The New Humans

Chapter 4

It was almost eight thirty in the morning, and Ash was still tossing around in his bed. His alarm had gone off half an hour ago, but he was still gathering his strength to face the day.

"Hurry up, Ash," called his mother. "You have an exam today."

Ash stretched his arms above his head. Who invented exams? Didn't this guy have anything better to do? He still couldn't muster the energy to get up. Another five minutes. He wondered if he would see Cassandra at school. Maybe she would wear her red hair loose like yesterday. He imagined running his hands through it, bringing her closer to him, she resting her hands on his chest. Maybe they would hug, and . . .

"Ash!" His mother called again.

He got up and headed into the bathroom. He rinsed his face with cold water, dried it, and looked at himself in the mirror.

"Hello, Ash," said the mirror.

"Good morning, Net."

"May I remind you of your commitments today: classes start at nine; you had better hurry. Calculating a route from home to school of thirteen minutes' walk, you have only seventeen minutes to get dressed and eat breakfast. The first hour of class is physical education. Chemistry, literature, and history will follow."

"Thanks," said Ash.

"I note that your face looks rather tired."

"It's nice of you to tell me," said Ash.

"I'm sorry, I did not want to offend you. Perhaps you should eat a breakfast with more calories than usual: I would suggest two slices of toast with butter and jam, a banana and a cup of milky coffee."

Ash went down to the kitchen where in the space of twelve square feet his mother was making toast while Rachel was dunking a cookie in a cup of tea and looking at her cellphone. Ash went to sit in his usual place where a large cup of milk was waiting for him. There were no more cookies; the last one was in Rachel's hand.

His sister was smoothing her blond curls as she wrote a message. She became aware of his gaze and asked, "Why are you looking at me?"

"Because you're ugly."

Rachel threw the cookie at him. Ash grabbed it off the table and dunked it in his milk.

Mom poured a cup of coffee, put a plate bearing four slices of bread on the table, and sat down. She glanced at Ash. "What happened to you? You didn't stay awake until late playing video games, did you? Or reading about stories of Shadows and agents who arrested them?"

"No," said Ash. "I went to bed early."

"Yes, I can imagine," Mom said. "Did you study for the exam?"

"Yes."

"What's it about?"

"The period of transition from the use of non-renewable energy to renewable ones," said Ash.

"And when did this transition take place?" Ever the historian, Mom apparently couldn't resist the temptation to quiz him.

"Between the twenty-first, twenty-second and twenty-third centuries, more or less."

Mom raised her eyes to heaven.

"Are you going to take your black ball to school with you?" Rachel asked.

Ash fixed her for a moment as if asking what she knew about his ball.

"Whenever you have an exam, you put it in your bag," she said. "What do you need it for?"

"It's a good luck charm," Ash said.

The truth is that he hoped that sooner or later the ball would have communicated something to him. It had been six months since Luther's funeral, but he still hadn't found a way to make that ball work. He'd taken it to an electronics store but the clerk, after keeping it for a week, had only asked him whether he'd stolen it from an alien.