Fifteen years later.

Arran was seated in one of the Institute’s lounge areas when his micro PC notified him that a quiz grade was uploaded.

“Thank. You. Mum!”

“Why?-What?” Dominic asked, who was sitting at a table across from Arran in a square booth against the wall.

Arran turned his wrist to flash the grade, wearing a winning smile.

“A perfect score,” Dominic acknowledged without surprise.

“My first test at the Institute in the books.”

“So you thank your mum for that?”

Arran shrugged. “I’ve just been feeling really well prepared for everything so far…”

“You should be thanking me.”

“Ookay,” Arran said with exaggeration and a complementary eye roll.

It was true that Arran did have Eloise to thank when it came to his readiness for academics, but Dominic did play a significant role as a study companion and informal tutor during his young friend’s time at primary school. Arran knew this too. And so even though he played off Dominic’s remark mockingly, he did have a deep-seated gratitude for all the ways he was there to help him.

“What class is that in?” Dominic asked.

“Intro to premonition.”

Dominic lifted an approving eyebrow. “Those Aesthete classes are no joke. You’re in Mrs. Holbein’s psychoschismatics class too, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Yeah, she’s tough.” Dominic’s eyes zone off in the spirit of one reeling through the past. “I had her last year and I swear she made us read twice as many books as any other professor.”

“Oh, I can attest to that.” Arran lifted a handful of textbooks that he had sitting on the bench beside him. He plopped them on the table.

Dominic let a high whistle sail through the air. “Yup, better get used to that, mate.”

“Are you?”

“More or less.” Dominic raised a stack of his own onto the table, nearly doubling Arran’s.

Arran’s eyes bulged. “I would hope more than less.”

“Wait, let me see that one.” Dominic was pointing to one of Arran’s books. “The one in the middle of the stack,” he tilted his head to read the name on the spine. “Shadow-walk: Approaching the Daemon and Beyond. I don’t think I remember reading that one.”

Arran forgot that he still had that book and was a little flush when Dominic read it out loud. In truth, he was a little embarrassed by how he came across it.

***

It was Thursday and Arran was one of twenty-two students in his class for psychoschismatics. The professor, an eloquent woman in her mid-sixties (chronologically speaking), a Mrs. Holbein, was going over her introductory lesson.

“As you all know, we live in a technological era – and those words have never been so true – for even the very genes that determine what makes you you, your desires, intentions, thought, feelings – everything – all that has been subject to technological advancement.”

Mrs. Holbein paces back and forth as she talks, making a severe expression with her brows…

“But with these advancements came a new creation – the shadow,” she scans the room as she says this, getting a pulse on the classroom’s attention, “and as Lumen, it is our responsibility to interact with it, however safely and appropriately…That is what you will learn in this class.”

Arran raised his hand.

“What’s the shadow?” He said this certain that everyone else was asking themselves the same question. But in a terrible second he became the focus of every set of eyes, as if he had shouted out each of their names at the same time.

Mrs. Holbein saw his blank-faced reaction and remembered her role as a teacher – that an unassuming quality was required of her.

“As a reminder, the shadow is the collective unconscious of all transhumans – that is, all humans who have technology infused into their DNA.” She made a sweeping gesture with her hands as to include all of us.

But this was all she said on the matter. Arran thought that it apparently was a stupid question, or at least one that should’ve already been known. This was first made obvious by her ‘As a reminder’ preface, the start of a very brief answer; but then she also asked for Arran to stay after she gave the class dismissal.

She observed Arran as he approached her desk timidly. “Arran, is it?”

“Yes.”

“Arran…do you really have no recollection about the shadow from your prior education?”

“I – uh, I do. I just was wanting to make sure I was on the same page – that you were talking about that shadow.”

“Right.” She said this as her brows made their severe expression, her thinking face. “Just as a consideration, you might want to brush up on the subject. And I don’t want you to take this the wrong way…It’s not uncommon for a first year to need a primer on a subject matter or two. Should you choose to do so, I’d recommend Albert Chapman’s recent work, Shadow-walk: Approaching the Daemon and Beyond.

“Thank you, Mrs. Holbein.”

Arran walked away in a hurry, only slightly concerned that his professor now thought of him as a special case (and not in the good way). Instead, He was more concerned with the witnesses that had left the classroom, all scurrying away to their friend groups. What were the chances of some of them sharing my blunder?

His intuition told him that they were good – which ironically wasn’t good at all.

***

When Arran took the book from the middle of the stack, he looked over the gold and red cover before handing it to Dominic. “Yes, you wouldn’t remember this one. It came as recommended by professor Holbein – it’s not an essential text though.”

Arran felt better when he realized his answer didn’t come at the cost of lying.

“Interesting.” Dominic tossed it over in his hands, measuring the weight-to-time-before-completion ratio.

“You can borrow it if you’d like.”

“No thanks, I already have a lot on my plate as it is.” He handed the book back in a way that said his measuring process was done – estimated time till completion: ten hours.

“What do you think about it though?” Dominic asked.

“The book?” Arran gave his characteristic shrug, “It’s a fairly concise account of the shadow and how it emerged.”

“Yeah, you know it’s interesting you say that,” Dominic said while tapping his chin, “professor’s Holbein doesn’t give out or recommend ‘fairly concise accounts.’ If anything, it would be a recommendation of some arcane material that spins off the subject she’s teaching – you know, just to widen your gaze.”

Arran smiled at the note of mimicry, “Hey that’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, and you want to know what else is pretty good? – My nose for bullshit.”

Arran knew what he was referring to but made a last-ditch effort at playing stupid.

“Okay?”

All of Dominic’s facial expression flattened except his smirk. “You know what I’m talking about, Arran.” He pointed at the thick book that was now on top of Arran’s stack. “Want to lay off the bullshit and tell me why you have this book.”

At this point, Arran knew he needed to come clean. He sighed a confession. “Well, it was a recommendation from Mrs. Holbein. I wasn’t lying about that…”

He then went on to tell Dominic about his ignorance – that he didn’t in fact know what the shadow was. He told him what happened in the classroom, the embarrassment of it, and that he had picked up the book to eliminate his intellectual weak spot.

“Wow Arran, and you still think you should be thanking your mum?”

“No, believe me, I’m just as bewildered as you are. I mean, I think the shadow is utterly fascinating. It’s been the most consequential emergence of the forth industrial revolution…So yeah, in all honesty, I don’t know how my mum didn’t teach me about it before; or how I’ve been completely ignorant of its existence until now. I feel as if this is one of those moments where you realize that you’ve been living under a rock. I have been living under a rock.”

“No, kidding mate.” Dominic sized up his friend in light of this new knowledge, “Well, if you ever need help with any of this, I’m here.”

“Thanks Dom.”

“Don’t thank me yet. You can save it for after you ace your next test.” Dominic winked.

***

After spending all afternoon studying, Arran left campus to clear his head. He didn’t have an exact place to go to, but he had a driver take him in route to downtown Brighton. The day was clear skied and he thought the beach would be nice to see. But when passing a familiar park, the Hove Green, something urged him to stop the driver.

“I’ll get off here.”

Despite the unforeseen command to halt, the driver handled a lane switch with a decrease in speed that didn’t jolt one forward. He then maneuvered the hovercraft where Arran wouldn’t have any trouble getting to the park in ten easy steps.

“Will this due, sir?”

“Perfectly.”

Shutting the door, he turned to see the park with flat open spaces and scattered oak trees. It was a peaceful view. As if by instinct, he made the same meander that he had before, bringing him to familiar grounds; and he didn’t know if he expected to see what he saw next, but after having seen it, he felt that it was oddly what he had been hoping for. He saw in the distance a group of people moving in game-like fashion, cutting in and out of direction. He also saw the object in which the game was oriented around. A spinning yellow disc in the air – a frisbee.

Keeping his distance, he found shade under an ancient oak and sat on the ground. As he watched the game go on, he stole into each of the six players’ minds in turn, getting a better context for what was going on. And during this process, he recognized one of the girl’s thought signatures. Aside from the voice, it had a familiar energy, a lively happiness. It was Millicent.

Arran squinted his eyes to get a better view of the golden-brown haired girl. What he noticed first as she was playing was that she was quick, really quick. The boys knew it too, and he saw in their minds how they strategized against her.

After a strong toss, Millicent was making her way fast in the direction where the frisbee would make its approximate descent. She broke distance from her defender and there was no one deep down field to stop her from making the catch. Sure enough, she plucked the frisbee out of the air with practiced ease; and being quite happy about, she performed a celebratory back flip in the end zone.

But when she landed, she landed off balance, causing her to retreat a few steps backward in Arran’s direction. It was then that she spotted him sitting on the grass.

“Hullo-hulloo! What’s up? What’s new?” Millicent shouted as she threw up an arm and waved her hand spastically.

Dear god, Arran thought.

She was jogging closer to him as she spoke loudly, “Do you want to play?”

“No thank you,” he said, being as emphatic as he could.

His tone seemed to work – seeing that her jog slowed to a shy walk.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

After he said this, she stopped and looked at him for a long moment.

“Hurry up, Millicent!” a playmate called from behind her. Millicent was slow to respond but her legs eventually started moving back in their direction.

They continued to play some more but then one of the boys, who to Arran looked like he got his greasy hair cut by one of his teammates, turned on a jumbo speaker – initiating the most unusual intermission Arran had ever seen in his life…

They were playing a song that he didn’t recognize and were dancing to it. The song had a lot of words in it, so the fact that he didn’t recognize it wasn’t surprising to him. What was surprising though was the level of self-abandon with which they were moving to the song.

How peculiar, he thought.

But what became even more peculiar was thinking how they could go on like this for as long as they were! – just letting pointless lyrics crowd the surface of their mind. When he first heard of this phenomenon from a friend, he fact-checked it with Eloise as soon as he got home. She confirmed it and explained more:

“We as Aesthetes can appreciate music. It’s just like any other form of entertainment that enriches experience, shapes sentiment and informs the mind. But unlike Innocents, we know when enough is enough. We know when to walk away from these things because we know where and how a means of utility, like these entertainments, can arch into abuse. But it’s not really their fault. I mean, what do you expect from people who aren’t inclined to think? – they simply can’t help it. You see for them, concentration isn’t intrinsically pleasurable and therefore hardly engage in it (odd, I know); so, because of that they have to be constantly entertained, excited and aroused by an external stimulus.”

She then offered him a principle by which to navigate this arena of external stimuli:

“At whatever point you feel that music, the tele and entertainment in general is not for informative purposes, that is when you need to back off; otherwise you’ll partake in what is considered Innocent behavior.”

Arran recalled this as he watched Millicent jump up and down to the cadence of the bass dropping in the song. “Innocent behavior,” he said out loud, as if to finally pin the phrase to its organic mate in the physical world.

When the fiasco finally ended, they let the music go on as they gathered their belongings and walked toward the bus stop – leading them to pass by a bemused kid sitting under an oak tree.

As he watched them come and go, he couldn’t help but note some of their differences. To put it plainly, they had no sense of fashion. The four boys were in plain white t-shirts that were dirt stained and tugged around the neck; while the two girls wore the same v-cut shirt but in different colors (blue and orange), and with the same athletic shorts. It was as if there were only five things to choose from at wherever they did their shopping.

“Weird, tacky, filthy,” he said to himself.

And when he reached into Millicent’s mind again, it was as he suspected: all lyrics; nothing substantial whatsoever.

Though, that wasn’t the end of it…

There was something else that needs mentioning. Something new. And while Arran felt vaguely sorry for these Innocents – having to be excited by music rather than ideas – he couldn’t help but smile at the simplicity and pure joy that this girl felt. For the emotive tag that came with the lyrics on the surface of her mind transferred a profound chill throughout his whole body – yes, it was something he hadn’t quite felt before. The hairs on his arms stood straight up.