Morgan

She walked into complete stupidity. Lumia had burst out of her room and into the Class Euripides common room, still dressed in her filthy tabula rasa. She was slumped on the ground with her outrageously long hair was sprawled all around her. Raphael knelt before her made soothing noises as Lumia sobbed into his chest. Bouncing foot to foot beside them, Alan was quizzing her for what was wrong. Lumia responded with incomprehensible babbling.

As though a black hole had opened up and threatened to suck them in, Lumia pointed at her room’s door and her screaming began anew. She tried to scramble up and run, but Raphael caught her and held her still. Lumia shuffled behind Raphael and tried to hide, terror stricken on her face.

Then a short yellow robot wheeled out of the doorway. Its eyes sat atop a thin and long “head”, which was reminiscent of a dog’s snout, and its thick torso gave way to a framed suspension system that sported four large wheels. The robot—or exohelper, as they were commonly known—only rose to Morgan’s stomach in height, though its base would allow it to elevate itself up if need be. It turned its head at a steady pace, scanned the room, then raised an arm and waved hello.

Leo emerged from the room a second later with a grin slapped on his face. “I found the culprit,” he said, then stubbed the exohelper’s back with his toe.

Morgan’s mouth hung open. Of all the stupid things she had seen in her life, nothing came anywhere close to this. It was an exohelper! Who would be so insufferably stupid as to think that a small dog-faced robot, whose only purpose in life was to help its human masters, would be so life threatening as to scream the entire building down?

She was two seconds from stomping over there and giving Lumia an earful when another door opened. Tock leaned through the doorway with a giant grin, and her face spotted with black grease. She had even managed to get grease in her hair, though now she wore a different red hairband, one which had no patterns, which had become just as filthy as the rest of her. Tock presented a stray piece of copper wire.

“Hey, does anyone want some wire? I have—” she froze when her eyes settled on Lumia. Face dropping, Tock turned to Alan. “What happened? Did you show her one of the apps you made?”

“Me?” cried Alan. “I didn’t do anything. I was—hey!” He thrust a finger at Tock. “You broke yours again, didn’t you?”

“Where else am I going to get a blade? Educators still treat us like children and don’t let us order them.”

“That’s because you are a child!”

Morgan was trembling. Not from cold, or from fear, but from blind fury. Breathing heavily, she stomped over to the exohelper, not caring that she was barefooted and wearing her black and gold King’s College pyjamas. Pressing her meus to its head, an interface came up and Morgan quickly sent it back to its charging station. Leo, who was still in the doorway, ducked out the way. Throughout the ordeal, Lumia had calmed down a little though she was still trembling. Not making eye contact with Lumia—not wanting to aggravate herself further—Morgan moved a couple doors across and glared down at Tock. The grease-ridden girl grinned back at her.

“Tock,” she said slowly, unable to thaw the chill in her voice. “You do know how little copper we have on Plato, right? How difficult it is to get from the surface? Tell me, where did you get the copper?”

The curly-haired girl stuffed her hand behind her back and her hazel eyes darted around the room. “Nowhere.” She looked past Morgan at Alan. “On a completely unrelated note, can I borrow your bot? Mine is, er, out of order.”

She was being ignored. Morgan was being ignored by someone whose behaviour was completely out of line, while everyone was acting like—like children! Like complete children who did not understand the gravity of their situation and thought only to play. Like irrational idiots who had no clue how close they had come to ruining all of their lives today. She was tired, in need of a good ten-or-so hours of sleep, hungry yet unable to eat more due to her stomach’s constant roiling. And—

Morgan peeked at the table and went cold. All of the kale sandwiches were gone. The only readily available food which sat well with her stomach was gone despite Morgan specifically telling them to leave some. Oh, she could order more, but that would have been a waste when they could have just eaten the other ones.

She snapped.

“I cannot believe you all,” Morgan said, frosty, under her breath. She raised her voice to a shriek. “I cannot believe you! We have been here for an hour—an hour—and you have all done nothing but act like children.”

Five pairs of eyes stared at her, stunned. Morgan was a little embarrassed by the attention, but mostly she was intoxicated with righteous indignation. She kept on yelling.

“Leo! What is wrong with you?”

“Me?” he shouted. “You’re the one yelling.”

“You could clearly see there was a problem and you made it worse. What sort of irrationality is that?”

“Go jump off the Edge,” Leo spat. “I was cheering her up. What’s wrong with a joke?”

Morgan bared her teeth and stomped over to them. “This is not a joke; this is stupidity! And you!” She thrust a finger at Lumia. The trembling girl’s back stiffened and she took a hasty step away from Raphael. “Why are you screaming over a robot? What is wrong with you? You are not a child anymore, so stop clinging to others. Hugging is for children; we are the future of the planet!”

His fists balled, Leo thrust forward and was in Morgan’s face. His features were twisted and uglier than Morgan had ever seen them. Refusing to be intimidated, Morgan gritted her teeth and remained as firm as graphene.

“When did you earn the laude to tell people how to behave?”

“I am only telling you to do what is right,” Morgan snapped back.

“Oh, and you think you know what’s right?”

“I am telling you to behave in the way that is best for everyone! Being irresponsible and childish will only hinder our capacity to save our world. Or did you forget that Earth is literally choking to death because of our mistakes?”

“You know what? You sound exactly like an Isolationist. Just do what the science says and never question anything,” he said sarcastically. “Are you going to let them control how you think?”

“Please, Leo, she’s right.”

Both Leo and Morgan turned, the heat between them seeming to dissipate. Lumia stood with her hands clasped before her and a gentle smile stuck on her face. She was no longer crying and her cheeks were cleaned of tears, but her blue eyes were still bleary. The sight of her was a complete shock to Morgan but, strangely, she felt liberated. That Lumia was agreeing with her rather than arguing like everyone else did was… confusing, yet satisfying. And since she was so unused to such an occurrence, Morgan was not sure she truly believed Lumia.

“Oh, come on!” Leo shouted. “Are you seriously going to believe her crap? It’s propaganda. You don’t have to be what they tell you to be.”

Lumia gave a slight nod. “I wish that were true, Leo, but unfortunately this was agreed upon when I entered Plato.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry, but I promised to do my best and that is what I must do.”

Morgan’s thoughts leaped back to the test, which now felt like it was an eternity away despite only having ended a couple hours ago. Lumia had screamed at the Educators that she would go to any lengths for her sister’s sake. Was that part of her reasoning? Was she really doing this for no reason other than to protect her sister? If so, that was depressing, and somewhat infuriating.

Do you not actually care about the world? Are we nothing but a footnote in your studies?

From beside the long-haired girl, Raphael shook his head. “No, Morgan’s not right. We shouldn’t be attacking our classmates.”

“On the contrary,” Lumia said. “I was behaving childishly. But from this day on I will be a model student of Class Euripides.”

Raphael opened his mouth to speak again but hesitated. Lumia cut him off.

“Please, let’s not start a fight.”

Though she said it so sweetly, Raphael’s expression soured. He said, “Fine. I’m going to bed.” Then he turned and walked away. His bedroom door gently clicked shut behind him and the lock turned red, indicating that his soundproofing was on, that he was isolated from the world.

Morgan watched in silence. Though she was still upset, a seed of regret was growing in the pit of her stomach. Raphael was loyal and during the test had done so much for her—for everyone! Morgan knew she was in the right—even Lumia agreed with her—but after that she felt wrong.

Dejected, Morgan did not want to continue arguing. She figured she had said too much. But then Leo rounded on her, his miscoloured eyes flashing with fury. Reflexively, Morgan drew herself tall such that her sight was level with Leo’s.

“Do you see what you did?” he said.

If she had been angry before, now Morgan was inconsolable. Heat rose into her cheeks. Her whole body trembled. Her voice grated like steel grinding on glass. “What I did? What I did? You’re blaming me for a choice that Raphael made? Did I tell him to leave? No. Did I even speak to him? No! That was his decision. Don’t you dare blame me for it.”

Leo’s voice rose to match hers. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t come out here and started telling everyone what to do.”

“And what? Should I have let you continue terrorising Lumia?”

“Oh, now you’re on her side!” he howled, gesticulating towards Lumia. The long-haired girl witnessed the scene with her brows furrowed and her fingers wriggling into knots. “Wasn’t she a child that didn’t need you to baby her?” Leo pressed on.

“She doesn’t. But I am much less annoyed with her than I am with you.”

“Why? Because I’m not uptight enough for you? Not walking around like I have a rod for a spine?”

“Because I had thought better of you!”

When the words slipped out of her mouth, Morgan immediately stiffened. That was not intentional. That was personal. Though she had been told often, by her Educators and by her Guide, that it was productive to explain your feelings about others’ behaviour in a constructive manner, Morgan’s experiences with honesty had demonstrated the opposite. Almost always, whenever she uttered a personal word to another student, it had the strange habit of circling back around to her and striking her in the back. And given Leo’s current behaviour, Morgan’s intuition which screamed to not trust him, had been right. He had turned on her so quickly. Now he had acquired a weapon to use against her.

But there was no mocking grin, or any malicious expression on Leo’s face. Rather, he seemed taken aback. Morgan had no idea how to process that information.

Neither she nor Leo had a chance to speak, however, as Tock interrupted them by clapping her hands. “Alright, time for bed.”

Leo peered over his shoulder at Tock, then looked back at Morgan, deep lines scouring the edges of his eyes. He shook his head then stepped past Morgan. A few seconds later he was locked in his room, leaving Morgan to wonder just what was going through his head—or if she need be concerned about any future repercussions.

Tock nodded, smiled to herself, then turned to Alan. “You. Bed!”

Alan threw his hands up and cried, “But I didn’t do anything.”

The shorter girl poked him with a greasy finger, leaving a smudge on Alan’s shirt. “Exactly. Bed!”

Mumbling to himself, Alan slinked off to his room and locked the door, leaving only the girls. Morgan fully expected one of them to speak up and criticise her behaviour, but to her surprise, Lumia smiled and offered a slight bow, her outrageously long hair swishing about her.

“You’ve seen a side of me so unsightly,” Lumia said. “My hope is that it stays a distant memory.”

A second later, Lumia’s eyes bulged, she bowed deeply, and rephrased. “Please forget what happened today.” There was particular emphasis on “today”, and Morgan had the feeling she was speaking of more than the events that had just transpired.

Then Lumia passed between Tock and Morgan to enter her room. She paused at the door and her eyes darted to a corner of the room. Taking a deep breath, she entered and closed the door. The lock indicator neither blinked nor changed colour, meaning the door was unlocked.

That left only Tock and Morgan. The frizzy-haired girl was an absolute mess. Something needed to be done about that—tearing up school property for whatever reason was not a healthy practice, and in fact was unnecessarily wasteful! Though Plato had plenty of resources, that was only because everyone was doing their share and not wasting what was given to them. Yet Morgan did not have it in her to keep arguing. Nor did she want to pursue the matter further. She knew she ought to, but she had this falling feeling in her gut that to do so would be… wrong.

As Tock went to say something, Morgan turned and made her own way to bed. She was not about to be lectured. She did not deserve one. She had been in the right—she knew it!

But as she locked her door behind her, a heavy weight pressed down on her shoulders. Her back to the door, Morgan slid down until she was seated, drew her legs in, and curled into a fetal position. Her whole body felt sluggish—it was like fatigue, but there was a quality to it that made it so much more oppressive, as though even thinking, let alone moving from her spot by the door, would cause her pain.

I was in the right. They were all behaving so stupidly and not at all like how Class Euripides ought to behave. She drew a deep ragged breath. So why do I feel like I am the bad guy?