2P 343, b9:03 - WEDNESDAY

Argon. Omicron. Encephalon.

What would rhyme with “perigon?”

It was difficult to focus on word-searching through the heavy static of mindless sound that occupied the cold air of the room. Why was it so cold, anyway? The planet had well-entered its warmer season. The cold was mildly infuriating, but not quite to the extent of the numbing white noise. It was a perpetual force in the classroom, and it grew overwhelming if left to fester long.

The static had layers. There was a back-and-forth exchange between two classmates across the room, one even and snarky, the other defensive. Somewhere in the middle was the faint tapping of keys as the teacher recorded attendance from behind his desk. Under every other layer was the soft hum of a fluorescent light overhead, the one frustrating sound that would never cease. The topmost layer, the most piercing, was the crinkling of wrappers from the next seat over as a pink-haired girl snacked on candies from her birthday, which had been the preceding day. She was their roommate.

There was a preferred solution to combating the noise, and that was to focus on something else, but on this particular day that solution was proving futile. Verse stared blankly at the notebook balanced in their lap. Three lines of a poem had been written; not even enough to complete a quatrain, because they had used ostentatious words, and there was nothing to rhyme with “perigon.”

“What rhymes with ‘perigon?’” Verse muttered, more so to themself than to anyone else.

The crinkling stopped. The pink-haired girl, Yuki, turned in her seat to face Verse, who looked up from the notebook in return. “What does that even mean?” she asked with a slight laugh. Her voice carried a bubbly tone, which was much more pleasant than the insufferable static, and so Verse responded.

“It’s an angle obtained by rotating a line in the same plane once around the point it extends from.”

“A circle?”

“No, they’re completely different.”

Yuki’s mouth parted as though to say something, although she was silent for a moment. “You’re so funny,” she said finally. She said it jokingly, and Verse didn’t not get what she meant, but also didn’t entirely understand the joke. They never entirely understood Yuki.

Then across the room, somewhere amidst the static, another girl said very quietly, “Panopticon.” A word to rhyme.

Verse was unable to write the word down before their attention was robbed by an abrupt sound as the door dramatically slammed open. The fourth and final girl of class 2-B scrambled inside. “I’m here!” she announced loudly for the class.

Professor Moff broke from his laptop to stare at her. “Luca, you’re late,” he said flatly.

“I know. Sorry.”

“You were late last class. Sit down.”

“I—I’m really sorry, Professor,” Luca repeated as she hurried to her table by the window. She fixed two vibrant lilac pigtails anxiously. She was a lumux; it was, of course, her natural color. Eight of nine seats were filled, although the class roster only consisted of eight students total, and there was always one seat reserved for an invisible ghost.

Moff exhaled. There was a perpetual feeling of exhaustion to his drawn-out, gravelly words. “Make sure you’re on time for the Aptitude test next class.”

At once the static ceased, leaving nothing but the droning light. A shared realization swept across the room.

“What?”

It was Ace of Alerion who had spoken from the back of the room under a head of thick, dark curls. Two white eyes glowed from a stoic mask that misrepresented his evident shock. He was a primus, apparent by the protruding cynettes on either side of his head; the only other in the class was the one directly beside him.

Moff let out another breath, and this time it was more of an actual sigh. “Yes, Aptitude test Friday,” he said slowly. “This shouldn’t be news. It’s been on the calendar all semester.”

There was a great shuffling and clicking of keyboards as each of the eight students found the calendar posted online, which did, in fact, mark Friday a neon yellow that was rather difficult to overlook. The clicks were drowned by groans. Yuki shifted anxiously. Ace cursed under his breath. Verse stared at the screen in denial.

“Don’t start panicking,” Moff said, raising a hand to silence the class. “While you should prepare yourselves for the test, know that it’s not a graduation requirement to pass. The score will be taken for soldier positions. Most other Legion jobs will not look at it. But, speaking of, I need to print copies,” he trailed off, clicking around his laptop for a moment before shutting it. “We’ll start with history notes in just a minute. I’ll be back. Don’t jump out the window.” His voice retained its typical monotony as he said what was his strange form of a joke, and he left the room.

Verse dug through the bag beside their table and retrieved a second notebook. It was Wednesday, which meant 2-B was meeting in their homeroom class for History, Warfare, Language, and Law—the courses every Starforce Academy senior was required to take. They would meet again on Friday for physical training. The preceding day had been reserved for electives, as would be the following. No one seemed to know why the SFA schedule was so convoluted. But there was some method to its madness, because it fit together with surprising efficiency.

At the table by the window, Luca leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. “Oh my god,” she mumbled defeatedly. “I’m hungover and I overslept.”

Ace said, “See, you can’t oversleep if you don’t go to sleep.”

Verse said, “You can sleep perfectly with enough pills.”

Yuki buried her head in her arms and cried, “Why are y’all like this?”

The door opened again. Professor Moff returned with a stack of papers. He set one in front of each student. It was a list of information pertaining to the impending Aptitude test. “This is really a formality,” Moff explained as he passed the papers, “but the school board thinks you need a manual on this test you’ve taken seven times. We’ll be in the East Reserve facility this time. Questions? Perfect. Let me know if any arise. Moving on to our bi-weekly dose of Legion propaganda. I didn’t say that.”