Democracy is Dead

Chapter Seven

Sephy was dressed in black again. This surprised Athena more than it should have. She'd assumed that the other girl was playing up for the first lecture and that her odd colour choices wouldn't last.

But there she was, sat alone in the cafe booth, a tiny Gothic dot in an abyss of pink. The second thing Athena noticed was that Sephy was laughing; chatting to someone on the feeds. She didn't shun everything popular then.

"Hey," Athena said, feeling a little self-conscious as she hovered outside the booth.

"Oh, Ori, gotta go - my friend's here." A tiny yellow light in the top right of her glasses blinked off and she smiled at Athena. "Hey, how's it going?"

"Alright," Athena replied, shivering as she took the seat opposite Sephy; it was every bit as cold as yesterday.

"Ori - my boyfriend - says that it should start to warm up in a couple of days. Spring still isn't coming any time soon, but we might all stop shivering. He's stuck in a new law lecture at the moment, being bored to tears."

"New law? Isn't that a third year course?"

"Uh huh; Ori is a third year justice student. He's kind of regretting the specialism at the moment though. He's from Massachusetts and the justice system in East America is so different to over here, so he thought it would be a really interesting topic. He didn't realise how hard it was though!"

All students joined the NLUP - or any of the major city universities - on the same course. In their first year, they all studied basic politics: the current voting system; the history of democracy; the pitfalls of dictatorships; international voting procedures. Voting was heavily ingrained in the social conscience of students. After this grounding in the structure of their world, students could specialise in a number of areas: Justice; Medicine; Business; Education; or Foreign Affairs.

"He still has a lecture with Ajax every other week, which is the only upside to picking it. If you thought the intro lecture was good, you'd love his History of Punishment module."

"So is that how you know Ajax then? Through Ori?" Athena tried keep her tone casual, so that she didn't sound too nosey.

"Oh no. Well, it is through Ori technically, but outside of class; as part of a social group outside of the NLUP. Ajax is a real sweetie - that's the only reason I went yesterday. He would never let me hear the end of it if I bunked his lectures. That still wasn't enough of an incentive for some people though..." She trailed off, muttering more to herself than to Athena. "Do you want a drink?" she asked, her blue eyes sparkling.

"Sure." Athena opened the small menu icon that had been bouncing in the bottom right corner of her glasses since she'd entered the cafe. A semi-transparent menu filled her screen and she scanned the top line of text. The strawberry shaker had won the most popular drink of the month.

"I'll try a strawberry shaker."

Sephy wrinkled her nose, but continued to scan through the menu on her own glasses without replying. "Oh blueberry blitz, that's a cool name. I think I'll try that. Hey, you!" She waved to the young waiter clearing a nearby table. He started at the attention, but walked towards the girls, drying his hands on his apron. "I'd like a blueberry blitz please," Sephy asked, smiling. "And Athena will have a shaker, right?" She raised an eyebrow in Athena's direction, querying the choice.

"That's right."

"Great pick." The waiter smiled. "It's our most popular drink this month."

"Well isn't that lovely," Sephy replied, her voice a little too light and breezy. As the waiter moved back towards the counter, Sephy continued: "So Ajax was going through his plans for next week's lecture with me. It sounds pretty sweet - he's going to focus on the French Revolution, well 'tions', I suppose."