The Phoenix Creation 🆕⭐⭐⭐⭐ (on Amazon)

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Bootcamp

'Stop whining, Alya!' snapped Tal, as he rode the monorail with his sister to South Beach, in South District, for day one of their boot-camp.

'I wasn't whining,' she snapped back. 'I was simply saying that it would make more sense to test peoples' abilities before they start so that we don't lose a day working out where everyone should be. It's so unfair that you get to go into one of the top groups straight away and the rest of us have to spend a day auditioning for it.'

'What makes you think you'll get into the top group?' jeered Tal.

Alya glared at him and then turned her back on her brother. He could be so mean sometimes. Thankfully they were getting off at the next stop, so her sulk was short-lived. They disembarked and went down the steps from the monorail, although not together. Alya hung back so that her brother could walk on his own. She didn't intend to see him at all for the next ten days if she could help it. Where was Hanuel anyway? He was supposed to meet her at the monorail at eight-thirty a.m. Had she not been clear?

Alya turned to the left and walked down the sweeping sand-coloured pavements of South District, admiring the twenty-second-century architecture and the intermittent pretty boulevards as she went. There were enormous superstores intermingled with expensive boutique shops, not that Alya cared for clothes or possessions much, but she did appreciate the sedentary pace of South Beach, and it certainly had a holiday feel about it.

She reached the promenade that swept for several miles along the beachfront with palm trees providing necessary shade for tourists and ice-cream sellers. The holidays and the good weather had brought hordes of families to the beach and Alya couldn't help but smile at the kids wearing rubber rings around their middles, their parents laden with paraphernalia such as windbreaks, beach tents, picnics, and beach balls for the smaller kids. There was a section of beach cordoned off and supervised for kids eight years-plus, to practice their flying.

Some teenagers jumped off the wooden pier into the water below and others flew overhead, showing off to their friends as they tumbled and swooped about in the calm, pearlescent, blue sky.

Alya had packed lightly, only bringing a small towel and drinks in her backpack. She wore her sports bikini under her shorts and vest, and her hair had been extra carefully pinned back. She had a new pair of sports shades, and her digital watch was pride of place upon her wrist, to measure her sprint times.

She descended the final set of steps onto the beach and shortened her stride to accommodate the sand that hampered her smooth progress. The flags for the boot-camp blew in the wind near the shoreline and a huge tent welcomed the new arrivals. When she was signed in with her ID bracelet around her wrist, she went to find her group. Thankfully she'd scanned the list of names, and Tal was indeed in a different group, but then she'd expected that with him being a Patrol cadet.

'Hanuel!' cried Alya, as she approached her group.

'I thought you said it started at seven-thirty a.m., Alya,' said Hanuel. They both laughed.

'Nine-thirty a.m., Hanuel. You must have written it down wrong. Are you ok?'

'Yeah fine,' he grinned. 'But we have to stay out of trouble today, Aly, ok?'

'I couldn't agree more,' said Alya, genuinely. Although she didn't feel threatened by Commander Mora's visit, she certainly felt a bit uncomfortable. She was on his radar now and she didn't like the potential scrutiny that it put her under.

'Good,' nodded Hanuel. 'Now look over there and tell me who you see.'

Alya glanced over Hanuel's shoulder and there at the centre of group E was a pretty blonde wearing an impossibly small white bikini, her hair flowing in the breeze, the requests for her phone number stacking up even before the proper introductions had started.