I sit down at the four-seater table with my lunch tray from the cafeteria. It has a square slice of tray pizza, a can of Pepsi, Some fires, and a weird slimy salad of somekind. I plonk it down and am about to pop the soda. The government hasn’t put a ban on what can be in school or not yet. My attempt to eat is interrupted by Suji who just dumps her backpack onto the table with a loud thud.

I look up and see her long black hair dangling all over the place as she rummages through her bag of pretty much holding. She soon finds what she’s looking for. She pulls out a plastic tub with the lunch prepared by her mum. I then sigh and remember she hates those and slide my tray over to her and snatch the lunch box. She has a look of confusion on her face before shrugging and drags the tray closer to her.

I open the box and a wide selection of bites from the Dosirak are available. To kids these flavours are horrible, even more so to kids who are used to processed foods. However, to me this is a godsend of properly cooked home food even if I could probably only name two of the twenty components. I break the chopsticks and begin to eat.

I hear a slight moan from across the table as Suji had taken half the slice of pizza in one bite. She then looked up and said after swallowing. “What?” in a half mocking, half insecure voice. I just smile and use the chopsticks to effortlessly pick up some what looks like Kimchi or something and eat it. It has a slightly sweet taste to it. definitely not kin-chi.

“You can use chopsticks?” she asks with a puzzled expression while popping open the can of Pepsi. “(In Korean) I can also speak Japanese and Korean.” She just seems to pause for a moment before she switches to Korean and tries to start a conversation. “Why’d you swap anyway? All that stuff is rank.”

I just take another mouthful and say with a shrug. “I don’t mind Dosirak actually and you look to be enjoying that far more than me.” She just lowers her head and takes a few more bites. She then switches back to English and askes. “When did you learn Korean?”

I just continue to eat and answer between mouthfuls. “Well, I learnt Japanese from Anime and was on a roll so learnt a lot of Korean as well since the anime studios over there are becoming more and more mainstream.” We sit in silence again before she once again takes the initiative. “Thanks, I never get to eat this stuff.” I just chuckle again and respond with. “And it’s all I ever get. If it can’t be cooked in ten minutes in a frying pan or microwave it is delivered. If you ask your parents, you can come over for homework and have some of whatever we get?”

“Sure.” She says nonchalantly and gets up from the table and dumps the tray. I pass her tub back and we then headed our separate ways for classes. For the rest of the day, I'm pretty much bored since I reached the end of what I could write. Instead, I began to think about my long-term plans about how to prevent the future from happening at all costs.

First was to either make sure the dollar wouldn't collapse in the 30s or provide an easily supplied alternative. Second was to prevent the American Chinese war in the late twenties. It would significantly weaken all the major nations in the region as well as polarize major parts of the American population and lead to Europe leaning more towards itself and the newer African conglomerates.

Third was to make sure that cyber and physical security of all the software I’ll make is secure. While I can handle most of the software stuff, I would have to rely on others for researching hardware and other things. I mainly need to focus on micro components for processors as well as bio-processors since they are needed for almost all software that can control machines. They use was basically limitless and if I could get them down to the same size of 5mm chips then I could pretty much take over them world. Though I don’t think even 10mm chips exist yet.

I continue to plan while passively listening to the philosophy class. I meet Suji outside of the school and she says her parents said she could since it was a Friday and she had to be back by eight o’clock. I had already texted dad and he said it was fine. She glanced at the pile of dozens of books I was carrying and asked. “Since, when do you like reading?”

I just shrug and answer, “I borrowed them from the library since I needed a bunch of the reference stuff in the back for a project I’m working on.” She just shrugged and got into the back seat of the SUV before me. She was wearing a pair of Beige loose jeans and a black top. I wore blue jeans and a red shirt with a tiny Naruto logo on the left breast.

The books were mostly the basics of Java, and C. I only had a cursory understanding of these sixty fifty-year-old software’s which were relegated to history books since they could pretty much be cracked in microseconds by quantum computers. The last time I saw Java was some guy who was showcasing how to convert the original Minecraft alpha versions onto devices that ran off Hyperion.

When I decided to build a new coding language it was a choice between Auspex, Hyperion and F8/g@. To be honest Hyperion was a joke and mainly used on mobile devices and F8 was mainly for systems that run mass simulations like VR. Auspex, I had actually helped to build and was almost entirely used by governments and militaries since it was basically uncrackable even to Quantum Computers.

My version was crude, but I was building it with the idea that once I had a suitable VI. I could just lock it into an air gapped system and let it improve the language a billion times faster than if all of humanity did it themselves. I need the coding books to build interfaces with current tech and the other books where in stuff like tax law, stock trading and basic electronic engineering which I was all clueless about.

I said hi to dad and we drove off. “Dad, Suji needs to get back to her place by Eight.” He just nods and speaks. “Hi, Suji. How are you?” She just answers the question and speaks. “I’m fine, I live at 843 …”

…

When George had texted in the middle of my groove. I had gotten a bit annoyed at him for breaking it but was relieved that he had actually wanted a friend to come over. Just now when Suji had entered the car I was in shock for a moment. Why didn’t he mention it was a girl? Then again, I don’t think he can think like that yet. It comforting to know he hasn’t lost his innocence yet, but at least he might actually have some friends that aren’t from video games.

Once we got home, we went up to my room and began to study. We had math mock exam tomorrow and Suji had been struggling with some of the integer questions. “Uhhh, why is this so hard. These questions are so long. I look up from my book on accounting and speak. “Let me see.”

She passes me the page and I look at it. With in about half a second I’ve solved the whole page but realise that it would even take adults at least a minute to solve all of them. I get up from the bed and lay down on my front next to her with my feet in the air. I then place the sheet on a hardback book since the carpet isn’t hard enough to write on and I’ll just go straight through the paper.

“You just have to break up each of the equations in the brackets. See. I can do it in my head but here’s how you can write it out. View it as each one in the brackets is a question to answer and you have to answer it and fill in the spot where it once was like a blank. One the un bracketed equation is complete just calculate that. Math is the simplest subject. The reason we struggle with it is remembering the hundreds of different abbreviations and symbols and when doing said equations not forgetting any operation since one incorrect or forgotten operation can make a wildly different outcome.

I look up and see her biting the back of her pen as she seems to digest the problem while looking at the solved problem. She then says in a suspicious tone, “Since when did you get so smart? You get lower scores then me.”

I just shrug and respond with, “I recently had an epiphany. Adults love their rules right…? Well, I thought why these rules exist when they don’t make sense. Well, they’re made so that one can have an easy path to learn how to fix something and avoid mistakes made before. If you just break down everything that a law explains and figure out the core of the problem or the reason the law exists, you can find ways in certain circumstances better ways. But for basic math, just break it down and follow the rules. You’ll be fine.

I then went back to reading my book. I loved math. You could explore the whole universe, and everything was measurable and explained by math. Well, mostly but it still made it really cool. Well, that was after the mathematics revolution in 2029 making math fun. Basic math like this was always the same but when it came to university level stuff, I could consume it by the truck load. It was kind of addicting actually.

We continued to study until about six when whatever had been ordered came downstairs. It was pasta form a little Italian place. It was delicious and I would definitely not object to having it again. Mum came in with the eyes that explained more than any words could. They were grey and lifeless and only seemed to gain a bit of lustre when she smelled the Italian.

She went into the kitchen and pt her scrubs in the machine and went up to clean before coming down ten minutes later. When she sat, she just dished some up and jumped slightly when she noticed Suji. Suji just finishes her scoop and speaks. “HI!” in a cheerful tone.

Mum just seems shocked before looking to dad with a questioning gaze. He just chuckles and says, “This is Suji. George and she have been studying after school together and I’m taking her home after dinner.”

She then turns to Suji and says in her exhausted voice. “It’s nice to meet you, Suji. I’m Racheal. Sorry I’m not fully here right now, I’ve just worked a twenty your shift.”

After everyone is done, I take what’s left of the leftovers to the kitchen and tub them into the fridge. When I get back Suji reminds us that she should really get back. She could stay longer but the quicker she got back the less her parents would worry. I drove back to their house with dad, and we waved to each other as she went back up to her door.

When we got home, I was surprised to see mum still up. She was eating a pot of somekind of pudding with a spoon. She then turned her head to me from the couch and spoke. “So, what’s so special about her that you would invite her over. You’ve never had anyone over let alone a girl.” I just had one thought go through my mind. ‘Fuck.’