was her husband that eventually pushed her aside and walked up to the girl, ruffling her head and then hugging her with one arm.
“Hey there, calm down girl, it’s alright.” He slowly said. “Why don’t you come in and sit down?”
They made their way back to the kitchen and Akin sat the girl down on a spare chair, then prepared some tea for her. The girl slowly calmed down, and by the time they were all sitting at the table, the girl with an untouched cup of tea sitting in front of her, they were all awkwardly staring at each other in silence.
“So… You were saying something about not being able to send text messages?” Hawa decided to break the silence. The girl silently nodded, so she continued to talk. “And why is that?”
Gwen seemed to hesitate for a bit, then went to her band and started looking for something. She eventually found it and sent it to both her and Akin’s bands. They both checked what she sent. It was a medical report from her psychologist. According to it, Gwen suffered from a rare form of high-functioning autism, where not only there was no intellectual disability, but there was, for the most part, no deficit in either verbal or non-verbal communication. The only caveat was the inability to cope with inter-personal communication contexts that had no or very few non-verbal cues.
Hawa looked up from her band and at her husband, who was glaring at her. If stares could kill, she was sure to have died a hundred times over by now. She let out a long sigh. She felt as if she’d just kicked the girl’s puppy. But she couldn’t have possibly known this. How could have she? She didn’t even know such a condition existed.
----------------------------------------
Gwen was feeling like an idiot right now. She’d gone to meet Hawa and had somehow ended up breaking down crying in her kitchen. But the whole thing had been so unfair. She’d been trying to contact her for months and had been turned down every time, saying that she was busy and to contact her via message with a motivation letter. And today that she finally met her in person, Hawa shouted at her, slammed the door in her face and told her to write a message yet again. A goddamn text message, of all things. She might as well have asked her to jump off a cliff.
“I apologize.” Hawa bowed her head lightly toward her. “I should have let you explain yourself.”
“It’s alright.” It wasn’t the first time something similar happened to her.
“You wanted to do an internship with me.” Hawa started, eager to move to another topic. “Leaving aside our rocky start, you should be aware that I’m quite strict when it comes to my work. If you really want to work with me I’ll demand a certain level of competence. But lets start from the beginning. Why do you want to learn molecular biology?”
“I…” Gwen took a deep breath and tried to calm down. She’d been trying to have this conversation for a while now and didn’t want to screw it up now that it was actually happening. “I think it’s a field with many interesting applications. Of course it will be useful to adapt the ship’s biosphere both on the ARK and our destination. But it’s also useful in medicine, genetic adaptation of humans if we end up needing it, computation in systems like the CROSS… But I’m especially interested in studying the biology of the lifeforms in HD-164595 d and how it compares to our own.”
“Exobiology research then.” Hawa said, Gwen nodding in response.”Well, we’ll certainly be doing a lot of that once the ship reaches its destination, but for the foreseeable future we’ll mainly be working with the ship’s biosphere and the aeroponics crops, maybe medicine if some disease comes up that the CROSS can’t handle.”
“I know.” Gwen said.
“Very well then.” Hawa paused for a few long seconds, tapping the table in thought. She then started playing with her band and kept talking. “Lets do it this way. I’ll be sending you a series of books. It’s the curriculum that someone studying molecular biology should learn, or at least my version of it. You’ll probably have to look for additional resources to understand some of those books, but I’m sure you’ll find it on the ARK’s database.”
Hawa spent a few more minutes fiddling with her band, then sent something to Gwen’s. She checked it out and found around thirty books, all with a number assigned, in addition to some text files and pieces of code. She blinked and looked back at Dr. Hawa.
“I won’t take you in as an apprentice yet because, quite frankly, I don’t want one. Even doctoral students usually are more trouble than they’re worth, let alone a brat that has yet to finish her mandatory education.” She said, making Gwen visibly deflate. “So you’ll have to convince me. Prove that you’re worth it.”
“The numbers on the documents are the order in which you should read the books. You’ll notice some of them have the same number. You can read them either in any order or simultaneously, however you prefer.” Hawa continued to explain. “We’ll meet once a week to check your progress and solve doubts, lets say Monday afternoon after school. Once you’ve studied the curriculum, which I want you to finish before graduating, and if you’ve managed to impress me by then, I’ll take you in as an apprentice.”
“Thank you, thank you!” Gwen said with excitement.
“Don’t thank her yet.” Akin said with amusement. “Are you really sure you want to do this though? Fair warning, my wife is a real demon. Back at Nampula over half of her doctoral students would drop out and pursue more mundane careers instead. A couple of them even started a goat ranch together from what I’ve heard.”
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Gwen chuckled when she saw Hawa glaring daggers at her husband. She thanked her again and said her goodbyes, then went home to start putting in the work. She finally had a shot at it, and she didn’t want to miss it. Hawa was an eminence when it came to molecular programming. Fifteen years ago, she had developed a decoding and recoding algorithm capable of considering all interactions in the cellular machinery and finding ways to either optimize it or remove or add specific behaviors without introducing unwanted side-effects.
Once home, she ran to her room and opened the files on her glass terminal. She then started reading the first batch of books, more often than not having to go through ARK’s database to find additional information or having to learn whole new topics. The progress has slow.
Days passed like this, until the first of September finally arrived. That was a special day for everyone on the ARK, and doubly so for the students. On one hand, it was the launch day. Later that afternoon, the ship’s main engines would ignite. For the students though, it was also the first day of school.
Gwen got early that morning and prepared everything she’d need. The school was an improvised one, occupying the conference building of the town until the youngest students had graduated in about fifteen years. Because the CROSS served as a birth control system on top of its regular medical functions, no new kids were expected until they arrived at their destination. This also meant that it didn’t come equipped as one, but that was not a problem for them. Not with the cross, which had finally booted up a couple of days ago.
‘Nika, did you get the school materials?’ Gwen thought to the AI assistant of her CROSS.
-I have downloaded this year’s curriculum and installed the related didactic applications.- A feminine voice said inside her read.
Gwen was overjoyed with the CROSS. While the AI was the same from her glass terminal, which she had transferred over, it had some impressive advantages compared to it. First was its ability to augment reality by introducing realistic-looking elements to it. That meant no more holographic projections at school, which required low external illumination to be seen correctly. It also meant that she could bring a full-size display with her at all times, without actually having to carry it around or worry about the battery.
But more importantly to her was that it meant no more notification-induced panic attacks. By now, most people on board already had their CROSS activate, which meant no more bands. Because the CROSS by default could only be seen and interacted with by the owner, she wouldn’t hear other peoples notification alerts anymore.
She walked down the stairs and found her dad already placing two plates on the table. There was some toast with an egg and stir-fried vegetables. She sat down and started eating. While eggs were not a problem on account of there being wild chickens in the surrounding ecosystem, from now on the amount of meat they could eat would be limited to about once every two weeks.
“Ready for school?” Her dad asked.
“Yup.” She said.
“You look like you are going for a stroll.” He chuckled. It was true, with the CROSS she didn’t even have to bring a glass terminal with her. She was only carrying the clothes she wore. “I’ll be working till late today, with the ignition of the main engines and all. I probably won’t be back until late at night, so I’ve left some cold salad at the fridge for you.”
“Okay, thanks.” She nodded in understanding. “And good luck back at engineering. Don’t blow us up, I don’t want to discover what a hundred kilograms of anti-matter exploding looks like.”
“Har, har.” Her dad sarcastically said. “You wouldn’t really find out though, we’d die before knowing what hit us.”
The ship had capacity for storing massive amounts of anti-matter, which were required for our voyage if they wanted to reach their destination in any sort of reasonable amount of time. As of right now though, only a hundred kilograms had been loaded, the minimum required to bring the ARK away from Earth’s orbit, where the rest of it would be loaded. The UEG very sensibly wouldn’t allow any more than that to be anywhere near Earth. Should an accident happen with large amounts of the stuff, the planet might very well shatter into pieces. Literally.
Finishing her breakfast, she went out of the house and headed to school. The building was located almost at the opposite side of town, and because the town was a ring around the cylinder’s wall, she could walk in either direction and eventually get there. Shrugging, she picked one at random and started walking.
‘Nika, my outdoors playlist please.’ Gwen thought.
She walked for about ten minutes, music playing in her read, until she was nearing the school. There she could see more people around her age heading in the same direction, and eventually spotted Liam among the crowd. She hadn’t seen him since that day on the roof, so she sped up and approached him from behind.
“Liam!” Gwen shouted.
He turned around and smiled after spotting her. “Gwen! How you’ve been?”
“Very well thanks.” Gwen said, excited to talk about the latest developments. “Do you remember I told you I was trying to land an apprenticeship under Dr. Simao? Well, I got it. Kind of.”
“Kind of?” Liam questioned.
“She’s dumped the materials for molecular biology college students on me and told me to study them.” Gwen explained. “She’ll be tutoring me once a week, and I need to learn it all in three years for her to consider my apprenticeship.”
“Ouch.” Liam visibly flinched back. “That’s harsh. Isn’t the career supposed to be four years? Plus, you’re still thirteen and you’ll be having to study for school.”
“I know.” Gwen said enthusiastically, quite obviously unfettered. “That’s why I wanted to ask you a favor. Could you teach me programming? I need it for some of the practical parts.”
“What do you mean? You’re already learning at school right?” Liam said.
“Well, basic programming, yes. But I need the advanced scientific programming stuff. I’ll need to analyze genomic families, metabolic networks, protein folding…” Gwen trailed off towards the end. “Yeah, a lot of stuff. I honestly still don’t know what most of those are.”
“Got it, so you want me to teach you how to use the common mathematics and statistics libraries.” He said, nodding in understanding. “Sure, lets meet someday after school.”
“Thanks!” Gwen smiled widely.
They soon reached the building and walked inside. It was a long, rectangular building with a corridor running from one end to the other, with classrooms on each side. Here they separated and went to their own classrooms. Gwen was surprised on entering the class. The seats were arranged on a semi-circle, with the rows on the back being slightly higher up and descending as they neared the front. At the bottom was a platform with the teacher’s desk at the center. It was then that she remembered that this was not a school, but a temporally re-purposed conference building.
She found an empty seat on the middle rows and sat next to a cute redhead with fair skin, gray eyes and her head tied up into a ponytail. She seemed to be doing something on her CROSS.
“Hello, do you mind?” Gwen said to the girl while pointing at the seat next to her, then sat without waiting for permission. “Gwen Wright, nice to meet you.”
“Sandra Young.” She timidly said in an almost inaudible voice.
“Oh! Are you from the British Isles maybe?” Gwen said enthusiastically. “I’m from New London.”
“North America, Roanoke.” She said in a continuously lowering voice.
She then took a particular interest with her empty desk. Gwen was at a loss for words. This made no sense whatsoever to her. She was gorgeous. Every boy at school would probably fall head over heels for her soon. What reason did she have to be so shy? At that moment their teacher arrived and went down the stairs to the central platform.
“Good morning everyone.” The teacher said. “I’m Umed Sakar. I’ll be your homeroom teacher until you graduate in three years, in addition to being your physics teacher. To start with, why don’t we check the assistance and take the chance for everyone to introduce themselves? Everyone in the ARK is new after all.”
What followed was twenty minutes of the teacher naming everyone and them quickly introducing themselves. At the end of it, Umed started talking again.
“Thank you everyone”. Umed said. “Being the first day, we have no classes planned. But since it’s time for your physics lessons and the ARKs are launching today, why don’t we learn something about orbital mechanics and check the route our ARK will be following?”
-Accept request from Umed Sakar to join a shared Augmented Reality environment?-
After mentally accepting the request, a three-dimensional model of the solar system appeared floating on top of Gwen's desk. In fact, it appeared in front of everyone’s desk, with a much bigger model appearing on top of the central platform, all around Umed. Some of her classmates were touching and grabbing their model, pulling and pushing at it to move, turn and resize it.
“We are currently in geostationary orbit around Earth.” Umed said, and a red dot appeared on the model, following its rotation and staying over Africa at all times. “Which as all of you probably already know, is a circular orbit on the same plane as Earth’s equator, where the angular speed equals that of the planet’s rotation. In Earth's case, this happens at 35.800 kilometers above the planet’s surface.”
The explanation continued, showing how they’d be using a continuous acceleration of 0.098 meters per second squared for most of the trip, which would happen in two stages. They’d first accelerate parallel to Earth’s surface, entering a solar orbit in less than a day and then continuing to accelerate for an hour.
Then they would coast for over a month, until they reached the antimatter depot. After loading the antimatter into the central shaft, they’d resume accelerating at a constant speed, this time taking a direct route to the destination in an almost point and fire approach. That was only possible due to the constant acceleration, which over the span of a few days was enough to make any gravity well negligible, even the Sun’s. The ARK would continue to accelerate for a good forty percent of the journey, then decelerate for the last forty percent of it until they were in orbit around HD-164595 d.
This was all explained through interactive diagrams using CROSS, also displaying the equations for calculating the orbits and how they related geometrically to the diagram. They had chemistry after that, with their teacher introducing the lesson plan for the year, and then came the lunch break.