Acid Rain, Chapter One: The School

Wednesday, June 1st of 3013 starts out a very humid summer morning. I get up at 4:00 a.m. for school. I attend the School For Literary Challenged Teens. It’s a school for kids ages 13-18 to get a lot of extra help in literature. My scores in my old school were pretty good. Except in literature. On the scale of 10-50, my scores in literature were averaged to 11.59. This...is worse than failing. To do this you must try very hard to be very awful in one subject.

Which I did. I focused all my energy into keeping all grades at least in the range of 30.50 and up which is considered to be a smart student, though not advanced. Then I did worse than simply leaving my literature papers blank, because that would only present a lazy student, not a troubled student. I purposely made every mistake in literature possible. Why? Because though the system forced me to remain in that insane psylum they had nerve enough to call a schooling facility, I didn’t have to stay in that one certain school.

For example, if I was to be assigned to a Specialized School for “mentally disabled” students, I wouldn’t have to stay in an All Subject School. With about five months of school left, Principal Mashone was literally throwing me out the door of his, “Well-taught, well-managed school for the brighter, quicker children of the future!” As he often referred to it in his false British accent.

Within two weeks, a Hover train had taken me 200 miles to sign about 12 pounds of contracts, health permits, transport records, etc. Then a private jetswarm had taken me even further all the way to Switzerland to visit the school hidden away in the mountains. Most of the fuss made over just taking me to the school was because I was the President’s daughter.

It was also because it was a private school that only the top dogs like the President were allowed to attend or know of. It was one of the best schools, in the Challenged School standards, anyway. But you should’ve seen the President’s face. The security Robmans were blinking red lights, scanning the area, shouting, “Temperature levels rising, hear-rate quickening, possible poisoning, secure the area. No one move.”

The President was as red as the Robman’s blinking laser lights, “False alarm Robmans, emotionally unstable, physically top condition. As you were.” He was ready to drop missiles all over my school as he stomped around, “Iris, is there any TeachCore Laptop that you use that may not be stable? Any Aid that may not appreciate you? Is there any way even the scanners made a mistake?!”

He couldn’t believe I’d been suggested to a Specialized School. I was the President’s daughter. These things don’t happen to the President’s daughter. However, five days later he’d accepted I may have autism and he wasn’t too upset about the school. “And you’re sure the food is entirely organic? S.J. standards? Up-to-date? Any expired tubes every reported? Well then I suppose we’ve covered everything. Yes, she’ll be arriving tomorrow. Thank you.” He disconnected the Auto-Phone and stared at me. “You’ll be taking Robman 446 with you. I’ll give you 4 MicroBugs, two NanoWires, and how’s about a couple of laser pens, just in case?”

I smiled, “Not even your specialized Violazer could get to me.” A bit of an exaggeration on my part, but I might as well try to calm him down, stubborn overprotective parents. One of these days he’d have to figure out he couldn’t shelter me from the world. At least, not by himself.
* * *

My bodyguard, Jero, stood next to me, his naturally bald head reflecting the shadows of the choppers’ blades spinning above us. He looked at me through his midnight black sunglasses and nodded. We ducked and jogged away from the chopper as it lifted into the air and I waved to the President who nodded in response.

Jero never shaved his head, in case you were wondering why I said his baldness was natural. No, he’s not suffering from male-patterned baldness either. Boy, was that as rare as a state without a hole in it’s ozone layer anymore. He’d undergone some genetic variations to give him a very athletic body and quicker reflexes, plus a better ability to solve puzzles. He never explained it to me in detail, but apparently the variations worked like chemotherapy; it caused you to go bald, only, it was permanent.

Jero looked down at me, “So, I guess the school is just up here,” he said in a deep voice. Sometimes I think that guy should be a secret agent or something...oh, wait. I asked him, “Why couldn’t the chopper take us directly to the school?” He looked as if he didn’t want to tell me. “Security purposes. Let’s go, kid.”

I followed him, trucking through the ankle deep snow, to a bunch of cedar trees. He ducked under some limbs and wove his way into the trees. I was reluctant to follow. I heard an engine rev up suddenly and the next thing I knew, Jero was crashing through the trees on a MountainCycle. MountainCycles are like motorcycles but are designed for mountains. They work best on regular ski slopes though, not actual mountains. They are like motorcycles that are crunched up into a steel oval with wheels and incased in an almost invisible bubble that suits to fit the body of it, but doesn’t incase the wheels.

A side of transparent rubber glass (rubber glass is like plastic, but strong like steel and transparent as glass) lifted from the body of the M.C. I climbed in behind Jero. I examined the shining white steel frame. “Nice, Jero.” I could see him smirk in the mirror, “I try, kid. Actually, this is my present for supervising your visit for the next four days.”

The President hadn’t mentioned that. “The next four days?! What, does he think I’m three?! I swear that man-“ Jero sighed, “Would you give him a break? He’s the President and you’re his daughter. A lot of people are against him and some of those people are psychos. They would give anything to get their hands on you and he knows it. So do you.” I sighed. Curse you, alll-knowing Jero.

He gassed the M.C. and we were slushing through the snow at 60 m.p.h. After about ten minutes, I asked him, “What, are you afraid some old lady is going to walk into the street? Come on, Jero, at this rate the school will have collapsed into itself. You know you can go faster. And you will, won’t you?” He laughed and shook his head.

He leaned into the steering wheel and we gradually picked up speed. Trees were zooming past us at...I couldn’t even read the speedometer we were vibrating with so much speed. I laughed with joy. Luckily, Jero knew how fast we were going. “90, 95, 100, 110, 130 miles per hour! Whoo!!” Jero liked to go fast.

Soon we were slowing down really quickly and he slammed the breaks as the snow turned to mush under us and we came to a nice stop. No thanks to Jero. If he’d been handling an old fashion vehicle, made in like the 2000s, I would’ve been tossed out of the rubber glass and flown over the school.

Luckily we were in the 3000s and that was nearly impossible with our technology anymore. The rubber glass lifted and we stepped out, our legs jiggling beneath us. We smiled and I giggled, “Whoa. I didn’t know the school was supposed to tilt alarmingly to the left. Oh, wait, that’s me falling over!” I let myself fall into the snow and Jero smiled down at me.

We both switched our gaze to the school. Wow. The walls were encoted in silver-white steel, with rubber glass windows, the kind that are made so no one can see inside the windows from the outside, only the other way around. There were two heavily steel incased doors that looked like they would only open to the pull of four DogTanks. DogTanks are like regular army tanks but aren’t as tall as they are wide and they have nothing but traction on the bottom. It’s like one entire giant wheel with three coats of heavy steel.

Nearly impenetrable. Those things could tow South America up to visit Washington, D.C. If it existed anymore. Which it didn’t. Global warming caught both sides of the country, washing away most of the West Coast, but some of the East Coast, too. Jero and I exchanged glances, “I guess the mentally ill are extremely dangerous if they escape. Half a brain or not. I can’t wait to visit them all. Wonder what kind of lethally ill and possibly contagious disease my roommate will have.” Jero shrugged, “Let’s go find out.” And started for the school as I remained in the snow, “I was being sarcastic!” Too late.