Earth Girl (3 page)

‘I’d love to see their faces when they find out,’ she said. ‘You have to promise me to vid it and mail it to me.’

‘And you have to promise to keep this secret. Don’t tell anyone, none of our friends, no one. Only you and Candace know. If too many people find out about it, then someone will be bound to give it away. I can’t fool the other students if they’re expecting an ape to join their course.’

Issette pulled a face. ‘Don’t call yourself that!’

‘Please have consideration for others attempting to sleep at this hour and reduce your noise levels,’ said the voice.

We both groaned.

‘You aren’t even telling your psychologist then?’ Issette was shocked.

‘I’m dumping my psychologist. He’s optional after I leave Next Step.’ I didn’t think much of psychologists, and I felt my sessions with mine were a total waste of time.

‘I’d be lost without my psychologist,’ said Issette, but she didn’t argue any more. She was a believer in psychologists and I wasn’t. We’d been round this too many times in the past to bother with it again now.

She got back to the point. ‘I don’t see how you can manage to fool them even if you do manage to keep it secret. You won’t know all their stuff. The right clothes. The way they talk. I know we watch the vids but … And the sectors all have their own silly words. Those aren’t in the vids we see. We don’t see sector only stuff, there’s only the odd bit in a comedy when they do it for a joke.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, they can all speak Language, but they have dialects too. Alpha sector has the strongest dialect because those are the first planets settled during the Exodus century. Did you know, the newer the sector, the closer the dialect is to standard Language? I saw this info vid about linguistic history mapping and …’

Issette had her fingers in her ears. ‘No history lesson. Bad, bad, Jarra!’

‘Stop doing that.’

She took her fingers out of her ears. ‘Well, stop lecturing me on history. You’re always doing it.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Oh yes you are. You’re obsessed.’

‘I’m not obsessed.’

Issette just gave me her special look. It’s a sort of hard stare, which says she’s right, I’m wrong, and we both know it. It’s very hard to argue with, so I gave in.

‘Well, if you say so … Anyway, if I pretend to be from a sector, there are bound to be some other students from there, and I won’t have the accent or know the dialect. My plan is to say that my parents are Military.’

Issette looked suspicious. ‘Is that because you’re a fan of Arrack San Domex?’

It wasn’t, really it wasn’t. I’d picked Asgard because of Arrack San Domex, and he plays a Military character in
Defenders
, but my decision was based on logic this time.

‘No, it isn’t. All the sectors have their dialect, but the Military don’t. They stick to Language. When they’re on assignment, their kids live in places just like Home and Next Step, and Military kids usually go Military themselves. No chance of running into one in a class of thirty history students.’

‘That could work,’ Issette admitted. ‘That would explain your name too. Hospital Earth and the Military both use stupid old-fashioned names. I mean, “Issette”! Have you ever seen an Issette in the vids who’s less than eighty?’

I giggled. Issette has successfully resolved her anger and bitterness over being Handicapped, but her psychologist is still working on her hatred of her name. The only reason she hadn’t changed it years ago was that she couldn’t make up her mind about a new one.

Issette fell asleep soon after that, so I went back to my own room and started scanning info vids about the Military. You can’t totally trust the facts in these things, but it was fascinating all the same.

Well, the ones about Planet First opening up new worlds were fascinating. The ones about running the solar space arrays were interesting too, though I didn’t follow all the science in them. The policing stuff was a bit too like sociology in school. Yeah, yeah, we have cross-sector Military so the different sectors don’t have their own armies and get tempted to re-invent war. I shouldn’t be rude about it – I’m going history and I know we don’t want any more wars – but it gets a bit preachy.

As for the alien standby exercises, well that was just funny. Even the Military people taking part in them sometimes started to laugh in the middle. How do you train to fight aliens when you’ve never met any? The answer is you get someone to imagine mad scenarios, so you find yourself fighting computer-generated bouncing-ball-shaped aliens who can stick to ceilings or eight-legged things that squirt sticky ribbons at you that explode on contact.

All right, it’s serious stuff really. We haven’t met intelligent aliens yet, but it’s been mathematically proven that they must exist, and humanity will at some point meet them. Some of those aliens will be hostile. I may find it hard to believe, but it’s a scientific fact. We have to be prepared, and the Military are doing their best.

I scanned vids all night, and made notes of what I needed to study. I had one month to create myself an identity as a kid of Military parents. If I was going to make a success of this, I needed to make Military Jarra into a real person, and know what she would know. The more I found out, the more I realized I had to learn.

The bit about Military schools was a big shock. Since Military kids usually go Military themselves, their schools cover a lot of things to prepare them for that career. Military basic training is for new recruits from the sectors. Military kids skip it because they’ve already done it at school.

I nearly gave up when I found out all Military kids were trained in unarmed combat. It was only a month until Year Day, and University courses started the day after that. How could I learn unarmed combat in that short a time? Should I pick a different fake background? At least there were info vids I could study on this, and if I didn’t know all I should about the Military, it was pretty certain that my fellow students would know a lot less.

In the end, I decided to stick with the Military idea. I started making up career histories for my fake Military parents, details about bases where I would have lived, and mailed Candace asking if she could arrange anything about unarmed combat training.

Candace mailed me back about nine in the morning. The mail showed her holding a glass of frujit and smiling. ‘Congratulations, Jarra. I’ll find out about the training, but maybe you’re taking the Military research a bit too seriously. You do tend to get carried away by things. Why not have breakfast and get some sleep?’

I decided to take her advice.

The Year Day party was … a bit sad. The nine of us had lived together through Nursery, Home and Next Step, but now we were splitting up. I was heading off on my personal war against University Asgard. The others were all going to University Earth, but would be scattered across different courses and campuses.

Maeth and Ross were doing different courses, but would be on the same campus in Europe Central. Issette, Cathan and Keon would be together on a campus in Europe South. The other four of us would be heading off alone. I’d always known I would be, of course, since Pre-history Foundation classes spent the year working at some of the major dig sites.

Issette was going Foundation Medical. Cathan and Keon were both going Art, but they’d chosen different specialities. Cathan was going Art Paint and Keon was going Art Light. Probably just as well. They’d been asked to send in sample pieces of their work before starting their course, and Keon had been given some sort of award for his.

I’d seen a vid of his piece. A laser sculpture of lights weaving and shimmering through all the colours out of the tropical dome in Zoo Europe. Most of the time it looked totally abstract, but every now and then the colours would sort of fuse together and you saw it was a bird with outstretched wings. Keon called it ‘Phoenix Rising’. You’d have to see it to understand, but it was seriously zan. We were all grazzed to discover Keon actually had some talent. Most of us were grazzed in a good way, but Cathan was a simmering heap of resentment just waiting for an excuse to explode.

So, the nine of us were splitting up, and the Year Day party was a bit like a funeral. We were leaving Next Step. We’d meet up, but it would never be quite the same again. You wouldn’t understand, living out there with real parents, but the nine of us had been a family. We didn’t always like each other (Cathan usually wasn’t speaking to someone) but we were all we had to hang on to.

The younger ones were at the party too, sending us off the way we’d sent off the other years ahead of us. We opened all the partition walls in Commons, to make it one big room. We did all the traditional things, singing Old Lang Zine just before midnight. I tried telling the others just how old that song was, the way I did every year, and they all threw cups of Fizzup over me.

Then we put on the big vid wall to show the countdown to midnight, and shouted along in chorus as the numbers flashed on the screen. ‘Three! Two! One! Happy Year Day 2789!’

We cheered wildly as we all became a year older. Our Next Step Principal had been lurking in a corner keeping an eye on things, now she stepped forward. ‘Congratulations to our new adults. Let’s all wish them happiness in the future.’

The younger kids cheered again. I was embarrassed to find I was getting a bit weepy. Issette was unashamedly crying. We were 18, we were adult, we were moving on. There was a time when people counted ages from the day each person was born, not from Year Day. Must have made things really messy and lonely at times like this.

Eventually the younger ones headed off to bed, the Principal said goodnight, and it was just the nine of us left in Commons. Issette was asleep on the floor. We woke her up because Ross and Maeth wanted to register their first Twoing contract. They’d been waiting months for this. The rest of us watched while they dialled Registry, entered their details, and got the confirmation. Then we all applauded and gave a big cheer.

Ross was planning to work in either a Home or a Next Step one day, so he was going Care and Community Foundation Course. Maeth had picked a random course that was on the same campus. She wasn’t bothered what course she did, because she was planning to be a ProMum and you don’t need qualifications for that.

‘They only allow you to have a three-month contract to start with,’ Maeth said, ‘but that means we can get on to our second Twoing contract quickly, and qualify for joint student accommodation.’

Ross nodded. ‘One more three-month contract, then a six-month contract, and we’ll have the minimum three contracts and a year needed to get married. You have to all promise to come to our wedding next Year Day.’

We all promised.

‘After that …’ Ross grinned at Maeth.

She blushed. ‘After that, we have our kids. Ideally, I’d like our own kids to be at least two years old before I start being a ProMum when I’m 25.’

They had their whole future lives planned out. Listening to them, I didn’t know whether to be jealous or terrified. After a bit, they said goodnight and headed off. The rest of us went a bit quiet after that. I suppose we were all thinking the same thing. Just because a couple start Twoing, it doesn’t automatically mean that they … On the other hand, Maeth and Ross had been together a long time, so now they were adults they probably would … I told myself sternly that it was none of my own business.

Cathan’s mind was clearly also considering the options available to adults. He wandered over to sit next to me with horribly fake casualness.

‘We should get back together, Jarra,’ he said, in a low voice.

‘I’m about to spend a year on assorted history dig sites,’ I pointed out. ‘They’re only open to authorized visitors.’

‘You could visit me even if I can’t visit you.’

‘It’s not a good idea. You wouldn’t be happy unless we spent most of our time together, and that just wouldn’t be possible because of my work and the time zones.’

Cathan wasn’t accepting the polite brush off. ‘We’ve got a bit of time still before we head off. We can try and work things out. Let’s go to my room and talk. We’re 18 now, so I could go and buy some wine and …’

I got sick of being tactful. ‘I know we’re adults now and the room sensors won’t bother us, but I’m not getting drunk and spending the next thirty-six hours in bed with you.’ I stood up and tried to walk away.

‘Oh come on. You want to try it too …’ Cathan came after me, grabbed me, and gave me an incompetent attempt at a masterful kiss.

Just maybe my psychologist is right about my aggression, because I really enjoyed what happened next. I grabbed Cathan’s arms, rolled backwards, and threw him over my head. I’d been enjoying doing this sort of thing in unarmed combat lessons every morning for the past month, but doing it for real was totally zan!

I stood up, and looked down at Cathan. Commons had a nice padded floor, so he wasn’t hurt, just absolutely grazzed. So was everyone else. Issette pulled a buggy-eyed, amazed face at me.

‘Like I said, Cathan. The answer is no. Good night, everyone.’ I made a magnificent exit and headed to my room.

Once inside, with the door safely closed behind me, I fell on my bed and burst out laughing. Cathan’s face!

After a bit, I calmed down. I have to admit I put the vid on after that. I’d turned down Cathan’s generous offer, but I couldn’t resist indulging my curiosity by scanning a few adult vids. Since there was no one under 18 in the room, it gave me access to all the forbidden channels. I knew Beta was the most sexually permissive sector, so I took a look at some of their vids. Hoo eee! I’d never seen so much leg!

I went to bed after that and slept solidly through until early afternoon. When I woke up, I grabbed a quick meal down in Commons and started on the demoralizing task of packing. I’d lived in this room for six years, and it felt like I was dismantling part of myself.

I’d splashed out some credits on a set of luggage with hover pads. I wasn’t sure if everything would go in. It’s amazing how much stuff you can accumulate in one room. After an hour of sorting, I was quite positive everything wouldn’t go in.