The Synergist

[Year 12 | 2264-65]

For his eleventh birthday, Artur requested the one thing he had never been interested in before: a party.  The boy and his twelve closest friends spent a few hours on a different world, Tamboraxu.  Kitted out in their augmented reality headsets and plastic guns, the children entered the virtual world, with one mission: to kill, or be killed.  Artur opted for option A, and took great delight in murdering his friends over and over again.  He soon learned how to disable his opponents without killing them, just so he could return later and execute them slowly.

Following the party, Artur’s guests were no longer his twelve closest friends.  Not that it mattered; on his first day of the education year, the boy was escorted to the headmaster’s office for a discussion.

“Artur, I can see here that you like art.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re very good.  This image of your doctor is incredibly realistic.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Can I ask about the colours?  There seems to be a lot of red in your drawings.”

“It’s blood.”

“Do you like blood?”

Artur shrugs his shoulders.  “It’s inside us.  Sometimes it makes it to the outside.”

“What about death?  Do you like death?”

“No!”  Artur was shocked by the question.

“You seemed to enjoy it at your birthday party.”

Artur paused as he slowly realised that of course the educational institute would have access to the results of the games they were playing. “It was a fun game.  I liked winning.”

“I see.  Report to the top floor.  You’ve been accepted into the Extension Program for Talented Students.”

Upon getting home from the institute, Artur eagerly told his mum about his acceptance into the program.  She gave him a big hug and told him how proud of her son she is.  She followed this up with some simple questions: “What are you learning?”  “How different is it to normal education?”  “Was there an application process?”

Artur’s response to each of these questions remained the same: “Sorry, Mum, that’s classified.”