[b]December 3rd, 2019
9:10 AM, PT
Satomi Towers, Coast City[/b]

[hr][center][h3][color=#22ff00][u]Echo[/u][/color][/h3][/center]

Ezra would be going to school soon, his class would be in a couple hours. He used his dwindling spare time to great effect though, finishing the process on that ecto-crystal he’d been making over the last month. It’d only taken so long because he hadn’t cared very much, it was just something to satisfy his boredom with, but now he had an idea; the ecto-crystal was essentially crystallized dense ectoplasm ordered into a very specific shape. What uses did ectoplasm have again? Oh, that’s right, it was only the source of power for his entire civilization. His people had used liquid-infused ectoplasm, using several processes to simply harvest the energy directly from Zon, gradually becoming more potent as they advanced, but he didn’t have access to the low-level never ending ecto-radioactive rays of Zon, instead he had his own core, what amounted to his heart, which was constantly bleeding pure ectoplasm, enough to bleed the excess outside himself in the form of this crystal.

He and Jessie were exploring entirely new concepts for the both of them: blending their two worlds’ technological principles was a difficult task, but he was a son of House D’sra, this was his family’s life work, their expertise, and Jessie had proved she was no pushover either, she would have easily been accepted as one of his parents’ students had she been an Ectonian. The thought was as cheering as it was anguishing.

That wasn’t important now though, he waved his errant thoughts away and focused at the task at hand, rubbing his eyes to relieve some of the strain and narrowing his eyes to better see the newest, and last, layer as it carefully coated the crystal and began crystallizing.
There. Perfect. Now he and Jessie could use it as a power source, with any luck they could design a computer, or better yet an AI- an Ectonian sy’lhf would be brilliant: the crystal could be it’s heart! Oh, but converting the crystal into an AI core would be so complicated, they didn’t have the equipment to build it, and he doubted the human computers would be capable of programming it… He sighed, disappointed. He’d almost gotten carried away with that idea, a little slice of Ghol here on Earth just for him.

His phone hummed on the nearby table, and he peered over to see Jessie’s message; [i]"Ez, meet me for lunch on campus today after class. Want to talk to you about the crazy happenings in the news, and show you something. I have some plans for our tech project that I need to run by you."[/i]

Perfect, he could tell her about the ecto-crystal then.

[hr]

[b]11:10 AM, PT
CCC, Coast City[/b]

Ezra was so confused.

He hid behind a beanie, a thick pair of sunglasses, and a large white scarf that swallowed half his face to obscure his green blush of embarrassment. He’d accidentally answered the Professor’s questionnaire in Ghaszic, his first language, which had a very scribbly, loopy, scratchy writing style to it. Such a mistake was sure to draw unwanted attention, but he hadn’t noticed until the professor proclaimed; “I didn’t know you were Russian.” Ezra had muttered a bunch of incomprehensible excuses and apologies and then rewritten the paper in English, but he was still so confused; was it common for humans to write in alien languages when they were rushing? Little did he know, Ghaszic, and most other Gholic languages, had an uncanny resemblance to particularly messy Russian cursive.

He found one of those small, round, two-person tables by the window inside the college’s Big Belly Burger outlet and sat down, once again thankful this world was so full of bright days. He placed his laptop on the table and started on some of the new assignments while he waited for Jessie to show up, having sent a short [i]”im at bbb’s”[/i] to her as he walked in. His laptop wasn’t very fancy, it was actually one of the cheaper ones, but it allowed him to do his assignments and listen to music so he couldn’t complain too much. Well, he could, but he doubted he could afford, or find, a computer advanced enough to fit his tastes, so the cheap one he could afford was as good as he needed.

[i]For now,[/i] he thought, remember the planning he and Jess had been doing. The computer was good enough, but not for much longer.