Ascension Project: First Class
Vera was standing in the empty hallway outside the principal's office, nervously wringing her hands, waiting for her mother to come out.
She hadn't meant to throw Eric Fisher's bike into the lake. It was Maria's fault, actually. She had kept prodding Vera, daring her to use her powers, even though she wasn't supposed to. But was Maria there to take at least some of the blame? Of course not.
Vera's mother was the school nurse, and she knew the principal very well. Not that it meant that Vera's misdeed would go unpunished. But she knew that her mother would make her feel bad, because she made her mother look bad in front of her boss.
The private school of New Cologne was a prestigious institution, one of the highest-ranking schools on Terra Nova, and throwing a bike into a lake was not acceptable behavior.
Of course, Maria had just laughed. But she was not the one who had to sit down with her mother for a two hour talk after school. Vera already knew almost exactly what her mother was going to say. She would tell her to control her powers. But what did she know? She was not a biotic, so how could she possibly know how it felt.
Vera knew how the rest of the day would go. Later, at the dinner table, Vera's mother would force her to tell her father what she had done. He wouldn't understand either, but probably complain about the school's inability to handle children with 'special needs'.
Apart from a few missteps, Vera really was an excellent student. Praised by most of her teachers for her dedication and loved by her classmates for her helpfulness. In fact, Vera had already skipped two years of school to ensure that she was challenged in her classes. Most of her classmates, including Maria, were one or two years older than her, but Vera still performed very well.
Too bad she was an untrained biotic. By losing control and by listening to Maria when she shouldn't, Vera had gotten herself in trouble several times during her years in school.
"As long as she is not hurting the other kids," her father always said and joked that she should use her powers to compete in sports.
But even though she was just eight years old, she knew that using biotics was cheating. And cheating was wrong. But of course, Maria had taken her father's joke seriously. On several occasions, she had tried to recruit Vera for her handball team. But so far, Vera had declined. If only she had declined to try and lift Eric Fisher's bike across the lake as well.
"Miss Rodriguez, would you please come in here?" she heard Principal Rogers call from inside his office.
Vera slowly walked to the door and stepped into the office. Principal Rogers was sitting behind his desk, Vera's mother, wearing her nurse uniform, sat on a chair across from him, arms crossed.
Vera didn't know where to look, so she kept her eyes on the tips of her shoes as she slowly moved to the other chair in front of Principal Rogers' desk.
Her mother gave her a stern look.
"I will do this quickly. You need to get back to your history class, I believe, Miss Rodriguez," the principal said.
Vera nodded.
"You must understand," Principal Rogers continued. "That I do not dislike biotics. And I wouldn't want to prevent you from using your powers, except on other students of course."
Vera nodded again. She had never willfully harmed another student with her powers, even when some of them teased her to provoke a response.
"But there have been a few mistakes on your part, Miss Rodrigus," said Principal Rogers. "As I said, I don't want to have to tell you that you can't use biotics at all. But I may have to."
Vera's mother nodded slowly. "I have promised the principal that you will not be using biotics in school for the rest of the month," she said.
Vera sighed. She had expected something worse. Not being allowed to use her biotics in school was not great, but she could always practice at home.
"And you'll be in detention after every school day for the rest of the months as well," Principal Rogers said. "Starting today."
That was worse, much worse. The hours between the end of school and dinner was her favorite time of the day. That was when she did a lot of biotics training in her room, and when she and Maria usually went on adventures.
She nodded, accepting her punishment, and Principal Rogers sent her back to her history class. It was the last class of the day, and when the bell rang, all the other children ran outside. Some of them had to ride the bus home, others had sports training in the afternoon.
Maria stopped in the doorway and looked back at Vera. "Are you coming?" she asked.
Vera shook her head. "Detention," she explained, using just that one word.
Maria pulled a face, and Vera laughed. Maria could always make her laugh.
"I'll see you tomorrow then," she said and waved. Vera waved back, and Maria disappeared.
Vera packed her things in her backpack and left the classroom. With heavy footsteps, she walked back towards the principal's office.
"In here," Principal Rogers said, popping his head out from one of the doors.
Vera entered a room complete devoid of furniture. There wasn't even any art on the walls. This was the detention room, designed to be boring.
Vera sat down on the carpeted floor, leaning against the wall. She pulled her biology book out of her bag and began to read. Apparently satisfied that she would be spending the time in detention doing something worthwhile, Principal Rogers smiled and left the room.
After a few pages of learning about the differences between mammals, reptiles and birds, a skinny, short boy with spiky blond hair entered the room. Without saying anything, he sat down on the floor like Vera, leaning against the opposite wall.
None of them said a word for a long time, until the boy finally broke the silence.
"So…" he began. "What are you in for?"
"In for?" she repeated. "We are not in prison."
The boy chuckled. He seemed very relaxed about being in detention. If Vera had to guess, this was not his first time.
"I am here because Mrs. Ridgehouse heard me telling a dirty joke," he said.
Vera put down her biology book and looked at the boy. The school was not that big. She had definitely seen him in the hallways before, but never noticed him. Although he seemed very familiar with the detention room, Vera didn't think he was a bully or a bad kid.
He was about her age, but one or perhaps two years below her.
"Do you want to hear it?" he asked.
"What?"
"My joke," he said happily. "Do you want to hear it?"
She shrugged.
The boy pointed to her biology book. "This joke is about animals," he said. "Here we go: There's a bear and a rabbit taking a shit in the woods. The bear asks the rabbit: Do you have problems with shit sticking to your fur? The rabbit says no. And so… the bear wipes his arse with the rabbit."
Vera laughed. She couldn't help it. It wasn't just the joke. In fact, it was mostly the happy, expectant look, the boy had on his face as he awaited her reaction to his joke, that made her laugh.
The boy smiled at her. "You're alright," he said. "Thanks for laughing at that one."
"Was that really enough to get you in detention?" Vera asked.
"I did say 'arse', and 'shit', twice," the boy said with a shrug. "And I probably should have waited until recess."
The boy had a British accent. It was easy for Vera to recognize. One of her classmates had recently moved from London to Terra Nova with her parents. This boy talked just like her.
"Are you new here?" she asked, thinking that he might be the younger brother of her classmate.
The boy shrugged. "Not that new. My parents and I moved here from Earth two years ago," he said. "My grandparents still live back in Manchester."
That sounded a lot like what Vera's parents had done when she was just a baby. She was born in Spain, where her grandparents, whom she had never met, lived with the rest of her extended family.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Kurt," he said.
"Kurt Wright?" Vera guessed, believing that he was the younger brother of her British classmate.
"No?" he said. "My name is Kurt Nielsen."
"So you are not related to Sophie?"
He shook his head.
"Well, my name is Vera," she said. "Vera Rodriguez."
Kurt smiled. "Nice to meet you."
She smiled back.
"You asked what I'm in here for," she said.
He nodded eagerly, awaiting her story.
"I threw Eric Fisher's bike in the lake," she said.
Kurt laughed.
"Who is Eric Fisher?" he asked. "Is he an arsehole?"
Vera shook her head. "Don't curse so much! And no, he's actually a really nice boy. I sort of didn't throw his bike in the water on purpose."
Kurt looked perplexed, and why wouldn't he. How did one accidentally throw a bike into a lake? But Vera did not want to tell him about her powers. Not everyone understood, and some people were even mean about it.
Principal Rogers returned a few minutes later with a datapad in his hand.
"That's it for today, Mr. Nielsen and Miss Rodriguez," he said. "You can go home. I'll see you here again tomorrow, Miss Rodriguez."
Kurt smiled at the principal. "And there's a good chance I'll be here as well."
"Not if you behave, Mr. Nielsen," Principal Rogers said.
"Yeah," Kurt said. "But what's the chance of that happening?"
Rogers shook his head, but Vera said the corners of his mouth going up. There was just something about Kurt that made people smile, she guessed.
Vera left the detention room and went to the nurse's office to find her mother, but she had left already. It didn't matter, Vera could walk home by herself. She literally lived right next to the school.
At the school gate she saw Kurt Nielsen again, trying and failing to perform tricks on his hoverboard. He was not very good, and he fell off. But instead of hitting his head on the pavement, he slowly guided himself to the ground, incased in a blue bubble of light. Vera was flabbergasted.
"What was that!?" she asked.
Kurt whirled around, noticing that she was there, and he quickly jumped to his feet.
"Nothing," he said, brushing off his school uniform.
"You're a biotic," she whispered. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Kurt shrugged. "It's not always easy."
"I know," she replied.
"Do you?"
He looked at her suspiciously.
She looked down at her right hand and concentrated hard on her fingertips. After a few seconds, her hand began to glow with a dim blue light.
Kurt almost fell over again. He smiled brightly at her.
"So you threw a bike in a lake, huh?"
She blushed and nodded.
"Cool," he said. "I lifted my neighbor's dog onto our roof once. Not on purpose, of course."
Vera laughed. She could not believe that there was another biotic at her school. She had never known. In fact, she had never met another biotic.
"Do you ever feel that things would be easier without biotics?" Vera asked.
He nodded. "I sure wouldn't get in as much trouble."
"Do you know any other biotics?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"I really wish I knew an adult who could teach me how to use my powers," she said. "I've heard that the Alliance is using biotics as special soldiers.
"Really?" Kurt asked skeptically.
She nodded. "Yes, apparently you can do all sorts of things with biotics."
Vera and Kurt talked for a long time about biotics until Vera's mother came out of the house, walked the short distance to the school gate and started yelling at Vera for not coming straight home.
"Don't you think you have caused enough trouble for today, young lady?" she asked. "You know you're supposed to walk straight home."
"But, mom," Vera said, pointing at Kurt. "He is like me. He is a biotic!"
Vera's mother looked at the scrawny boy with the blond hair. "Is he?"
"Yes, Mrs. Rodriguez," Kurt replied.
Vera's mother looked pensive. "You have never been to the nurse's office, have you? I am pretty sure I would have noticed if you were a biotic."
Kurt shook his head.
Vera's mother took her daughter's hand. "Well, I'm glad you have made a friend, Vera. But dinner is on the table."
Vera hadn't even noticed that it was getting dark.
"I better get home as well," Kurt said and jumped on his hoverboard. "See you later!"
Vera followed her mother back into the house.
"I want to learn how to use my powers properly," she said.
Her mother nodded but didn't answer.
At the dinner table, Vera's father, who worked in a nearby bank, was already filling his plate.
Vera sat down on her chair, facing both of her parents.
"Why don't you tell your father what happened today?" her mother asked.
"I met another biotic," Vera said.
"Not that!"
"Oh, and I accidentally threw Eric Fisher's bike in the lake. But I didn't mean to, and the bike is fine."
Her father looked across the table.
"Another biotic, huh?"
"And a bike," Mrs. Rodriguez reminded her husband.
"His name is Kurt," Vera said and began eating. "He also thought he was the only one."
Mrs. Rodriguez nodded to her husband, confirming Vera's story. She opened Kurt's file on her datapad. "There's nothing in here about him being a biotic. I can't believe that hasn't been reported."
"Who is this kid?" Mr. Rodriguez asked.
"He's eight years old, like Vera," Mrs. Rodriguez read from the datapad. "But he's not in her year. The rest is confidential."
"He's from Earth, like me," Vera supplied. "And he seems smart, but a little bit silly. And he's not very good at hoverboarding."
Her father chuckled. "We'll have to invite him over sometime," he said.
-X-X-X-
Kurt rode his hoverboard south, concentrating hard to stay on the board. He was picking up a lot of speed, and he still hadn't learned to slow down.
He could see his parents' house coming closer and closer, but instead of slowing down, he steered his hoverboard straight into their well-trimmed hedge. Kurt landed in the hedge and heard his school uniform rip on a branch. He looked down and saw that had scratches all over his body.
Groaning, he crawled back out of the hedge. It wasn't anywhere near as soft as the nice green leaves suggested.
"Bloody hell," he cursed, picking up his hoverboard and limping across the front lawn.
Frank and Carina Nielsen had built an enormous house in New Cologne. It was among the biggest in the city. But that had been Frank's demand for moving to Terra Nova with his wife. He wanted to build a big house.
Kurt's mother was a successful lawyer, and when she was offered a lucrative job on Terra Nova, her husband had agreed to move, on one condition. He wanted to build a big house for his family.
The house was very modern with state of the art computer system and integrated mech butlers. The house could practically take care of itself.
Kurt brushed off a few leaves and twigs and entered through the heavy double doors. They were antique and made of wood, installed by Frank Nielsen in a fit of nostalgia. No one else in New Cologne had anything as outdated as wooden doors.
Kurt knew he was late, way too late. So he tried to close the door as quietly as possible and tiptoed up the stairs to his room on the second floor. He placed the hoverboard on its charger and tried to use his biotics to pick up the giant stuffed rabbit in the corner of the room. He had been trying to lift it with his powers for over a year, but he just couldn't get it right. He was only able to rock it back and forth.
Kurt had many toys, but the rabbit was probably his favorite. It was actually the mascot for the local football team, New Cologne FC, Kurt's favorite team. The rabbit was wearing an electric green jersey with the number '10' on the back and the New Cologne FC logo on the chest. After months of begging his parents, they had finally agreed to paint the walls in his bedroom in the same electric green color. Kurt had then decorated the walls with posters of the players from the team. There was a home game this weekend. He would ask his father for permission to go.
He decided that it would be best to go downstairs instead of waiting for his mother to call him on his omni-tool. He found his father and mother at the dinner table, being served by a mech.
"Hi," he said, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong.
"What happened to your uniform? And why are you so late? Did you get another detention?" his mother asked.
Kurt nodded and sat down at the table.
"What did you do this time?" his father sighed.
"I told the rabbit joke," Kurt said.
"What?" Frank Nielsen, who was responsible for most of the jokes that Kurt knew, said. "That is gold. How can they give you a detention for that?"
"I know!" Kurt said, while his mother shook her head.
Carina Nielsen had long since given up on trying to discipline her son for his language and dirty jokes. It was an impossible mission as long as Frank continued to undermine her work by allowing Kurt to overhear him telling his bad jokes whenever they had friends over for dinner.
Kurt picked up his cutlery and dug into his pasta.
"This will be your last detention this year, do you hear me?" his mother said.
Kurt nodded.
"I'm serious," she continued. "Another one and you're not going to watch a single game of football the entire next season!"
"But, mum!"
"No!" she said. "We've already had five letters from Principal Rogers this semester."
Kurt looked down at his food, pouting. He wasn't a bad kid. If only his parents knew what some of the other children did to each other to earn detentions, they would understand that a few silly jokes here and there weren't so bad.
"I wasn't alone in the detention room today," he said.
"That's part of the problem," Mrs. Nielsen said. "You're spending so much time in detention, hanging out with bad kids. All your friends will end up being the troublemakers."
"She is not a troublemaker," Kurt said.
"She?" Mr. Nielsen said, putting down his knife and fork. "Who?"
"Her name is Vera," Kurt said. "And you know what? She's a biotic too!"
"Really?" his mother said, looking at her son, trying to figure out if this was just another of his stories.
"Yes," Kurt assured her. "Her mother is the school nurse, Mrs. Rodriguez."
"And you're absolutely sure Vera is a biotic?" Mr. Nielsen asked.
Kurt nodded. "She was put in detention for throwing a kid's bike in the lake."
"She sounds like a troublemaker," his mother noted.
Kurt shrugged. "Shit happens."
"Please, Kurt. At least don't curse at the table."
"Sorry, mum."
Kurt quickly finished his meal and ran back upstairs to practice his biotics on the giant rabbit. Vera had said that she wanted an adult to teach her biotics. He quickly realized that he wanted the same thing. He wanted to meet more biotics, and he wanted to know what could actually be done with the powers he was in possession of.
He quickly grabbed his hoverboard and ran back down the stairs.
"I'm going out!" he shouted to his parents in the kitchen.
"Be back before nine!" his mother shouted back.
"Did you say ten?"
"NINE!"
"Yes, mum!" he replied and hurried out the door.
He managed to make it back to the school without falling off his board. He even managed to slow down enough that he could grab onto a lamppost and stop in front of the Rodriguez residence.
Their house was not nearly as big as his own, but the lawn and the hedge was very well-kept.
He opened the wooden gate and walked up the graveled path that cut through the front lawn. Vera's house was just one floor, and Kurt walked around the outside, looking in through the windows. He quickly snuck past the living room and continued to a room with hot pink curtains. Looking through a slit in the curtains, he saw Vera sitting on a bed, reading her biology book.
He knocked on the window and Vera jumped. She put down the book and opened her window.
"Kurt! You scared me! What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?" Kurt asked.
Vera nodded and stepped back so Kurt could pull himself through the window.
"Why didn't you just ring the doorbell?" Vera asked and closed the window after him. "And did you fall on your hoverboard? Your uniform is ruined."
"I thought your parents might prevent you from having a guest," Kurt replied. "You know. Because of the detention. And yes, I may have taken a tumble on my board."
Kurt looked around her room. "Did you pick the color yourself?"
Vera had indeed asked her father to paint her walls in bubblegum pink. She nodded.
"Well," Kurt said. "It's… nice."
She laughed. Clearly he didn't mean it.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, sitting down on her bed, while Kurt pulled out the chair from her desk.
"I wanted to ask you something," he said. "About what you said earlier…"
"Yeah?"
"When you said that you wanted someone who could teach you to use biotics, did you mean it?"
She nodded. "Of course. Why?"
"Because I think I want the same thing," he said.
Vera smiled.
"We could practice together," she suggested.
Kurt nodded eagerly.
"Tomorrow," she said. "It's almost past my bedtime."
"What time is it?" he asked.
"Nine," she said, pointing to a wall clock behind him.
"Shite!" he cursed and opened Vera's window.
She laughed. "Don't hurt yourself on your way home!"
He waved back at her, jumped out the window and ran across the lawn with his hoverboard under his arm.
He smiled as he jumped on the board and hurried home. He had never realized how much he needed another biotic in his life.
Once at home, he ran into the hall.
"Only four minutes late!" he panted.
His mother popped her head out of the living room.
"Good," she said. "Brush your teeth and go to bed."
"Yes, mum. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Honey."
In his room, Kurt didn't go straight to bed. Instead, he started practicing with his stuffed rabbit. The mascot was big and heavy. Probably as heavy as a bicycle. And if Vera could lift a bicycle into the lake, he should be able to lift the rabbit off the floor.
He concentrated hard on the rabbit, but nothing much seemed to happen. That was his main problem. He had absolutely no idea how to control his power. And just willing the rabbit to float didn't seem to be enough.
Kurt seemed to need his reflexes to trigger his powers. Sometimes, when he was falling on his hoverboard, he would sort of catch himself and prevent an injury. That was what had happened in front of Vera. But Kurt wanted to control his powers.
Now that Vera suddenly existed in his world, it had become a competition. If she could lift stuff, he wanted to be able to lift stuff, preferably something heavier than her.
He tried to make the rabbit soar again. But something went wrong, and an empty glass on his bedside table exploded.
"Whoops," he said.
He heard his parents running up the stairs, and he jumped into bed.
"What is going on?" his father asked, opening his bedroom door.
Kurt tried to look like he had been just about to fall asleep, the picture of innocense. But there were pieces of glass all over the floor.
"Stay in bed," his mother said and called one of the mechs in to clean up the mess.
"I need a teacher," Kurt said, as his parents sat down on the edge of his bed.
His father nodded, while a mech entered the room and began cleaning up the glass. "I heard about a place on the news," he said.
"No, Frank," his mother said. She was about to cry.
Kurt sat up in his bed.
"It may be the best for the boy, Carina," his father said.
"What are you talking about?" Kurt asked, crawling to sit between his parents, who put their arms around him.
While a tear was rolling down his mother's cheek, his father sighed: "The Alliance has started a school for biotic children."
"Have they?" Kurt asked excitedly.
"But it's on a space station far away," his mother said, wiping a tear away. "And the students live at the school."
Kurt nodded. "So I'd have to move?"
"Yes," his father sighed, and his mother whimpered.
Kurt didn't know what to say. He almost wanted to run back over to Vera and tell her what he had learned.
"Can I go to that school?" he asked.
"Do you want to?" his father asked.
Kurt nodded. "I want to learn biotics."
"The Alliance have asked parents of biotic children to sign them up for a series of tests. They don't take all biotic children, only those with the highest test scores," his father explained.
"Do you think my score would be high enough?" Kurt asked.
"I have no idea," his father answered.
"Are you sure this is something for you?" his mother asked. "You could just stay here with us."
Kurt hugged her.
"I think I want to try it, mum," he said. "At least to see if I can pass the test."
She smiled sadly. "We'll see," she said and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, sweetheart."
Kurt's parents left his bedroom, and he crawled back under his blanket and closed his eyes. It took him a long time to fall asleep that night.
-X-X-X-
Vera sat on the floor in her bedroom with Maria. They were playing with dolls, and, as always, Maria had decided that she wanted the female doll. Vera didn't care. She was happy to play with the male action doll that she had asked her father to buy for her.
She thought that her pretty dolls should have at least one male friend. And the male doll, Bob she called him, had played several different roles in her and Maria's universe. He had been everything from a father to a brother, a friend, a husband and a butler. The fact that she only had one set of clothes for Bob, a uniform with a camouflage pattern complete with weapons and a parachute, meant that they sometimes had to get creative in their justifications why Bob was so heavily armed.
"I am going to work, honey!" Vera said, moving Bob's hand in a waving motion. She was doing her best to imitate a deep man's voice.
"At the military base?" Maria asked, moving her blonde, bikini-clad doll. She didn't have to change her voice as much, perhaps that was why she preferred playing with the girl dolls.
"That's right," Vera said, and she pushed Bob's plastic face against the bikini doll's and made loud, exaggerated kissing noises.
She and Maria played with dolls almost every weekend. But lately, Vera had been slightly distracted by Kurt. It had been nearly two months, since she had learned she was not the only biotic at her school. She had actually not spent as much time with Kurt as she had thought she would. During the week, she was too caught up in her schoolwork, something that Kurt was having difficulties understanding, so they met on the weekends and practiced their biotics.
Kurt had told her about the school that educated biotic children. The Jon Grissom Academy, it was called. Both she and Kurt had applied for the Ascension Project, the school's brand new program for biotics.
It had taken a lot of very long conversations with her parents, many tears and some serious pleading, applying her best puppy dog eyes, for Vera to convince her parents to even let her apply for a spot in the Ascension Project. But they had finally given in and helped Vera send in the data that the Alliance was asking for. Now, she was awaiting her results. Apparently, the program only accepted the best, and she had no idea how powerful she was compared to other biotics. Kurt was her only basis for comparison. At least she was a bit better than him, but not by much. And Vera would feel a lot better about going to the academy if Kurt was going too. He was, if not exactly a friend, yet, at least a familiar face.
"Do you want to play something else?" Maria asked, and Vera realized she had been zoned out for a moment, thinking about her biotics.
"What? I'm sorry," Vera apologized, picking up Bob, who had been lying face down on the carpet for a while.
"You were thinking about that school, weren't you?" Maria guessed.
Vera nodded. Honestly, she had been thinking about the Jon Grissom Academy.
Maria had been very upset when Vera told her about the school. Vera's biotics had never come between the two best friends before. Maria had accepted Vera immediately. She was curious and always wanted Vera to show her what she could do. But since Vera had told her best friend about the school, Maria had not wanted to talk about biotics at all. She was mad at Vera for wanting to leave her.
Vera had tried to explain that she was not trying to leave Maria. Actually, there was nothing she wanted more than to take Maria with her. But that was just not how this academy worked. Students lived there with their classmates. No parents. No non-biotic friends. Those were the rules, as Vera understood them.
She was sad about potentially leaving Maria as well. Probably as upset as Maria was. But her desire to learn to control her biotics had only increased since she had learned that there was actually a school for her kind.
Maria tossed away the female doll.
"I'm going home," she sighed and stood up.
"No," Vera said and jumped to her feet as well. "I'm sorry, Maria. I still want to play."
Maria just shook her head, and Vera saw a tear glistening in the corner of her eye before her best friend stormed out of the door.
Vera began to cry as well. At first she sobbed quietly, but soon she was crying so hard she could barely breathe. She kicked Bob, who ended up in the corner of the room.
Her mother came running in through the door, and saw her daughter standing helplessly in the middle of the room, surrounded by dolls.
"M-Maria left," Vera said and threw herself into her mother's embrace. "She hates me."
Mrs. Rodriguez sat down on the bed and pulled Vera onto her lap. "No, she doesn't," she said, stroking Vera's hair softly.
Then Vera's father entered the room.
"Kurt is outside," he said. "He wants to know if you're free to practice with him today. I should remember to congratulate him for having learned how to use the front door."
Then he noticed the state of his daughter.
"Maria left," Mrs. Rodriguez explained to her husband.
Vera's father nodded in understanding. "I'll tell him to come back later."
But Vera shook her head and wiped her eyes. "No," she said. "I want to practice."
"Don't feel like you have to," her mother said, as Vera started packing her dolls away.
"I have to, if I want to be at the academy," Vera said, putting Bob and all his weapons back in the box with the rest of the dolls.
Then she hugged her mother and wiped her eyes one last time before walking out to meet Kurt, who was in the front lawn, doing pushups.
"I really don't think that's the kind of training we should be doing," she said.
"451… 452… 453…" Kurt counted and smiled up at her. "You never know," he said. "454… 455… 456…"
He then jumped to his feet and brushed off his hands.
"You're ending it at 456?" Vera asked. "That's and odd number."
He laughed. "Now, I'm not the nerd out of the two of us, but I think you'll find that it is in fact an even number."
She hit him on the arm. "I meant that it was a weird number of pushups to stop at, stupid!"
He laughed again, rubbing his arm. "Well, I did 544 before I came over," he said. "So… You know, a thousand all in all."
"Yeah, right," Vera said.
Kurt sat down on the grass, and she sat across from him with her legs crossed. He pulled a small, red ball out of his pocket and levitated it away from himself. As it reached the halfway point between them, Vera took control of the ball and kept it floating towards her. Once the ball was hovering right in front of her eyes, she let go, and the ball fell into her lap. Then she picked it up again and started to guide it back to Kurt.
This was how the two of them had been practicing, by lifting Kurt's little, red ball back and forth between them, sometimes adding special rules, like placing either of their dads in the middle and having them chase after the ball as they passed it from side to side.
"Have you heard from the academy?" Kurt asked, watching the ball carefully.
"Don't you think I would have told you if I had heard anything?" she replied, releasing control of the ball to him.
He nodded, sticking his tongue out as he concentrated on not dropping the ball. "You'll get in," he said confidently.
"We both will," Vera answered.
A week later, she was standing between her parents in front of her house, waiting for Kurt's father to take a picture. Her hair was in pigtails, and she was wearing the brand new red uniform that had been sent to her along with a message, welcoming her to the Ascension Project. Just behind Frank Nielsen stood Kurt, wearing the same red uniform with the Ascension Project logo on the chest and smiling even brighter than usual.
Frank Nielsen took the photo and handed the camera back to Vera's father, who ran back into the house with it. A minute later, he came back out, carrying Vera's suitcase.
This was it, Vera realized. This would be the last time she saw her house in a long time. They were all going to the Jon Grissom Academy, and unless the Alliance had lied to them about the Ascension Project or the facilities, Vera would not be coming back home with her parents.
It was a school day, and she could hear children playing basketball in their PE class in the schoolyard next door. She was also going to miss her school, but she knew that she would be going to an even more interesting one.
She had already said goodbye to all her teachers and classmates, except for Maria, who had left the classroom as soon as the teacher started talking about Vera leaving to go to a school for biotics.
Vera had tried going to Maria's house, but Maria's sister, Chelsea, had told her that Maria did not want to see her.
"Are we ready to go?" Frank Nielsen, who had booked their tickets to Elysium, the planet which the Jon Grissom Academy was orbiting, asked.
Vera took one last look at her house and the school, while her parents crawled into Frank's shuttle that would take them to the transport station in orbit of Terra Nova.
She was just about to follow her parents, when she saw the gate to the schoolyard swing open. Maria bolted out onto the street, waving her arms maniacally to keep Kurt's father's shuttle on the ground. Then she saw that Vera was not even in the shuttle yet, and she sprinted towards her and practically jumped into her arms.
"I'm so sorry!" she cried.
Mrs. Davis, the math teacher came running out of the gate, calling Maria's name. Obviously, Maria had just suddenly sprinted out of the classroom. Mrs. Davis saw Maria and Vera hugging, waved at Vera and walked back inside.
"I'm so sorry," Maria sobbed. "I should have been happy for you."
Vera, who was also crying, hugged Maria tighter. "I understand," she said. "You are still my best friend, and I will come and see you soon."
Kurt stuck his head out of his father's shuttle to see what was taking Vera so long.
"Hello," he said to Maria and smiled.
"Hi," she replied.
"Are you coming?" Kurt asked Vera.
Vera nodded and gave Maria one more squeeze.
"I will write you as soon as I get there," she promised.
Maria gave her a sad smile and stepped back onto the sidewalk. Vera waved and stepped into the shuttle to sit with her parents in the back.
Her mother immediately noticed her smile.
"Did you get to say goodbye?" she asked.
Vera nodded. "Yes, I did."
-X-X-X-
The shuttle from Elysium landed inside the Jon Grissom Academy, and Kurt jumped out as soon as the doors opened. He wanted to see everything there was to see.
So far, it was just white walls and a few Alliance shuttles parked in the arrival hall, but still, the academy was already the coolest place that he had ever been.
A man in black military boots, grey camouflage pants, a white shirt and a leather jacket was waiting for them by the door. He was tall and had thin hair. But he was definitely younger than both Kurt's and Vera's parents. Kurt estimated him to be in his mid- to late-twenties.
"Welcome," the man said, shaking all of their hands. "My name is Otto Nobb, I'll be your instructor here. It is good to meet you Kurt and Vera."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Nobb," Vera replied, and Kurt quickly copied.
Mr. Nobb also greeted their parents and showed them through a door that automatically scanned them all for weapons.
"Glad to see that you are wearing the uniforms we sent you," he said. "I hope they are alright, we just designed them."
Kurt nodded, although he would have picked the green color of the New Cologne Football Club if he had been asked. But red was okay.
"How big is this station?" Kurt's father asked as they walked down the hallway.
It was much, much larger than Kurt had expected.
"I know how you feel," Mr. Nobb said, smiling at all of them. "I only just arrived here last week, and I must admit that I still haven't figured out where everything is. The station is huge. More than one kilometer long and with more than a million square meters of floor area in total. The station was designed to house 10,000 people."
"Bloody hell," Kurt's father said and was elbowed in the side by his wife.
"It's very empty right now," said Mr. Nobb. "Most of the departments are still recruiting students, and some departments, like the entire school of arts and our astrobiology department, will not open until next year.
"How many subjects can you study here?" Vera's mother asked.
"I'm not actually sure," Nobb admitted. "They are adding new fields every day. Both instructors and students will be handpicked."
They entered an enormous room with hundreds of round tables.
"This is Orion Hall," Mr. Nobb explained. "Meals are served here three times a day, and this is also where formal events will take place."
Mr. Nobb then showed them to their rooms. Kurt and Vera's rooms were on two different corridors, but not more than a minute's walk from each other.
Kurt immediately unpacked his bag and rolled out his football posters. He had brought them all in the hope that he would be able to put them up at the academy.
His parents looked around the room, as Kurt started measuring up the wall space. Vera was in her own room with her parents.
"What do you think?" his mother asked. "Do you like it here?"
Kurt nodded.
"I really do," he said. "It's brilliant. I just wish I had some more posters."
She smiled at him and sat down on the bed next to Kurt's father.
"Do you think you will like this school better than the old one?" she asked.
"Yes," Kurt said. "Definitely."
"Well, that's good," his mother said. "You should try a little harder in your classes. We know you are a smart boy."
"I will," Kurt promised.
Mr. Nobb returned with Vera and her parents soon after. They all followed him down the hallway and rode an elevator down one floor. In the corridors they met several other children, being escorted around by a teacher. Some of them, but not all, had also brought their parents. Many of them were in uniforms similar to Kurt's and Vera's, but in other colors, and some of them just wore regular clothes.
After a rounding another corner, they stood in front of a locked door with bold text on it:
Ascension Project
Mr Nobb handed both Kurt and Vera access cards. "These allow you to enter Ascension Hall. They are also coded, so you can use them to lock and unlock your rooms," he said.
Kurt placed the card in his breast pocket and followed Vera through the door.
"My office is in here," Mr. Nobb explained, pointing at the doors with instructors' names on them. "All the instructors in the Ascension Project live here. Not all of us teach biotics. You will also have the normal classes that you know from your previous school. So don't worry, we'll make sure you get a complete education. But I'm sure you've already read everything about that in the material we sent you."
They walked down the hallway. There were several classrooms and a gym in Ascension Hall as well. Kurt was excited, more than he had ever been about school. He couldn't wait to get started.
That night, Kurt's and Vera's parents slept on the station, before it was time to go home.
The goodbye took place at the shuttles. Kurt had known all along that it would be tough to see his parents leave, but it was even more horrible than he had imagined. The thought that he wouldn't see them in months was surreal.
Both he and Vera were showered in hugs and kisses, before the four parents entered the shuttle.
"We will call you as soon as we come home," his mother promised before the door closed between them.
Kurt and Vera held onto each other as they watched the shuttle take off and fly through the kinetic barrier. It quickly disappeared among the stars.
Vera was still crying on Kurt's shoulder, and he held her tightly, too overwhelmed to even cry himself. Mr. Nobb walked over to them and put his hands on their shoulders.
"Come," he said. "There's someone I want you to meet."
Kurt and Vera followed Mr. Nobb back through the school to Ascension Hall. There were still a lot of children being shown around on the station. And some of them had their parents with them. Kurt eyed them enviously.
In Ascension Hall, Mr. Nobb led them into one of the classrooms where three other students were waiting. Two of them, a boy and a girl, sat politely on their chairs with their hands resting on top of the desks. The third student sat on top of his desk in the corner. All three of them were wearing exactly the same uniform as Kurt and Vera.
"Please, sit on your chair, Mr. Prangley," Mr. Nobb asked, and the boy in the corner jumped off the desk and pulled out his chair instead.
Mr. Nobb placed Kurt and Vera in front of the three other children.
"This is Vera Rodriguez and Kurt Nielsen," he said. "Kurt and Vera, this is Jason Prangley and the twins, Seanne and Reiley Bellarmine."
Kurt and Vera waved nervously at their new classmates, who smiled back at them. Then Mr. Nobb asked them to find a desk, and Kurt and Vera sat down on the front row.
"As you know, you are our first class of biotic students here in the Ascension Project. I hope you are as excited about everything as we are," Mr. Nobb said and activated the giant screen on the wall behind him. "I will be your main instructor, and I will be the one responsible for all your biotics classes. Other instructors will deal with the rest of your subjects."
Kurt looked around. There were just five of them. He had expected a few more classmates. He raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Nielsen?"
"Is this all of us?" Kurt asked.
Mr. Nobb pressed a few buttons on his omni-tool and the screen behind him showed a graphic representation of a human body. There were several pulsing blue dots in various spaces on the body. Most of them were in the brain.
"Human biotics are very rare," he said. "Special abilities in kids that have been exposed to element zero were first discovered in my generation, which is why you won't see any human biotics much older than I am. But until we humans met the asari, we really did not understand biotics, and we are still learning. So, human biotics are hard to locate, even for the Alliance. And biotic potential doesn't necessarily mean that a person is suitable for training."
"But we are," the boy named Jason Prangley said happily from the back row.
Mr. Nobb nodded. "Yes. And since you all contacted us, you were very easy to find. But we know there are more children like you out there, and I have colleagues looking for them all over the galaxy. We want to make sure that they know what we can offer them here," he said. "So we are hoping that this class will grow over time. But it may also be the case that this class will stay together, and we will create a new group next year, when you will be second year students.
"And we are here until we are 18 years old, right?" the female Bellarmine twin, Seanne, asked.
"Yes," Mr. Nobb answered. That should be enough to give you a versatile and very useable biotic and general education. Your tuition is fully paid for by the Alliance, but you are of course free to change your mind, if you don't want to stay here for the full duration. But trust me, I think you'll want to stay forever."
That evening, Kurt sat alone in his room. He had been eating dinner in Orion Hall with his new classmates. So far, they had not started training their biotics, but Kurt was anxious to see if his powers could match the others.
He stared at the football posters he had hung on the wall in an attempt to make his new room homely. It hadn't really worked. He missed his parents already.
As he sat there by himself on his bed, his doorbell suddenly rang, and Kurt jumped off the bed. He opened the door and saw Vera standing outside, already in her pajamas, holding a small teddy bear. Kurt could see that she had been crying.
"Can I sleep with you?" she asked.
Kurt smiled. "Of course."
Vera quickly ran past him, her naked feet making pitter-patter noises on the floor, and jumped on his bed.
"The floor is cold!" she informed Kurt, who was still wearing his boots.
Kurt quickly put on his own pajamas and joined Vera between the sheets. He was happy that Vera was there. Being away from his parents seemed a lot easier with a friend close by. Seanne and Reiley also had each other, but Jason was alone.
Jason Prangley was a special kid, not the kind that Kurt would normally play with back in New Cologne. Jason had not shown any signs that he was missing his parents during the day. All the other children in the Ascension Project, including Kurt, had had their breakdowns during the day. But not Jason Prangley. Kurt wondered what he was thinking about now that he was alone. He was willing to bet that Jason was crying in his room, away from the rest of them.
He turned off the lights and made himself comfortable next to Vera.
In the dark, Vera gave him a hug. "I'm glad you're here with me, Kurt," she said.
Kurt put his arm around her. "And I'm glad that you are here too," he said.
Author's notes:
Another story that serves as a prequel to 'Biotic Beginnings', which, if you haven't, I would recommend that you read. First of all, let me say that I know that this story is a fluffy one. I simply wanted to tell the story about how Kurt Nielsen and Vera Rodriguez, two of my favorite characters from 'Biotic Beginnings', became friends.
Don't worry, I have some more dramatic stories planned for the future. But let me know what you thought of this one. As always, please leave a review to tell me what you think. I have plenty of stories planned, and your input will most likely be put to use in my future work.
Also, make sure to follow me if you're interested in reading more one-shots or even short multi-chapter stories about our heroes from 'Biotic Beginnings'.
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