Nero stepped into the metal can, with all the other people around him packing in like sardines. Since he was at the front of the line, he was pushed to the outer edge, right up against the window. Streams of people wandered on the streets below, a vibrant mishmash of colors going opposite directions. Giant posters full of bright reds and yellows were plastered across the faces of the buildings, advertising things like power increasing pills and the latest energy drink.
He tried to look away, only to spot another ad peeking out over the heads of the people inside the shuttle. As the train lurched forward, Nero grabbed on tightly to the pole next to him, reaching above the other hands that were already clasped on to it. As the train took off, he looked back out the window, down to the people along the ground below.
As the train broke away from the dense blocks of skyscrapers, it went out over one of the main roads, the southwest road. It went straight from the center of the city all the way out to the massive walls hidden behind the horizon.
The road was absolutely massive, with fountains dotting the center and trees popping up along the sides. Flocks of people moved throughout it, much sparser than the narrow paths around his building. Beyond the trees were short buildings, merely a single story or two, and large open clearings full of quaint architecture. The entire scene seemed to be designed around red bricks and cast iron curls. Behind the small buildings, the normal towering skyscrapers shot up, connecting the beautiful road to the rest of Nova Somnia.
Next to one of the fountains was a man swirling water through the air for a small crowd. The liquid formed into several shapes, just like animals, and moved around through the air, soon shifting to something else again.
In one of the clearings, a kid sat next to a vending machine, holding his hand out towards it until a soda popped down to the bottom. His parents rushed over to scold him. Nero could only let out a quiet sigh as the train rushed past, heading towards the heart of the city.
Once it arrived, he slowly shuffled out behind the flood of fish-eyed people in front of him, trying to make his way onto the landing. Just like the station by his apartment, the elevator was being crowded, so he decided to take the stairs, as usual.
He looked over the edge as he went down, looking out at the bright grass in the nearly blinding summer sun. It was an incredibly verdant green, full of life. He squinted at it, barely managing to shield his eyes from the light.
He split off from the crowd when he hit the bottom of the stairs, cutting through the grass towards the main part of the campus. He trudged forward across the campus, eventually coming to one of the older buildings on the other side.
He went inside, right as a well-dressed man with pure white hair stepped out. They both stopped at the doorway. The man took his hands out of his pants pockets and lightly patted his glossy blue vest.
"Excuse me." Nero moved towards his left, pushing his shoulders forward as he leaned back against the wall. The man slid around him, and leaned down towards the ground.
"Hold on a moment." The man reached out, grabbing Nero's shoulder. "You dropped this." He held up Nero's phone as he arched back up.
Nero absently held up his palm, letting the phone fall into it. "Thank you. If you'll excuse me."
"What's your name?" The man let go of him, turning around as he stood at the doorway.
Nero looked down the hall awkwardly before turning back. "Nero."
The man stood there without saying anything, a clearly fake smile on his face.
"Satou." Nero finished, furrowing his brow as he tried to figure out what the man wanted.
"An odd name. Where are you from?"
Nero looked over at the clock hanging over a corner in the hallway, squinting his eyes as he shifted the angle of his glasses.
"It's seven forty-eight. You should have twelve minutes before your class. Would you mind taking a short walk with me?"
Nero turned back to him. "Why?"
"Why not? You remind me of someone. You don't want to humor an old man?"
"You don't look that old."
"You flatter me. So, Nero Satou, what are you studying here?"
"My major is psychic research."
Nero didn't step away from the doorway, instead he took a single step into the hall, and was about to open his mouth to apologize.
The man cut him off before he could speak. "You seem so stiff. Should learn to loosen up some too. Psychic research is a good field, very promising. I suppose I shouldn't be bothering you too heavily, since you seem like you don't want to talk. Have a good day I guess."
The man walked off, with his hands in his pockets. Nero watched him disappear as the door shut between them. He slid his phone back into his own and was much more eager to get into his statistical modeling class than before.
***
Cyrus walked down the path with the white building behind him. He waved his hand, and Alcina walked up from the side of the building, wearing a pure white sundress. She handed him a small black strip, identical to the one he handed to Nero.
"What's special about the boy?"
"I don't know yet. I just had a feeling he was. So I wanted to learn more."
Cyrus unrolled the transparent film, as the phone turned on. "Do you have anything to hack into technology?"
"No."
"Well, let's see if I'm lucky then."
Cyrus pressed the number four several times, and with a click the lock screen disappeared, leaving a simple blue background. He quickly flicked his thumbs around, jumping between screens of it as he clicked on several of the basic apps.
Alcina watched as text flew past on the screen. "Anything useful?"
"A jackpot, actually." Cyrus chuckled stopping the screen with a green bar at the top.
"What?"
"He knows our target, even has him added by name in his contacts. He doesn't have his own address on here. I should ask Arnold if he can get it from the school's database. Come walk with me. We're going to his office."
Alcina followed along behind him along the path, students walked around them, barely batting an eye as they scurried towards their own morning classes. A few girls giggled as they went past, sneaking looks at Alcina's bare feet.
"Should we acquire shoes?" she asked.
"No. There's no need. Gossip won't reveal anything crucial. I could also use it to put you as a student here if need be, you almost fit the age range."
"We do not think we could blend in easily."
"Neither do I." Cyrus handed the phone back to her.
"He doesn't have many contacts," Alcina said, scrolling through the list with both hands.
"This building." Cyrus pointed ahead of them, at one of the smaller buildings.
They went inside, this one was particularly wooden on the inside, though with the same white and red color scheme accenting it wherever possible. There were only two floors, with a large section of them being taken up by a grand staircase. Cyrus went up first, heading off to the right. Once at the end of the hall, he knocked on the last door only to hear the rapid shuffling of papers. Alcina looked at the name plate, Chestfield.
"This is the fat man, yes?"
"He is rather large, and yes, you've met him."
"Come in!" a muffled voice yelled from inside.
Cyrus opened the door, and the pair went inside. Like the rest of the building, it was heavily designed with stained wood, from the solid desk to the several bookshelves. Unlike the rest of the building, a simple red rug accented the floor, and heavy black curtains blotted out the window. A laptop sat closed on one side of the desk with several papers under the lamp on the other.
"Oh it's you," Arnold said, looking up with a beaming smile on his oily, wrinkled face. "You didn't have to knock."
"I wouldn't want to interrupt."
Cyrus walked straight up to the desk, dropping his hands onto it with a thud. Alcina meandered to the side, eyeing the bookshelves.
"No please. My time is yours," Arnold said back.
"I have something to ask of you. I need the school's file on a particular student."
"Certainly. What student?" He opened his laptop, clicking around on the pad.
"Nero Satou."
"Spell it?"
"Alcina, what's it say on the phone? There should be the picture of his ID in his gallery I saw."
"S. A. T. O. U.," she said, returning to ogling some knickknacks with her tendrils.
After some quick typing, then more typing, and a brief pause, Cyrus finally asked, "What's taking so long?"
"There's barely anything here."
"What do you mean?"
"Come here and look."
Cyrus walked around behind the desk, bending over towards the screen. It was a form of some sort, mostly blank. The only things filled in were his name and picture. Other crucial bits, like hair color, height, weight, and power were all missing. At the bottom was an attachment, looking like a broken image link. Cyrus clicked it open.
"It is unusual, but this is enough."
On the screen was a scanned report from the IMB, indicating a student's involvement in a potentially traumatic event. The details were sparse, hastily scrawled out in near illegible script, but what he could make out referenced some sort of hostage situation. At the very bottom were two signatures, and their names in print; Grant Johnson and Fetter Young.
"What's it say? I can't read any of it."
Cyrus closed the laptop. "It doesn't matter, it's just we have a new target for now. A potential way to get to Fetter Young."
"I don't like where this is going."
"You don't need to, Arnold. You just need to make it happen. I need to be able to capture the kid. We don't have an address. So we'll just pick him up before he leaves here."
"That's absurd. We can't just abduct a student from the campus. That's the crown jewel! The IMB won't just let that be. I'll be at the center of it! I'm the dean of students!" His facade had broken as he shouted at Cyrus.
Cyrus stared at him until Arnold's forced smile returned. "Just do it. We'll fix your reputation later."
"Fine. We'll need someone to infiltrate the school as a students. Do we have anyone that could work?"
Alcina set down the physics toy she was messing with, glancing over towards the two men huddled over the desk.
Cyrus scratched at his cheek as he started to pace the room. "You are right, we need someone who can be tracked as a scapegoat." He stopped. "What about the one we are using out in District 13? He's about the right age, and we have Ira there with him right now to set things up."
Arnold's face started to break out of the beaming smile he had put on. "Excellent! how fast can he get here?"
"It should be a few hours. Let me call Ira." Cyrus pulled out his own phone, a fully solid pearly-white tablet. After a few swift buttons, he already had it up to his ear.
"Hey. This is important. Bring your guest here immediately," Cyrus said. "Fine. Just send him here then. Stay to watch the problem child. We'll be extracting using Arnold, so plan for that." He hung up. "That's been set in motion, time to wait."
"Wonderful, sir." Arnold rubbed his hands together.
"Alcina." Cyrus moved towards the door, straightening out his back with a crackle of bones.
"Yes?"
"We're leaving." Cyrus held up the phone. "We need to copy the data from this and return it, before our little trick is noticed."