Noah

[FEB 13th, 2015]

Noah awoke to sound of his father's voice calling his name from downstairs.

"Are you up for school? I have to leave for work!"

Bleary eyed, Noah replied

"Yeah I'm awake, bye dad!"

"Don't be late, I love you!"

"Okay dad!"

Noah heard the front door close and rolled out of bed to get dressed. His father worked for their small town's tax office at decently high status, and his mother worked as a banker, so Noah often found himself at home by himself.

Dressed, teeth brushed and his long unruly black hair as kempt as he could be bothered to make it, Noah grabbed his school bag and headed out the door. Usually he dreaded school, having no real friends and often getting picked on for his glasses and scrawny stature, but today was different. He finally had a reason to leave the house, his town had gotten a simulator.

Noah spent his whole day at school daydreaming about finally getting to try the simulator the entire country was talking about. After waiting nearly a full week he had started to fear his town would never get one, and had asked his parents to take him to a nearby city that had a simulator, but both of them were against it. Just yesterday though, there had been a few of the large white units installed in some public spaces in his town.

The school bell rang and Noah was free, having told his parents he had a club meeting after school he had some time to do what he liked. He made the short walk to the public library near his school along with several others clearly with the same goal in mind. Noah and the small group of schoolmates he was now a part of entered the library with a bit of chatter, which alerted the librarian and triggered a cold glare. Most of them caught on and shut their mouths.

Noah looked around the old library, which was basically empty except for him and his classmates, and there he saw them. Next to the computers which were surely a decade out of date, two of the matte white Pilot Trainers were set up. Noah approached one of them and understood why people had started calling them "The Egg", their shape, color, and texture were all reminiscent of one.

Noah's school mates had noticed the simulators by now and were lined up behind him, one of them popped a question

"Well? You gonna get in?"

Noah realized everyone was looking at him, nervous to be the first to give it a try. Noah was too, but he steeled himself and pulled open the sliding door.

Inside the simulator was a very low and long seat, with a control stick on either side and foot pedals on the floor. Each control stick had a trigger, some face buttons, and a thumb analog stick. Noah slid into the seat and pulled the door shut, past the eager faces watching him. With the door shut the black fabric finish of the simulated cockpit made the inside completely dark. A keypad in front of him lit up, and the triple array of screens followed shortly. The screens showed a simple background with some text fields in the middle:

_____________________________________________

FULL NAME: [ ]

SSID: [ ]

____________________________________________

Noah had memorized his social security number specifically for this, he entered his information and pressed the enter key. The screen buffered for a moment, then went dark. Red text appeared on the screen and Noah's heart immediately sank, something had gone wrong. He read the error message, then read it a few more times, it said:

_____________________________________________

INVALID LOGIN ERROR:

Blacklisted identification detected

_____________________________________________

Noah was in shock, he didn't understand why this would happen. Here he was, finally sitting in a Pilot Trainer, and it refused to work for him. As he sat in the dark staring at the error screen he remembered his father's objections to the Pilot Trainer and finally got it. His own father had blacklisted him from using the simulator.