Edesse 1. Alagan

5 - Matrix Quota

—There are eleven of you online,Shella's artificial voice announced on Alagan's return.

On the north wall of her room, the round, fresh face of her lifelong friend lit up. Cassiopeia had abundant  Venetian blonde hair, whose undisciplined curls had been hastily gathered into two small palm trees. Her neck, thus unobstructed, highlighted the brilliance of her "init". Her sparkling eyes were waiting for the beginning of distance learning while her smile drew two crescents in the middle of her cheeks. As a sixteen-year-old female child with an eccentric look, she was one of those girls with a wild and colourful temperament that forced you to react.

Another holographic window opened wide, reducing Cassiopeia's window in a corner of the wall. Professor Medérisse appeared. Her face that once had been beautiful, was now caught up by wrinkles on her forehead, and temples at the corners of her lips. Her phlegm could easily have been attributed to a former aristocrat. Her raspy voice announced the beginning of the distance learning course.

The elderly woman activated the hologram mode, and a three-dimensional sphere began to rotate around her. The professor pointed to a large desert area and suddenly sand sprang from skyscrapers and dunes from rivers: The Tagush epic summarized in a few seconds. While Professor Medérisse was telling how Tagush—Bill of his first name—had invented the vaccine against the third plague, Alagan escaped into the depths of his thoughts. A silent rage was slowly gnawing at him. Boredom of his monotone and traced existence, without any apparent purpose. Immediate helplessness and eagerly wanting to send everything away. An identity vacuum. A need to be loved. All these strange and paradoxical feelings upset his being and mistreated his soul. Sometimes he would feel despair deeply down, knowing that nothing would ever change his fate. Sometimes he would do anything to overthrow and shake his tidy life in order to exist. For what is the point of surviving without a cause to defend, without roots to tie down. Then guilt attacked him. How ungrateful of her devoted Mamily!

Professor Medérisse continued to explain how Tagush had, with his wealth, desandered and irrigated the Rakad desert ; how he later founded silica companies in what had now become Rakad urban area. She was mentioning his participation in the Tagush MicroBus video game publishing and the creation of the Network, when Alagan came out of his thoughts.

The 60 year-old stopped, inviting students to share the industrialist's life in virtual reality rather than in distance learning. Finally something interesting, he thought.

—You have six hours of matrix time left, Shella reminded him.

Each 5C citizen had a daily time quota to project himself into the matrix. The fabulous but exhausting adventure, would feel like a real experience, but one should never exceed his authorized number of hours. Shella plugged in the perimeter alarm, activated the virtual mode and Alagan's "init"—like that of the other students — began to heat up. Behind his right ear, the diamond square irritated him. A short but violent electric shock, ran through it, like a burning needle pushed into the back of the auricle. He would never get used to it. With incredible strength, part of him was propelled out of his body shell. Half conscious, he crossed the dark and frightening Mid-Zone. Never, ever stop in the Mid-Zone. The foul and cold breath of the death shadow brushed against him. For a moment, he felt swept away in an infernal and icy spiral, the heart on the edge of his lips.

The feeling of vertigo stopped abruptly, as fast as it had come, and he found himself at the top of one of Rakad hills with Cassiopeia, Professor Mederisse and nine other students.

- Hi Alagan, said Nam's head , his black hair as straight as always. Still up for a Heroica Tagush?

- Yes, tonight? I wouldn't miss that game for the world, Alagan replied discreetly. Using virtual time for a class is such a waste! he grumbled.

- Yeah, we could have a little sword fight instead. Nam's almond-shaped eyes had almost rounded and then regained their oblique shape.

- Except that you only have one point left after the goblin attack of yesterday! laughed Alagan.

- Gentlemen! Professor Mederisse called them to order. Don't waste all our time, young people. At my age, I can hardly provide more than two hours of virtual reality per day, please be grateful!

The class started again and Alagan's attention was scattered again. Like a lion trapped inside a cage, he wanted to move, scream his pain. He was slowly drowning and internally suffocating. Then his gaze landed on Cassiopeia and he resurrected. Cassiopeia, wind, rain, sunny weather and freshness. Life and ambition. Yes, life, he needed to feel alive. He had to escape the class.

(NDLR : I know the beginning is a bit slow, but hold on to it, I promise action will come but I have to put in place the setting first....)