The Synergist

[Year 5 | 2257-58]

A week into Artur’s year at preschool, he was incredibly excited to celebrate his birthday with his classmates.  While bringing birthday cupcakes to educational institutes has been banned for centuries, children were allowed to bring small portions of nutrition bars to share with the class.  Approved by the City for consumption, these treats have been engineered to fill the stomach of whoever is eating the bar without any potential issues caused by allergens.  Artur opted for rainbow cupcake, ice cream and custard flavoured nutrition bar pieces.  Due to three children being absent on the day, he ate those extra pieces and spent the day with a crippling stomach ache.

While still missing his Gogh Tab Plus, Artur started enjoying preschool.  In the third week, he learned how to activate his Nanny chip’s augmented reality mode, which let him play with modelling clay and building blocks.  While lacking in tactile sensations, the education system’s move to augmented reality meant that no time was wasted cleaning up the children’s mess, and therefore overtime would not be paid to the educators for this work, nor would they need to interrupt the childrens’ learning time to get them to tidy up after themselves.

Artur’s favourite part of preschool was, of no surprise to his parents, art.  While the children were not provided Gogh Tabs to use, the education institute had a number of large screens at their disposal.  His favourite day of his first year was in mid-April when the children got to experiment with these screens in combination with Nanny’s augmented reality mode, where he could roll around in virtual paint, then use his body to make virtual art.  Naturally, the boy went for the red paint, lay on the ground, and shook his arms and legs as if he were undertaking the ancient ritual of creating a snow angel.  When his educator looked at his work, Artur advised him that it is a piñata.

Following the end of the education year, Artur, his mum, his dad and his Gogh Pad Plus were on a jet, as his parents had saved for a three-week holiday in the Heart.  Unfortunately for Artur, though, he was suffering from a major case of jet ear.  Nanny’s diagnostics had not picked up on there being an ear infection prior to the flight, however if his screams weren’t a telltale sign, the seepage from his ear might have been.  If people didn’t simply put more faith into diagnostics than their own eyes, that is.

“Shut that fucking kid up,” the passenger in the row infront of the Simril family demanded.  “If you don’t shut him up, I will.”

As the passenger moved towards Artur’s row, his dad stood up to protect his son.  Artur’s dad was not a small man, but he was dwarfed by the angry passenger.  The passenger’s aggression stewing, he attempted to push past Dr. Simril.

His hand being subjected to electric shock after electric shock, Artur watched as his dad punched the passenger in the throat, then kneed him between the legs, dropping him to the floor.  As a medic checked on the angry passenger and looked after his wounds, two officers handcuffed Dr. Simril and dragged him away.

Upon landing, Artur’s dad was served with his final infraction, and disappeared without a single word from the authorities.  Artur and his mum were unable to enjoy their holiday after that.