Allison had been fairly resistant to the request by her hosts to attend one of their schools.  Apparently in the Commonwealth it was illegal to be out of school if you were under eighteen.  Since her documents said she was seventeen and her Aunt Maria thought it was a good idea, she was forced to go on the Monday after she arrived.  She had no real choice in school.  Her identity was concealed in so much as the Commonwealth authorities had decided it would be disruptive to their society to release the information about actual humans from the origin system being here.  The human language here hadn’t really changed much from the Scottish English that someone had programmed into the robots that had trained their version of genesis pod kids.  Allison was going to be putting her infiltration training to the test with this one.  Her accent was very much African.  She sighed when she looked at herself in the mirror of her quarters.  She forced the vampiric power in her blood to come forth and shifted her eye color to green, a much more human look than her natural golden eyes.


    “Can’t even escape high school fifteen billion light years from home.  I bet Dhark would laugh at this.”


    She smiled at the thought of her friend.  She suddenly wished she could record it and send it to him.   All schools on this world had uniforms.  They weren’t like her uniform at home, they had plaid skirts and white blouses with ties.  Apparently, this was a tradition from when they first arrived.  Allison hefted the recently replicated school bag.  She tapped her wrist and swept her hand over her AR HUD to open a link to the space dock over the provided communicator from the Commonwealth.


    “This is Battlelord Wanjala, one for transport to New Edinburgh, Avelon Secondary School.”


    She felt the strange sensation of herself being dissolved into a matter stream and then reforming on a sidewalk in front of the school she would be attending.  This was her first trip to the surface.  It was remarkably like the cities she’d seen in old media.  Sure there were futuristic accents here and there but it was basically a twenty-first century Earth city.  She saw other students in identical uniforms making their way into a building.  She assumed it was the school.  Through the generous data access, she’d been given she already had the floor plans, and had plotted her trip to her home room.


    Allison got a lot of strange looks as she travelled through the school.  She diverted from her course to her home room and found a girl’s bathroom.  She looked at herself in the mirror and nothing seemed out of place.  She decided it was just that she was new and resumed her trip to her home room.  The strange looks continued but she ignored them.  She slid into a seat in the back of the room.


    The classroom slowly filled up.  It was also remarkably similar to classrooms she’d seen in 21^st century media.   The computers were more advanced but they still used books and pens and paper.  This was new to Allison, everything she did was electronic at home.  She’d learned how to print and do cursive, but it was all done with a stylus and screen.  Paper was unheard of after the Grey.  There were too few trees.  Even after the colonies were founded nature was too well respected by the System’s Alliance to destroy trees for something so course as writing on paper.  Also it was really hard to send paper two and half million light years instantly like one could with the Alliance Net.


    The home room teacher quieted everyone done and went through the daily announcements with the class.  The strange looks in Allison’s direction continued.  She was feeling really self-conscious at this point.  Her uniform was identical to the rest of the girls in the class.  She could not figure out what was so odd about her.  The teacher was a younger looking woman with dark hair and eyes.  She motioned to Allison.


    “I would like to introduce you all to Allison, she’s here with us for a week, please make her feel welcome.”


    Allison shrunk into her seat when the eyes of every single student focused on her.  Eventually the home room class ended.  She hurried out of the room and towards the next class which was apparently math.  She found herself suddenly flanked by what could only be described as a goth girl and a rather non-descript boy.  The girl spoke first.


    “Hi, I’m Zelda, this is Sam.”


    Allison nodded politely.


    “Allison.”


    Zelda smiled.


    “Must be mingin to be dragged to a new school for a week.”


    Allison shrugged.


    “If I was at home I’d be going to school, at least this is different. What does mingin mean?  My translator could not figure it out.”


    Zelda smirked.


    “You need a translator for English?  Where are you from?  Are you an alien in disguise?”


    Allison blushed she’d probably just given too much away.  The fact her translation matrix didn’t translate it meant it was used somewhere in the System’s Alliance as English, and she was expected to know it.


    “I’m mostly human.  I’m from a small colony.”


    Zelda shrugged.


    “That might explain the hair!  And it means… like unpleasant… or something close to that.”


    Allison blinked a few times.


    “My hair?  What’s wrong with my hair?”


    Zelda shrugged.


    “Like there is only one human with red hair and she’s an ice cube.”


    Allison blinked a few more times.  She was utterly confused.


    “Well, don’t people just dye their hair this color to be different then?”


    It was Zelda’s turn to be confused.


    “Wait, you can dye hair?”


    Allison was even more confused.


    “Uh, yeah, it is easy.  I’m not allowed.  Mom won’t let me, but you totally can.”


    Zelda was looking at Allison’s hair closely.


    “Is it dyed then?”


    Allison shook her head.


    “No, I was born with it.”


    Allison was still shocked they’d never heard of dyeing hair before.


    “So, lets go back to the dyeing hair thing, you guys don’t do that?  That is so weird.”


    Zelda shrugged.


    “Why would we?  It’s just hair.”


    They arrived at the math class.  Allison was rather shocked when she saw multi-dimensional equations on the board.  Literally forth dimensional math.  So far ahead of anything they’d learn in her high school.  She was rather skilled in it because she had to be but she just imagined Tyler trying to do it.  Zelda groaned.


    “I hate this stuff it is so hard.  Why does it even matter?  It’s not like I’m ever going to need to know it in real life.  What about you Allison?”


    Allison rubbed the back of her neck and bit her lower lip.


    “Uh, its okay.  I use it a lot… actually.  This looks pretty simple.”


    Sam seemed more intrigued now, Zelda looked at Allison like she’d just grown a third eye.  The class went on, Allison noticed an error in the calculations the teacher was doing.  The theoretical models were wrong.  They''d realized this in the System’s Alliance once wormholes became a reality and they started creating a forth dimensional aperture.  She bit her lower lip and pondered if she should correct them.  It was Maria who had figured it out and that is how she made artificial wormholes a thing.  She put up her hand.


    “Umm, sir, that’s wrong.  Theoretically it looks correct, but it makes a wrong assumption, so the constant is wrong so the formula is wrong.”


    The instructor looked almost insulted but decided to call Allison on her comment.


    “Well, why don’t you come up and show the class where our greatest mathematical minds have gone wrong.”


    Allison blushed but stood up and started writing out the true, proven by real world application formula at the top then ran the numbers through it she went back to her seat as she finished.  The teacher looked it over and blinked a few times.


    “Why do you think this is correct?”


    Allison bit her lower lip again.


    “It is?  You wouldn’t be able to prove which is right until you know… you could uh… generate a four dimensional object… like say a singularity or umm an artificial wormhole, which uh, you couldn’t do until you uh, well used my formula.  Using the other one you’d fail every time…  Also, if you could, you’d never get the wormhole ending where you wanted it to…  Or you know, theoretically and stuff.”


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    She had technically done both multiple times, both while reinitiating Bit’s graviton core and generating wormholes.  The teacher rubbed his forehead.  Her equation was just as valid as his which seemed pretty vexing to him.  The difference was subtle but when you’re dealing with another dimension and if you were say making wormholes the subtle difference could mean billions of light years.  He didn’t erase her work.  He set the class to going through some calculations being sure to reinforce that the formula and constant in the textbook be used and not Allison’s version.  After the class, which Zelda had somehow managed to finish without an outburst because she had been bursting with barely contained glee the entire time, Zelda bounced a few times.


    “Oh wow, he hates you.  You should be glad you’re not going to be here at exam time.  The look on his face when he couldn’t disagree with you was priceless.  You’re going to be a legend.  The girl who broke Mr. McDougal!”


    Allison pondered if she wasn’t the girl who just made Mr. McDougal the smartest man in Commonwealth mathematics.  Allison sighed.


    “I shouldn’t have said anything.”


    Zelda bounced a few more times.


    “So how did you know that anyway, you some kind of math prodigy?”


    Allison bit her lower lip.


    “Uh, something like that.  So hey, that red-headed original… what was her name?”


    Zelda pondered the question for several seconds then looked at Sam.


    “Do you remember?”


    Sam spoke up quickly.


    “Veronica Teague.  She is our age.”


    Allison continued to bite her lower lip.


    “Short?”


    Sam nodded.


    “She is kind of hot too.”


    Zelda reached around Allison to swat Sam who dodged her.


    “Not cool.”


    They reached their next class, which was history.  Allison hadn’t cracked the textbook yet while the teacher went through the attendance list, she opened the history book and checked the index.  It started in 2028 when they first arrived.  She went to the first years and scanned the first page.  The lost travelers arrived at the origin system’s twin.  A yellow sun and a planet that matched the origin world almost exactly.  With their historical records wiped out in the accident the new humans learned from the robots Zelda and Rowen, along with the media that the robots had saved from the databanks.  Then those children taught the new wave.  And so on….


    The instructor, a rather handsome man with fair hair and blue eyes quirked his head to the side when he called Allison’s name and saw her red hair.  He continued on after a brief pause.  When he finished, he lifted up his copy of the textbook.


    “Page 1325, the founding of the ERF.”


    He stood and leaned on his desk after putting the textbook down.


    “Let’s see who read the chapter.”


    He scanned the room; He didn’t pick on Allison.  The class progressed.  Allison was fairly sure this textbook was one she would keep so she could pass it along to the System’s Alliance.  The rest of her school day was pretty uneventful.  Zelda and Sam were the odd ones out and had apparently adopted Allison.  That was fine by her, the pair seemed to effectively act as a shield between her and the rest of the school which avoided too many questions.  As she was getting ready for transport to the original colony ship Zelda spoke to her.  Lowered her hand from the command to send a comm on her AR HUD.


    “Hey, what are you doing after school?”


    Allison spun around and smiled.  She glanced at a text message she received on her AR HUD over her fleet command chat.  It was telling her that the first thaw was delayed because they were waiting for data from SA Medical Command.


    “I umm, well uh, my plans were delayed.”


    Zelda quirked her head to the side.


    “You are so strange; You always seem to be looking at things but there’s nothing there.”


    Allison quirked her head to the side.


    “Umm, I’m… yeah.  Maybe I’ll explain when I know you better.”


    Zelda shrugged.


    “Are your parents okay with you hanging out at my place?”


    “Umm, they’ll be fine with it just give me a few to send a message.”


    She turned away and tapped the command to open comms to Widow.


    “Hey Widow, I’m going to be late…”


    Widow glared at her.


    “You’re not supposed to be wandering around alone on an alien world!  I let you go to school alone.”


    Allison blushed.


    “Look, a new friend has asked me to hang out and I don’t want to be the strange new kid.  And all of your…”


    She lowered her voice.


    “Body art is going to stand out here, they don’t do tattoos or even dye their hair.”


    Widow crossed her arms.


    “I’m monitoring your vitals if I see anything off, you’re getting transported out immediately.”


    Allison nodded.


    “Sure thing.  Thanks.”


    She ended the connection and turned to Zelda.


    “Alright, where are we going?”


    Zelda shook her head at her strange new friend then started heading off down the street.  They got to a row house and Zelda started walking up the stairs.  The door opened for her, and she motioned Allison inside.  Allison followed her and looked around.  A robot appeared it was rounded and bipedal with four arms and had a female voice.


    “Welcome home Zelda.  Who is your guest I cannot find her in any of the global identity databanks?”


    Zelda glanced at Allison.


    “Hello HMM-3456, This is Allison, she’s visiting for a week.”


    The robot ran a strange blue beam over Allison.


    “I have added her to my memory storage.”


    Allison glanced at Zelda.


    “So uh, what was that blue thingy?”


    Zelda quirked her head to the side.


    “It was a scan.  Probably for weapons.  Thirty-Four is weird.  She’s been around for a couple of hundred years.  Any messages from mom or dad?”


    The robot walked into the house leading the pair further inside.


    “No.  I will be preparing fish and chips for the evening meal; I will double the portion for your guest.  Be sure to finish your homework at the kitchen table this time!”


    The robot moved into the kitchen.  Zelda sighed and pulled out her homework.  Allison did the same.  She figured she might as well.  She was annoyed by the math, it felt wrong doing them against the logic she knew but she’d learned a while ago you’re not fighting the subject, you’re fighting the system and the instructors.  What she did not want to do was leave a bad impression on her hosts.  She was the face of teenagers of the System’s Alliance.  Zelda was struggling with her math.  Allison had finished her work long before her.


    “Can I help?”


    Zelda looked at her.


    “I guess, I just don’t understand this.”


    Allison bit her lower lip.


    “When I was trying to figure it out, I had to kind of re-evaluate the way I looked at the world.  Like three dimensions is length, width and height.  What we’re doing here is adding another, call it whatever you want.  Four, whatever.  We just need to add the variable for the fourth dimension when calculating the area of the… in this case tesseract.  It’s pretty straightforward and the base equations you’re using are right.  Basically, if you’re doing the area of a four dimensional rectangle you need to account for the fourth dimension.  Just because you can’t draw it doesn’t mean it can’t exist in nature.  So, like if I wanted the area in three dimensions, you’d just multiply x, y and z, but if you’re trying to do it in four dimensions, you’d just multiply x, y, z, h, h being the fourth dimensional space.”


    Zelda looked at Allison.


    “But you said that his equation was wrong, why is this one right?”


    Allison bit her lower lip.


    “I’m sorry for doing that, but like, here… so he was doing word problems involving forth dimensional travel, but their mistake was they consider time the fourth dimension, but it isn’t it’s like the fifth dimension.  The fourth dimension is negative space.”


    Zelda blinked at her.  Allison tapped her fingers and looked at the ceiling.


    “The space inside a black hole is negative space.  Anti-space?  Call it whatever.  So, if the mathematicians and physicists assume the fourth dimension is time everything after that assumption is wrong.  Math types do it all the time because they can’t really test it.  See they assume that time is the fourth dimension because using a warp drive causes no time dilation because it uses uh… I guess they call it subspace.  I don’t know think of dimensions are like layers on top of one another.  You have our normal 3D space that we exist in, then squished on both sides of it is negative space… like uh a wire with multiple insulations.  So, time is wrapped around negative space then past time is another two dimensions, then you get hyperspace beyond that is more dimensions than like multiple universes if they exist all wrapped in their own insulation.  Below our three dimensions are actually two and one dimensional spaces and then at the core is subspace.   It’s not being above the time on the chain that makes you… uh outside of it sort of its being two steps away.  See Subspace is two steps away.  Hyperspace is two steps away and so is subspace so we can skip the whole time dilation and infinite mass at light speed.  Mass doesn’t really exist in hyperspace or subspace.  Uh… that was probably too much information.”


    Zelda stared at Allison.  Allison ripped a piece of paper from her book and grabbed some pencil crayons and she drew out layers in different colors labeling each.  She slid it over to Zelda and pointed at the negative space dimension.


    “See when you’re doing fourth dimensional math, you’re figuring out the negative space like this.  If you’re doing a flat shape, you’re figuring out this.”


    She pointed at the line for 2D.


    “And this one dimensional line is literally just a line.  Do you understand?  So, like for the single line we only have length or height, so it is just X, for two dimensions X, Y…”


    Zelda’s eyes lit up as Allison wrote the formulas beside each level she knew, so basically hyperspace, time, negative space, 3D, 2D and D.


    “That’s so easy.  Why don’t they just show that in the textbook.”


    Allison shrugged.


    “Probably because they don’t know it?  My aunt is like really, really smart she taught me some of this.”


    Zelda quirked her head to the side.


    “What is an aunt?”


    Allison quickly tried to recall if there was any Scottish English slang for aunt.  She recalled something she’d heard Enid say, which was what she used to refer to Maria as Allison’s aunt once in the simulation.


    “Antaidh?”


    Zelda shook her head.


    “Err well its my biological mother’s sister.”


    Zelda blinked a few times.


    “Sister?  Your grandparents have more than one child?”


    Allison nodded.


    “Yes, you’re… not allowed?”


    Zelda shook her head in disagreement.


    “No, but who has time for more than one?”


    Allison was really confused but just rolled with it.


    “Uh… well I have two sisters, but they’re adopted too.”


    Zelda blinked a few times.


    “Don’t your parents work?”


    Allison shrugged.


    “My mom is… uh the colony leader and my dad is in… the uh Expeditionary Forces?”


    Zelda shrugged and was about to say more when the robot delivered their meal.  Allison’s eyes went wide when she bit into the first chip.  It was just like Winter Wolf authentic fish and chips.


    “These are… awesome.”


    Zelda giggled.


    “Thirty-four replicates the ingredients and cooks them.  She’s old and doesn’t trust the replicators to make the food.”


    They finished eating and Zelda bounced her way to the recreation room and put on a movie.  Allison recognized it.  It was about sparkle vampires.  Completely unrealistic, besides the fact that vampires could drink animals, not that Allison had ever tried it.  She kind of wished she sparkled instead of having vampire powered temper tantrums.  Zelda bounced and patted the couch beside her.


    “This movie is awesome.”


    Allison sat down beside Zelda.


    “So, you like vampires?”


    Zelda bounced and nodded.


    “Aren’t they cool?”


    “I guess… they are.  I’ve seen this before.”


    Zelda bounced again.


    “No way!  All four?”


    Allison nodded.  Zelda held her chest.


    “Edward is so handsome.  Jacob’s such a jerk.”


    Allison shrugged.


    “Werewolves are an angry bunch.”