Life Designed (Life Plan Series Book 1), Eliza Taye [great novels .TXT] 📗

sat outside on the lawn getting an early study session in, and others walked around on their interwaves and sciorbs.

Opal inhaled the fresh air, still feeling like she was in a dream. It felt so surreal to her to be living her Life Plan. She’d been dreaming of going to school here for so long and now she’d finally made it.

“Hey, watch out!” cautioned someone behind her.

Spinning around, Opal leaped out of the way just in time as a guy riding a bike zoomed past her. “Sorry,” she called out to his fleeting form.

Feeling bad for not paying attention, Opal scooted to the edge of the pathway to ensure she wouldn’t get in someone’s way again. As she continued walking, she examined the various buildings on campus. Most were from three to eight stories tall. They varied from wide to narrow, but none of them appeared to encompass as much space as her dormitory did. There were lecture halls, cafés, restaurants, grocery stores, and bookstores all scattered around. Based on the plaques in front of the lecture halls, Opal realized her dormitory must have been reserved for law, politics, and civil studies students as all the lecture halls nearby were related to one of those degrees.

Opal paused as she checked the time on her interwave, it was 8:20 am. She considered it’d be a good idea to start heading toward Trenton Hall for orientation. Taking her sciorb from her pocket, she pulled up the campus map and discovered that Trenton Hall wasn’t far from her dormitory. Turning around, she headed back in that direction for orientation.

Garrett wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Hauling the large barrels of trash from the side of the street into the back of the garbage collection transporter was hard work. After already bending over and working hard all morning on gardening, it was doubly difficult to do the garbage job too.

Glancing around at the men he worked with, he observed that they also appeared tired, but not nearly as tired as he was. Unlike at his last job, no one like Lance had reached out to him. Not that it mattered much, collecting garbage was easy—all you had to do was pick it up and throw it in the back of the transporter. At least it was easy in concept. In actual physical labor, it was hard work.

“Hurry up, kid. We need to get to the next site,” scolded the oldest man of the group, his gray hair mixing with the remnants of black hair. His piercing green eyes bore into Garrett with disgust.

“I’m hurrying. This is the last one.” Garrett forced himself to exert an extra burst of energy to throw the trash into the back of the transporter and then returned the barrel to street side. With the last one done, he climbed onto the railings on the side of the transporter for the collectors to hold onto for a ride to the next location.

The rest of the afternoon passed as such. By the time Garrett had completed the full five hours, his arms and legs felt like noodles. He held his breath as the enforcer distributed their wages, hoping another job wouldn’t pop up onto his interwave. He’d already worked a ten-hour day—more than he’d ever worked in his entire life. If he saw one more five-hour job pop up, he knew he’d lose it.

To his relief, the enforcer paid him and nothing popped onto his screen. Releasing his tightly clenched shoulders and sighing in relief, Garrett began walking towards the nearest transport station. As he walked, he counted the trecins he’d earned that day. For the first job, he’d received 25 trecins plus the 10 trecins Mrs. Grady had given him. This last job earned him 15 trecins, so in all, he had 50 trecins. Not bad for a full day’s work, he thought to himself.

When he reached the station, he saw how far it’d be back to the entrance to the Undecided sector. Doing a few calculations in his head, he reasoned it’d cost him at least twenty trecins to take the transporter to the end of the line. That would be almost half of his day’s wages. So much for getting a decent amount of money for a day.

He wondered if there was a discount program for Undecided transporter riders like there were for student riders, but he doubted it. From what he’d seen, society really hated the Undecided. They wouldn’t help them by offering a discount to ride the transporters.

With a sigh, Garrett realized he’d only be able to take the transporter half the distance and then walk the rest of the way. Boarding the transporter, he paid his way and then found a seat to sit down for the first time that long day.

Opal left Trenton Hall satisfied at how well her day had gone. After the lengthy lecture on academy rules and policies, they’d taken a four-hour walking tour of the campus and then were taken to the office to meet with a guidance counselor, sign up for their classes, and pay for them. She’d been able to sign up for every class she’d wanted and at times that fit perfectly into her schedule.

The excitement of starting her classes tomorrow on First Moon made her heart thump with anticipation. Her first class of the day would be Introduction to Law at 8 in the morning—the perfect start to her day. After that, she had Public Speaking at 9:30 am, and Introduction to Psychology at 11am. The end of her classes would be at 1pm with Government 101. The entire day of classes would be complete all before her afternoon downturn. Except for the 1pm class, it was a morning bird’s dream class schedule. Although she’d have preferred to start classes at 6am, that wasn’t