The Echoes of Rivalry & Ruin (The Acamancy Series I)

Chapter 5: An Adjustment

At dinner with Mom, Brian and Leo, I told them all about orientation and the tour. I raved about the library, the river, the water fountain, of course, and the campus as a whole. Mom told me all about her favorite hidden spots, her favorite professors and classes, and the food to avoid from the cafeteria. By the end of our meal, I am exhausted and ready to call it a night early. It's only 7:30pm when we are headed out of the restaurant from dinner, but by the time I find my dorm room, get my bags set down, my bed made and get settled in for the night it will be after 9:00 at night. I usually am an early riser. I tend to head off to sleep fairly early too. But during this summer, I had a lot of sleepless nights, which led to my sleep schedule shifting later and later timeframes for finally drifting off to sleep. I do need to get back into the habit of waking up early though, so heading to sleep early would do me some good. I haven't gotten my class schedule yet, but I know with the amount of classes, skills training, battle field, extra-curriculars, study hall, etc. I will have jam-packed days. I know I will need to rise early and be up late in order to put my best foot forward this year. So, I may as well get on track as quickly as I can. Afterall, school starts in just over a week.

Saying goodbye to mom and Leo wasn't as hard as I thought it would be this time. I will see them tomorrow for breakfast and then they will be sightseeing in the area while I get my student Id and class schedule and such tomorrow. We are meeting up for dinner again tomorrow evening and then the real goodbye will occur tomorrow night. They all leave very early Sunday morning, so they have plenty of time to settle in before they head back to their routines on Monday. Mom did give me an extra tight and lingering hug, but she was pretty relaxed with the probing about orientation all throughout dinner, and she didn't insist on walking me to the dorms and helping me check the list and find my room.

I had an easy enough time finding the dorm entrance, Brian is great at parking as close to where we need to go as possible. Once I get inside, I have to pause and re-adjust the plan. The line isn't as long as I expected, but the list is not how mom explained it. She said that I would find lists posted on the wall, on the left side of the office they always have the list for the men on the corkboard on the wall. Then on the right-side corkboard mom said I would find the list for us women. She told me, the lists are split up by Element Class to make it easier, and the Element class names are at the top and the papers are color coordinated by the colors typically associated with our elements. So of course, I would be looking for the teal blue paper, while Mal would look for orange, Brynn would hunt down the green list, etc. On these lists we find our name, year, element class, assigned dorm number, and assigned bed number. According to mom's description, we are supposed to make sure all information is correct and then highlight our name to agree with it. If there are no errors, that is, otherwise we circle the errors and bring them to office attention. Once we checked all of that, Mom said we are supposed to approach the desk, she explained that there are several helpers at the desk who we give out our last name to and tell them our listed room number from our list on the wall. Then from there, they find and give us a keycard for our assigned room, and we are all set. I had it all planned out for what the best way to do this was. But now, none of that even matters, because the process has completely changed.

I do my best to go with the flow, I find a spot to wait in line for one of the 5 kiosks to be open. Once it is my turn to approach a kiosk, I follow the instructions on the screen to get myself signed in. The kiosk furthest to the left of the row opens up. A girl, who looks very similar to me, smiles at me as she walks away, and I take her spot in front of the screen. I am very good with books, even writing, which is not a big thing these days and hardly ever used is easy for me, I have stellar penmanship. I love reading, writing, art, I excel in math and find genetics fascinating, and it all comes easily, I have an excellent memory, and I am even a fairly good Water Mani, given my age and experience. But one thing I fail miserably at is almost all things technology related, including all computers... even my cellphone is ancient. I don't see the need for all these new features. Unless there is a new app for supporting our Element Manipulation skills and training, I don't need or want it. My phone works fine, it has everyone's number programmed in and I know how to text and call and load an internet browser, that's all I need.

I approach the screen, holding my breath, as I tap the "Begin" button on the screen:

Please enter your Last Name

"Thatcher"

Please enter your First Name

"Emalyne"

Please verify your date of birth

"2 June, 2029"

Please verify that all of the information on the screen is correct, highlight any misinformation to be flagged for edit by administration. If everything looks correct on your screen, please hit 'submit' at the bottom of the screen.

Emalyne J. Thatcher

19 years old, 02-06-2029

Year One, first attempt

Element Classification of Manipulation: Water

Enrollment Starts: Monday, 14-09-2048

Graduation Estimate: Saturday, 04-06-2050

Thank you for verifying your information. Please sign the screen below and hit the arrow at the upper right-hand corner to continue and receive dorm information.

"Emalyne J. Thatcher" -Submit-

Please follow the information on the screen to collect your fingerprint for room access. Doorknobs on all dorm rooms are fingerprint scanning. A keycard will be printed, with your information, to be used as a backup form of entry to your room. If you lose your keycard there is a charge of: 1000 CoinCard, to gain a replacement at the dorm office.

Please place your right thumb flat against the circle below, slowly rotate to the left, then to the right, before replacing it flat against the screen.

This may take a few tries for the computer to successfully capture your fingerprint.

Fingerprint scan processing.....

_______________________________________________________

Scan Successful

Thank you Emalyne J. Thatcher, please proceed to Hall 14, room number 2931.

Have a fulfilling year, thank you for attending Acamancy Academy.