"What do you think of her?" a voice asked him.
Noah turned in his seat to see Piper Lee join him with his plate of food. The cafeteria was bustling with students, waiting for the test results from Providence. It was a series of interviews and medical tests while tethered to a supercomputer.
Noah had found the tests boring. He found a rickety table in the back that nobody else ever used. The young man had assumed he wouldn't be disturbed until Piper found him.
Piper was a cyborg, although a low-key one. Only one of his eyes was bionic. The natural eye was fixed on him while the mechanical one was trained at the other end of the cafeteria, where the popular students hung out. "Tell me. Come on. What do you think of her?"
"Who are you talking about?" Noah asked timidly, wishing that Piper would leave him alone. He had spoken to the boy a few times before, but those occasions were purely accidental or forced.
At the moment, he found no acceptable reason the cyborg would approach him out of the blue. It was intrusive and annoying.
Piper pointed excitedly. "Her! Eve Trinity! The Providence representative!"
Noah eyed the blonde beauty, who was presently silently chatting with her team. He shrugged casually. "I don't know. I haven't paid her any attention."
The cyborg giggled. "Oh, really? I caught you ogling at her, man, as if she were a melting slab of chocolate. You can't fool my bionic eye."
The young man shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Piper was too direct and spouted anything that came to his mind. "Was I staring at her? I didn't notice, but so were you."
"Well, yeah, I admit it. Now that we have established we were both ogling at her, answer my question. Tell me what you think of her."
Noah sighed. Piper would not leave unless answers were furnished. "She's okay, I guess."
"Okay? Just okay? Are you blind, man? She's damn pretty. No, she's crazy hot! Eve Trinity could be a supermodel!"
"Uh, good for her, I guess."
"Don't be a wet blanket, Noah. Aren't you even a little bit curious about why a bombshell like her —the daughter of gazillionaire Leland Trinity —is visiting our average-rated school? Isn't it even a little bit weird?"
Noah shrugged again. He was more smitten by her looks than intrigued by her circumstances. "Who knows? Perhaps it is government policy to recruit from all city schools? She might be the face of Providence for her good looks, which can't be helped. Sometimes people are genetically gorgeous."
Piper raised an eyebrow at his friend's monologue. "Hmm. Let me tell you what I've been up to. I hacked into her visiting pass at Concord Academy. Eve is registered as a special race. It raises red flags, man."
"Wait, how did you access her visiting pass? Aren't those things locked and encrypted?"
Piper banged the table. "Is that your takeaway? I am good with technology, man. Hacking comes easily and compulsively to me. Anyway, no comments about Eve being a special race?"
Noah pursed his lips. On planet Galateaa, four major races existed presently—humans, cyborgs, hybrids, and mages. Humans were regular people without any enhancements.
Cyborgs were humans with medical or aesthetic mechanical additions. Piper Lee was an example. However, one could not enhance oneself without the medical council's approval.
Hybrids were humans who took animal-source serums and changed their bodies irreversibly. Ron Davidson, the martial-arts and wrestling champion of Concord Academy, was a hybrid. Such serums were costly and boosted people by 5-10% in strength, speed, and endurance.
Mages were rare. These were a group dedicated to ancient scriptures and artifacts, unlocking powers wielded by human ancestors before the world wars.
Regardless, cyborg, hybrid, and magical technologies remained rudimentary, and research on them was resource intensive. Not everyone could afford to incorporate them into their daily lives, anyway, especially someone like Noah, who lived on scraps.
"Hey, man! Snap out of it!" Piper snarled at him, banging the table. "What do you think about Eve being from the special race?"
Special race simply meant that Eve Trinity's enhancements were classified. This protection was often given to army personnel who underwent extensive upgrades using cyborg or magical technology. In the worst-case scenario, she was a hybrid with genes of some exotic species.
"I don't know, Piper! She already said Providence is working for the Defense Department! You're giving me a headache!"
"What if she's not a human? A special race created in the lab?"
Noah pressed his temples in irritation. "Piper, I appreciate you coming over to talk to me. However, I am not interested in conspiracy theories."
The cyborg trained both his natural and bionic eyes on Noah. "Oh, really? Your blog posts and message board chats speak otherwise, man. LoveLord!"
Noah was speechless for a moment. LoveLord was his pseudonym for gaming, trolling, and spreading conspiracy theories on the internet, with a considerable following. How did Piper discover his real identity? Hacking again?
"Shhh! You are not to share that information with anybody!"
The cyborg sighed and shook his head. "I don't get you, Noah. You are treated like scum by everyone at Concord Academy. Telling the students that you are the legendary player and influencer LoveLord will make you really popular in class! Alice Harper will come running into your arms!"
"Please!" Noah urged, folding his hands. "You cannot tell anybody that I am LoveLord. I get death threats on that account!"
Piper raised his arms in defeat. "Fine! Fine! Your secret is safe with me. But I need your help to figure out Eve's origin and intentions. I have a gut feeling that her secret is exponentially bigger than yours."
"That sounds like blackmail to me."
"Let me spell it out for you then, Noah…. It is blackmail. You forced my hand, man. How come you aren't even curious about Eve Trinity? Regardless, we can do this as partners, with no coercion. Are you in?"
Noah's head started throbbing. He had a feeling that Piper Lee was all sorts of trouble. His base instincts asked him to run away. But then, he did not want his gamer identity exposed. "Okay! What do you want me to do?"
"Look at her body, man."
"What? I won't join you to perv on Eve! That's disgusting! I draw the line at—"
Piper shook his head vigorously. "Jeez, no! I meant—look at her seasoned constitution, man. That's not the body of an ordinary teenager. She's trained in martial arts and various combat techniques. I bet Eve can handle firearms and whatnot."
Noah looked across the cafeteria. A bunch of girls surrounded Eve. She was aloof and talked to them sparingly. The girl looked like a movie star, was filthy rich, and had a mysterious life. The last thing she would want is to be interested in a loser like him.
Piper wasn't wrong about her build, though. Eve had slight musculature and a firm body that reminded him of action heroines in big-budget movies. "You may be correct in your assumption. But she may have learned martial arts for self-defense. Are we done analyzing her?"
Piper's mechanical eye swerved around as he thought pensively. "This will be a tough nut to crack, man. I have a plan to discover Eve's secrets. I'll find you after class."
Noah furrowed his brow. A plan? What had he gotten himself into? "But—"
"It will take half an hour max. I promise. Lovelord can spare thirty minutes to protect his identity, right?"
"Fine," he replied with a grimace. Piper Lee gave him two thumbs-up and left.
The academic subjects to follow the evening break were History of the Covenant and Elementary Eugenics. Noah sat through them, barely paying any attention.
He was thinking of the Knights of Regia, a game in which he reigned under the pseudonym Lovelord. As soon as the end of class rang, Noah rushed out of the main building to the conference hall. The Providence representatives had posted the test results, with a list of accepted candidates into their program.
Along with hundreds of aspirants, Noah scanned the notice board excitedly. If he got accepted, his financial trouble would be over in an instant. Lia could be admitted to a private hospital until she got better. The young man scrolled down to his name.
Noah Shepherd. Test Score: 0/100.
Cory, Ron, and some others had been accepted provisionally. They had scores ranging from 30 to 70. Quite shockingly, none of the other students had secured zero in the test. The next lowest score was 15.
"The wastrel fails again!" Cory jibed at him. "Hail the poorest, dumbest loser!"
Noah sighed deeply and walked away. What did he expect? To be miraculously accepted into a high-paying job at Providence? Miracles existed only in web novels. In real life, he had to scrounge for a bottom-tier job. Life's struggle had just begun for him.
Headmistress Samantha Gosling's hologram ran on a loop near the gate. "EUGENICS HAS CREATED THE STRONGEST RACES, THE HYBRIDS, THE CYBORGS, THE MAGES…"
Noah was almost outside the gate when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He flipped around, dreading another bully. Piper Lee's bionic eye greeted him.
"Hey, Piper, can we do this some other time? I'm not feeling so well."
Noah was already depressed about Lia's condition. The Providence rejection didn't help his mood. All he felt like doing now was go home and play Knights of Regia as LoveLord. At least he could pretend to be a winner with that identity.
"You gave me your word, Noah," Piper said grimly.
"I know. But I need to finish some campaigns on Knights of Regia and collect enough free gems to purchase the New World Expansion Pack. You are a gamer, right? You understand. We'll definitely do this some other day."
Piper's mechanical eye zoomed in and out for a moment. "Consider this offer, Noah Shepherd. I will give you a hundred dollars if you come with me on our mission."
Noah raised an eyebrow. Ten dollars could get him the expansion pack along with some level-ups. More importantly, he could purchase medicine for Lia! In exchange, all he had to do was accompany Piper on a fool's journey. The offer was tempting and seemed quite harmless.
"Just half an hour, right? What can go wrong in such a short time? I'm in for a hundred bucks!"
Piper did a fist pump. "Yes! Perfect! But we have to hurry. Time is of the essence."
"Where are we going?" Noah asked, jogging behind his new friend to keep up.
"We're taking the city subway. We're going underground!"