Chapter 1 (Part 1) - Changes

The dim light of morning is shattered by the screams of Jolentru. His mother runs to his room. Jolentru, now 11, squirms across the bed in tantrum like fashion. His mother tries to wake him. The nightmares are getting worse. Father appears in the doorway with a worried look on his face as Jolentru sits up and clings to his mother, sweat and tears pouring down his face. She runs her fingers through his hair soothing the shaking child with her soft sweet singing. She looks to the door. The expression on her face tells her husband just how worried she has become. Jolentru and his mother walk to the water closet, where she helps him wash up. This has been the same scene over and over in the past few months, only now it has become more violent and harder for the boy to wake up from.

Later, Jolentru and his father sit on the balcony of their home waiting for mother to finish preparing breakfast. How much better their life was now than it was back in the days before Jolentru was born. They had never told Jolentru what they did, but now they questioned whether they may have to. Were his nightmares a side affect of all those medical tests? Neither his mother or father could be sure, but the one person who knew had not been seen since the day he left them in that fancy white room. They had tried to find the man many times. They even went back to the city to the sewer pipe where the corridor and fancy white rooms were. They were gone.

Mother called for Jolentru to come in for breakfast. Father lingered on the porch for several minutes. He stood there pondering everything that had gone on since those days. Money had started arriving unannounced. Job offers came with no strings attached. The house they now lived in came from some unseen benefactor. These things he appreciated but none-the-less, he could not explain how they came to be. Jolentru called to his father, breaking him out of his deep thought. Yes, he would tell Jolentru some day, maybe when he had more answers.

Breakfast finished, Jolentru ran off to get ready for school. Neither of his parents had the opportunity to go to any kind of school, so they were glad to see that he was excited about going. Even though he had such horrible nightmares, they seemed to evaporate like the dew on the morning leaves. By the end of breakfast, he would almost always be bouncing, full of energy, ready to head off to school. "School...," Jolentru's father thought, "how long would it be before this began to affect his schooling?"

Jolentru was of exceptionally gifted intelligence. His teachers from the west had said so many times. He had even managed to win several school competitions against his western classmates who's parents worked at the same company as his father. Jolentru liked school, a lot! He excelled at math and sciences. His gifts made him the star of the class. There had been incidents where Jolentru had been assaulted because of his gifts. Other students didn't always like that an outskirter had moved into their ranks. Jolentru often was treated unfairly by his school mates, but he didn't mind. He understood that he was different. He had achieved a much higher level at the school than the others and in a much shorter time.

Today, they were to receive their grades on the latest project. Given a choice between something dealing with Science or writing about some piece of History, Jolentru always chose Science. This project dealt with space flight, his favorite subject of all. He had spent hours on it, even after three bullies smashed his first models.

Jolentru had done something that day that he had never done before. He intentionally harmed another being. One of the bullies was substantially larger than Jolentru, yet he flung the bully away like he was made of the lightest of the plasta-sheen writing sheets that they practiced the old ways on.

He hated practicing the old ways. Written language was so out of date, even to someone like Jolentru, who had never seen a computer until he was seven or eight years old. There was only one thing he hated more. Hurting anything living. He slumped in his chair as he recalled the scolding his father gave him that day as they watched the med units take the bully away. That had been the worst day of his life.

The teacher called his name, breaking him from his day dreaming. She pulled a small yellow gold disk from her desk and held it before the class. With the flip of a switch, the models Jolentru had once built from Plasta-sheen and wire jumped to life in multi-dimensional full color accuracy. The teacher gleefully awarded Jolentru the maximum grade for all sections of the project. She even gave extra credit for rebuilding the project in such a short time. Jolentru smiled as he received his evaluation chip from the teacher. Two of the bullies responsible for the model incident were sitting near the back of the class scowling. The third was still in surgibay over at the local medical facility. His gaze was then distracted by a tiny smile from the desk two rows over from his. He had known her all his life, well, it had seemed that way. They met after the model incident. She was standing just behind the gateway partition as the bully went flying through it. He was almost hurt as much by the embarrassment of having a pretty girl see him hurt someone as he was by his father's scolding. One day, he would have the courage to talk to her, even though her parents had strickly forbade associating with someone from the outskirts.

The annunciator signaled the end of class and the end of the school day. They all headed for their transports home. Jolentru excitedly ran to tell his parents about his latest achievement.