Maya, alternate.

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Maya, alternate.

Maya had been one of few girls on the Rancho Buena Vista high School Robotics team, but, with all due respect to the moral and personal Virtues of the one or two others, she was the one that men would be most likely to notice as our token 'girl'.

She had only stopped by the state of California for one year. Her family moved with inexplicable frequency.

Within a few months, Maya had built up a following of people, not necessarily confined to her age group, that would have dearly loved to see her crucified for her views and the ardour with which she would defend them.

One deep indigo night, she handed me a Q'uran. She was just recovering from the gentle and almost innocent harassment of Vivik, an old friend with probing, logical eyes juxtaposing a maniacal grin, the former only relenting with a hysterical laughter that nonetheless failed to efface the latter.

She had intimated few things to me without ever really feeling close to me. As the deep December night settled into an uncertain, terrifyingly sedated future, standing in an alleyway between a row of trailers and a wall of classrooms, she told me that she had used to live on the internet for the longest time.

I commented on some headlights we saw from the street, postulating something to the effect of them being space aliens. She faked an awkward, stifled giggle.