Ivan Kal - Olympus

Andrea nodded and smiled softly at Adrian and Mary, and then turned to Greg. “No one will force you to go, but if you change your mind, people from Olympus will come again next year, you can say yes then. And I truly hope that you get a family.” She said warmly then told him that he was free to go. Greg stood up and went upstairs.

She turned to Mary and Adrian and said. “What are your names?”

“Adrian”

“Mary”

“It’s my pleasure to meet you Adrian and Mary, you will come with us now, as soon as we inform your caretaker, you have five minutes to get anything you want from your belongings, but only something you can carry, and you won’t need any clothes, everything will be provided for you, take only something you have sentimental value for.” Andrea said, while Rodney stood up and went in the direction of kitchen presumably to find Miss Mayberry. Mary got up and ran up the stairs, while Adrian stayed seated.

“You should hurry up and take anything you want, you won’t be back here any time soon.” Andrea said.

“I don’t need anything.” Adrian said, and there was not a thing he wanted to take with him, his time here will soon be left behind, he didn’t have anything sentimental, he was left at the doors of the orphanage as a baby, he didn’t have anything from his parents, and everything else he had was provided to him by the orphanage, mostly clothes that the other kids outgrew, and any toys he had were passed on to him and he passed them down as he grew older.

Andrea looked at him for a moment, and then smiled, she motioned him to get up and come closer. He walked to her and she put her hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the front door, Miss Mayberry and Rodney came through the kitchen door at same time Mary walked down the stairs holding a wooden box.

Rodney motioned her to him and they started towards the door.

“Other kids could use those clothes.” Miss Mayberry said as they moved away.

Andrea shot her a look that could scare any of the smaller children and Miss Mayberry held her glare.

“We’ll send them back.” Rodney said. Miss Mayberry nodded and then turned away.

And then they were outside. That was it, the closest person Adrian had to a mother just turned her back without so much as a goodbye, they didn’t say goodbye to any of the other kids, they were done with this house, with this life. Adrian knew that Miss Mayberry wasn’t all that attached to them but she had took care of them for years, he expected at least a wave, maybe a hug. She always hugged children that got adopted, was that because then there were new parents around, was it just posturing, or was it him and Mary that she didn’t like. It didn’t matter in any case. They were on their way toward a new life.

They entered the car and started on their way. Adrian had never been inside a car, he never even left the house, the farthest he went was outside of the courtyard, and that was on a dare. He remembered how Miss Mayberry was furious he did so, she tripled his cleaning duty for that week. And now with every passing second he traveled further away from everything he knew before. Adrian knew that there was a whole another world out there, they might not have been going in school but they were permitted to watch television, he learned a lot from the news and other programs, Adrian even managed to convince one of the older kids who was put in the orphanage when his parents died to teach him how to read, he was seventeen and had no one to take him in so he spent a year with them until he was let go on the street. There were a few books at the orphanage, the real ones like they used to make them long ago, with paper. He knew from TV that most came electronically and could be read on a datapad now days. But they didn’t even have one datapad at the orphanage, save for the one Miss Mayberry had, and she never let them touch that one.

Adrian looked out of the window at the passing scenery, and finally the scope of what he just did hit him like cold water in the shower. He had just agreed to go with these strangers, he didn’t know anything about them, other than the fact that Miss Mayberry had no problem letting them take him and Mary, he knew nothing.

Adrian looked at Mary sitting in the back of the car with him, he saw that she too was scared just like him, she held onto her wooden box strong enough her fingers started to go white. Panic threatened to take him over but he managed to push it down. He looked at the front of the car at the two people seated there, Rodney was driving and Andrea was reading something on her datapad.

Adrian swallowed and mustered his courage, he coughed for a moment hoping to get their attention but it didn’t seem to work. So he managed to open his mouth and speak. “How old are you?” He asked, he didn’t know why but that was the first thing that came to his mind, they looked barley older than Miss Mayberry’s grandson and Adrian wanted to know.

Andrea turned in her seat to look at him, she glanced at Rodney and raised her eyebrow, there was a moment where he could have sworn she was about to start laughing but her face quickly assumed a soft expression, she looked at Adrian

“I’m fifty four, and Rodney is sixty seven.” She said.

Adrian looked at Mary and saw her eyes grow wide and she turned towards Andrea

“But you look barley older than twenty!” Mary said

“You will soon learn that things are much different outside of your country, where I come from most everyone looks young.” Andrea said amused.

“B-but how?” Adrian asked.

“You will learn all this and more in time.” Andrea said and turned back towards her datapad.

They spent the next hour in silence. Until finally they came to a stop at what seemed to be an airport. He saw in the distance a transport and as they walked towards it, it became more and more apparent to Adrian that they were going to fly on it. Adrian couldn’t believe what was happening, he had always wondered what it would be like to fly. And now he would fly on this machine. They boarded the plane and he saw that there were already kids on board, all around his age and older. There were a few that were close to eighteen that he could see. They were seated at the empty seats beside a boy his age and a girl who was somewhere close to sixteen. Rodney fastened his seat belt and shoulder harness while Andrea did the same for Mary then they wished them luck and left the transport. Adrian started to panic again, but the boy beside him offered his hand.

“Hi, I’m Sahib, what’s your name?” He said smiling widely. Adrian looked at his hand and hesitated only a moment before taking it.

“Adrian.” He said.

“Great to meet you.” Sahib said shaking Adrian’s hand enthusiastically. Sahib looked to be about Adrian’s age.

“You too.” Adrian said.

“So you are from an orphanage yes?” Sahib asked.

“Yes how did you—” Adrian started but Sahib interrupted by waving his hand toward the other kids.

“We all are.” Sahib said again smiling widely. “I think that they only wanted orphans.”

“Do you know why?”

“Well they said that they want to put us through school since our country doesn’t have the money to send us all.”

“But why would they do that, I mean if the entire country doesn’t have the money how do they?”

“Don’t know but one of the kids here said that they were much wealthier than the United States.”

Just as Adrian was about to ask another question there was a sound and the other children stopped talking, a man dressed in a uniform just like Rodney’s stepped through the front part of the transport.

“Listen up, in a few moments we will take off, and start towards your new home. Your new home will be aboard a space station Cloud.” There were gasps all around, some frightened some excited, Adrian was just shocked, so he didn’t have time to be excited nor afraid. He knew from the news that Olympus did have a station in space, but how would they live there? The man kept talking.