Ozymandias Academy

Part 5

The night after Elle's meeting with Dean Astor she was woken up at an ungodly hour and ushered out of her room by Madame Morrison. Linda was nowhere to be seen, but Elle hardly noticed. She rubbed her bleary eyes as she stumbled down the hallway, doing her best to keep up with Madame Morrison, who was explaining something that Elle didn't quite catch all of.

"I am terribly sorry for the rude awakening, but for everyone's first time we have to get them in early in the morning. That way you can still go to class. Your teachers will be told of your involvement in the program, and they will treat you accordingly. Eventually, depending on your progress, you may not have to attend classes in the future." Madame Morrison paused and looked at Elle. "Yes, given your aptitude, I think it highly unlikely that you will be needing to go to class any longer after this." She nodded approvingly and bustled away.

Elle tried to walk a little faster, her brain moving a lot slower than her body. Not go to class? That didn't make any sense. She'd hardly been at Ozymandias Academy for a few months, how could they already be taking her out of classes? It's not like she was going into the workforce already. Or was she? By agreeing to join this mystery program, had she inadvertently signed up for being a member of Dean Astor's personal workforce? This idea excited her, and she began to perk up. This kind of opportunity was exactly what she had joined the Academy hoping to find.

Madame Morrison led Elle into a room and closed the door behind her. "We made sure to get you a female tech, since you will have to take off your covering." She mimed removing the hijab, and Elle initially balked.

"What are you going to be doing to me?" This was something she perhaps should have asked a lot sooner. She really had no idea what she was getting into, or what exactly was going to happen to her now.

The tech approached Elle carefully. "Elle, my name is Malia. We're not going to hurt you. All we have to do is attach these receptors to your head and have you change into the skinsuit. Don't worry, the suit is completely modest. It even comes with a head covering, but I'll have to attach the nodes to your skin underneath the hood." Malia gave Elle a reassuring smile that she reluctantly accepted. Seeing that everything was running smoothly, Madame Morrison gave the pair of them a curt nod and left. "Do you want me to run you through how everything works?" Malia offered.

"Yes, please, if you wouldn't mind," Elle said. Now that she was here, she was curious. She wanted to touch everything and know exactly what was going to happen to her.

A lot of the explanation went over her head. She put on the skinsuit while Malia talked her through what all the pieces were for. The suit was made of a thick, bendy material, almost like a wetsuit, and the inside was filled with little wires running along essential points on her body. There were large clusters of them on all her fingers, across her chest, and running down her arms and legs. She felt odd, like a spaceman, with her gloves and booties. This kind of technology had always felt unnatural to her, unlike magick, but there were some who believed they could be made to coexist. Clearly this program was born of such a pairing.

Elle tied up her hair and slid the hood on over her head. It fit very snugly, making her feel like her head was being compressed. It was a highly uncomfortable sensation, but she supposed it was necessary for all the wires to reach the right places in her head. This was the part of the explanation she didn't understand. The wires were all to connect her into the system, allow her to interact with objects in her environment, and allow Malia to monitor her thoughts and actions. In order for this to work, wires and receptors had to be placed all over her body, to record the waves created by her brain, or something like that. Elle wished that it could be simple, like magick. She knew there was an element of magick involved, making everything work exactly as it should, but she didn't know what that meant yet. She hadn't experienced what Malia kept talking about, which was this "perfect reality". Perhaps it was just her sleep deprivation getting the best of her, but either way, she allowed Malia to adjust her instruments and lead her to a small raised circle on the floor with a railing placed around it.