Two More Years
by G. Allen Wilbanks
Stinson Cole gazed out over the neat rows of desks in his classroom pod and at the gleaming, helmeted heads of his students uniformly bowed over their test sheets. The room was quiet but for the soft squeak of grease pencils on scoresheets and the occasional shifting of a nervous teenager in his or her seat.
“Roland, please keep your eyes on your own test,” Stinson commented, his voice a low basso rumble that carried easily through the room.
The student he had called out hurriedly snapped his head back into alignment with his desk.
There’s always one, Stinson thought. They must think I’m blind or senile to try that while I’m sitting up here.
He settled back into his chair and smiled slightly as he let his mind begin to wander. I just need to get through two more years, he told himself. Two more lousy years and I can retire; barricade myself into a pod cluster that doesn’t allow anybody under the age of fifty to come within a hundred kilometers. Twenty-two months and I never have to deal with these acne-riddled, hormone-driven creatures again.
The timer on his desk began to flash red, catching his attention as it counted down the final twenty seconds. He watched the numbers decrease all the way to zero then, dragging a finger across the desk’s smooth surface, he cleared the timer from his display.
“Time is up,” Stinson announced. “Please secure your pencils and pass your tests forward.”
He tapped a corner of the control display in front of him, and the lighted screens displaying the test questions on each of the students’ desks faded to a neutral black.
There were a few groans and some final, hurried writing, then a series of small clicks as the students clipped their writing instruments into their individual holders. The reusable, clear plastic answer cards were passed forward to the desks at the front of the classroom until each of the four students directly facing Stinson held a small bundle of the stiff, transparent sheets.
The four teenagers in the front row removed bulky, metal clasps from their desks and clipped the pages together, then held the bound stacks out in the air in front of them. Stinson raised his gloved right hand and, as each student released the papers, he used the directional magnet in his palm to “grasp” the metal clasps and pull the tests back to where he remained seated in his chair.
Before he could claim the fourth bundle of cards, the girl seated furthest to his right flipped the stack in her hand so that it tumbled lazily forward through the artificial atmosphere. The papers reached Stinson’s desk and came to rest against a cheap, plastic “Our Favorite Teacher” trophy that had been given to him by a group of students from a class many years ago. The clasp made a soft clinking noise as it struck the trophy.
“Showing off a little bit, Timma?” Stinson asked the girl.
The student he addressed as Timma smiled and blushed slightly. “Yes, Mr. Cole,” she agreed. “Just a little.”
“Mm-hmm,” Stinson commented, otherwise choosing to ignore the incident.
He pulled the clasps from the test bundles and slapped the plastic sheets into pile in front of him, holding them a moment so they would stay on the flat surface. He released each clasp as he removed it and let it hover by his head until the students reclaimed them with their own directional magnets. The kids snatched the metal items out of the air and fastened them back to where they had previously been secured at their seats.
Stinson glanced at the clock on his control screen. “Class is going to end in a few minutes. So, if you can keep the noise level to a minimum, I will allow you to have some free-float time, and I can get a head start on grading your tests. Does that sound acceptable to you?”
In response, several students turned off the magnets in their desk chairs and released their tethers. They drifted upward and leisurely began to separate into various groupings. A few students remained where they were, reactivating the screens on their desks and accessing the media and entertainment information streams.
Stinson removed the first test sheet from the stack on his desk. Placing it against his control screen, he centered the page along the highlighted red guidelines. When it was situated properly, he keyed in the student’s name and tapped the appropriate controls to activate the scoring function. His screen flickered briefly to indicate it had received the command and was reviewing the answers marked on the sheet. After a few moments, large, blocky numbers filled the screen, followed by a question.
82 %
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Stinson tapped the screen twice with his forefinger, giving the computer permission to add the score and average it into the student’s overall performance for the semester. He set the sheet aside and reached for the next test in the pile.
The next two tests looked as good as the first. Both students had scored in the high 80’s, and Stinson was beginning to feel hopeful about the overall outcome of this quiz. But as the computer evaluated the next test in the stack, it flashed red before displaying the score.
24 %
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The test belonged to a boy named Minder. Minder was a sweet kid, and he tried hard, but schoolwork was definitely not one of his strengths. The crueler kids in class might say the boy had spent too much time between pods with his visor open. Still, 24% seemed ridiculously low, even for Minder. The boy was slow, not addled.
Stinson looked out over the classroom. Minder was still at his desk, scrolling through something on his screen. He was seated at desk 18, and Stinson knew that computer had been a little glitchy lately. It was certainly possible his test had been compromised in some way, and Minder was the kind of kid that wouldn’t have complained if something had gone wrong. The screen could have been blank the entire time and the boy would never have said a word. He was too self-conscious; never wanting to be perceived as a complainer or a problem.
Stinson set the test aside, deciding that he would run a diagnostic of desk 18 after the kids had left for the day. He would hand-score Minder’s test afterwards. It would take longer, but the kid deserved that much consideration. He ran his index finger over the display screen, right to left, discarding the score without downloading it.
A brilliant flicker of multi-colored lights caught Stinson’s eye as he was reaching for the next test to grade. He glanced toward the ceiling in time to see one of the students, Jack, holding a flashing ball about the size of two clenched fists in his right hand. As Stinson watched, Jack braced his left hand on a wall behind him and threw the ball across the room. The ball struck another student in the chest, the momentum sending the second boy into an awkward, slow-motion backflip.
The victim, Harru, was able to right himself easily with a few light “touches” from the magnets in his gloves against various anchor points around the room. Harru was not harmed by the attack. In fact, both boys were now facing each other, laughing. Still, protocols needed to be followed.
“Jack!” Stinson called out. “What are the rules about projectiles in the pod?”
“But, Mr. Cole, Harru asked to see it,” Jack complained, pointing at Harru who now held the flashing ball while looking as guilty and embarrassed as if he been the one caught throwing it.
“The reason doesn’t matter,” Stinson said, remaining firm. “If you throw it, it belongs to me. Harru, please send it over here.”
Harru glanced at Jack, mouthed, “Sorry,” then held the ball out in front of himself. He released it, watching it hover by his face for a moment before tapping the glowing sphere with two fingers, sending it moving across the classroom at a more acceptable pace than it had previously been travelling.
Stinson caught the ball and, as he touched it, the toy responded with a new series of colored flashes. He recognized the item as one of the Beckett Lamps that had recently entered the market. The Lamp would react to any touch with a simple light response and, if a user was talented enough, they could work the ball through a series of mathematically coded displays. The desired outcome for any Lamp user was to take the toy through ten perfect displays without any errors. The ball would then glow solid green for ten minutes to demonstrate it had been defeated and to establish the user’s bragging rights.
Other than the Beckett Lamps that were still in the box with the factory settings intact, Stinson had never seen one glow green. He traced one finger along the edge of the ball. A streak of purple light followed the contact before the pattern scattered into a confetti of red and blue flickers.
These things were ridiculously expensive, Stinson knew, and he would have to return it to Jack eventually. He couldn’t just keep it, classroom rules or not.
“You can have this back at the end of the week when you turn in your essay,” Stinson said to Jack, securing the Lamp in one of his desk drawers.
“Um... essay?” asked Jack, knowing he was opening a trap but unable to simply ignore the statement. After all, he did want his Lamp back.
“Yes. Your one-thousand-word essay on why projectiles in zero gravity are dangerous in a closed environment.”
A few students laughed. Jack just slumped his shoulders and nodded. “Okay, Mr. Cole.”
A series of soft tones chimed through the room. Students reacted to the sound as though an electric jolt had run through them.
“Wait!” called out Stinson. The students froze in place; runners tensed at the starting line and waiting for the starter pistol.
Stinson gathered up the tests and placed them into a clip that had been permanently affixed to the surface of his desk. He then did a visual inspection of all the items in front of him, making sure nothing was unsecured. When he was satisfied that he had not forgotten anything, he nodded.
“Okay,” he announced. “Have a nice night, and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
As the students piled out of the classroom in a frenzy of noise and activity, Stinson secured the visor of his helmet over his face, holding it in place until he heard the click and hiss that announced his suit was airtight.
He placed his hands in his lap and waited.
It took less than a minute before he heard a horrendous roar and felt the air in the classroom explode outward through the open door toward the pod exit bays. Stinson shook his head ruefully.
The pod exit bays were sally-ported, and the programs that regulated the use of the bays made it impossible to open the outer door of the sally port if the inner door was not completely sealed. But, back when the pod was still new, some enterprising young student had discovered that if he hung back and waited for the rest of the class to leave, he could code open the inner door a fraction of a second before the outer door had fully closed. This resulted in an explosive decompression of the entire school pod. Once the flaw was uncovered, it became a regular game at the end of the school day for one or more students to attempt to “pop the pod.”
It was extremely annoying to the occupants, but the discomfort only lasted a moment, and it did no real damage to people or property. Also, the reprogramming to fix this oversight would be expensive, and the school board was never exactly flush with funding, so they had elected not to correct the problem.
Fortunately, the timing of the bay doors was tricky, so although somebody almost invariably tried to “pop the pod” each day, it was only on rare occasions — like today — that someone actually managed it. Regardless, Stinson always prepared for the eventuality.
When the room had settled, and the air circulators kicked into high gear to repair the disruption to the atmosphere, Stinson re-opened his visor and removed the testing sheets from their clip. He settled the pages on his desk and prepared to resume his grading.
The room exploded again. Stinson’s ears popped painfully and began to ring as the air pressure abruptly changed around him. The tests resting next to him launched into the air like a frightened flock of terrestrial birds taking flight.
“Void!” he cursed, glaring at the slowly expanding cloud of clear, plastic pages rotating gracefully over his head. Stinson released the tethers that held him to his desk and moved to gather up the errant tests.
“Two more years,” he growled.
Copyright © 2021 by G. Allen Wilbanks
