Chapter 22: Please Standby...
"Oh shit, what have you gotten yourself into Al." Alto cried in his small room, which housed a lone bed. There was no window but a simple air conditioning unit that ran through all other rooms. But it did have an even smaller toilet within. Everything about the room spoke of necessity rather than comfort, in the mech division #1056, there was no such thing as comfort. Only result.
He had heard of trainees doing exceptionally well to be promoted to a better room but he knew that would never be him. He was still the same wimpy kid from back then, his worth was still less than what he had set for himself.
Thinking of how far he had fallen from Amy made his feel cold and distant underneath. He had heard rumours of her leading the trainees of their set, that day was the day of the big test. He was yet to know the results but he knew this, those who performed exceptionally well would be given the title of cadets, to finally begin to work in the field of actual mech piloting.
Alto knew it was only a short amount of time before they would come to face each other and would he be able to survive a confrontation with Amy. Nor had he forgotten Kram who he had made a bet with three years prior on their arrival at the mech division. These felt more like debts that failures, Amy would want him to be the best, and Kram would want him to remain the same trash he always was.
The only way to stand next to them was to become a genius himself. Since being separated from them Alto had no one to talk to, he had been living in loneliness for the past three years. Barely scraping through his teachings and just when he finally achieved the recognition he sought for fate dealt him the heavy card.
Alto clawed at the device on his wrist that very much resembled his wrist comm but every time he did he could feel it digging it's needle deeper into his wrist. This caused him to cry out in agony, it was like the device was giving him a warning.
"Why won't you get off me, you damn virus." He threw himself at the wall hoping to shatter the device but it came back fine.
Alto repeated this for minutes before exhausting all of his strength and falling on his bed. "Dammit, am I going to die from this thing. What is it really."
Just then the wrist comm started to beep and give a soft blue glow. Alto raised it to his face and after much deliberation he chose to tap on it the normal way he did to activate his wrist comm. He was curious as to what the device was or whether it was really his wrist comm come back for a second life. But he doubted that.