The Optimum Project

Chapter 21

Sarah

For this particular class, it seemed I had to take an elevator, I went to the closest set and hit the call button, checking my tablet for more features while I waited. "You know you can change their size?"

I jumped at the sound of a voice next to me and turned to find myself nose to nose with the prettiest girl I had ever met. She had bright blonde hair and vibrant blue eyes that seemed to sparkle with an IQ that could make Einstein seem as smart as a kindergartener. I blinked for a moment and she giggled, "Are you done staring? Or do you want me to pose?"

Her mocking tone brought me back to reality and I apologized. She smiled, "That's ok, I'm just messing with the new kid. My names Sarah by the way, So did you know you can change their size?"

she gestured towards my tablet and I shook my head. She reached for it so I handed it over, watching as she went to the settings and activated something labeled 'SMS', suddenly the corners of the tablet glowed blue and she grabbed two, compressing them until it was now the size of a phone. She handed it back, "pretty handy huh?"

I nodded, "SMS... Size Manipulation System?"

Sarah nodded, "My father designed one of the prototypes before he died, I know these things like the back of my hand." 

I nodded again, "What happened?"

She seemed caught off guard by the question, "You mean... To my dad?"

"Yeah,"

She closed her eyes for a moment as if gather her thoughts, "Let's just say there was a lab accident and leave it at that."

That was fine with me, we stood in silence until the elevator arrived and we stepped in, along with a few other kids who were headed down to engineering class with us. When the doors opened I thought I was dreaming.

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The place was amazing, full of hallways that looked into various labs with all kinds of gear. One room off towards my left had a cluster of engineers working on what looked to be a prototype combat suit, this one was different from the others because it had a jet pack and what looked to be a modified synchrotron power core built into the chest. One of the engineers looked up to see me watching; he waved, shrugged and pointed a remote at the window that instantly tinted it so I couldn't see inside. I frowned slightly and shrugged back; there was no use trying to watch so I walked off towards the other kids, who were looking at a lab full of rats running mazes, boring.

We all got a ping to head to lab 12, and I pulled up a map to get there. It was a relatively easy route so I put my now phone-sized tablet in the pocket of my jumpsuit and followed everyone else. When we got to lab twelve we found that it was actually rather large, full of ten to fifteen tables spaced evenly throughout the room. At the front was a stout man in a lab coat and wire-rim glasses, which seemed redundant since eye surgery gave everyone 20/20 vision now. He had short brown hair and a soft face that made him look like a kid playing doctor, it was actually kind of funny.

The man smiled and introduced himself, "hello, my name is Pixel Reeves, but you can call me Pix. No, I won't tell you why my name is Pixel."

He directed this at a kid who had raised his hand and he lowered his hand sheepishly. 

"As for where you are, this is the main engineering bay, and we've got this whole lab to ourselves," he gestured towards the tables, "Now, each of you will be assigned a seat, and then we will start the class."

He went down the list of names, pointing out where they would sit. I ended up sitting at the table next to Sarah and some kid named Chris, which was pretty cool. Then when Pix was done he sent us an assessment on what we knew, this was going to be a piece of cake.