ACT I – False Freedom

A field of green grass stretches out before me as far as my eyes can see. Above me the sun shines brightly, warming my body and my spirit. Not a cloud was in the sky, no walls in either direction. The breeze ruffles my hair and bends the grass before my eyes. In any direction I look, all I see is the green grass. I can run as far as I can in any direction I want and still not reach any walls.

"Jin~!" Off in the distance, I can see my parents calling to me. "Lunch is ready, come here kiddo!" My dad stands up and waves his free hand, the other clutching a cold beer. Even from this distance I can tell that it's cold, and I can see the drops of condensation running down the side of the can. The sun glints off my dad's glasses.

"I made your favorite!" My mother calls to me, holding up a sandwich. She's wearing her favorite yellow sun dress and wearing matching yellow sandals and a sun hat. Her long dark hair ruffles in the breeze behind her.

I start to run towards them, ready to enjoy the picnic with just me and my parents. They're far away, but I can make it if I run. My feet pound against the soft dirt beneath my feet, it's a sensation I'm not to familiar with. The ground seems to put a spring in my step as I run.

As I get closer to my parents the grass seems to start to whither and die, turning brown and sinking into the ground. The sun starts to set and it's warmth leaves my body. I pump my legs faster, but this is as close as I can get to my parents.

In front of me there is a wall. Not a solid wall but a wall of glass so thick that I can't break through it. My parents are on the other side. Beneath my feet where there used to be grass is now made of metal.

"Mom! Dad!" I call out to the other side of the glass where my parents wait, frantically pounding on it even though I know it's useless. Behind them I can see the Earth, bathed in the vacuum of space

"Don't worry son, we'll be back soon." My dad waves to me in his space suit. He and my mom are going down to Earth.

"I love you Jin. Take care of the house while we're gone." My mom waves next. Promising their safe return, they float away from the glass in between us towards the blue planet behind them.

"NO! MOM! DAD! COME BACK! DON'T LEAVE ME!" I scream at the top of my lungs, punching the glass as hard as I can. I know they won't come back. That's why I have to stop them. If they go to Earth they'll definitely die. Frantically I continue to punch the glass, watching in horror as my parents fade away into the blackness of space. It's the last time I'll ever see them.

I collapse on the cold steel ground and close my eyes. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can see the grassy field again, see the sun again. My body feels like it's floating through the air, warmth returns, and through my eyelids I can see a faint light.

"Jin, get up." A female voice calls out to me.

I pull the sheets over my head to block out the light. "Leave me alone." I mumble groggily.

"Jin, you're late enough as it is. I've been trying to wake you up for half an hour, now get your lazy ass out of bed before I throw you out." The female voice complains.

"Ugh… five more minutes." I groan. Immediately afterwards I hear a metallic clicking noise. After a few moments, my bed swings upward with the force of a catapult and I am unceremoniously smacked into the door frame of my bathroom in the hallway.

"Ow…" I sit on the ground and groggily rub my head. I look back and see that my bed is still standing upright with my pillow and sheets on the floor in front of it. Guess there's no going back now.

"I told you I'd throw you out." The female voice says again.

After getting to my feet I stretch my arms and yawn. "Morning to you too, Hilda." I stagger in the bathroom through the automatically opening door and stare at my face in the mirror as my shower automatically starts. I step inside the shower and the second the water hits my body I find that it's freezing, frankly I'm surprised that there wasn't ice coming out of it.

"AHHHH! DAMMIT HILDA!"

"Just making sure you're awake." Hilda says with an evil sounding giggle.

Hilda is a human spirit bound to the house. She hates me. My parents, being the magi that they were, tried their best to imitate technology through magical means. Many houses these days have AIs installed in them for things like security and whatnot. Hilda can do many of the same things since she's integrated with the house, however she has the added bonus of having a personality. Well, my parents called it a bonus. They thought it was a good idea to have Hilda watch me when they were out instead of hiring a babysitter when I was a kid. It was pretty freaky as a kid to get tucked in at night by something I couldn't even see, but over the years I got used to Hilda… sort of.

Magi parents get a bad reputation for being hard on their kids. However, my parents were about as normal as you can get, other than the fact they can use magic of course. Sure, the training was hard and painful, but my mom and dad always made sure not to neglect their role as my parents as well as my teachers. I got really lucky in that regard. They were also geniuses, my family were one of the ones that helped build the ships that we as humans live on now. As such the knack for tech got passed down the line to generations, which does wonders for my science grades.

Thankfully Hilda isn't completely evil and usually turns the water back to warm after a few seconds. From what I've heard from my folks, Hilda was around 18 when she died. They never told me how it happened, and of course Hilda herself doesn't talk about it. The only thing about her that I've managed to scrounge up was that Hilda lived on the lower decks and had no family.

Most of the colony ships are made up of several decks, much like cruise liners. The lower you go, the worse things get. Crime is worse on the lower decks, you get things like murders and gang activities, it's pretty bad. I've never been down there myself because every deck is designed to be self sufficient, but from what I've heard they're under martial law almost all the time. Luckily, I had the fortune of being born on Deck 1. Hence the nice cushy house and the sadistic house sitter.

"I would hurry up and get dressed. Yayoi is waiting downstairs for you." Hilda announces as I put on my collar. I push the button on the side and I get the familiar sensation of a cool liquid running down my body. It's sort of what replaces underwear or clothing. Think of it as sort of a spandex body suit. Mine is blue, and covers my forearms, chest, and goes down to my legs. A lot of people just wear the body suit around, but some people still wear clothes over it. Either way is socially acceptable and it's a matter of personal preference. Personally, I usually wear jeans and a shirt over mine.

"You let her in here when I'm not even ready yet?" I growl at Hilda. Did I mention I can get grumpy in the mornings when Hilda slams me into a wall?

"Of course. I gotta have someone besides YOU to talk to ya know? Now get out of here before I tell Yayoi about that freckle on your ass."

"One of these days I swear…" I mumble head downstairs to find a girl in my kitchen popping some toast into the toaster while humming.

Yayoi Sakuraba. She's one of my classmates and also one of my oldest friends. She lives next door and is also a magus, though not a very good one. She's about my height with short chestnut colored hair and hazel eyes. She's smart and had a gorgeous body, I've always wondered what she sees in a guy like me. Despite that, she's stuck by me ever since my parents died, apparently Hilda also likes her. Today she's wearing a beautiful white blouse with a blue skirt that's just the perfect length, ending just below her thighs.

After a few moments she turns around and gives me a bright smile. "Good morning Jin." She greets me happily.

"Morning Yayoi." I wave at her and steal a piece of toast right from the machine when it pops up.

"Sorry he's late this morning. He wouldn't get out of bed again." Hilda chimes in, killing the mood.

"Geez Jin." Yayoi frowns and puts her hands on her hips.

I shrug and swallow the bit of toast I was eating. After digging into my pocket I hold up a metal ring that looks like a belt buckle with a few flashing buttons on it. "We'll be okay if I use this today."

Yayoi sighed. "I wish you would just get up earlier. I find it amazing that the FDS haven't confiscated it from you. Besides… I hate heights." To clarify the FDS stands for Fuyuki Defense Squad. They're what passes for police on the station.

"Do you see what I have to deal with all the time? He's always getting in some kind of trouble." Hilda lets out a sigh as well.

Yayoi giggles and grabs the second piece of toast from the machine. She sticks it in her mouth and grabs my hand, indicating she's ready to leave.

"Jin, if you drop her… I'll kill you." Hilda says ominously as Yayoi and I start to head for the door.

"Love you too, Hilda." I shoot back and head outside, dodging the door when I leave because Hilda always tries to smack me with it.

Just looking outside it's hard to tell that we live on a space station. The large glass dome that protects us has a hologram over it that simulates a nice sunny day on Earth. At least that's what all the old people say. It's easy to tell the sunlight is artificial, because there's no warmth coming from it. Even the air is artificial. Fuyuki II is designed to replicate a city down on Earth much like the other ships do. Now, I've never seen Fuyuki City although my parents have. People still go down to Earth occasionally for research and such, my parents were among them. They traveled the Earth looking for what they called artifacts, though I never knew exactly what they looked for. My house is filled with all kinds of weird things they found.

If I had things my way, that hologram would be gone all the time. It's been over a thousand years since anyone has lived on Earth, yet people still cling to it like we just left yesterday. I've never seen the real sky, nor has anyone I know. Personally I'd much rather look at the stars, than fake like I'm living on a planet. Planets don't have walls protecting you from solar radiation and gamma rays. Planets don't have gravity wells under the street to keep everything from floating away. Humans aren't free as people still like to claim. I can run in any direction and eventually hit a wall to keep me from going any further. That's not being free. That's being caged. It seems I'm the only one who realizes it.

"Jin? Are you okay?" Yayoi asks as she squeezes my hand and looks concerned.

I heave a sigh. I must have spaced out and worried her. I should be more careful where I think about humanity's doomed existence. If there's one person alive who I don't want to worry, then it's Yayoi.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I dig into my pocket and find the device in my pocket. I clip it onto the brim of my jeans and look at Yayoi. "You ready?" I ask. The device is a little something I built, it disrupts the signal of the gravity wells under the ground. Basically, it negates gravity in a small radius around me allowing me to be weightless. It really comes in handy for getting around, though Yayoi doesn't seem to like it too much.

"I… um…" Yayoi's cheeks go red as a lobster's and she stutters. I stifle a laugh, knowing exactly what she wants.

"Alright, come on." I put my arm around Yayoi's waist and pick her up, tucking my other arm under her knees. The famous "Princess Carry" that girls seem to love. At least Yayoi does. I keep trying to get her to fly with me without me doing this, but she's really scared of flying. She's a good friend, so I don't mind so much. Besides, her skin is really soft.

I start off at a jog. Yayoi holds onto me tightly as I speed up. After I get enough speed I kick off the ground and continue to float higher into the air. My feet leave the ground behind and soon I'm flying through the air. It's a really great feeling, being the only person able to fly like this while I watch those poor souls that have to run to school when they're late.

Yayoi buries her face into my neck as she holds on tight, her chest is pressing against mine and I can feel Yayoi's breasts squish against me. They're not huge, but they look perfect on her body, not to mention they feel great.

"Don't worry, I gottcha." I reassure her as I start to float down towards a house. The antigrav belt isn't perfect. I can't maintain it perfectly so I start to float back down to the ground, however all I have to do is kick off something and get more momentum and I can still go as fast as I want. It's really fun to do on high buildings, if I find a good spot I bet I could touch the top of the dome. I don't go too high when I'm with Yayoi because she really doesn't like it… and Hilda probably wasn't lying when she said she'd kill me if I dropped her. The highest I float around with Yayoi is only about as tall as my house which is two stories.

Our school is about a ten minute fly away. It would have taken us about half an hour if we had walked. We're still late, but not as late as we could have been. I'm really thankful to Yayoi for making herself late for me, I should make it up to her somehow.

Soon we float back to the ground outside our school. It's the replica of the old high school in Fuyuki, granted it's been remodeled a bit.

"Students Jin Aoyagi and Yayoi Sakuraba. You are ten minutes late. Please report to homeroom immediately." The AI greets us as we cross the threshold into the school.

I carefully put Yayoi down on the ground and we say our goodbyes, promising to meet on the roof at lunch. We head off to our respective classes and I return the antigrav buckle to my pocket. Yayoi is a year younger than I am, so we're in separate classes.

"Aoyagi, you're late." The homeroom teacher and everyone else turns my way when I enter the class.

"Sorry Fujimura-sensei. My AI malfunctioned and I got some blunt-force trauma." I make an excuse that's not too far from the truth and go to my seat near the window in the middle row.

My homeroom teacher is Ekichi Fujimura-sensei. He's actually really nice when I'm there on time. His taste in clothes however is horrible and usually wears a black suit with a tiger stripped tie. Seriously, what's up with that? Anyway, he's one of the more well liked teachers.

Homeroom droned on as usual. I spent most of my time staring out the window while Fujiumura-sensei talked about things that really didn't concern me. Archery Club is looking for new members, there's a panty thief on campus, blah blah blah. "Wait a minute. Panty thief?" In my absent mindedness I seemed to have blurted it out loud.

"Is there something you would like to add Aoyagi?" Fujimura-sensei said as he looked up from his podium.

"Nah. I must have gotten knocked on the head harder than I thought."

"Funny, Aoyagi. I'll remember that when I'm grading your English homework." Fujimura-sensei replies with a grin.

"Yo man, what's up with you today? You look even worse than usual." A friend of mine next to me whispered. His name is Kenji Sugata.

"Nothing to worry about Kenji." I reply absentmindedly. That dream I had this morning must have shaken me up more than I thought.

"If you say so man. We're friends ya know. Don't hesitate to talk to me about stuff." Kenji shoots me a thumbs up.

I force a smile. "Thanks Kenji."

After that Kenji leans closer. "Hey, Sakuraba didn't dump you did she?"

I stifle a laugh. "Shut up, we're not even going out." It's very true that I'm attracted to Yayoi, all the physical contact she likes to exert on me doesn't help the situation. We've been friends for so long I don't even know if I'm capable of changing things, or even if I want to. I'm sure she'll find some better guy soon enough, she's a first year and she's already pretty popular.

Kenji heaves a sigh. "Man, you're an idiot." He says with a shrug but doesn't say anything further.

Before I knew it the lunch bell rang and people started filing out to head to the cafeteria to battle each other for bread. Thanks to Yayoi I'm a winner without even fighting, she usually makes lunch for me since I can't cook all that well. Everything I learned about cooking Hilda taught me… which wasn't much. I think she just wanted an excuse to turn the flame up too high and burn off my eyebrows.

"Aoyagi, can I talk to you for a minute?" Fujimura-sense called my name as I was about to head out the door and go to the roof. I guess I can humor him, he doesn't talk to me often since my grades are pretty good so it could be important.

"What's up Fujimura-sensei?" I walk over to his desk and greet him.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone, but you seemed a bit… depressed today. Is something wrong?" He asks, seemingly really concerned. Him and everyone else.

I frown at him. If that's all it was he shouldn't worry so much. He's my teacher not my dad. "Everyone seems to be on my case today…"

"If that's the case, did you ever think that maybe they were on to something? You can fool yourself, but you can't fool people who care about you Aoyagi." Fujimura-sensei crossed his arms and sat back in his chair.

"…" Maybe they were right. After all tomorrow was THAT, which would explain the dream I had this morning.

"Have you thought about joining a club? It's a good way to blow off some steam." Fujimura-sensei suggested casually.

"Not really, it's not mandatory and I haven't found one that interested me yet." I scratched the back of my head. I've never really been a club sort of guy. If I was in a club I probably wouldn't have had the time on my hands to invent all that stuff that's been cluttering up my room.

Fujimura-sense sighed. "You said the same thing last year. I thought if I gave you some time you might get into one. Well, I guess I'll stop pushing you. If there's anything I can do to help you out, let me know."

"Now that I think about it, there is one thing." Probably a long shot, but I may as well ask him anyway.

"What's that Aoyagi?" Fujimura-sensei's ears perked up.

"Don't count me absent if I play hooky tomorrow."

Fujimura-sensei frowned at the prospect and started to stroke his tie. "Don't know if I can pull that one off. Maybe if I knew the circumstances…" He leaned forward, trying to coax the information out of me.

Well, I've hid it for a year so there's no point in it anymore. I'll skip school no matter what his answer is, but it would help if I don't get in trouble for it. "Tomorrow is the anniversary of my parent's death."

My expression must have convinced him because Fujimura-sensei frowned as well. "I'll see what I can do for you." He said solemnly.

"Thanks Fujimura-sensei." Not feeling up to talking to him anymore I left the classroom and headed to the roof. Despite all the advancements in technology it never ceased to amaze me that there were still stairs everywhere. I know the importance of exercising in space, but come on. The stairway leading to the roof looked pretty normal, no flashing lights or buttons, just stairs and a metal railing.

I open the door to the roof and step out onto the concrete.

"Come on baby, we just want you to have lunch with us." Across the roof I see a couple of guys that look like third years talking to someone in the corner backed against the fenced in roof.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" I start to walk across the roof towards them. They looked like a couple of assholes that like to harass girls. As if it wasn't obvious enough by the first thing I heard stepping onto the roof.

One of them looked back over his shoulder and saw me walking towards them. "Get outta here punk. This doesn't concern you." He replies. I swear if they're talking to who I think they are…

"Jin? Is that you?" Standing on her toes Yayoi peeked over the guy's heads and called out to me.

"Hey, babe we're still talking here." One of the guys said rather rudely.

"Alright you two. I'm gonna have to ask you to step away from the nice young girl." These guys were pretty huge, but I'm almost sure I can take them. Guys like this are almost always dumbasses.

They both turned around and took a couple of steps towards me. "What are you going to do about it? We saw this girl sitting up here all by herself. A real man wouldn't keep a girl like that waiting right?" It amazes me how idiots like this make their way into the world.

"Look, I'd rather not hurt you guys. Obviously she's not interested, so I'd just take a hint and piss off." I cross my arms and try to look as threatening as possible. Which probably isn't going to do much against guys like this. They look like they play sports.

The two of them started laughing. "Hurt us? That's a good one. How about YOU leave, and we won't break your legs."

"J-Jin…" In the corner Yayoi started to shake out of fear. And that is one thing you don't want to do in front of me.

I start to step forward and look the two creeps square in the eyes.

"What chu gonna do punk?" Out of the corner of my eyes I see them clenching their fists.

In an instant I switch on my Magic Circuits. These guys aren't taking a hint. Idiots like this don't understand anything other than force. If force is what will convince them, then fine.

The stare down went on for a couple of seconds before the jocks made the first move as I planned. I could see their muscles ripple as they raised their fists to punch me. It was easy to see coming, these guys all have the same M.O. A fist came at my face, but my feet were already in a good position so I sidestepped it and grabbed his arm.

"ARRRGH SHIT!" The bastard yelled in pain as he got a nice jolt of electricity through his body. If anything it should make the meathead relax a little.

"You bastard!" His friend came at me next. These guys are stronger, but I'm faster. I put my leg in front of his which caused him to trip and fall flat on his face on the concrete.

Before he can get up, I pounce on him and grab his head.

"GUH!" After a short yelp he fell unconscious.

"Take a nap, jackass." I say as I get up.

"What the hell did you just do?" His buddy who I apparently forgot to finish off got up, he's still clutching the arm I grabbed which was still twitching in a rather grotesque manner.

"Do you really wanna stay and find out? Or do you want to get your friend out of here? If you take option B you might want to hurry up. I may have lobotomized him." I growl and position myself between the remaining dirtbag and Yayoi.

"Grrrr." With a growl that sounded like a defeated animal, the remaining jock heaved his buddy up on to his shoulder and ran out of the door.

After they leave I turn to Yayoi. "You okay? They didn't touch you did they?"

Yayoi shook her head. "N-No, I'm alright." Good, she just seems scared. If that's all they did I can rest easy. Yayoi is actually pretty shy, so if two guys like that corner her and start to hit on her it doesn't surprise me she got scared.

I heave a sigh of relief. "Good. You still up for lunch"

Yayoi nodded again. "That guy he's not…"

I almost wanted to sigh again. Was she really worried about him? "No no, don't worry. I didn't kill him." I reassure her. It was the truth, as pissed as I was, I didn't want to kill them. Still, sometimes I think Yayoi is just too nice.

()()()

The rest of the day passed without incident. Sometimes I think school hasn't changed in the thousand years that we've been in space. Of course I have nothing to base that on. It seems I didn't get in trouble for beating up those guys on the roof, I doubt they said anything since it probably would have made them look bad.

On the way out of school I met Yayoi at the front door as usual. We live right next to each other, so we usually end up walking home together. It really beats walking home by myself.

"Thanks for earlier today Jin." She says with a bright smile.

I shrug. "It's not like I could just leave you like that. Besides, I considered your lunch paying me back. The sausages were really good." I finish with a grin.

"Um, about tomorrow… can I go with you?" Yayoi asks timidly. She's known about my parents for a long time, and she knows that I usually go to the gravesite. She usually doesn't offer to come long, but she must be getting bolder this year.

"You sure you want to? It'll be pretty boring you know." Truthfully, I don't know if I want her to be with me when I'm upset. Maybe I'm an idiot for thinking like that, but it's sort of like I don't want to see her sad. I don't want her to see me when I'm sad either.

"I… want to be with you." The way she said it, felt like my heart cracked open.

I just can't say no now. All I can do is nod. I'm pretty weak when it comes to Yayoi, she's got me wrapped around her finger and I know it.

The two of us walk home in silence. I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to say to her, and she didn't feel the need to break the silence. I don't remember saying goodbye to her and walking her to her door but I guess I did. I don't even remember going inside and getting hit with the door. The next thing I realized I was on my couch.

"You didn't yell at me when I hit you with the door… are you okay?" Concern is in Hilda's voice. That's new.