For the first time in weeks, Peter woke up refreshed. He got dressed for school, ate his cereal, brushed his teeth. The house seemed emptier than usual but he was unfazed by it. He made sure he had all his school paraphernalia and simply left. Whatever his parents were up to was their business, it’s not like they were going anywhere.

Two and a half floors down the elevator juddered to a halt, throwing Peter to the floor. The doors opened with a melodious “ding” and announced that they’d arrived at the ground floor. Fortunately he was the only one in it and the only thing bruised was his ego. Stupid machine, he thought as he gathered his wits, figures it would try to ruin my day. It’s only out by fifteen or so floors. Making a rude gesture to the sensor in the centre of the ceiling, Peter dived out through the gap and rolled to his feet. As he completed the movement with a flourish, the doors closed for a moment, then reopened to show the elevator properly aligned with the floor as though nothing had happened. “Going down?” it inquired.

Peter repeated his previous gesture and added a raspberry for emphasis. “I’ll take the stairs thanks.”

Determined not to let the digital discrimination put a downer on his day, Peter jogged lightly down the stairs. He had left the house early anyway so he had the option of several busses even after the delay. Carefully positioning himself in the middle of the pack at the bus stop ensured that the autonomous vehicle didn’t try to take off before he could sit down. I am wise to your tricks now, your kung fu is weak, Peter mimicked the mannerisms of an old man in a wire-fu fighting movie he had watched with his Dad long ago. He imagined himself fly kicking the bus in its stupid face as he plopped down.

He drifted off into a fantasy where he shouted stupid slogans with a mouth that never synchronised with the words and repeatedly punched and kicked the bus as a proxy for all AI that messed with him. His imagination conjured up a bo staff that he twirled and added staff strikes to the combos. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye he was dressed in his TAOS&S leathers and the bo staff had become his scythe. With a final twirl he sliced cleanly through the middle of the bus, resulting in the high pressure blood spray reminiscent of the anime stereotype. It brought a happy little smirk to his face.

Then the brakes on the bus brought the seat in front of him to his face. Ghah! What is with Skynet today? Peter suppressed the irrational impulse to hit the seat back with his fist. For a start, the bus system was entirely independent of the elevator system. Secondly, it would only annoy the poor soul sitting in front of him and hurt his hand. Still, stupid machines. This sucks.

When he alighted from the bus, Peter asuaged his primal needs by kicking the tyre of the bus. As predicted, he only hurt his foot and the bus felt nothing. The stinging in his toes helped ground him a little though.

Peter only limped a little as he made his way through the school to where his locker was. He circled the building twice and found it to be both bully and minion free before stashing his unneeded items in the metal box, wishing he had something similar online. The single player games he had played before often had a personal stash that carried his items from one chapter to the next. Only the most realistic ones had made players trudge back and forth with their items from one chapter hub to the next.

So wrapped up was he in making sure he didn’t run into Billy, that Peter failed to look at a more normal height and tripped over somebody much closer to the ground.

“Oi! Watch where you’re going you abelist mug!” and angry voice shook Peter out of his distraction. “What’s yer problem? Ye think yer better ‘an me wi’ yer working legs? I aughtta pop ye one!”

Rolling onto his back and sitting up, Peter half expected to be assaulted by an angry dwarf. The scottish accent reminded him of the old Lord of the Rings movie and when he saw who he’d tripped over his impression didn’t change much.

It started with the flaming red hair. Worn longer than most boys with actual braids in it. The squat frame with massive shoulders could easily have swung a battle axe. From there it went a bit wrong though. The boy he’d fallen over was confined to a wheelchair, such that no matter how built his upper body he would be forever skipping leg day.

“Woah, buddy, you got me all wrong. I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you alright?” Peter apologised, backing away from the furious young man.

“Is who alright?” asked a girl, rounding the corner. From the similar facial features and matching hair she was clearly a family member, probably the younger sister? “Wha’s going on Waz?”

The wheelchair was thrust towards Peter threateningly, then turned to face her. “Ellie, I’ll tell ye what’s going on. This skuggan was nae watchin’ where ‘e was goin’. Bloody near tipped me outta the chair.”

Ellie looked from him to Peter on the floor. “Wheest yeself Woz, what would Ma think o’ yer language? Asides, ee’s come off second best here.” She stepped around her brother and gave Peter a hand up. “Me apologies fer me brother. Ee’s still a mite touchy about the whole cannae walk thing.”

“Look, it was entirely my fault. Bully Tomlinson is going to kick my ass if he sees me, so I was a bit distracted. I’m sorry. Really sorry.”

Ellie turned back to her brother. “There ye go. He’s sorry. Now, Warren John Connor, what do you say to, oh,” she turned to Peter, “what’s yer name?”

“Peter. Peter Fuller.”

“What do you say to Peter?”

“Yer a twat Peter.” Warre smiled, then blanched at Ellie’s expression. “Foine, I forgive yer. Watch yer step next time.”

Peter shook his head as they walked (and rolled) off, Ellie cuffing Warren and waving a finger at him which he was clearly ignoring. Desperately hoping that the kerfuffle didn’t draw any unwanted attention Peter decided that discretion was the better part of valour.

Also that running away was the better part of discretion.

Blindly dashing further into the school unfortunately had to opposite result to what he’d been hoping and Peter very nearly ran directly into one of Bully’s henchpeople. As recognition blossomed in their eyes, Peter ducked into the nearest doorway. Looking around he found himself in a bathroom. Stalls lined one wall and on the opposite was a series of basins. The far wall from where he stood Peter could see another door leading out.

Alone for a moment, he made a split second decision. He ducked into one of the stalls, pushed the door across so it occluded the toilet itself but didn’t close it entirely, grabbed ahold of the bag hook and lifted his feet. When shouts of “through here” and running feet echoed about the room he offered up a prayer to Fjor that the hinges would hold his weight, as irrational as he knew it to be.

“You sure Brayden? He could be in dere…” Peter heard Bully rumble. No squeak of the puberty-afflicted voice from him.

“Nah, the doors are all open, he must have gone out the other side.” Brayden’s nasal whine responded.

“Well, git ‘im. I wanna talk to that turd before school starts. Make sure he knows who owns this school.”

His arms were aching by the time Billy’s heavy footsteps faded into the distance, but Peter hung on until he was certain they were gone. He closed the lid of the toilet and sat down, using his bag to make sure the door stayed closed rather than get up and lock it. He breathed deeply and massaged his forearms. The left one especially was red and the skin around the suture was inflamed.

Hearing someone approach outside, Peter picked up his bag and lifted his feet so that no-one could see that his stall was occupied. He held his breath as the timid footsteps entered the room and a small, female voice called out “Hello?”Clearly it wasn’t the lynch mob that had just left, but who could it be? The voice sounded familiar but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

When the owner of the voice was satisfied that the restroom was deserted, they entered a nearby cubicle and started making weird noises. It took a few repeats before he could figure out that whoever she was, she was deliberately making herself throw up. Peter’s stomach turned as he heard her breakfast come up. Bile rose in the back of his throat and he swallowed hard.

The toilet flushed and Peter could hear the water running into the basin opposite. He risked peeking through the gap between the door and the wall to catch a glimpse of the person who’d just evacuated their stomach. It was the girl who had careened into him in the nurse's office the other day!

Staying very still and breathing through his mouth, he waited until she finished rinsing her mouth and departed before dashing out the opposite door. The bell rang for homeroom as he was still halfway across the quad and pelted for the classroom.

It was just moments after Mr Wadsworth finished his logon animation that Peter managed to stumble through the door, completely out of breath. “So nice of you to join us,” the teacher snarked. Peter merely offered an embarrassed grimace and folded into a spare seat. Homeroom proceeded as normal from there and by the time the first period bell rang he had mostly managed to get his pulse down to within a normal human range. It spiked again momentarily when Mr Wadsworth looked directly at him and warned “I hope you did your homework while you were off,” before disappearing.

Panic gripped him before he realised he had indeed done the required learning, thanks to Averton’s smith. “Who says games are for kids?” he muttered as he headed off to his next class.

Keeping a careful eye out for threats paid off in spades that morning. Between classes he spotted two ambushes on the main paths between his classrooms. Not that a teacher or any of the security sentinel bot would flag them as such, Billy’s minions were too wily for that. To the casual observer it was merely two friends waiting for a third to catch up and then continuing to their next class. Peter knew better, if he let himself get caught between the waiting two and the lagging one he would definitely be escorted around a corner for a private discussion with the monster himself.

Avoiding the traps took Peter on a circuitous path that nearly made him late to every class. Being ever vigilant in case he was being tailed caused him to realise things about his school that had passed unnoticed before. The buildings, for example, were all built to a similar standard as the one the mayor of Averton lived in. I know the school is old, but HOW old? TAoSS buildings are supposed to be based on Victorian age architecture. He glared at a gargoyle hanging from the gutters, it looked oddly familiar.

Surprising Mr Wadsworth by dropping his tablet into the slot at the start of class and allowing the homework to upload immediately instead of trying to finish it class like so many of his classmates were trying to do, Peter took some time to look around the classroom for Shop B, as high school metalworking was known. It held modern, and not so modern, versions of equipment that Averton’s smith had demonstrated to him. The soldering irons for tinning the folded metal boxes they had made earlier in the year, were exactly the same, a large iron mass with a four sided pyramidal tip that was placed into a small gas fired chamber to heat. When the students were instructed to seal the boxes, the hot iron mass was applied to the fold and a length of solder the thickness of his index finger was fed into the gap.

I wonder if I can get training at the Carpenter’s guild that’ll help me in Shop A? Peter pondered as his classmates did their best not to set fire to themselves, their electronics or their clothing. He took his time, drew the heat across the metal and carefully fed the solder the way he’d learned to.

“Well done,” Mr Wadsworth commented, nearly causing Peter to drop the hot metal tool on his foot. The teacher’s holoprojection seemed to be tuned for one on one interaction as none of the nearby students had even look in their direction. “Your homework was early, of good quality and well researched. You obviously used your time off in a responsible manner. I’m glad to see you’re healing well too, though you do seem to have lost some weight. Healing takes a lot out of a body, remember to eat well.” The ‘individual interaction’ holo winked out.

“I’m starting to see what those gits who want to smash all tech are on about,” Peter muttered, “what is going on today?”

Almost on cue, the power went out.

Two people screamed, one because the rooms went dark, one because the girl beside him spun to ask him why the lights were out and poked him in the shoulder with a soldering iron.

The PA crackled to life. “All students, this is an emergency. I say again, this is an emergency. Calmly proceed to the nearest evacuation point. Do not run. Leave your belongings. Follow the illuminated lines. Further instructions will be issued by wardens at the evacuation points.”

“I hadda ask,” Peter sighed.

The announcement continued on a loop as students grabbed what they could and ran out the doors. Peter followed more sedately, stepping out the door and following the illuminated row of LEDs set into the floor. There didn’t seem to be any fire or gunshots so it wasn’t worth panicking about. He watched as one LED at a time went dim then bright, creating a ripple effect indicating the direction people should go. Magic GPS, what an idea. He chuckled at his own joke.

So engrossed was he in watching the flashing lights that he failed to notice that he’d acquired an escort until one of them whispered in his ear. “Mr Tomlinson would like a word, scar boy.”

Head snapping left and right as ice water flooded his veins, Peter realised he was done. To either side of him was the Woodsy twins. Troy and Desmond, identical twin brothers who use their appearance to every advantage. They were known to answer for each other at roll call so that the other could set up some form of mischief. They would often swap identity in the middle of a conversation so you never knew who exactly you were talking to. Until Peter had flagged on Bully’s radar he had found the shenanigans to be light and fun. Now he could see that they were evil shenanigans.

“Hey Farva, what’s that restaurant you like, the one with all the goofy stuff on the walls?” he whispered.

“Did you…” started the Woodsy on the left.

“... Say something?” finished the Woodsy on the right.

Peter swallowed hard. “No?”

“Then keep it…”

“... That way.”

They rounded the corner and Peter could see just how much trouble he was in.