The Loony Bin isn't that much better than the Can, Connor reflects, but at least the gravity is real. No persistent nausea, no Coriolis effect, no looped hallways. Also the greenhouse section is indefinitely better, a ready supply of water and persistent gravity means that plants are not limited to troughs of hydroponic solution. The classes do not become easier though, neither do the tests, the brutal physical regimen, or the simulated missions. In fact, Connor reflects, the only thing that has become easier is using the restroom.
Connor takes a sip from his coffee.
"So how do you think did?" asks Rowen.
Connor thinks back to the test. Just three months left, the test is one of the most important milestones. Forty classes, three thousand hours of training, eight hundred thousand kilometer, and one tonne of coffee, all accumulating in an hour and half written exam. An exam Connor is certain he flunked.
Connor has so far done exceptional, top of his class in everything, first in everything, second to noone. The problem though is the voices. They are persistent, and becoming louder. No longer are they simply content to state the truth behind others words, but find it necessary to fill in everyone's every thought, every emotion, every last little thing they think or feel, the voices now convey to Connor.
"I blanked on everything," Connor tells Rowen. "I couldn't remember anything so I just wrote down random..."
\\Wow, how the mighty have fallen.//
"I never said I was mighty."
"I never said you were."
"But you thought it."
\\Damn, how does he do that.// "No I didn't."
Connor gives him a suspicious look. "Sure..." The truth of it is, Connor did not draw a blank on the test. With two hundred other cadets in the room, all think of the same thing, the voices drowned out Connor's thoughts. No longer was he capable of remembering the second law of entropy inversion, but was at the mercy of the mass opinion on the topic.
Even now, Connor can barely concentrate on forming the words he's speaking. Walking down the deserted hall, he hears dozens of voices, an instructor of a four dimensional navigation class just above his head, two cadets wrapped in a passionate embrace in a dorm below, seven or eight in the middle of a practice sim a few rooms over. And those are the loud ones.
For every voice he hears, their are another ten silently buzzing, just waiting to be listened to. Each voice is saying something different, pulling Connor's mind in twenty different direction, sometimes stretching it like a toddler with a block of clay, other times tearing it like a piece of wrapping paper on a gift giving holiday. His current mental state is of the shredded variety. Each voice occupying its own corner of his head, and in the gap at the middle, the faint voice of his own thoughts try to drown out the rest.
"Dued! Are you ok?" Rowen asks.
"Huh, oh, yeah. I just got... distracted."
\\We're in an empty hall,// thinks Rowen. \\What drugs is he on?//
"Not enough drugs," comments Connor. "I should really see if they have something to help me."
"ADHD?"
"Sure, let's go with that."
\\He's been getting worse.//
Connors comm buzzes and he pulls it out. A message has just arrived from the dean of education requesting his presence immediately.
YOU ARE READING
Lucky 13 (NaNoWriMo 2017)
Science FictionHumanity may not be destined for great things, but its children are. Cheep long rang FTL is finally a reality, and onto the Lucky 13, one of the first of these new ships, is thrown a crew new out of the Academy. Captain Daniel May, just as green as...
