You enter the university. Hidden heaters keep the spacious interior temperate, and you suspect that from the shadowy corners of the ten-meter-high ceiling, long-range, high-sensitivity security lenses watch.
"Don't stare at them or they'll think the wrong thing" says Isaac. He seems to have noticed them too.
Confirm their identities and admissions at reception, where they are shown the way to the auditorium. You descend a ramp down a gray gorge, which to the surprise of many leaves you in an opera house equipped with intense spotlights, and thick red curtains that fall on the flanks of the stage.
You and Isaac occupy two free seats. The comfortable seats mold to your vertebrae and draw a gasp of satisfaction from you in perfect synchronicity.
Attendance is full, the auditorium is packed. The spotlights turn to focus on the pulpit of the stage. A little man appears in a suit, with an affable smile and gray sideburns. He is the rector. His speech is brief but accurate, without frills or linguistic masturbation. The rector follows the style of the military man who, centuries ago, tightened the screws on politics and society, and turned Venezuela into the military and atomic power it is today. He praises the homeland, the war heroes, the teachers, and God.
The welcome ends. The students applaud. Some shed a tear or two. They were leaving, happy to begin this new stage in their lives, when the smart phones and cybernetic appendages began to notify their owners. Now that the welcome was over, no one saw any problem in answering or going inside their neural device.
First a heavy silence falls. Then the murmurs and questions spread. Keywords: Attack, terror, kidnapping, and train 321. Isaac and you exchange glances, you notice him pale and it could not be less, the assaulted train is just the one that brought them.
The monitors calm the students down. Rumor has it that the PSUV is responsible for the attack. An hour later the rumor is confirmed by a communiqué from the National Security. Those students sympathetic to the left still doubted and predicted possible Fake New, but as soon as the Diosdado Cabello brigade began to upload the executions of the kidnapped civilians on the Internet, no one could ignore the reality.
You were frightened by the possibility of discovering the pretty attendant among those kidnapped by the socialists, so you ignored any extra information about the red chronicle.
Go to your bedroom and rest. You need it (Scene 16)