Chapter 15

He was eating breakfast and realized that he felt like he was missing out on his morning run. There was an easy way to correct that omission.

"Jan, I'm gonna ride my bike to school, today. That OK with you two?"

Jan smiled. "Sounds fine to me, Don."

Susie seemed to pause before she replied. "Yeah, no problem for me."

Dan felt really relaxed as he finished breakfast and picked up his backpack. He got himself out the door early and mounted up on his bike. It might have normally taken him ten to fifteen minutes to reach the high school, but this morning he took time to pedal several extra miles.

As he biked up to the school he saw both Danielville City PD and Morgan County SO patrol cruisers parked in front of the main entrance. He wondered if that might have to do with what had happened on Thursday. There hadn't been any police presence at school on Friday, but perhaps policy had been adjusted over the weekend. Or, maybe they were here to talk to him. That was a possibility.

Well, I guess I'll learn about that if it has anything to do with me.

He racked his bike and locked it in place. As he walked toward the entrance he noticed two teachers standing to either side of the door. Each had a clipboard with what appeared to be two oversized printouts spread out across them. The woman looked at him and then down at her clipboard and then back up at him. "Don Nichols?"

"Yes ma'm."

She nodded and made a mark on the clipboarded sheet. "You're to go to the conference room in the administrative offices area. Don't bother going to your homeroom, as your homeroom teacher knows where you'll be."

"Uh, OK. Is it alright if I go to my locker to switch out my books and things for my first class?"

"No, go straight to the conference room."

He was wondering what that was about as he headed on to the doors. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that each of the two teachers had an oversized printout with pictures of eight students shown in full color. The woman had pictures of boys, while the man had pictures only of girls. Oddly, his analytic sense kicked in and he thought that the division of pictures had to make some sort of sense. What for, he wasn't sure. But certainly a man would pay better attention to the girls and the same undoubtedly held true for a woman looking at boys.

Since he'd just biked for about 25 minutes he paused to use the men's room and then stopped to get some water from a fountain in the hallway. He found the conference room in a side hall across from the school's library. He walked in and found fewer than ten other students already seated around the room. He didn't know any of them. He took off his bag and hung it on the back of the chair and sat down. He looked around at the other students in the room.

That's when he noticed one girl seemed to be very upset. It looked like she'd been crying. Her face was flushed and her eyes looked puffy, red, and irritated. Then he saw a guy down the table had his hands balled up into fists and who was slowly pounding one of them onto the tabletop. Another guy was gripping the table's edge and his knuckles were white. Then he noticed a girl who looked a bit frightened, as she seemed pale and might have just shivered in her seat. The other kids were quiet and seemed to be keeping things to themselves.

He looked around the room a bit more closely and saw a lectern over in one corner. There was a curiously out-of-place stack of boxes in another corner. He glanced up and saw a ceiling mounted A-V projector of an unfamiliar type. Glancing in the opposite direction he then saw a ceiling mounted projection screen. Then he saw the four cameras. There was one placed in each corner of the room. The entire space could be under observation.

These kids' reactions are bad. There is something odd about a conference room with four video surveillance cameras. This is weird.

The door opened and someone he knew came in. Leroy Thomas didn't look too pleased to be where he was finding himself. He looked around the room and saw Don. He just nodded and took a seat down the table from Dan. Usually Leroy was talkative and had an outgoing personality. Now he looked just damned near depressed.

Shit. What is going on, here?

Another couple of kids came in and took seats. They didn't look too happy at finding themselves in the room. Everyone was quiet and seemed to have clammed up, apparently waiting for what was about to happen. Whatever that was. Leroy was staring up at the ceiling tiles and seemed to be trying to calm himself. While his own observations were making him edgy, Dan practiced calming routines he'd learned years earlier.

The next person through the door was something of a surprise. It was Billy Jenkins. He saw Leroy and Don and just shook his head. Dan looked to Leroy and saw him squeeze his eyes closed and take a deep breath. Dan looked back at Billy and watched as he sat down and propped up his chin on his palm. Billy looked to be resigned to whatever was going on.

Well, maybe this is some sort of social program for people involved in conflicts and fights. I could understand that, if it's some sort of conflict resolution counseling. Although, Leroy and Billy weren't involved in what happened. They just picked up the wreck.

The door opened and another unknown kid came in. Counting himself there were now fifteen teenagers in the room. No adult had shown up as yet.

He sat for another minute and waited for something to happen. He thought about asking questions but he knew when people didn't want to talk. Clearly, the members of this little crowd were in anything but a talkative mood. Having been where he'd been and done what he'd done in his previous life, then this was more curiously disturbing than outright frightening. Inserting into unknown territory via parachute on a moonless night - now, that was really frightening. So far - this didn't come close to that.

The door opened again and it was Cindy who now entered the room. She looked shocked to be here with the other students. She saw Leroy and stood up a bit straighter. She then looked to where Don was seated and she seemed to relax a bit.

Well, I guess seeing someone you've known most of your life in the same situation has to help. Whatever the situation is...

She came over and sat down beside him. He smiled at her and she suddenly perked up some more and smiled back. Dan noticed Leroy suddenly lean forward as he recognized that Don was relaxed and smiling. Billy too noticed and suddenly seemed to act more like his usual self. He sat up straight and started looking around at the other students in the room.

Dan was about to ask Cindy how she was doing when she got there first.

"Well, Don - what do you think? Are we in 'the Program' or what? That's what this looks like to me. Eight boys and eight girls makes it look like that way to me." She seemed to be resigned to the idea of being in whatever the program might be.

He remembered the printouts he'd seen as he walked into the building. There'd been eight photo printouts on each sheet. That matched with what he was seeing here in the room.

He was starting to ask her what program she was talking about when the door opened again. This time it wasn't a student who came through the door. It was that same new Vice-Principal he'd run into on Thursday. Don caught the looks on Leroy's and Billy's faces. He was sure his expression looked just as tight. The guy was thirty-something and dressed in what was almost a suit. Only, it seemed more like a uniform coat and there was something on each of the lapels of the suit coat. It was some sort of iconic symbol. It wasn't a flag icon or anything like that. Don's eyesight was probably close to 20-10 or 20-15 and Dan suddenly realized the symbol featured a male and female figure placed side by side. Each appeared to nude and depicted in a manner that was anatomically correct.

Dan thought back to all of the weird stuff he'd encountered when he first popped into Don's body as a hospital patient. He thought of the nurses like Shirley Waters and Psychologist Debbie Chen and what they'd done with him. And now he considered the several times he'd encountered publicly nude people strolling along sidewalks or laying out in the redone park. All of that crazy cable and broadcast programming was still there, too. Don's family had been a bit concerned when he's expressed a disinterest in watching some of the stuff. He's simply explained that he was still relearning things and wasn't going to waste time on things that were just distractions. Jan undoubtedly now understood where he'd been coming from when Dan had said he wasn't overly interested in all of the sexual content appearing on many channels. He tried to re-focus on the immediate situation.

This is getting stranger and stranger. What's next?

He now noticed that Leroy had also been looking at the suits' lapels and realized that he was once again looking depressed.

No, it couldn't be something like that - could it? Not forced sex! Or communal nudity? What could this be about?

Dan turned away from the suit as he brought the lectern out from its corner. He'd noticed that someone else was coming into the room. And now he found out why there were two law enforcement vehicles parked out front of the school.

Two of the local officers he'd trained with were standing at the back of the room. They knew him well enough to call him by his nickname. The local SWAT team had started calling him a sneaky little devil when he helped them in their training. Then they'd just started calling him 'SNEAKY' as a complement. After that they'd accepted his suggestion that he be known as 'Sneak'. That had been what his troops had called him. Lt. Colonel Sneak had been a nearly knock-kneed horror to work with. Dan Rhoderick had never been a big guy. Rangy and yet muscular, in a hard way - that was what he'd been. He'd been a living terror in training and combat. And 'Sneak' was his name amongst his long-service colleagues - the NCOs who knew him best.

Only the county SO deputy was a SWAT responder. But the city PD officer had experience with the unarmed combat and training techniques used by young Don Nichols, a.k.a. 'Sneak'.

While the suit up front continued doing some things in preparation of whatever was about to happen the deputy spoke to both Leroy and Don. "Leroy, Sneak - how are you guys doing this morning?" He couldn't quite manage to smile when he asked them the question.

Leroy just shook his head. Dan looked back. "I'm just wonderin' what's goin' on." He shrugged.

Both of the officers now looked a bit surprised. 'Sneak' had always seemed to be situationally aware in the instances the teenaged marvel had trained with them. And here he didn't know what was happening. Something was strange. They noticed the girl sitting beside him seemed a bit surprised by his question, too.

Before either of the two officers could say anything the suit at the lectern cleared his throat. He had two sets of packets that he was handing to the first two students at the front of the table. "Please pass these along to the rest of the children. Thank you." He stepped back towards the lectern as Dan glanced back to the two law enforcement personnel. He looked into their eyes. They flinched at what they knew he had to be thinking. 'Sneak' was being addressed as a child!? They could see Don's shoulders squaring and his position shift around so that he was more erect and less relaxed. His eyes had narrowed. Each had seen the young man assume that same sort of stance and attitude during training. This might be trouble, they both realized.

Dan watched the two officers' reactions as he also monitored Leroy and Billy. Both of those guys had caught the mention of 'children'. Nobody in his right mind would have thought to call Leroy any sort of a child. And Billy was nothing like anyone's idea of a child. Don's body was at about 175 lbs on a frame approaching six feet in height. Billy was almost 200 lbs on a broader body that also reached about six feet. Leroy... well, Leroy was 250 lbs on six feet and five inches. A couple of the freshmen present in the room might have qualified as still being children - maybe. Where this was heading seemed to Dan like a possibly interesting collision of worldviews. Both Leroy and Billy were now looking less and less pleased with what was coming.

Dan looked at Cindy. Technically speaking, she too hadn't been a child since age twelve. He wondered how many others in the room were so gifted. He suddenly thought of a very different matter. He looked hard at the PD officer. Then he saw the resemblance - it was there around the eyes and eyebrows. He silently mouthed a question to the officer. 'Are you Crytal's father?'

The officer's eyes had widened ever so slightly. Then he'd simply nodded.

Dan pondered this. He'd only just met and Crystal and Janine. Still, he'd liked the two girls. He wasn't going to get into anything with her father. That wasn't acceptable.

By then Dan had a dwindling pile of information packets sitting in front of him. He took one and handed the rest off to Cindy. She repeated his actions, giving the last two packets on to the remaining students on their side of the table. For a moment things got mildly interesting as Billy didn't receive a packet, since he was seated at the end of the table. Apparently the group was short a packet. The suit was digging though his papers and didn't notice.

Dan took his packet and slid it down the table to Billy. "Here, Billy. You use this one." He knew he and Cindy could share. "I don't need one." He nodded at Cindy. "We can share." He looked up to see the two officers exchanging glances and adjusting their equipment belts. OK, he'd just made them uncomfortable. He gave them the tactical hand signal to relax. Nothing was about to happen. The packet before Cindy had that same symbol as he'd just observed on the lapels of the suit. There was no title provided on the cover. Only three letters appeared - "NIS". He opened up the packet with Cindy and felt his stomach drop.

He stared at the pictures depicting what were obviously naked students walking down a hallway in a setting representing some high school. A couple of pictures showed individuals of each gender being felt up by individuals of the opposite sex. Both a girl and a boy were clearly being fondled. There was a title accompanying the pictures and several paragraphs of text. The title read "Naked In School".

His stomach lurched yet again.

Shit! Oh shit! I am not going to be sick! This just can't be!

Don's fifteen year old body was reacting to the adrenaline that was rushing through its bloodstream. If it hadn't been Dan in control of the body, then vomit would have flown. As such, it was a near thing.

Dan looked to Cindy and saw that she was looking at him with what could only be a worried expression. He looked up and saw that both of the officers were now focusing solely on him. He drew in a deep breath and tried his calming exercises. After what seemed like twenty or thirty seconds he found himself quieting down. He again looked to the two officers and gave a repeat of the tactical signal to relax. He nodded down to the packet, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head slightly. They both nodded in response and seemed to relax a bit themselves. They'd just seen oh-so-cool 'Sneak' react in shock.

Cindy whispered to him. "You didn't know. You forgot, right?"

He leaned over to her. "Yeah, just like so many other things. I've never heard of anything like this. How can this be happening?"

"It's a new state law. They've gone slow about enforcing it, but it's finally getting around to the smaller schools. It's our turn, now."

"Wonderful, just wonderful. And it's your and my personal turn. Am I right about that?"

"Yeah, we're the first here."

"What'd we ever do to deserve this?"

The suit up at the lectern now cleared his voice again. Cindy just shook her head at Don.

The suit spoke.

"I'd like to welcome you children into the first session of the Naked In School Program at Morgan County High School. My name is Malcolm Snottingham, and I'm the new Vice-Principal in charge of the Program here in Morgan County. I will be directly responsible for guiding you through your participation in the Program.

Dan could just begin to feel the rage as he thought about being put through a public grinder of exhibitionism in his second week as a high school student. Then, he reconsidered what he'd just heard.

I really do hate self-important suits. Still, he smiled.

Dan had just barely managed to suppress his negative reaction to what the suit had said. The other students were probably too terrified or weirded out to react to it. Maybe none of them even picked up on it. 'Malcolm'... Mal Cum... Bad Cum... And a name like 'Snottingham'... 'Bad cum snot am... I'. It was a remarkable phrase that ran through Dan's mind.

He could feel it as he relaxed. Even as he heard the truly horrid details of what he and the others were expected to submit to. Still, he could feel an internal grin. Expectation came to the fore. As bad as it sounded, he'd have his revenge for having been subjected to these few moments.

I always did have an appreciation and even a slight gift for Psy. Ops. I'm goin' to have my revenge on this suit. There ain't no doubt about it. I gotta get together with Abe and ask him about how to do things with the school system's computers. He's probably got some ideas.

Dan directed Don's head towards the suit and smiled. Behind him the two officers suddenly got worried. 'Sneak' was smiling. Oh shit!

Billy happened to be looking toward Don as he heard the awful details. That's when he noticed Don smiling. 'Well, ain't that a wonderful sight! What's Don got to smile about?' Then Billy thought of Don who'd twice wrecked a much more powerful-seeming opponent. Billy just did keep from lurching in his seat.

Leroy had taken his eyes away from that asshole standing at the podium and was looking at the other students. That's when he looked at Don and saw the smile. 'Oh Lord God! Don's gotten that look, again.' Leroy had now seen it more that once. It was Don assuming the mantle of just retribution. Leroy wasn't all that much religious, anymore. But he still attended Church and he recognized certain things. Don was bent on revenge regarding what was being done to them this morning. Worse, nothing had even been done - yet. Leroy just knew that Don had worked it all out and was anticipating where things were leading. And he'd get even for what was being done. Leroy looked at the new Vice-Principal and realized the asshole most likely had a short career at Morgan County High School.

Leroy relaxed. He smiled. The asshole noted his smile and smiled back at him. Leroy's smile got larger.

The suit then proceeded to have the students read the pamphlets provided them. He didn't even seem to notice that two of the 'children' were sharing one set of the literature.

He'd then launched into a presentation about the program. It included an A-V component that showed various 'success' stories involving many different students at other high schools around the country. Some of the material was of video shorts showing teenagers engaged in wildly erotic and sexual activities. For at least two to three minutes there was nothing but scenes of students engaged in climactic orgasms in school classrooms.

Eventually, the show wound down. Mr. Snottingham repeated the basic rules of the program. He then asked for questions from the 'children'.

Dan couldn't resist it.

Dan had asked what would happen if a student refused to undress as required by the program.

The suit had scowled at the formerly, seemingly accepting student. "Then the two police officers will assist the student in disrobing."

"Uh, what if the student resists being disrobed?"

"Then he or she will be forcibly restrained and their clothes will be forcibly removed from his or her body."

Dan turned and smiled at the two officers. He discretely winked - ever so slightly. They were so cued into his expression that they didn't fail to note the wink.

He returned to looking at the suit. "What if the officers are unable to restrain the student?"

"Then I'll call in assistance from resources assigned to me. Why? Are you considering resisting disrobing?"

"Oh! NO! I was just curious about how serious this program is about insuring that students participate in it."

"Any student failing to complete a week in the program will be suspended until such time as the student successfully completes her or his participation in the program. Otherwise, the student will not be allowed to graduate or earn a GED for seven years."

"Oh, I guess that I missed that part!" Dan shrugged Don's shoulders.

The suit was staring at Don. He glanced at the two law enforcement officers. "Gentlemen, if this student has a problem with taking off his clothes, then I expect you to restrain and strip him of his clothing."

The SO deputy actually laughed. "Just the two of us! Force 'Sneak' to strip!? That'll be the day! You might as well call in the National Guard!" Both officers were now chuckling.

The suit looked confused. "Who's this 'Sneak'?"

The deputy pointed to Don. "Him. He's a martial artist. He trains our SWAT team in takedowns and other things. He's a perfectly nice kid. Only, if it has to do with close-up and personal - he's not the one to cross." He turned to the PD officer. "You saw what he did to that kidnapper, right?"

Crystal's father just grinned. "Yeah, 'Sneak' kept his stepsister from being kidnapped. He broke the arm and jaw of the kidnapper. And he took away his gun while doing so. Sneak's not anyone any sane person would want to cross." He just smiled as he finished delivering that particular little homily.

The suit was looking at Don again. "That's ridiculous! No chil..." That's when he frowned. Then he caught on. "You're the one who nearly killed that poor boy on last Thursday, aren't you." It was an accusation.

Dan shrugged Don's shoulders. His own response was interrupted by Leroy.

"POOR BOY! That bastard was tryin' to rape my cousin! If Don hadn't stopped him there ain't no tellin' what that bastard would have done to Jan!"

The suit turned red in the face at Leroy's outburst. He then turned to the deputy. "Remove him from this room - immediately! I'll have no participant in the program speaking that way! He's expelled from school at this moment!"

The deputy just smiled. He spoke to both the suit and Leroy. "Leroy's the son of my boss. If you want him removed from this room, then do it yourself. As far as I'm concerned, he just spoke the truth. I'm not touching Leroy." Crystal's father nodded in agreement.

"You can't say that to me! I'll have you fired!" That was the suit. Dan was really starting to grin at the show. He noticed that Cindy's eyes were getting a bit big at what seemed to be happening. He caught her eye and winked.

Cindy suddenly focused on his grin and relaxed as the suit and the two officers exchanged threats over who'd be fired.

The deputy smiled. "Only the Sheriff of Morgan County can fire me. He's my uncle. So sorry, so sad, too bad - not for me to worry! And Leroy's father is my Captain. And he's also the uncle of Don's stepsister... You're barkin' up an already barked tree. It's dead. Ain't nothin' in it for you."

Crystal's father laughed. "Yeah, my boss loves Don. 'Sneak' has done more to control teenaged rape than anyone else in this town. If you don't believe that, then just ask the DA's office." He openly winked at Don.

The suit was now completely red-faced. He sputtered and then muttered something to himself. He rushed out of the room threatening doom for anyone challenging the program.

Everyone looked around the room at each other. It was Billy who started it. He simply laughed.

Soon, the whole room was laughing! The sixteen students and the two law enforcement officers were having a great good time laughing at what they'd just witnessed when the door opened again.

Dr. Prescott was the person entering the room. Thirteen of sixteen students quickly ceased laughing. Three didn't. Neither did the two law enforcement officers. The Principal looked around at how the laughter had cut off - and hadn't.

He walked up to the lectern and leaned up against it. He smiled as he looked each of the students in the eyes. "OK, someone please tell what just happened in here. I'm not used to having one of my vice-principals burst into my office and screaming about students threatening his life." He focused on Don. "Mr. Nichols - you seem to have been the center of whatever Mr. Snottingham objected to. In your words - what happened?"

"I just asked some questions. He got upset when he recognized me from last Thursday. He accused me of trying to kill that guy who molested my stepsister." Dan nodded at Leroy. "Leroy didn't like how 'what's his name' the vice-principal described what happened. Then the v-p shouted out that Leroy was expelled from school and ordered the deputy to take him out of the room." Dan nodded to the deputy. "I think he can tell you what he said..."

And so Dr. Prescott learned what had happened. In the end he was shaking his head and muttering under his breath.

"OK! Are there any other questions about the program? Otherwise, I want to get things moving along."

Dan couldn't resist it. "Yes, Dr. Prescott. I'm suffering from amnesia, I'm still recovering from a head injury, and I'm still on medications due to what happened to me. I mean, why of anyone possible - was I placed in this program thing? Until this morning, I don't recall having ever heard of it."

Dr. Prescott smiled. "Well, Don. It's just the case that your name simply came up as being a suitable candidate for inclusion in the program. That's all, nothing more. If you have medical conditions that should preclude your inclusion in the program, then you wouldn't be here. As to you never having heard of the program, you were in school last Spring when it was described and I suspect you were in the general assembly called last Monday. Am I wrong about that?"

"Well, yeah - about Monday. But, I wasn't here last Spring. The kid named Don who did occupy this body last Spring may have been here, but I don't remember that. As far as I'm concerned, this has been sprung on me outah the blue!"

"That really doesn't matter Don. You are in the program. Refusal to participate in the program means suspension. It's now state law. Do you understand?"

"OK, yeah. But then, what about Leroy and Billy. Why are they here?"

"What do you mean, Don?"

"Last Thursday. I pulled a creep off of my stepsister Jan. Then Leroy and Billy haul him into the nurse's office. Your new vice-principal accuses us of trying to kill that same creep. Then, that same vice-principal turns out to be in charge of this program thing and we find that we three are in the program. I know how correlations run. Right now they're running high between Thursday and this morning. What gives?" As he finished he again turned to glance at the two law enforcement officers and gave them a look. He noticed that Leroy, Billy, Cindy, and several of the other students seated around the table caught his look.

"It doesn't work that way, Don. Students are chosen to participate in the program via a set of computer-managed parameters. Any student chosen to be in the program met those parameters provided by the computer. No one was chosen because of what happened last Thursday."

Dan knew Don's face was set in a scowl. He could see that Leroy and Billy weren't buying it either. A glance at the deputy and officer showed that they too seemed to be skeptical.

I'm gonna have that shit Snottingham's ass! He's gonna wish he'd never set foot in Morgan County, North Carolina. One way or another, his ass is grass!

Dr. Prescott was working through some of the paperwork left on the lectern. He pulled out a sheet and looked up at the room. "I've got a list of partners for all of you. Mr. Snottingham did tell you about the partner aspect of the program, right?"

Heads around the table nodded. Dr. Prescott read from a list and started with the Seniors and went down to the Freshmen. Dan learned that he was partnered with a Sophomore girl named Rhonda Maddox. Cindy was partnered with a Sophomore boy named Roger Billings. Dan didn't recognize either of them from his seven classes. He wondered about that. How was he supposed to be partnered with a girl he didn't think he even had a class with?

Dr. Prescott reminded them again of several of the key features of the program. There were the requirements about using the other genders' restrooms and locker rooms. Then, the requirement to respond to reasonable requests. And also there was an expectation that partners would assist each other. For several minutes the principal reiterated the requirements of the student participants in the program.

His explanation of the program and a few questions asked by the students continued for several minutes until things seemed to run down. Dr. Prescott looked around and sensed that it was time for the students to go ahead and actually enter and participate in the program.