Chapter 1

[Tuesday]

[Brian]

I sighed to myself as I approached the main doors. One more school, I thought. Great Ghu, I hope this is the last one.

I'm Brian Henderson, by the way, and I'd be eighteen later in the year. I had a little over a year left of my twelve-year sentence and I was hoping to find a place where I could just put my head down and endure the rest of it.

I noticed a jeering crowd of kids near the entrance surrounding a boy and a girl. I stopped in amazement as the boy took off his clothes and started to strip the girl. The boy was one of those beefy football types, the girl was slender and looked as if she was terminally embarrassed. What the fuck? Oh, yeah, The Program: selected sacrifices to the stupidest idea of the modern era. Rule one -- no clothing or covering up, rule two -- be an exhibit in sex ed class, rule three -- mandatory reasonable requests, and of course rule four -- relief. Three and four sound a lot like 'introductory rape' and 'better living through public masturbation.' The whole thing is abusive and degrading and I wonder how they keep the floors clean. Why not go back to worshiping Pan?

My first high school was on base and my second was overseas. No matter what the assholes in soft clothes wanted to do, the Defense Department has been able keep The Program as currently implemented out of the military schools. With the current situation I think the locoweed-eaters inside the Beltway were afraid of pissing off the military any more than they already had. There's something to be said about the military. At my last school everyone was required to take Rabbi Kingmann's Health and Hygiene class and he really preached respect and responsibility. He'd be appalled at that display. I sighed again. One fight at a time. Let's see if I can go to school here without the Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers trying to kill me.

"Brian Henderson, Principal Sullivan will see you now."

I stood more-or-less at attention in front of the desk. The REMF just looked up and said, "What's this all about?"

I put the folder on his desk. "These are the authorizations to keep my meds with me, sir. It wasn't a problem at my last school but we weren't sure what the procedure was back here."

"Meds? You mean drugs? Students aren't allowed to have drugs at school. They have to be under the control of the school nurse."

Oh, shit. Yep, a real REMF. "If you'll read what's in the folder, sir, you'll find that depriving me of access to my meds may place me in a life-threatening situation."

"I'll be the judge of that young man, now hand over those drugs right now and we'll have no more of this nonsense."

A real REMF with a gold-plated Rule Book up his ass. They're attracted to positions of petty authority like cockroaches to dog turds. I started edging toward the door. "I respectfully decline to do so, sir. Read what's in the folder, sir, and have one of your staff call if I'll be able to attend."

Maybe a bit of flattery would help. "Dad and I picked this school because it offers subjects that I wasn't able to take earlier." I let my shoulders slump a little. "I was so hoping to finish my high school career someplace with a reputation for academic excellence like this one." Like Dad says, sometimes you just have to kiss ass even if you throw up later. It wasn't all a lie -- we'd picked this one for the Advanced Placement classes I could take my Senior year. I made my escape and waited for the fallout to fall out. This had all the indications of being a real clusterfuck. Well, nothing except the fecklessness of our national leadership, such as it was. I need to ask Dad exactly why I'll need to vote, when all the choices are between bad and worse and all of them make me nauseous.

[Wednesday]

[Brian]

They finally decided that I could keep my meds with me at school, but their permission gave a whole new meaning to the word "begrudging." It had taken calls from the allergist and the commander of the hospital. What had tipped the scales was a call from the office of the local Congresscritter to the State Board of Education. It helps to have a hero for a father.

Every school I'd attended had its own variation on "clean and neat," so I dressed nicely for my first day: slacks and a sport coat plus a pair of plain gold ear studs. I didn't wear a tie. I picked out my favorite white shirt and touched it up with the iron. Boy, was I surprised by my "fellow students." Most of the guys were wearing rumpled, baggy clothes that looked as if they'd been washed by beating them with rocks in a streambed. It took me a bit to realize that the frayed, beat-up look was a style instead of the result of strained household finances. Those that weren't rumpled were generally wearing sports jerseys a couple of sizes too large or white t-shirts with jock accouterments like letter jackets.

A lot of the girls wore fairly nice blouses with either jeans or skirts, and looked quite pretty. Others wore clothing and makeup that screamed "hot, sleazy sex" and reminded me of some members of a certain profession whom I had met, here and there. I was fairly sure if I treated these girls according to the way they dressed they'd either get hysterical or be mortally offended.

Almost all of the kids were hauling heavy rucksacks around while all I had was a small ruck for my laptop and personal items. I wondered what they had in them until I noticed one kid shifting some books between his ruck and his locker. These kids had to deal with actual printed textbooks. I really felt sorry for them. The military had a deal with the publishers to download the e-book versions and Dad had made sure that my MILSCHOOL ID would remain valid at least until I graduated, so my laptop contained everything I'd need.

The laptop attracted a certain amount of attention. It wasn't really mine; like most of the kids in my old schools I was using one that Dad had kept instead of turning it in at upgrade time. Nobody really minded because otherwise the laptops would be destroyed. Because of Dad's work mine had all the anti-theft and anti-tamper features. All of them got run through the refurb shop to wipe all the data -- somebody finally got smart enough to realize that a data wipe was enough and the disks didn't have to be crushed.

I zoned through the first three periods -- English for the illiterate, History for the clueless, and Civics for people who didn't know what the Bill of Rights was, all of them repeating material that I'd been taught before. Now came Health, another review of material that I probably knew well enough to teach.

My eyes watered as I passed the first rows and I took refuge in the rear of the classroom. Just before the bell rang a naked girl scuttled in, dropped her ruck and took the first desk in the first row. I recognized her as the same girl I had seen being stripped on Monday. I hadn't noticed the teacher as I arrived because her desk was on the side of the room away from the door. When the bell rang she stood and moved toward the middle of the room. "Class, we have a new student with us today: Brian Henderson. Brian, please come closer; I don't want you sitting 'way back there in the corner."

Cute, slender, well-proportioned. The only problem was that she seemed like one of the earnest ones who took such delight in doing things For Your Own Good. Give me a battle-axe whose only interest is in her subject any day. I stood and came to parade rest. "Miss Carmichael, I'm really comfortable here. I'd rather not sit any closer because I noticed someone in the front wearing perfume to which I'm allergic."

She sniffed inquisitively. "I don't smell anything too bad."

Won't any of these candy-asses listen to anyone other than themselves? "Ma'am, you probably don't. Some perfumes set off an allergic reaction. Cologne, too; aftershave, soap, laundry detergent, things like that." I shook my head. "I'm really sorry, ma'am. It would be like going into the CS tent."

"What?"

"A tent full of tear gas that they use for gas mask training, ma'am." A thought struck me. "I start sneezing continuously, ma'am, and that would be pretty disruptive of the class." I had my meds, of course, but that might set off another round of the 'Zero Tolerance' hysteria.

Miss Carmichael finally gave in and I tried to keep awake. My estimation of her rose significantly at the end of the class when she announced, "Girls, please don't use very much perfume tomorrow so we can get Brian down closer to the front. None at all would be preferable. You can put it on after class."