Chapter 4

Mat was facing his old school. It was an old concrete building, rectangular in shape, gray in color. Yet for him, it wasn't as gloomy as for any passerby or student alike. It was a bit strange to see it now after he left it just a few days ago thinking he will never come back. The iron fence gate opened with a cracking and buzzing sound as it finally registered his ID and he entered the schoolyard. It was a little bit after 8:00 which was why the surroundings of the school were empty. He, however, didn't enter the school using the main entrance and instead circle the building and entered the smaller door at the back.

He entered a small hallway, which ended in a small staircase underground. With no decoration but white walls and the beige floor gave an eerie look. That, of course, didn't stop him from going down the stairs and getting inside one of the few downstairs rooms.

"It didn't change!" he said to himself, even though there was no reason to think it would change in those few days. The room had several workbenches with toolkits perfectly laid out to use up every cm. Three big regals closed off the room and made it look like it is smaller than it actually was.

Mat closed the door behind himself and looked at the shelf with wooden planks and pieces. By his sure movements in picking the wood, it was obvious he had been here before. Carefully picked pieces were put on a workbench at the farthest corner from the entrance.

"Shoot! They cleaned my plans! Ah, what the hell I will use online one!" he said out loud after opening one of the drawers.

When he sat down, he pressed a small button on the table and used his WW to connect to it. His holographic window was then shown on top of the table. He had no trouble finding what he needed a plan for a ship. Wooden ship. Not a spaceship, just a simple ocean cruising, wind using an ancient ship. The plan was detailed with measurements, wood types, dyes, and a lot of descriptions.

"Off my god damn boat!" he said and quickly get rid of the information, leaving just the basic drawn boat and some easy eyes description.

"Ah! I hate working on my plan!" he said when he put his materials on top of it to prepare for work. Even though he hated it, it was not shown in the quality of his work. He barely looked at the plan anyway. Only to double-check his measurements and even that proved to be not necessary.

Relatively soon he was interrupted by a flock of younger students that came here to enjoy their break and only talked with each other. He called those people leaches. If you have nothing to work on here, then leave!

"Finally," they left to attend another class and he continued working. Precise, thorough work made him sweat a little, without him noticing it. He didn't notice even when the leeches returned and left again, or that he forgot about the planet.

"It was a good idea to come here relax!" he said to himself feeling proud about his boat. It was not exactly an amazing wooden sculpture, but it wasn't terrible either. He didn't dye it since he didn't want to wait for it to dry and just took it with him.

As he was leaving his WW vibrated and reality struck him again. He got a reply from the bank. Long message, simple answer.

They denied his request, simply because he was too young, had lottery debt, and no job.

"Fuck!"