Roomate (2)

The A Building seemed to be similar to most high school buildings back before the apocalypse, except for the fact that the building itself did not have any windows. The ground floor simply had window openings that people could walk through while the upper floor had steel bars installed to prevent any students from accidentally falling down. Not everyone could be like the leaders of the black market, wasting billions of dollars just to make their building look more stylish. The military would much prefer using all that money to purchase better training equipment for their academy students.

As most of the rooms within the A Building was empty, David simply described each room to him briefly before leaving. He noticed that David needed to scan his wrist by the scanner next to each door before entering, or else they would not be able to open the steel doors. The entire tour seemed quite leisurely until they finally saw another person on the second floor of the A Building. The room that the third person currently resided was the chemistry room. There were multiple beakers and chemicals placed on the shelves on the cupboard located on the walls on all three sides -- the right, left and back. The front wall had a blackboard installed.

Seated on one of the experiment tables was a young man similar in age with Arnold. He had a pale complexion, with dark circles under his eyes. He seemed to be quite skinny as the laboaratory coat that he was wearing caused it to look quite baggy. The person had placed his arms on the table as a cushion for his head. He was snoring quite loudly, the sound reverbrating around the room. As the chemistry room had dangerous materials, they entire room was enclosed, without any window openings. The air in the room was pumped in by the air vents and could filter out harmful particulates.

David took a glance at the boy and gave a slight look of surprise. He motioned for Arnold to come over. He whispered next to Arnold's ear, "That's Stephen Takeshi, who's going to the roomate for the rest of the year."

Stephen seemed to have quite a hearing, since the instant David whispered his name, he immediately jumped up and looked towards our direction. After noticing it was just some of his fellow students, he simply sighed and said in a dissatisfied tone, "Oh, it's just a new student, I thought a teacher might come in and scold me again after finding me asleep..." He stretched his arms and yawned, giving off a lazy vibe. Then, he hopped off of his stool and walked over to Arnold, giving him a questioning stare.

Stephen leaned his face towards Arnold to the point where the distance between them would cause one's discomfort. After staring at his face for awhile, he turned his head to David and asked, pointing at Arnold with his thumb, "Didn't I say I don't want any roomates, how come one is being assigned to me at this time, David?"

"Hey! Stop being so rude to the freshman, Stephen!" David immediately slapped Stephen's thumbed down and said in a mature tone. "The higher-ups found that you are the most compatible roomate with him."

"Hmmm?" Stephen gave Arnold a glance again before scoffing, "Yeah, right. They just want to force a roomate upon me in order to monitor me, don't they."

David rolled his eyes, "Just because you are famous, doesn't mean that everyone is out to get you, Stephen. Stop being such a narcissist. Here, at least introduce yourself." David moved towards Stephen and patted on his shoulder, then he had him faced towards Arnold, encouraging him to speak.

Stephen sighed but obliged. He held out his right hand towards Arnold and said, "My name is Stephen Takeshi. And yes, as in the Takeshi Family. Chief Warrant Officer, Rank 2, of the Chemical Corps."

Arnold politely shook Stephen's hand and replied with his own introduction, "Troy Anderson. Sergeant. As I'm new here, I've not been assigned to a department yet."

Stephen gave Arnold a look of surprise. He took a quick glance at David. Seeing David nod, he face Arnold again and nodded as well. "I now see why the higher-ups placed you as my roomates. They seem to have high confidence in you."

Arnold gave a look of confusion at Stephen, not knowing what he meant. David simply came over and explained, "Normally, a freshman like you would be placed in a dorm with other freshmen on the ground floor of the dormitory building. As your distinctions within the academy grow, you move higher and higher until you arrive at the top floor of the dormitory, where everyone get single rooms and many more amenities. As you were directly promoted Sergeant as you were enrolled here, you get to live in the upper floors directly, skipping out on the competition by the other freshmen. Also, most freshmen in the academy who did not get good results leave after 2 years to get enlisted in the army. Only talented cadets can rise in the ranks and become warrant officers and potentially officers of the army."

Stephen gave a nod of acknowledgement. "The military seemed to have high expectations for you, Arnold." He gave Arnold a pat on the shoulder and a look of schadenfreude. "Like me, they will force you to participate all sorts of training 24/7, force you to memorize stuff and work you to the bone until there's nothing left but a husk of your body..."

David immediately placed his palm on Stephen's mouth to shut him up. "Stop it! You're going to scare him!" He gave Arnold an embarassing look and said, "Stephen was just exaggerating. The academy is not actually like that..."

Stephen seemed to have already gotten tired from the energy of talking to both of them. He simply sat back on his stool and took a nap again. David sighed and motioned for Arnold to leave. He said, "Leave him be, he's like that most of the time."

Arnold simply raised an eyebrow and did not say anything.

"Now let's go to check out the dormitories first, as the students are still doing training exercises within the B Building. Most teachers don't like it when they are disturbed, so they normally won't allow people to come in during their lectures. Oh, by the way, you should never arrive to a lecture late, since the teacher would never let you in, forcing you to stand outside the classroom for the entire period. Later on, the teacher will mark you as one of the tardy kids and would always ask you difficult questions during the lectures..." David gave a slightly scared look, as if he was speaking about his own traumatic experiences. After awhile of complaining about the teachers, they finally reached the exit of the A Building.

Arnold and David walked across the empty field towards the dormitory. As everyone was still in class, the dormitories were as quiet as the A Building.

David first brought Arnold to check out the facilities within the dormitories in order to get Arnold excited about living here. They walked across the hallway and headed towards the gym. When they went in the gym, Arnold found many different types of machines that he had never seen before. Since Arnold had never been to a gym, since there were none in the surface level, he had no idea how any of these machines operate.

David simply assumed that Arnold, as a subterranean level citizen, would already know what a gym is and simply said, "Our facilities are top class. You see there, that's the gravity training room. You can adjust the level of gravity inside the room before heading in. This training is good for your cultivation as it increases the blood flow and condenses the spiritual energy within your body at a higher pace.

He then showed Arnold around and took a look at his expression. Seeing Arnold's unchanged expression, David seemed quite disappointed. He thought that Arnold must have had seen similar facilities before. Little did he know, it was because Arnold had no knowledge of any of these things that he was unpreterbed, as he did not know the significance of having all these expensive equipment in one room.

After the gym, they headed towards the backyard. Behind the dormitory was a basketball court, a tennis court and a badminton court. There werre also multiple outdoor training sites for people to train their esper powers. David asked Arnold in a curious voice, "Troy, do you have any esper powers?"

Arnold simply shook his head. Although his genes were activated, he still have not managed to trigger his esper powers. It seemed like he needed to find some way to trigger it without causing any suspicion by the people around him.

Arnold shrugged and said, "Don't worry, a lot of people within the military academy also don't have any esper powers. Therefore, the instructors won't have it against you just because of that. However, people with esper powers do get more merits than those without, such as more time to practice and stuff."

With that said, Arnold and David headed towards Arnold's room.