We pulled up in front of a very large building. I stared at the sign above the door. "Cosworth Technological High School". I had grown used to seeing my initials on things around the mansion. In spite of my continued protests, someone kept lettering the towels, dishes, terminal towers... I'd pretty much given up that fight. It was one I was obviously not going to win.
I just couldn't get over seeing my name on buildings, though. My family's money built this school and kept it running. Inside were a fleet of HuTAs and nearly one hundred humans who all relied on the income from my credits to keep it all running, to teach nearly two thousand students. It was overwhelming. As we sat and stared at the building, the heavy burden of responsibility was almost enough to make me think like Jillian and put the damn tie and coat back on.
Almost.
I turned to tell Lynette just that when I remember she was at the manor resting. We had a party the night before and she had fun. "A little too much fun," as Christophe put it when we stumbled in very late. Well, Lynette stumbled. I was fine. I tried to keep her walking straight as quietly as possible. Christophe and Ralph had both been waiting up for us. It was long past the time we were supposed to get home and it was obvious they were worried...right up until the point where they smelled the liquor on Lynette's breath. Then the worry was gone to be replaced with outright anger.
Christophe dragged Lynette up the stairs. He didn't yell simply because he's Christophe and he didn't have to. Even drunk she knew she was in hot water. Ralph forced my mouth open and took a sniff.
I pulled away. "I didn't drink anything."
He poked me in the chest. "I don't care about that nearly as much as I care about you letting her get that way. Damn it, Jake! When you escort a lady out..."
I had to laugh. "She escorted me. I didn't even want to go to this party!"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared at me for a minute. He was trying to stay angry. I can always tell when he feels like he should be angry with something just because he's my guardian, even if he wouldn't give it another thought if he wasn't. "Look, kid. You're getting older and you really should learn how to treat a lady, even if she escorted you somewhere."
"She's older. She's wiser. It was her damn party, Ralph!" I knew what he was trying to say, but the facts were the facts. The plain and painful fact was that I was just a ticket into the door. It wasn't the first party Lynette went wild at. It was quickly becoming an uncomfortable habit for her to walk with me through the door, then ditch me until the end where she needed me to get her home in one piece. The night before was only the first time we got caught.
Ralph knew I was right. In hindsight, I think he knew about the other parties, too. Maybe he was just hoping she'd get it out of her system or get bored with it all. He lectured a little longer, but all the steam was gone. In the end, he told me I needed to stop taking her to the parties in the first place and sent me to bed. Christophe had dished out a punishment for Lynette, though he would not say what. She was in a world of misery that morning, both from the hangover and Christophe's censure, so I didn't want to make it worse by pestering her with questions. Whatever else the punishment entailed, it was made very clear that she was not to leave the house for days. That meant a solo trip for me to the place where I needed Lynette the most.
"Mr. Cosworth!" A short man in a bright green suit came running down the stairs towards us. He reminded me of Little Blob the way he moved and I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the comparison. Christophe nudged me and I stuck my hand out. He grabbed it and shook. And shook. And babbled. And shook.
"Nice to meet you, nice to meet you! I must say in person you could pass for any one of my students! Er, your students, I should say. Nice to meet you indeed! No doubt you've figured out that I'm Franklin Kindle, lead professor of the sciences here at Cosworth Tech." And shake. And shake.
Christophe stuck his own hand out. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kindle."
"And Christophe Venderi himself in our midst!" He almost looked more impressed with that fact. He changed from my hand to Christophe's and rambled as he tried to pump the life out of him as well.
"I cannot tell you what a boon this visit of yours is to our little bastion of academia. Of all of the schools in the StarTech system, to visit one so small...well, I don't think I need to say what that will do for the morale of the staff and students! I've said for years we've got a top notch program, top notch. In spite of the..."
"Mr. Kindle, it seems as if we're drawing a crowd out here."
Press had parked behind our transport. I was getting used to the oppressive constant followers, the shouted questions, the endless flashing clicks.
"Oh yes, I see!" The man kept Christophe's hand in a firm grip and posed for photos.
Christophe told me later not to be annoyed about it. "He's a small man in a large school system that doesn't have enough advertisers."
"I thought I funded it?"
"Mostly. But you couldn't possibly fund the entire thing."
"I couldn't?"
"Good gracious no!" He actually let out a rare laugh. "Not when you've got fifty three others you also have to fund."
"Oh." Why didn't I just give up a couple? Put that money into the others...
"Because if you do that, then the communities in which you closed schools would have no schools. You can't fund the world, Jacob. You must do what you can. It is up to the school to raise the rest of the funds. A few pictures with you, with me, will certainly draw advertising money."
Christophe took the pictures. He gave me a nod to do the same. When the shouted questions began in earnest, he gently tugged on Kindle's elbow and we started walking into the building.
The first thing I noticed was the silence. "We're during sessions," he explained.
"I expected to hear HuTA's." We stopped in front of a large window into a classroom. There were easily fifty students in there, with an almost human HuTA at the front of the room. He was making motions, pointing to a map, but there was no sound at all.
"The latest, the very latest!" Obviously Kindle was proud of the silence. "Each student has a headset." I looked closer and saw a thin band on each head. "The sound goes directly to the student. It keeps the order, keeps things quiet, promotes self learning."
"What are they studying?"
He looked at the door. "One twelve is geography."
"Ah."
"Shall we get to the labs?"
I didn't mind leaving the scene. It was creepy. And it was played out again and again as we passed classroom after classroom. A large window looked into a silent world of students allegedly learning. They sat still. They sat numb. They could have been all bots for all the life they looked like they had. "Yes. Let's see the labs."
As we approached the lab wing, I was relieved to hear noises. Voices. Teaching. "It does get a bit loud down here at times." He was apologizing for something that needed no apology.
"I like the sounds," I said.
Kindle gave me a weird look, but said nothing. We stopped in front of a classroom. This one had about half the students of the others and they were at different science stations around the room. The teacher was walking around talking. I could tell immediately it was a human teacher.
"Why no HuTA?"
"It was outlawed years ago to have a HuTA in certain educational positions, experimental labs being number one."
What an interesting law. "Why?"
"A bot's good at instilling knowledge, but they don't think on their feet fast enough. There's just no way to possibly program in every potential human error. And if there's one thing that teenagers are good at, it's error!" He laughed. Christophe gave a polite laugh.