The Oasis

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Was she winking at me?

The class begins to clear out and excited conversation can be heard as I sit trying to work out what just happened.

" Did you see the library?...."

"Oh my god that food...."

"I can't wait for testing day..."

Classmates push past me in a hurry to make it to their next scheduled event. But I am stuck, glued to my seat, lost in a conversation with myself.

It's official , I'm crazy. But I swear that she winked at me. Do I know her? Maybe she knows my parents?

"Sulu , please give me all the information you have on Rebecca Whittaker."

Most commands with a PIA can be stated out loud, but I have a tendency to make my conversations with Sulu more private. I have enabled a silent command hack on him that allows me to just simple think of a command, instead of speaking it. Although he is required to record all of our conversation, this hack allows me to ask my questions without my peers looking at me queerly.

Sulu shoots up a generalized profile on Rebecca. Nothing is very personal on it, and nothing explains why she might know me.

"Sulu what RING is Rebecca originally from?"

" That information has been deemed classified"

Hmm that's weird. Why would it be considered classified?

I make a mental note to take one of my "special walks" later to see if I can find a loophole into her personal profile.

" Hey , Earth to Magda!", Lizzie says waving her hand in front of my face.

" You coming to lunch or are you just gonna sit there all day staring into the abyss?"

" Yea, sorry, just got caught up thinking about The Oasis." I say stumbling on my words in order to cover up a growing fear rising in my stomach.

Should I tell Lizzie? If I am crazy she would be the only one I would want telling me so.

As we descend down the stair and out of the class I decided to ask her a more generalized question.

"What did you think of Rebecca?"

" She was amazing!" She responds ,practically skipping as we head down to the elevators.

Everyone seemed to love every minute of class today. Everyone is now Rebecca's number one fan, but I can't help but feel that something isn't right.

Lizzie must see something in my expression because she turns and stops right in front of me.

" You didn't like her?"

"What? No that's not it. I just , it's all so much to take in."

Her face skews a bit and I can tell she knows I'm lying. But I'm tired of being the weirdo with all the questions. Over the years I've learned to just keep things to myself. I seem to be the only one in POD 14 who isn't completely content with my life or the answers I am given. So I act dumb and watch as the doors shut and take us to the ground floor.

We both have lunch at this time. After lunch though, we go our separate ways, as I have a First year class to teach and she has volunteer work at the Elder Center.

As the doors open to the ground floor and we make our way down the hall to the cafeteria.

It's filled with Fifteenth Years, and it's eerily quiet. Although we would all like to talk about what we just saw and did, our visit with the ambassador is to be kept quiet. This way the underclassmen can enjoy it when it is their time.