-6:30 AM, Apartment 44B, Irwin Towers Apartment Complex-

"Juliana, get up now! We leave in 45 minutes!" you shout to your younger sister as you head to the kitchen to take the shopping list and get your satchel, as you are in charge of getting next week's groceries.

"Really Ryan? We leave at seven fifteen? Why the rush, you trying to hit on the barista at Starbucks before going to uni again?" Juliana groans and stumbles out of her room, still half asleep.

"If you say anything more about Ryan's relationships, I'll nail you to the wall!" a girl's voice comes out of your room.

"Porrim, it's fine. I'll deal with Juliana myself," you respond to your girlfriend, as she pokes her head out from around the doorway to your shared bedroom.

"What day is it…" you mutter to yourself as you check the calendar on the kitchen wall.

"Great… Thursday…" you groan as you start packing your satchel.

Thursday means you have three classes, none of them in the least bit interesting. They were art and engineering design, architecture design, and civil engineering, a boring class nonetheless, but it was taught by a family friend of yours, Servenci Vantas, who was sometimes known as the Sufferer, after the rebellion he lead against the class system in West Africa. In 2074, he moved to NCAIT, and started teaching as a civil engineering professor. Here, he had adopted his two sons, Kankri, who is the same age as you, and Karkat, who is 13, and goes to the same school as your sister.

You add your laptop, notebook, and pens to your satchel, and lazily throw it down on the couch. You hear Porrim as she starts making scrambled eggs for the three of you. You still have yet to propose to her, but you plan on doing it the summer after you graduate with your bachelor's degree in civil engineering. As you walk to the table, your phone rings.

"Who the hell would call this early in the morning?" you mutter under your breath as you answer the phone.

-6:47 AM, 3204, 45th Street-

"Hey, Ryan!" you say as your best friend picks up the phone.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't my favorite Russo-Scottish pyromaniac!" you hear Ryan exclaim sarcastically, "You do know that entire thing was on the news last night, right?"

"Yeah, of course I know, I saw the film crews!" you say in a matter-of-fact tone, "Now look, Ryan, you need to come over this weekend for the maintenance on the hydraulic actuator in your left arm that you said was acting up. It's the only time I have open for two weeks."

"What time, then? I've got nothing planned this weekend," he informs you.

"Hmm… 3:30 sound good?" you respond.

"Sure," he says.

"Well, see ya then!" you say as you hang up.

"How's Jacody doing?" you ask your fiance, Meulin as you walk into Jacody's room.

"He's still running a fever, but the coughing has gone down," she replies while checking his temperature.

You walk up to your brother, ruffle his hair, and smile.

"Get better little bro," you whisper to him.

"I'll try," he responds, his eyes opening slightly. He smirks.

You walk out of his room and head to the kitchen and open the fridge and look for stuff to make breakfast with. The fridge is filled mainly with eggs and yogurt, your two favorite foods.

"Well, I guess we're having fried eggs again…" you mutter to yourself as you grab a box of eggs from the bottom shelf and get a frying pan from the drawer. The butter is nowhere to be found.

"Hey, Meulin! Would we happen to be out of butter again?" you shout down the hall to her, as she emerges from Jacody's bedroom.

"I'm pretty sure we ran out at dinner, and it was too late by then to go to the store," she responds from the hallway.

"Okay then, we're having granola bars for breakfast!" you yell back.

"I'll be sure to get some at the store later," she says, walking up to you.

-7:05 AM, Apartment 44B, Irwin Towers Apartment Complex-

You hit end call, put the phone back in your pocket, and start making breakfast. You sigh, and pull a photo from your wallet. It is your school photo from your senior year, back before you got all this metal crap attached to you. It was early March, 2087, when your best friend, Jack Leland went insane, and almost killed you. Now, your nickname is Dead Echo, as you are a shadow of your former self, composed mainly of metal alloys and wiring. As well, you are technically dead, as your heart is only running off one of Letovi's crazy inventions. You still remember that day as clear as though it happened yesterday, even though 5 years have passed since then. You are actually starting to forget what it was like to have two working eyes and have limbs that weren't made of a titanium-cobalt alloy. You were 18 when that happened, and you still carry around a picture to remind yourself of who you used to be, even though now all it does is make you get really emotional, so you usually don't take it out in front of anyone.

"Everything ok?" Porrim asks as she walks up behind you and rubs your right shoulder. You are pretty sure she is rubbing both, but your left arm from the collarbone down is all metal, and you can't feel anything in it, aside from in the hand.

"It's nothing, Porrim, just… feeling nostalgic about not being composed of metal," you say is a wistful tone, resting your hands on the edge of the sink.

"Don't think about that, I know it makes you emotional, Ryan," she says, ruffling your hair. She walks back over to the stove and stirs the eggs. You stand up and walk to your sister's room and bang on the door.

"Juliana! We're leaving in 10 minutes and breakfast is almost done, get ready!" you yell through the door.

"Ugh! Can't I have a morning where you're not slamming on my door? she responds, clearly annoyed with you.

"Ryan, I can handle this. You go eat breakfast, the eggs are in the frying pan on the stove," Porrim says, going into Juliana's room. You sigh and go to the kitchen, and get a heapful of eggs for yourself. You can hear Porrim and Juliana having a rather heated discussion about something, but you can't tell what through the door, as you are only picking up fragmented pieces of speech, as one of the few things that are still human about you are your ears. The two of them come out and sit down at the table, each getting a heapful of eggs from the frying pan.

-7:17 AM, 3204, 45th Street-

You walk to your room and power up your desktop PC and open google chrome, and go to the BBC website. There is nothing interesting in the news, so you boot up Pesterchum and look for who's online to talk to. Your username is retroRussian and you talk in a VERY pronounced manner, and often curse at the FUCKING STUPIDITY of others.

- retroRussian [RR] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 7:20 AM -

RR: HEY man! HOW'S your morning going?

TT: Not badly, if I would say so myself. I stayed up talking to Rose, and now I am dead tired.

RR: I had a rather lovely discussion with Jake last night. HE mentioned you getting drunk and hitting on him, is this true?

TT: Sadly, yes. I guess my bi was showing again

RR: WELL, let's just hope my Meulin doesn't find out, or it'll be FUCKING HELL for the two of you.

TT: Well, I should be going, i've gotta open up shop in a bit.

RR: OK then, talk to you in a while.

TT: Bye then

- retroRussian [RR] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 7:25 AM -

-7:50 AM, 6542, California Street-

"Kanaya, come on! We've got 15 minutes to pack!" you yell as you run down the stairs to the kitchen to pack your lunch.

"I'm coming, Rose, just give me a second!" the yell comes from the room you share with your best friend upstairs.

Ever since what happened six years ago, you and your sister Roxy have been living with the Maryams, as there is no way in hell your sister can take care of you, let alone herself. She has had an alcohol addiction since she was 14, as it was the only way for her to deal with the stress from your parents. You just reverted to passive-aggressive mind games with your mother and reading your wizard novels. You are about to make a sandwich, when you notice a paper bag with your name on it sitting next to the fruit bowl. There is one for Kanaya sitting next to it.

"Never mind the lunches, your mom made us each one," you inform your best friend as she enters the kitchen, carrying her satchel.

"Well then, we've got 12 minutes until Jane and John show up, what do you want to do?" she asks.

"We could make oatmeal," you say as you rummage through the cabinet for the oatmeal container.

"Scratch that Rose, Jane is here early," Kanaya says from the living room.

"Ugh, great," You mutter as you grab your backpack off the couch. Even though you usually like seeing John and Jane, you are quite tired and would rather be left alone. You and Kanaya walk out the door, locking it behind you, as Kanaya's mother has already left and Roxy won't wake up until two in the afternoon or so, due to her medications.

"Hey you two!" Jane says as you climb into the back seat.

"Hey," you reply, trying to look tired.

"Hey Kanaya, what's up with Rose?" John says, turning around in his seat.

"Nothing," Kanaya responds, "She just doesn't feel like talking. She had another therapy session with Dave, and then chatted with Dirk. And by chat, I mean she was up until three in the morning on the phone with him."

"And I thought I was bad about going to bed on time," John replies, smirking. You lean your head on the door of the car and close your eyes, trying to tune out the noise.

-7:55 AM, 3204, 45th Street-

"Hey Meulin, I've gotta go now, sorry I can't help with Jacody," you say as you walk out the door and get in your pickup truck and head off toward your metalshop, where you work. As you pull into the parking lot, you notice another truck, smaller than yours.

"Well, that means Sergetov must be here," you mutter under your breath as you open the door and walk up to him, who is working on fabricating a new laser emitter casing for your aging pulse cutter. Your shop might not have new equipment, but you make the best products around, improvising with whatever spare parts you can find around your shop. You hand-crafted most of the stuff in this building, including, the high-pressure metal former, which uses magnets and a lack of oxygen to bind metals together at high temperatures. You built this thing for a few hundred dollars, which were for the few parts you didn't have. It took a long time, but a factory-built machine of the same quality as yours would cost around 30,000 dollars, which would have been more than you make in two years back then. It was an old machine, at least five years old, which is a long time for something used as much as this metal former is.

-8:10 AM, West Coast Academy-

"Hey guys," you mutter to John, Rose, and Kanaya as they walk over to your table.

"Hello Karkat, lovely morning we're having today," Kanaya says as she sits down next to Aradia and Feferi, across the table from you.

"So, what's up?" John says, sitting down next to you, eating a poptart.

"Oh, just Kankri ranting about that "social justice" bullshit of his four of five times," you respond as you take a swig from your mug full of hot chocolate.

"Yeesh, five times?" John replies, a look of pity on his face.

"Karkat, you really should be more respectful of your brother's... preferred activities," Rose says, a tinge of offence in her voice.

"I'd love to see you try to not get annoyed by that asshole ranting," you respond to Rose.

"Sorry guys, I've gotta go, Vriska's here," John replies, taking off running.

"Well, at least someone with a sense of humor has arrived," Rose jokes, as Vriska and John walk over to your group, holding hands.

"S'up douchebags?" Vriska responds mockingly.

"Hey, spiderbitch," you respond in kind.

"Don't make fun of my girlfriend!" John says, in a mocked hurtful tone, sitting down with her at his side. They both sit down, and you get into a argument with John over movies again.

The bell rings, and you all get up and head outside to the bench in front of the gym, which is your group's normal meeting place in the morning. You and your friends have gone here for at least two years each, and have a special friendship with each other. You have gone here since 4th grade, most of the others came around 5th or 6th grade. As it is mid-October, most of the chatter is about Halloween, where you throw a HUGE party with your best friends, John and Jacody, who… is not here today. The bell rings at 8:30 for you to get to class, which is 1st period PE.

"What a great fucking way to start the day, PE at 8:30 in the morning…" you mutter as you and Aradia head off to the gym.

-8:30 AM, West Coast Academy-

"Well, see ya next class!" you say to Vriska as you head off to English class, giving her a parting hug and kiss.

"Hey, John! Wait up!" you hear a female's voice yell from behind you. It's Juliana, barely on time, as always. She has a tendency to fall asleep in class, as she gets almost no sleep, due to the fact that she stays up on Tumblr until around 2-4 AM on normal weekdays. Her brother would stop her, but his bedroom walls are soundproof, so he can't hear her laughing her ass off at the gif threads on Tumblr.

-8:30 AM, English-Harley Weapons Range-

"Jade, get up," you say to your sister as you rub her head.

"Mmff… not now, Jake, it's only 8:30, the range doesn't open till 9:30," Jade responds, rolling over on the couch to face you.

"I know, but you need to help me set up, there is a party coming, and they want half the range to themselves to flaunt their shiny new guns," you respond, sitting down at the end of the couch.

"Ugh, fine…" Jade groans, sitting up and putting on her glasses. "I'll be ready in 30 minutes," she says, stretching her arms out and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. You go into the kitchen and pour out a bowl of cereal for yourself. Since housing out here isn't cheap, you live on the second floor of the range's shop. You decided to buy this land and open up a weapons range after you left your native pacific island and moved to Oregon. Your sister came over a year later, after you had bought a house and had a stable job. On the island, almost everyone hunted at some point or another, and you and Jade were no exception. You prefer your twin 9mm Barettas, but Jade likes the rifle she got for her 11th birthday. You are by no means rich, but you make enough money to support the two of you.

Seeing as you need Jade to help you as much as possible at the range, and you cannot afford to hire someone to help at the range, in fact, the only other person who works here is Myrian Tuderas, a good friend, you homeschool Jade. She enjoys the lax rules and that she never has to do much. Most of the administrators that are supposed to check on her education are too scared to come over during working hours, and are scared of the two of you always carrying your guns around wherever you go. The first time they came, they were greeted by the barrel of Jade's rifle pointing at their face, before you realized what was happening and told her that she could stand down.

You finish your cereal and head downstairs to the shop. You unlock the door and turn on the lights. Technically, Jade isn't allowed to work on the range during hours, but she doesn't listen to them, she is the best rangemaster you know, aside from yourself.