As the bus passed out of the slums where Max grew up and into better neighborhoods, it began picking up more students. Very few families were like Max's and squandered absolutely everything they received.
The bus slowly filled with his new classmates, and Max took the time to look into each one's mind, evaluating them. What he found were mostly the undeveloped minds of small children. To his more developed sensibilities, anyhow.
Max was sure that there must be at least a few more like himself, who were more mentally developed, but so far, he hadn't seen much indication of it, except in one student, who had at least played the restricted mecha simulators before.
The bus was almost full of children when a girl called Nico got on, chuckling at the students with their clothes in disarray and their eyes red from a sorrowful parting with their parents. Her reaction intrigued Max. That wasn't how any of the others had reacted when they got on the bus.
Her friend Nathan gave her a fist bump when she approached, showing her the seat he saved beside him, and the girl settled in before making fun of her friend for having cried when he left home.
"I hope we're in the same class," Nathan whispered to her, looking over the bus full of kids.
"It will be so boring if we're not. Who else can even try to keep up?" Nico asked.
Nathan's medical checkups showed that he should have low Alpha-ranked System compatibility with Beta-ranked physical potential, though he didn't activate an Innate Talent.
Still, that put him well ahead of his peers in development and made him the only other pre-academy-aged student that Max's memory scans had found to be capable of playing the VR piloting programs that Max loved.
Most of these kids could barely do multi-variable calculations or understand the necessary geometry and physics, much less physically master the multiple-input processes needed to get the mecha to do more than basic, crude movements. Before the kids were old enough for the academy, most of them were console gamers, and a dozen buttons on a controller is a far cry from what is needed to control a Mecha.
The mind of the girl that just entered the bus felt very familiar to Max for some reason, so he reached out with his ability to borrow some additional memories and learn more about this outgoing and confident dark-haired tomboy.
To his surprise, it was the girl with memories of her past life. The very first mind he ever touched after he was Reincarnated into this world. He would have recognized those memories of Mecha from anywhere. She had, and might still have, memories of an entire life of Mecha piloting, and her recent memories suggest that had been training just as hard as him to get ready for the academy.
It seemed that this girl was also in the piloting program, and Max made a devout wish that they could become friends. Her memories gave him not only reference and basic skills to work with as an infant but a purpose in life to survive the neglect and abuse of a childhood spent with his wastrel parents.
If he gets reincarnated again, he's definitely asking what happened with his memories in this lifetime.
"When we get there, Even identification numbers to the left, Odd to the right. Odd numbers, your dorm supervisor will be Major Amanda Payne. Respect her as your ranking officer, and all will be well." Colonel Black instructed the students on the bus. Both Max and Nico took note, as they both had odd-numbered identifications.
Many of the students had very little idea what he meant beyond being polite and listening to her, and even that is iffy for some of the worst-behaved. Their parents had been raising them wild and free, hoping the military would reject them and send them home.
It was a grossly misguided notion. The children had a decade of intensive 'educating' ahead of them, and misbehaving would keep them in the Academy the entire time without a chance to visit home.
So, the new students simply milled about the asphalt courtyard with its yellow-painted grid pattern, waiting for someone to tell them what to do while taking the time to meet their new classmates.
Major Payne was a tall woman with long dark brown hair tied in a military regulation bun, as opposed to Nico's military-approved pixie cut of her black curls and Max's shoulder-length blonde perm.
Right to the bitter end, his mother insisted on this dreadful haircut. The first chance he got, the perm was going to be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
The major turned, looking at them all assessingly, judging who was likely to be trouble and who she would want to fast-track. Nico knew this, as it was in one of the government servers she had gained access to, listed as standard procedure for incoming students. Max knew this fact as well because it was in her recent memories when he checked on the bus.
Max spaced out for a moment, sorting through the instructor's mind, and quickly lost track of time and what was happening around him. It was a bad habit of his, but at Dave's house, he could usually hide the fact that he was zoned out behind a VR headset.
Knowing what was expected, Nico stood in one of the courtyard's many painted squares at ease, bag beside her, with her feet shoulder-width apart, her hands folded in front, in the customary ready stance of the Academy.
Nobody else did. In fact, they were still horsing around and giggling.
When he sensed the Major's approval of her actions, Max snapped out of his reverie and got into position next to the only other Cadet that knew what to do, feeling sheepish about his lapse in attention. He was at the academy now. He needed to make good impressions if he was going to get himself chosen as a potential Command Officer cadet.
From the corner of her eye, Nico saw one little blonde-haired girl standing on the mark on the floor to her left. Or was that a boy with a terrible haircut and a delicate face? Black shirt, so a boy, even if he was small for his age. Neither of the observant Cadets missed how the Major smiled a little and made a mark on her clipboard.
It was about ten minutes before the rest of the students understood that something was expected of them and that there was a reason why the supervisor wasn't speaking or showing them to their rooms before they slowly started lining up on the marked floor.
"Very good Cadets. All of you were under fifteen minutes. You will do one lap around the dormitory at a run for every minute it took you to fall in on your arrival. Lesson one. When you arrive. Fall in."
Four more officers appeared and led the rest of the Cadets out. "Cadet Nico, Cadet Max, you're with me. Fall in time was under a minute." Major Payne called, grabbing their attention.
From what Max could tell, the entire purpose of "Lesson One," as Major Payne termed it, was to wear out the excess energy of a bunch of twelve-year-olds who were excited to be in a new environment. If she told them to fall in right away, they would learn, but they would also be up all night, annoying her with their antics.
Max and Nico were assigned as roommates, and being the star pupils in the supervisor's eyes, they got the first pick of the dorms. All facilities were coed at the school, a measure designed to build unity amongst future soldiers. Following that idea, nothing that divided them except talent and unit was permitted.
"Could you show us a good choice, Major?" Nico asked. "Not too near the bathrooms, but not too far, preferably with a window?"
"Excellent choice Cadet Nico. Tarith Nico, that's an interesting name, a family name perhaps?" Major Payne asked in her all-business tone.
"No, ma'am. It's Nico Tarith," the girl corrected, and the Major showed her the official birth record from the military data tablet. Tarith Nico. Her parents had entered her name backward on the form when she was born.
That's the sort of thing he wouldn't put past his own mother, Max thought.
"From today, you are Cadet Nico. You may apply for a change of name once your basic instruction is complete." Major Payne consoled her with a gentle smile. "look at it this way, Cadet. You're the only one that gets to keep her own given name. First names are rarely used here."
This little tidbit, intended for his new roommate, was the single greatest thing that Max had ever heard. Nobody would be calling him Samantha, the name he despised largely because the mother he liked even less chose it for him. Plus, when he finished school, he could officially change it on his own.
The room the Major showed them to was a corner unit, the only one available for students in their year since the other three corners have been taken by the supervisors. Both outer walls had windows, and it was a slightly larger room than the other ones they had passed. Every door currently stood open until it had two occupants so that the supervisors could easily confirm which cadets are where and which ones were not getting with the program.
"Thank you for your consideration, Supervisor Payne," Nico and Max said at the same time, and the instructor gave them the fist-to-chest Imperial soldier's salute in return before leaving to return to her duties.