Life on Illuvari was good. An early colony world, it glistened with the polish of two centuries of development. Spires the size of small mountains reached into the sky, their exteriors sheathed in shining metal and sparkling arcs of glass. The old roughshod prefabricated buildings now existed in museums as the world developed its own culture, its own identity, separated and removed from the distant steel stud of Earth.
Amber was part of that good life. She slotted into the flow of humming cars and babbling people, a perfect piece of a perfect puzzle. Her oaken eyes shone with youthful energy; her waterfall of onyx hair flowed and rippled as she walked. A satchel made of impossibly soft synthetic silk rested on her hip.
Sixteen, happy to be alive and on course to carve out a perfect life.
Amber slipped onto the school transit tube, slotting into place among thirty other students in the carriage. The chairs filled the interior in a pair of long columns three by ten. She moved with the ease of an expert, gliding in and around the other students till she found her seat with her friends. The last to arrive out of the trio she had earned the aisle seat. Sitting down, she placed her satchel between her legs.
It was just like every other day – almost. She noticed a boy a few seats up dozing in his chair despite the morning babble, and she didn't recognise him. Amber had a very reliable memory. Some described it as photographic and in doing so understated the situation. She could name every person in her class and describe their features well enough for an artist to paint a portrait. This boy, however, was new and that intrigued her. He looked younger than the others, sporting a close crop of pale brown hair and a long, sharp-angled face. His eyes were closed.
"Who's that?" she asked. No reply came and she looked to her left to see that Halley had her headphones jammed firmly in her ears. She nudged the other girl.
Halley frowned, tugging the phones out. "What?"
"Who's the new guy – row E?"
"Huh..." Halley leaned sideways to get a better look, brushing a loop of crimson hair out of her eyes. "Never seen him before. He's cute though."
"Y'think so?" Amber gave her friend a sceptical look. Halley shrugged, a mischievous smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"D'you not?"
"He's just another guy." She smirked. Despite herself, she was interested in this stranger – not because of his looks – because he was different. He may have looked like he was dozing, but during the short transit to the school grounds she spotted him look in her direction three times, revealing the deep ocean blue of his eyes. Only the last time did he realise she was looking back and he quickly returned to his simulated sleep.
The school sprawled out over a huge fabricated metal platform, several hundred feet above the planet's surface. Sheathed in glass, it glimmered and shone in the morning sunlight. Five floors of classrooms accommodated four thousand pupils from the local district and to Amber it was just another stud in the crown of living on Illuvari. The dizzying height didn't bother her – most people on the colony learned to live with that fear from an early age. Cities no longer just spread outwards. These days they climbed to the heavens too.
She half listened to Halley's chattering while she kept a sharp eye out for their mysterious new classmate. He didn't look at her when he got off the transit tube, his black rucksack bouncing along on one shoulder as he strode towards the school's inviting crystal doors. Amber followed with the surge of other pupils that flooded into the halls of education but still he did not look back. Either she was simply getting worked up over nothing, or this boy had learned from his mistake on the tube to think she wouldn't notice him.
They marched through the school corridors to their first classroom and sure enough, the strange boy was there. The teacher didn't introduce him, or acknowledge his atypical presence in any way. He sat a couple of rows behind her and Amber could feel his stare. When she looked around, however, he had his eyes down at his desk. Was she imagining it?
She shook her head, trying to put him out of her thoughts. It was difficult, though, when the work the teacher handed out barely even began to test her agile mind. She dawdled through a series of mathematical exercises and put down her pen, only to find the others around her were still scribbling away.
Amber leaned back in her chair with a sigh, fingers tapping lightly on the desk. This wasn't uncommon. She often felt like the school lessons were a waste of her time, barely forcing her to think. Even the extra curricular classes only served to keep her interested, not challenged. Nonetheless, if she wanted to get into the fleet academy she needed the rubber stamp of Illuvari's education system.
Despite herself, she chanced a look back over her shoulder at the new boy and to her surprise she saw him looking back, a thin smile on his face. His stylus sat off to one side and she could see the math problems on his dat-pad had been filled in already, just as fast as her. He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, didn't see that coming?
She turned away. Why did no-one else seem to even notice this newcomer? How had he slithered into their classroom without so much as a hello? Why was she the only one who seemed to care? A strange kernel of frustration began to churn in her stomach. She sat there and ploughed through the rest of the lesson, trying to distract herself until she could escape the strange boy's searching gaze. With any luck he wouldn't be lurking in the next class.
The bell chimed mercifully and she shot upright, gathering up her pad and stylus and bundling them into her satchel. The students surged out into the corridor to join the sea of other classes being unleashed. In a matter of moments the broad hallway was filled with hundreds of buzzing students, the storm before the calm of the next lesson. Amber had taken a couple of steps before a high pitched yelp from behind sliced into her hearing.
She spun on the spot to see that Halley had been barged over in the between-class melee and was falling forward. Her pad went flying as she let go of it in order to free her hands to mitigate the coming impact. Amber reacted instinctively, taking a smooth step forward, and in the same second she grabbed her friend under one arm, simultaneously catching the flying dat-pad. She hauled Halley upright.
"Thanks," Halley said, looking around irately. "Some joker tripped me up!"
Amber smirked. "It could have just been an accident."
"Maybe. Luckily my best friend's got freakish reflexes."
She felt her cheeks redden at that. It was true that her exceptional mind was matched by exceptional physical attributes. She could turn her hand to anything: sports, games, words, and numbers. Her most recent display had gone largely unnoticed by the other pupils but some of them looked at her with amazement and suspicion in equal measure as they passed. Then a voice she'd never heard before cut through the din and snagged her attention.
"Nice catch." Almost as if he'd materialised there the new boy stood just off to her left, hands in pockets as he gave her an approving nod. "You're pretty quick off the mark." His voice sounded older than he looked – the deep timbre all wrong for the youthful face.
"So I'm told." She turned away from him for a moment and handed Halley her dat-pad back. Then she addressed the stranger again. "So who are y-," her voice trailed off and a ripple of disquiet washed over her.
The boy was gone.
*
Standing in the rain, Darien watched the girl as she walked from the school grounds at the end of the day, bouncing and carefree as the wind. She looked back over her shoulder, but he and his companion were well out of sight, high on a balcony overlooking the high school.
He pulled the rain-battered mag-scope away from his face. A pang of regret shot through him. He was cutting her life short. Her normal life anyway. The brief time he'd spent shadowing her within the grounds had merely confirmed what their intelligence suggested. She checked out across the board, on paper and in real life.
"You're sure she's the one?" the other boy asked.
"She's got all the signs," he replied. "Just like us when we got picked up."
"Guess we've got a house call to make."
"I've been in touch with the local authorities. They've got an address for us."
"How do you want to play this?"
"There's only one way," Darien sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Just let me do the talking. I don't wanna have to force this."
"Don't suppose you've got a script worked out for telling someone they're a Blink operative?"
Darien smiled ruefully and shook his head.