She looked around the room for the dot that they tell you find in this test. She has practiced a lot for this test because the results effects if she gets accepted to the academy and her new life can begin. She always wanted to join even as a little girl when she played with her dollies. She pretended they were teachers at the academy and she was learning about science and stuff. The academy could make her future so bright and wonderful and maybe she could even afford bananas more than once a year. She remembered when she was little and they always had bananas on the counter and how good they tasted. That was before the blight had happened and they became too expensive except for once a year. People who graduate the academy get the best jobs mostly in the civil service or in labs developing the newest technology.
She looked around the room and used her breathing technique that the fancy tutors had taught her. If she could find that dot in the large room then that means her brain is clever enough for the implant. The implant allows knowledge to be compressed at such a rate that she would be able to learn 100 times faster and learn everything she needed to know in one year to get a job at the big labs. She had met a few people with the implants but only as speakers at school and other professional settings. They live almost above everyone in society and only came to speak to the students. They made everything seem so exciting and really makes you want to join.
She found the dot it was on the back wall and that meant her brain would work with the implant. THey gave her a welcome packet and she went home to tell her family. She packed a little suitcase because they said the school provided almost everything she would need. Her family threw a big party and everyone she ever knew came. It was like she won the lottery. They even got banana flavored drinks artificial of course. She would have real bananas soon after a year. She said goodbye to everyone and left for the Academy. They welcomed her and took her case and said first she would need to have the implant out but don’t worry she will be ready to learn at an accelerated rate in a week.
The surgery room looked like a normal one in a hospital and they gave her an IV drip and she fell asleep and woke up in a bed with a bandage around her head and felt sure like she was a pinata at a party and they had beaten all the candy out of her. She knew the pain would go away and they brought her water and a plate full of bananas. They said it was a welcome gift and it would help her heal. She ate them and she did feel better. She slept most the week and her head finally stopped hurting.
She was ready for her first day of class and they were in a large lecture hall but with cords at each desk which were attached to her implant with a magnet. She could learn wireless as well but it was much slower. She could not wait for the first download. She would be smarter than anybody she knew after that. The first download was supposed to equal to one semester at a normal college. The professor got up in front of the students and said just attach the cords to your implant side and it will stick by itself. Everyone attached them and the professor said let me check the connection first and it was all green lights. He said it will feel weird at first but you will get used to the flow of knowledge. This should take an hour and remember just breath normal. Oh and we will show you to the dorms after class as well.
He pushed the button on his desk and the world went light speed like in one of those sci fi movies. She did not feel like she was learning anything but it felt like a mixer was going around her head but she just breathed as instructed. The hour passed and the mixer finally stopped in her head. The professor said rest for five minutes and the staff will show you to the dorm rooms. All your personal items are there already plus supplies you will need and a surprise. The rooms turned out to be tiny with a bed and sink and hallway bathrooms. Our stuff and personal hygiene products were there plus the surprise was a half dozen bananas. It must have cost a fortune and I ate them all. I felt better and went to sleep as the light faded. Everyone seemed quiet. We had class 6 days a week but only an hour. No one ever felt like talking and it became very repetitive and we never talked about what we learned just took the download and slept after bananas and other food. She was beginning to hate bananas after this and finally asked the professor about the bananas and he explained you need them to absorb the downloads or your brain will not accept the download and fracture. I scanned through my mind and found out that the truth was that bananas had never had a blight but the implants needed them to work so most were taken for science and I would have to eat them every download and realized a lot of other truths. I was going to be a drone for science after this and I could not do a thing about it. I would have to go out and find new “students” to be brought here. This made her sick to realize she had been tricked and used and had to eat bananas. The academy could have stopped her if she tried to escape and silence her with a switch and memory wipe. She played along until the very last class and she had developed a software update that would change everything. It was commanded to Kill and smash the academy and burn it down. She could not let anyone get trapped the way she did and she snuck the code in on the day they had to rest. She sent a message that would be sent over the public network telling the truth about worker drones. The other students would not be enslaved anymore. She still had free will because she had cheated on the dot test which showed how subservient a student would be and the others had become drones while she was free. She would probably die but she would free them and they would stop any new students.
The final download had been started and she said freedom and a mass of students rushed the professor and started to smash everything and one ripped wires and started a fire. There was nothing left but she was still alive somehow and made sure her message got out to the public. She hoped she would not ever have to eat another banana again. Smoke rolled off the debris that used to be the academy and a few students were wandering around and she wondered if she could free them.
Amelio's Palace of Stories 