Seo-yun turned to Nadia. “Him, not it. I believe that we had won his trust, we have been treating him as a person, which I think he never experienced. From the records we read, the AI’s were never treated as anything more than a tool to be used. We gave him our courtesy and time, there is almost always someone with him talking. I believe that any intelligence deserves that courtesy and has a right to live. I believe that the problems the Union had with the AI’s stemmed from their utter contempt for them.” Seo-yun said, glaring at Nadia, who started to respond but was interrupted by Tomas.
“Nadia, Seo-yun is well aware of the dangers and is taking all the precautions. We are not here to talk about the way she runs her projects.” Tomas said, and looked at Nadia until she nodded. “Good. Now Nadia, give us an update on our schooling program.”
Nadia took a deep breath before speaking. “Alright, well the program is preforming much better than planned. The children have adapted almost instantaneously, and most are doing great in their studies, we have been changing classes and groups based on the children’s performance, those who learned slower were placed in less demanding courses while those who exceled were pushed forward into more advanced courses, we have also been adjusting many things from the original plan but everything is finally taking shape. We are currently designing programs for more advanced kids, where we will integrate the orphaned kids with those advanced kids attending our regular schooling programs.” She said.
“Do you think that their countries will try to take them back when we secede?” Seo-yun asked.
“They will most likely try,” Tomas said. “but they won’t be able to do anything, they will try to paint us as bad guys, kidnaping kids and such, but it will not matter in the end.”
“And will they be right? Are we kidnapping these children, recruiting them?” Nadia asked.
Tomas shook his head resolutely and swiped his hand. “Absolutely not. Their countries didn’t care about them, they turned them out on the street the moment they were of legal age, with no preparation for the real world. It’s even worse outside of America. It’s not that they don’t have enough money, it’s that they would rather spend it on something else. They were happy enough to let us take those kids, they were a burden on them. When they come after us for this, and have no doubt they will, we have more than enough evidence to show the world what those kids future would have really looked like if it weren’t for us. And we will let the kids chose when they come of age whether they want to return to their home countries or stay with us.”
“We will see soon enough.” Elias said.
Others nodded silently, there was nothing else left for them to do but wait.
Chapter Eleven
November 2099 – Five years later
Adrian uncrossed his legs and looked towards the office door for the hundredth time in the last five minutes. He was nervous, the meeting he was about to have would be another turning point in his life. He was now sixteen years old, and had already finished the elementary schooling provided by Olympus, he learned fast and had surpassed his classmates a long time ago, the only one who stayed with him was his best friend Sahib. They finished the eight yearlong schooling program in half the time, there were other kids who finished the course earlier, but they already had schooling and were close to graduating anyway. After they passed the final test they chose the area in which they wanted to specialize, there were no restrictions other than that you had to pass the course entrance exam, and you could always switch afterwards if you wanted to study something else instead. Now that Adrian finished the first part of his education, he was ready to start the next. Which brought him to waiting in front of the office for the Olympus military. Adrian chose to join the military, though he still didn’t know whether he was accepted. The Olympus military was different than the ones on Earth about which they studied in history class. The Olympus military was originally a security force, and at first only members which had higher education were accepted, back before Olympus seceded from the Earth governments. Now on the other hand, times were changed. Now they accepted also those who went through Olympus education system, and even after getting in you wouldn’t be accepted in the military just like that, you again went to school, military school, where you learned advanced subjects, like politics, advanced math, they studied tactics and strategy, there was some physical training, but nothing like what came after one graduated from military school and joined the army. There were many jobs in the military, from infantry to technicians. The entrance exam differed from those to other schools as well, it was a series of test, from logic, math, common sense to physical fitness, reflexes, problem solving, and military puzzles. He had already taken the test two weeks ago, and had gotten a message instructing him to check in at the military office on the Minos space station orbiting the moon. Adrian had friends who had applied to the military as well, and all of them got their acceptance letters a week ago, and all were supposed to attend the military school at Sedna on Earth. While Adrian alone was asked to come to the Moon station. Which was one of the reasons why Adrian felt very nervous. He wasn’t sure why he needed to come all the way here for a simple acceptance, so did that mean that he did something wrong? Was he to be rejected? But again why ask him to come all the way here for a simple rejection.
Adrian continued to stare at the door every few minutes, until finally the secretary at the desk in front of the office gestured for him to enter. Adrian took a deep breath walked over to the door and entered. The office was sparsely furnished, there was a single couch on the side and small table in front of it, and a desk at the end of the room. The desk was one of the new designs, it was completely transparent, and on it and in the air above it many files were opened, texts, images and videos, all shown as if on a screen. The hologram technology had advanced a lot, and the images were clear. The woman sitting behind the desk had short black hair, and a firm expression. Adrian recognized her immediately, he saw her on the news frequently. General Laura Reiss, right hand of Elias Bakas, and second in charge of Olympus military. She motioned from him to sit in the chair in front of her desk and looked at him steadily, as if she was weighing his worth.
“You must be wondering why you were asked to come here.” She said.
“Yes, sir— ah— ma’am” Adrian said, he felt his cheeks redden. General’s lips turned upwards for a moment in a half smile before her face assumed a stern mask again, though her eyes still had a hint of smile in them.
“Ma’am is fine, and as for why you are here.” She brought up some kind of list and gazed at it for a minute, before she sighed and turned back towards Adrian. “In normal circumstances we wouldn’t be talking at all, you would have gotten your acceptance letter and continued on to your studies. But, the reality is that your tests were unusual.”
“Unusual how?” Adrian asked fearfully, did they think he cheated?
“You scored above any other applicant. Not just that, you managed to find solutions to some puzzles that were frankly believed to be far above your level.” She said slowly watching him steadily.
“I-I didn’t cheat, I swear!” Adrian said quickly.
General smiled softly. “No, you didn’t, we checked. After we studied your tests we went back and went through all your records, from the moment you came to Olympus. We saw that you exceled in every area you were in. You advanced ahead of your class, you advanced to the level far ahead of your age in the martial arts, all that with relative ease. Now I want you to tell me honestly, did you really feel challenged in your studies?”