Chapter Two
Suddenly, the computer-generated music was cut off, and the boys stopped dancing. They began to stretch their arms and legs, warming down after their exercise. All except one boy, the boy who was different. He wiped his dark forehead with the back of his hand and wandered slowly towards the window. The girl ducked out of sight, gasping with nervous anticipation. As she had hoped, it wasn't long until the door to the dance hall swung open and the individual strode hastily through it and down the corridor. The girl recognised the relief she felt coming from him in waves; it was as familiar to her as her own hand.
Quickly making up her mind, she leapt to her feet and began to walk silently after the boy. She was interested in him, she was sure of that...although simply because she could relate to him. They were the same as each other. Different to everybody else.
She watched the back of his head bob down the corridor until he dragged the cyper-canteen doors open and materialised into the crowd within. The girl followed in pursuit.
The cyper-canteen was yet another sparkling white, pillared room. Yet with one main difference. This room was colossal; it had to be to accommodate 2,000 Ga Ga kids all at once. Each and every teenager in the room wore white uniforms of various 'in-style' cuts and shapes, yet all with one other thing in common; the 4-square Ga Ga logo eblazoned across the front.
If the girl had been hoping to find any other person, it would have been impossible. Yet the person she was hoping to find felt so familiar, so individual, that she was confident. Her eyes swept quickly, casually around the canteen, left to right, right to left. And there he was. Sitting, as she had hoped, alone, staring vacantly at a blank cumputer screen he could not avoid. At every place at every table, a computer buzzed, waiting to be used to order lunch.
The girl slipped, unnoticed, through the alien crowd.
