Ch10 Cafeteria Cuisine

Sandra showed me how to use the mask. Despite being a rigid shell it was adjustable with some controls on the inside of the face plate. Pressing a few buttons in combination allowed for adjustments to be made, while locking it in the preferred shape otherwise. Technically I could just adjust my own head to the mask, but I appreciated the well-done design. After making sure I could adjust the mask myself, Sandra showed me how the mask could collapse into a portable form that made it easy to carry. As a bonus it could even receive messages that would alert me to when and where a job was happening that I needed to get to (and it received messages with no physical medium! Astounding!).

 

Sandra told me that the mask would display the time and location of the orientation on Saturday, and sent me on my way. I tucked the mask under my ‘shirt’ and left, passing by a preoccupied Lily on the way out.

 

Now I just needed to map more of the area, and maybe figure out when Saturday is. I had already figured out that they had a set of named days on a rotating schedule (such an odd system, why the names?), I just didn’t know what the order of the days was.

 

For now I decided to just stick to mapping more of the area. That way when they sent the signal to my mask I’d know where to go. I’d start with this ‘school’ I heard so many drones mention. It seemed important.

 

I headed right as I left the building, following Lily’s instructions. If I was properly mapping my surroundings then I was currently heading ‘west’ along Ashwood St. To the ‘north’ of the area near 512 was Maggie’s diner and the tunnel entrance, and everything was still located in just the section of the city labeled E13. I had to hand it to the drones, if nothing else, they knew how to build big.

 

Ashwood St. continued for a long time. The numbers on the buildings counted down gradually (a few were on the other side of the street for some reason), and when I reached building 012 I found a massive structure, the width of two ‘blocks’ and ten levels high, the entire thing built with obvious reinforcements done to the support structures. I might have thought it was some kind of protective structure for resources if it weren’t for the symbols by the entrance that declared the building to be “Clement High School.”

 

Neat. So this was the place where young drones came from? Or maybe it was just the training facility? I was curious at what kinds of tests drones had to go through. A place this large probably contained thousands of drone young, getting yellow-furs or brown-furs for all of them to fight didn’t seem cost-effective. Although maybe they fought them in groups, the drones did indeed value teamwork and doubling up would lower the costs substantially. Plus, the non-combat drones probably didn’t need to participate in the combat tests.

 

I wandered over to the main entrance while I pondered these questions. A decision that turned out to be a mistake.

 

“Hey kid, what do you think you’re doing out here!?”

 

Oops.

 

I turned to the sound of the voice and found what was an obvious security drone, although I didn’t recognize the outfit. Probably belonged specifically to the school. It walked up to me and glared, its mouth turned down in a deep frown.

 

No weapon detected.

Estimated threat: minimum.

 

“Trying to skip huh? You can’t even wait a few more days? School’s almost out anyways.”

 

“Um, I’m not assigned to a school. I don’t go here.”

 

“Uh-huh. Sure. Well then just show me your I.D. and you can be on your way then.”

 

I of course didn’t have my own I.D. Most likely that was the ‘identification card’ that I had found on the drones I ate. Technically I still had those I.D.’s but they were useless to me right now. I’d have to see about finding a solution to this later, if I managed to extract myself from this situation.

 

“I forgot my I.D.”

 

“Well then I can’t let you leave now can I. Come on, you’ll wait in the office for now, and none of your back-talk. Dunno why you seniors always try to ditch before lunch even starts. If you want to leave campus for lunch just wait until it starts and then present your I.D. I don’t care if you graduate in a few more days, until then you follow the rules.”

 

Wait…lunch?

 

I happily followed the security guard into the building. It led me down several corridors and then left me at a seating area in the ‘office’, warning me not to leave before the bell rang before it walked away, grumbling under its breath the whole time. Several drones went by, all seemingly very busy with ‘paperwork’, although most seemed to be using flat screens rather than paper. One drone did ask why I was waiting in the office, but telling it I was told to wait for the bell seemed to appease it. I waited patiently in the office, counting the seconds. I was looking forward to tasting the ‘senior’ food.

 

Eventually an alarm rang out which surprised me, but this must have been the bell the guard spoke of because none of the drones reacted badly. I decided to ask a drone for directions, I didn’t want to get lost in such a large structure. The one I talked to gave me an odd look, but pointed me in the direction of a ‘cafeteria’.

 

As I walked I quickly noticed the drone young. They were mostly smaller than the adult drones, and I slow~ly adjusted my height to be more around the average. I’d return it to something more comfortable later.

 

From the flow of the crowd I quickly narrowed in on the cafeteria. Apparently it was just a very large room with enough tables for the drones to sit. Not surprising considering the shear amount of drones. I had seen a few young drones out in the city, but these were normally very small young with a caretaker. I had yet to see where they made new drones, although it was probably unlikely that I ever would. If there was a progenitor for the drones somewhere it would obviously be heavily guarded.

 

On one wall of the cafeteria was a side room where a line was forming. I quickly entered the line as well, shuffling forward slowly with the rest of them. While I waited I observed the young drones at the tables, it was really useful to see so many interactions at once. One oddity I noticed was that the young drones tended to cluster with other similar drones. Especially in the case of the combat drones. Those ones almost exclusively stuck together in groups with other modified drones, and regular drones avoided them. This was more like the behavior in central, the drones around Ashwood and Maggie’s diner hadn’t really seemed to care, but the ones in central definitely had. I resolved to be extra careful about the social hierarchy at play here. I just wanted to get my food and get out.

 

The line moved forward slowly but surely, and I was pulled from my observations by the large drone at the line’s terminus which was overseeing transactions. It took the I.D. from the drone in front of me and and swiped it into a device that beeped before giving it back. Then it was my turn, and I didn’t have an I.D.!

 

“Um, I forgot my I.D. today.”

 

“Then it’s two dollars,” it replied, obviously bored.

 

I didn’t have two dollars. I had a dollar and ten ‘cents’.

 

“Um…”

 

“Here, use mine,” came a voice behind me.

 

I turned to the young drone that had spoken. It was tall with pale skin, and had long, somewhat oily looking, black hair. In its hand it held its I.D. which it was offering to me.

 

“It’s okay for me to use yours?” I asked.

 

“Yeah sure, the school’s closing on Friday anyway.”

 

I gratefully took the I.D. from the young drone and tried to hand it to the overseer.

 

“You aren’t supposed to share those,” it said.

 

“Aw come on Ms. B. They are already cutting two weeks off of school. I had the month pass.” replied the young drone.

 

The overseer grunted and swiped the I.D. twice before handing it back to the young drone and waving us forward.

 

“Thanks Ms. B, you’re the best,” said the young drone.

 

Ms. B merely rolled its eyes and grunted.

 

The young drone and I retreated, quickly following the line again but with the young drone in the lead. I copied it in taking a tray and eating utensils, before taking small cups and platters of food to go on the tray. The food was… odd-looking. Mostly cut into the little squares and rectangles that drones enjoyed, the food came in muted colors, and seemed to favor a soggy texture. A taste test would be the deciding factor. Speaking of which I needed to secure a seating arrangement.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

 

“Thanks again for helping me.”

 

“No worries man. Ms. B is gruff but she rarely makes a fuss of it. My name is Mikey by the way.”

 

“Mine is Tofu.”

 

“Tofu? For real?”

 

“No. That is what others call me.”

 

“Ha, no worries, I’ve heard weirder nick names. Come on, I see my friend from here. You’re new right? You can sit with us.”

 

“Um, yes, how could you tell?”

 

“You’ve still got that first day look. Bad timing dude, you just got here and they are closing it down early.”

 

I really didn’t like how easily some drones picked up on these small details. At least being ‘new’ was not suspicious enough to raise alarms in this case.

 

It led me over to a table where a few other drones were seated and placed its tray down next to a short drone with curly red hair and spectacles before addressing it.

 

“Hey Tim, what’s up?”

 

“Jennifer Heartly triggered,” responded the short drone while poking at its food with a plastic utensil.

 

“Yeah dude I know. It’s been all over the school all day, how could I not?”

 

“The odds of gaining a super power are over one in a million.”

 

What was that now? Gaining super powers?

 

“Okay, here we go again,” said Mikey. It specifically caught my gaze and rolled its eyes.

 

“One in a million, but those numbers spike during Odd Summer. Some studies have shown it can get up to one in a thousand depending on the situation,” said Tim.

 

“That’s a rough estimate, of a possible high, on a single report done by quacks Tim.”