Ivan Kal - Olympus

“When we leave Earth’s atmosphere you will feel weightless, I want you to know that it is normal and that you are perfectly safe, I have done this a lot of times and nothing will happen to you. And you are not the first children I transported.” He looked at them nodded and disappeared through the door to the front. Other children started talking loudly between themselves. Adrian looked at his new friend Sahib and saw him laughing maniacally. He felt the transport come to life and suddenly they were moving, there were no windows so he couldn’t see outside, but soon enough he felt himself losing weight meaning they left the atmosphere, suddenly he felt someone grab his hand and when he looked to his right he saw Mary holding his hand as strong as she could. She and him were never very close, she came to the orphanage two years ago when her grandmother who took care of her passed away, she tended to keep to herself, and he couldn’t remember when they spoke more than a few words to each other, but he saw in her blue eyes that she was frightened so he turned his hand in her grip and held her hand. He saw gratitude in her eyes so he just smiled confidently as if he did this all the time and knew that everything would be alright. Though her hand in his helped him, as much as it did her, it calmed him down and anchored him to one thing that he knew was real, a person who took this path alongside him.

They spent the next period weightless, Adrian was never all that good at measuring time without a clock so he wasn’t sure how long they traveled. And then suddenly they felt their weight once again. And they could hear the transport landing. Soon after the transport doors opened and few people came in and started unfastening their seatbelts and harnesses and ushering them out of the transport. Soon they found themselves in a big metal room, Adrian could see a another transport in the room and children from it also ushered from the transport, they went from that room to a brightly lit, angled room with chairs and tables and a podium at the bottom of the room. They were instructed to take a seat and Adrian sat with Sahib on his left and Mary on his right. There was a bottle of water on the table in front of every chair, and Adrian reached and took a sip, a minute later the door opened and a young woman stepped on the podium.

She looked out at them for a minute while the children conversations hushed down, and when they finally stopped she started speaking.

“Hello, my name is Edith, you may call me Miss Edith, I will be your caretaker while you are with us, and I will come to know each of you. I already know your names, but soon I will have conversations with each one of you. I’m here to welcome you all to your new home, the Cloud space station, you will each be given quarters, which you will share with one other person, and anything you need will be provided to you. When you leave this room you will be taken to your rooms where you will be able to rest and change your clothes. Tomorrow you will meet your teachers and will be given a tour of the station.” She finished and looked over them once more, she smiled warmly. “I hope that you will grow to think of this station as your home in the coming years.”

One month later

Adrian entered the cafeteria and tried to spot Sahib in a sea of his classmates, Adrian stayed behind after class to ask the teacher a few more questions about his homework assignment, he was supposed to write a two pages paper about the battle of Thermopylae, and Sahib went ahead of him to cafeteria for lunch. He spotted him and made way to their table. Sahib sat with Kevin, Lorena and Rachel who were also their classmates, the three of them were eleven years old. All those that went to lessons with them were between ten and twelve, they were separated from those older, and younger, they went to class with those close to their age, the first group being from seven to nine, their group being from ten to twelve, third from thirteen to fifteen, and the next from sixteen to eighteen. There were also several different classes in each age group, but all of them came to the cafeteria to eat together. Adrian reached their table and sat down, Sahib had already brought a plate of food for him, just as Adrian would have done for him if he was the one late. The two of them had become best friends, and were even roommates, they did most everything together.

“Hi, Rachel.” Adrian said, she was the only one from their group that went to a different class, so this was the first time today that he saw her.

“Hi.” She said.

“Nice timing A.D. we were just talking about the clubs, have you decided what you are taking?” Sahib asked using his nickname for Adrian, the clubs weren’t really clubs, and they were extra activities which were optional but were encouraged by the teachers and Miss Edith. They started their days at 07:00 in the morning, here at the station they used military time, which as they found out was used in the Concordis and most other countries anyways, yet another thing they learned when they got here that was different than the way things worked back in the States. At 07:30 they went to breakfast, and at 08:30 their classes started, beginning with physical education, then math, English, Biology, Geography, and History, every two days they had Music and Art instead of Geography and Biology, their classes ended at 14:30 and they were free to go to lunch, which was served from 15:00 to 16:00 but the cafeteria was always open and you could always get something to eat. They were free from 16:00 until 23:00 when they were supposed to go to sleep, that is unless they chose another activity, of which there were a lot they could choose from music, art to sports. These activities would then be scheduled from anywhere from 16:00 to 21:00.

Their little group had already decided that they would all chose an activity, Adrian looked at his friend and said. “I think that I’ll go for martial arts.”

“Really? Which one, there were several listed.” Lorena said reaching for her datapad and taping at it bringing the list of offered activities, they were all given a datapad as soon they started their lessons, and they were theirs, they could do whatever they wanted with them, but were encouraged to use them for learning, they had all their textbooks on them, and were expected to use them to for their assignments. Their first few lessons were in the use of the devices, but most of them learned fast, and soon enough they started finding all little things that they could do. The teachers told them that there was much more content available to them, but that it was up to them to find it. It wasn’t long before the other kids started exchanging little tips and tricks on how to customize or unlock new content on their own datapad, it soon became a type of currency that went around the classes. Soon enough one of the kids found a gaming room, with tons of games, ranging from simple puzzle games that were single player to big adventure multiplayer games, needless to say that kid had won himself a lot of future favors by revealing that tip. Adrian himself had managed to find the room on his own a few days after the first kid. And he found a game that was to his liking called Fleet Commander, he had been playing it every time he had spare a moment. Adrian reached for his own pad and found the martial art he had previously looked at.

“I believe it is called Ninjutsu.”

“Hm… I never heard about it before.” Kevin said.

“Well the information about it said that it was an ancient art, which was used in Japan, by some people called ninjas. It said that it was very broad as a martial art, it teaches everything from hand to hand combat to fighting with weapons, both modern and old. But I really chose it because of a different reason.” Adrian said, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed.