R.O.N.A.

Chapter 3 part C

*Sephora*

             The door slid open to reveal a beautiful, modernized room. To our right were two full sized beds that had black frames and were adorned in grey comforters. To our immediate right an opening revealed a small walk-in closet. The far wall was covered in tinted windows from floor to ceiling, and the pale glow of the streets far below shone through. One massive mirror lined the left wall, which made the room appear much larger. Just past the beds in the middle of the room, somewhat near the windows, a small step down created an area which contained a white couch and love seat with a small coffee table in between. The whole room smelled good: a sweet, yet undecipherable scent.

“Wow this room is amazing!” I said, as I gazed about in wonderment like a small child in a candy store. “Is this really our room?”

“Yes. I’m glad you like it,” Rexan said with a smile, “Now, to block out the lights from the city or to turn the lights off in the room, you have to use this hand scanner. Come over here and I will program it to read your hands,” he said still standing next to the door. We both walked over and, one at a time, pressed our hands onto the scanner. Afterwards, Rexan punched a few buttons and showed us what the scanner controlled.

“This,” he said, pointing to a touch button on the screen, “controls an automatic screen that scrolls down and covers the windows.” After Rexan pushed the button, a huge black projector-like screen rolled down all the way to the floor and blocked out the light from the other buildings. Next he pushed a button in the top-left corner, which slowly dimmed the lights. As I looked up to see them, I noticed that the glowing liquid was running through clear pipes that served as the lighting. Lastly, he showed us how we could lock our room from the outside with an external hand scanner.

“Well, I think that’s about it ladies,” he said, looking thoughtful. “If I remember anything else I will let you know. Oh… wait! I do remember something,” he said, laughing quietly at himself, “Breakfast is at 18 nonachron sharp. The cafeteria is on the twelfth floor. Next to each of your beds is a time keeper, so make sure you aren’t late. On the left side are the nonachrons, middle trichrons, and on the right are the monochrons. Well, see you in the morning girls,” he said. He waved and then exited the room, the door sliding shut behind him.

“Can you believe this place?” Aris said excitedly.

“Don’t get to excited Aris; we can’t stay,” I said disapprovingly, even though I thought our room was pretty cool.

“Aw, come on Sephora,” Aris whined, “If we are seriously on a different planet, we should enjoy it. I mean how many people get to say they’ve stayed in outer space?”

“True, but we need to focus on getting home.”

“We’ll figure it out… but for now I’m going to enjoy a comfortable bed!”

“I guess sleep wouldn’t hurt,” I agreed and yawned as a wave of sleepiness washed over me. I was still weary from moving into our apartment. I looked to the clock which read 56:3:19. I studied the timing for a moment, trying to figure out their method of time keeping.

“I’ll set our alarms,” Aris said, “I wonder how early we have to get up…”

“I think the ‘trichron’ is about the same as three minutes, a monochron is the same as a second, and a nonachron is 9 trichrons, meaning it’s about 27 minutes. So breakfast is at approximately… 8:00. Judging by this clock though, there are close to 25 1/2 hours in a day,” I said, rattling off my calculations, “I just timed it.”

“Man that’ll be nice to have more time in a day!” Aris exclaimed. Aris was used to my calculations. It was just natural for me to figure out things fairly quickly, especially when they were related to math.