Chapter 13: Plans are Made

After our seventh period class, we went to Sarah’s wing to wait near her locker. Our group was to meet there and then go to the club room that Sarah had arranged. Kids began wandering into the wing and hanging out, waiting. Then Sarah came rushing in.

“Guys, we’ve got a room in A wing, 130, for the meeting. Can someone wait here to let latecomers know where to go?” A guy volunteered, and we left, following Sarah.

Room 130 was a regular classroom. We pulled the desks into a circle and got comfortable—as comfortable as you can in a school desk, anyway. Everyone began looking around to see who was going to start off. So I did.

“Hey, guys. Thanks for showing up. I’m Kevin Coris, I’m new here; some of you might have heard my name.”

Much laughter.

“Yeah, buddy, anyone who’s not deaf has heard it!” someone joked.

“Yeah, well, it seems like I’ve gotten some advance publicity.” Snickers. “So here I am, and I’m pleased to meet all of you. The Programers-in-waiting, like Sarah’s called us, decided to try to do something about the way the Program will run this year. Let’s start by introducing the people who got picked first.”

The kids in the Program group said their names and grades.

“Ok, are there any last year Program survivors here?”

Eight were here of the total of eleven from the spring Program group.

“Thanks. You guys will be a great help as our consultants. Sarah, who did you find to join the working group? I think everyone knows in general what we’re gonna try to do, right?”

Nods around the circle. Sarah named a few people and I asked them what kinds of contributions they could make and for suggestions for external publicity for the information clearing-house website and for the guardian corps.

“Oh, Sarah, I’ll need some help with taking notes so we don’t forget important items. Could you be our scribe for the meeting? Good. Thanks.”

We went around the circle with people listing their skills.

One girl offered, “I can do blogging, but you know that the national Program office has already shut down a few sites like you’re suggesting?”

I asked, “What about that anti-NiS site?”

“Oh that’s on ‘Facepage’ and they’ve tried to block it but the page operator keeps shifting it around. To do what you want, we can’t keep a site up long enough.”

“What about if we get an overseas server? Then the feds can’t get to it, right?” I asked.

“Yeah, possibly, but we don’t have any overseas contacts, and if the hosting country buckles to the U.S., they can shut it down too.”

“I can help there—I know people overseas who can help. They’re twelve hours ahead of us but I’ll email them and I’ll know something tomorrow. Let’s assume we can get the blog up. Is there someone who can run it and keep it from attacks?” I asked.

A few kids offered to do that.

“Now, how do we advertise that it’s up?”

Some discussion revealed that we could spread the word through the social networking websites and by texting. Someone said that posting videos on video-sharing sites would work too, they could probably stay up for a week or so until the feds got them pulled but that would be long enough. People volunteered to do that too. There was a lot of concern that the feds could trace the sources of all those postings, and I told them that we could set up posts using proxy servers so that original sources would be hidden. Others volunteered to take readers’ submissions and write the blog news posts, and we could set up a “first-person” section to post people’s stories.

Next we turned to the Program beginning next week. I suggested that the last year’s survivors explain the problems that they encountered so that we could formulate a request for getting those problems fixed.

Marsha was the first student to speak. “I was a junior and got picked in the first round. My biggest problem was the groping” —nods all around— “I got poked and prodded all week and my body was sore and bruised from all the abuse. Kids would jam their fingers into my snatch and even my butt without asking. I don’t know where they had their fingers before, I was so lucky not to get an infection. I even got pushed down once and was almost raped, but someone pulled him off. No one would say who it was, though.”

Bill spoke. “Yeah, guys got hit on too. I was a freshman. I was in the second week. My cock and balls ached from being grabbed, and being forced to take relief was the pits.”

“You were forced?” I exclaimed. “It says teachers may not force it.”

“Not if a teacher wants you to ‘demonstrate, ‘“ he said. “For relief I was forced to masturbate as a demonstration even though I had recently cum and couldn’t get it up again so soon. He had a few people try and all I got were friction burns.”

There were further examples given, most of which were blatant violations of the Program guidelines.

“Didn’t anyone complain that these were violations?”

“Yeah, a lot at first.” Another girl called out. “We were referred to Mr Abover and he usually gave an additional day penalty as punishment for the complaint, so complaints stopped after the first two days. When we asked the teachers, they said that Mr Abover gave them lists of permitted things teachers could do, like the teacher selecting the person to give the student relief. If someone asked for relief, the teacher could pick someone and if the Program person objected to the choice he or she couldn’t back out.”

“That’s another violation. That was on Abover’s list too?” I was incredulous.

“Apparently. Those are some of the reasons most kids are terrified of the Program.”

“Are the other experiences you guys had along the same lines? Yes? Ok, I think we’ve heard enough. It looks like our Programers-in-waiting guys are gonna be sick after hearing that. Now, let me tell you what Fletcher and I discussed at our Monday meeting—the one that all the rumors have been circulating about. First, I’m not a savior or a hero, which some have made me out to be. It’s just that I’ve learned how to be very persuasive.”

Lots of chuckles from those in the know.

“So you heard Fletcher’s announcement Monday, there’ll be some changes and the changes will be in these areas, depending on school board approval: first day, no touching; second day, no touching below waist; after that, limited and face-to-face touching and no ambushes allowed. Teachers must monitor the class hall passings. Program students get whistles for alerts. A group of student guardians to stick with Program kids while not in classes to protect them from harm. I think that the Program student and his guardian should have the right to determine what is Reasonable; this is specifically permitted in the Program book. I suggested that guardians should be selected from Program graduate volunteers; would you all agree to that?”