Novels2Search
To change a destiny
Chapter 5 - Elias, 16th May 10:20

Chapter 5 - Elias, 16th May 10:20

Elias looked from his discom to the building covered by glass windows and then at the discom again. This should be the right building but it looked different from the picture he had on his discom. He figured that the glass windows were, in fact, some sort of displays that could alter how the building was seen.

To hide the otherwise cold and Nordic design, concrete and straight lines. And if the sky were grey why not just light it up with some more soothing colors. The more he looked at the building the more sure he became that this was the right building as the light shifted it looked more like the picture on his discom. But what to do now when it was 40 minutes left until the seminar started?

He wondered if there were something to do inside or if it just were a meeting hall for the less fortunate lonely souls. Even the guards at the entrance looked gloomy and grumpy. Why they even had guards at the place were a mystery for Elias as he stood there contemplating his next move.

He looked around for a place to sit but when he turned around he saw two identical girls whispering and looking nervously at one of their discoms. When a coffee smelling gust of wind swept over the girls he saw that the girls had different colored hairpins and he smiled, not even their parents could tell the twins apart.

Then he realized that he had smelled coffee and looked for the source of the smell, and then he saw a small café with a sign that said “Fresh coffé and sandwiches” and Elias felt how his mouth started watering.

He had tried the black brew one time at his work when a supervisor from the main branch had come to visit his workers at the factories. The rich liked the taste and Elias understood why but it was not something that people in the slums could afford to import och even drink on a regular basis.

With a sigh, he realized that he would not have the money to afford it now either. But the system would give him travel money after the seminar when the system registered them for the trip. But as he stood there he saw a lot of people rushing past him, well-dressed people hurrying to get somewhere.

Didn't these people have any work to go to or something, in the slums only the to old were out and about at this time of day?

Everybody else, where deep in the factories or at school.

As he pulled his hand through his hair he felt that his discom vibrated and checked it to see that it was an article from the factory news outlet that went out to everybody registered as a slum resident.

It a news article about some scanner codes that been stolen and these stolen scanner codes was used in random robberies of rich people. Right back at them Elias tough and then read on about how the slum residents should keep themselves at home to not be mistaken for being a terrorist.

Well, that didn't bother Elias because he had the systems own approval to be out and about. Not even some scared brat could stop him from that now, and why would he even care if that poor poor brat lost his hard earned money?

He was not afraid of being targeted because people from the slums stayed together and crimes against other slum residents were unheard of in this day and age. Some old-timers had told them that the system did save the slums in that aspect, before the great war the rich had put poor against poor. Something about a quote that said, “When the rich men wage war, it's the poor men that die.”

“Look, I said that this café sucks and there is always some dirty slum rat hanging around this place.” He heard someone say and looked over to the small café and saw two well-dressed girls sitting there and talking.

“Well, It’s funny to see how they dress in the slums! Just look at his dirty old pants, they must reek so bad” Replied the other girl and Elias realized that they were talking about him.

He rolled his eyes and wondered if everyone outside the slums were this shallow and sheltered. Then he didn't need a soulmate and the world could just burn from a nuclear fire.

Elias mood was going dark and he felt he had to get away before he told the girls off, they were not worth it and probably too stupid to understand anything about him or the slums. He peeked at his watch and realized that it just been five minutes since he last checked and started to walk down the street. He passed the twins that looked out of placed even though they were not that downed dressed as him. They were now peeking at him when he passed them and he sighed as he figured they were scared of him like everyone else in this part of the small world.

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When he reached a shop with a big front window he saw in the reflection that the twins were arguing and then both stopped and checked their bracelets and then glanced at him. He was shocked and could not help to peek at his own bracelet but it was still white.

He shrugged and looked at what the store had in the display window and almost started laughing. There was a mannequin wearing a pair of clearly new jeans with a lot of wear and tears. Who would even think about selling new jeans with holes in them?

He looked down at his own worn down pants and the gaping holes at the knees and he smiled. In this twisted city, he was actually kinda fashionably with his slum jeans and he could still not wrap his head around that anyone could buy already torn pants.

Rich people were so weird that it baffled Elias how the world could even keep spinning. Here he was wishing he had money to buy new and clean pants and they were selling torn jeans for more than he could ever wish to own.

Code, computers, and robots he could understand but people seem so illogical. A computer always told you what it was processing at the moment while a person hides their emotions and thoughts for some reason. If a computer broke down you could fix it with a software or hardware based code, but a human being had to get drugs and therapy.

When he checked the reflection he saw that the twins stood closer to him and was still arguing over something and one of them pointed at him and whispered something. Elias just waited for them to say something about him or the slums but he could hear one of the twins saying “Ask him then!”

“No, you do it” whispered the other girl as a reply and Elias could not stop from feeling nervous. He clenched his fist that felt sticky now and his mouth was drier than a furnace but he faced his fears and turned around to face the girls.

“So, did you need something from me?” He forced himself to ask and meet the girls gaze and he felt his cheeks go red and he cursed his stupidity.

As he wiped his sweaty palms against his pants and tried to smile at the girls he still thought they looked out of place and they looked as nervous as he was.

“Well! you see we, saw you outside” The girl with the pink hairpin started.

“The seminar hall and..” continued the other one that had a blue hairpin.

They shared a look and then nervously looked at him and Elias could not help himself and he finished with “you're wondering if I'm going to the seminar ?”

The twins smiled at him and both of them nodded a yes in reply and then they both started to blush. Elias suspected that these girls felt as lost as him and that they were not from the central city or even from the rich area, maybe they were cultivators?

He nodded a reply to that he was attending the seminar and they got worked up and they both grabbed each of his arms and then started to pull him to the glass building.

“You will sit with us, won't you?” The pink hairpin asked and smiled at him when he just gave them a dumbfounded expression as a reply.

“Why?” He thought out loud and the girls just looked at him and then they started to snicker at his dumbfounded expression.

“We are from the southern cultivation zones, we don't know anyone here” Explained the blue hairpin and let her sister continue

“And we wanted to get to know someone and grandmother always told us to grab the radish out of the ground before it went bad.”

“I see” Elias replied and taught over the answer they given him for a while and then added. “Your grandmother seems like a wise woman”.

The girls laugh out loud without a care in the world and while they lead him inside they introduced themselves as Freja and Ella.

Ella was the pink hairpin and Freja the blue one, they both had thick blond hair and blue shining eyes. And a healthy sunburn that witnessed that they actually were from the cultivation zone and were used to working outside on the fields. They bombarded him with questions about the slums and how it was to work in the factories and before Elias even had the time to reply to all there question a clock started to ring and he realized that the seminar was about to begin.

“We should start moving into the seminar hall before they close the doors” The twins agreed and they started to make their way inside the great hall while the twins explained how it was to be cultivators.

They talked about how plants made sense and that where the only thing in the world that made sense and Elias told them about the robots and computers. When the tall doors to the hall shut closed the twins laughed at a story about when he tried to make a robot make dinner for him and his family and the aftermath of that failed experiment.

They became quite when a woman raised her voice to welcome them to the seminar for the system paid trip around the world in the last effort to find their faithed ones. Elias and the twins sat down at the back of the hall and Elias tried to wrap his head around the twins and why they even wanted to talk with him.