The insistence in his voice surprised me a bit. It wasn't a familiar situation for Alex to try to teach me something; usually he tried to crush me. But since my stomach was full I was too sleepy to object and put up a fight.
After finishing my meal in the cafeteria we went out together into the main courtyard. The sun was slowly beginning to set, but the air was still bright with the reddening sky. "Let's start with the general picture," said Alex, gesturing with his hand at the students rushing around us. As he walked he put his hand in his pocket; he had the relaxed tone of someone who had told what he was about to say to other people many times before. "There are a total of three thousand six hundred students here. They're distributed equally across the 1st, 2nd and 3rd years; that is, twelve hundred people at every year level, forty sections. As you know, we're among the 1st years; and your ranking is within the twelve hundred of your own level. And for all these students, for the running of the facilities, there's a giant staff of exactly 1400 people; teachers, doctors, technicians, even the researchers who run the laboratories on the −2nd floor are included in that number."
"That's quite a crowd," I murmured, sticking my hands in my pockets.
"Absolutely. And don't think this crowd wanders around as it pleases," Alex went on, adding a slightly lecturing air to his voice. "Every student has a personal course schedule defined in their System interface. These programs don't just change day by day at whim, of course; at the beginning of each period they're updated according to the student's level, needs and deficiencies. Your program might be different from mine, for example, because the System may be moving certain classes up according to your Intelligence- and Control-weighted profile. And besides the mandatory classes there are the after-school clubs everyone has to attend. Elective, but attending is required."
"Clubs?" I asked, raising an eyebrow slightly. I was hearing this detail for the first time.
"Don't worry, it hasn't reached you yet," said Alex, smiling. "It starts in the 3rd period, and the 2nd period isn't even over. But it wouldn't hurt to think about it now, because the choices close a week before the period begins."
"What kinds of clubs are there?"
"It varies. Sword, archery, Chi engineering, there's even the mutation research club Eleanor is interested in. But the most prestigious is the Hunting Club — they go outside the Barricades, on real missions into controlled zones. Of course only students above a certain stat threshold are accepted."
This detail caught my interest, but I didn't show it. "Which one will you join?"
"Hunting, of course," said Alex proudly. "My family has been a supporter of that club for years anyway."
When we reached the middle of the main square, Alex stopped and pointed at the enormous blocks rising in front of us. Three enormous complexes, exact copies of one another, were lined up side by side.
"Those three giant buildings you see: Blocks A, B and C..." said Alex, slowing his steps and sweeping his hand in a wide arc. "Block C is set aside for 1st years like us, Block B for 2nd years, and Block A for the 3rd years at the graduation stage. Every building has architecturally exactly the same layout; that is, when you learn Block C you've actually learned all three. There are three floors above ground, and three floors below ground."
"The underground looks pretty extensive," I said, remembering the wide ramp descending downward. "It is. For instance, the place we just came out of was the −3rd floor, you'll remember," said Alex, lowering his voice a little, as though he were still under the influence of that cold laboratory air. "That level is set aside for the Anomaly Laboratory where the monsters are kept and for the high-security antimetal-clad combat arenas; the cages and the arenas are on the same floor, side by side. The -2nd floor above it is entirely full of laboratories where academic experiments, mutation examinations and Chi research are carried out; I'd heard that Eleanor will probably spend most of her time there in the future, since she's taken an interest in Chi engineering. The -1st floor, meanwhile, is entirely an ordinary parking garage and logistics storage area. So there's nothing interesting to see there, you can skip it."
We kept walking toward the entrance of the building. When we went in through the door, the sharp smell of disinfectant in the air burned my nose.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"The entrance, that is the 0th floor, is full of kiosks where you can get a snack, vending machines, and rest areas," Alex explained, waving his hand toward the glass-fronted machines on the right. "If you get hungry between classes you come down here; as you know, the cafeteria is on this floor too, an enormous dining hall. The 1st and 2nd floors consist of classrooms; the class we're sitting in right now is on the 1st floor. But the 2nd floor is a bit of a different matter; there are two enormous lecture halls there, each able to take at least six hundred students at once. Joint theoretical classes — like, for example, that joint class Ms. Laura will give to all the 1st years at once — are held there. The big exams are also held in those two lecture halls; a level of twelve hundred people is split exactly in two. And on the topmost 3rd floor there are only the rooms of the professors and the administrative staff. As you know, going up there is forbidden to students; the elevator doesn't even work without scanning a card."
"And why is it forbidden?" I asked, genuinely curious.
Alex paused for a moment, as though thinking about the answer. "I don't actually know," he said finally, in a somewhat surprised voice. "It was always like that. Maybe administrative records, maybe student files... Or maybe there's no reason at all, just tradition."
We left the building and headed for the enormous open-air facilities at the back. The late-afternoon light was casting long shadows over the grass fields. There were grass football fields stretching as far as the eye could see, basketball and tennis courts. Right beside them, built as enormous complexes, were rows of both open and indoor Olympic swimming pools whose roofs could close in bad weather.
"The facilities really push the limits," I said, running my eye over the fields. In the distance I noticed a few 2nd-year students playing basketball; their Chi-assisted jumps were far higher and faster than in a normal match.
As we passed by the pools, Alex stopped and looked at the water with a thoughtful expression. "You know, when I was little I used to come here with my father, before I was even a student. Back then he would tell me how special this school was — that it was a place in one of the nine most powerful cities in the world where only the most talented children are accepted. Back then I used to think it was an honor."
"And you don't think so now?" I asked, my interest caught. "I don't know," said Alex, his voice taking on a softer tone — which was quite different from his usual arrogant air. "Sometimes I think that while we're here developing our stats and our ceilings, we have no idea what's really happening outside. We only know what they tell us in classes. Kryonium walls, Anomaly Barricades, mutated creatures... they all feel like abstract concepts to us, as if they were enemies in a video game. But in reality, out there people are dying, Kai. Every day. In the places outside the Barricades, in the unsafe zones."
This serious tone was something I hadn't expected from Alex. "Why are you thinking about this now?" I asked.
"You know the two cities in the south," he said. "One of them is Aurelium, eighty kilometers from here, and right next to it, twenty kilometers away, Thalinium. 'Lium' means south in one of the old languages, so they gave those names to the two southern cities."
"Yes, how nice," I said, looking at Alex while trying to work out where the conversation was going.
He turned to me and said, "Kai, after the south, very dangerous places begin — you know that too from modern history class. The tens of kilometers between this city and the other cities are uncanny too, but the real matter is the southern forests beyond the other cities, or beyond the mountains in the east. There are creatures there your mind couldn't accept."
"Kai," he said, as if he wanted to say something important, "the other day a group of thirty people who went on an exercise into the southern forests was completely slaughtered by an anomaly. The even more chilling part is that everyone in that group was the same age as us. People still live under the anomalies, in fear of them — even though we built nine great cities after the great war a thousand years ago. They're still stronger than us, Kai."
After hearing this I didn't know what to say, but this was the truth of this world. Throughout all of known history people had fought against the anomalies, and the anomalies against people. People develop them, and they develop people; that was the law of nature.
But in spite of everything it still felt bad. I suppose Master Ren's sickness of goodness was because of these feelings. Ever since I started those exercises I had been having bursts of emotion. Alex being this affected by the situation wasn't because he felt sorry for those children — he was only afraid; but this feeling in me was, I think, empathy, sorrow. I was only just getting used to these concepts.
Because these concepts had gone thoroughly blunt in this world. People mostly knew them from ancient writings and saw them as fairy tales or weakness; and if anyone did feel them, they had learned not to show it.
With these thoughts I kept walking silently with Alex. Alex paused and turned his gaze to the enormous thirty-meter gray walls that surrounded the school and reached toward the sky. Faint, hair-thin blue lights drifted across the walls; as the evening darkness fell they became even more distinct.
"Facilities aside, the real fortune lies in those walls, Kai," said Alex, his voice growing a little more serious. "Do you know what these walls are coated with?"