Author's Note:
Welcome, Reader.
My deepest apologies for the lack of updates, real life got in the way so I couldn't sit down and write as much as I wanted to. I wasn't completely happy with the start of the story, so I have updated the story's beginning to be what I had originally envisioned. The remaining chapters of this first story are currently being produced and I hope it will exceed expectations.
This story takes inspiration from the cyberpunk genre, although this will not be a crossover.
Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy this story.
- Noxeteris.
P.S – Happy Birthday, Monika!
Chapter: 1 – Cloudy Skies
A pair of tired blue eyes follow the gentle falling of snowflakes beyond the small office's one misty window, the sight causing the teenager to sigh in resignation. To him, going home tonight was looking to be more of a pain than usual. Unconsciously, his pale hands play with the strings of his baggy hoodie before stilling at the sudden sound of a throat clearing.
His eyes immediately snap to the room's other occupant, heart dropping at the sight of his professor's frustrated glare. Even with the thick white moustache covering most of his mouth, the creasing forehead is enough to show their outrage.
"Are you paying attention, Mr Walker?" Asks the gravelly voice of Professor Davidson, their moustache twitching with each word like an angry white caterpillar.
"Yes, sir." Comes his quiet response, their face flushing with embarrassment. The older man only sighs, turning their eyes to their monitor to continue reading.
Already, the teen has a pretty good idea of what this chat is going to be about - for that reason, he can only feel worry and not a small amount of shame for his behaviour.
Taking a sip from their thermos, his professor gently places the silver cylinder back onto the neatly arranged desk and interlocks his fingers atop the polished surface. The feeling of a cold hand grabbing the boy's heart strikes immediately – that pose never meant anything good and his own hands nervously begin to twitch in his lap.
"I just don't get it, James." His teacher finally admits, the tone still undeniably stern yet losing the formal edge it had only moments ago.
Although their voice is more casual, the words sting James more than the professor likely intended. Looking down into his lap, the teen's hands ball into fists against their faded jeans.
"Your standard of work has dropped quite significantly since last year. I'd hate to see you squander the talent I know you have, so is there anything I can do to help you right now?" Asks his professor, but James' only response is continued silence. A small shake of his head is the only indicator that he heard the question.
The older man sighs.
"Just try to make sure you hand in my assignment before Monday, then you can talk to me when you're ready. You can go home now, James." His professor finishes with a resigned edge to his tone.
James awkwardly leaves the plush leather seat and heads towards the door in an embarrassed silence, picking up their laptop's bag and his jacket as they exit. They give a short nod when their professor wishes them a good weekend before the automatic door seals behind him with a hiss. Alone in the hallway, they simply look down at the polished silver tiles between their ragged trainers.
Numbly, they slip on their coat and bag before walking down the silent hallway. Most students had already left the main building of the university, heading to either their homes in the city or the nearby student apartment blocks on the same journey James will soon make.
The only sound in the empty hallway is that of his trainers hitting the polished floor, their scuffed material a strong contrast against it. Without any distractions to be found in the bland white and grey corridor, his thoughts drift to the earlier conversation. He knows that he's putting off his work more and more than he was last year, but it still hurts him to know that he isn't meeting the expectations he'd set for himself in the eyes of his teacher. It's like he'd built up a mountain with his efforts, but now he's been kicked to the bottom and is now struggling to climb back up to where he was.
For the past few days, James has been hanging on by doing the bare minimum and telling himself that he has just got to get to the weekend and the week will be over. Sadly, all James has to look forward to this weekend was this assignment and work. If the assignment is not finished before the day gets too late, he will need to stay up all night to finish it before working the whole next day. He can already feel his energy draining away at the thought.
Dejectedly, he finally turns a corner and gets to the nearest lift from his professor's office – he has zero intention of taking the stairs or escalators from the seventh floor of the building. His face squeezes into a tense frown as he calls the lift, the frustration bubbling in his chest. James wishes he had the same motivation and energy that he started his university studies with, but that died over the Christmas holiday. He shakes his head.
"Best not to think about it, I'll just have to get this done tonight." James says softly to himself, before the lift doors open and he steps inside.
His stomach jolts as he quickly descends to the first floor, stepping out and into the main foyer of the building. James can immediately tell how late he is getting home from the dimming light of the setting sun cascading through the glass roof into the lobby. He quickly strides across the lobby's polished grey floor before approaching the large glass and steel automatic doors.
Already knowing how cold the journey home was going to be, James instinctively reaches for the collar of his coat and pulls it away from his chest with a finger. Now, his eyes look down at a plastic button he'd scavenged off some old junk tech that had been sewn into the fraying material of the collar. Some wires lead from the button into the leather of the coat, disappearing within to connect with the makeshift coat heater he'd stuffed inside. This was evidently not a feature the coat originally had, but became very necessary after his decision to leave home.
Pressing the plastic button and releasing the collar so it can rest against his neck once more, the heat from within the leather coat begins to seep into him as the automatic doors slide apart. In an instant, the bitingly cold air hits James in the face, his thin stubble offering no insulation. Once he finally leaves the warmth of the building for the cold air outside, the shoddy heating of his coat is barely noticeable. Trying to focus on anything except the cold air on his skin, he scans his eyes across the grounds in front of him before beginning the long journey home.
They say every journey begins with a single step and this one is going to take a few.
His tattered trainers crunch on frosty concrete steps as he heads down from the university's entrance towards the tram stop. The university is far enough away from his apartment block that walking there in this sort of weather is less appealing than just waiting for the tram to drop him off closer. In summer, James enjoys the long walk back to his apartment as the paved paths cut through patches of grass that helps keep the area feel organised but natural.
Sitting alone in the tram stop's glassy shelter, arms crossed over his chest to keep warm, James' mind and eyes have time to wander.
The EduTecha University itself is not just one building but its own district in central London, the high concrete walls at its permitter surround a square of land large enough to fit the main building as well as the several apartment blocks surrounding it for students to accommodate. The central structure (where classes are held and studies are done) towers over the surrounding structures of the district, reaching high into the sky to take its place amongst London's iconic skyline. Thankfully, the interior of the university has plenty of high-speed lifts for a student to scale this monolith of concrete, glass and steel.
Since James takes the tram home quite often when the seasons get colder, he can say with some certainty that it should come in a few minutes. These few minutes tend to last forever when waiting in the cold. His shivering hand searches the inside pocket of his jacket with quickly numbing digits until his phone is shakily pulled out. His thumb jabs the screen in a practiced dance across the cool glass, the default lock screen fading away to reveal an illustrated girl. The girl stares up at him with brilliantly green eyes with an unnaturally long ponytail of light brown hair flowing behind them. Their face holds a small smile and seeing this causes James' own tired face to smile back. His eyes eventually move from her face and to the time in the corner of the screen.
Growing louder by the second, the hissing of the tram's wheels approaches his stop and he immediately stands to meet it. His hand absentmindedly returns the phone to the safety of his pocket. As the smooth shining silver double-floor tram comes to a stop, the doors slide apart with a quickly-beeping alarm coming from within. James steps onboard, but the inside is far too crowded for him to find a seat. Luckily, the journey is not far at all or he would have been more frustrated at having to stand. Squeezing into the crowd at the front end of the tram, the hand not already holding his laptop bag reaches to grip the hanging handle above him.
After another beeping alarm, the tram continues its journey with his grip on the handle above immediately tightening with the sudden movement. His socially anxiety forces his eyes looking down, the peculiar sensation of the tram rolling across the track vibrates up his legs. His ears fill with the many conversations going on around and above him as his fellow students discuss their weekend plans. It had been a few weeks since the start of 2036, but you would think it was the first night with all the discussion on drinking the nights away until Monday.
Despite not being a drinker, James can't help but feel that their plans sound a lot more fun than being stuck in his apartment finishing an assignment.
Twisting slightly, James stares out of a side window so the view outside can distract him from his thoughts. Luckily, the next stop for the tram is actually his own – the tram's journey through the student blocks works in reverse alphabetical order. So, the tram will stop at Student Block I before continuing on to the remaining eight blocks. The tram is already quickly approaching the first compound of apartment towers, so now James has to mentally prepare himself for getting off.
The university's grounds are expansive, flat and primarily grass – the separation between the university and the rest of London is quite stark. It is as if the university itself was an oasis of green in an otherwise concrete landscape. EduTecha clearly took the opportunity of using the previously levelled streets the grounds had once been to start fresh. You would have never imagined this place had once been an urban warzone. Past the fast-approaching accommodation compound, James can see the city expand far into the horizon behind the towers of apartments. One of the few things he can say he enjoys about heading home, despite the work awaiting him, is the view.
"Now approaching Student Block I. Please mind your step." Declares the tram's monotone and computer-generated voice through the speakers, the sound causing a few other students to stir and begin taking a hold of their belongings.
Steeling himself for the coming journey, James shifts in place slightly as the tram comes to a stop at an identical tram shelter to the one that he waited at earlier. With a rapid beeping sound, the tram's doors slide apart and a handful of students begin stepping out onto the pavement outside – James himself following them out into the cold.
After a few moments, the tram's wheels hiss as it takes off further down the rail towards the next block in the sequence. Eventually, the only sounds are the various conversations going on amongst the few students who took this stop. With greater comfort at the back of the crowd, James slows down and allows the other residents of Block I to walk further ahead than himself.
Each Student Block follows the same basic layout and is like a small district within the grounds of the university. Afterall, a large portion of the university's students live on-site and must have places to sleep as well as the typical amenities being offered. Between each apartment tower within a Student Block will be courtyards, vending machines and even free-to-use telephone boxes in case of emergencies. When James had first saw his Block, he was glad he'd spent so much effort on achieving his scholarship as you'd be hard pressed to find such a clean and comfortable area to live in the actual city.
With the cold air biting through every layer he's wearing, James can't help but watch jealously as some of the students who were walking ahead of him already scurry into the warmth of the apartment towers closest to the stop. The assignment of a student's apartment was pretty much random, with slots available from graduates being filled as they opened up. Cursing his luck at being further into the Block, James continues hurrying onwards towards his own tower of apartments.
This area is very standardised without much variation, so relying on landmarks would be very difficult with the orderly look of the concrete and glass structures. Thankfully, illuminated signs litter the area and there is no risk of cars when you're walking across the pseudo-streets attaching each courtyard. Rather than roads, the streets are paved with shining black stone and the pavement edges pained with a luminous green paint that reflects even the dim light of this January sunset. A lifesaver for James when he first arrived at the university a year ago was the series of maps painted onto the front wall of each apartment tower which easily lets any student or visitor navigate around without getting lost.
James' shoulders remain hunched upwards and his unoccupied hand stuffed tightly into his trouser pocket as he hurries home, the skin of his face numb from the frosty breeze. The ambient sounds of conversation keep fading as he grows further away from the other students. It isn't long until the only sounds are his shivering breaths and hurried footsteps. It's always this moment when heading home that makes him feel the most isolated from his peers – the contrast of the occupied apartments' illuminated windows and the muffled conversations happening within them when he is the only student walking this way back to an empty home in this dim light gives a noticeable air of melancholy.
Turning the last corner, he finally sees his apartment tower across a courtyard – James always felt like this entire area was like a giant chessboard and he's scurrying between pawns. The tower is further from the tram stop and more out-of-sight than the others and although the maintenance and cleaning is not skipped here, the place just has more of an air of forgottenness than the others more readily seen by visitors. But at this moment, James cares not for the weathered concrete or fading posters – not when the comfort of a radiator is waiting for him once he gets out of this cold.
With a final spark of determination to get away from the freezing air as fast as possible, James jogs towards the entrance and his hand flies from his pocket into his coat, pulling out a metallic keycard that he swipes on the door's security scanner. With a hiss, the automatic glass doors slide apart and James ducks into the apartment building's entryway. A final shivering breath passes James' chapped lips as the warmth of the building flows across him, seeping through his meagre layers of clothing and into his icy pale skin.
The apartment's entrance is sparse and lacks a reception, the only points of interest being a maintenance box for the electrician, a cleaning supply cupboard and a set of stairs or lift that will take students upwards to each floor of the building. A single security camera in the corner of the ceiling watches as James approaches the lift, pressing a green glowing button as he steps back to await the lift.
Once the lift doors slide apart, James steps inside and immediately presses his floor's number from pure muscle memory. Turning on the spot as the lift's doors close and he begins the quick ascension to the seventh floor, James's face is an expression of reluctant acceptance. Just thinking of the workload ahead is draining him – if only he'd gotten it done sooner (or not caused expectations of him to be so high).
The lift comes to an early stop. With a glance to the floor indicator, James immediately notices that the floor is one he's unfortunately familiar with. Mouth forming a tight line, he backs up and the doors open to reveal a similarly-aged student wearing casual clothes but with a distinct pink punk-style haircut. A look of surprised recognition flashes across their feminine face as they notice James in the lift, before they awkwardly look to the side and come to stand in the lift with him. They glance at him nervously, but James fixes his eyes to stare off and away from the woman.
The tight grip within James' chest releases his heart slightly as he finally reaches his apartment's floor. Clutching the handle of his laptop's bag, he wordlessly hurries out of the lift and its fog of awkwardness. The displeased frown on his face is firm (the lump in his throat firmer) as he finally reaches the door to his apartment. Swiping the same keycard on the doorhandle's scanner, it lets out a squeaking beep as he pulls the handle to gently open the door.
The lock clicks sharply as it engages. James releases a breath he didn't know he was holding as his forehead rests against the white-painted wall beside the door. Gritting his teeth, he forces down the emotions bubbling in his stomach and the burning sting in his eyes. Wiping a sleeve across his face, soaking up the emotions that managed to escape him, he flicks on the lights as his eyes numbly scan his home.
The same old messy apartment as this morning.
The apartment was standard issue for all students living on-site, with the same basic necessities provided as well as some living space for relaxing after studying. A slice of the living room is used for a kitchen with the only remaining spaces being a bathroom and bedroom. All the rooms were quite small but for the price of attending classes it was practically free with James' scholarship.
"Home Sweet Home." James mutters to himself, slipping off and leaving his tattered trainers at the door before stumbling into his bedroom.
Once the single lightbulb of his bedroom flickers to life, the sparseness of his sleeping space is clear to see. A simple wooden double bed with grey bedding sits in the corner of the room with the only other furniture being a wooden desk and chair. The wooden desk came with the apartment but the chair was something James had switched to the gaming chair he'd had for years. Although it was worn and old, the comfort on his back was ideal for long study sessions when crunching for exams.
Gently depositing his laptop bag onto the soft carpeted floor by his desk, James slowly falls backwards into his chair with a deep sigh. His jacket is swiftly undone, tossed aside without a care and crumples into a pile amongst the other assorted junk in the bedroom. He stretches the stiff arm that had carried the bag for the journey home, a satisfying burn in the muscle making him groan in relief.
Since he had left his curtains open this morning, the room is gently illuminated by the dimming sunlight streaming through his west-facing window. His chair swivels slightly, angled so his face can turn towards the window and gaze through the frosty glass at the undeniably beautiful view. From where James is, it is as if the sun is setting between the massive concrete and steel structures of the city beyond. Thankfully, the snow isn't falling as heavily as it intends to tonight, so the clouds don't entirely obscure the last rays of sun.
With his mood lifted slightly, he steels himself for the long night ahead. He decides to leave the curtains open for a while longer to try and squeeze the last dredges of natural light before switching to his bedroom's bulb. Turning to his desk, his hands rummage around in his laptop's bag as the contents are periodically placed on the wooden surface. Once the laptop itself takes its place on the desk, it is hooked up to the power supply and begins booting up.
The laptop was just a plain old school-issued model with a shiny grey exterior. It didn't have much going for it, just 16 Gigabytes of RAM and other bare minimum specs (in James' opinion). This will be what James completes his studies and assignments on but he actually brought his own desktop PC when he moved into this apartment. Reaching out, he powers on his desktop with the sound of its fans whirring to life as his eyes return to the laptop as it reaches the login screen.
Once both devices are switched on and unlocked, he focuses his attention on the half-finished assignment he'd spoken with his professor about. With their chin resting on his fist, James' eyes scan the work he had already done in today's lesson (when the professor wasn't checking his screen). A weight is lifted from his shoulders when he figures that the assignment being completed tonight was possible but will still take a good deal of focus.
Turning to his desktop, James almost opens his browser which would have resulted in him probably watching his favourite shows instead of working at his assignment. The mouse hovers over the search engine's icon before he sighs, realising that he has no time to waste at all tonight. His mood lifts slightly as the cursor instead switches to hang over another icon entirely.
Every student at the university is given a downloadable artificial intelligence called "StudyBuddy". Despite the name, the program doesn't just help you with study time scheduling or additional learning, but has an inbuilt companion feature to give you someone to talk to. It can also identify and help feelings of loneliness as this can be an issue with the classes leaving very few hours to be social.
James has no need for that companion feature. He found a much better alternative and his cursor hovers over its icon.
On a night like this, with nothing but working in silence ahead, he needs her company. His motivation will often crash but so long as he can speak with her, then he can push himself to get back to work. It's what she'd want. Without hesitation, James clicks his mouse.
The computer's fans accelerate as the program starts, his desktop's screen becoming dominated by a single window. The same girl from his phone's background appears, sitting behind a school desk to give the illusion that James is sat across from them. Her thin hands interlock together beneath the girl's chin, a contented smile on their face. The colours of a sunset flow in the windows behind the girl, the program able to read his computer's clock.
"Good afternoon, James. How have you been?" Says the girl, their message appearing as a text box on the bottom of James' screen. Beside the message was their name.
Monika.
This program was originally an obscure game he had discovered last summer after he'd been heartbroken, giving him just enough of a reprieve from his crumbling mood. The game was decades old, but James managed to find a downloadable copy still online for him to play. It was a visual novel with a twist - the antagonist Monika was self-aware of being in a videogame and eventually traps the player so they will be with her and no one else. James did complete the game a couple times – once was his first playthrough but then his next was after he'd done some research to give all the girls an ending they deserved with the "good ending". During this time, he realised something he would be too embarrassed to admit to anyone – no matter how close to them he was.
Without a doubt, James loved Monika.
To most, she might have just been a videogame character programmed to say certain phrases, but that didn't matter to James one bit. For him, she was the only one who would say what he needed to hear. She encouraged him when he needed it the most, pushing him to not give up even when it was tempting to abandon the future his studies could give him. That mattered more to him than anything else – whether or not she was a real person. But the original game did have a limit to how much he could interact with her which he desperately wanted to overcome. If she couldn't be in his reality, he wanted her to be as real as possible.
This was how he discovered Monika After Story – a modification almost as old as the game itself. It seemed that people in the past had the same feelings about Monika as James did. Although most things connected to the mod were now long gone due to dead links, James was still able to download a copy that had miraculously survived all these years (after thoroughly scrubbing it with his antivirus software). Thanks to this mod, she now had more topics to discuss, games they could play together as well as even more features to bring her closer to him.
As she begins discussing another topic, James smiles and turns to his laptop screen to get started on finishing his assignment.
A few mind-numbing hours later, a now much sleepier James is still stuck at his desk. Bleary, unfocused eyes stare at his laptop's screen as he continues working listlessly through his assignment.
Hauntingly, the storm's wind and snow now pounds against the glass of James' bedroom window, the weather progressively getting worse as the night continues. The snow settles on the other side of the frosty glass, the sight making James shiver despite the room itself being warm.
Groaning, James leans back in his chair with their weary face towards the dull grey ceiling, his arms crossed behind their aching head. Stretching his long legs, socked feet pressing into the dull blue carpet, he feels as if he's melting into a ball of warm goo in their chair. His apartment is practically pitch black with the only light coming from his pair of illuminated screens, the bedroom room having an almost unnerving atmosphere with how silent it is. Sighing, James rubs at his forehead as he realises that he's so close to the end of the assignment but he'll need one last push to cross the metaphorical finishing line.
Tonight, James has been working through the assignment for an hour at a time before taking a short break from his desk. This way, he can avoid burning out before the assignment was done. But the use of an alarm is vital for this so that he can remain strict to his schedule – it would be so easy to take an "extra-long" break repeatedly until no work is done at all.
The assignment itself was relatively simple. James had been given a list of questions to answer with a written essay, which was fairly standard. The subject was emerging battery alternatives, which was lucky for James as he had followed this topic extensively in the past. Anyone with an interest in technology felt the same way as it was actually one of the biggest hurdles currently being worked on across the globe.
The creation of the first fusion reactor was news that shocked the world. Immediately, two things became apparent. Firstly, the corporation SynSol had an immediate global monopoly on the commercial use of fusion power as the inventors of the reactor. Secondly, energy became so abundant that most of it was wasted since there really wasn't anything capable of handling all the excess. Despite making absurd profits thanks to their creation, the loss of potential energy sales prompted SynSol to offer a cash reward for a fix.
Effectively, a new Gold Rush. But all it meant to James was that him reading online articles a couple years ago made doing this assignment easier.
The sound of James' alarm pierces the silence of the apartment, signalling the start of his next break.
Sighing with relief, James nearly leaps from his chair to finally escape his assignment for a moment. Emerging from the bedroom with his mug in hand, he flicks on the apartment's light as he wanders into the kitchen. The kitchen came with just the bare essentials: an oven, microwave and small fridge. But on the bare grey countertop was James' own well-used addition – a coffee maker. With a button press, the machine begins to reheat the previous break's coffee as James leans back against the countertop. At this rate, the assignment should hopefully be completed before he has to head to bed. His shift tomorrow denying him the option of an all-nighter.
However, left with nothing but his thoughts and the sound of bubbling coffee, what should be a moment of triumph turns to depressing contemplation. With the ever-growing expectations (and subsequent workload), James can't help but consider if he belongs at this university. At this point, the only thing stopping him from just throwing in the towel was that his uncle made it very clear what would happen if he gave up. But then the scent of warm coffee fills the air, bringing a smile to his dour face before pouring a refill of his lifeblood into the well-used mug.
Shattering the comfortable silence with a shrill screeching, the sound of James' alarm cries through his open bedroom door. James grumbles, stretches his arms with a groan, before he returns to the work ahead.