Dreaming in Static

Chapter 9

Polaris

It was the middle of the night. The room was dark but for the faint brightness of the minuscule white lights stationed on Polaris's neck. And she was happy— perfectly happy, for the first time in her life. Even though Andromeda had been right; she was also trapped in the greatest crisis of her life.

She looked over the edge of the bunk (Ali was snoring away on the mattress below Polaris's, and Andromeda insisted on sleeping on the floor) and spied the drawer in which the time machine was stored. They had an escape route, at least, if all else failed.

She pushed the blankets off herself and stretched her bare feet towards the edge of the bed. If Polaris was going to survive in 2117, she figured she may as well make some more friends.

Polaris pulled her shoes on and ventured out into the halls.

The lights were still glaringly bright. The sound of chatter and laughter wafted into the corridor from what was presumably the common area. Polaris stepped in that direction and then halted abruptly to fix her hair.

Then, she breathed in and out, trying to calm her frantic, overactive vents. "They're just people," she murmured, placing a hand over her heart. "And you're not a Serf right now."

Yes, that was it. Polaris wasn't a Serfdroid; she was a regular, organic, living, breathing human being. For the time being, at least.

She bravely strode into the common room and was greeted by a gathering of the most eccentrically dressed people that she had ever seen. One boy glanced up at her, shock eminent on his face. He wore a plaid scarf wrapped around his neck, a red flannel, and ridiculously short shorts. (Boxers? Those had gone out of fashion nearly a hundred years ago...oh.)

"Hey," he said, extending his hand. Polaris stared at it for a moment before realizing that she was supposed to shake it. She gingerly gripped his hand and shook it.

"I'm Polaris," she said, smiling (she thanked her programming a million times over for enabling her to smile under all this stress).

"Colton," the boy said, grinning back. "Guys! We've got a noob."

Polaris was immediately pulled onto one of the couches and hugged by what must've been twenty people. (Twenty-one, actually, as her inner calculator in- formed her.) They all introduced themselves to her in varying states of attire. "So what are you studying?" Myrka, the girl in the robot onesie, asked.

"Um, robotic...engineering," Polaris blurted, flustered.

"Ooh," Myrka said, waggling her eyebrows. "Gonna beat Wei to developing the first android? Freeway, come here!"
The boy named Wei pushed up his thin wire glasses, trotted up to Myrka, and patted her on the head.

"Polaris. Wei. We call him Freeway. Go get acquainted," Myrka said, smirking and waving them away.

"Uh, hi," Wei said, blinking at Polaris.

"Hi," she said, suddenly feeling extra awkward. "Uh, um, do you, do you have food? Can I have some food? I don't have a job. I need food."

Wei suddenly burst out laughing. "I swear, every college student is the same."

Polaris followed him to the nearest store with Chinese food. He engaged her in conversation about robotics, a lot of which she didn't really understand, but she had discreet access to the Internet on her side, and she used this to somehow fake her way through the science talk.

With two boxes of Chinese takeout beside her, ready to take back to Alistair and Andromeda, Polaris was about to call it a night and head back to her room. Wei, however, convinced her otherwise.