<em>Rockastre Apartments, the Rocks</em>


    <em>Greatcentral City</em>


    <em>4 p.m. Saturday, Nov, 19, 2095</em>


    *


    Eli sucked down thest dregs of liquid in his waterbottle, entered the elevator to lean against the wall. He wiped the sweat still dripping down his face.


    With the changes in weather, the outdoor park gym had been fitted with removable ss walls. A good thing – he''d been thinking of moving his exercise routine to the martial arts gymnastics studio twenty minutes'' walk away.


    But now, why move?


    The gym studio didn''t have the soothing view of snow-covered bushes and evergreen trees he could see from the park gym.


    The exercising had be easier, a little.


    His body now allowed him an exercise routine of one hour per session without Eli feeling like his muscles were being tortured.


    The weather made it difficult again – because of the cold, all he wanted during exercise time was to curl up with arge nket and massive steaming bowl of meat and noodles.


    He had to force himself to keep it up.


    A better body meant better gamey.


    Eli didn''t detect a lot of change in his body and weight, but he needed a belt for most of his trousers now. That was an aplishment.


    In the mirrored elevator doors, he smiled at himself, patted his stomach.


    The doors chimed and opened.


    Tsk. This elevator didn''t know what it meant to bask in sess.


    He jogged through the hallway.


    His watch beeped. The notification that someone was ringing his doorbell.


    He had that doorbell fixed purely because he missed several deliveries of groceries and had to pay a surcharge each time. He connected the bell to a notification on his game-rig. Delivery people were only expected to wait twenty minutes before docking the one who ordered for wasting their time.


    Eli had no delivery scheduled though.


    Was it Zee, who apparently took it on himself to look in on Eli once a week and had stopped by twice already, or Jori who for some undisclosed reason came over once on his way to Zee''s apartment?


    A woman came into sight.


    For a moment, he thought it was Marai. But he''d seen Marai two weeks ago, and she wasn''t that pregnant.


    He slowed down. Who?


    "I''m sorry," she said immediately when she saw him. "This was just…the first ce I thought of, sorry, I''ll go—"


    "…Bel?" This was one of his mom''s kids. One of the children she looked after, he meant, since most people in the building couldn''t afford the afterschool programs close by. "No,e in."


    He opened the door.


    "…thank you?"


    He smiled at her. "Yeah,e on. Are you supposed to be on your feet? I''ll get you a footstool."


    She flushed. "I''m fine."


    He popped out the cushioned footstool from underneath the armchair seat, waved her to sit down. "Have you eaten?"


    "Oh. No, you don''t have to feed me. I… just needed a moment." She lifted her legs to the footstool and slumped against the back of the armchair.


    She looked despondent, hints of anger at the edges of her eyes.


    Eli lifted two frozen foodpaks from the fridge, showed them to her. "It''s wave-cooked, so no effort."


    "I don''t think I''ll be able to eat that much."


    From the slight paleness as she nced at the foodpaks, Eli tranted that to mean she''d vomit it back up.


    His mom would be disappointed if he neglected one of the children she spent herst days with, though.


    She''d probably forgotten, but she told him once that she and Eli''s father nned to have two children, a boy and a girl. Maybe more. But then Reinhart Crewan died.


    He could not begrudge his mother doting happily on children, fulfilling a part of her dream, at the end of her life.


    He returned the foodpaks and opened the cabs.


    "Cereal? Fortified with protein, vitamins, carbs, fiber. No sugar or trans fats, excellent nutrition."


    The small huff of a stifledugh sounded from behind him. "You should find work in advertisement."


    Wasn''t he already? What was his tour coordinator job, if not marketing? "So it worked?"


    She smiled shyly. "But no milk, please?"


    "Even if you wanted milk, there''s none in this house. Weeping skies, where has the milk gone?" He didn''t normally drink so much milk.


    He tapped a note for milk into a grocery list, added more foodpaks since he only had three in the fridge, and sent the list off to the local grocery. They''d deliver today or tomorrow.


    "So how''ve you been? Last I heard, you were epted into college." At age fourteen, no less.


    "That was years ago," she murmured.


    He nodded. Two years ago. "Nearly graduating, then?"


    He set down a bowl of dry cereal and a mug of hot water near her, went to get his own bowl.


    "I was recently epted into a master''s program, actually."


    "Hah?" Eli quickly calcted. "Didn''t you just enrollst year?"


    Even if she was epted into college at fourteen, thew prohibited higher education institutions from epting students under the age of fifteen. Something about not pressuring the youth.


    "It was just an undergraduate."


    Little girl, an undergraduate took him three years to finish, you know. And he was the one to give the graduation speech.


    Was this what the next generation looked like? Scary.


    A moment of contemtion, then Eli scooped a tub of ice cream into a bowl having a bit of water, ced it in the microwave. Unlike her, he wanted milk in his cereal.


    Once the machine dinged, he poured the ice cream solution into his cereal.


    He sat on one of the kitchen ind stools, scooped a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.


    Yum.


    "So. Whye here?" She was Marai''s cousin, and no matter Eli''s reluctance to interact with the woman, she would defend the younger girl fiercely.


    Sometimes when he was on the balcony, the floor directly above, which had four apartments owned by her rtives, rang with arguments that only showcased how much of a roaring lion Marai could be.


    She shrunk a bit into the chair, reluctantly muttered. "Grandpa and Grandma are here."


    Eli understood.


    After all, wasn''t his Great-aunt Am simr?


    The generation of his great-aunt, they thought differently from the current generation. They were brought up in the first half of the 21st century.


    It was a century which was now at its end, having seen great change.


    The elder generation, they believed marriage was necessary for happiness, they advocated the separation of male and female, generally did not believe in abortion, and they deplored teen pregnancy, seeing it as throwing away the future.


    In the first half of the 21st century, a student would be inconvenienced greatly by a pregnancy, yes.


    But these days, distance learning was the norm.


    The human race of 2095 numbered over nine billion.


    There were increasing numbers of students in the halls of various institutions, so one of the first uses of augmented reality was the virtual ssroom, amodating the students who could not fit in a single lecture hall.


    One teacher could, with live-conferencing ssroom technology, reach an audience of thousands in a ''face-to-face'' lecture.


    Most schoolwork these days could be done at home, monitored by educational AI programs.


    A student could even take sses while confined in a maternity hospital.


    Then after the child was born, there were meticulously monitored caregiver crèches in every part of the city for busy parents.


    After his father died, Eli himself had spent most of his days in a crèche until he was old enough for formal school at age six. He remembered it was bright, colorful, and fun.


    "You can stay the night, but inform your parents if you can."


    She was still just sixteen, after all.


    "You''re still in school, right?"


    She nodded, her eyes shed with anger. "Grandma wants me to resign this semester."


    Now that would dent her academic standing. "How long before you need to go to the hospital?"


    She blinked, surprised, then smiled brightly. "Don''t worry, Eli, I''m not stopping my courses. I''m on maternity option. I just need to make up the practicals next semester."


    Well, she appeared to have the situation in hand.


    He gave her the spare tablet, so she didn''t get bored, set the cereal boxes on the counter, and returned to Rends.