TRAVELLER (Book 1 in the Brass Pendant Trilogy) (10 page)

I took another bite of my breakfast and a sip of my creamy cocoa before I tucked a stray wisp of my hair behind my ear. I’d spent extra time this morning combing and styling it…….

The boy next door
did
walk to school.

I left my house at the usual time, and I saw him out of the corner of my eye when he closed his gate at the same time as I closed mine. I caught a glimpse of a school blazer the same as my own as well. Jonah would have already organised his enrolment at school and he would probably have collected the boy’s uniforms days ago, unbeknown to Evangeline. Our tutors were always organised when it came to papers and identification for use in Synthetic Era time segments and, for security reasons, students were usually only told of changes at the very last minute, after everything had already been arranged. I listened to the boy’s footsteps on the path behind me and I glanced back at him under the pretence of moving my school bag to the other shoulder. He was keeping his distance and I slowed my pace a little in the hope he’d catch up to me, but he slowed his pace too. I sped up, and he sped up too. I frowned and turned around.

“Are you following me?” I asked him curiously. I spoke to him in the local language and he looked surprised for a moment before he hid his surprise quickly.

“Why would I be following you?” he asked me innocently, and he spoke in the local language too as he walked towards me.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked you,” I said mildly, and he was level with me now.

“Maybe, I was just walking in the same direction as you,” the boy said, and he grinned as he passed me. I watched him for a moment before I narrowed my eyes at his back and started walking again.

“See, now it’s
you
who’s following
me
,” the boy said, as he turned to look back at me over his shoulder. I smiled before I could stop myself, and he waited for me to catch up to him.

“We’re going to the same place so we may as well walk together,” he said, and he spoke in the old language this time.

“Why didn’t you identify yourself in the manner of our people?” I asked him curiously. It was considered good manners to introduce ourselves with the Aldiris blessing whenever we met others of our race for the first time.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked me straight away. I frowned a little.

“Do you always answer a question with a question?” I asked him, and he grinned again.

“I didn’t have to identify myself because you watched me from your windows yesterday, and your tutor’s been speaking to mine, so I’m sure you already know who I am,” he said simply. He glanced at me sideways, but I was so flustered, I wasn’t sure what to say, and I felt him watching me as I bit my lip and looked away.

“Fair enough, I guess,” I muttered, as I tried to hide my embarrassment. I glanced at the boy, but he looked surprised again, although he was trying to hide it. “I don’t know your name. My tutor didn’t mention it,” I said.

“I know yours,” the boy said immediately. I sighed.

“I guess that’s to be expected,” I said wryly.

“I’m sorry, your Highness, for replacing your friend Evangeline,” the boy said carefully, and I looked at him and frowned.

“You’re not sorry so don’t pretend to be, and Evangeline was not my friend, nor is your Highness my name,” I said firmly, and this time, the boy didn’t try to hide his surprise as he stared at me for a moment.

“Okay, Livia,” he said, recovering quickly, and I smiled at his use of the local language. His accent was perfect.

“You speak just like the locals,” I said. He grinned.

“I like this Synthetic Era language. It sounds carefree and irresponsible just like the people here,” he said, and this time, he was telling the truth.

“You like this time segment,” I guessed, and he nodded.

“Education is highly inaccurate, but very simple, there are no hard chores to do, and everything is convenient and fast. The people here don’t have to grow up until they’re all of thirty turns of a marker, and even then it’s optional…….What’s not to like?” he asked me. I smiled.

“I don’t know about any of that, but I like the music here,” I confessed.

“You do?” he said, and from the doubtful look on his face, I could tell I was alone on that one.

“Yes…It’s carefree and irresponsible,” I said, as I realised he’d managed to identify exactly, the elusive quality that had attracted me to the music of this era. I frowned. “You do know all the convenience, chemicals and waste finally caught up with them don’t you?” I asked him mildly, and he shook his head.

“You’d think they would have realised Mother Nature just doesn’t tolerate that many signals in her atmosphere and all those poisons in her land and sea,” he said wryly. “But, we have a long while yet until the Meltdown. You and I could live out our lives here if we chose to. If I’ve been studying my history correctly, the marker in the park will be safe for about the next two hundred years or so,” he added cheerfully.

“Are you taking history at this school?” I asked him. He nodded and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know why we have to go to school here. Almost everything taught in this era is completely wrong,” he said, and I smiled again.

“Do you notice how every era thinks they’re far superior to those in the past and they all think they have everything right? They look back on eras past and say, how could they have been so stupid? None of them realise, the next era says exactly the same thing about them,” I said. The boy grinned and shook his head.

“The people of the Synthetic Era
are
stupid. They pay for electricity and water, both of which are all around us and could be had for free,” he said. I smiled.

“We shouldn’t be too quick to judge them. Someone will probably say
we
were stupid one day in
our
future,” I said, and the boy looked at me with a very strange expression on his face before he hid it quickly behind another grin.

“It’s Morgan…..my name,” he said. I smiled and stopped walking.

“May the gifts of the River Zahar remain among us through time, Morgan,” I said solemnly, and I spoke in the old language again. Such was the manner of our people.

“And may time never be lost between us, Livia,” said Morgan, as he looked into my eyes. I stared back at him for a moment, transfixed by the expression in his bright, blue eyes.

“Evangeline was driven to school. You don’t have to walk, you know,” I said suddenly, before I began to walk again. It was the first thing that had come into my head and I’d felt compelled to fill the awkward moment of silence between us.

“You don’t have to walk either, so why do you walk?” Morgan asked me, and I shrugged self-consciously.

“I like being outside by myself. That doesn’t happen often for me,” I said awkwardly, and Morgan looked surprised again.

“Just you; all alone with your six guards,” he said dryly. I frowned at him.

“I think six is an exaggeration. I’m sure there’s only……”

“The man behind us on the bicycle, those two men jogging on the other side of the street, the woman just ahead of us pushing the baby carriage, which by the way doesn’t contain an actual baby, and that man in the Synthetic Era business suit; they’re all Aldiris guards,” he said, without pausing to take a breath. I looked at each of the people he’d spoken of and, when I looked closely, I could tell he was right. They were definitely Aldirite guards. I even recognised one or two of them who drove me to classes, and I saw a guard who ran with Mirren and I in the park. I folded my arms.

“That’s only five,” I said smugly, as we walked past exclusive shops and joined more walkers who hurried beside us towards office towers and train stations.

“There’s five on ground level one, but there’s another one on the balcony of that building at the end of the street,” said Morgan smugly, and he nodded towards a woman who stood on the fourth floor balcony of a Discovery Era building. This guard had a view of my walk all the way down the main street, and her balcony was opposite the paved, public courtyard I crossed each morning. From her vantage point, she’d be able to see me until I was at the top of the concrete steps. I shook my head.

“And that makes six, so you were right,” I said sourly, and Morgan grinned.

We passed the entrance to the underground train station and I’d completely forgotten to look for the man with the hopeful eyes this morning. When I looked for him now though, he wasn’t in his usual spot and I glanced at Morgan instead. As we continued on our way, I asked him about his life thus far and he answered my questions mainly with questions of his own. By the time we reached the school gate, I’d told Morgan about my tutor, and about Jonah, and about the school we were heading to, and I’d also told him I knew virtually no other questers, other than Evangeline. I’d explained to him that I’d been kept mostly isolated as a child for security reasons and I’d told him how I’d been in private tutoring for all of my quest training. I’d also told him I couldn’t wait for my finals to begin, and he knew I was counting the days until I could arise to join the Quest, but the only thing I knew about him was that his mother worked as a servant in the Palace, and that he’d been in group training for most of the last six turns. He did tell me I was his fourth finals partner though, and, because of this and his group training, he knew quite a few of the other questers in our year.

When we entered our school building, Morgan had to go to the school office to collect his timetable and to finalise some of the pages of paperwork that were typically needed for early twenty first century school enrolment. He insisted I go to class rather than wait for him though, because he didn’t know how long he’d be, and he assured me he’d be able to find his own way around the school when he was done.

When he was gone, I walked slowly to my first class, oblivious to the noise and the hurried pace of the students who walked impatiently around me. I wondered whether Morgan would be taking the same classes as Evangeline had taken. If he was, it meant we’d be together for most of the day.

“Class will be over by the time you get there,” said a voice beside me, and I was roused from my thoughts to find Josh grinning beside me. I smiled at him a little guiltily. I’d completely forgotten he took the first class with me today. I looked at Josh closely. 

“Where’s your school tie?” I asked him.

“There was an accident in my lab this morning and I found another shirt, but I couldn’t find another tie,” he said, as he glanced down at his tieless shirt and shrugged. I frowned.

“What kind of accident?” I asked him, as we paused outside the door to our classroom. He looked to be unharmed, but I was still concerned. Some of his experiments sounded dangerous. He looked at me and grinned.

“I’d just added another element into a compound I’d manufactured but, unfortunately, it ended up being unstable in that ratio, as well as incompatible. When the compound exploded, it knocked my breakfast bowl off the bench and most of the contents landed on me,” he said cheerfully. I was still frowning.

“You eat breakfast in your lab?” I asked him. Eating around things that were exploding didn’t sound very hygienic.

“Not this morning. I think that was yesterday’s breakfast. I can’t be sure. I don’t record any data about breakfast cereal,” he said seriously. I shook my head and laughed.

“Well, at least do up your shirt button so it’s less noticeable that you don’t have your tie,” I said, and I reached out to fastened his button for him.

He grinned before he looked past me.

“Hey man, are you lost?” he said, and I turned around to find Morgan standing behind us in the middle of the hallway. He had a timetable in his hand, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at me with an unreadable expression on his face, and I glanced at Josh before I looked back at Morgan defiantly. It was probably better that he found out sooner, rather than later, that I’d made a friend here.

“No, this is the room right here, but thanks anyway,” said Morgan politely, in his perfect Synthetic Era language. He glanced at his timetable again before he looked from Josh back to me. “I probably should have told you we’re taking the same classes,” he said to me dryly, before he walked past me into the classroom.

“You two know each other?” Josh asked me in surprise. I nodded slowly as I watched Morgan disappear through the door.

“He’s my neighbour,” I said, and I followed Josh into the classroom to find Morgan was already seated. He’d found a seat in the middle of the room and I followed Josh to the back of the classroom and sat down beside him.

I watched Morgan take out his paper bound books and a chemical filled pen, and I saw the girl who sat beside him lean over towards him. She spoke to him and, when Morgan answered her, he smiled. I gritted my teeth. Didn’t he know we weren’t supposed to make friends with locals? I folded my arms as he said something else to the girl, causing her to laugh out loud.

“Sorry?” I said absently. I realised Josh was speaking to me and I turned to him as the teacher walked into the room.

“I said, why is he starting school here this close to the end of term? Did he get expelled from his last school?” Josh asked me quietly.

“Probably,” I said. I had no idea what being expelled meant, but it didn’t sound good. I watched Morgan speak to the local girl once again.