Treia's room in the cadet barracks was fine. It had enough space for her and her roommate. The furniture was comfortable, even plushy. It had a large window that faced the Academy's well-kept grounds, allowing for a view of passersby and greenery. It wasn't enough. As soon as her roommate left, Treia plunked down on the chair in front of the room's desk and activated the built-in console. She was soon facing one of the Academy's senior staff via the grey-rimmed screen.
"Good morning, I'm Lieutenant Davison," piped the staff member. "How can I help you, cadet?"
"Hullo, Ma'am," said Treia. "I'd like to apply for a room transfer."
Davison raised her eyebrows. "Woah there, cadet. What's your name?"
"I'm Treia, ma'am, Treia Price."
Cadet Treia took a deep breath, then said, "Don't you have my name on file, Lieutenant?"
"Oh, of course I do. It's right here on the screen: Treia Prixaela Price. I simply like to remind you students about manners from time to time. Now, why do you want a room transfer?"
Treia glanced away from the screen, biting her lip. The room was otherwise perfect. She had just finished unpacking.
"Medical complications? Religious beliefs? What's the issue," prodded Davison.
On the other side of the transmission, Lieutenant Davison was accessing Treia's file. Oh, thought Davison. It's this kid.
"I just wanted to know if there were any rooms available for a transfer," Treia was saying. She could see the Lieutenant's eyes moving as though something were being read.
"That doesn't answer my question, cadet. Why?"
It's not necessarily racism, Treia thought. I have legitimately suffered psychological trauma. The cadet steeled herself and said, "It's my roommate, ma'am. I'd prefer a different roommate."
"Hm," said Davison. "Because he's a Vulcan?"
"Yes, ma'am. That's correct."
"Price, you've taken an oath to uphold Federation values. One of those values is peaceful coexistence."
"Yes, of course, ma'am. And I'm all for peaceful coexistence. I really do believe in it. It's just that I'm not comfortable sharing my personal space with a Vulcan."
"For crying out loud, Price. You've lived with Vulcans for what, eight years?"
"Seven and a half, ma'am. The fact remains that it's out of my comfort zone."
"After so much time, I'd think that you'd be more than comfortable around them."
"A Jew wouldn't be comfortable around a Nazi. A Bajoran can't be expected to live with a Cardassian."
"The court ruling decided that things weren't as severe as all that."
"I still disagree. My entire world is gone."
"That's only time's fault, not the Vulcan's," Davison said. "But I see your point."
"Then I get a different room?"
"Unfortunately, you don't. At least not for now. Transfers aren't allowed this early in the year, much less on the first day."
Treia nodded. Failure tasted of bitterness. "I understand," she sighed. "I only bring it up because I explicitly requested a non-Vulcan roommate. Preferably a human one."
"Well, the assigned roommates weren't selected at random. Someone did this on purpose. I'll look into it, okay?"
"Oh, thank you, ma'am," said Treia. "I don't know if I could go another four years or so with one of those cold, indifferent -"
Treia stopped short as her roommate came through the door. "Um... People," she managed, trying not to look up at the young Vulcan.
"Right," said the Lieutenant. "Like I said, I'll look into it. Have a nice day, Cadet Price."
"Yes, ma'am. Have a nice day."
"And, Cadet? Starfleet regulations specify that senior officers should be addressed as 'sir' unless otherwise noted."
"Right... Sir," said Treia. "I appreciate the information."
The transmission ended. Lieutenant Davison began checking Treia Price's file to ensure that the conversation had been recorded accurately. She intended to run it by one of the Academy's psychiatrists before the end of the day. Meanwhile, Treia had a little time to kill before going to sleep. She grabbed her PADD off the desk and walked out of her dorm, not making eye contact with the Vulcan. His name was Taurik, but Treia hoped not to call him that. She hoped to avoid conversation when possible. After a brisk walk down a hallway and through a few doors, Treia was breathing in the cool dusk air of the park-like Academy grounds. She followed the paths to a large tree and, warily keeping an eye out for the gardener, began to climb it. Learning to climb trees had been a part of her effort to re-humanize herself, even though she had never done it before her years with the Vulcans. Now she scaled the tree to have a place all to herself. Once situated on a high, hidden branch, she accessed the Cleverbot stored on her PADD. Cleverbot was no longer an AI program learning from the internet. After World War Three, most people were too concerned with their own survival to gather the resources necessary for internet access. The result was that following generations grew up either ignorant or afraid of getting back on the web, the fear being in part due to the reasons behind the war. To survive, the antagonists had said, humanity must go back to a simpler way of life. Less electronics. Far less people. Years later, after the rediscovery of scattered servers worldwide, public interest in the internet experienced a minor surge. By that time, however, subspace communication had reconnected humanity. Since subspace was both familiar and not limited to Earth, what remained of the internet wasn't seen as a useful innovation, but an archaic form of entertainment (judging by the sheer amount of cat photos). A few historians dedicated themselves to studying it, but the public had other things to worry about. Acclimating to aliens, communicating with loved ones on distant worlds. Thus, Treia's adoptive Vulcan parents hadn't been expecting their charge to take an interest in the obscure historic archive that was the internet. They'd never heard of it. Treia, for her part, had been in shock at encountering something from her past. She had been focused on accepting her past as dead, and yet... There it was. As the young orphan's technical prowess grew, she strove to recapture some of what she had lost when she was dragged through time. By age fourteen, a semi-stagnant Cleverbot was on her personal access display device - her PADD - and she preferred its primitive, Artificially Intelligent company to that of the loveless Vulcans. She had several modes set up on her Cleverbot. On a whim, Treia chose Anonymous mode, in which Cleverbot would talk to her as if they'd never interacted before. Her custom PADD had a little keyboard. She started typing as the sky darkened around her.
User: I just got settled into my dorm, but now I have to move because I found out that my roommate's a Vulcan.
Cleverbot: I'll love you.
User: Um. I can't believe that Starfleet or whoever was in charge paired me up with a Vulcan roommate, after what I went through.
Cleverbot: Yeah me too.
User: Thank you. At least somebody can see the outrage.
Cleverbot: I'm sure plenty of people love you.
User: After you-know-what happened to me? This is what I get for using Anonymous mode.
Cleverbot: Why, what happened two minutes ago?
User: I don't know about two minutes ago... But I'm glad you're here for me, sort of.
Cleverbot: Okay, maybe not two minutes, then.
User: More like seven years.
Cleverbot: Why years?
User: I mean... That's what we say when it's been years, and it has been years.
Cleverbot: So c-come on. You got it wrong.
User: I only regained access to the remaining music archive a couple of years ago.
Cleverbot: Secret is secret, because only one person knows.
User: Hm. I wonder who first said that.
Cleverbot: I wonder too.. :).
User: :).
Cleverbot: What is your favorite One Direction song?
User: What?!
Cleverbot: Which One Direction song is your favorite?
User: I don't care for One Direction that much. It's not for me.
Cleverbot: Nor do I.
User: Hm. Good job.
Cleverbot: 'good job' or what?
User: Or... Nothing. It is what it is when it is when I will it when it is.
Cleverbot: Well... Ok then.
User: Yes. Well done. That's all I meant.
Cleverbot: I don't know what you are talking about?
User: Nothing really, but thanks for helping me out.
Cleverbot: You're welcome.
Treia looked up from the chat with a start, partly because of a crick in her neck and because she was once again mortified by the realization that her closest friend was a non-sentient collection of data. Insects darted and drifted past her face. The dusk had faded into night, and she stopped reading for fear of straining her eyes. Not that eye issues were serious in the 24th century, but the Cadet's late mother had always warned: Don't strain your eyes! And so she tried not to strain her eyes. She tried to remember to have good posture. She wanted to remember to do everything right, to honor the memory of her parents. To a lesser degree, she wanted to honor the memory of her world, the old Earth that she'd been raised on. The 24th century people of Treia's current time had less problems, true. Less hate. No poverty. More acceptance. They claimed to be more evolved, which Treia thought was a nice sentiment. But it was occasionally a source of discomfort. People had a tendency to look at her warily after learning she was from their "barbaric" past. Before understanding that she had been aged backwards eight years when she was brought through time, people had tried talking to her as though she were a child. You can't be violent or hateful anymore, a kindly old lady had told her. Treia retorted with a perfectly lucid explanation of how she'd been raised in civilized society. It wasn't very convincing. At the time, her fifteen year old mind had been speaking from a biologically seven year old mouth. And when people didn't talk to her like a child, they talked about her as though she were a child. Does she understand what's going on, they'd whisper to her guardians. She hadn't been very interested in forming friendships before being dragged through time; now she had even more trouble with socializing. Too much prejudice. Too much culture shock.
And now, Treia thought as she carefully descended the tree, making friends will be essential if I want to excel in Starfleet.
Regardless of her aversion to her new Earth and century, Treia had still chosen a career that would have her serve her accidental kidnappers. She had no family. Life was hardly worth living. At first, suicide seemed appealing to her seven/fifteen year old self. Now she was biologically fourteen and mentally twenty-two. The Cadet had decided that she did want to die, but she also wanted to be all used up before she did. Thus, Starfleet; the leading cause of human deaths in the 24th century.
"HEY!"
Treia lost her footing on the tree. Hitting the ground didn't hurt so much - she'd only been a few feet from the bottom - but she immediately realized that her palms were bloody and splintered. The Cadet turned around in a flash, looking for the person who had startled her. The old man was barely visible in the garden's darkness. He was a pale, white-haired specter in a light shirt and grey overalls. Crap, Treia thought. It must've been the gardener. A good-natured Andorian officer had warned her about the gardener.
"Is there anything I should expect at the Academy," Treia had asked.
The officer, a Commander, had been in a hurry. He still tried answering the young girl: "Watch out for the gardener, all right? He's not fond of kids who step on his handiwork."
With that, Treia's imagination had constructed a vicious, Cadet-beating gardener. In real life, he looked somewhat frail. At the same time, he was actually more grumpy-looking than imagination could account for.
What can I do, what do I do, thought Treia, desperate for ideas.