Chapter 2: The Right Path for Her

As the train continued moving through the city towards the center sectors of Amsterlin, Celia pulled out her phone and began to flip through the pictures of her great great grandfather.

Alaric Reiss, she read the name on his suit, one of the last astronauts.

According to her grandpa, her great great grandfather was discharged from the space center he worked at when he was 58. Her grandpa remembered seeing a lot of distress amongst his family members and not understanding it since he was too young at the time, but his father eventually explained it to him when he got older. 

There was a lot of activism going on at the time from other astronauts who had their careers cut short, but her great great grandfather was said to be surprisingly complacent about the whole ordeal. No one knew what he was thinking or how he felt at that time, but he did manage to lobby for one thing before he died; that universities across the world should still offer courses in aerospace engineering for the sake of cultural and historical preservation. Almost every university had removed the option from their degrees despite this, however, there was one university that listened to him out of respect; the university he graduated from. 

The Technical University of Munich — the same university she was attending right now, however, it wasn’t because she wanted to take the aerospace engineering class. In fact, as far as she knew, there was no one taking the class — there was just simply no point. The concepts taught were too complex for a course that didn’t offer any real career prospects. Even if it was still offered for the sake of “historical and cultural preservation”, if someone really wanted to learn the history of rockets and airplanes out of either interest in the topic or wanting to become a historian, they would take the Aerospace History course instead.

Now that I think about it, she wondered, why did I want to go to this school so badly? If I wanted to become a general robotics engineer, I should’ve just gone to a university that was actually renowned for it.

It wasn’t that the Technical University of Munich was a bad choice — it was still one of the most prestigious universities in Amsterlin — it’s just that she knew she had the ability to attend the best school for her specific field but just chose not to pursue it. Perhaps she chose it because she wanted to force herself to pursue her dream of launching a rocket, but when the time came to choose her major, she just couldn’t do it.

Nobody hires people with an Aerospace Engineering degree anyway — mostly because the creation of anything taught from that class was illegal. It was better to pick something that would actually land her a job somewhere, or at least that’s what she told herself. Her parents never really cared what she wanted to be when she grew up, because a living could be made from almost any job nowadays. The hard part was finding one you actually enjoyed.

“Now arriving at Sector Munich,” the robotic monotone voice of the subway announcer cut through her thoughts as she realized she was already at her destination.

Giving Tabby a quick tap on his head to wake him up and grabbing her backpack from underneath him, she quickly weaved through the crowd of people and swiftly exited the train.

The subway station at Sector Munich was much more lively and full of people than the one at the sector she lived in. Students from all over the world hung around the station, talking to their friends, chasing each other on hoverboards, chatting with their drones, or showing off their little projects they’ve built. Most students attending the university were fellow engineers, after all, the school was known for its engineering and natural sciences programs.

“You have — one — final project due next Friday on February 17th, 2243,” Tabby says as the two of them walk up the steps of the subway station noticing that the scheduled rain had already passed through this sector, “would you like me to remind you of the assignment details?”

“No thanks,” Celia replied as they entered the campus right above the station, “I remember it very well.”

The last project she was given before the final exam in a month was quite annoying to do. They had only just got back from the winter break a few weeks ago and her professor assigned them a project that was to “create a prosthetic arm for a theoretical robot”; the reason being that she wanted to see if her students “retained the things they learned before the break.”

Celia lets out a deep sigh. Breaks are supposed to be for relaxing, not for remembering stupid robot parts, she muttered to herself.

She continues to walk around campus, glad that they raised the temperature of the city today despite it being still winter because of the scheduled rain. Rainfall was required to balance the city’s water supply and stimulate the water drainage systems, but freezing in the rain was thankfully something humanity decided was unnecessary.

As a few students pass by her on hoverboards, she takes a look around campus, admiring its impressive architecture despite having seen it so many times. In the distance a massive glass dome loomed above the other buildings; the university’s artificial biosphere, visible anywhere on campus. Inside of its giant, spherical, glass, bubble encased an entire miniature ecosystem inside of it — a testament to the ingenuity of human architecture.

Not too far away stood a tall, 50-story building with a circular elevator system protruding from its left side. The building housed the School of Business, where most Business majors had their classes, and the elevator was once considered the fastest safe elevator for human transportation, until an even faster one was built about a decade ago at a university in the southern country of Ubuntara.

Lastly, she approaches the School of Engineering; her personal, totally unbiased, favorite building on campus. The building had a unique structure, consisting of two 60-story towers standing side by side that were connected by a long 25-story building in between them. At the center of this structure above the 25-story building was a massive 15 meter ball of metal made up of trash and consumer waste collected over the centuries. 

Designed by one of the students at the school and improved and added upon over the years, the ball of trash represented one of the school’s core values of improving sustainability across the globe.

That’s right, she thought to herself, reaffirming her previous doubts as she looked upon the university’s architecture in awe, I’m at one of the greatest engineering schools on the planet. It doesn’t matter if the school wasn’t known for my specific field. It was definitely not a mistake going to this school.

“Uhh Celia?” Tabby suddenly said, cutting out her thoughts, “why are you at the School of Engineering? According to the schedule you uploaded, your first class today is ‘Introduction to Nanotech History’ located in the School of Humanities.”

Celia froze. Shoot! Today’s Monday isn’t it? She frantically thought as she began running over to the right school, I was too caught up in the stupid project I forgot my schedule!