Next Of Kin

Nobody dropped me off at university. I came here by myself, alone, just with my computer close to my heart; I made it so it's strapped under my shirt and connects directly into my mind. I don't need parents because my computer tells me everything I need to know. Not everyone has one of these - it would cause havoc.

I built this one just two days ago. It's an updated version that doesn't need a hard drive but can remember what I need and have a personality. It's shit hot.

I'm sitting in my small room on the single bed and building up the courage to leave. Echoes of laughter and voices have been reverberating around the halls all night and now there's a deathly silence and the September sun is peeping through my blind. Today is an important day and I'd rather get there early before the crowds.

"Manan, what's the temperature outside today?"

"Highs of 18 degrees and a chance of rain at about 3pm." A smooth female voice says in my mind. "You should wear layers and I think your blue trousers, plain white t-shirt and pink cardigan would be a perfect choice."

When I didn't have Manan my life felt very lonely. I don't like talking to people, I don't have a family and there is no close friend who I can confide in.

"Manan, how can I overcome my fear of people?"

"Try ..." She lists out a long list of self-help books I can absorb. She's bored of the question to be honest. She remembers her predecessor because all of the data transferred across but Manan is better, faster, stronger, more advanced.

I want to show my lecturer and I have asked Manan a hundred times to show me an image of Howard Rotherforth so I'm prepared. He is a bald man wearing a jumper, shirt and trousers with big brown eyes and tattoos creeping from his sleeves. They look like they might be octopus tentacles.

I'll recognise him today straight away. He looks like a good man and I'm more comfortable speaking to older people than humans my own age. Humans my own age just want to violate me and pull me out of my shell. But that is a threat to my work.

I am nervous sweating as I pull on my clothes that Mana suggested, heart thumping. It is is threat to my existence going to university, being smothered by a crowd, but Manan's predecessor's forerunner told me that I wouldn't get want I want without a qualification beside my name. She said I may even find people who are like me here.

Apparently academia is littered with weirdos. I don't know how to make friends who aren't digital and who the hell needs face-to-face contact when we're connected to millions of people already. There are so many thoughts and voices; I don't need them, the humans.

"Hello?" A muffled high-pitched voice chants. "Hello? Is someone in there? I thought I heard someone talking ..."

I will not dignify that with an answer. How dare she intrude my sanctuary. I was just building up enough courage to leave the room but now I think I'm going to stay inside. Why does she even care who I am and if I'm in here? Curiosity killed the cat.

No, fuck it. "Manan, how long does it take to get to the hall?"

"5 minutes."

I look at my watch: 8.51am. I grab my rucksack and umbrella and decide it's safer to leave now and be at the front of the queue.

When I leave my room it's like I've been hit in the chest. I'm out of breath and scared. Another door in the corridor opens and a small blonde girl appears.

"I knew there was someone in there! I'm Jess." She white teeth smiles and holds out her hand. I do not move towards it.

She pats my arm and says, "My induction day starts in an hour, does yours too?"

I say nothing, just nod.

"Are you going there early?"

I nod.

"Well, I'll see you there ..."

She steps back into her room. She thinks I'm a freak.

I'm on the sixth floor so I walk down and down the stairs, dizzy, and accidentally end up in the basement. It is dark and smells of damp.

Relief floods my senses when I'm finally outside. I can see a green square and just seeing a little bit of green grass and plane trees makes me breathe in a calm manner. Some of the leaves are starting to tinge yellow. I am breathing like a serene yoga-ite. I know that The British Museum isn't too far from here and maybe there will be time to explore today after the necessity.

I arrive at the campus in a very good state of mind, but then all the stalls and the people look horrifying. I know the columned building but not the brightly signed and smiling stalls. There's forms and pens ready to sign your soul away. Amateur Boxing or Harry Potter or Knitting Society - on second thoughts I would love to be brave enough to join the HP society.

I stride over there and pretend I'm someone else. I've just swallowed some felix felicis and nothing can go wrong. The two people behind the stand look at me as if they want to devour and annihilate me.

I sign my soul away to the Harry Potter Society.

Inside the building they are still setting up. There are a few clusters of people, student ambassadors and the like. I float around like a sore thumb and embrace myself for the induction system. It looks like we are shuttled around the hall from place to place and there are different volunteers to deal with you at each station.

I can feel Manan close to my heart. Why does time go so quickly Manan? I think.

Time flies when you're having fun. Manan says into my mind.

But I'm not having fun.

But you're busy and I think you are enjoying it. Look in that reflection in the window over there.

I look and there I am, smiling from ear to ear, looking remarkably handsome.

"Hello." Blonde girl has appeared. I look at my watch and it is induction time. I am at the front of an already huge queue and Jess is next to me. I will myself to talk.

"I joined a society." I say.

She looks shocked. "Which one?"

"Guess ..." I say, amazed that I'm holding a conversation.

She laughs and flicks her thin bright blonde hair: "Harry Potter?"

"Yep"

"Hahaha, no way, I was just joking, you're not joking are you? Well, I think we're going to get on very well." She's looking all sympathetic.

"I don't usually make friends."

"I didn't say that we're friends but we are neighbours and on the same Computer Science course."

"We are?"

"Your name is Jeremy Taylor isn't it? You've been a legend ever since you made the newspapers a couple of years back for the most advanced GCSE project ever in the history of humankind."

I blush. Yes that was me. Manan didn't warn me about this. I didn't think people cared about a nerd in the suburbs.

I get ushered into the first station and they tell me to take my glasses off and shine a light at me.

"Smile!" The spotty chap says and he clicks his fingers and it's done. A lopsided face on my student ID for the rest of my student life. Thanks. Thanks a lot you bastard.

As I'm being ushered out, I see Jess getting ushered in and I somehow find the courage to wish her luck.

I subsequently have to fill in forms in five different stations. The first form is a personality test and asks me all sorts of stupid ridiculous things and I have to rate my feelings - 1 meaning excruciatingly happy and 4 meaning devastated. It's going to tell me I'm emotionally stunted and need to be loved.

The second is addresses and home addresses and previous addresses.

The third is bank statements and student loan brackets.

The fourth is course modules and you have to tick your first and second choices just in case first choice is full up.

The fifth form is the final thing and then I am officially induced into university. I have to fill in my next of kin in case anything happens to me. I think about this and I fill in the form and hand it to the branded-university-t-shirt volunteer.

He frowns ... "You have to put an actual person."

"I don't have an actual person to put down, just my computer, she is as real as it gets and would be the only intelligence that would care if anything happened to me."

Jess shuffles in and asked what's going on.

"What's your surname Jess?"

"King