Before lessons, Arthur went to meet up with childhood friend, Max.
"Hey man! How you doing bro?" Max exclaimed as he hugged Arthur. "You scared all of us when we found you unconscious. You should've seen Alexia, she was panicking left and right."
"Actually I did see her yesterday. She looked fine to me."
"Probably just to keep hear calm appearance. I bet when you see her today, she's going to keep questioning you. Trust me man, she wants you bro." Max said as he smiled mischievously.
Arthur didn't smile back, and instead rolled his eyes; "How many times are you going to say that. It's getting annoying now, it's not true. Relax."
"Yeah yeah. Sure…" Max smiled wider.
***
After an hour of talking and walking with his friend, they got to the university. Max left him alone, he had a group project that was due in two hours and he didn't finish his part yet so he stared running to the physics building. In the meantime Arthur took in the ambiance.
The university was enourmous. It was top-ranking globally and as such, allowed many students. In order to accommodate all the students and their needs, the university was built on 200 acres of land. The university was split up into different sections for the different types of degrees, there was the engineering sector , a medical sector, a science and maths sector and more. He still had an hour left, so he went to spend some time at the library. When he got to the entrance, he saw Alexia running towards him.
"How are you doing!?" She shouted as she panted. "I'm sorry I didn't talk to you yesterday, I was working."
"Yeah don't worry I know." Arthur smiled; "I'm feeling better than I did before, must've paid off all of my sleep debt in full. So what did I miss?"
She chuckled and they went inside, sitting together at a table. As she handed him the material for what he missed, he felt his phone vibrating.
It was a message from Niles. He didn't expect him to establish contact so soon.
—————-
Niles:
Could you get some detailed books about relativity, please?
Arthur:
Alright snm
Niles:
What's 'snm'?
Arthur:
Say no more
Niles:
Oh?
—————-
Arthur noted that he should teach him about texting online. As he was putting his phone away, he felt his phone vibrate again.
—————-
Niles:
By the way, we're going to a night club. Call me when you're finished.
—————-
"What's wrong?" A soft voice asked.
Arthur had his gaze fixed on his phone for almost a minute.
"Sorry one second."
Arthur got up and left the library. He dialled Niles. Almost immediately he picked up.
Arthur looked around and made sure no one was close by.
Arthur was perplexed, but he just had to wait until night time. For now he had to focus on university.
***
A couple of miles from Arthur's university, right in the middle of the town stood a short skyscraper. The outside advertised it was a law firm, but that's not what it was. In reality it was a government building that focused on all kinds of international affairs, but now on the deteriorating state of the world. This quick exponential growth in enhanced humans truly took them by surprise.
Near the top of the building was a floor full of offices dedicated some of the more important scientists employed by the government. One of these offices was occupied by a Dr Baron.
Dr Baron came to work this morning with a sour mood, he did not see his son yet. This crisis had the biggest impact on him, as the science department leader, he was in charge of research on enhanced humans in this branch, therefore he had to make sure his subordinates were all doing their job. He averaged only 4 hours of sleep a day and worked 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. He had to clock in for overtime just to make sure he handed sufficient reports on time.
He has had dark circles under his puffy eyes for the last two weeks. He got up from him seat and went to the coffee machine in the break room. He never liked drinking coffee before, but now he needed triple the recommended caffeine intake just to handle all the work. He took his coffee black and it may have given him a lot of energy but he still felt irritated by the happy chattering of his coworkers. They could go home to their children, all because of him breaking his back at work everyday. He worked a weekly 112 hours out of the 168 hours that were in a week. No one expects someone to handle being overworked like this, but Dr Baron was doing it for the betterment of humanity, for his children.
He silently went back to his office with a large cup of coffee in his hand, and focused on one of the three computer screens on his desk. After putting he cup down, he started rubbing his eyes, he was even hallucinating. He thought he saw the computer quickly click off from a page the second he looked at it, as if it was possessed. Dr Baron laughed at himself. For a moment he was seriously considering that he was hacked and that someone bypassed the government firewall. No one in the world could hack a government computer.
Unknown to him though, far outside the borders of the town he lives in, was Niles, who was now in his basement looking at everything that was on Dr Baron's screens.