Chapter 2 Summary

Aydan of Luna (every pronoun) arrived at Translunar Academy to begin hir training as a technopath. Having come from the Moon and lived their whole life at 0.16G, the first few days were an arduous adjustment to the 0.3G environment of the colony. While exploring TLA’s impressive garden, full of a variety of Earth plants and animals, Aydan happened upon a girl, Akiko (she/her) sitting by the pond and feeding the birds. With the help of his terminal and the school computer, æl had a short conversation with Akiko using Japanese Sign Language, and she gave it a bag of plant seeds to befriend the birds herself.

When classes began, Aydan’s first class was Applications of Primitive Devices, and there Professor Aria (they/them) distributed to each student an antique handheld computer from the 21st century, and instructed them to get it running and interfacing with their modern terminals within a week. Aydan was helped by an enby, Zeta (it/its), who ze then asked to have lunch together. But on the way there, Zeta wanted to take a shortcut, which involved a difficult feat of jumping across part of the glass wall of the colony between the edges of the habitable strip. This was simple for Zeta, having grown up in a high G colony. But Aydan’s attempt left ælle mildly injured, and while unconscious briefly e saw a hallucination that looked like the mysterious figure who had appeared in the æther last week. Zeta, concerned, made sure hie was okay.

Another day, in Introductory Cybersecurity class, Aydan had eё first true lesson in technopathy. Professor Haze (they/them) tasked their students to pair up and attempt to defend, or overpower each other’s defenses, in the simple task of opening a lock. Aydan was paired up with a quiet, mysterious girl named 7 (she/her) who was an overwhelmingly powerful technopath compared to hine, and was annoyed at eir trying to verbally converse with her. She connected to Aydan’s mind and gave an insightful lesson communicated through feeling and impression more than words, leaving Aydan feeling like xe learned a lot.

Having taken ær first steps as a technopath, Aydan was eager to learn more and see what the technopath life would have to offer.