Their heads snapped up and looked right at him, "Hey! You there, hold!" Acting on sheer instinct alone, Turbo ran. The pair of sprites had a hard time keeping up with him. He knew these streets well, but they were trained and equipped for this. He went to turn a corner and was bound in restraint bands. He smashed into a pile of boxes and canisters. The whole world swam for a moment and the next thing he knew he was being lifted up out of the debris. He cringed, expecting the worse, when heard his captor speak. "What have we got here?"

He slowly opened his eyes to see the other one walking over. It was a woman. "My, my. Congratulations. You've captured a little kid." She laughed.

"That's not all." The man sat him down and pointed his fist at him. "Surge, release." The odd box object mounted on his arm clicked for a moment and then drew in the restraint bonds. "I think we found something special." He said this while kneeling down to be at Turbo's level. Now Turbo could see the man clearly. His uniform and gold icon clearly identified him as a Guardian. Not an azure, he had no wings and his skin was bright yellow, but he was a Guardian.

"What do you mean?" the woman walked close enough that he could he see her, too. She was also a Guardian, she had no wings either, but her blue skin meant she was a half-breed. Just like him.

The man reached over and laid his hand on Turbo's shoulder and said to the woman, "Look…" He then put his keytool near the boy's face and said, "Surge, light." A light shone out of the box showing the woman Turbo's blue skin and his gold icon. "He's a mix."

The two Guardians took him back to their craft down the street and told him to wait there; they'd be back in a few nanos. They didn't take long; the CPUs had found the hacker on their own. They heard Turbo's story and took him off to the Academy. They explained that because he had been born with the Guardian protocol, he couldn't be turned away. He was guaranteed admittance.

He spent the next three cycles in the student barracks. At this time they were empty. The students were on a break, leaving him free range of the rooms. He was given his cadet uniform and several read-me files from the student library. He enjoyed this time. No worries, no nulls, no gangs. Just warm meals and a soft bed. All by himself. But he knew that wouldn't last long. In three cycles the students would be back and he would have to learn a whole new set of rules.

Part two:

The Unexpected

The first cycle of class was unforgettable. All the new cadets were standing out in the main courtyard. This was when their main instructors observed their behavior and made first introductions. It also gave the setup for how things were going to be. The first thing Turbo noticed was that while the data sprites and half-breeds intermixed rather easily, the two other types of cadets kept themselves very separate.

One of the two groups was an odd looking set called hunter Guardians. These were an adaptation of the azures. They were huge, all of them. They stood at least a head taller than everyone else and they were built like brick walls. Their skin color varied from a pale baby blue to a dark navy, and there didn't seem to be any order to their hair color. They seemed very blunt and aggressive and he didn't think he wanted to get much closer to them.

The other group was the azures. They had small lean builds, even for children. Their skin color varied similar to the hunter's and hair color was usually silver or another type of metallic, and was always long and pulled back into a slick ponytail. Their uniforms were slightly different than everyone else's. Instead of yellow trim, they had gray and had an odd overcoat on top. They called the coat a skiff. It was of a thin material and from mid chest up it looked like a high collared, button up shirt. But at about the end of their breastbone the buttons ended and hung open down to the ground. They had slits in the back of them for their large, sweeping wings. Their wings were the same color as their hair. And they stretched them casually as they spoke to each other.

He knew a little about the azure culture. Everything was based very strongly on what house your family name was from. At the top of each house was a ruling nobility, and everyone had a class-level down from that. Half-breeds and data sprites that had gotten their protocols from azures were considered parts of the house that their parents or patrons were from.

He was trying to hear their odd "multiple" voices, when one of the instructors came up behind him. "Hey!" Turbo jumped out of his skin, and snapped to attention. The man was a very severe looking half-breed. "What's your name boy?"

"Turbo, sir."

"Turbo… the one they brought in from the lower sectors, right? Well listen here boy, I don't know what you thought you were doing there, but I suggest you stop it. Only azures deal with azures and only mixes from very high houses can even speak with them. So you, an orphaned, nameless, bastard, has no place being anywhere near them. And if you ever forget that, they'll remind you. Just remember your place and you won't have any problems. Got it? Good." And with that he walked away. After that cheery speech, Turbo had wandered off and found somewhere to sit alone.

'Well, then. That's how it is.' He could deal with that. Being at the bottom of the pile here was still a lot better than being at the top back home. They might not like him, but he was going to do his job well, and maybe he might climb up to a decent rank, someday.