They entered the car and started on their way. Adrian had never been inside a car, he never even left the house, the farthest he went was outside of the courtyard, and that was on a dare. He remembered how Miss Mayberry was furious he did so, she tripled his cleaning duty for that week. And now with every passing second he traveled further away from everything he knew before. Adrian knew that there was a whole another world out there, they might not have been going in school but they were permitted to watch television, he learned a lot from the news and other programs, Adrian even managed to convince one of the older kids who was put in the orphanage when his parents died to teach him how to read, he was seventeen and had no one to take him in so he spent a year with them until he was let go on the street. There were a few books at the orphanage, the real ones like they used to make them long ago, with paper. He knew from TV that most came electronically and could be read on a datapad now days. But they didn’t even have one datapad at the orphanage, save for the one Miss Mayberry had, and she never let them touch that one.
Adrian looked out of the window at the passing scenery, and finally the scope of what he just did hit him like cold water in the shower. He had just agreed to go with these strangers, he didn’t know anything about them, other than the fact that Miss Mayberry had no problem letting them take him and Mary, he knew nothing.
Adrian looked at Mary sitting in the back of the car with him, he saw that she too was scared just like him, she held onto her wooden box strong enough her fingers started to go white. Panic threatened to take him over but he managed to push it down. He looked at the front of the car at the two people seated there, Rodney was driving and Andrea was reading something on her datapad.
Adrian swallowed and mustered his courage, he coughed for a moment hoping to get their attention but it didn’t seem to work. So he managed to open his mouth and speak. “How old are you?” He asked, he didn’t know why but that was the first thing that came to his mind, they looked barley older than Miss Mayberry’s grandson and Adrian wanted to know.
Andrea turned in her seat to look at him, she glanced at Rodney and raised her eyebrow, there was a moment where he could have sworn she was about to start laughing but her face quickly assumed a soft expression, she looked at Adrian
“I’m fifty four, and Rodney is sixty seven.” She said.
Adrian looked at Mary and saw her eyes grow wide and she turned towards Andrea
“But you look barley older than twenty!” Mary said
“You will soon learn that things are much different outside of your country, where I come from most everyone looks young.” Andrea said amused.
“B-but how?” Adrian asked.
“You will learn all this and more in time.” Andrea said and turned back towards her datapad.
They spent the next hour in silence. Until finally they came to a stop at what seemed to be an airport. He saw in the distance a transport and as they walked towards it, it became more and more apparent to Adrian that they were going to fly on it. Adrian couldn’t believe what was happening, he had always wondered what it would be like to fly. And now he would fly on this machine. They boarded the plane and he saw that there were already kids on board, all around his age and older. There were a few that were close to eighteen that he could see. They were seated at the empty seats beside a boy his age and a girl who was somewhere close to sixteen. Rodney fastened his seat belt and shoulder harness while Andrea did the same for Mary then they wished them luck and left the transport. Adrian started to panic again, but the boy beside him offered his hand.
“Hi, I’m Sahib, what’s your name?” He said smiling widely. Adrian looked at his hand and hesitated only a moment before taking it.
“Adrian.” He said.
“Great to meet you.” Sahib said shaking Adrian’s hand enthusiastically. Sahib looked to be about Adrian’s age.
“You too.” Adrian said.
“So you are from an orphanage yes?” Sahib asked.
“Yes how did you—” Adrian started but Sahib interrupted by waving his hand toward the other kids.
“We all are.” Sahib said again smiling widely. “I think that they only wanted orphans.”
“Do you know why?”
“Well they said that they want to put us through school since our country doesn’t have the money to send us all.”
“But why would they do that, I mean if the entire country doesn’t have the money how do they?”
“Don’t know but one of the kids here said that they were much wealthier than the United States.”
Just as Adrian was about to ask another question there was a sound and the other children stopped talking, a man dressed in a uniform just like Rodney’s stepped through the front part of the transport.
“Listen up, in a few moments we will take off, and start towards your new home. Your new home will be aboard a space station Cloud.” There were gasps all around, some frightened some excited, Adrian was just shocked, so he didn’t have time to be excited nor afraid. He knew from the news that Olympus did have a station in space, but how would they live there? The man kept talking.
“When we leave Earth’s atmosphere you will feel weightless, I want you to know that it is normal and that you are perfectly safe, I have done this a lot of times and nothing will happen to you. And you are not the first children I transported.” He looked at them nodded and disappeared through the door to the front. Other children started talking loudly between themselves. Adrian looked at his new friend Sahib and saw him laughing maniacally. He felt the transport come to life and suddenly they were moving, there were no windows so he couldn’t see outside, but soon enough he felt himself losing weight meaning they left the atmosphere, suddenly he felt someone grab his hand and when he looked to his right he saw Mary holding his hand as strong as she could. She and him were never very close, she came to the orphanage two years ago when her grandmother who took care of her passed away, she tended to keep to herself, and he couldn’t remember when they spoke more than a few words to each other, but he saw in her blue eyes that she was frightened so he turned his hand in her grip and held her hand. He saw gratitude in her eyes so he just smiled confidently as if he did this all the time and knew that everything would be alright. Though her hand in his helped him, as much as it did her, it calmed him down and anchored him to one thing that he knew was real, a person who took this path alongside him.
They spent the next period weightless, Adrian was never all that good at measuring time without a clock so he wasn’t sure how long they traveled. And then suddenly they felt their weight once again. And they could hear the transport landing. Soon after the transport doors opened and few people came in and started unfastening their seatbelts and harnesses and ushering them out of the transport. Soon they found themselves in a big metal room, Adrian could see a another transport in the room and children from it also ushered from the transport, they went from that room to a brightly lit, angled room with chairs and tables and a podium at the bottom of the room. They were instructed to take a seat and Adrian sat with Sahib on his left and Mary on his right. There was a bottle of water on the table in front of every chair, and Adrian reached and took a sip, a minute later the door opened and a young woman stepped on the podium.
She looked out at them for a minute while the children conversations hushed down, and when they finally stopped she started speaking.