Introspection

After making small talk with Zack (which ended up leaving Mason baffled as to how the man was still alive considering how he acted), Mason went upstairs all the way to the third floor to where his small room was located. Rustling in his pockets in silence for his key, he grasps hold of it and quickly inserts it into the doorknob, seeking to evade any unwelcome interaction with others. Unlike most other locations in such a high profile and technologically advanced city, scanners and the like for identity verification are practically nonexistent in such a poor area- the "archaic" methods are more the way of life here for a variety of things. He swiftly steps onto the cold hard floor within his room, and quickly, yet quietly, closes the door behind him, locking it with a satisfying click. Standing in the silence of his cramped room, he releases a heavy sigh from deep within him before subconsciously glancing around at his living space.

On his right he sees his small bed (barely enough for him to lay down on without hs feet dangling over the edge) with one set of sheets, enough for the colder days. He really appreciates how this planet is quite mild in terms of temperature, considering the faulty and decidedly old-school heating and air conditioning within the building is far from reliable. An incredibly small desk about the width of his small bed sits at the foot of said bed. On it is a laptop that is around twelve years out of date, but has it's uses. An incredibly small and out of date fridge sits in the left corner on the far end of the room, with a variety of miscellaneous helpful objects for cleaning sitting on top of it. On the left side of the room across from his bed is a door that leads to an even smaller bathroom, shared with another resident- though thankfully he has yet to actually share it, since the room next to his has remained vacant for quite some time. The small sink and shower is enough- the sink for things like cleaning whatever pot or pan he has laying around, and the shower for the sake of rinsing himself off if nothing else. The lukewarm water is still nothing special, but it is indeed something. Things like a stove are communal per floor... basically these free living spaces are like the dorm rooms of years long past. Adequate, but far from anything special.

And of course, the bathroom has a mirror. Shortly after peeling off his worn pair of shoes and even more worn pair of socks, Mason sets them to the side before stripping out of his commonly reused set of clothes, courtesy of a limited wardrobe- though he is at least thankful this isn't all he has. Now standing in front of the cracked and permanently stained mirror, he can't help but stare at himself in the mirror.

With ambiguously brown skin, curly hair down to his shoulders, and a firm and a merely "not bad" face, one would be hard pressed to find anything of significance about the seventeen year old youth besides the fact he didn't really act his age. If there's one thing that didn't change since the many years humans started to spread about the galaxy, it was the importance of youth... though the poor were conveniently void in this respect. However, there was one thing about Mason that could certainly be called unique-

It was the bizarre pattern on his chest.

On Mason's lean pectoral muscles down to his abdominal area at about the width of nearly shoulder to shoulder in a rectangular shape lay a black inscription of some sort of alien language.

Humans had indeed encountered aliens, but many of them disappeared from humanity's sight after they were initially spotted prior to interaction, as if avoiding the race entirely. One couldn't really blame them, since humans have a bad reputation even among humans, let alone an entirely different race of beings, humanoid or otherwise.

Yet in spite of the decidedly alien nature of the markings, Mason doubted that they were indeed of another race. After all, he was decidedly human, and this was the only thing clue Mason had as to who exactly he is- or, rather, who he was.

Mason had lost a majority of his memory.

Exactly one astral year prior, a total of four hundred days and twenty astral hours per day (a measurement kept constant throughout the entirety of the galaxy), Mason found himself standing outside the main office building for the outer residential area, with nothing but the clothes on his back and completely unaware of where he was. Shuffled inside by a worker left disgruntled by what he perceived to be loitering homeless man, he was shoved through a confusing registration process and given a room and a key, as well as told a set of rules, before he was shoved out of the front door before even two hours had passed, in a complete daze.

All he knew for sure was that his name was Mason, and that he was seventeen years old.

Finding work at a small restaurant in the outer city specializing in fare of whatever was in style (that usually led to mediocre food), he managed to keep himself alive with enough of a wage to feed and clothe himself. The strange markings on his chest, strangely enough, were completely imperceptible to any one other than him, no matter who he asked or seemed to "slip up" and show his chest to. More often than not that led to him being looked at like some kind of softcore exhibitionist, but that was besides the point.

The point was, everyone else was just as clueless about him as he was about himself. He had received no leads whatsoever over the past year, and had made zero progress toward interacting with potentially more learned people who could assist him. The only thing he managed to do was study one thing that caught his interest more than anything-

Exosuits. More specifically, piloting exosuits.

While consumer exosuits did exist, they were still far more expensive than what Mason could afford, and were also regulated strictly by law enforcement to only be used by those who are licensed to do so (at least officially), rendering something like "lending" an exosuit to someone being very difficult without serious sacrifices. Mason was also aware of how the only place that officially trained people to utilize, control, and maintain exosuits was in fact Dynamo University. It is still unknown as to why exactly an impartial party would train young men and women how to use powerful weapons, especially considering they come from a variety of different nations and with many different motives. Yet even with this bizarre state of affairs, fact remains Dynamo University is the only place most people think to turn to- and simply passing the criteria to attend there is a nigh impossible task, let alone having sufficient talent to be able to utilize an exosuit with enough proficiency to be licensed. With things like this being the case, it would seem Mason was completely out of his mind.

But through simply self study, Mason had reached quite the high level in terms of knowledge of how to pilot an exosuit, and had hid his steadily trained impressive control of his limited mental energy from all parties he interacted with on a daily basis, with him using his outdated phone to constantly browse and learn from the public knowledge of exosuit utilization and mental power training over the internet. Though as a result of this, he has literally no practical training for either of these fields whatsoever. Not just anything can be used as a conduit for mental energy (bar the case of a freakish aberrant talent that had only appeared once thus far in humanity's recorded history), so that was a no go, and the lack of personal exosuit use was obvious.

As Mason finished up his regular dissatisfying shower and dried himself off, stepping into his room to clothe himself for an early trip to bed, he saw a pristine white letter just next to his door, granting a sharp contrast to the bland, grey, unadorned color scheme of his room.

"...A letter?" Mason wondered aloud before crouching down and picking it up.

He could only think about how bizarre it was that there was a letter there, for several reasons.

One, he basically has never had anything other than the bare minimum interaction with other people up until now, even within his restaurant workplace-

Two, in such a poor location, who would even find him-

And three, who even sends letters anymore? Couldn't they have just sent an email or something?

Shaking his head at how out of date the sender must have been (unaware of the irony), noticing the lack of anything signifying who the sender was, he quickly tore it open, disregarding the beautiful paper it was made of (a rare sight, paper).

When glancing at the small slip within in curiosity, it took merely a second until he froze in absolute shock.

On the letter was the following-

You are hereby granted an automatic pass, being given the honored privilege of attending Dynamo University. This privilege is only extended toward classes related to exosuit piloting, hand-to-hand combat, and the training of mental acuity.

Mason's eyes shook, and a thought popped into his head-

Impartial and fair my foot! Isn't this clearly cheating my way into an entrance!?