Chapter 1: Nerdy Beckett Kai
Beckett Kai had always been quite a nerd, despite his smarts he never could be socially ahead with his peers. He always kept to himself – this was Beckett’s first time away from his family – his overprotective mother Kari would often send him text messages in contrast to his father Kenneth who’d often be on business trips. His younger brother by just one age before him (roughly 19 while Beckett was 20) – Frederick was often a follower when it came to women. Beckett had just arrived at the Christian North’s Oxnard College campus in Ventura County. Christian North, a philanthropist had founded many colleges across the United States using his own wealth for the Common Good Association a left-leaning political party which Beckett wasn’t a fan of.
“Just a new life to get use to” thought Beckett as he was unloading his luggage.
Beckett had one roommate – Harry Carter. Harry in contrast was a popular guy on campus, even though he was a freshman.
“Please to meet you, I’m Harry” said Harry as he firmly shook Beckett’s hand.
Beckett could tell there was something off with Harry in terms of that smile as if he were hiding something. But Beckett was concentrating more on his academics – his main professor he would receive for most of his classes would be – Dean Longstreet. Dean was an avowed Trotskyite who had managed to convince the President of the college – Frances Bennett to hire him anyway as a teacher despite his radical fringe ties.
“Ah, I see we have new faces since it’s a new semester” said Dean as he greeted the glass.
Dean did his best trying to be polite and impartial to the rest of the students. But secretly what Dean was doing – he was working with a fellow radical college student – Dev Madan, an Indian Leftist with Indian heritage. Dev was working on a special mind altering device that would revolutionize thought in general in the hopes of creating more people just like them. It was a secret project that nobody in class knew not even the college itself. Dean continued to teach the class other classmates such as Kelly Finn were often involved in other activities such as gossip about celebrities. They were unaware of the world around them.
“I am going to need a volunteer to assist Dev and me on a special project whoever can ace this upcoming test will have that opportunity to work with us” said Dean.
Dean was keeping Dev’s project a secret for the moment – the test served as a competition for people to be interested in. Beckett was curious with what this project was – he knew Dev to be shady in terms of his political leanings often hiding his true nature in terms of being dishonest. Dev never really interacted that much with Beckett up until the point of the exam. As the day of the exam approached – Harry was nervous since Harry wanted to work on the secret project. Harry wanted to change his life since he was fighting depression. He was hopeful that the project would help better serve him – while Beckett knew that project had a little more darker tone to it than Dean and Dev were letting on. As the day of the exam arrived – both young men were ready for whatever strange questions Dean would throw at them – it was a history exam – American history to be precise.
