Starting from Zero

Book 3, Chapter 11

Campus Incident

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"Well I can only think of you stuffing a whole car into such a big box." I complained.

I did ask father for a car from long ago but he never agreed. Safety issues, as he said.

Apparently he finally gave me a car, but isn't telling me it straightforwardly.

"Aren't you a smart one! That's my child."

"Are you praising yourself?"

Then I heard phone rings from my dad's end. He said: "I got incident to deal with, so I'll make this quick. Flip the dial open, there is a keyboard inside, the password is your birthday."

He hang up.

A keyboard? I never found that out! I touched around the edge of the watch and reached a hidden button. The dial bounced open, revealing a small dial pad, with the number 1~9 on it, there is no "0".

For real!

I entered my birthday (four "1"s). Something flashed, then the dial closed on its own. Several seconds later the lid above the container on the truck opened up.

"So this thing got no side doors, but a ceiling door instead?" Someone wondered.

We soon understood the design. A black shape got lifted up from the container. It looks like a UFO at the first sight!

"GT8000?!" Someone shouted. Then people gasped all around us.

"It's the SEVEN Series! Seven!! Somebody, help me, my heart can't hold it anymore!"

"GT8000? But they haven't published it on the market right?"

I stared at the maglev vehicle in shock. No one else can understand how excited I am now! This is our company's new model which is scheduled to be released at the end of this year, but father got me one in advance!

I feel at top of the world!!

Those instructors and students around all began to wonder who I am. It is an advanced era now but a private maglev car is still a rare sight. They're usually available to the military, some high class hospitals and certain offshore rescuing units, plus police force in big cities. The number owned by individuals is less than 10. Most vehicles at this age are still relying on wheels.

"Boss!" Wayne jumped to me. "The car! Heh heh heh... Lemme try it!"

"Off with you." I nudged him away. "Not before I try it myself!"

The car floated beside me, I jumped into it. The gull-wing doors looks fancy. The seats are largely tilted, typical sport car style.

Wayne jumped onto the copilot seat. "Let's drive!"

"Of course!" I tried to recall those driving skills I learned before, and controlled the car to levitate until it's 20 meters off ground. This is the highest it can reach. It's a car, not a plane anyway.

I slowly pressed the accelerator pad. The car rushed out in a flash, causing Wayne to scream.

"Nice. The accelerating is a little too powerful though!"

"That's what you call a race car!" Wayne is almost drooling now, "You can give me if ur not satisfied. I can pay!"

"Forget it! Not for sale!" I interrupted his daydreaming. "Let's see how fast this boy can go!"

Wayne screamed harder.

I kept the pad down at the bottom. The car charged like a missile, while I am pressed against the seat by the giant force. Even breathing is becoming harder! From the panels I can see the speed is still skyrocketing. It's above 300 km/h now.

"Impressive. It took less than two sec to reach 300 kilos." Wayne commented. (*)

After another five seconds of accelerating, the car became stabled at 600. From the looks of it this is far from its best though. There must be a safe or something.

But Wayne's yelling dragged me back into reality.

"I think I saw police in the rearview!"

"Huh? I don't see any."

"Well duh, those police are not racers, of course they can't keep following you like this!"

I quickly slowed down and parked at the side. Five police cars arrived after Wayne came back with two cups of coffee from a nearby store. They gave us a serious mouthful plus a huge fine before letting us go. And this is thanks to us being students, plus a good attitude. As the leading officer said: "The fine is to ensure you of remembering the lesson. Even if you're not cautious enough, you still need to consider other people's safety!"

When we returned to the college we saw a group of people standing at the gate, most of them boys. Somehow they're all from my class. When we got off the car, Wayne received a good amount of murderous stares from the people.

He closed up on me: "What's the deal? They feel dangerous."

"Correction. They feel dangerous to YOU. They seem fine to me."

As we're discussing, one of the girls ran to us. I can remember her as my classmate but I don't know the name.

She told the surrounding people: "Get in line and do it one after one. Give me your letters and go back n wait for a response!"

Me and Wayne are still trying to work this out when all of the people passed something to the girl in front of me. I asked her about the situation after the crowd has cleared. "What are you doing?"

The girl didn't answer right away. She just dropped a big pile of letters into my arms. "Here, for you. Take your time! Geez."

"I--"

"Ha you're a shiny one aren't you?" Another girl came over and stretch out a hand. "Hello, I'm Sonia, monitor of the class!"

I shook her hand. Getting to know the monitor always helps.

"I--"

"I'm Ling, leader of the Art & Literature committee!"

Then a third girl came. "I'm--"

"Stop!!" I yelled. "Can I say something?"

"Well go ahead." A male student said that. I remember him, the manager of our PE class.

"Can someone explain what's going on? And what is this pile of stuff?"

Sonia gave me the answer. "You attracted a lot of attention back at the training ground. Almost every freshman saw you back there. As a result, all the guys are now officially attracted by your charm. They believed you are the daughter of some rich family when they saw that GT8000. So...now this. I guess those are all love letters."

"Whaaat??"

That was from Wayne, not me.

"So, they looked at me like that, was because they saw me as Boss' 'boyfriend', aka their rival??"

"Very likely. You'd better be careful from now on. I highly suggest you hire some bodyguards."

Wayne rushed to me and tried to take my watch.

"What the fu*k?"

"Lend me the car!"

"For what?"

"I need to get to the TV station and make an announcement, that I'm, NOT, YOUR, BF!"

"You looking for trouble?!" I knocked his head. "Stop this nonsense!"

It took some time to dispose of the pile (well, garbage classification) before I joined the afternoon training session. When it ended another crowd was blocking me at the gate! We escaped back to our dorm. If they were pretty girls I'd actually enjoy this. But...

It's settled. I'm not going to the training anymore. I'll just nerd in the dorm from now on, no one's catching me! At least not the guys!

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(*) In real life, such acceleration will cause serious injury to ordinary human beings without proper training.

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Spring Festival is on. Progress will halt for about, well, 10 days or so?