The Sky Above, the Rivers Below, Ch 4: First Days at School

Back in Bombay, learning was his munshi's calm voice and the scratch of a reed pen on paper; here, this "school" assaulted Imran with screaming colours from walls that spoke, and lessons that flew faster than startled pigeons.

He held the cool, smooth learning-slate. The Chrono official had pressed it into his hand. Its surface was dark and still. His mother had dressed him in new clothes that morning—garments made from the best of their old fabrics, saved from before. They were soft weaves in quiet, respectable colors, a stark contrast to the strange, synthetic outfits of this new time. He'd thought he looked good, like the son of a successful merchant should. But when he stepped through the shimmering, see-through doorway of what they called the "Primary Learning Pod," Imran felt his careful composure began to fray.

The room – if you could even call it a room, because its walls seemed to shift and ripple with moving pictures – was a dizzying, colorful mess. Light pulsed from hidden places, painting the floor with swirling patterns. Children, so many children, more than he had ever seen in one place, ran around like brightly colored fish in an impossible coral reef. Their voices, a hundred different sounds and rhythms all made into understandable Hindi by the chip behind his ear, created a constant, overwhelming noise.

So many faces. Strange words rushing in. A hot, fast flutter beat behind his breastbone. He tried to find a quiet corner, but there were no corners. There were only curved walls that showed ever-changing scenes: numbers that danced and changed, letters that built themselves into unfamiliar words, and pictures of creatures he'd never imagined.

A woman with hair the color of a monsoon sky and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes gestured towards him. "Imran Ahmed? Welcome to Pod Alpha! Find an open learning station, dear. The first lesson is already set up."

Learning station? Lesson? The words meant nothing. He saw other children tapping and swiping at glowing surfaces on low tables, or sometimes just in the air in front of them. Their learning-slates, just like his, had come to life, filled with light and moving symbols. His own stayed stubbornly blank.

He fumbled with it, his fingers suddenly sweaty. A group of children nearby, their clothes a confusing mix of styles and colors, stopped what they were doing to stare at him. One of them, a boy with pointed ears and skin that shimmered faintly, giggled. The sound, even though translated, felt sharp and mean.

"Look, he doesn't even know how to turn it on!" the boy said, his voice carrying clearly to Imran.

A hot prickle spread across Imran's neck and up his cheeks. He pressed a spot on the slate, then another. Nothing. The lessons his munshi had taught him – multiplication tables said over and over until perfect, the beautiful curves of the Persian writing, stories of old kings and wise advisors – none of it had prepared him for this. This was a race with rules he did not know.

Finally, the woman with the monsoon-sky hair glided over. With a quick, practiced movement, she tapped a pattern on his slate. It flared to life. A cartoonish, smiling sun appeared and began to speak in a cheerful, bodiless voice about "the wonders of moving through time."

The sun spoke too quickly. The pictures it showed – swirling whirlpools, timelines branching like impossible trees – made his head spin. He tried to keep up, to understand, but it was like trying to catch water in a sieve. Too fast. The pictures jump. How can anyone learn in this noise?

He felt a deep, aching loneliness. Back in Bombay, he was Imran, son of a respected merchant. Here, in this screaming, shifting room, he was just another lost child. He clutched a device he couldn't control, surrounded by a future he didn't understand.

And worst of all, there was the smell.

The air in the school was filled with the scents of dozens of different foods, and the odors of dozens of children. His nostrils were assaulted with the smell of something spicy, something sweet, something sour, something salty, and, beneath it all, the sweaty smell of too many bodies. A sour heat rose in his throat.

"How can people stand it?" he thought. "How can anyone concentrate, let alone learn, in all this?"

He stared at the sun as it chattered and jumped, and wished desperately to be home.

His father, who had worked for years in the big markets of Bombay, had a saying: "In the bazaar, you learn a hundred new things every day."

Imran had loved those lessons. They had been as much a part of his day as the hours spent learning poetry, or the afternoons helping his father count inventory and balance the ledgers. He had learned to recognize the different sounds of merchants haggling over prices, or the way people spoke when they had the power to buy and sell. His father had shown him how to listen, to watch, and to understand.

Munshi-ji's patient lessons. Ammi's numbers. The sound of a dozen languages in the market. He watched the sun lecture him about time travel. This sun never stays still. It talks and talks. I can't hear anything.

The smiling sun on his slate finally winked out. It was replaced by a series of fast-changing symbols that Imran was apparently supposed to move around. He poked at them carefully, but they only jiggled and reformed into new, equally confusing patterns. Around him, the other children – who were from this bewildering time – seemed to do these tasks with an easy familiarity. Their fingers danced over their slates. Their faces were lit up with concentration or sometimes, disturbingly, with a bored lack of interest in the amazing technology happening before them.

As Imran struggled with the dancing symbols, he caught sight of another child across the room. A girl with dark, serious eyes and straight black hair sat with her slate equally dark and still. She looked as lost as he felt, staring at the blank surface with a small frown of concentration. When their eyes met briefly across the chaos, there was something in her gaze – a flicker of shared confusion – that made him feel slightly less alone.

A bell chimed. It was a sound that, unlike everything else, was at least understood by everyone. The woman with the monsoon-sky hair clapped her hands. "Alright, little chrononauts, time for Outdoor Engagement and Nutritional Replenishment!"

Outdoor Engagement, it turned out, meant being herded into a walled yard. The "sky" there was another glowing, shifting screen, this one looking like a pale blue, cloudy heaven. The "grass" under his feet felt springy and strangely even. Nutritional Replenishment meant lining up at a slot in the wall from which plain, warm nutrient bars came out.

Imran, holding his bar, found a spot by the far wall, hoping no one would notice him. It didn't work. A boy whose hair was styled in sharp, brightly-colored spikes that seemed to fight gravity, and whose clothes were made of a shiny, almost liquid fabric, walked over. He was with two others who looked just as comfortable in this strange future.

"Still can't work your slate, old-timer?" the boy with the spiked hair taunted. The chip translated it, but the sneer didn't need translation. His friends snickered.

"My name is Imran," he said. He tried to keep his voice steady. He tried to remember his father's lessons on staying calm when dealing with rude merchants.

"Imran from… some dusty old place," another of the boys, a girl whose eyes were changed with lenses that subtly changed color when she blinked, added. "Smells like… books, doesn't he? Not like us. We smell like… clean data." She sniffed rudely in his direction.

Imran's face burned. His new clothes, which his mother had so carefully chosen, suddenly felt rough and hopelessly out of fashion. He looked down at his nutrient bar, his hunger gone. He was different. His clothes were different, his smell was different, his inability to understand their easy use of technology was different. He was an outsider, an easy target.

He wanted to disappear, to run back to the clean safety of their apartment, to the memory of his munshi's calm approval. But he was trapped here, in this yard under a fake sky, with these strange, cruel children of the future.

Just as Spiky-hair reached out a hand as if to grab his nutrient bar, a small, resolute voice cut in. "Leave him alone."

Everyone turned. Standing a few feet away was the girl from the classroom – the one with dark, serious eyes and straight black hair cut in a simple, plain style. She was smaller than the others. Her clothes were even plainer than Imran's – a dull grey tunic that looked very worn. Imran recognized her vaguely; he thought he'd seen her with that sad-looking Korean woman his mother had pointed out.

Spiky-hair smirked. "And who are you to tell us what to do, little echo?"

Echo? The word felt strange in his mind. Someone from the past, maybe?

The girl didn't flinch. Her gaze was steady. "He wasn't bothering anyone."

"Maybe we don't like his old-fashioned style," the girl with the color-changing eyes said, tossing her head.

"Then don't look at him," the dark-eyed girl replied, her voice still soft but firm.

There was a moment of surprised silence. The bullies seemed confused for a moment by her unexpected, calm defiance. Spiky-hair took a step towards her, puffing out his chest. "You think you're tough, timeline-lag?"

Timeline-lag. Imran's stomach twisted. Another word for newcomers like them, and not a kind one.

Before he could do anything more, the monsoon-haired teacher clapped her hands again. "Alright, explorers! Break time is over! Back to the Pods for Creative Correlation!"

The bullies grumbled but, apparently not wanting to argue with the teacher directly, melted back into the crowd of children heading indoors.

Imran was left standing by the wall, his nutrient bar still in his hand, his heart still pounding. The dark-eyed girl was still there, watching him with those serious eyes.

He swallowed. "Thank you," he managed, the words coming out in a near whisper.

She gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod. "They are just… loud," she said, as if that explained everything. She didn't smile, but her eyes weren't unkind.

"That girl with the serious eyes…" Imran thought, looking at her properly for the first time. He noticed her slate, tucked under her arm. It was just as dark and still as his had been. "She doesn't laugh like the others, or shout, or show off with the slates. She looks as lost as I feel, even though she wasn't scared of them." He shifted his weight, suddenly aware of how closely he was studying her. "Maybe… maybe she understands."

"My name is Imran," he said again, a little more confidently this time.

"I am Min-ji," she replied, her voice gentle.

An awkward silence fell between them. The noise of the other children, already going back into the Learning Pod, seemed to fade slightly.

"That… sun… on the slate," Imran tried. "It talks too fast."

A flicker of something crossed Min-ji's face. Agreement? "Yes," she said. "And the pictures move like… like frightened fish."

Imran almost smiled. That was exactly what it felt like. "I couldn't make it do what the teacher wanted."

"Me neither," Min-ji admitted, looking down at her own dark slate. "My father says these machines are… trickery."

He didn't know what to say to that, but the tightness in his chest eased a fraction. He wasn't the only one. He wasn't the only one who found this "school" a confusing, overwhelming place. This reserved girl, Min-ji, with her serious eyes and plain clothes, she felt it too. Maybe this future wasn't entirely built for everyone to understand right away.

"Thank you," he said, the words feeling inadequate. "I don't… I'm not used to a school like this."

Min-ji's serious expression softened slightly. She held out her hand, palm up, and nodded at his slate. "May I?"

Wordlessly, he handed it over.

"My grandmother, she taught me the old ways of teaching," Min-ji said, her gaze focused on the slate. With deft, careful fingers, she tapped the dark surface. "These… computers… they are faster, but not better."

"Faster, yes," Imran said, nodding, "but not better."

"Here," Min-ji said. She held the slate out. He took it back, and saw that the smiling sun was gone, replaced with a picture of the moon, and a slowly ticking clock.

"The lesson will begin at the second chime," Min-ji explained. "It is easier to learn when the pictures are still. When the sun stops moving."

"Thank you," Imran said again, his voice stronger now. He smiled at her. "My father always says, 'in the bazaar, you must learn a hundred new things every day.' Maybe he meant a hundred things in the learning pods, every day."

For the first time, Min-ji's lips quirked up in a tiny smile.

As they headed back into the Pod, Imran noticed a faint, sweet scent that was growing stronger. He realized it was coming from Min-ji's clothes, or maybe her skin. It smelled like the flowers that bloomed outside his bedroom window, back in Bombay, where his mother and the other housekeepers would sit and chat, laughing softly while the stars came out.

His slate, tucked securely under his arm, glowed quietly. He had a feeling he was going to need every single one of those hundred lessons his father had talked about.

"I wonder what Munshi-ji is doing right now," he thought, imagining his old teacher's kind, patient smile. "He would have loved to meet Min-ji. She teaches just like him."

It wasn't the life he'd imagined when his father had taken him to the Chrono Preservation Society and they'd explained their plans to save history. But the past wasn't all he'd hoped for, either. The smells were wrong, the colors were too bright, and the sounds were too loud. And the children, especially the mean-spirited ones like Spiky-hair, were harder to understand than any merchant he'd ever met.

The "Creative Correlation" class was, if possible, even more confusing than the morning's lessons. The monsoon-haired teacher told them to "mix their time experiences" using holographic clay. The clay shifted and changed shape just by thinking about it. Imran mostly made lumpy, uncooperative blobs. The children born in the future, however, made shiny, detailed structures that danced in the air. Min-ji, next to him, carefully made a perfect, tiny copy of a traditional Korean house. Its tiny paper windows were surprisingly detailed.

It was during the "free thinking" time that followed, when most children were busy with their glowing slates or working together in "dream-weaving pods," that Imran first truly noticed Thomas Shepard.

He'd seen the boy before, of course. Thomas was often alone, much like Imran had been before Min-ji stepped in. He was taller than Imran, with hair the color of sun-bleached straw. His eyes seemed to always look a little surprised or worried. Today, Thomas was hunched over a real book – a rare thing in this school. Its pages were old and yellowed. He wasn't reading it, though. He was just staring at it, his shoulders slumped.

A group of children, led by the same Spiky-hair who had bothered Imran earlier, walked past Thomas's lonely spot. Spiky-hair paused, nudging one of his friends. "Look, it's the history-hiccup," he said. His voice was loud enough for several nearby children, including Imran, to hear.

The chip translated "history-hiccup" into a rather plain Hindi phrase, but the disrespect was clear.

"Still reading those dusty old tree-corpses, Shepard?" another boy in the group jeered. "Don't you know we have full-sensory historical experiences? Way better than dead words on dead paper."

Thomas didn't look up, but Imran saw his knuckles turn white as he gripped the old book.

"Yeah," Spiky-hair added. His voice took on a strange, sing-song quality that made Imran's skin crawl. "Still reading about how your great-grandpappy 'tamed the frontier,' Shepard? Must be some real interesting family stories in there."

He and his friends snickered. The sound of Thomas's name, when they said it, seemed to drip with something unpleasant, something more than just the usual teasing.

"That boy, Thomas…" Imran thought, watching from a safe distance. Min-ji was steadily working beside him. "They point at him sometimes, and their voices get strange when they say his name. He looks sad, sadder even than I felt before Min-ji spoke to me. Why are they mean to him too? Is it just because he reads old books?"

He remembered his mother mentioning the Shepard family. She'd said something about them coming from a very different part of the old world, a place with… complicated stories. He didn't understand what those stories were, not really. His own Bombay had its share of troubles, of course – the arguments between the Company men and the local merchants, the whispers of faraway wars – but this felt different. The way the other children spoke about Thomas, the way they looked at him, it was as if he carried a sickness, or a bad smell that only they could notice.

Min-ji, sensing his gaze had shifted, looked up from her tiny house. She followed his look to where Thomas sat, still hunched over his book. The bullies were now wandering off to find someone else to bother.

"He is from a… difficult time," Min-ji said softly. Her voice was barely loud enough to hear above the hum of the Pod. "His family's name carries shadows," she said softly. She looked down at her hands. "Heavy ones."

Imran didn't fully understand it. People worked for his father, of course – servants in their home, clerks in the warehouse, workers at the docks. They were paid, naturally. The idea of not paying them, of hurting them… it was a confusing and unpleasant thought.

He looked back at Thomas. The boy hadn't moved. He just sat there, a lonely figure holding onto something from a past that seemed to poison his present. A wave of sympathy, unexpected and confusing, washed over Imran. Thomas was an outsider, just like him, just like Min-ji. But being an outsider seemed to carry a heavier, darker weight for him.

"He looks so alone," Imran thought. "Even more alone than I was." He felt a small, hesitant urge to go over, to say something. But a sense of caution held him back. If Thomas's family had truly done such terrible things, maybe it was best to stay away. His father had always warned him about spending time with people who had a bad reputation; it could spoil one's own honor.

Yet, the sadness in Thomas's posture, the way he seemed to shrink under the other children's taunts, bothered Imran. It wasn't right. Whatever his family had done, he was just a boy, here in this strange school, just like them.

He glanced at Min-ji. She was watching Thomas too, her face hard to read. Perhaps she, too, felt that complicated mix of pity and uncertainty. This new world, this "school," was not just about learning strange new lessons from talking suns. It was also about learning the even stranger, more difficult lessons about people, and the heavy baggage of pasts they couldn't seem to leave behind.

Imran was about to speak, to try and put his confusing thoughts into words, when the monsoon-haired teacher announced it was time for lunch.

Thomas, as if he had suddenly realized where he was, quickly stood up. His old book, now creased and a little crumpled, fell to the floor. Without waiting to see if anyone had noticed, he ran out of the room.

Min-ji watched him go, her eyes shadowed.

The afternoon class was called "Individualized Exploration Pathways." It sounded fancy, but mostly it meant the children were left alone with their learning-slates. They were supposed to study topics that "connected with their home times or future dreams," as the monsoon-haired teacher had cheerfully explained. For Imran, it just meant more time feeling lost and like he wasn't good enough. The future-born children easily moved through holographic star charts or made up symphonies with a flick of their wrists.

He found a fairly tranquil spot. The curved wall showed a calm, if fake, picture of a bamboo forest. The constant, low-level chatter of the other children, the hum of the Pod, and the faint, sweet smell of Min-ji, who had settled nearby with her own dark slate – it all started to fade a little as Imran focused on the blank surface in front of him.

He didn't know how to make the slate sing or build star systems. But he remembered his munshi showing him how to draw with charcoal on rough paper. Carefully, he touched the slate with his finger, not expecting anything. To his surprise, a thin, dark line appeared. He touched it again, and another line joined it. It wasn't charcoal, but it was something.

Slowly, carefully, Imran began to draw. He drew the busy docks of Bombay, the tall masts of the Company ships, and the sellers with their colorful goods. He drew the naughty monkeys that sometimes ran over their courtyard walls, and the detailed patterns of the carved screens in their home. The pictures were clumsy, not nearly as good as the ones his munshi could make. But as he drew, a small, peaceful space opened up inside him. It was a safe place from the overwhelming newness of this world.

He got so caught up in his drawing that he didn't notice Min-ji looking over his shoulder until she spoke, her voice soft. "That is… a busy place."

Imran startled. His finger jerked and made a long, wrong streak across his drawing of a spice seller's stall. "Oh! It's… it's Bombay. Where I am from."

Min-ji leaned closer. Her serious eyes studied the rough pictures. "So many people. And boats." She pointed a small finger at a lopsided drawing of a dhow. "We had boats in my village too, but smaller. For fishing in the river."

"We had fishing boats too," Imran said, encouraged by her interest. "But these big ones… they travel across the whole world, my father says."

Min-ji was silent for a moment. Then she touched her own slate. A few quick strokes, and a simple, neat drawing of a small, thatched-roof house appeared. It was next to a winding river. A single figure stood by the water, fishing with a long pole.

"My home," she said softly. "Before."

Imran looked at her drawing, then back at his own chaotic, busy scene. They were so different, yet both spoke of a life left behind.

"Sometimes," Imran found himself saying, the words coming out before he could think too much, "I close my eyes and I try to tell myself stories. About a boy who goes on adventures, and he can choose which way the story goes. Sometimes he finds treasure, sometimes he meets a king, sometimes he just… finds his way home." He felt a little foolish admitting it.

But Min-ji didn't laugh. She looked at him. There was a flicker of understanding in her dark eyes. "My grandmother used to tell me stories," she said. "About brave warriors, and clever foxes, and spirits that lived in the mountains. She said stories help you find your way, even when you are lost."

A bell chimed, signaling the end of the school day. Children began to gather their things. The Pod filled with the new energy of being about to leave. Imran looked at his slate, at his clumsy drawing of Bombay. It wasn't much, but it felt like… something. Something of his own in this strange, borrowed world.

Min-ji touched her slate, and her little Korean house vanished. "The stories are good," she said, almost to herself. "Even if they are only in your head."

As they walked towards the shimmering doorway, side-by-side in the crowd of leaving children, Imran felt a tiny spark of something other than fear and confusion. His drawings, his imagined stories, and this new, fragile connection with Min-ji – they were small anchors in the overwhelming strangeness of this school, this advanced time.

He glanced at Min-ji. Her face was still serious, but there was a softness around her eyes he hadn't seen before. As they stepped out of the Pod and into the corridor where parents and guardians were beginning to gather, he risked a small, shy smile in her direction.

To his surprise, the faintest hint of a smile touched her lips in return.

***