The Beginning
Six shouldered a backpack, walking the short distance from his home to the school he had been told to report to at 0830 hours. City High was its name, not needing any other qualifications as it was the high school of the City, with the most students and teachers, the highest funding and the highest grades in all of the City. This was where his new assignment would be (unfortunately) held.
Six had never been on a mission like it. It was extremely simple, not requiring much thought at all as he only had to keep a 14 year old girl safe from various people who might want to do any number of things to her. This girl was Rachel May Wockner, the daughter of one of the City's top philanthropist who funded the Deck; Markus Wockner. He had recently been receiving threats to his daughter after he announced he was funding ChaoSonic's production of a new form of weapon. One that could result in the destruction of poverty-stricken areas of the City.
This new weapon, the Auriga, scanned each and every citizen's personal records to see if they met the minimum standard. The minimum standard being that they had to have over 200 credit in their bank account at any one time. This meant, that money wouldn't be 'wasted' on those who didn't have enough to buy the more expensive ChaoSonic products. The Auriga would be placed on every street corner, scanning people as they walked past and if a person proved 'insufficient funding', they would be disposed of. This was supposed to keep the money in circulation and, in a strange way, enforce population control.
Six approached the tall building with the signage 'City High- We Work for Success' over their entrance and stepped inside. The building was as tall as a regular apartment block, with no room for single story buildings anymore in the city. The foyer was squeaky clean, with students wandering around in cliques, chattering away in neat uniforms. Six himself was dressed in these uniforms, a grey jacket, white shirt with green tie and black pants and shoes.
He scanned the room, looking around for Rachel, which he had of course memorised the appearance of in his mission briefing. She was supposed to be of average height, green eyes, red hair that ran down her back in only slight frizziness. She would be wearing the girl's uniform, a white shirt and tie, grey skirt with knee high white socks. Scanning the room, it didn't take him long to find her.
Rachel was standing in a group of six, 4 girls and two boys. They all seemed to be paying more than necessary amounts of attention to her as they laughed and smiled at her, not breaking their gaze for a second. Six walked over to her quietly, standing at her shoulder, not saying anything. She should know what he looked like, having been shown what he would look like through pictures, same as he had to her.
Only one of the group, a girl with mousy brown hair and glasses, seemed to notice him, and glanced at Rachel, then back at Six. Rachel noticed, turned and jumped slightly in fright. "Oh, hello" she said, smiling, then turning back to the group. "Well, Rache, who's that?" asked the mousy brown girl. Rachel frowned, as if she had hoped that Six wouldn't've been noticed. She put her hand on Six's shoulder, "Guys, this is Ryan, an old family friend who recently moved here from the other side of the City. He'll be hanging out with us until he finds some friends of his own. Right Ryan?"
Six scowled at the hand on his shoulder, resisting the urge to push her away, and nodded; once. The mission said he had to look out for her, not that he had to be friendly with her. But he smiled at the group anyway. They smiled complimentarily back then returned to the conversation. Mousy Brown didn't seem interested in the conversation, and turned to him, beaming. "I'm Shayla" She said, holding out a hand which he didn't shake. "How long have you been living here?" She asked, not seeming to be taken aback from the lack of social convention. Six just stared at her, hoping she would just shut up. She frowned at him, just as the bell to go to class rang.
Rachel dashed over to a boy on the other side of the circle and grabbed his arm, smiling at him. He smiled back and they walked off towards one of the many elevators lining the foyer. Six followed a few steps behind them, just managing to squeeze into the elevator they walked into. The Elevator was rather large, managing to fit around thirty students in it, but it was still stuffy and packed. Six could barely breathe.
The boy that Rache seemed so intent on stealing the arm of, was taller than six, with spiky brown hair and a wide smile. He hadn't bothered wearing the jacket, as did pretty much every other boy in the school, making Six stand out, which he couldn't have. In the squashed elevator, he barely had room to move his arms, so he struggled out of his jacket, stuffing it into his backpack.
The elevator didn't have any buttons, and it seemed to have only one destination as it didn't stop at until it arrived at floor twenty three (Six had memorised the building's blueprints). All the elevators were designed to go to two floors, the ground floor, and one of the 30 levels above it. There were, of course, stairs between each floor so that students needing only to travel to one level below didn't need to go to the ground floor and then back. Each elevator had the level number above its doors.
The mass of students piled out of the elevator onto floor twenty three and Six could breathe again. Rachel leaned up and gave the boy a kiss on the cheek and then they walked in opposite directions; Rachel towards Six. She passed him, and then he followed after her, not saying a word. Six didn't know who that boy was, he hadn't been in the mission brief, so it was unlikely that Rachel's father knew about him. The pair were obviously in a relationship, but for how long? The boy could be a suspect.
Rachel glanced behind her and rolled her eyes at Six. "Stop being so creepy, following me like that. Come walk beside me" She said, gesturing him over. Six stayed back. So, Rachel slowed her pace down to his. It had been arranged that Six ad Rachel had every class together, except one, maths. They hadn't been able to fit the time tables exactly as some of the classes had been full, while some teachers had allowed him to join, Rachel's maths teacher had refused to have another student, saying that they liked the class dynamics as it was and didn't need another student to mess it up.
So, Six followed Rachel to their 9th grade English class, letting her go in first, to choose a seat. Rachel sat with a group of girls near the window, leaving no spare room for Six, so he sat up the back, setting his pack behind the desk as the teacher walked in and the lesson began.