It assigns you a Level based on those actions. It tracks what actions you make throughout the day. Through that chip runs a technology that overlays virtual images over your vision. Everyone in Antarctica has a chip embedded under their skin, right behind their left ear. They say:Īll of this-the labels on the classrooms, the points you can earn for watering plants or taking tests, the Level that each of us belongs to-is part of Antarctica’s Level system.

Interactive virtual buttons drift above the potted plants lining the halls. A virtual Level hangs over the head of every person in the hall. There are titles like ORGANIC CHEMISTRY and THEORETICAL PHYSICS above the classrooms. Virtual images and text hover over parts of my view, changing as I go. If I’m lucky, I won’t bump into anyone I know until I make it outside, where my friend Pressa should be waiting for me.

I wait a second longer, then lower my eyes, hoist my backpack higher on my shoulders, and walk in the direction of the main entrance as quickly as possible. Beyond that, walkways link this floor to the same floor of nearby buildings, so that it all looks like a honeycomb of interconnected bridges.Ī few other students wander the school’s halls, but otherwise, I’m alone. So the university is full of light-filled geometric spaces and straight columns currently adorned with moving virtual murals designed by students in the Art majors, and when the halls are as quiet as they are right now, you can hear the fountains outside the front entrance. I didn’t even know what neoclassical meant until recently-it’s not something my old homeland ever showed anyone, what buildings used to look like in the days before the Republic existed. I never learned about those societies back in the Republic. Antarctica likes to pay homage to grand civilizations of the past, like the Romans and the Egyptians. The university is a neoclassical wonder of a place. I peek my head out from my lecture room and into the empty halls. To me, it’s a multicolored wonderland-as alien a place as the Colonies of America.Īnd it’s where I am now-at Ross University, on the top floor of Building 23 in downtown Ross City, where I’m currently trying to figure out the best way to sneak out of the complex before everyone else gets dismissed from class. To people who have lived here all their lives, this is a completely normal neighborhood perched high in the sky.

Rebel marie lu