Chapter 14: School

Date September 1st, 2255

Four years later.

Haa, my first day of school in this world, this shit is going to suck.

Not looking forward to the dreadfully boring time I'll be subjected to in a bit here. I reluctantly got dressed and headed out of my room down my home's light gray hallway to the living room, where both of my parents were having their morning coffee and tea.

"Morning sweetie, how'd you sleep?" Mom asked me in her usual bright voice.

"Not too bad, but do I really have to go to school? It's not like they can teach me anything I already don't know." I answered her before asking whether it was really necessary for me to go, not sounding too pleased.

"Yes, you have to, son. Even if they can't teach you anything, you still need the social interaction you'll get from it." My father reluctantly answered me.

"It's not like I'm socially awkward or anything and don't I already get plenty of interaction with Alice almost every single day of the week, isn't that enough?" I countered, attempting to use reason to weasel my way out of having my time wasted at school.

"You're not, but just the two of you hanging out together isn't really sufficient in our eyes, so you'll need to interact with other children around your age." He countered back, though I saw the cracks beginning to form.

I have my old man on the ropes, hehe.

"Mom and dad, do you really want to stifle my learning by sending me to school to waste a good part of my life learning things I already know?" I followed up, not the least bit ready to admit defeat and resign myself to wasting my time at school.

Pulling out my legendary secret weapon, the glistening eyes mom caved first. "Well, how about you give it a try, at least for the first day, and if you still don't want to, we'll discuss a compromise. How does that sound?"

"Okay deal. I'll try the first day and if I still don't want to go, we'll come up with a compromise later when you guys come back from work." I answered her before both she and I turned and looked at my father, waiting for his answer.

"Fine, you win son." He answered reluctantly, though relieved from the looks of it, that I would at least give it a try.

After a few cheers from me, dad decided to cook breakfast for the bunch of us. Giving mom a break from chef duties for once, even though mom didn't seem all that happy about not being able to cook like normal. But whatever, she needed a break every once in a while.

When dad finished cooking and brought the food to the table, he and I both immediately started ravenously devouring the food after mom filled her plate with what she wanted. Several minutes into eating, there was less than a third left of what dad prepared. Thus, the two of us engaged in a battle with each other for what little was left, causing mom to occasionally giggle at our antics.

*Burp*

"Your cooking was pretty good, dad. But still nowhere near as good as mom's." I complimented him with a smirk on my face while patting my full belly.

"Why don't you just appreciate my cooking, you little rascal, without putting me down. And of course, it will never be as good as your mother's." Dad responded while clearly faking that he was annoyed.

With my mother smiling and clearly happy with dad's and I's back-and-forth breakfast came to an end. So with all of us fueled up, the three of us began getting ready for the day while the very handy Miss Maid robot my parents bought four years back got to cleaning up the mess we left behind upon finishing our meal.

As soon as everyone of us was ready, we headed for the garage and piled into the slick-looking SUV dad purchased the month prior. The three of us on board the right side garage door opened and slid into the ground. Garage door out of the way, my old man took off in the direction of the George Washington school. The school I will be going to for the next 13 years if I don't do anything to prevent it.

Leaving our large standalone home behind, a blatantly obvious sign of my family's wealth, dad only took a few minutes' time to reach the school. And right as we arrived in front of the large expansive building of concrete and steel and exited dad's pretty sweet new SUV, I saw Alice and her parents doing the same from a short distance away.

Looks like our arrivals are clearly pre planned by our parents. I guess they're planning to take a couple of pictures of us before Alice and I head inside. This is probably the real reason they wanted me to go to school.

"Alright, sweetie, hold Alice's hand and stand right there." My mom directed me with some excitement in her voice.

Wanting to get this over with, I held Alice's hand, causing her cheeks to flush a bit and led the two of us to the position of the concrete stairs our moms and dads wanted us to stand at.

"Alice, you've been reading those romance novels again, haven't you?" I whispered to her as we headed over to the stairs.

"Nn." She responded with her cheeks even more flushed than previously, clearly embarrassed.

Sigh. No wonder she's been getting flustered recently when we hold hands.

"Okay, good smile you two." Alice's mom Aura said, right as Alice and I were in position.

"Alice, just don't overdo it with the romance novel and focus on the books I assigned you to read. You wouldn't want me to leave you behind if you can't keep up in your reading?" I said moments after our parents were satisfied with the pictures they had taken.

"No Dom, please don't!" She responded while tightening her grip on my hand, fearful of losing me.

Whoops, my wording may have been a bit too harsh.

"I have no intention of leaving you Alice, I just want to make sure you don't lose focus so you can keep up with me." I responded quickly before the waterworks could begin.

"Ah, you scared me. I thought you were really going to leave me." Alice responded, relieved.

"But I promise I won't fall behind you, so we can always stay together and achieve our dreams." She continued with determination in her voice and eyes.

"Then I promise to always keep you by my side and if you ever fall behind, I'll make sure you catch up to me no matter what." I promised, lastly sealing the deal with pinky fingers before I gave her a kiss on her forehead. Which was instantly followed up by a flash of light from our parents' direction, then a giggle from a now very happy and thrilled Alice with pink dusted cheeks.

"Haha, I got a good one." Alice's dad David said aloud, very pleased with himself while holding a camera in his hands.

"Nice job, Dave. Be sure to send us a copy of it later. Jane will no doubt want to put that moment in a frame." My dad followed up while patting his best friend on the shoulder.

"Will do Robert, I'll forward it to you later today."

Our parents, more than satisfied with their pictures, I turned towards Alice.

"I think that's enough pictures for today. Let's go, Alice."

"Okay." Alice said just prior to taking my hand into her own of her own volition.

We waved our parents goodbye and headed into the school hand in hand with the many other children arriving one after another via their own parents; I presumed.

...

A couple of hours later.

"Dom, I'm so bored." Alice whispered to me at our small table at the far rear of the classroom, with just the two of us sitting at it.

"You want to get out of here and go to my house?" I suggested in response, as I was drawing up a blueprint for one of my robot ideas. Specifically, a Worker Bot that could handle basically any task a human could, ranging from labor and manufacture to combat, farming and many other such tasks without the need to rest.

"Yeah, we're just wasting our time here and we can't really get any real social interaction with them when they barely know their ABCs and have such a limited amount of words they can use to talk with us." She answered, ready to leave.

"Okay, let's head to the bathroom and on the way, we'll find a way to leave without being spotted." I replied, beginning to fold up my drawing to take home.

"Alright, whenever you're ready." Alice said lastly.

The second I had my drawing folded up, I slid it into my pocket and walked over to Ms Betty, our teacher with Alice, and politely asked if we could go to the bathroom. She asked us if we knew the way and I told her I did, hence she let us go, not knowing we had no intention of coming back.

A short walk through the light gray concrete hallways, we arrived at the male and female bathrooms. Heading into the male side since we were less likely to get caught in them due to there being many more female teachers than male ones.

Actually, I don't recall seeing a single one, so there may be none, though I doubt that is the case.

As we walked into the bathroom, I utilized my perception field that I had up 24/7 and scanned the entire bathroom to ensure that there wasn't anyone in it. Once I was sure that we were all alone, I headed over to the window in the bathroom and opened it up.

"Looks like the coast is clear. Come on, Alice." I said to her when I pulled my head in.

"But we're on the second floor. Wouldn't it be dangerous to jump out the window from the second floor?" She questioned, not too sure about my idea.

"If it was just you jumping out by yourself, sure it would be dangerous, but since I'm here there's nothing to worry about, you trust me don't you?" I responded back.

"Nn, I do." She answered, putting her faith in me.

"Okay good, let me go first and when I give you the signal you jump too, I'll make sure nothing bad happens to you and you get down safely." I said last, receiving a nod in return.

With Alice's concerns addressed, I climbed out of the window first and dropped down. And thanks to my extremely durable physique as well as my lightweight, I landed on the ground outside with no issues. 

From there, I turned back around and waved for Alice to come down too. She hesitated for a second before climbing up and leaping out of the window, too. As she was falling towards me, I raised my hands up above my head and decelerated her before ending it in a princess carry to earn myself a few extra brownie points.

"See, I told you, you would be just fine." I said with a grin plastered on my face as Alice's cheeks began to burn up and take on a pinkish hue.

After putting a pleased Alice who now also sported a small smile down, the two of us made our escape from the school's premises and started making the journey home to my place while staying out of view of all people so we wouldn't get caught.

A short while later, as we were cutting through a park, the amount of walking we had been doing was beginning to take its toll on Alice. So, with her tiring out, I had her get on my back and carried her the rest of the way to the house. Only after about half an hour did we make it to my home without getting spotted. It would've been a shorter trip, but she and I had to take cover and hide more than a few times.

"Good, we made it without getting caught." I commented aloud.

"We did, didn't we. I was nervous we were gonna get caught a couple of times there." Alice said, relieved.

"Alright Alice, let's go inside." I said to her after putting her down and as I retrieved the missing keys I borrowed from my parents a while ago from my pants pocket.

"Okay." She responded lastly before I opened the door and the two of us headed inside.