Cenerea, 3rd planet from the star Letria, Regalius,The Homeland,

Central Region, The Capitol City, Homeland University,

Eighteen Cenerean Months Ago

 "Oh no!" Jay stared frightfully at his wrist as he scanned in at the University's security checkpoint. "Damn it, I didn't realize what time it was, Elle! I need to hurry up and get my ass over to Building C. I have to log into Instructor Bouri's A.I. class on time this morning...can't screw up this year or I'm toast." Jay peered into Elle's lovely green eyes, quickly kissed her on the lips, and made a mad dash for Building C. "I'll see you at mid-day, okay?" he yelled over his shoulder.

"I love you!" Elle shouted as Jay disappeared into the throngs of first year students meandering their way to class. She thought she heard him reply, but she wasn't sure. "Whatever..."

...

Attempting to control his over-exerted breathing and pounding heart, Jay took a deep slow breath and slid through the open door into the auditorium. 08:00:00. Good. He silently traversed the stairs to the rows of classroom seating attempting to stay invisible.

"Well, well... This is new. It seems you are right on time for once, Mr. Levant...great way to start the new school year." 

The room briefly came alive with the low rumble of nervous laughter.

Jay's ears warmed. "What a dick..."

"Okay, okay...eyes on me, everyone!" The stately old man stood in the center of the large classroom and paused. He looked about the auditorium and raised an arm, gesturing for the lights to dim over the students. A spotlight activated and focused its beam on the lanky form that was Harold Bouri, Homeland University Instructor of Artificial Intelligence Studies. Dressed in his white Instructor's uniform, the beam illuminated Harold like some sort of holy man about to impart his wisdom. His rows of Homeland Military badges and medals on his chest sparkled under the narrow white beam.

"This is a new year and this is a new class for many of you. For some, it's not so new..."

Jay imagined he felt Mr. Bouri's gaze focusing on him as he positioned himself in a seat, although he was sure he probably couldn't see him. "Yep, no doubt, Bouri's out to get me."

"...at the start of each new class year, I like to set a few ground rules to kick things off on the right foot."

The auditorium groaned.

"I don't really care if you want to hear it again or not you second year failures. Go ahead mess with me, I can bury you in lab work and quantum equations for the whole damn year." Harold grinned at the silence he had just created. "That's what I thought. Now where was I? Ah yes...number one: Let me assure all of you, I do not care for mindless sports of any kind. No one gets preferential treatment in this class so you can go to the finals or the-whatever-it-is. All I care about is A.I. in here. Number two: Although my dear wife is no longer with us, I have no interest in you young people. You can't entice me into passing you, don't even try."

Harold gave his speech a moment of rest until the roaring laughter calmed to a controllable level. "...And number three: I really do not give a flying fuck about how smart you think you are, or what your grades were when you left your last hall of education. Understand me, I have one very important task here and that is to make sure the lot of you leave my class with at least a basic understanding of the processes and functions you need to perform your assigned duties in the extremely difficult field of Artificial Intelligence."

Harold snickered and shook his head. "This, I find, is the tallest order of them all. I have little hope this year that any of you numbskulls will make it more than two months in here before you are ready to join the infantry." The tall, wire-framed Instructor peered at the quiet shadows that sporadically occupied the scalloped rows of auditorium seats.

"I know the Homeland sent the vast majority of you here because of your aptitude test scores, this means it is now up to me to determine if those test results were accurate or not, justifying your placement here. No one, especially The Military, the Homeland Government, and for a select few, the various covert agencies we can't mention out loud, needs some pampered brat messing up their equipment. They need people who can create, program, and maintain the next generation "thinking" machines and applications that have such an impact on Society. What they do not need are individuals wasting everyone's time unable to perform their assigned job duties. What is it we say? For the good of the Homeland!"

Without hesitation, the students replied in unison, "For the good of the Homeland!"

"Excellent. Now that we are all on the same page..." he looked down and paused as if he found a lost credit. "You know, I admit before I started this endeavor of mine so many years ago. This educational adventure if you will...the molding of minds. Some of you I imagine think I might have lost mine in the process."

"Got that right, Bouri!" A student yelled from an unknown auditorium seat causing the class to break out in laughter once more.

"That's funny Tucker...See me right after class and we'll discuss your comedy career...outbursts like that will land your future in A.I. right in the toilet. I mean this is what? Your second year taking my class? You do as well as you did last year and you will never darken my doorway again, am I correct?"

"Sorry. Mr. Bouri."

The class chuckled once more.

The Instructor paced in a semi-circle around the floor as he continued to speak. "Well, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted...I did not envision I would work for the Government as an Instructor. Back when I was around your age, the Homeland did not own everything the way they do now. Actually, they didn't even exist. A Confederation citizen could go to any number of private universities and get a job from all sorts of different companies of their choosing. A strange thought to you all now, no doubt. It was a time well before you were born."

Harold's captive audience generated a low, nervous rumble. It seemed to Jay, who was right there with his fellow students in regards to the near subversive language they were hearing, that old Harold was ignoring their discomfort or maybe he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to even notice.

The man seemed to shrink as he sat against his desk in the front of the room. "The Homeland took away those choices. Now, we are all in the same boat more or less. What is it they say about misery?" he asked, waving a hand around. "At one time you could speak up..." the man abruptly stopped speaking as if changing gear and scratched his head.

The Instructor glanced skyward and stared through the lights above his captive audience. It was as if he saw something in the darkness. His deep voice trailed off into a barely audible whisper, "...well, forget I said anything. I am an old man and sometimes I forget to parse my words like I should before I say them..." Raising his hand once more, he turned his palm to the ceiling and rolled his lanky fingers into a ball. A large curved glass monitor lowered from the ceiling and illuminated the faces of the once shadowy students in the auditorium.

"Well then..." Retrieving a control panel from his desk, the Instructor's volume and tone returned, "...without further ado, let us begin. We have a very long year ahead."

"That wasn't the same old introduction speech from last year." Jay thought to himself. "Maybe old-man Bouri is losing it." Brushing off any further mental analysis, Jay retrieved a flexible digital notepad from his backpack and began transferring the notes appearing on the monitor ahead.

...

"Over here, loser!" Elle shouted from the top of a metal park bench outside of the University cafeteria. She waved at Jay over the crowd of students like someone on the deck of a departing ship.

Jay strode up to the bench and helped the Arcturan down.

"I picked up a couple trays while I waited for you. They weren't going to give me yours without you being here until I told them who my mother was," she said, grinning triumphantly like she had slain their meal in a battle. "It's not like they couldn't tell, duh?" Elle pointed to her head of trophy hair. "I think the worker was new or blind or both, maybe?"

Jay placed his hands on each side of his fiancé's beautiful, porcelain-colored face and pressed her cheeks together, puckering her lips. "I love it when you spoil me like that," Jay whispered, "I love you."

"Get off me, fool." Elle giggled and pushed Jay away. "You just want me for my cafeteria cookie."

Jay assumed a serious face and sat down. "Dammit, you know me too well. Just when I thought I had you fooled. So, Elle who's your assigned bio-electronics engineering Instructor this year? I heard old man Perdot was out for the year after he fell and broke his hip." Jay wasn't one bite into his sandwich when a tap on the shoulder interrupted him.

Elle's expression indicated that whoever it was meant some sort of business. "Uh oh."

Jay immediately turned around preparing for the worst. It was the worst. Instructor Bouri-worse. "Mr. B-B-Bouri! How nice to see you again. Is everything okay? I thought I was on time this morning."

Harold Bouri's long frame partially blocked the midday sunlight as it flickered through the trees. Shielding his eyes, Jay looked up at the looming Instructor and waited for a reply.

"Jay, I need to see you after you finish lunch. It is very important. Just come to my office in Admin 3 when you are done. It's the third floor, office 326." the Instructor said flatly. Then, as abruptly as he appeared, he was gone.

Jay slowly turned and gazed into Elle's concerned eyes.

Elle asked, "I wonder what that was about?"

"I don't know, Elle. But, I really do hope it is something good. After last year, I could use some 'good' about now."

Elle's expression darkened and Jay realized very quickly he did not phrase his last sentence very well. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I meant 'something good' academically. Please, you ARE the one good thing I do have." the sunlight that was 'Elle' slowly returned. Jay realized he narrowly dodged that bullet.

Elle regained her previously bubbly demeanor and offered, "Maybe he wants to give you some extra credit or something? He probably feels sorry for you. We all know you are 'special'." Elle air quoted the statement and laughed. "That's why they held you back a year."

"Okay, I deserve that."

Jay spent most of the break attempting to ignore the worrisome feeling in the pit of his stomach. "It's probably nothing," he kept telling himself, but the young man knew if he was cut from the A.I. program, the life he envisioned with Elle would never happen. Jay couldn't do that to her...again. Not after all she did for him.

The previous year, Jay nearly killed his and Elle's future when he hacked into the University's Instructor servers to 'fix' some grades for his friend Zale, who just happened to be the Dean's son.

"You're too smart", he was told. "You're too good to get caught, Levant," Zale said. "Blah, blah, blah..." Evidently, he was not that good. Instructor Bouri caught him red-handed after changing a mark in the old man's scoring A.I. Smart bastard.

Up until this point, Jay arrogantly believed he was in some ways invincible and this skewed belief, and his arrogance, grew exponentially worse with each day following the incident in the field behind the orphanage. Jay had always assumed his top shelf friends were watching out for him; although it appeared even they have their limits when it came to stuff like this. He realized that as he sat by himself in the University Review Board hearings.

It was here that he found out the Dean hated him to the core for what he had done, and wanted him removed in lieu of his son. Now, Jay assumed, he might possibly be number one on Harold Bouri's shit list, most likely due to his reinstatement into University and his unfortunate return to old Bouri's class.

Jay was running short on friends once more, which seemed to be a consistent theme throughout his life. Well, that was until Elle and her family came along.

"You know, you worry too much, Jay." Elle said before taking another bite of her sandwich.

Jay said quietly, "I hope you're right, but this could be the beginning of a yearlong session of Bouri's revenge."

Jay heard the wild stories told of Harold Bouri and the things he supposedly did to students he did not care for. Students assigned to strange A.I. systems with nasty demeanors wreaking havoc on them in the labs. All of the victims were pupils Harold did not like.

Then there were rumors of failing grades for brilliant projects. Projects the Military brass absolutely loved so much they recruited the failed student in spite of their grade point average. However, those were the lucky ones. The rest either flunked out and went in the Military as some desk jockey or shuffled off to obscurity as some meaningless Homeland factory worker.

Unable to eat his lunch,  Jay maintained a somber mood throughout the Mid-Day break. Elle was sure she knew what Jay was worried about; although she was convinced, he was probably just over analyzing the situation. Elle eventually settled on quietly "being there" for him. She could not do much else here in the middle of the University student body anyways. Not that she wouldn't if Jay asked...however, he did not and she knew he would not. He was always that kind of 'gentleman'.

The couple left the bench, disposed of their half-eaten food, and found shade under a nearby ancient tree. Elle laid her head on his shoulder. Jay could feel the beating of her heart on his arm, the gentle softness of her touch. For that brief period, even the clamoring noises of the lunchtime University student body cajoling about like wild animals washed away. Sadly, the calm was too temporary. The distant bells of the massive Citadel Tower, majestically rising above the treetops lining the University grounds, began to ring indicating Mid-Day lunch break was over. Jay now hoped his career wasn't.