- Pronoun
- they or she
Civilisation. History. Innovation drives it all – new ideas pushing towards the future, obliterating the what-was in those fires of invention that forge the what-will-be. There's such optimism in the notion of bringing bright young minds together to build a better world. Perhaps even arrogance. But the future comes all the same.
Veiled from the inner city by strips of wooded parkland and red-brick walls, the campus of the Howard Sparkwright Polytechnic Institute sheltered like a pearl within a mollusc's shell. In the campus grounds, ivy trellises and flagstone paths paid a quiet lip service to respectable tradition – as did the grand fountain, the brass plaques of dedication on each wing to their chief benefactors, and the bronze memorial statues of successful alumni, rubbed golden in places by hundreds of passers-by paying their tribute over the years.
Inside, however, it buzzed night and day, its bright interiors of amber and white an electric honeycomb of activity. Sparkwright, that eccentric old Rotom coot, had given his all to create his 'Foundry of the New' in these halls. Turbines, driven not by coal furnaces, but by natural wind (of which Novelux had great excess) powered the site without need for the city grid. Every wall in this place burned internally with electric power, a font which powered lights, ovens, walk-in freezers, machines and inventions of every kind.
There was always more besides. Here, a seminar room where restless students peppered their tutors with questions and petitions. Here, a lecture hall that hosted any speaker controversial enough to be interesting, let alone inspiring. Here, a dormitory wing which barely slept for studious fervour and impromptu gatherings. Here, a workshop where power tools screamed and welding torches growled. Here, a laboratory to put the alchemists of old Akkairos to shame, conical flasks and spiralling tubes ushering chemical compounds into new forms with a hiss and a bubble of reaction. A given object or substance could hardly make it a day without converting or changing in some way or another.
The same was surely true of the students. Perhaps it would be true of any curious offworlders open to its deluge of invention.
Veiled from the inner city by strips of wooded parkland and red-brick walls, the campus of the Howard Sparkwright Polytechnic Institute sheltered like a pearl within a mollusc's shell. In the campus grounds, ivy trellises and flagstone paths paid a quiet lip service to respectable tradition – as did the grand fountain, the brass plaques of dedication on each wing to their chief benefactors, and the bronze memorial statues of successful alumni, rubbed golden in places by hundreds of passers-by paying their tribute over the years.
Inside, however, it buzzed night and day, its bright interiors of amber and white an electric honeycomb of activity. Sparkwright, that eccentric old Rotom coot, had given his all to create his 'Foundry of the New' in these halls. Turbines, driven not by coal furnaces, but by natural wind (of which Novelux had great excess) powered the site without need for the city grid. Every wall in this place burned internally with electric power, a font which powered lights, ovens, walk-in freezers, machines and inventions of every kind.
There was always more besides. Here, a seminar room where restless students peppered their tutors with questions and petitions. Here, a lecture hall that hosted any speaker controversial enough to be interesting, let alone inspiring. Here, a dormitory wing which barely slept for studious fervour and impromptu gatherings. Here, a workshop where power tools screamed and welding torches growled. Here, a laboratory to put the alchemists of old Akkairos to shame, conical flasks and spiralling tubes ushering chemical compounds into new forms with a hiss and a bubble of reaction. A given object or substance could hardly make it a day without converting or changing in some way or another.
The same was surely true of the students. Perhaps it would be true of any curious offworlders open to its deluge of invention.
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Many thanks to @MintyMimix for their help in writing this up.
