Terranovus

Thirty miserable minutes later the school bell rang and everyone stood up from their desks.

“Remember,” spoke Mr Eldridge, “please prepare a one page essay on the influence of William Shakespeare for next Monday, any questions, please message me. The assignment outlines can be found on your tablet’s Cloud.” I grabbed my tablet and checked. The homework was there alongside homework for my five other subjects. Terrific.

“What are you doing here?” hissed the torn dress girl beside me. I groaned and wished I could disappear. I glanced at her name on her tablet’s screen and saw it was Ava Waverton.

“My family was picked by the lottery, just like everybody else here,” I explained annoyed. I scooped up my backpack and glanced at my timetable, apparently Biology was next, wherever class 05.03.2 was.

“Ah, Miss Waverton, Miss McKinley won’t know the school layout yet, can you please show her to her next class?” asked Mr Eldridge. Ava smiled sweetly.

“Of course Sir,” she replied. I followed her out of the classroom and as we turned left she spun around and faced me.

“Listen here dirt, that dress cost me a fortune. This is my country and I’m going to do everything to make sure your life here is nothing but hell,” she threatened.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“‘Listen here dirt’? Are you for real? Let’s get your facts straight. First of all, that dress didn’t cost you a fortune, it cost your parents a fortune. Secondly, I’m already living in hell so lets do each other a favour and stay out of each other’s way, sounds good?” I spat at her. She stared back at me shocked, I imagined no one in her life had ever dared to speak to her like that before. Glaring at her, I spun round and walked away.

“You’re walking the wrong way!” she yelled.

In response, I flicked my middle finger up at her. The other kids who’d been silently watching our confrontation sniggered and stepped back as I walked through them. I glanced at my Ingo, urgh, four and a half hours to go.

With the help of the school janitor, I eventually found my Biology class just in time. I introduced myself to the teacher, Mr Nguyen, who welcomed me and kindly explained we were currently studying plants and were on chapter two of An Introduction to Botany. I sat down at an empty desk and was thankful to find Ava wasn’t in this class. The class was small, with perhaps only 20 students. A few glanced at me curiously whilst others navigated their tablets to chapter 2. I pulled my own tablet out of my bag and opened the Library app to find the textbook. Once I found it, I read the title of the chapter.

“Photosynthesis,” I whispered to myself. What on earth was that?

“Now class, who can tell me what photosynthesis is?” asked Mr Nguyen. Everyone looked as clueless as me.

An hour and a half later I stared at my tablet fascinated. Photosynthesis was incredible. The bell had just rung and I watched the other students make their way out of the room and towards the lunch hall.

I swung my backpack over my shoulder and walked up to Mr Nguyen who was closing the photosynthesis simulation program we had all been using on the whiteboard.

“Sir,” I began, “why aren’t we taught photosynthesis back at the Sectors?” Mr Nguyen smiled and adjusted his black rimmed glasses.

“Tell me why you think that may be,” he said. My mind wandered to the artificial air purifiers.

“Because it’s not necessary, we have the air purifiers,” I suggested. Mr Nguyen softly laughed.

“Partially correct. The Sectors do have air purifiers but photosynthesis is very necessary to human survival, it helps maintain the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. Did you feel the air hit your lung as you walked off the plane yesterday?”

“Then why doesn’t the Sectors have more plants?” I asked perplexed.

“Because plants require sunlight to survive, and when was the last time you saw a blue sky in the Sectors?” he asked with a small smile. Never, I thought, blue sky hadn’t been seen in decades.

A few minutes later I thanked Mr Nguyen and walked down the hallway with my mind whirling with a hundred and one thoughts. It was a continuous problematic cycle. Pollution led to smog, which led to air purifiers, which led to more electricity, which effectively created more pollution.

As I was thinking about the dilemma, I heard a shout behind me and I turned to find Maria bouncing down the hallway.

“Did you just have biology?” she asked and joined my side. “Isn’t it fascinating? How’s your first day so far? Have you enjoyed it? What does your timetable look like? Can I compare it to mine? I heard a new girl got into a fight with Ava, that wasn’t you was it?”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. Did word really spread that fast? So I passed my timetable over to Maria and told her everything.

Maria led me to the lunch hall and as we I stepped inside, I stared up and around amazed. The lunch hall was situated at the highest point of the shell design and the entire roof was made of glass. It was curved and covered three-quarters of the walls.

“It’s cool, hey? Mr Alderton, the graphic communications teacher, told me the glass ceiling has minuscule solar panels infused into the glass and that’s what powers the school, how neat is that?” said Maria. Neat? That was an understatement. It was incredible! Why weren’t the buildings back at the Sectors built with this technology? I took my timetable back off Maria and groaned, I didn’t have graphic communications until tomorrow.

Maria searched the room then grinned as she made eye contact with a group of students sitting at a table near us.

“Hey guys, I’ve got us a newbie,” she excitedly said and led me over to them. I nervously smiled as they looked back at me curiously.

“This is Tilly, it’s her first day today. Tilly, this is Umi, Juan, Malin and Dahlia,” she introduced. Umi and Juan nodded their heads in greeting whereas Malin and Dahlia giggled. Dahlia tucked her curly dark hair behind her ears and leaned forward.

“Is it true you got into a fight with Ava today?” she asked excitedly. I couldn’t believe how fast news travelled here.

“Define the definition of a fight,” I replied laughing. Dahlia and Malin gasped and turned to each other excited.

“Guys,′ started Maria, “she’s already told me everything, so let me explain.” Then went off in relay of information I had only just told her minutes before. I was quite surprised by her memory, it was almost word for word and she didn’t exaggerate or miss one fact. No wonder she had a knack for gossip.

“You went to the Announcement Ball?” asked Malin excitedly. “How was it? I’ve heard so much about it but never met someone who was actually there!”

“Malin you’ve watched every single video online of the ball, surely you know every detail already?” laughed Umi.

“But I don’t know what the atmosphere was like,” whined Malin in response. I laughed and felt my nerves beginning to calm. I reminded myself although Tommy, Simon and Jack weren’t here it didn’t mean I couldn’t try and make new friends, that was allowed wasn’t it?

“The ball was good,” I said then went on to explain in detail what the ball was like. After, I ate my lunch in silence and listened to Maria’s group of friends talk about what they would have worn if their families had been invited to the ball. Umi claimed he would have worn his dressing gown.

“It’s a gown isn’t it?” he said.

Laughing, I let my eyes wander and drift across the room. It was interesting to see cliques had already formed at this new school. A group of sporty kids dressed in gym clothes sat near the centre of the room crowded over someone’s tablet, then a few tables down a group of students ate in silence whilst reading textbooks off their tablets. And a few tables across from us was Ava, who sat at a table surrounded by a group of extremely pretty girls and guys.

So far I wasn’t liking physical school. Ms Zhou had explained the uniform was a way for students to appear equal and united but physical school itself encouraged the opposite. It encouraged cliques and a sense of entitlement and superiority based on your personality. Whereas in e-learning, I never knew the faces, confidence or personalities of my cohort unless we added each other on social media. I was only ever able to scrutinise or judge my cohort during the many academic group chats, for example, if someone tried to claim two plus two equaled a window, then had the right to judge them, or laugh at them, or laugh with them.

In the corner of my eye I noticed the boy who was late on my school bus, my neighbour, walk through the cafeteria. He sat down at an empty table and pulled out his tablet and lunch from his bag.

“Oh,” said Maria, and looked at the boy too, “that’s Hyun. He just does his own thing.” I watched Hyun take a bite of his sandwich and pull his tablet out of his bag. He took another bite then paused and looked up and across the hall. I quickly looked away and re-joined the conversation with Maria and her friends.

The rest of the day passed by quickly and before I knew it, I was on the bus home and watching the scenery fly by. I sat by myself since Maria had band practice, and interestingly Hyun was nowhere to be seen too. Admittedly, I enjoyed quietly sitting on the bus and admiring the palm trees and plants. Terranovus was so different and beautiful I knew the view could never bore me.

The bus reached home quickly and as I walked through the front door I found my mum in the kitchen preparing dinner. She turned round and smiled.

“How was school?” she asked. I smiled in response and dumped my school bag on the floor.

“It was okay,” I said and joined her side to see what she was cooking - lasagna, my favourite!

“Just okay?” asked mum and she turned to me with an eyebrow raised. I laughed and sat on one of the kitchen stools.

“It started off good, then awful, then okay,” I told her.

“Well now you have to tell me everything,” she laughed and I rolled my eyes before I delved into the details of the day. Admittedly, it felt nice chilling with my mum, usually at the Sectors she always returned home late stressed about the Families in Need shelter.

After, I asked my mum about her day and she told me she had explored Primus in the morning and now had a good understanding of the city layout. She explained the city was shaped like a triangle, where the city centre positioned in the middle, the sea at the bottom and residential suburbs to the left and right. The very top of the triangle belonged to the Army and access there was restricted. She also spoke to someone in an Ingo flagship store, who was able to confirm Terranovus had no contact with the outside world, but nevertheless remotely rebooted my signal and synced it with the Terranovus network so I could at least have some sort of online presence in Terranovus.

Just before dinner was ready to be served, my Dad arrived home and we enjoyed the lasagna outside together on the veranda. I couldn’t recall if we had ever ate a meal outside together before. Dad told us he had been allocated and promoted to Senior Engineer and a few hours later when I was lying on my bed and contemplating Terranovus, I realised for the first time in a long while I felt content and stress free. I was happy my parents were happy and school wasn’t that bad. However, it Tommy’s face tearing away at my conscious that made me emotionally torn between hating or loving Terranovus.

Frustrated, I grabbed my Ingo from my nightstand and tapped it. No new messages. What a surprise. I sighed and scrolled through to Tommy’s last message.

I’ll always love you.

If only we had expressed our feelings for each other years before...

Suddenly my Ingo buzzed and I jolted upright in surprise. I had a message. With my heart soaring I opened it.

You’ve had 24 hours in Terranovus. You have 48 more to tell us what else the Army is keeping secret. Fail to deliver and we’ll pay Tommy a visit.

My heart dropped to the pits of my stomach. I felt as though I was going to be sick. The contact name was “Unknown”. I quickly replied back.

Who is this?

I waited five seconds until...

Don’t play games. You know who this is. You have 48 hours.

With anger soaring and my heart breaking in pieces I typed back.

But nobody in Terranovus has contact with the outside world. How the hell are you messaging me?

We have our ways.

I wiped away the forming tears and furiously typed back.

Let me speak to Tommy.

Deliver us some news, then we might consider.

I stared at the Ingo speechless. Tommy wasn’t safe. He had never been safe. Thank goodness I warned him, if I failed to deliver at least he’d have his wits about him. But no, I reminded myself, I would deliver. But deliver what? What else was the Army keeping secret?