Priya and Sophie felt excited at the prospect of the first day at the new school. They were living in temporary housing and eating donated food. The school was housed in temporary structures spread across the open spaces at the Stanford Campus and elsewhere around Palo Alto and Silicon Valley. However, location didn’t matter to them. They placed into high school senior-level and above, classes in genetics, mathematics, and other subjects. They walked into their first period genetics class which included lab immediately afterwards.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” Priya silently thought to Sophie as they settled in.
“This is a normal class,” Sophie thought back. “Nobody is afraid of us.”
Not a single voice could be heard in the room. However, in their minds they listened to everyone thinking in the same way a class might be noisy before the teacher walks into the room.
Soon, the teacher walked in and stood in front of them. Behind him loomed a donated big screen. He activated his eyepiece and soon the words ‘Advanced topics in high school genetics 133a, Dr. Henry Mendel.’ appeared on the big screen.
Priya smiled and thought to Sophie, “First we get Mr. Watson for genetics in high school and now Dr. Mendel?”
Sophie smiled back.
“Yeah, the father of modern genetics.”
Dr. Mendel glanced at Priya and Sophie.
“Let me guess. You’re silently making Mendel jokes with each other, aren’t you?”
Priya couldn’t help but giggle.
“Well, the irony can’t be ignored.”
The class laughed out loud.
“Okay. I’ll confess something to get this out of the way. When I took my first genetics class, my teacher said with a name like Mendel, I had to follow a career in genetics. So, I did. Now I run a lab in Sunnyvale that makes improved clones for fruit trees and other plants. Now, I have a few rules for this class. You’re all part of an exceptional and unique accelerated class, which is part of a series of accelerated classes. I’m not sure how fast this will go, so we’ll figure it out as time goes by. One rule I’ll mention is you must talk out loud while in class. I can’t tell what you’re saying when you’re silent, so out of courtesy, speak out loud. Okay?”
Nobody said a word.
“Okay?” he asked again.
The kids in the class smiled.
“Okay,” they said out loud in unison.
Dr. Mendel sprinted through his lecture at a breakneck pace. He asked several times if he lectured too fast, but everyone liked the pace.
Soon the class and the lab were over, and the students walked out into the warm dry October air.
“I love it.,” Priya said out loud, trying to resist the urge to use telepathy. “I’ve never attended a better lecture.”
“I know.” Sophie said. “He challenged us and kept us interested.”
Several other students walked along with them.
“Hi, I’m Warren.”
“Hi, I’m Priya and this is Sophie.”
“Are you Nisha Sharma’s daughter?”
“Yes.”
“It must be awesome to have a mom like her. I followed her before the abductions. She’s great. What do you think of the class? I like the pace. I got bored at my high school.”
“Me too,” Priya said. “I like the pace of this class. Everyone is much nicer. Someday, we want to start a genetics company to make discoveries about genetic anomalies. What do you want to do?”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Are you okay?” Priya said.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I was, um, running earlier.”
Sophie smiled at Priya. Priya pretended to not see her.
“So, what do you want to do?”
“Oh, sorry I got distracted. I can’t decide. I like science but I’m into stock market theory. I’m torn.”
“Why not do both at the same time?” Sophie said.
Warren smiled.
“Good point. Why limit myself? If I want to be idealistic, I’d like to learn all I can about science and invest in tech startups. I want to fund them so they can push the boundaries of scientific knowledge. Someday I might invest in your company. I’ve already done well with $10,000 my grandfather left me last month. I now have $100,000. Somebody told me that because I’m a mod, I’m cheating playing the stock market. I don’t know about that. It’s as much emotional as intellectual. I’ve always loved the idea of creating wealth from knowledge.”
“That’s a great idea Warren,” Priya said. “Here we are at our next class. Are you taking robotics?”
“No, I’m taking a finance class in the next building. I’ll talk with you later.”
He jogged away quickly.
“He’s cute,” Priya said. “He must be Irish, with the flaming red hair and freckles.”
“Yeah, but some other Europeans have those features. Didn’t he seem nervous?”
“A little. I think there’s more going on in his head than he lets on.”
“Definitely.”
“His last name is Butler,” Priya said. “Definitely Irish.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“He seems nice, but I don’t know him. I’m not ready to date anyone anyway. It might be many years from now.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sophie said.
They giggled as they walked into the robotics class which turned out to be as challenging as genetics. Afterwards, they walked out of robotics, energized.
“Genetics wasn’t a fluke.” Priya said. “The pace is right.”
“I know,” Sophie said. “I hope all the classes are like this.”
As they walked along, several other students walked with them.
“Hi, I’m Raven Corbeau, are you Priya from our social network?”
“Yes. Hmm, you seem familiar. Ah yes. I remember you. You told me you felt like you had no future in your small town, and you had to get out. You got out.”
“I did. I’m fortunate to be here. And I’m speaking with THE Priya and Sophie.”
Priya shook her head in confusion.
“THE Priya and Sophie?”
“Why yes. Everyone knows you. Even outside our network. A billion people follow your mom, and we follow you on the mod’s network and on your network downstream on Twitter.”
“Why does everyone know me?” Priya said.
“Haven’t you logged into your Twitter account lately? Fifty million people follow you. That’s as many as my old favorite band, The Fusion Boys.”
“Really? Let me see.”
Priya said nothing for a minute as she blinked to her eyepiece.
“You’re right. I had no idea so many people were following me. I auto-tweet and downstream every public thing I do, so I can keep a record of it. People are tracking my every move.”
“Well, it’s good to meet you Raven,” Sophie said. “Are you from France? Your name sounds French, but your accent doesn’t sound French.”
“I grew up in Senegal. My Father is French, and my mom is Senegalese. I guess now I’m part Omanji.”
“Yeah, we all are.” Sophie said. “I’m part Italian, Indonesian and Omanji. What would you like to do someday?”
“I love AI, robotics, and automation. I watched those drones make the alien colony. I think robotics and AI will be the most important catalyst of change in the future.”
“As it has been for a while now,” Sophie said. “Think of the possibilities. Our lives would be improved if we can program drones to make buildings unattended or create clothing with no human intervention.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking,” Raven said. “We’re close. I made some prototypes. I’m toying with them in my dorm room. Oh, I almost forgot. I made a small sentient AI. It’s running on my 8096 quad GPU computer.”
Priya raised an eyebrow.
“Um, don’t let it out of the box.” Priya said. “It’ll outsmart you and you’ll voluntarily let it out of the box in exchange for some other advantage if you’re not careful.”
“I won’t. I follow the safe AI scaffolding guidelines.
“Good.” Priya said. “I’d love to see your prototypes. Oh, here’s our next class. Are you in this device programming class?”
“Yes,” Raven said as they all walked in.
The device programming class was engrossing and fast paced. The time passed too quickly for all of them. Next was an introduction to law class.
“My name is Professor Jane Ferraro, and this is Introduction to Law 1a. This course is designed for college freshman. I teach it at Stanford. The sponsoring companies decided this should be a mandatory class for all of you. They felt that due to your unique situation, law will be a big part of your life. You’re going to need to know your rights and how to fight for them, and you will file many patents and create products. You are members of the world’s most unusual minority group.”
A student raised his hand. Professor Ferraro blinked into her eyepiece to identify him.
“Yes Mr. Pablo Gonzales.”
“We want to be like everyone else. We come from all races. I’m Mexican and Chinese. We’re not a minority group.”
“Oh, yes you are,” Professor Ferraro said. “25,000 of you are members of this unique minority group, regardless of ethnicity. Maybe a new species. Society increasingly regards you at least as a minority group. You’re here for this reason. You’re being persecuted like minority groups in every part of the world were persecuted throughout history. You’re being subjected to classic racism and its new more insidious cohort, speciesism.”
“That’s true,” Pablo said. “But unlike classic victims of racism, we’re not being accused of being less intelligent or less capable, with some exceptions.”
“I agree, but you’re being excluded from competition and from social interaction. How can you live in society if you’re excluded? You’re going to suffer the same consequences as other minority groups unless you know your rights and can fight for them. This might be the most important facet of your life from now on, so learn all you can in this class.”
Soon thereafter, the class ended. They walked over to the cafeteria for lunch. Pablo followed them.
“Pablo, do you think we’re a minority group?” Priya said.
“The professor has some good points. I thought people were being jerks, but I never correlated our situation with those of minority groups. I’ve seen my share of racist behavior, but I didn’t think that part through. Oh, great.”
“What?” Sophie said.
“I’m part of another minority group. It’s one more thing holding me back.”
“Pablo, you better study law so you can defend us.” Priya said.
“I am. I’m sick and tired of the way we’re being treated.”
“Didn’t we see you earlier on the network?” Sophie said.
“Yeah. That was me.”
“I thought so. We need lots of slick talking lawyers.”
“Not all lawyers are slick talking. Some are nice people.”
Sophie smiled.
“Yeah right. We’ll see.”
Pablo smiled and walked to his next class.
“What was that about?” Priya said
“You know how cocky lawyers are. I’m just putting him in his place.” Sophie said.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Pablo? No way. He’s a lawyer. I’m not ready for anything like that anyway.”
Priya laughed.
“Yeah right.”
Soon lunch ended and they walked to biology class.
“Are you THE Priya?”
Priya turned around.
“Yes I am.”
“Hi, I’m Ian Walsh.”
“Wait a minute, you seem familiar,” Priya said. “Oh, I know. We’ve talked on our telepathic network about your mom, who died of cancer when we were in the Omanji colony being domesticated.
“That’s right. I want to cure cancer. I can’t wait to take this biology class. I loved the genetics class.”
“Cancer isn’t something you can easily cure,” Sophie said. “It’s a whole series of different diseases with mixed causes that happen to produce similar symptoms, so we call them all cancer.”
“I know, but I think the tumors are all curable,” Ian said. “I think I’ve discovered something. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“Go for it. I want to hear about it,” Priya said.
They talked for a while longer. Priya and Sophie walked back to their dorm room to study for the rest of the day.
Right before they fell asleep, Nisha wanted to talk.
“Tell me about your day Pree.”
“I’ve never had a more awesome day at school. The classes are fast paced. This is how I always imagined college to be, except we’re in temporary buildings all the time. That’s okay though. I’m meeting new friends. They’re like me. They all want to do important things like cure cancer or build robots. I love it here. I’m worried about Bok, how’s he doing?”
“He’s not doing well. This morning he got into an argument with his parents and the parents cut him off. One parent pushed me onto the ground. I’m okay. I haven’t seen him since. He’s overwhelmed because his colony is growing too rapidly and might become unstable.”
“I hope he’s okay. Get out of there if there’s any trouble. Okay, I’d talk more but I’m tired now. I’ve been studying all day.”
They said good night.