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Who Does What in Semester 1

Jool Diamant arrives for her new course, Transit Studies, at the university in Transit City. She's never been to Transit before. She knows the place is rather different from everyday life, and she's ready for that difference…
    Sort of.
    She finds a busy city just like any other – except for the bots. The bots are everywhere. They're part of the population.
    She finds that some of the regular people have been cyborgised. Her new landlady, Mrs McGurgle, has a cyborg arm and a cyborg leg. She also has a clockwork cat called Wurrpurr. At least Mrs McGurgle is very nice, in a busy and bustling way. And the cat is, well, a cat.
    Jool's room is okay, though it's in Greendale Village, a distinctly down-market part of Transit. At least, as she's told, Greendale Village is popular with students. It's probably the rent. It certainly isn't the rain. Greendale Village is outside the privileged weather-controlled areas, and gets a lot of rain.
    Jool registers at the imposing Administration Building on the Perambulatorium, the central campus of Transit University. There she meets Vicky Nwindi, who's starting on her third semester in Engineering and Re-engineering. Vicky is Jool's second human contact since arriving. She's a fellow student, she's more or less Jool's age – and she isn't cyborged.
    With a place to live and a course to study, all Jool needs is a job of some sort to help with the finances. She goes to the Students Get-a-job agency, and searches. Without much success. All the jobs seem to have gone. The only offer she gets – and turns down – is as housekeeper to Utsuku Shii, a very rich and stuck-up student. Utsuku is a postgrad in Transit Studies who's so far out of Jool's league that she even has a butler – a bot, of course.
    But Matt Bonce, a Polybiology student, has a helpful suggestion. He finds a waitress job at Bart's Bar that's still available. It's all above board, and he can vouch for the owner. Jool is grateful for the help but, well…she's not entirely comfortable with Matt. Because Matt has a Thing on his shoulder.
    Bart's Bar is on Baker Street at 221A, downstairs from a private detective agency. Bart's Bar is the next steep step up the learning curve for a newcomer to Transit. It's the owner. He has four arms. He's a bot.
    Jool manages to cope with the situation. After all, once she's got used to it – to him – Bart Barbot turns out to be accessible. In fact, he turns out to be kind of nice. Besides which, he hires her. There's only one problem. In order to secure a job in Transit, she has to take out super-accident insurance. What on earth is super-accident insurance?
    It doesn't take long to find out.
    Jool meets up with Matt and Vicky in Sideboard, a pedestrian shopping zone in swish central Transit. They're not impressed. Super-accident insurance? Everyone in Transit has supersure. Jool's going to need it, too.
    And then Jool discovers why.
    She gets clean again with the help of Mrs McGurgle.  Pterodactyl poo creates a lot of laundry. Mrs McGurgle confirms the need for supersure. A few people don't have it, or course. Dr Acula, one of her tenants, doesn't need it because of his lifestyle, and Miss Ing, the other tenant, probably doesn't have it since most of the time she's away. But just about everyone else has it on account of the unusual things that happen in Transit. Even Wurrpurr, her accident prone cat, would benefit if he was eligible.
    So Jool gets herself supersure and secures the job. She's ready to start her studies.
    It's a good thing she's heard about her professor. Nigel Norbert O'Brane is the most senior professor in the Transit Studies faculty. He is the name in Transit Studies. But those studies have left their mark. Professor O'Brane is as cyborged as it's possible to be. Only his brain and eyes remain from his original body, floating in their supportive container mounted on an airborne scooter. He communicates with the world and manipulates the world by WiFi. It makes him scarily impressive.
    Jool gets used to her work at the bar. Bart guides her through waitress etiquette and initiates her in the intricacies of mixing drinks. For a four-armed bot, she finds Bart Barbot an unexpectedly sympathetic boss. He's direct, has a dry sense of humour, and he's nice.
    She begins to learn her way around the Greendale Village district where she lives. There's a Soulfully Superstore on Ironside Street, and there's usually Old Muffin round somewhere. There's also a delivery by Exo-Set Cruisemailer – a package which lands at her feet and bursts. It's from her Mum. It's full of goodies from home, like sensible underwear and useful toiletries. But Mum has also sent Pong, her favourite teddy bear, and Pikelet, her favourite little teddy bear. Jool, Pong and Pikelet – reunited in Transit! Good old Mum.
    Meanwhile, in the Isambard Building at the University, Vicky's Enree course has reached a crunch point. The class teacher, Dr Catenary, announces the assignment for the semester: design and build any device of their own choosing, make sure it works, and make sure it includes some micro-engineering. Fail to do it and you fail the class – and the class is compulsory. This isn't good news for Vicky. She's a very diligent student, but she has self-confidence issues. Which aren't helped by the reactions of her nearest class neighbours. Manny Manifold, a bot, immediately starts to develop design sketches, while Enree genius Aino Kaindawaki calmly leaves the lab in order to think.
    Freshers have other worries, such as the official social baptism of the Freshers Ball. It's held in the Plenum, the architectural gem of the University campus, and is rather formal. Teachers, university luminaries, and the entire new intake are there – plus Jool, alone and isolated and starting to get very bored.
    Until Professor O'Brane floats by on his airborne scooter and suggests she should try the salsa.
    She does. She loves it. She floats with the dance and the evening turns into a happy, timeless delight.
    Much later, she takes a break on the upper floor terrace, in cool night air above the dark Perambulatorium parkland in front of the Plenum. The evening has turned into something lovely, and any minute she's going to find herself on the other side of the social threshold as she starts to meet and chat to people. And you never know, someone might turn up who's intent on meeting her…
    Someone does. And Jool is suddenly in terrible trouble!
    She is seized and carried off by a gigantic Visitor, a particularly impressive manifestation of the kind that plague Transit. The Visitor makes off with her, intent on – well, she's too terrified to think ahead. But before whatever it is can start to happen, she's rescued in a daring snatch by one of the Transit police helicopters. She's confused, still terrified – but she's safe! And she's also met Officer Stalwart.
    Not that the nightmare evening is entirely over. After she's been rescued, checked over and has had time to calm down, Jool sets off home through a quiet city in the the late-hour depths of the night. But just as she's getting back to Ironside Street, she glimpses a caped figure gliding overhead. Terrified all over again, she rushes in and hammers on Mrs McGurgle's door. Her landlady sympathises but isn't in the least impressed. Oh, that will just be Flying Fox, a mysterious superhero. Isn't Jool lucky – snatched by a Visitor, and a glimpse of Flying Fox, all in the same night. Jool doesn't seem to agree.
    Later, Jool meets up with Vicky and Matt in a branch of Brandy's Burger Store. Matt is a native of Transit, so he's the one to ask about Flying Fox. No big deal, Matt explains, and no superhero either. Flying Fox is something of a crime-buster and uses technology. Superheroes, on the other hand, have psychic powers and are pretty dim –
    At which moment a dim superhero crashes through the plate glass window and creates instant havoc in the fast food restaurant. As the restaurant crew mobilise to clean up the mess, Jool notices two things – a stray dog by the name of Gobspeed which sneaks out with a cache of stolen burgers, and the manageress. The interesting fact about the manageress is the effect her appearance is having on Matt…
    Life moves along, the weather gets colder, and study becomes routine. Unless you're Wurrpurr, Mrs McGurgle's clockwork cat. Wurrpurr, being a cat, is a master of finding opportunities to beat boredom. Jool's room, unattended, is just another place full of things to do that people creatures don't like. They get excited. It helps pass the time.
    And… Jool's room has enemies, two presences which Wurrpurr doesn't like at all. The big teddy bear and the little teddy bear – all they do is stare, unmoving, unblinking. And no self-respecting cat can allow himself to be stared at.
    So Wurrpurr takes on Pong and Pikelet. It's only round one, and the game isn't decided. Not yet. But Wurrpurr has time. He'll be back…
    Vicky has her Enree concept. All she needs to do is design and built it. She takes time out to do some window shopping. In Cardboardy Street, the place to buy in central Transit, window shopping is all she can afford. A student, as a rule, doesn't have the money. But she has to avoid Utsuku Shii, the rich female postgrad from Transit Studies, who is out filling designer bags for her butlerbot Facto to carry. However, they're brought together by an accident. A window cleaner bot falls from its cradle and smashes to the ground. Only Vicky's quick thinking, plus her engineering skills, save the damaged bot from brain-data death. Utsuku isn't much help – though she does get Facto to call for an ambulance.
    Excitements of any sort are missing in Gobspeed's life. It isn't easy, being Gobspeed. You can talk? You can read? Don't be ridiculous, it isn't possible, go a way. People ignore him, dogs don't understand him. Gobspeed is a lonely stray, and life is a constant shamble from one piece of free food to the next. Transit rats that can also write, even if they can't spell? Manifestations that pass by on journeys of their own from who knows where to who cares why? Weather getting cold and winter on its way? It's all the same to Gobspeed.
    There's excitement one evening at Bart's Bar. Matt has turned up, the first time in a while, and he's joined by a repto. It's yet another first for Jool. She knows about reptos – that they're hermaphrodite, and reptilian, and a lot less well represented in Transit that, say, bots – but she's never met one. Well, here goes, because she has an order to take. It goes rather well. Jool is introduced by Matt. The repto is Zish Bill, a jazz musician. The repto is also, as suddenly becomes apparent, not overfed but heavily pregnant. In fact –
    The only person present who knows what to do with a brand new baby repto and the exhausted parent is Bart Barbot. He's a constant surprise to Jool.
    Dr Catenary, teacher of the Enree class, is a former professional engineer who suffered a terrible accident. Now, surviving only from the waist up, he wheels around on a sophisticated life support unit. He is, unwillingly, engineering embodied. He's certainly beyond being impressed by his students. Vicky's non-lethal fly trap doesn't excite him in the least. Aino Kaindawaki's prototype teleportation device is merely mildly interesting – even when a test run shorts out an entire city district. Besides, there are teething-teleportational problems. Aino's machine reduces Vicky's teleported calculator to a heap of jumbled symbols.
    Jool's study routine is getting tougher. All she seems to do is read, digest, and then write essays. Her latest essay from Professor O'Brane is on robot sociodynamics – yet another aspect of life in Transit of which she knows nothing. Though, well, learning about it is why she's here. So she reads, in order to digest, in aid of the essay. Head down in her studies, she misses things that turn up later in the evening news. A light aircraft forced down in the Perambulatorium lawns by a dragon. A poltergeist manifestation that disrupts her bus journey home. Jool never even noticed. She studies. She's a student. She loves it.
    The study work is the same for everyone. Matt's Polybiology courses provide the learning hoops he must go through. He never gets excited about his studies, though. He kind of just does it. One of his lecturers, Dr Athena Parthena, quietly studies Matt. He has Thing on his shoulder, an ever-present little extension of himself. What does Matt think that Thing actually is – a growth, a parasite, a mutation? What does Matt think that he is? Dr Parthena, specialist in aberrant biologies, would love to know.
    Wurrpurr isn't worried about studies. He wants peace and quiet. Except when Mrs McGurgle insists on using the vacuum cleaner carpet monster. Not even the most tough-school stoic among cats can hold out against the carpet monster. So, as dignified as possible, Wurrpurr does a runner. Out into the chilly street. In a bad mood. Wurrpurr in a bad mood is very band news, if you happen to be smaller than him. Like, say, an unlucky rat caught rummaging in the pizza trash…
    Matt has been hanging out at a certain branch of Brandy's Burger Store. It's the manageress. She's older, cool, efficient – and he can't take his eyes off her. In fact, he finally dares to ask her out. She knows he's been watching her for weeks – and she says yes. Her name is Savy. She lives in Sans Souris. She explains her unlucky love life. She has a problem, obviously, with Thing, though Matt – and Thing – have no idea why. Matt is looking for a relationship, so Savy has to take deep breath first…then goes with the flow.
    Winter finally arrives. Transit City is combed by a cold wind and coated in snow. It's a night to keep yourself warm and cosy indoors. Utsuku Shii beautifies herself in her perfect apartment while butlerbot Facto reads revision material to her. Matt joins Savy for a meal at her tiny Sans Souris flat. Vicky trudges home through the winter desert to a renovated flat in Biergarten, a flat which is basic, private…and home to her forbidden passion. Jool spends an almost customer-free evening with Bart at the bar. Outside, the snow gets deeper, and deeper. Pity anyone who doesn't have a home to go to tonight… And in an alley just a block away, Greendale Village's wino, Old Muffin, sleeps next to a totally tasped out bot, while a certain dog named Gobspeed huddles between them.
    The weather doesn't stop studies, of course. Vicky's Enree assignment is coming to its conclusion. Her non-lethal fly trap is ready to go…and yes, it traps a fly! Non-lethally! Dr Catenary loses his supercilious air long enough to congratulate her – she's passed the course. Manny Manifold's creation looks a little less close to fruition, but how is Aino's teleporter? Teleporting, is the answer. Unfortunately, just as Aino is demonstrating the teleportation of an action man style doll, Vicky's fly escapes and dodges into the device… The results are gruesome.
    But it means the Enree pressure is over. Vicky and Aino, together with Matt, plan a weekend away. They persuade Jool, even though she still has her semestral exam to look forward to. They take Aino's battered old hovercar and head to Lake Utopia, out on the eastern edge of the Transit Ambit. They take a chalet on the winter-wrapped shore, arriving in true student style with some takeaways bought from the Brandy's Burger Store in the nearest town. There's no need to worry about what to do with leftovers – they've been followed all the way from the city by a certain stray dog who feels in need of a change.
    The next day, Jool is the first up and the first to go out. There's no wind, there's a dense, freezing fog. There's an isolating, tingling magic. Jool is getting used to the city by now, but this is her first time in the distant Transit countryside, where civilisation fades and the otherness of the place begins to intrude. She wanders, entranced, by the lakeside. She walks out onto the frozen lake. She soaks in the icy, empty strangeness. She loses her sense of direction…
    They get her back, eventually, after they call in the help of the Lake Utopia police. The unwanted adventure ends quite positively for Jool. Her rescuer turns out to be Officer Stalwart, the anti-visitor specialist from the city who's on secondment to the local police force.
    It's exactly the kind of excitement that doesn't happen to Gobspeed. He wanders through the lakeside woods, alone, lonely and bored. Well – he does meet a manifestation or two, but nothing you'd call interesting. Nothing interesting ever happens to Gobspeed.
    While Jool is away getting lost and found, Wurrpurr takes a chance to sneak into her room. It's payback time for the two teddy bears. It starts well. Wurrpurr, after all is a clockwork killer cat – and he's wound up tight with righteous revenge. Unfortunately…
    Mrs McGurgle does her best to tidy up the mess and repair the damage. Pikelet – well, Jool had better see to him herself. Pong, though, she's managed to stitch back together, good as new. As for Wurrpurr, he's going to need a visit to the vet for some serious reassembly. Not that Jool has time to worry about disarticulated cats. It's exam time.
    The exam paper – set by Professor O'Brane in person – is a bit of a poser. But not impossible, and somehow reassuring. One thing it confirms to Jool is that she's chosen the right subject to study. Life in Transit, she's certain, is going to suit her.
    The celebratory blow-out is held at Manny's place on Hadalot Street in a down-at-heel and student strewn area of Greendale Village. Jool, Vicky, Matt, Savy, Aino and even Utsuku are there for the party.  It's a free-wheeling, noisy affair, and rather bitchy at times. Tempers, after all, are less than perfectly smooth after a long semester. But everyone gets home safely – Matt and Savy to Sans Souris, Jool to a signed photograph of Office Stalwart, Vicky to her secret android, Aino to his pastime calculations. It's been a good semester, and now winter is beginning to thaw.
    And that's it. The half year is over. It's time for Jool to return to the world she grew up in. But her friends will be waiting for her. Her job at Bart's Bar will be waiting for her. In a few weeks she'll be back – in time to see the spring, and see summer in the city. She's looking forward to another slice of life in Transit.

To find out what Jool and her friends get up to next, don't miss Semester 2…