Chapter 1

Mind over Matter

Elian

Chapter 1- Meeting

By the time the bus pulled into the station, I hadn’t finished my food so I had to just put it back in the styrofoam container. Staring at my ticket on my phone, I listened carefully for my number to be called, but it was so loud in the bus station that I could hardly hear what the woman was saying. After a minute, realizing she was now calling a number after mine, I got into the long line of people waiting for the bus that was going to the North Atlantic MultiTransportation Station.

I had to be the youngest person in the long line, or at least the youngest person going by myself. The bus was waiting outside, and after several very long minutes the announcer finally opened the door and the line made its way into the bus.

People dropped off their bags by the open luggage part of the bus, but the only bag I had on me was my backpack, so I didn’t need to do that! I could just follow the long line onto the bus. It was a lot fuller than I thought it would be. The Bus supervisor sat in his cozy cubicle, but everyone else was scrunched up, the seats packed together in both directions. The only way that people could be closer to one another was if there were seats on top of other seats, which there thankfully weren’t. The last bus I had been on had been a lot less crowded, on there I had my choice of seats, but on this bus there were very few open seats remaining. Walking down the aisle, I finally found a sort of open seat. A boy a few years older than me sat at the window seat, a backpack on the seat next to him. He was reading something on his tablet.

“Hi!” he looked away from his tablet and at me. “Is this seat taken?”  

He shook his head, but didn’t do anything but look back at his tablet. “Um… then can I sit here?”

Letting out a small sigh, he took his backpack and put it underneath the seat in front of him. I took my backpack off and put it in my lap. “Hi! I’m Elian.”

Not looking away from his tablet, he replied, “Ulmer.”

“So, Ulmer, where are you going?” I asked.

“The Transportation Station.”

I laughed slightly at that. Of course he was going there. “Like, I mean, where are you going going?”

Ulmer locked his tablet and slid it into his backpack.  “I’m trying to get a job on a Skybus.”

“Wow, really? Me too. What a coincidence!”

The doors of the bus we were currently on slid closed, and the bus began moving, Ulmer turned his head out the window, and I turned so I could see out the window too. The bus station slowly moved away as we drove down the streets, before the bus got on the freeway and really begun to fly.

While we were both looking out the window, I popped my styrofoam container back open and continued eating my lo mein. It was okay, good for a  place at a bus station. After a few moments, Ulmer reached back into his bag and pulled out his tablet once more. His lock screen was a picture of himself holding a participation trophy and trying to smile at the camera. 4792. Trying not to stare at his tablet, I turned to look at him. “So, um-”

Ulmer twisted his head to look at me once more. “Aren’t you a little young to work on a Skybus?”

He looked only a few years older than me, seventeen or eighteen, maybe nineteen, but I guess to him that made a lot of difference. I shrugged. “I guess, a little.”

“I mean, don’t you think you’d be better off getting a summer job closer to you? In your area? Where you don’t have to live on a skybus?”

“I don’t know.” I said. “They always look nice to stay in on TV.”

Ulmer’s amber eyes boggled. “You mean you’ve never been on one before?”

“Nope!”

“And you want to work on one?”  I nodded again, and Ulmer shook his head. “Um, okay.”

He went back to his tablet, and I ate some more of my food. I was nearly finished, I’d need to throw it away once we got to the station. Ulmer was fixated on his tablet. I thought about looking at my phone, but I had to conserve battery so I could check into the Skybus. My own computer was buried deep down in my backpack, so there was no way I was getting to it. So really the only thing I could do was look out the window or at Ulmer. He was fixated on his tablet, tracing his hand over it over and over again. Ulmer was pretty handsome, so it was hard not to look at him. He had dark black hair that cascaded over his shoulders, spilling onto the shoulders of his fluffy red coat, and dark brown, smooth skin, no trace of acne or anything. He had a symmetrical, clean-shaven face, and lips that-

“Do you need something?” asked Ulmer.

“What? Oh. No.” Shit. He’d noticed. I had to say something to save myself. “Um, I was just wondering what you were reading?”

Ulmer twisted away from me, shielding his tablet. “I’m not reading anything.”

It was silent for a long moment, until I asked, “Do you think we’re almost there?”

“I don’t know.” said Ulmer.  Not looking from his tablet, he pointed at the screen in front of the bus that showed the bus’s current location on a map and the estimated time to arrival at the Skybus station. “Look at the screen.”

“Oh.” I said. It was seven minutes. We were almost there, then. I felt a churning in my stomach, and in an attempt to stop it, I ate the rest of my lo mein.

The North Atlantic MultiTransportation Station was a  huge complex, one of the largest in the world.  At the very least, it was the largest place in the world you could catch a Skybus. Multiple Skybuses arrived at the station every hour, and there was one looming above now, a strange blue and golden glow connecting a lump at the bottom to  one of the large antennas. That was probably the receiver station? The bus slowed down as it entered the complex, going to one of the bus stations. There were lots of other buses here, their destinations on huge screens next to them. For example, the bus in front of us was going to the airport (Skybuses and airplanes weren’t allowed to take off from the same place after what happened in 2151) and the one behind us was going to New Atlantic City. The bus stopped, and Ulmer let out a sigh of some sort, sliding his tablet into his backpack once more. I stood up and grabbed my backpack and styrofoam container, making my way in the crowd going out of the bus. Once I was out, I waited for Ulmer, and walked behind him as he went to retrieve a small brown carry-on.  “Okay, Ulmer, we’re going to the same place, don’t you think we should stick together?”

Ulmer had no reply to that except to walk into the Transportation Station. “Wait! Ulmer! Wait for me!”

Despite the large, colorful signs that showed which way was which, I found myself absolutely lost as which way to go to find the Skybuses. Luckily, Ulmer was a pro, and after a moment staring at a mazelike map, he looked around the room, quickly got his bearings, and started speed-walking to an elevator marked in orange. Carry-on over one shoulder, backpack on his back, I stopped for a moment to throw away my styrofoam container and nearly lost him.

Ulmer was the sort of person who walked up escalators. He also walked on moving walkways. They move for you- you don’t have to walk! Finally we arrived at the area that was Skybus Ticketing and Security. All Skybuses were owned by the International Sky Transportation Administration, so unlike an airport there wasn’t a slew of airlines (skylines?)  to choose from. Anyway, I had my ticket! ...if I could only find it on my phone. What app was it again?  

And Ulmer was getting away! He was already in line! I didn’t want to get in line until I got my ticket ready. It wasn’t going that fast, but… by the time I finally found the app (Universal Ticket, not AllTickets) twenty or so people seperated us. And I had a feeling Ulmer wasn’t going to pause for me.

I got through security without a hassle. Ulmer was long gone by the time I left. Well, okay. Not unexpected. There was an hour before the Skybus left, so maybe I could get a book or something. Wandering into a bookstore, I tried to find a book that I could read for a while, if I got the job I could read it in the nights or something. Wandering to the bestsellers section, the #1 book was “Dreams- Secret Pathway Messages to your Subconcious” by Dr. Althis Greyson. The cover depicted a man with fading blonde hair and a large burn across one side of his face holding up a crystal and smiling to the camera.

Looking to the description of the book provided, apparently it was a book about dreams, decoding them, and how decoding them could make your life better. I had always wondered what dreams were about, and if they meant anything or were just pointless movies in your head, and if this was so popular it would probably be very informative. Despite the fact this guy was apparently a bestselling author, I’d never heard of him before. Well, it wasn’t the sort of book I was allowed to read before, but things were different now. Putting my phone to the scanner, I bought the book. Hopefully it’d be downloaded by the time I wanted to read it.

I then glanced over the magazines sold but decided against buying any of them. I’d already bought clothes a few bus stations ago, happy to get out of that terrible sweatervest, so there was nothing else I really wanted to buy. I should probably go to the terminal, figure out where it was.

I managed to find the terminal after studying the map for ten minutes, and when I arrived  there Ulmer was sitting on a bench, examining his tablet once more. “Hi Ulmer!” I said, approaching him. “So it is the same skybus.”

Ulmer locked his tablet and slid it into his backpack. “So it is.”

I sat at the bench across from him and smiled. “That’s cool! So there’s at least one person I’ll know on the job.”

Ulmer’s amber eyes narrowed for the slightest second, before going back to normal. “Do you like juice, Elian?”

“Juice?”

“Yeah. There’s a smoothie place close to here, we should have a smoothie and talk.”

Wow! Ulmer wanted to talk to me? It was almost like we were already friends! “Sure! Let’s go!” I followed Ulmer to a smoothie place, with a very short line. “I’ll have a Blackberry Infusion Smoothie, please.” said Ulmer, before tapping his phone to pay.

“Your name?”

“Ulmer Roth.” replied Ulmer.

“Okay, wait over there please. Next customer?”

Oh no. There were too many choices and options. “Um,,,, um…”

The person at the register sighed. “Young man, if you don’t know what you want, don’t get in line. There is a sign that says that.”

Frozen, knowing I had to decide, I ordered the first thing on the menu. “I’ll have a large Ultra Protein Extreme!”

“Name?”

“Elian.” I said, before remembering I hadn’t paid yet.

“Okay, please wait over there.”

Ulmer already had a dark purple smoothie, and in a minute I had mine. Well, it said Ellen on it, but I assumed it was mine. It tasted awful. I would rather taste garbage than the thing that was now in my mouth. If you could combine all healthy foods together in a giant blender, then remove any good aspects from any of them, it would taste like this. This was the worst thing ever.

I sat down next to Ulmer, and before I could say how cool it was that we already seemed to click, Ulmer spoke,. “So, um, Elian. Don’t you think we would have a better chance of getting a job if we got onto different buses? I mean, I’m sure that one bus doesn’t need two new people.”
‘Actually, I watched a video, and Skybuses are often understaffed and need new people. The more employees, the more Skybuses can make sure that each individual traveller is happy!”

Ulmer raised a single thick eyebrow. “Where does that come from, the Skybus Employee Welcome Video?”

“...maybe.”

Ulmer took a deep breath in, then after a bit long of a moment, let it out. “Are you sure you don’t think it would be a good idea?”

“Well, I don’t have enough money to get onto another bus.”  I pauised. “And honestly, I was feeling really nervous about this whole idea until I met you, Ulmer! But knowing there’ll be someone else who I’ll already know is great. I can’t wait for us to start working together!”

Ulmer’s only reply was to take a long sip of his blackberry smoothie.

I stealthily got rid of the rest of my smoothie once Ulmer was done with his. When we returned to the terminal, the Skybus was already finishing loading.. Apparently it was early, and because of how Skybuses work, it would be departing early too. That’s why you had to be early for a Skybus.

Ulmer and I waited to take the big elevator up to the Transmitter Station. Once we got there, we verified our tickets again and were then taken to one of the pods. The two attendants glared at us.

“Stragglers, huh? Another minute and you would have missed it. Even still, we have no idea where we’re going to put you…” said the first attendant, a woman.

The other, a man, looked around at all the pods. “There’s the new one they just installed.”

“No, we can’t send them in the new one, we aren’t supposed to use it until tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but otherwise we have to refund their tickets and they can’t fly. I’m sure they have somewhere to get to.” The man nodded, thinking on his own plan. “Yeah, put them in the new one.”

The woman sighed. “Okay. Come along, kids. You’re going in the new pod.”

She took the shiny wrap off of one of the pods, the one furthest in the back, and punched in the code to open it. 2233. The pod was huge, made completely out of plastic on the outside, the only decoration the eXceleration Corporation’s logo, a fancy blue and electric blue X. The doors slid open, and the woman took Ulmer and I’s bags and put them in the carry-on transporter, “Alright, kids, get in. No time to waste.”

Ulmer made his way in first, placing his back against a groove and resting his hands on two plastic bars, while his feet sat in two ovals painted on the floor. I did the same, but in a different groove.

A robotic, female voice came from an unseen speaker. “Hello, and welcome to the Xelcorp Short-Range Matter Transporter, Organic Class. For your safety, please obey the following precautions. Place your hands and feet inside the groove at all times, and drop any objects you may be carrying. They will be transported with you. Close your eyes, as exposure may cause temporary blindness.” I closed my eyes, and even though I didn’t know it, it would be the last time I’d see Ulmer for a while. “Scanning- safety assured, thank you. Matter Transportation will now begin.”  

The  light in the chamber went up and down rapidly,  and then I couldn't sense anything anymore.  Like being in a complete sensory void for a time I couldn't determine, a brief time but with no information about anything I couldn't feel for how long.  Then, suddenly the pain began.