Chapters Beta Academy Chapter 1
Stirring what she could, Jessica awoke to another lovely day as the simulated sunlight in the Senior Beta Sleeping Quarters rose to full brightness and the soft, staccato buzzing of the bulb pressed against her mons alerted her like a quiet alarm. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, Jessica was greeted by the familiar open-top box that she had slept in all her life as recordings of songbirds tweeted, echoing in the cavernous hall just as they always did, regardless of the season outside.
Waiting patiently for one of the transfer arms to help her out of bed, Jessica could faintly hear Amy in the next box over, shaking and shuffling to get off from the vibrating alarm, but Jessica knew better than to try. As tantalizing as the chance was, as soon as everyone in the room was awake the alarm would cease, and the bulbs would remain inert until bedtime, just like every other morning. She could wait till then. Or until Amatory class, at least. And sure enough, the short buzzing stopped only seconds later and a great sigh came from Amy’s box.
“Sweet dreams last night?” Jessica inquired with a chuckle and a yawn to the panelled drop-ceiling, featureless save for AC vents and the rolling track for the transfer arm. Though it had been said entirely without malice, a few other girls nearby laughed quietly from their own boxes, save for poor Catherine, who probably wanted more than anything to be doing what Amy was right now, futile or not. Dreams of sex were far from uncommon for Betagirls like them; just one more side-effect of the Purpose they were training into themselves.
“Oh Jess, hi, um, good morning, um, yes, I think so.” Amy replied to the open air, stammering. Jessica giggled and left her friend to regain her composure in a modicum of privacy, stretching a bit and looking around her box for the millionth time to keep herself busy.
Craning her neck over the tent her breasts made in her cotton sleeping sack, the close-fitting box was made of a soft white plastic, bright even against the sky blues and spring greens of the large hall, and had little to distinguish it from anyone else’s except for a soft brown teddy bear velcroed to the side wall that she had begged the supervisors to let her keep past her graduation to high school. Printed on the outside rim beyond her line of sight was of course her name, social insurance number, and barcode in black ink, just like on her collarbone. Save for Teddy, the contoured foam pad she laid on, a small protruding straw for cool water, and the vibrating bulb that extended from the bottom wall, her box was largely featureless.
There were also some concentric holes in the plastic above her head. It was actually Amy, who Jessica loved to bits but admittedly wasn’t the brightest light, who had suggested that they looked similar to the intercom speaker screens throughout the Academy hallways, but in all of Jessica’s 18 years, she had never heard the holes emit any sound, so they were still a mystery.
Finally, Jessica was greeted by the two white mechanical arms rolling into view above her. ‘Mister Pick-Me-Up,’ they had called the bright pink one in the Elementary Sleeping Quarters all those years ago. Jessica smiled inwardly: she was only months from graduation, from leaving the Academy she had been raised in, so what once might have been embarrassing memories now made her treasure her time here.
Hello, Mister.
With mechanical efficiency, the arms reached inside and unzipped her sleeping garment, nudging the soft fabric out of the way, and secured her nude, limbless torso around her midsection before picking her up. Jessica shivered in the open air, the only warmth she felt being the residual body heat from the previous Beta the arm had moved. After only a moment, she too was zipping over the dozens of other boxes toward the conveyor line of motorized wash chairs leading to the showers.
Like every morning, Jessica’s path flew her over top of him, and like every morning she had to consciously ignore that he was probably looking up at her exposed bottom, forget the sight of his shy morning smile when she looked downward, forget how just the sight of the only male Beta in the whole Academy sent her body into complete autopilot. Her head wanted to play out all the ways the boy down there could fulfill the Purpose deep inside her, all the ways— Jessica cut herself off, focusing instead on the quotidian tasks ahead of her.
And just as quickly as she was picked up, she was set down on one of the crawling train of plastic chairs, her spine in alignment and her full hips and bottom creating an upright balance just stable enough for her to quickly lean back onto the cool plastic to be safe. Ah ah, too cold! Squirming the little that she could to warm up where the plastic touched her bare skin, Jessica peered forward, and like usual, there was a long line of girls in front of her, heading around the bend toward the showers. It was really a simple operation, Jess thought, but with nearly a hundred and fifty Betas in just these quarters, it was too slow.
First came the bidet, during which the nerve implants in her lower spine released control and allowed her to relieve herself (both ways), before the full body spray, then the soaps, shampoos, facial creams, and mouth cleaner, followed by the exfoliating arms and toothbrush, then a light rinse, followed by a routine depilation spray on undershoulder and pubic areas, a deeper rinse, a warm blow-dryer for the body and short hair, deodorant and fragrance of the girl’s choosing, tampon insertion if she was menstruating or scheduled to be, and then finally off to be given a once-over by a supervisor for simple hair and makeup requests if any, before being fitted with a bra and the standard, state-issued Beta Academy uniform.
At first glance, the uniform appeared to be a crisp white blouse, navy blue jacket and miniskirt, finished off with a cute, short red tie on school days, but in reality it wasn’t unlike the sleeping sack which was probably in a hamper by now, except tighter, more form-fitting. The whole outfit was actually a single elastic body-garment inside, the more traditional and time-consuming elements simply sewn onto the figure-hugging spandex beneath, intersected by a single zipper in the back that went from the collar to the elastic bottom to hug Jessica’s hips and behind. Of course there were no openings at the shoulders or hips, just at the collar. It was functional, one-size-fits-all, and even featured the old national colors from before the war.
Even with Jessica’s generous breasts, which had been continuously growing ever since her enhanced puberty, the uniforms did not sag or tent like the loose sleeping sack; they hugged every curve so as to not impede her body any more than necessary. The pleated miniskirt, just long enough to cover her wide hips, had once been an attempt to hide some of those lower curves from male supervisors, but there had been no male supervisors hired since the earliest days of the Academies due to side-effects, like the ones she felt for Him, for Adam. Even on the rare occasion that an Enforcer left his post and came into the Academy complex itself, the Betas dared not look too closely at the men in those paramilitary groups, for fear of setting off their Purpose, the autonomic desire latent within them.
All finished, a long line still behind, her short dark pixie cut brushed and eyes given a hint of liner as per current Beta protocol, Jessica was picked up by another set of padded arms and deposited in her chair, before being strapped in. The two straps, one near her hips and the other just under her breasts, had once again been fastened too tight by the transfer arm.
“Hey, um, excuse me!” she called out but most of the supervisors along the line were too busy, so she waited until she caught one’s eye. The Alpha woman bent down with a huff. Well don’t get too excited, now. Jess couldn’t tell if she was annoyed by the miscalibrated robot or her, but she had a feeling it was a bit of both. Before Jess had a moment to say it was still too tight, the supervisor was back on the assembly line, adjusting the tie on another Beta.
Looking down over her chest, craning to see the bottom strap still digging into her wide, fleshy hips, just above the flair of her skirt, Jessica was suddenly aware of the fact that she had never fastened or unfastened those buckles herself, even though they were the only barrier to her falling face-first to the floor. This thought faded away quickly, though. The life of a Beta in 2087 was hands-off, by design. She guessed from seeing the supervisors and teachers that Alphas were not pampered to the same level, even for convenience’s sake, so maybe they knew how to unclasp a buckle, or turn a doorknob, or write with a pen, or survive outside these walls, but she wouldn’t ever be expected to. Was that compromise really so bad?
Now, the standard chair for high school girls was a luxury compared to the group strollers of elementary school pushed by the supervisors, or even the automated chairs of middle school that ceaselessly dragged you down the hallway wherever you were scheduled to be next, so Jess thought it better not to complain, put her shoulder against the pressure-sensitive controls, and got on with her day.
