The War of Sand

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

USNA, 2314

     Alyce placed her hover board, jacket, and FlexiPad into the tray in front of her for inspection. The security guards in front of the Learning Center scanned them. Confirmed safe, they had Alyce raise her arms and they scanned her for weapons, allowed her to collect her stuff and go inside.

“I have a huge headache,” Ami complained. “I wish they didn’t have to always scan us.  I mean, I’m a student, yeah? Why can’t my ID be enough? Or the fingerprint matches?”

“Ha-ha, I don’t know,” Alyce said vaguely, annoyed. Sometimes, it was irritating how shallow and kind of dumb Ami acted. It should be obvious enough why they did it; being a student did not guarantee you weren’t a threat.

Ami glared at her, tossing her head even though the majority of her hair was pinned up. “I’m sure you don’t know.” So Ami isn’t as dumb as she acts, Alyce thought.

“Alyce!” The energetic call made Alyce smile. Strong arms clothed in blue wrapped around her waist from behind. “I missed you!”

“No, you didn’t,” Alyce smiled, tousling Cameron’s brown hair affectionately. He gave her a small kiss on the check in response. “I saw all of your updates on LiveMe. You had the time of your life!”

He gave her a puppy-eyed pout, letting her go. “Well. There were a lot of really high tech comps… They even let us play with some of the new picobots that they’re creating! It was really amazing.”

“So amazing that you can’t even get into normal clothes?” Ami asked with distaste, eyeing Cameron’s blue skinsuit uniform. The uniform wasn’t exactly fashionable, after all. It was skin tight, dark blue and with special padding sewn in strategic areas to act as armor and cushion. It was obviously an Academy uniform. “I’m embarrassed being seen next to you.”

Cameron frowned at her, looking at her for the first time. Although he hung out with Alyce a lot, he never liked Ami much. She was too shallow of a person for him. “At least my head doesn’t look like a snake’s nest.”

“Hey! It does no-“

Cameron interrupted her. “Besides, this skin is really convenient. It’s the latest student model. The nanotech in it makes it super comfortable and the gel pads on the joints are less likely to pop now.”

“Plus it’s blue.” Alyce grinned at Cameron.

Ami scowled and walked away without a word. They watched her disappear into the crowd of students.

Cameron laughed. “Why are you friends with her again?”

“I don’t know. But let’s go. I want to hear all about your time at the Academy.” They walked along with the crowd, heading towards gravtubes.

Cameron was eager to please. “It was great! It’s so disappointing that we only get to go once! The other students were super cool, the instructors were passionate, and we got to play with a lot of experimental technology. They even explained how the force shields work!” He chattered on, going into deeper details about his time at the Academy. Alyce herself had yet to go, after all, the Academy was for those turning eighteen. Her cycle had yet to come up. So it was pretty exciting to hear all about it from Cameron.

Once he had finished, Alyce said, “Yours sounds exciting. But I doubt mine will be.”

“How can it not be?” He asked puzzled. “Your Specialization is engineering, isn’t it? It’s about the same as me. They’ll show the same type of materials.” He pressed the button to the group gravitational tube.