Secret Academy - Deuteronomy

X: Inside the Iceberg

“Stop, Jasper!”

Kat ran to him as he was about to open a Petri dish filled with unknown liquid. Kat replaced the glass lid and sighed with relief. She took Jasper by the arm and led him towards two boys in another table.

“Hey guys! This is Jasper…he’s new. Let him work on the cellular structures with you, okay? Just tell him what to do and he’ll be fine” she gave them her most charming smile and both boys nodded.

As she turned to walk away, Jasper caught her hand and pleaded with his eyes, but Kat gave him a hard look.

“You’ll be fine!” and jerked her hand away.

The two boys in white lab coats looked at him, and then at each other. One of them handed him some glass slides, while the other gave him a clean cloth.

“Uh…Please clean these slides first and then we’ll show you the different cellular phases. We’ll be cross-breeding garden variety petunias with the oriental poppy” said one of the boys, his eyes dancing with delight at the task ahead.

Jasper took the slides and the cloth and got to work, as he watched them out of the corner of his eye. He would give them odd looks now and then; wondering if they also know alien speech.

He was also wearing a white lab coat, which was what everyone was required to put on inside the “Iceberg”.

Kat had fetched him from the dormitory earlier that day and escorted him into the white building. They were greeted by several students, including Mikael.

“He’s the chairman of our department; we can’t go in without him since he alone has the password for the security system” said Kat.

Like before, Mikael stood in front of a scanner that emitted a red beam, scanning his right eye, and he proceeded to enter a passcode on the tiny keypad. Security’s definitely tighter in this department, Jasper thought. He thanked the automated voice system and it confirmed a voice match. After all the security measures were done, the large glass doors opened and they went to put on their lab coats. A few students went upstairs, but Kat motioned for Jasper to follow her and Mikael to a glass elevator which took them underground. Several students went with them as well.

It took longer than he expected and once they were out of darkness, Jasper almost gasped.

It didn’t look anything like the other Ability classes at all. The enormous circular lobby was bright and spotlessly white. There were six glass tunnels surrounding the hall – each looking out to a different scenery. When Jasper looked up, the high ceiling was lit by a singular ball of light. He wasn’t sure what it was since its intense brightness made his eyes water. Their footsteps echoed on the shiny floors, making him self-conscious. He was positively certain they were more or less forty feet below ground – but the glass tunnels looked so convincing. The one right ahead of them even looked out to an urban landscape, complete with police car sirens. 

There was an information counter in the middle, manned by a cute girl in pigtails. As they drew nearer, Jasper narrowed his eyes when he saw that her ears were shiny, metal half spheres. Mikael approached the desk and nonchalantly spoke to the girl.

“Good morning Iris. I’ll need a status report on the ‘flora’ project from Sector I, and also my personal files from the ‘A’ Project” he ordered.

The girl stiffly typed something on the computer, and a white, translucent hologram screen appeared in front of Mikael. It seemed to contain some paragraphs and a bunch of thumbnail pictures which he browsed through quickly. He used his fingers to navigate the floating screen as he read some more, not taking more than two minutes.