The next morning started at my usual early hour, or rather, it started four hours after I went to sleep, as always. Unless I did something truly exhausting, I never slept much longer than those four hours. In this case, it meant that I had no need for a noisy alarm to wake me, which was quite positive, given that I doubted my roommate would have been grateful for being woken up at four-thirty in the morning.

I was not one to laze in bed, at least not alone, so I grabbed my laptop and my glasses and went into the common area, to do some research. One of the things I had neglected to research was the exact rules when it came to surveillance on the island. A quick search, assisted by Galatea, brought up the rules and I stumbled about the term citizens of Accord Island. Citizens had great protections from being filmed in private but what exactly constituted a citizen was not mentioned.

The question prompted further search and after a lengthy hunt through links and references, I finally got to the crux of the matter. It also explained why the rules for immigration onto Accord Island were so much stricter than to gain access as a student. Students were not considered citizen and had a lot less rights concerning privacy and they could be quickly and efficiently expelled from the island. Judging by the amount of effort involved with finding the necessary documents, I was convinced that it was a bit of a hidden system, allowing for surveillance that most would consider a horrendous invasion of privacy but only used if necessary. Personally, I got the chills just thinking about it, even my own surveillance with drones and Galatea’s hacking had been less far reaching.

However, it explained the incredibly low crime-rate on the island, or rather the incredibly low rate of repeat offenders. In addition, the far reaching surveillance made he-said/she-said situations less common, as even the common room within our suite could legally be surveilled. Ironically, the sheer amount of information gathered made me calm down, even Galatea, using the strongest computer I had built, could not process more than the data collected in a single dorm, not to mention a residential cluster.

When it started getting light outside, I decided to seriously start my day and the first thing needed was either coffee or exercise, so I would have to head outside. Wanting to get a better picture of the Island, I pulled up the map on the local net, allowing me to view it in far more detail than other maps I had seen. It showed me the local cluster and from an aerial view, it almost looked like a strange sort of flower. a round center, the commercial area with the main-transport, surrounded by four round leaves, each opposite another. The leaves were connected with small trains, I think the locals called them trams, that allowed for swift transport to center-hub, as they were going back and forth every few minutes.

Judging by the size, each leaf had about two-thousand five-hundred residents, making the cluster an even ten-thousand. My particular dorm was on the inner edge of a leaf, making the way to the center just a tad longer than back to the tram-station.

Zooming out, I saw that the whole island was dotted with dozens, maybe hundreds of those clusters, all spreading around the various institutions, that would teach us. There were trains connecting the single clusters individually to a hub, similarly to the connection between the leaves of the cluster and from that hub, trains allowed to get to virtually every school. I wondered just how many trains, and train-operators, there were, it was mind boggling, but the real answer was probably automation with a few human observers in a data-center. The idea certainly fit with the hefty fine levelled for disrupting train-operation.

The aerial image of the island with its clusters drove home just how many students lived on the island, it was almost like a nation of itself, a nation of students. Luckily, it was not, the students had next to no say in the actual running of that particular nation, that was left to the council of five. I was wondering what would be worse, a nation run by a shadowy council ruled by strength or by some student that was charismatic enough to unite enough fools behind him.

After a moment, and considering just what I had seen people my age support, I decided that the shadowy council was far better and more stable.

Now, armed with a concrete idea of the surrounding area, I grabbed my gym-bag and headed outside, towards the gym I had seen the evening before.

The gym was open at all hours and at that particular one, it was rather empty, but that was to be expected. After checking in, and learning that I could get a free membership with my Guild Academy student card, which I had yet to get, I was allowed a free trial for the first three days, something quite nice. The machines were great, using resistance instead of actual weights, making it impossible to discern from a distance just how much weight I was moving. I was quite keen on keeping my actual strength hidden, even if people were able to see that I was in extremely good shape, thanks to the gene-therapy and over a year of brutal workout, the details remained something only I knew.

Another nice feature was that the gym included a martial arts-area, allowing people to meet up and train at their leisure or take classes. The guild was big on individual ability so the idea that one should know how to defend oneself, was just par for the course. I would have to look into finding a partner but that was for another day. During my visit, I only wanted to release some extra stress and demonstrate the heavy bag just what I was thinking about it.

After spending two hours sweating and panting, I was happy to discover that the showers were not bad, allowing me to get things done without disturbing any of my dorm-mates. It was just before eight, so I was not sure if they were up yet, so I had a leisurely shower and before going on a coffee-adventure, hunting for the elusive ‘Good Coffee’ something almost as rare as gold and much more appreciated, at least by me. Part of me wanted to recreate my superpowered coffee-maker but it had been just a tad conspicuous. But if I got myself a private workroom, I could have Galatea screen the surveillance to ensure my privacy and make the coffee-maker in there. That thought made finding a private workroom a priority project.

But sadly even such an important project had to take a back-seat from the mandatory tasks I had to accomplish. So, I got a cup of coffee to go at one of the coffee shops in the area and went back into the dorm to get some documents and change out of my casual clothes.

When I entered, the only one up was Ru Shi, apparently jet-lag had not been kind to her and she was just relaxing in the common area. I suggested having breakfast together and she readily agreed, so I quickly changed and got back out. Ru Shi had found out how the cafeteria-system worked, so I followed her lead into a rather simple room on the ground level, with a small buffet-style breakfast, mostly consisting of simple things like bread, cereal, fruits and things like that. Nothing earth-shattering, if one wanted better variety, one had to get it outside, for a surcharge. After another cup of coffee, clearly worse than my first, both of us were done and we had to go to our respective schools to check in. It was one of those things that still had to be done in person.

We walked to the station together, merrily chatting about differences between our cultures, it was quite fascinating to hear her opinion on matters, as it was so vastly different from my own. Our train arrived within a minute or two after we got to the station and rode it to the hub, where we had to split, with each of us taking another train to our respective schools.

The Guild Academy was housed in an overall unremarkable building, its appearance rather incongruent with the actual institution inside. Since the inception of the Academy, a majority, something about two-thirds, of nobel prize laureates in chemistry, physics and medicine had been students here. It was not just a University, it was the most important centre of teaching and research on the globe. And I was allowed to be part of it.

Finding the enrollment-area was quite easy and the check-in was quick and efficient, as I had finalised my schedule months ago. I was handed a program for student orientation, both of the Guild Academy itself and from the Accord Island Student Government, one obviously serious and focused on academic relevance the other focused on the social and networking aspect. Scanning things, there were no things on the AISG-program that seemed to be too relevant, so I planned to attend their events it they seemed interesting and all of the events hosted by the Guild Academy.