Post by Milo Ventimiglia on Feb 2, 2011 20:41:00 GMT -5
Mr. Edwards looked at me over his fancy, polished desk, his blue eyes trapping my gaze. An expensive antique clock ticked in the background. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, my tail curling around one of the chair legs.
“Do you know why you are here?” the school counsellor asked me, his blue gaze piercing but concerned. I looked down kind of sulkily and shrugged.
“Dunno.”
“Milo. Look at me when I speak. Communication works best with eye to eye contact in most species with a complex language.” When I looked up reluctantly, he continued, “you are here because you are new to Wonder City, and because your master admitted to having a few...issues...with your behaviour.”
I shifted about again and locked eyes with the man. “Look, I’m not sixteen, I’m thirty-three; I’ve done school, I’m not a slave, I’m not supposed to be here. This is bullshit, just send me home to my world already and I won’t bother you again, it’s that fucking simple.”
“I don’t appreciate your language, young man. Look. All I want to do is try to understand. Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Start from the beginning. How did you come to be here?”
“Oh come on...”
“Just talk to me.” His voice was gentle. I rolled my eyes. The only way this guy was gonna leave me alone was if I talked. Part of me respected what he did. The other part of me, that rebellious part which gnawed at me, wanted to give him the finger and leave. But I clung to whatever adult part of me I had left, and gave in. If he wanted a story, he was gonna get one.
Okay. I didn’t quite tell my story in such detail to Mr. Edwards. I wrote that way later, maybe to become an award winning biography. Joking. But anyway, I told him what I could in the short time that I had. Then I fell silent, scratching my arm and looking at the ground dejectedly.
“That’s a good start then, Milo. We’re getting somewhere. Would you like to come and chat to me tomorrow morning?”
To be honest, it felt good to talk to someone. I hesitated, then nodded.
“Yeah ok,” I said.
I had ten minutes to get to class. I had been given a school map, and for some stupid reason, I felt ridiculously nervous about today. I went to the restroom first to splash some water on my face despite the winter cold. I looked into the mirror at myself. I was definitely a lot younger. I was thinner and a little shorter. Sighing, I wet my hair a little and my face, feeling very warm.
The school to me looked like most American high schools. The big difference was that there was more technology and everything seemed...cleaner somehow. Except outside where the miserable looking snow had been trudged through and walked on, turning some of it into slushy mud. The other huge difference was that everybody here smelled strange and looked...well, different. Everyone had a collar like mine. It made sense; no one was human, except a whole lot of security guards and some teachers, like Mr. Edwards. I had seen some of these strange species around the shops, but to see so many together was a bit of a shock. I felt small and nervous, overwhelmed by their alien scents. People with wings, scales, tails, horns, oddly-coloured skin, large feet, two heads, animal-like bodies. It defined a whole new era of racism and ostracism. I tried not to stare. It wasn’t that I thought they shouldn’t exist; quite the contrary. After all, I had a tail. I didn’t know of my other abilities; no one had told me, so I thought I just had a tail and was long-lived with better senses than a human.
The atmosphere here was different to everywhere else. People talked. They had a kinship, even though their DNA was so different. They joked, jostled each other jokingly, related to each other. Here, they weren’t subjugated and depressed. They could be themselves. I found myself observing them from near the lockers (the lockers were too confusing technology-wise for me to attempt to open mine). Very few really paid me a lot of attention, although I did notice some girls looking at me, and another guy with a lizard-like tail seemed to find mine pretty interesting. He had horns running over his head and down his back, and his fingers ended in black claws. He gave me a smile, and I smiled back, then he vanished into the crowd. I felt a bit better having at least socialised, even if it was very brief.
In the end, I waited until most people had gone to class, then went to try to figure out how the lockers worked. I was so embarrassed, not knowing how things here worked. I felt stupid. A teacher eventually helped me, and I thanked him with a very red face and hurried to my first class. Thankfully, it was around the corner. It was Chemistry. Ugh. I hadn’t been great at Chemistry in high school. I was also late, which didn’t help.
The teacher looked up as I came in.
“You’re a little late. Are you the new student?” she asked me. I nodded, trying not to look at anyone else because I knew I was being stared at. This was ridiculous. Surely I was over all this by now. I had been to school, I had graduated, why was I still so nervous?
“Well, come on; your lab partner is over here.” She pointed to a girl and a bench with all sorts of complicated looking equipment. One thing I was sure must have been a Bunsen burner in the past, but it looked high tech. I apologised and went to sit next to the girl. I would have turned to say hello if something bright and suspiciously hologram-like hadn’t just erupted at the top of the bench. I nearly fell off my chair in surprise. The other students were using their hands to drag bright icons across the air-screen. Some sort of computer? I didn’t dare to touch it. I looked at the girl helplessly.
“Um...what is that thing?” I said in embarrassment.
((OOC: Ugh sorry it got really long, had so much to explain but wanted to get to a point where he would meet Tara, so I had to put it all into one post. I left an option at the end; his lab partner can be Tara or just some random, we can discuss that later anyway. Sorry some of this post sucks really badly, I was trying to hurry it and skim over details. My intro posts are always too long!!))
“Do you know why you are here?” the school counsellor asked me, his blue gaze piercing but concerned. I looked down kind of sulkily and shrugged.
“Dunno.”
“Milo. Look at me when I speak. Communication works best with eye to eye contact in most species with a complex language.” When I looked up reluctantly, he continued, “you are here because you are new to Wonder City, and because your master admitted to having a few...issues...with your behaviour.”
I shifted about again and locked eyes with the man. “Look, I’m not sixteen, I’m thirty-three; I’ve done school, I’m not a slave, I’m not supposed to be here. This is bullshit, just send me home to my world already and I won’t bother you again, it’s that fucking simple.”
“I don’t appreciate your language, young man. Look. All I want to do is try to understand. Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Start from the beginning. How did you come to be here?”
“Oh come on...”
“Just talk to me.” His voice was gentle. I rolled my eyes. The only way this guy was gonna leave me alone was if I talked. Part of me respected what he did. The other part of me, that rebellious part which gnawed at me, wanted to give him the finger and leave. But I clung to whatever adult part of me I had left, and gave in. If he wanted a story, he was gonna get one.
My life had been pretty decent before coming to Wonder City. I had a career, a supportive family and a lot of friends. No girlfriend, but I knew someone would come along. I liked to travel and try new things, and my job as an actor allowed me to do that. I wasn’t rich, but I was comfortable, financially and mentally.
The day I had vanished from my home world was the day of a skateboarding competition I had been practicing for all year. It was a big hobby of mine and I made time for it in between jobs. My family had come to watch; my sister Jackie, who was two years older than me, and both my parents. I wasn’t on until later, so I had gone to practice and release some energy. I didn’t even make it to the actual competition. I was doing a few tricks outside, and while I definitely sensed something strange about the area, I was too caught up in what I was doing to actually pay much attention. I had always known that I had an uncanny ability to predict the weather and sense the energy from storms. I figured other people had that same ability; you heard about that stuff on TV and whatever.
Whatever it was, it came up quickly. It grew dark. In California, there is so much sun that it’s always exciting when there’s a thunderstorm.
I looked up, suddenly distracted by a sharp crack of thunder. I was still on my skateboard and moving towards a wall, but the sight of the clouds took my breath away. Lightning crackled around a large, swirling mass of cloud above me. I barely jumped off the skateboard in time before I hit the wall, and I looked up again. I could totally feel it; energy coursed through the air, making me feel jittery, as if I had had way too much caffeine. Was a tornado going to drop from the sky? I had never seen a tornado. We didn’t really get them in California. I mean, if we did, they were very rare or unseen. We just didn’t have the climate for them. But whatever that was, it was spinning and tornadoes spin.
Something inside me told me to run. I grabbed my skateboard and began to jog towards the building entrance. I was alone out here; Jackie had said she would meet me with some food in half an hour.
I nearly made it. But something dragged me backwards. I twisted sideways as I fell forward, my head hitting the pavement hard. Stars exploded in my eyes. Something brighter followed; I had my eyes closed, and I swear I thought I was dying or something; there was light everywhere, crazy light, and the loudest roaring all around me. I clung to my skateboard because it was the only thing to hold onto, useless as that was. I screamed, but who the fuck would have heard me over all that noise? It was louder than an earthquake, scarier than the thought of being struck by lightning.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped.
By the time feeling had returned to my body, I realised I was shaking very violently, probably in utter terror. I must have hidden in that alleyway for ages...considering I had just woken up in another place after a traumatic experience, I thought I was pretty brave just standing up at all.
I don’t think I will ever quite forget that alleyway. I mean, I paced back and forth, too afraid to go out into the street, despite the people and the cars. I hid from them, too. I remember the layout of the alleyway, and everything that was in it, from the trashcans to the one-eared raccoon which hissed at me, to the old newspaper which told me the date was February 2nd, 2026.
Not 2011. 2026.
“No way.”
I had calmed down enough to put my skateboard down, and I sat down on it to avoid sitting in the melted snow on the ground, staring at that date. It must be a fake paper, I decided. I was about to look down at the front page when I was approached by the two people who I will always associate with my loss of freedom.
I don’t know how I didn’t notice my tail before the two police officers did. I guess I was too afraid to see it. Considering the thing was so long, it was hard not to notice it every waking moment after that. In any case, the cops didn’t like what they saw. I was handcuffed, read no rights at all, and shoved into the cage in the back of their vehicle. A weird-looking vehicle, too. Kind of high tech. Not that I really had a lot of time to look at it.
They took me to some huge building. It was snowing quite heavily in the street by now, and I almost slipped as we went up the stairs. It was a bit hard to walk properly with my hands cuffed and I wasn’t used to snow, since it also never snows in Los Angeles. I couldn’t help but notice my new tail waving around a lot, balancing me. I tried not to look at it. I was probably having a strange dream. Maybe I had hit my head.
“Goddamn snow...they gotta prioritise and clean it the fuck up...screw the farmers, there’s too much of this shit in the city,” one of the cops grunted.
“Wasting tax payers’ money on stupid crap like sending these freaks to school, that’s why,” the other said savagely, yanking me along with him. He had a firm grip on my arm. I hadn’t said a word since demanding to know why I was being arrested. They had just laughed at me. “Another off-worlder,” they had smirked.
The inside of the building was dark and grey and very boring. A secretary watched us with dull eyes. A sign on her desk said, “Non-human processing centre. US Government. Wonder County.” It had more writing, but I was pulled away before I could read it.
The lab I was taken to was just as grey and full of weird technology, as well as a few cages. I was tossed into a cage and left there alone until some other guy came in, dressed in a lab coat. Definitely a dream. I mean, really? This was ridiculous.
“You can’t keep me in here,” was the first thing I said.
“Ah. I hear you are possibly from another world,” the man replied. He was a big, hulking guy with very dark skin and startlingly white teeth. “Where are you from?”
“California, now let me out.”
“Patience, young man. Grief. You would think that for all the griping you teenagers do, the world would move faster just for you.”
“Teenager?” I had been told I looked younger than I was, and I had had a lot of roles as a teenager just a few years ago, but I didn’t really think I actually looked that much like a kid anymore. It was dark in here. Maybe that was why.
Blinding lights suddenly flooded the room. I blinked and covered my eyes just as the man opened the cage door and indicated that I should get out. Still half covering my eyes, I did as I was told, waiting vainly for my eyes to adjust.
I tried to escape as soon as he mentioned that he would be running some tests on me. That of course failed. In the end, the tests weren’t that scary; he took blood, measured my height and weight, wrote down a bunch of stuff, asked for my name, age and what species I was.
“Species?”
“Yes. Well, you’re certainly not a human. Or a vampire, which relieves me. There has been an outbreak in vampiric infections...nasty creatures...”
“Um...I’m human, that’s all there is to say. I just have a tail.” I looked at it. “It wasn’t there before. Can I go now?”
“Perhaps we will clear that up soon enough. I can compare your blood sample to others in our database. For now, I suppose I will have you fitted with a collar and you will stay here until I have the blood test results back.”
“A...collar? What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re not human. In the US and some other countries, that means you have to wear a collar which stores information about you, and prevents you from using powers if need be. It shows that you aren’t human.”
He pulled a draw open and held something up that was the same size and shape as a dog collar, only shiny and made of some metal. I bolted upright from my chair. I had cooperated for now, thinking I would escape when he thought it was safe, but now I was beginning to really freak out. I had tried to wake up and I just wasn’t waking up. I pointed a finger at the doctor. “No way is that going around my neck. No way. I let you take blood from me, I gave you my name, but that’s it. That’s all you get.” I started to back towards the door, which I knew to be locked, but I would kick the damned thing down if I had to.
“You have no choice, Mr. Ventimiglia. You’re better off letting me put it on you quietly, or I will do it the hard way.”
“First of all, I can’t believe you pronounced my name right. Secondly, fuck off. Come near me with that and I’ll wrap it around your neck...” It was such an empty threat, but he looked quite wary of me. He was twice my size, what did he have to worry about?
“I have an aptitude for language. Your name sounds Italian; my wife is Italian.”
“Yeah, I bet you make her very happy.” I looked for a weapon. Trying to escape really was useless. Two guys came through the door behind me and grabbed me. The bulky doctor easily snapped the collar around my neck tightly, then ordered the men to put me back into the cage. Once I was safely locked in, he bid me a polite good night and turned the lights out. Frustrated, I swore at him as he retreated, then kicked the cage door and tried to rip the collar off. It felt too tight around my neck, and it was cold. I didn’t get any sleep; I was way too upset.
The next day, I got the results of the blood test back. Apparently, there was a species match. Some other family. I caught the name ‘MacRurach’ and that was it. I was some sort of ‘Thunder beast’, whatever that was. What a load of shit. I was also informed that I was sixteen and that my blood test could confirm that.
“Sixteen?” I exploded, grabbing the bars of the cage. “I was born in 1977, asshole.”
“These tests are extremely accurate. It’s a new technology, ten years old; and it’s never failed. This says you are sixteen years of age. Had it said otherwise, I would have attributed your appearance to the fact that your kind does not age past a certain point, but these tests do not lie.”
I grew pretty aggressive when he told me that his sister wanted to buy me as a gift for two of her friends. Buy me? I wasn’t some pet. What the fuck did they want with me? I felt as though nothing had been explained to me at all, but it soon became apparent that I was just a slave here and I had no say in my life whatsoever. I had to be sedated before they could move me. Apparently I was a lot stronger than a human, and they couldn’t take risks. So, drowsy and still trying to resist them, I was taken to his sister’s place.
“Oooh, isn’t he sweet looking! Look at his tail...I’ve never seen anything like that before! So long!” the woman, Patty, crooned.
“I wouldn’t try to pet him, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s aggressive. Are you sure you want to give him to Gerard and Mauve? They would have to train him. You know how difficult it is to train teenagers. He won’t make a good house slave.”
“Oh, they can deal with him. They have never been able to have children. Maybe he would be a bit like a son for them.”
“If you say so. I think he may suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. They need to keep an eye on him.”
“Of course. They are coming over tomorrow for Mauve’s birthday. Oh, he will make a fine gift, thank you Gary, you’re wonderful!” She hugged him. I was sitting on the couch, yawning and trying to stay awake. I was awake enough to be humiliated beyond belief. The stupid woman dared to tie a bow to my collar, like a gift bow. I let her, only because I was so weak from the sedatives.
The next morning, she gave me to a very stern-looking married couple. Gerard and Mauve, I assumed as soon as I saw them. I had slept in the locked guest room overnight, and was still drowsy the next morning, a hangover effect from the sedatives. However, I was certainly much more aware than I had been last night.
“Come and meet your new masters,” Patty said excitedly at the door of the room. I was half awake already, but I hadn’t moved from my bed. I had stayed there, trying not to cry. Why I would admit that, I don’t know. But I wanted to bawl my eyes out.
“No thanks,” I said, not looking at her.
“It will be easier if you come with me. Or, I can bring them up here. What would you prefer?”
I went with her. I wondered if I could knock her down and run past the new ‘masters’ waiting in there, but even in my moment of fear and despair, I didn’t think I could push her over, she was like a little old lady. Well, not old. Just middle-aged and plump and kind of friendly.
Anyway, back to Gerard and Mauve. They were seated at a round dinner table with a florally tablecloth. Gerard had greying hair and was tall with an angular face and cold grey eyes. He reminded me of my old high school principal. Mauve was also fairly tall and not really as stern-looking as her husband. She had long brown hair and green eyes, and she looked like a business woman. She smiled as soon as she saw me. Gerard’s mouth twitched, but that was it.
“Happy birthday!” Patty squealed. “Come on sweetie, come and meet them,” she beckoned me. I rolled my eyes again and sighed loudly, folding my arms as she pushed me towards the couple. Mauve stood up and looked me over, then smiled again.
“Hi Milo,” she said in a patronising voice, as if I was either a toddler or a cat. I didn’t smile. She tried again. “I know this must be a bit of a shock...Patty explained your situation. I know nothing we say can make it any better...but you’ll be safe with us,” she promised.
“If you behave yourself,” Gerard grouched. “Show some respect. Greet my wife instead of scowling.”
“Gerard...don’t be so hard on him. He’s just a boy and he’s been through a tremendous shock...maybe things aren’t like this where he came from.”
“Slavery is outdated where I come from,” I agreed. “Whatever.”
“Well...my brother did warn that he is quite aggressive. Are you sure you will take him?” Patty asked. “I mean, I was sure...I’m sure he is sweet underneath. Aren’t you?” She grinned at me, her cheeks dimpling. Kill me now.
Gerard fixed me with a hard stare. “We’ll take him, Patty. Thank you for your kind gift. We have no time for young kids. A teenager might be different. Besides, he can work as well.”
“Once he graduates,” Mauve said.
“I know, I know, he will go to school, don’t worry about that,” Gerard told her while I contemplated the horrors of school.
“...no...school?” My voice came out faint. “First, I’m a slave, now I have to go back to school? Are you joking?” I gave them a stunned look. “Look, I’ve graduated. I went to University, I have a degree, but in this world, that apparently means shit to you.”
“Oh dear,” Patty winced. Gerard grabbed my collar. How he fit his fingers under it considering it was so tight, I didn’t know. I choked. He pulled me forward, and we glared at each other stubbornly.
“Swear again and I will make you wish you had been sold to the fighting pits.”
“Gerard please, don’t hurt him!” Mauve put her hand on his arm. She looked nervous but also annoyed. Gerard gave me another long, hard, stare, then let go of me. I rubbed my neck, backing out of his reach. Patty made a coughing sound. “I...uh...my brother gave me this for him. He was worried he would run.”
As soon as I saw the chain, I did bolt. I had to get out of here, away from this fucking nightmare. I didn’t get far; a huge shock went through me, knocking me to the floor. Gerard was on me quickly, clipping the chain onto my collar like I was some fucking dog or something. He dragged me up while Mauve protested and Patty told him to be gentle. I had no idea what had just happened to make me fall, but it had hurt, and I was dazed as I managed to stand up on my own. I wiped tears from my eyes. They couldn’t see me cry. No way. I held my head down and folded my arms tightly again as Gerard and Mauve led me to their car.
When we got to their house, which was a nice two-storey place with lots of gardens and a big garage, Mauve took the leash from a silent Gerard and removed it from my collar.
“I’m sorry. My husband is...not good with children. You had better smarten up and learn some respect, because I don’t tolerate it either, and I do worry what my husband will do. But come; let me show you your room.”
I’m ashamed to say I began to cry in front of Mauve when she showed me my room. It was a pretty nice place with a study desk, bookshelf and window. The bookshelf had a few classics in it and the desk had a weird looking computer and a desk light. Clearly she had known she was going to get a slave, because it had been set up properly. There was even a really big screen television mounted onto the wall. As tears began to fall down my cheeks, I kind of wondered if the TV was 3D. I mean, those were coming in during 2010 or something.
“Oh honey, don’t cry,” Mauve said gently. She sat down beside me on the bed and I looked away, humiliated. “It won’t be so bad. Better here with us than working for no pay and locked in a cellar...not many slaves get the kinds of opportunities we can offer you. I worked with disadvantaged teenagers for twenty years. I can help you.”
“I don’t want help, I want to go home,” I sniffed. “This is ridiculous. This can’t be real. Why should I be in this position because of one stupid tail? Can’t they cut it off?”
“Well, Milo, I suppose it’s because tail or no tail, you aren’t human. It’s just the way things are. Look, are you hungry? We were told your kind needs a lot of very fresh food. We’re kind of health fanatics...that should be easy.”
Shit, she knew more about what I was than I did. Though it was true that I could only really stand fresh food. Meat just tasted dead to me unless it was freshly killed. My parents had hunted a lot when I was a kid. Nowadays I didn’t bother to eat much meat, except fish, because that was easy to catch. I couldn’t stand non-organic vegetables. I could taste the chemicals.
Gerard and Mauve Francis were, I suppose, not too bad. I had spent a week with them, and Gerard had explained that if I tried to escape, my irremovable collar would result in me being tracked down very quickly by the government and punished. I believed him after he showed me the collar’s instruction manual and a documentary about runaway slaves. So, I decided not to try to run. There would be other ways to get away, or get home.
I mostly liked Mauve. She didn’t take crap from me, but she was on my side a lot. Gerard worked every day, and Mauve worked from home on her computer during the day. I had no idea what she actually did, but apparently she was working at home for the next few months while I adjusted. I knew she worked for some health food company. Gerard was a college lecturer and also did a lot of medical research.
So far, I had gone shopping with them a few times (only to be shocked constantly by the technology and strange species in this world), for new clothes and for groceries, and I had also been given a tour of the neighbourhood. Mauve had managed to get my skateboard back for me, but I wasn’t allowed out of the house alone just yet. Tensions were high. I got into a fist fight with a human in the car park after being called names. Gerard had pulled me off and had told the racist human to leave before he called the police. Sure, Gerard had kind of stood up for me, but he grounded me from using the TV and the computer. I hadn’t touched the computer anyway; it was too complex for me. The TV, however, was one of my only things to do, and it sucked to be treated like a kid. I was admittedly very sullen and withdrawn, and I had an attitude problem. But who the fuck could blame me?
I was sent to school after the first week. On the first day, I had been sent straight to the counsellor’s office before my first class. So, here I was.
Okay. I didn’t quite tell my story in such detail to Mr. Edwards. I wrote that way later, maybe to become an award winning biography. Joking. But anyway, I told him what I could in the short time that I had. Then I fell silent, scratching my arm and looking at the ground dejectedly.
“That’s a good start then, Milo. We’re getting somewhere. Would you like to come and chat to me tomorrow morning?”
To be honest, it felt good to talk to someone. I hesitated, then nodded.
“Yeah ok,” I said.
I had ten minutes to get to class. I had been given a school map, and for some stupid reason, I felt ridiculously nervous about today. I went to the restroom first to splash some water on my face despite the winter cold. I looked into the mirror at myself. I was definitely a lot younger. I was thinner and a little shorter. Sighing, I wet my hair a little and my face, feeling very warm.
The school to me looked like most American high schools. The big difference was that there was more technology and everything seemed...cleaner somehow. Except outside where the miserable looking snow had been trudged through and walked on, turning some of it into slushy mud. The other huge difference was that everybody here smelled strange and looked...well, different. Everyone had a collar like mine. It made sense; no one was human, except a whole lot of security guards and some teachers, like Mr. Edwards. I had seen some of these strange species around the shops, but to see so many together was a bit of a shock. I felt small and nervous, overwhelmed by their alien scents. People with wings, scales, tails, horns, oddly-coloured skin, large feet, two heads, animal-like bodies. It defined a whole new era of racism and ostracism. I tried not to stare. It wasn’t that I thought they shouldn’t exist; quite the contrary. After all, I had a tail. I didn’t know of my other abilities; no one had told me, so I thought I just had a tail and was long-lived with better senses than a human.
The atmosphere here was different to everywhere else. People talked. They had a kinship, even though their DNA was so different. They joked, jostled each other jokingly, related to each other. Here, they weren’t subjugated and depressed. They could be themselves. I found myself observing them from near the lockers (the lockers were too confusing technology-wise for me to attempt to open mine). Very few really paid me a lot of attention, although I did notice some girls looking at me, and another guy with a lizard-like tail seemed to find mine pretty interesting. He had horns running over his head and down his back, and his fingers ended in black claws. He gave me a smile, and I smiled back, then he vanished into the crowd. I felt a bit better having at least socialised, even if it was very brief.
In the end, I waited until most people had gone to class, then went to try to figure out how the lockers worked. I was so embarrassed, not knowing how things here worked. I felt stupid. A teacher eventually helped me, and I thanked him with a very red face and hurried to my first class. Thankfully, it was around the corner. It was Chemistry. Ugh. I hadn’t been great at Chemistry in high school. I was also late, which didn’t help.
The teacher looked up as I came in.
“You’re a little late. Are you the new student?” she asked me. I nodded, trying not to look at anyone else because I knew I was being stared at. This was ridiculous. Surely I was over all this by now. I had been to school, I had graduated, why was I still so nervous?
“Well, come on; your lab partner is over here.” She pointed to a girl and a bench with all sorts of complicated looking equipment. One thing I was sure must have been a Bunsen burner in the past, but it looked high tech. I apologised and went to sit next to the girl. I would have turned to say hello if something bright and suspiciously hologram-like hadn’t just erupted at the top of the bench. I nearly fell off my chair in surprise. The other students were using their hands to drag bright icons across the air-screen. Some sort of computer? I didn’t dare to touch it. I looked at the girl helplessly.
“Um...what is that thing?” I said in embarrassment.
((OOC: Ugh sorry it got really long, had so much to explain but wanted to get to a point where he would meet Tara, so I had to put it all into one post. I left an option at the end; his lab partner can be Tara or just some random, we can discuss that later anyway. Sorry some of this post sucks really badly, I was trying to hurry it and skim over details. My intro posts are always too long!!))