5G{hosts} Series One, Episode One, Scene Four
Allanah sighed and closed her maths book on her tablet as the speaker above them rang out, announcing the end of class. She picked up her bag, and tossed the tablet inside.
“Talk about boring.” Suzanne picked up her own tablet and tapped into her social media feed. The separate branches of social media platforms had long since amalgamated into one combined service, all run, of course, by The Corporation. Suzanne didn’t really care about that, though. She opened up the camera app, smiled brightly and took a number of selfies in rapid succession, which she uploaded immediately to the cloud.
Allanah smiled at her friend. Suzanne could get away with a number of things, mainly because she was just thirteen. She was what The Corporation liked to call “gifted”. She was two academic years ahead, and was a science whizz, tipped to be employed in The Institute pretty much immediately after graduation.
Allanah, on the other hand, was very much average. She was not particularly good at anything academically, to her parents’ disappointment. Her only claim to fame was that she was the first student from The Academy to have been chipped and connected to The Network.
It was something that her parents took great pride in, and something that Allanah desperately wished wasn’t true. At first, she had been wildly popular. The other students had stopped to stare at her. But after a while, as more and more people were chipped, she had faded into obscurity.
She got to her feet, shouldered her bag, and made her way out of the classroom, followed by Suzanne, who was so busy scrolling through her social feed that she almost walked into the door frame, only just catching herself in time.
“Hey, guys! What do you think about going off campus for lunch?” Marietta caught up with them and fell in step.
Suzanne looked at Allanah, “Lana, what do you think?” .
Allanah felt a sharp pain in her head, radiating from the back of her neck, where the chip now lived. She shook her head, “You know I can’t, Suze.”.
Suzanne hesitated for a moment, then turned and shrugged, “Aw shame. I’ll give it a miss, guys.” She shut down her…
