The Clocks

NETWORK

The Qalla quietly opened the classroom door and performed a rapid survey. There were surprisingly few beings present, only nine in total. She usually timed her arrival so as to be in the middle of the influx, neither too early nor too late to be individually noticed. As she stepped inside, she felt the tingle of a personnel scanner and nearly collapsed in shock.

While the sensation was familiar, she'd never experienced it before except when passing through security at military bases. Being subjected to a scan upon entering a classroom was, well, frightening. What had she gotten herself into this time?

All the while she was thinking, she continued moving and took a seat in her favorite area, in the center of the classroom and five rows back from the front, right behind those reserved for the larger species that wouldn't fit in the smaller seats further back. With them blocking the view, she could then remain almost entirely unnoticed by the professors.

As she set up her data recorder, she took note of each of those who had preceeded her into the classroom and the seven who had thus far entered behind her. She recognized a total of two, both of whom had been part of the group she'd been in when they had confronted Professor Ptica about the reality of the information presented in App. Soc. VII.

Shock number two arrived, in the form of her realizing that, although queries to the university databases were functioning normally, she was unable transmit any data to her personal storage area. A hurried check showed that she was also unable to store data on any of the devices she had brought with her. A number of conversations around her took on a querulous tone as everyone else in the classroom appeared to be experiencing the same "problem."

Althought it was far, far too late to change anything, she accessed her memories of the process by which she had arrived here, hoping for at least a shred of enlightenment as to what was going on.

-------------------

It had been three weeks before spring break. She had been reviewing her plans for the next semester's classes when she had noticed that there was a new icon at the bottom of the Sociology Department's list of offerings. It was labeled only as "more." She activated it, curious as to why she'd either not noticed it before or why it had now appeared. As she reviewed the listings, she saw a number of interesting classes, though all of them had prerequisites that she did not as yet meet.

Scrolling down to the bottom of the list, she saw another "more" icon, but this one was very small and the color was one that, as far as she knew, was only visible to four species, one of which was hers. Intrigued, she clicked on the icon and was presented, as expected, with a new screen.

However, not as expected, there was only a single listing: Applied Sociology VIII-2.

Let's see, the prerequisite was....odd. There wasn't one listed though one would assume that it would be App. Soc. VIII. What was there was a box at the bottom of the page where one could obviously enter...something.

As she was pondering what that "something" might be, her datapad chimed with the tone indicating a secure message. Opening it, she saw an extremely long string of characters followed by a simple message: "Enter in class authorization window."

She'd known for years that the university collected all sorts of data on its students. That was a given and expected. What she hadn't known was that the university was tracking students as they reviewed lists of upcoming classes. That would merit further surreptitious investigation at a later date. For now, more than mildly intrigued, she did as instructed and hit "enter."

The screen flashed briefly, followed by a message: "Registration Accepted." After that the only information she received was a date, time, and classroom number.

-----------------

BAH! As expected, there was no useful data in her memory.

She checked the clock on the wall which indicated only one minute before class was to begin. She looked around again, noting the others present. Ah HA! All six of those who'd been with her at Professor Ptica's office were here now. The next thing she noticed was that there were, in total, only 48 beings present, rather than the 200+ that would normally be in a classroom this size. The next thing she became aware of was that there was nobody sitting in front of her. Rather than being obscured from the professor's vision, she was directly in front of the lectern. Given it was a perch-lectern, she realized that the professor in question must be Professor Ptica. She was the only avian member of the faculty in the Sociology Department.

While Qalla was fighting to retain consciousness, the professor entered and was, as expected, Ptica, who stalked across the floor and flitted up onto her perch. Had the Qalla been able to remain alert enough to observe Ptica's eyes, she would have noticed a glint of amusement as her gaze fell on the Qalla.

Ptica fluffed her feathers and began, "All of you here are those who, over the past five years, realized the truth behind App. Soc. VII. By now all of you have, or should have, noticed that the "record" functions of your data units are non-functional. By law nothing presented during this class may be discussed anywhere except in this classroom or in my office. What we are about to review is far more important than what you've seen in the App. Soc. VII and VIII, and, because of this, it is that much more sensitive."

Looking directly at the Qalla she continued, "Which explains why, as some of you noticed, my office is the only one in the university that can comfortably seat such a large number of beings."

As she continued to look at the Qalla, her tone took on a serious flavor, "From this point on, I shall not be playing with you any longer. No more glares, or remarks intended to intimidate.

"I know that you all spent some time in an attempt to obtain details on the length of this class, how many credits you'll receive for taking it, and so forth. When the time comes that you need such, your transcripts will indicate that in this time period you received five credit hours for 'Honors Independent Study in Sociology'. Should you be asked in the future, you will answer, truthfully, that the subject of your study involved a classified Local Sector Government project which you are forbidden from speaking about."

She added, with a chuckle, "Of the many tens of thousands of students in this university, only 0.3% graduate with credit for Honors Independent Study. That is the total for all departments, not just Sociology. Such students are highly prized by both government agencies and the private sector, even though none of them have the slightest idea of what it is involved in HIS, nor do they care. What they know is only one thing: Those graduates with such an honor always excel in whatever they're hired to do. I expect that you will all perform to the same standard.

She shrugged. "Enough of that. Let's get started."