I sit down at the desk and put on the learning glasses. They darken and immediately switch into virtual reality mode.
I’m sitting in the middle row of a large auditorium. There are hundreds of students all around me. Down below, a middle-aged man with a briefcase shambles across the stage to a podium. As he walks, he looks up at the class and says, “Today, we will cover Newton’s three laws of motion.”
I groan to myself. Just perfect. My first class in the future, and it’s physics.
“You’re going to be late,” a voice says from beside me.
I turn, and the glasses change what I see. Noah, the boy from the hallway, is sitting in the seat next to me. The glasses have a scratch on the left lens, making it look like he has a scar across his face.
“Late for what?” I ask him.
“I can’t hear you,” he says. “Your glasses are in self-mode.”
“What’s self-mode?”
A voice says, “Self-mode allows you to communicate with your learning glasses privately. To switch between self and chat mode, say the mode you wish to enter followed by the word on.”
It takes me a second to realize the voice is part of the glasses, kind of like a live how-to guide. I tell the glasses to switch to chat mode and a soft chime sounds.
“Can you hear me now?” I ask Noah.
He nods and says, “You’re going to be late.”
“What?”
He points up. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but there’s an electronic dashboard across the top of the glasses. It’s showing an icon with two faces, and a flashing yellow light. While I’m studying the dashboard, the light turns red.
Noah grins. “Welcome to demerit club. Next time, sign-in right away. See you later.”
“Wait. How do I sign-in?”
He disappears without answering, and a girl appears in his seat. She must have heard my question because she tells me to say my name and the word present.
“Fumie Nakamura, present.”
“Not now, dummy,” she says light-heartedly. “You’ve got to do it before class begins. And you’ve got to be in self-mode.”
I start to thank her and she says, “Shh…If you keep talking, we’ll both end up with demerits.”
I mouth, “Sorry.”
She smiles and turns away. Wondering where Noah went, I search the auditorium and find him sitting in the topmost row next to Madison. She sees me looking and glares back. Just what I don’t need—a jealous psychopath hating on me. I jerk my attention back to the podium in time to see the teacher pick up a piece of chalk and scribble on a giant blackboard.
F = M x A
“Does anyone recognize this equation?” he asks.
Even though it’s basic grade nine physics, the class is silent, pretty much like every other class I’ve ever been in. I mutter the answer under my breath, “Force equals mass times acceleration.”
The teacher and most of the class stare at me.Cringing inside, I glance at the dashboard and realize I forgot to turn chat-mode off.
“Thank you, Ms. Nakamura,” the teacher says. “Can you tell us which of Newton’s three laws it is?”
“Um…The second law?”
“And can you describe what the second law means in physical terms?”
I recite what I learned in school last year. “The more mass an object has, the more force you need to accelerate it.”
“Very good. I am awarding you two merit points.”
I feel a hundred pair of eyes on me. Just great, I’m not only the new kid, I’m the keener. I slouch down in my seat and mutter, “Self-mode on.”
* * *
When class finishes, the other students disappear and blink out of existence one by one. I reach up to take off my glasses, but stop when a voice calls my name.
“Fumie Nakamura?”
“Yes?”
Everything around me changes. I’m not in the auditorium any more. I’m sitting at a desk in an empty classroom. There’s a woman standing in front of a blackboard. Her hair is done up in a bun, and she’s wearing a sweater and knee-length skirt. A pair of glasses perch precariously on the tip of her nose. She’s the perfect cliche of a librarian in every movie I’ve ever seen. When she speaks, her voice has the same not-quite-human sound to it as the AI back in the hotel.
“Good evening, Fumie Nakamura,” she says. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” Wondering if I’m being rude, I ask, “Are you a real person?”
“I am a Synth,” she replies.
“What’s that?”
“A Synth is a synthesis of physical and personality characteristics that most accurately typify the ideal representation of the entity you are interacting with.”
I only understand half of what she’s said, but I get the point. “So, you’re not human?”
“That is correct,” she says. To be exact, I am an artificial construct assigned to you by the Department of Child Services. Among other things, I am your academic chaperone. You may call me Escalante. May I call you Fumie?”
“Sure.”
“Fumie,” she says, scolding me. “You were late for class.”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t know I was suppose to sign-in.”
“Ignorance is not an excuse,” she says, sounding an awful lot like my old principal, Mrs. Murphy. “You also did not take notes during class. Are you eidetic?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you have a photographic memory?”
“No.”
“Then you are required to take notes.”
There’s a soft knock on my room door. I hear a voice whisper, “Fumie, are you there?”
“Who is it?”
“Noah.”
Noah?
Escalante scowls when I start to get up to answer the door. “Fumie, Pay attention. Are you aware that failure to take notes will result in additional demerits?”
I shake my head.
She says, “I require verbal confirmation to notarize your acceptance of this rule.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“There is a Memoro in your desk drawer,” she says. “In the future, please use it to take notes during class.”
Curious what a Memoro is, I raise the learning glasses so I can see in the real world. I open the desk drawer. Inside is a silver-colored writing stylus and a thin binder with a handful of blank sheets resembling paper. It’s a bit of a let-down. The Memoro is nothing more than a fancy electronic notebook.
When I slide the glasses back on, Escalante is frozen in a weird loop like she’s waiting for me to say something. “Uh, Hello? I found the thing you were talking about.”
She unfreezes and comes back to life. “Good. Please use it. I will check your notes after every class. “Would you like to review today’s lesson on Newton’s Three Laws of Motion?”
God, no. That’s the last thing I want to do. “No thanks.”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but Escalante sounds disappointed that I don’t want her help. “Very well,” she says. “I am available whenever you require my assistance. Good-bye.”
The second Escalante disappears, I take off the glasses and run to the door. Noah is half-way down the corridor. I call out his name. He spins around and hurries back. After Kamila’s warning, I half-expect Noah to start hitting on me, but he doesn’t.
“Not so loud” he says, looking around nervously. “It’s lights out in a minute, and if we’re caught outside our rooms, we’ll get a demerit. I was just wondering how you liked class.”
“It was okay. How about you?”
Noah shrugs and says, “School’s not really my thing, but you seem smart.”
I feel my face flush. Don’t get me wrong. Being told I’m smart is nice and everything, but I’m not. I’m more average than anything—maybe a little better than average in some things. But I’m no genius, that’s for sure.
“Why do you think I’m smart?” I ask him.
“Because in class you knew all that Newton’s law stuff.”
“We learned about it at my old school.”
Noah nods like that doesn’t make any difference. “Yeah, but you remembered it. I can’t even remember what we learned in yesterday’s class. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Will you tutor me?”
To say I’m stunned would be an understatement. Of all the things he could have asked me, that wasn’t even on the list.
“Me?”
He nods.
“Why?”
“Because you’re smart.”
“I’m not, but I meant why do you need a tutor?”
For the first time since we started talking, Noah stares me in the eyes and says, “I’m not like Madison and the others. I hate sims. EEs are the only thing that keep me sane, and if I get more demerits, I won’t be allowed to go out on them.” He leans in closer, almost begging me and says, “Please, Fumie. I need your help, but you can’t tell anyone, especially Madison because she’ll—”
“Noah!”
At the sound of Madison’s voice, Noah and I move apart so fast it’s like we’ve been split in two by an axe. Even from a dozen feet away, I can see the jealousy in Madison’s eyes as she stomps down the hallway towards us.
“What are you two doing?” she demands.
Noah mutely stares back at her. When he doesn’t say anything, she turns her attention to me.
“I asked you what you were doing?”
“Nothing.”
Madison glares at me and says, “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
Normally, I’d let it go, but there’s something about her that immediately gets under my skin. “I don’t care what it looks like to you. We were just talking.”
She takes a threatening step in my direction and smirks when I jump back. “A little nervous, aren’t you Few-Me Whack-A-Mural? I wonder what would happen if Kamila found out you were out of your room this close to lights out.”
I stare back at Madison and smile. “Funny, I was just wondering the same thing.
The hall lights blink on and off. Noah puts a hand on Madison’s arm and says, “Thirty seconds to lights out. If Kamila catches us in the hallway, we’ll all end up with demerits. Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room.” Madison glowers at me and stomps off. Noah gives me an apologetic look and chases after her.
Just perfect. I’ve only been here less than a day, and I’ve already made my first enemy. So much for staying under the radar.