Phantasm 1: For the Light of the Stars (one)

Ms Sullivan stood before the class, her mouth spitting information about the origin of the Commonwealth of Races, recounts of its beginnings that had no doubt been tainted during the centuries since its establishment. Most knowledge, after all, was based on the telling of the past flavoured with some form of bias, either intentional or not, as was to be expected considering the amount of time that had passed since truth transformed to become a matter of legend. Present accounts of importance could be recorded, analyticals couldn’t lie or distort the truth as humans could. And had.

Laura bit back a sigh, not wanting to draw unwanted attention. Like everyone else, her intellect had been discovered and forecast at birth. Hers had been evaluated as being about average, perhaps a little above. Her analytical had all the information she would ever need for the rest of her life. She knew all her limitations. Her implant and the analytical programs accessed through its interface ports made forgetting knowledge virtually impossible. She trusted only what she knew — facts, statistics, only what could be verified. Class tended to bore her because it never expanded her mind, and what was taught was all personalised. Class served the purpose of interpreting what the analytical programs said rather than actually teaching anything.

The content of her programs was modified to suit her parameters, created especially for someone of her intelligence level. She had access to everything she needed to know, and so class was simply a way of helping to understand and discuss it, to ready people for the lives awaiting them. Everything she should ever need was provided for her. But still, she hungered for more with every second of every passing day. It shouldn’t be possible, she knew that. She could not simply expand her mind to a higher level that desired more, her capacity for knowledge should be filled, there should not be room for curiosity. It didn’t make sense.

A strand of hair fell across her face. Laura brushed it away with an angry swipe. She didn’t understand, and more than anything she wanted to. Not knowing why this happened to her was painful.

As Ms Sullivan droned on, Laura gazed out a nearby window. It was tinted but through it she could trace the dark outlines of scrapers in the far distance, their silhouettes stretching up high until they formed a contrast to the pale sky. They were towering buildings, magnificent designs and equally grand in their complex construction, steel and brick cathedrals poking into the rich cloudless carpet blanketing the metropolis. Many of the residential sections of Capital were like this while some of the rest were remarkably different. The industrial section, for instance, which wasn’t all that far from here, was dominated by a number of expansive factories billowing smoke and pollution, while the nature section (also in a fairly close proximity) was a beautiful preserving of the natural world.

Somewhere out there was a life worth living. Mixed amongst the millions of possibilities was the life for her. Laura had no delusions about who she was, she simply wanted to live as others did, to have a life. She wanted only to be normal, even when that ambition was becoming increasingly impossible.

Laura felt the tingling begin at the back of her brain and before she could even try to stop them, a thousand sensations had smashed against the barrier of her mind. This happened to her when she focused her thoughts. It was an ability she had little control over, enabling her to touch the minds of others with her own. Here there were no scrapers, nothing industrial or city-like, only a collage of human thoughts and emotions that existed everywhere. The lives and very spirits, the auras of people were hers to touch and experience and learn from, the ultimate interacting encyclopaedia compiled from life, memory and history. A human encyclopaedia of identity. She touched the people, and in a way she became them, experienced what they did, knew what they had become, what they felt every day of their lives.