The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 14 : A Packed Day

When Dusk left Lab 3, she saw her next course was on "Wireless Communication" starting at 12:45. That meant she had a total of 15 minutes to grab something to eat and reach the class. Going to Military Building was out of question. Even going to any of the student food outlets in the tech building was not possible. Looked like the Great Galactic Spirit (not that she believed in those spiritual / religious stuff) was taking revenge on her for the good food she got the previous day.

As she was walking hurriedly towards the next class, she saw a vending machine which had ready to eat snacks. She hurriedly got a large sized soft buttery, spongy sweet roll which was oozing with chocolate and black-current syrup, an energy bar and a can of non-alcoholic bubbly drink. She stood for a few minutes next to the machine while she finished the roll and then continued walking to the class nibbling the energy bar and taking gulps of the drink. It was not same as a proper lunch, and much less cost effective, but well within her food budget since the breakfast did not cost her anything and she got free food the previous day.

She entered the class and though she was not late, the Professor was already there. It was a lady by the name of Susan. She was one of those who, unlike Elton, unhappy that she had to spend extra time to coach Dusk. So, she simply told her to join the lecture and try to catch up and that she would send her materials on the previous 2 weeks.

Fortunately, the topic on wireless signals and communication protocol were not completely foreign to her. She had a course on that in college, so she knew the basics. Most of what was done in the lectures before were basic, however some of the items were new to her. Therefore, she had to quickly pull up reference materials and definitions on her sixth-sense to understand some of the things while ensuring she did not miss what the teacher was explaining in the class. If she did miss a portion of her current lecture, then she would be in more trouble. Professor Susan did not look like someone who would take kindly to a student coming up to say she missed a part of the session. It was starting to give her a headache.

The topic of the day was focused on frequency and range of wireless communications. So at least most of it she could understand.

Suddenly the professor decided to move into a quiz format. She started asking questions to students at random. Dusk could not figure out whether this was topic covered in the previous weeks or something she just expected students to know.

This classroom was different in layout as compared to the previous one. However, it was more sophisticated. When a question was asked, the desk where the student was, lit up. If the teacher wanted, she could have the image of the student asking the question (or being asked) appear on the huge screen at the front of the class.

Suddenly, Dusk's desk lit up and her face came up on the screen. She immediately bolted up, but not before the entire class saw her slouched in her seat looking into the display put up by her Sixth-Sense. A ripple of laughter went through the class as she looked around in panic.

"What is the maximum distance of CRNC Com?"

Dusk looked blank. What in the world was CRNC? She saw all the other students were looking at her, smirking. Some were silently laughing too. The professor looked irritated, as if she had asked simplest question to the class dunce... She was sure that the Professor would be more irritated if she looked at the Sixth-Sense to find the answer. Finally, she bit the bullet and said "Sorry Professor, I am not aware of the term."

The Professor looked her as if wondering why she was even in her class. Another desk lit up and the girl immediately answered gleefully "Close Range Non-Contact communication can happen within a range of 15 cm to 100 cm range. But in most cases, it would be impractical to allow it to exceed 30 cm. Practical maximum in design parameters is considered to be 45 cm"