Insight

Chapter Eleven: Jurisdiction Check

"Culture classes start in ten minutes!" A voice on my wrist startled me into consciousness.

"Did anyone want to go to that?" John was asking. He'd reentered the cabin at some point while I was asleep and was on the floor with Iggy, Aiden, and Brandon. Lucy and Izzy were still curled up in their bunk, but everyone else was awake.

"Shit, I wanted to go." I said, basically falling down the ladder as I got down from the top bunk.

"I wanted to see what they were like, I don't know if I want to stay there however." Roxanne said.

Raven handed Brandon the itinerary with the map on the back. "So who all is going?"

"I am." I said. Moxy, Roxanne, Brandon, and Iggy all said they were coming as well and we exited the cabin, moving slowly and sorely in the direction of the educational building.

"You're two minutes late." An intimidating man greeted us, ushering us into what looked to be a traditional classroom. To my surprise, we were the only ones there, though the rest of the group seemed to have known that no one else would be there. "Actually, it doesn't really matter because I never have willing students the first few classes so I'm glad you're here." He closed the door as he entered the classroom himself and swept his dark brown hair out of his eyes. He didn't look much older than twenty and didn't have the demeanor of the Nurses. "By the way, my name is Chris Drak. You're supposed to call me like Nurse Chris or something but I'm not a Nurse, I'm an educator."

"Can we call you Dracula?" Moxy joked.

"I'd really rather you not." Chris Drak responded.

"What about Mr. Drak?" Iggy said, a bit more respectfully.

"Now that I wouldn't oppose to. Why don't you guys get situated as I grab the lesson plan."

I took a seat in the front of the classroom and immediately saw that the desk was not wooden, though it had that appearance. Instead, it seemed to be made of a plastic or glass substance and the direction of the grain changed if it was touched. I tapped on it, watching the wood picture waver, intrigued.

"It's not going to work until I program it to." Mr. Drak stated, reentering the room.

"I-what? I don't understand what this is." I said.

"Boy, your friend is stupid." Mr. Drak joked, which I got but Moxy didn't and immediately started to defend me. "Man, she has some kind of memory loss-"

Mr. Drak cut her off. "I know, Nurse Allison let all of the camp workers know about it. They're actually currently working to see if you can reverse the amnesia. They think it's a side effect of the batch of anti-serum they gave you. That batch was thrown out though, so there's little chance of this happening again. The desk, however, is something I can explain. It's an InterFace® and I can program it so it has worksheets or guides or any sort of information on the desktop, even videos. And I can program it so you can write in answers if there were a worksheet. They also print."

Nobody else seemed impressed and I remembered something of touchscreen technology so I wasn't either. "Alright."

"Yeah. But this isn't a tech class, that's Precious's specialty. I teach culture, and I hope you all find it as interesting as I do." I nodded in response, though no one else gave any sort of indication that they even heard him.

"I guess we get started. Let's see, what are the most basic cultural differences between here and dreamscapes? When I returned from mine I was somewhat confused by the handshakes. We'll start there. Any of you remember the handshakes here? I doubt any of you really made it to far out of the Educational Boxes to experience them."