Book 1: Blinded by Light
A monitor beeped softly as a young man poked away at it with a soft smile, "Pressure looks good. Everything is green." He muttered softly while examining the scrolling numbers and details that cycled across the screen. He was a mechanic and was dress in orange overalls. It may not have been a glamorous job or a prestigious career, but it would pay well, put food on the table and support a family.
Simple goals, but he was a simple man.
That simplicity of goals is what lead him to, ironically, enrol at one of the most prestigious Academies in the city. Dietrich Academy was one of the world's leading educational establishments offering courses from grade school to university levels. The young man was amazed when the Academy allowed him to enrol, given his previous public education history.
Still, he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth and had thrown himself into his studies from the first day he'd arrived.
That dedication had gotten him the attention of the Headmistress and in turn the opportunity to earn some serious extra credits. The machine he was working on was related to that special opportunity. A mechanical behemoth of incredible scale and power. A testament to the Party's influence and reach.
"Mr. Gacy." An icy voice asked from the behind the young man, "Your work continues to impress. When will the Zords be operational?"
The young man leap from his seat and snapped a salute to the woman who had spoken, the Headmistress herself. He saluted because the Academy was a part of the military and by extension, all students where military personnel, even the smallest children. "Ma'am. By morning if I work all night Ma'am." He then added, "Within an hours notice with the full staff, Ma'am."
If the woman was impressed she gave him no indication. He could only assume she was, the Zords had originally not been expected to be operational for another month. "I see." Was the woman's cold response, "Retire to your dorm. It's almost curfew."
"Yes, Ma'am." He complied. After cleaning himself up he glanced back at the mechanical monster he had been working on.
Zords. Giant war machines. Just one could be as powerful as a small army. The Academy was one of multiple Party controlled establishments researching and developing the weapons based on scans form several ancient weapons found buried underground. None could be recovered by the scans had yielded fascinating results.
He suspected the Zords where to be used to spread the Party's influence to the other nations of the world, but he was just a mechanic and a man. It wasn't his place to know the machinations of his leaders. He just needed to keep his head down and work hard and maybe he would be allowed a comfortable life.
The next day passed with the usual routine, bar one exception. Wake up and make beds before seven followed by an hours jog around the campus, failure to complete a set distance based on age and course resulting in the lose of credits. Extra credits where earned for every ten percent extra you managed to cover in the allotted time. Boys received no extra credits, but lost credits for not trying as hard as they could.
Half hour for breakfast. Meals where separated by gender. Girls got free choice while boys where restricted to high nutritious, but bland tasting foods. Breakfast was followed by a half hour to shower, change and report to inspection. Boys had to stand on parade for half an hour, girls where granted an extra half hour to shower and change but where expected to be ready for inspection by nine just like the boys. Classes started at nine thirty.
Classes where broken up by two recess breaks and a lunch break. Like with breakfast meals where segregated.
As a military school gym classes often mixed martial arts lessons into the roster along with the sports and other activities. It was brutal and discipline was expected at all times. The all female instructors seemed to take a particular delight in using the male students as examples and turned a blind eye when the girls where too rough on male partners.
The Party had decreed the boys where to man up and deal with it.
Classes ended at three and those with extracurriculars where expected to be present within fifteen minutes of classes ending. Officially these activities only continued for an hour but it wasn't uncommon for students and teachers alike to get so absorbed in something they continued up to curfew, sometimes skipping dinner entirely as the young man had the day before.
Dinners where also segregated with boys being given nutritious but unfulfilling meals.
The exception was that today all extracurriculars where cancelled for the routine monthly screening. Everyone at the Academy was put through a series of medical tests to ensure their health and positive development and growth. It was through these tests many children who developed terrible conditions, like cancer, where discovered and treated before the condition had become a problem. Those developing conditions not so easily treated, deformities, autism and other developmental issues, where transferred to specialist establishments once the issues became apparent.
Not that anyone seemed to know where these establishments where…
For the young man, todays tests where no different then any he had done before. Strip, demonstrate his flexibility, let some doctors and nurses poke, prod, measure, take a sample of blood and lay down in a machine as it scanned him. Same as every month before, and likely for every month to come.
In a room obscured by a two way mirror the Headmistress observed the scans. She cared little for the young man's other tests, they where likely no different then previous months. A normal healthy young man. No, what interested her where the colour coded numbers displayed on the screen.
"Headmistress, are these numbers right?" The woman at the console asked with genuine surprise. Several bars where displayed across the screen, each one of six colours, each with a numeric value displayed above them. A red line ran perpendicular to them all with the word 'minimum' written to the side. All six bars where at least twice the size of the minimum line with red being three times higher.
The Headmistress replied, "If it had only happened the once I would say it was an error." she frowned, bringing a hand to her chin and she looked over the numbers again, "But there is no doubt about it now. Four scanners and as many software updates. These aren't an error." She sneered, like what she said next disgusted her, "A man is compatible."
It was a shocking and disturbing idea to the women. The idea a man could be equal to a woman in anyway was a completely foreign concept to them. Ever since their Foremothers had destroyed the Patriarchy and their sexist science every single study has found men to be inferior to women in every way, good only as labour or tasks to demeaning for superior women.
"What should we do, Ma'am?"
"Nothing, for now." The Headmistress replied, "Erase the data, splice in the data from average, tell no one." She nodded to herself, "Based on his passed behaviour I doubt he would act on the information even if he knew. He is obedient and does as the Party asks. I worry more of what the Rebels would do with this information."
"Yes, Ma'am."
With the path forward laid out the well dressed woman turned on her heels and walked out of the room. A moment passed before the nurse looked back at the monitor and inserted a drive into an empty slot. A few keystrokes later and the monitor helpfully informed her that data was being transferred… from the console to the drive. Once the process was complete she removed the drive and pocketed it before erasing the data on the console and splicing the male population average in it's place.
With her work done the nurse shut the system down and left the room, her ID tag visible on her chest. Her name read 'Maddy Hart.'
That night the young man had decided to return to his dorm early. With his extra activities cancelled for the day he didn't really have anything to do after forcing down the bland food he and his male peers where fed. He figured he could read up on the latest specs for common equipment being used in various industries across the country.
At least until his plan was interrupted by a figure standing in his way.
At a casual glance you would have mistaken her for a boy, but in this world girls like her where fairly common. She was tall, almost as tall as the young man, with brilliant red hair which she kept short and messy, lightly styled to float outwards. Her eyes where a piercing amber shining against her pristine porcelain skin.
She possessed a formidable athletic build and wore the uniform of an Academy Prefect; black pantyhose, a black pleated skirt with black heels. Her tops consisted of a white shirt with a black coat and a pink tie. She also sported black gloves along with a pink band around her left forearm adorned with the Party's symbol and military cap.
"Scott Gacy, of the mechanics division, I presume?" The girl asked smoothly, her tone coming across far friendlier then it had any right too. Scott immediately worried about what her intentions where.
Knowing the code of conduct he didn't hesitate to salute even as he processed who he was talking too. The girl was one of the Prefects for his year group, Celes Warchild, daughter to one of the Party's highest placed officials. A part of him wondered how much of her position was bought by her mother and how much was earned, not that he would ever dare ask that out loud.
"Yes, Ma'am." He responded as required, "How may I serve, Ma'am."
Celes let her eyes wander across the young man's body. He was dressed in his school uniform, the orange overalls never leaving the workshops, and was still clean after his evening shower. She scowled slightly at the height difference but quickly moved on.
He wasn't what she expected of a male student at the Academy. They where supposed to be in peak physical condition for a member of the inferior gender, yet he some how managed to maintain an inflated stomach and chubby cheeks. Surprisingly he did this and managed decent times on his morning jogs, well enough to not lose credits. His brown hair was kept short and she could see no signs of any products, yet somehow it seemed to stand on end making it seem stylish.
Scott also possessed fair skin as she did while his eyes where a clear blue.
His uniform was pressed and clean. It was dark blue, standard for regular students, with black shoes, long pants, a white shirt and a coat shirt. His tie was red while his gloves where white. Unlike Prefects regular students only wore their caps while on ceremony so it's absence meant little to the Prefect.
"I hear you are involved in a certain… Project." Celes finally spoke up again, leaving the statement hanging.
Scott gulped, Prefects where not known to give up easy but he had to try, "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I'm not at liberty to confirm or deny such an inquiry."
Celes smiled, "Good answer." Then she scowled, "Follow me." she ordered.
Scott had no choice but to obey.
Within minutes he was escorted across the campus to the girls dorms, a fact that was causing no small amount of panic the grow in the young man. The punishment for breaking curfew was serious, for a boy to do so and be discovered in the girl's dorms? Some would say death was the worst fate one could suffer.
Some would say life in a cage couldn't be so bad. They didn't realise not all cages needed to restrain an entire person to make them suffer.
Without a word Celes escorted Scott to her room and ushered him inside and slammed the door shut before locking it. As she brushed passed him and took a seat at a small table in the centre of the room the young man cast his gaze around.
The room was significantly larger then the rooms afforded to the boys. The boys rooms where barely large enough for a chest of drawers and a single bed with drab walls and a small window. Celes' room was massive in comparison, not only large enough to fit a walk-in wardrobe but a vanity, two chest of drawers and an honest to the heavens four-poster Empress-sized bed, a bed large enough for six people, but still had room enough to a small table and four elegant chairs to be set around it.
For someone of his poor upbringing the room looked to be the size of half a house.
Every inch of the room was decorated in finery. Elaborate gold lining on all the furniture, the carpet was not only plush and soft but was decorated with the image of the founding of the Matriarchy. He couldn't make out what kind of blankets covered the bed due to the fine silk curtains that seemed to be made from at least a hundred layers of frills from top to bottom, with golden threads laced throughout.
There was no window as he would have seen it. There was only a glass divider separating the inside of the room with the balcony outside. Framing this exit was more fine silk curtains.
For a moment Celes seemed confused as Scott examined the room with wonder clear on his face. It took until her maid, a feature Scott hadn't noticed until that moment, for the girl to realise the boy had likely never seen the inside of a Superior Woman's room before. The thought brought a laugh to her lips.
"Oh, how simple minds are amused by simple things." She mused.
Scott chose not to comment on the accidental self-degradation of Celes' words.
After a moment she frowned, "Well?" when he didn't move she gestured at a chair and commanded, 'Sit, boy."
Not wanting any trouble Scott did as instructed.
A moment the maid fixed the young man a cup of tea before, as far as Scott could tell, melting into the walls. He knew she hadn't literally done so, but she was damn good at the 'servant' job if she was that good at becoming part of the background.
After another pause the Prefect looked Scott in the eye before placing a tablet on the table with an image displayed. Whatever it was it was massive. The level of detail on the image was amazing, obviously taken using the latest in 2020AD photographic technology mounted on the International Space Station. That level of detail eliminated the possibility of the object being small but extremely close.
"What is this…?" Scott pondered out loud while taking a closer look at the image.
"Aliens." Celes replied. Her tone told him she wasn't kidding. She sipped her tea before adding, "They're related to that little Project you have been working on." She pondered her next few words for a moment, "I have been given access to some information, which I'm willing to share so long as you are. So tell me, Scott Gacy." She looked him in the eyes and asked, "Tell me all you know about this Project? This Project Grandguard."
Far above the Earth two figures observed the pale blue dot from aboard the alien vessel.
"Just thinking about it gives me a headache." One of the figures complained with a shrill voice.
"Truly." The other replied with a more serene soprano, "The humans are an… energetic species."
The first rolled their eyes, "That's one way to put it."
"So will you agree?" The second replied, "A mutual exchange. We get what we want, you get what you want?"
There was a pause before the first replied, "Fine. You have a deal, Empress Alto-Mia."
The second clapped her happiness, "May this alliance be beneficial to us both then, Empress Rita Repulsa."