6 Fortescue Military Academy (1/2)
The hovervan Etana was riding zipped through the streets of outer Paris, its route optimised to deliver its occupant swiftly to the Fortescue Military Academy main gate. The closer it got to Paris the more vehicles it merged in a streamed with. They were like a school of fish, moving seamlessly from lane to lane at high speeds, never slowing, never colliding.
He had a small backpack in his lap and was wearing his bodysuit. Etana and his AI Myrmidon had studied the orientation and induction documents meticulously. The last thing he wanted was to be embarrassed in front of the crowd of snobs he was about to encounter. He took comfort in the fact that he had Myrmidon. He needn't make any friends and if at all possible he would avoid the awkwardness of socializing altogether.
It was lost on Etana that he was the most watched and followed the player in CyberMech, he rarely interacted with teammates and almost never spoke to his fans other than short text snippets, which Myrmidon wrote half of the time.
To him, the bitcreds accrued from streaming were a direct result of his unique playstyle and professional performance. If the fans did not like it, they would not watch. The irony was the second most popular player was a twenty-one year old woman who spoke to her fans regularly and shared personal images and vids. Her fans lapped it all up. They were polar opposites in terms of public relations. Some commentators thought that his mystery was for strategically genius and theories regarding his actual persona were part of his or her appeal. For all they knew Daedalus could be a female.
His bodysuit had arrived in plenty of time, Myrmidon tracked it all the way to their door as a delivery drone dropped it off directly from the plant in Germany. There were millions of delivery drones operating in their designated airspace all across Europe, and you usually would not know if they were carrying something worth zero point one of a bitcred or fifteen hundred like his bodysuit.
Etana and Myrmidon had spent the entire day testing out its features, adjusting the settings including the establishment of the biosecurity checks. None of the other students would be able to play stupid tricks by waylaying his suit or worse. Myrmidon had synced and calibrated all the sensors, it had a view of the world like never before. A multitude of microscopic next-gen visual lenses, auditory sensors, radar, lidar and thermal detectors allowed Myrmidon to see and hear everything in close proximity.
Daedo: how are you coping with the sensory overload?
Myrmidon: I am removing some of my core programmings in relation to CyberMech and adding code for data analysis of the suit's sensors.
Daedo: good idea. We should remove all the manoeuvrability code we added to the core and relocate it to the cloud. You operate best when your core code is lean.
Paris was one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the architecture in the outskirts was twenty-second century glass with elegant structures where the central parts of Paris where heavily regulated to maintain the sandstone look and limiting building height to a few stories. There were no glaring or colourful signs, there was no need. Everything was easily found using apps and if you really wanted you could use a visual overlay which made central Paris look garish.
The hovervan made its way south running along the Seine towards Versaille. The Fortescue Military Academy occupied grounds to the North and West of the Palace of Versaille. It was a magnificent area, grassland and forests, so close to central Paris. There were too few buildings for an Academy housing over seven thousand cadets above ground. Most of it was built underground to maintain the aesthetics of the area.
The Academy was the size of a large town itself, far too large to house less than ten thousand cadets and staff. It also had two thousand robot servants which did everything from cook, clean, maintain gardens and grounds security.
Above ground, it was elegant sandstone, and clay tiles were at most two stories high, it was probably due to the proximity to Versaille Palace, glass monoliths would have dwarfed it ruining the scenery. From the layout drawings, Daedo knew that the above ground buildings were a façade, used only for teachers, offices with some public interaction. All the cadet living quarters, lecture halls, labs and arenas were underground. The battle arenas stretched for kilometres in all directions, they were more than a hundred meters below ground in places.
As his hovervan approached the main gate it became apparent he was one of the very few using public transport. In the park outside the Academy were VTOLs, fancy reactor bikes, luxury carriers, military carriers and even a few Mechs.
Both he and Myrmidon were fascinated.
Myrmidon: we have seventeen minutes before we have to report to the Auditorium. I calculate it will only take two minutes to run from here. That leaves fifteen to inspect the vehicles.
Daedo: you don't have to tell me twice.
Etana ran up to the first military carrier, it was parked with presumably no one inside but as soon as he approached a security bot stood up on the roof. It had been lying down, it what was a bed moulded to its shape on the roof of the vehicle. Etana did not let the appearance of the bot deter him. It would have strict rules of engagement, and unless he broke the law, for example, damage or attempt to steal the craft, it could not touch him, and even if he was stupid enough to commit a crime, it would be authorised to prevent and detain him only.
If he looked, it could do nothing other than appearing menacing brandishing its handheld railgun.
”Damn,” he said. He had never seen a handheld railgun in person.
The carrier was impressive, its alloy armour was exotic and unknown to Etana. The wheels and tires were massive. It looked like a tank, it could certainly take a hit. He resisted the urge to touch it.
”Why are you looking at that piece of junk?” someone asked from behind.
Myrmidon: House Osiris squad one, male M3 cadet. Unknown identity.
Myrmidon was helpful, he recognised the year and hour by the colouring on the boy's suit. Pity he couldn't give tips on what to say. Etana would have to work on that.
”Err,” Etana non-answered turning to look at the older boy. He wanted to ask why, but got tongue tied for some reason.
”My company makes the Marais UTX. It has arguably fifteen percent more durability, thirty percent more acceleration and two superior robot sentries. And it's about the same cost as this thing, I don't know why anyone would buy this one,” the Marais boy said.
Etana stood there looking dumb.
”I am Jeram Marais,” he said holding out his hand.
Myrmidon: The Marais Trust owns forty-two percent of the Marais group shares and fifty-one percent of the voting shares.
Daedo: whats a voting share? Nevermind. So it's his families company?
Myrmidon: yes. The trust has sixteen beneficiaries of varying size.
”Etana Daedo, M1,” Etana replied shaking his hand awkwardly.
”A word of advice M1, once we pass through the gate only use last names,” Jeram Marais said.
”Ok,” Etana mumbled.
”Remember what I said. Junk.” And he pointed at the offending Military Carrier before scampering off through the gates.
Myrmidon: we should leave as well. Time is now four minutes, we may need the contingency of two minutes in case of congestion of cadets.
Etana acknowledged Myrmidon advice and began to run towards the auditorium before walking once he was inside the main gate. He passed through an unobtrusive security scan and entered the foyer to the first year's auditorium.
This was one of six underground auditoriums, the one designated for M1, the foyer comprised of a waiting area and a mass of electromagnetic rail elevators embedded on two walls. One for entry and the other for the exit, Etana was one of the last to arrive and joined a cluster of cadets in an elevator which took them down and across to the auditorium.
There were twelve hundred and seventy-five cadets in M1, comprised of five houses with two hundred and fifty-five cadets each, crowded into the Auditorium looking for a place to sit.
A short, thin man stood on the Dias, flanked by five other adults wearing white suits with different coloured insignia, purple, green, red, blue and one had white with small amounts of black. The colours signified the different houses, Horus, Osiris, Amun-Ra, Shu and Thoth.
The central man who wore a dark grey with cobalt trim suit spoke, ”welcome to Fortescue Military Academy M1 class of 2142. Stop wondering where you will sit, you will be standing for the duration of this induction. My name is Commander Malet, I am the head of M1 and will follow you through to M3 as will your house leaders.”
”Let me introduce them now.” He said indicating the house leader's in order from his right to left.
The first was a tall blonde man, with a tinge of red, with short hair and neatly trimmed beard, ”This is Master Becker of Horus, he hails from The Bavarian Academy, his achievements, as well as all the Masters, can be found in your induction brief. These achievements include leading his squad to victory for the last three years.”