The story so far: 

---- Aija is a Volunteer at the Pristine School at Innermost. She works along with Zuri and Ze, who are her friends. Aija has a crush on Ze. Aija catches a man – a possible kidnapper looking at her from the Apartments opposite her school. Zuri forces her to complain to the Principal, and so Aija does, but the Principal isn't there. Aija runs into the possible kidnapper and tells Zuri of it. Aija, Zuri, and Ze run into the possible kidnapper on the rooftop, where they had gathered to watch the rain.

---- Zuri visits her family at Apper town. She feels the air is different here than in Innermost.

---- Zuri visits her friends along with her brother Alex, at the neighborhood playground. 

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****3.2 - ZURI****

When Zuri woke up the next morning there were four messages, three from Aija and one from Ze. Aija's messages were about how she missed Zuri at school and about the Principal not being at school the entire week. Zuri knew Aija had only informed Zuri of it for the sake of it because she knew Zuri would go and inform him about the spy/kidnapper. Aija had made up her mind about not telling the Principal about the spy/kidnapper.

Ze's message read: Zuri, why didn't you come to school? All okay?

Zuri sighed. She kicked the blanket off herself and got up from the bed. Alex's bed was already made. He'd gone to school. Zuri smiled at the thought of her brother and wondered if he could stay young always. She hoped he wouldn't be too sleepy at school.

"Can I have cake for breakfast, Mama?" she asked walking into the kitchen.

"Sure, but only if you bring in today's food packets."

"That's easy..." smiled Zuri. "Can I go after awhile?"

"Sure."

Zuri had a big piece of the chocolate cake and told her mother, "You spoil me, Mama."

"You deserve it," Imani said as she cleaned the table.

Zuri giggled. She brought her DigiBook to the table and opened one of her History books. Zuri had been studying while volunteering. She was sure she wanted to be a teacher. She had also decided to take up History as her Major. So she'd applied to the Study While Volunteering Program and started her studies already. She had exams coming up the next month. Aija hadn't applied to the SWYP since she still wasn't sure what she would end up doing after Volunteering. Zuri was rather sure Aija wanted to teach – which is why she'd taken up Volunteering at the school despite her parent's reluctance. But, something kept holding her back from taking a concrete decision towards it. Aija always seemed lost. Zuri wanted Aija to take up the Teacher Training program so that they could be together. But ultimately the choice was Aija's.

Zuri loved History. She loved learning about the world before the Wars had ruined it. There were lessons on the world before, during and after the Wars, on how the people lived then, on how the Leadership was formed and how they forever changed how the people lived. Humans lived in countries before and they had several different ethnicities. Zuri had always had an interest in knowing more about this. The Leadership had changed it all by taking control of every single person alive – since not many had survived the Wars all over the world it had been easy. There were no such things as different countries, languages, ethnicities, and races anymore. People were purposely mixed by the Leadership in all the Cities except Pristine Cities six and seven. Maybe they wanted a semblance of the old world to remain somewhere – that's what Zuri had assumed anyway. All languages and religions were removed and one language was made the norm – now simply called CommLang, short for Common Language.

The History books did have a record of the old world and the humans that lived in it. She loved looking at people and trying to figure what ethnicity they might have resembled in the old world, though it was difficult now since they had been mixed for over seven hundred years now. She couldn't imagine a world where people of different ethnicities weren't mixed forming a single human race. She loved what the Leadership had done regarding this, though she didn't like what they did when it came to other issues. This had been a good decision, according to her. Apparently, in the old world people hated each other. She couldn't imagine people hating each other; it made no sense to Zuri. Weren't they all humans? Weren't they all the same –trying to live out their lives? There existed people who resembled different ethnicities even now, but no one saw each other differently. No one could imagine doing it.

After an hour of her studies, Zuri went to the food shop owned by her father. The shop was a distribution center, to where packed meals would arrive. People bought their meals there. However, some groceries like a few vegetables, fruits and eggs were available. The pre-packed meals were costly and not many out of Innermost could afford them. At Innermost even the fruits were available washed, peeled, cut and packed. Noah King hadn't studied much – like most people who lived in the outer towns of Cities couldn't. When he'd applied to the Leadership to start a shop, he'd been granted permission and that's how their family owned the small shop in their neighborhood.

She greeted her father and went around the store picking up packed salads, sandwiches and other pre-packed foods her mother had listed and put them in a basket. As she picked up a pack of chicken salad and put it into her basket, thinking of how even the pre-packed meals available there differed in quality compared to the ones in Innermost, a girl rounded the corner of the aisle and walked towards her. She seemed to be searching for something; her eyes scanned the rows of refrigerated boxes, packages, and glass bottles, a slight annoyance in them.

"Can I help you?" Zuri approached the girl.

"Where are the fruits?" she asked looking at Zuri, her voice bordering on hostility. "Not the pre-packed ones."

"Aisle four..." Zuri answered staring at the girl.

She was beautiful. No gorgeous.

The girl smiled at Zuri's obvious admiration of her beauty and said, "Thank you..." and walked away towards aisle four.

Zuri stared at the tall girl's silver-blonde hair bound at the nape of her slender neck, as she walked away. It took a few moments for Zuri to gather her senses. Her heart pounded and she had to steady herself as she walked to her father behind the counter.

"What's with all this stuff?" Noah asked her."Is your mother having a feast?"

"I hope so," Zuri said as her father tallied all the items in the basket.

"You know there were humanoid bots before to do this kind of job." said her father. "All this working behind the counter stuff could've been done by them."

"Well, too bad that our Leadership decided that the humanoids were too dangerous and destroyed them. I learned of the Humanoid Riots, in History. At least it gives you this job, Papa."

Noah sighed and handed the basket back to Zuri.

As Zuri put everything in her bag, the tall, silver-blonde haired girl came over to the counter with paper bags filled with oranges and strawberries. Noah weighed and billed them for the girl. The girl scanned her left index finger in the PayScan and left. Zuri looked furtively at the girl over her bag the whole time. She found the word 'beautiful' lacking in its ability to describe her. She wanted a word more powerful.

"What time is your train tonight?" Noah asked.

Eyes still on the door Zuri replied, "Eight. I'll be there in time for school."

"Alright now, go get that to your mother before she calls."

"Love you, Noah," she said drawing a frown from her father. She would call her father by his name when she was very young. He'd found it adorable then. Now, it angered him.

She stuck her tongue out at him and left. Zuri halted just as she stepped out; her heart pounding against her chest.

"Hi." the girl said approaching her.

Zuri looked up at the girl, stunned.

"Sorry," the girl smiled apologetically. "I was quite rude to you."

Zuri shook her head. The girl laughed, her eyes now holding a gentle sort of look replacing the annoyance from before.

"I'm Nala." she held her hand out.

"Zuri..." whispered Zuri holding her hand out for Nala.

Nala shook it once and said, "It's nice to meet you, Zuri."

Zuri nodded, her heart driving her mad. Nala let go of her hand and turned around to leave, but turned around and said, "You're cute, Zuri."

Zuri smiled feeling stunned, happy, amazed, breathless and awestruck. No one had told her that.

"Will I see you again?" Nala asked. Wisps of her silver-blonde hair swayed in the slight breeze and Zuri could make out strands of pink hair among the silver-blonde. And, all she wanted to do was run her fingers through it.

"Maybe..." Zuri said with a hint of a smile.

Nala looked at Zuri for a moment before gracing her with a smile and then walked away.

Zuri walked home, all the while, a smile playing on her lips. 

**

Imani, Noah, and Alex dropped Zuri at the TerraTurbo Station. Alex was crying and she found it hard to leave. But, she had to. She hoped that soon Alex could go to Innermost as well and that their parents would be able to join them. They had to wait five to six years more for that to happen.

She found her seat, put her bag full of clothes and food in the storage above and sat. She'd gotten a window seat again and she looked out at the moon. She smiled thinking of Nala. She couldn't wait to tell Aija about her. She took out her AIVIO Scroll, she hadn't replied to either Aija or Ze yet. She found two calls from Aija. She voice called her.

"Zu?"

"Ai... Missed me?"

"You're mean. I sent you so many messages telling you I missed you. You didn't care to reply."

"You know I love Ai. Listen..."

"Zuri, you won't believe this." Aija cut her sounding hurried.

"What?"

"Do you remember that old man who came out to the rooftop to watch the rain?"

"Yeah... Kind of...."

"Well, he's been reported missing by his family."

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