Li's look sobers me as I meet his eyes again.
"Where are we going?" I ask meekly.
Li sets me down on my feet. "If you can talk, you can walk. Pay attention to your surroundings for once."
I look around and realize we are on the outside of the school heading towards one of the open-air classrooms, specifically the first class of the day. I like to call it the "propaganda" class, but it is actually called Current Political Affairs. Li now behind me motions me forward and we take the steps. When we reach the little amphitheater that is used for our class room, I spot Hong-er first motioning us to a spot together against the right side, again facing in such a way to be able to see the room easily.
"Good!" I hear Li mutter as we join her and Wuji. He is in the middle of spreading out the contents of his back pack to detour other students from approaching. Most don't bother, but the few that do find themselves accidently shocked by a stray wire or tripped by a partial robotic arm. I can see the smile on his face as he looks away from the most recent guest into his space. Of course, when they start to curse him Wuji turns and profusely apologizes while peppering his talk with technical jargon.
We approach close enough to hear is latest explanation. "And that's why the capacitor can't touch a conductive surface. I should have made sure they were both capped but..." The latest victim walks away not willing to hear any more details on the process of electric shock. He coughs in a way I know is a laugh. Most wouldn't notice, but he's my foundling brother after all. His eyes are bright behind his blue rimmed glasses.
I know I told you about his serious work glasses, but this is the pair he wears when not creating. They seem to be just like mine, but I know he can see just fine without them. He pretends to be near sited like me to be able to test his smart glass tech. He calls it debugging, but all I know is when I got my first pair of glasses, he suddenly started complaining to the computer. His first set of smart frames were developed shortly after that. I think he also likes how he looks in them as well. I have to admit he is no LiBang, but the large blue frames do match his eyes.
"Sit!" Li says and places me in the middle of the mess of technology parts. I hope he will sit beside me but he lets Hong-er and Wuji take the seats to the left and right of me while he takes a seat one row behind and one seat farther to the right so that no one can sit behind him.
I see JiXiang in the middle of the very front row. Her entourage seems to be growing, apparently this future Queen thing seems to be working for her. I think it's just the desperate want that we all have to be done with this Dome. If the Planet is still turning at the same rate, it was when we entered the Dome, then over 720 years have passed. Why would we still be in this Dome if what JiXiang said was true.
The class quiets as a familiar teacher approaches the podium in the center.
"Please stand." Mr. J says motioning us all to say the pledge.
Some really get into the pledge, but not me. Completely without inflection I repeat, "I pledge allegiance to the Queen and the Plan that she represents. May she in her mercy keep us in safety both now and in the future. We sacrifice our ancestry to keep you safe. We will stick to the Plan and save the Queen."
I roll my eyes as we say the last sentence. Fortunately, Mr. J isn't looking my way or I would get a penalty like scrubbing the junk from the inside of the cleaner bots. I glance at JiXiang, who is bowing dramatically. I wonder if she will start wearing a crown. If she did, it would have to be made of the scraps of something else. Thinking about it I wonder if she has a tech in her entourage. If she does, I know they aren't as good as Wuji. They can't be that good.
I turn to look at Wuji who seems to almost catch my gaze, but I realize he's looking at a point beyond me. I follow his gaze to see the screens on either side of the teacher light up. They are the same size as those in our rooms, but they are hung farther off the ground so that the students get an uninterrupted view of what they show.
Like every day the familiar pretty face of the news anchor can be seen as she begins to tell us the news.
"This morning, day 165, of the 723 year after the Plan,...." the news anchor's voice chirps cheerily.
As my own act of rebellion, I reach inside my bag and pull out a tablet. All students are given one for assignments since full sized computers are too big and resource dependent to give all of us students our own device. I press the button at the bottom of the screen and focus. The screen blips on for a second then back to black. Oh, wrong one.
See even though we don't get to know who our parents are, they are allowed once non-personally identifiable item. For some it was a book, the pre-Dome kind with real paper. You'd think that would be pretty rare since they weren't a necessity. As preparation for the dome every bit of literature and entertainment that they could find was preserved in the Ark database. So the text could be read at any time on any device connected to the network, making a real paper copy of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing , LiBang's parent's choice of item, interesting but not worth more than the paper it was printed on. Mine is this broken tablet, which is about as useless as you can get. Wuji had tried to tinker with it and couldn't seem to make anything new happen except for the blip, nothing like scrap tech that someone else broke.
"... rise in hunter movements..... Please exercise caution..." the anchor continues with a more serious tone.
I pull out the other tablet in my bag. This one is considerably smoother looking and fully functional. I click past the notifications. If I wanted to know I would have listened to the report, but I don't so I clear all my Dome wide notifications. My inbox flashes as I receive a message.
TO: Lulu
FROM: Wuji_theawesome@youknowit.dome
SUBJECT: JiXiang
TEXT: She's got to be out of her mind, right? Why would you advertise yourself as the successor to the Plan when the Hunters are getting restless? Oh, sorry about touching your cheek. It was an accident I swear. Also look like you are paying attention. I don't know if I can help you clean them this time. If the teachers find out I'll be given a worse job, like tuning up the kitchen bots.
Fill out this survey on the new AI updates. Link www.wujis_survey.dome
I laugh to myself. I know exactly how he would tune up the kitchen bots. I am about to click the survey link when the news anchor's voice shakes me from my thoughts, "...And remember, stick to the Plan and save the Queen."