Chapter 7: Station Life
Location: Estriduros Republic; Estriduros System; Mage Academy Station
Some people start leaving. Probably those who have already been here for a day or two. I look around and try to find Simon as he's the only one I know here at the station. I find him talking with a few other people near the stage. Not knowing what else to do, I walk over to them. Simon notices me and waves. “Hey Sara, good to see you again How was your inspection?”
“All good. Doc said I'm perfectly healthy. What about you?”
He nods. “Yeah, I’m good too.” He points at the three other people around him. “Oh and by the way, these are some of my friends from home. We went to the test together but got separated after our testing. You know why… Anyway, Sara, this is Jack, Lucinda, and Gregory.” He turns to the others. “And this is Sara, I met her on the ship. She’s a Space Mage, just as I am.”
Gregory, the shortest of the three holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you! But please ignore Simon and call me Greg, I’m not that old yet,“ he grins and shoots a short glare at Simon. He has dark hair and it looks like he is trying to grow a beard. It looks a bit funny and I smile at him before I shake his hand.
“Nice to meet you too, Greg. You guys are kinda lucky that you’re all here together… If you ignore everything else of course.”
Jack snorts, he is of medium height with a prominent belly and short brown hair. There is a shocking similarity with Lucinda next to him except for the big belly and her much longer hair. Twins? “I wouldn’t call us lucky,” he says, “but yeah, I can’t imagine being here all alone. No offense… Uhh, you wanna join us? We’re about to collect our tablets.” Lucinda just looks at me and gives me a short wave. She does look a little shy. I can’t blame her. The whole situation is very hard to stomach.
I nod my consent and Jack leads our small group out of the hall. We join the short line and wait till it’s our turn to get a tablet. I really need this thing. Maybe it can lead me to where Thomas is? I hope he’s still here…
It’s finally our turn and we all get not a tablet? What the woman in blue uniform puts in my hand is a grey cylinder, 20 centimeters high and with a diameter of two centimeters. What is this thing? A magic wand? But Mages don’t use wands, right?
The others notice my confusion and start to laugh. “Is this your first time seeing an RHT?” Simon asks me and I just stare at him even more confused.
“A what?” He takes his stick and starts pulling at the side. There is a screen coming out of the cylinder! A full-sized screen, 20 centimeters high and 30 centimeters wide. Holy cow! And that’s not all. Along the length of the cylinder, 3 holoprojectors come alive, illuminating the space above the screen to create a three-dimensional interface. Wow!
“This is a rollable holographic tablet, but everyone just calls it RHT. Have you never seen one of them? Everyone has them…”
“Nope, that’s the first time I’ve seen something like this. I only ever used a normal holo tablet… Well, I thought that was normal but if you’re saying everyone has those RHT things, then… I don’t know. I guess my home is even more of a backwater than I thought.” I blush a bit in embarrassment.
“Where are you from?” Greg asks a bit confused.
“I’m from the Acordus System.”
All their eyes go wide and Greg replies. “That explains it. That backwater system isn’t even recognized as a proper system by the republic. They see it more as a mining outpost.”
Lucinda looks quite ashamed and walks over to hug me. “I’m sorry for laughing at you. It must’ve been quite different growing up in such a backwater system.” She stops for a second. “If there is anything you don’t understand, just ask me, okay?” Huh, and I thought she was shy… Maybe my cluelessness overcame her shyness.
I return her hug, then I have an idea. “Hey Lucinda, do you want to be my roommate?”
Her hug tightens. “Yes, I’d love that! And call me Lucy.”
“Lucy it is. Shall we log in our choice right now?”
“Yeah, let’s do that!”
I roll out my new tablet and navigate to the room selection screen. A big list of names appears before me. Two layers appear in the three-dimensional projection. On top, directly in my field of view are the names of the first years, below there are the second years. I focus on the first-year list till I find Lucy. Lucinda Raphdani. “Hey Lucy, is your last name Raphdani?” She nods and I select her as my roommate.
“Yours is Nelson? I just got a notification that you added me.” I confirm with a slight grumble, and she goes on. “All right, I confirmed. Now we should be good to go. Our room number should pop up any minute.”
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Just like she said, a notification telling me that my room number is 07-265 pops up about five minutes later.
“Everyone got their room numbers?” I ask the others and they confirm. Lucy of course has the same as I do, and the boys all have a number starting with 08. Simon and Greg share a room, while Jack takes on a random roommate.
He rolls out his tablet and brings up a holographic map of the station. “The first numbers probably indicate the level… Let’s see, yes! We are currently on level 01; level 00 is the hangar below us.” He traces the outline with his fingers and reads the explanations on the side. “The next few levels are marked as off limits… level 07 shows as off limits for me too. That should be yours, Sara and Lucy, probably to keep the genders separated.”
To confirm, I open up my station map and see the 8th level as off-limits for me. “You’re right, Jack. Us girls are not allowed on level 08.” I zoom out, till there are no more individual levels but only descriptions of what purpose several consecutive levels serve.
Level 00: hangar bay
Level 01: logistics and initiation
Level 02-06: off-limits
Level 07-20: students and staff quarters
Level 21-30: food and recreation
Level 31-50: academy
“Shall we check out our rooms and meet up afterward on level 21 to grab something to eat?” I ask the others. They confirm and we start walking toward one of the elevators. They are just like the elevators I know from the spire. Small cabins that move up and down in a shaft, driven by gravity generators. Those free-flying platforms are only used in the hangar. Our group of five is an easy fit and we state the levels we want to travel to. The elevator confirms in a monotonous voice and up we go.
We arrive at level 07 and say goodbye to the boys. Lucy sets the pace and I follow her lead. The mess of light gray-colored hallways can be quite confusing, but luckily our tablets’ navigation software leads us without any problems to our room. I stand before the metal door, colored in a darker shade of gray with Lucy right next to me. I take a deep breath and reach out to try to open the door. It doesn’t move a bit. “Huh.” I send a glance at Lucy. “How do we open the door?”
She is just as confused as I am. Twirling a brown lock with her fingers, she replies. “Let’s check our tablets again. Maybe there is a code phrase or something.”
She was right. We simply have to state our name and the door opens. How such a simple thing can be so complicated? The door opens and gives way to our room. Lucy lets out a groan. “Really? Come on Sara, even you have to agree that this is way below our most basic needs, right?”
I’m too busy picking my jaw up from the floor to understand what she had said. This is the most luxurious room I have ever seen! Thomas was clearly selling it short.
Lucy nudges me out of my stupor. “What?”
She looks at me, and her brown eyes go wide. “Wait, this isn’t basic for you?”
“Noooo?”
The floor is decked with a lush dark blue carpet, it looks so soft, that I literally want to rip off my shoes right now and sink my toes into it. Never mind, this is exactly what I’m doing right now. “Ahhhh!” This is even better than expected! Besides the carpet, the walls are perfectly smooth and silver-gray in color. The back wall shows a view of green valleys with a big forest beside a lake in the background.
Is the whole wall one big screen? I turn in a circle. There are two desks on opposite walls beside a big bed each. Everything looks brand new with shining surfaces and the bed looks sooo inviting. I can’t hold myself back and jump right into it. Then I notice my personal highlight. A full-on gravity chair is floating in front of the desk!
I turn back to Lucy, who's just entered the room as well. “This is amazing! And this is really just basic for you?”
She flashes me a quick smile. “Yeah, for me it looks like a bare-bones prison cell I know out of TV shows.”
“Wow, you make me feel like I’m right out of a medieval world. Next, you’re going to tell me that leaving a planet’s surface is as normal as walking in the park.”
Raising an eyebrow, she replies. “Of course it is! How else would I do my shopping trips in the great malls on the space stations?” My next words are stuck in my throat and I just stare at her dumbfounded.
How is Acordus 3 allowed to exist? It’s like they terraformed the planet 250 years ago and forgot about it. I lay down in my bed and close my eyes. I need a minute to get a grasp on everything.
Ten minutes later I sit up and notice Lucy has opened a part of the wall – a hidden wardrobe – and is looking through different pieces of clothing. She noticed that I needed a moment. Hearing me get up, she turns around, excitement clear on her face. “Check out your wardrobe! We can finally cover up those boring shipsuits.” That gets my attention. These things are just so ugly!
After sorting through the contents of my wardrobe, I decide to go with a simple white blouse and a knee-length dark green skirt. This means I have to change my shipsuit to a transparent one that I find in the wardrobe as well. I step into the bathroom to change. When I step back out, Lucy has changed as well. She’s gone all out and is now wearing a red dress that accentuates her figure.
She points at her feet where I see a pair of white sneakers. “Look at that. I have to wear those ugly things as there are no heels!”
I snort a short laugh. “Stop it, you look beautiful. Who cares about a pair of shoes?”
“Blasphemy!” Lucy cries out in outrage. “I’m going to teach you the fine way of good footwear, just you wait.”
I just shrug and pick out my own pair of sneakers. There are more important things to worry about for now. I’m starving for example.
A few minutes later, we meet the boys on level 21 as previously agreed, and start exploring the recreational levels. I let the others decide where to eat and soon we are sitting in a nice-looking small restaurant. The waitress first asks for our names, then after checking them, tells us to simply look for the name of the restaurant on our tablets to find the menu. Simon is a bit confused and asks her why she needed our names and she explains that she had to check if we have free meals remaining. Hmm, this is probably what Thomas meant with three meals a day in his letter. After eating a nice pizza, we decide to mingle with other students to get some more information.
We talk with quite a few other first-years, but they don’t know much more than we do. Apparently, at the end of the week, we have our first basic lesson and get tested a second time afterward. They are not sure what this second test is about, but I heard a few second years talking about power levels and Thomas mentioned he is a Senior Mage in his letter as well. Maybe that’s his power level and maybe that is what this second test is about.
When we finally find a group of second years that is happy to talk to us, I get some really bad news. There is no third year, and the last graduation ceremony was two weeks ago. Thomas is already gone from the academy!