by handle2 nee handle
Paleon Singh sighs as he looks up at the sky. It was a good day on the grass lawn on Gregoria State University to laze around, after three weeks of starting lessons as a newbie lecturer. He rocks on his ass on the grass a little. Unfortunately, the bursar had just confronted him on his workload. Specifically, he was short of one class.
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The rotund old lady, Mabel, had put it to him matter of factly. "Unfortunately, if you don't meet the minimum teaching hour requirement, we will be forced to report you to Population Managment in the Government and Personnel Resources at the General Faculty, and you will probably find yourself back on the next flight out of Gregoria in a matter of days or weeks without a job."
Paleon had meekly protested. "But I'm already teaching ten hours of classes, plus the administrative stuff required to support them! That's like... thirty five hours, Mabel. Surely you can't expect me to teach another class? What about work-life balance?!"
Mabel doesn't seem to care about Paleon's agony, calmly looking through some papers. "By all rights it should be forty hours a week. But you forgot the half an hour we count every teaching day for lunch, that's about 2 and a half hours. If you audit just one class, attendance plus review of your notes in private will bring you up to within an hour of the requirement, which is where we can start granting leeway provided your performance is satisfactory in your classes."
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Paleon groans. It was Friday and he had not audited a class. None of them had appealed to his vibe. Fortunately, Friday afternoons tended to be reserved for 'slacker classes' - classes for 'easy win' lesson units intended to pad out students' enrolments to get them past the watchful eyes of Population Management. He badly needed the class he would choose to be that easy - teaching cybernetics-related lessons was really taxing on the brain, generally. He flips through the virtual booklet for auditable classes open to him briefly, then notices a class that runs twice a week by a guest lecturer named 'Akane Sen' on the history of electronics.
Huh. Why not? Paleon muses, it could be fun to see someone flail on ancient prehistory. It was a common unit that cybernetics students took, but nobody seriously tried hard to teach it or learn it, ever. He hit the 'audit' button and stood up to head to his choice of audit.
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The lecture hall is pretty much stuffed full of students and several other auditing folks, a bit noisy too. people were busy chatting in cliques, lazing around, and just about having fun since it was the last lecture slot of the week. Paleon opens his favorite paper notebook and puts his pen on the lined paper. It is a habit that has served him well ever since he was a youngling, and he hopes that he might at least learn one or two things before the afternoon is out.
A curvaceous Nihon lady walks out onto the stage, stuffed barely into a stereotypical teacher's collarblock dress in dull pink with white collar and accents. The outfit fits mostly, but her bosom is bountiful enough that there is a hint of cleavage. She sways her hips a little as she prepares some notes, causing some of the audience to switch their attention from each other to checking her out.
"Ahem" A dulcet voice cuts into the noise of the hall, silencing it. "Greetings, my name is Akane Sen, and as I have mentioned the previous two times this week for this lesson, I will be covering a brief history of basic electronics in this lecture. This will not be an examinable subject for most of you, but I hope you will pay attention and hopefully learn something about the past that grounds much of today's human technology."
Akane walks from the lectern to one side of the stage to direct the audience's attention to a brief self-intro slide, inadvertently directing some of that attention to her rounded butt. "Just a brief intro. Again, I'm Akane Sen, Teaching Aide at the General Faculty of Payden Beach University in New South Harales. I have been teaching various subjects for... ten years."
A wag yells "WHAT ARE YOUR VITAL STATISTICS!?", earning him a rebuking glance from some of the lecturers in attendance, plus a loud bout of raucous laughter.
Akane pauses briefly and taps out a few things on her teachpad. The slide quicky switches to a reply.
Vital Statistics
- None of
- Your Goddamn
- Business
- But I'm a bit of a heavy chick, I'll admit that.
The laughter quietens down. This isn't going to be a taxing lesson certainly.
The slide switches back to the topic. "Well, anyway, hold on to your hats, because we are going to be serious. Yes I know it's a Friday afternoon and you want to hit the pub later, but that's why we ended with this class this week. Let's start in 1896 AD, which is a Ancient Earth term meaning Year of our Lord...."
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Barely over an hour later, there is a tinge of regret hanging in the air amongst the audience, as they stare at a thick sheaf of notes amongst those with a note-taking habit, and a agitated realisation that someone is taking their job a little too seriously.
Akane taps her papers on the lectern. "And that as they say, is that. Now if you have any further enquiries on this topic, please speak to any of the lecturers in the Tech Faculty who work on the hard-material sciences. Mainly because I'll have forgotten entirely everything I've just spoken on this topic." There is an awkward pause as the crowd laughs again. "No, really, try me, I probably will really have forgotten most of it. Ta." She waves and starts making her way out of the lecture hall.
Paleon rubs his head as he stares at his notes. That talk was... intense. full of side avenues and anecdotes and stuff. One of the lecturers behind him asks "who the hell is this Akane Sen? I thought it was just a pseudonym people who didn't want to post their names on articles used at Payden Beach..."
Another asks a more relevant (at least to them) question. "What the hell is Akane Sen?"
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Paleon decides to find out more himself. He knows where the General Faculty is, in the middle of Gregoria State University, but he still has to ask for directions later because he obviously doesn't know where the guest lecturers' office is.
When he opens the door to the guest lecturers' office, he finds several mostly empty tables - most guest lecturers spend less than a month on campus and usually avail themselves of the off-site working options, so their assigned table is mostly used for pre-arranged meetings and student hours. And since it's Friday evening, nobody seriously wants to do anything but go home or go knock down a few cold brews in the heat of Gregoria's enroaching summer.
Nobody, that is, except Akane Sen. She is busy working through a few sheafs of notes, typing them into a proper keyboard tied into her teachpad. Her fingers buzz through the keys like a machine gun, eyes shifting nonstop left and right. To one side is a shingle listing a teacher's website apparently belonging to her, presumably for notes and other additional materials related to her lessons.
Paleon gives a soft 'ahem' to get her notice.
Akane blinks, her hands stopping after a second or two. She looks up and smiles. "Oh, hello, there. May I help you?"
Paleon shifts a little. "Erm... I'm one of the first-year cybernetics teachers. Paleon. Paleon Singh. I just wanted to enquire about the class you just taught today as part of my audit, and also to thank you for making it so educational."
Akane grins. "it was my pleasure! Anyhow, what questions do you have? Just one though, I'm actually getting ready to go home."
Paleon leafs through his notes, again marvelling at how much material was covered in so little time. "it was very dense... how long have you had an interest in electronics generally?"
Akane replies matter of factly: "Since last Saturday afternoon, actually."
Paleon blinks hard, he did not just hear that shit. "I beg your pardon?!"
"I started reading up on electronics last Saturday afternoon after a good overnight break to forget my previous classes on... what was it again... oh yes, the chemistry reactions behind baking French pastries and breads as part of a course on cooking." Akane blinks, looking serious about what she just said.
Paleon puts down his notes. "You cannot be serious, Ms Sen. nobody learns that fast."
Akane frowns a little, looking away. "And nobody forgets that fast. yet here I am. I have a neural disorder that lets me do both. Just give me the books you need me to read up to by Friday morning and I can easily get a hold on most of it. In fact, my website is pretty much the only way I have any long-term memory or can offer any help after I forget by Saturday morning."
Paleon rubs his temples. "That is the wackiest nonsense I have ever heard in my admittedly short career in university. You're not just making up an excuse?"
Akane shrugs. "It is what it is, my mind's traded off remembering much older stuff for remembering things fast and briefly." She pauses to tap out a few more words, before tapping the screen to save off her work and slapping her portable terminal shut. "Aaaand done for the day. Ta!" She smiles as she gets up, holding a hand out. "It was nice talking to you, Paleon Singh, but I'm a bit of a homebody so I'm going to go back to my bunk now."
Paleon nods as he shakes Akane's hand. The moment Akane steps out of sight, he quickly taps out the address on her table onto his teachpad to read the site... "My god, she's not joking." He stares at a long, carefully ordered set of sections by year and topics as all across the wazoo from the history of electronics to various chemistry and higher-order mathematics and science subjects. He doesn't have the knowledge to vet most of it, but a lot of it is clear and concise, plus it is really all over the place in terms of what is covered.
Paleon shakes his head. What is Akane Sen?
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Peter Sen wakes up the same time as he always has since he fought wars. 4am, to be exact. He does a few stretches, gets into the shower, has a good scrub up and shaves carefully. Nope, he still gets a nick. He laments and sighs. If only his wife were here to help him get a good safe shave down. But he HAD assigned her overseas for a semester, and she still regularly reported back by video call on Friday afternoons, so there was that.
He walks back into his room and pulls the covers off totally, exposing a voluptuous, young, dark-skinned woman in a sheer white bra and panty set, with a matching sheer robe tied together by just a thin rope. He examines his bedmate for a moment, before saying the usual words. "Six, override command: wake."
Peter calmly watches as the sybarite he just slept to for the past night slowly rises from her sleep like Frankenstein's monster, arms at her sides as her back slowly bends up to the whirr of things coming online. Once, this would have aroused him maybe a little. Sadly however, he'd been neutered by years of it happening every morning, and the fact that it wasn't his wife by his side.
The woman's eyes open slowly, her immaculate yet unmade-up lips twitching to match the words. "Acady Mark Four Teaching Aide, activating. Error: academic institution not assigned. Error: site contact not assigned. Identity: Unit Six. Awaiting command." It spoke in a richly accented woman's voice. Peter Sen couldn't quite place the ethnicity of it. As with all the previous units, he had simply rolled the dice, with very few specifics given on the appearance they would have once he'd placed the accompanying flesh shell, vocal synthesiser and hair growth unit on.
In fact, until their first assigned work location had been assigned, their names were the only first firm identity they had. No false history, no quirks, no habits. Like a puppet freshly made out of cardboard, they were.
Peter didn't think too much of the details, he just wanted a breakfast and to check anything that had happened overnight. And he did not want to leave the breakfast to Six - barely out of the box, Acady Teaching Aide androids were some of the worst cooks you could possibly have in a unit with a tongue."Six," he commands, "go to my office room and get me any printouts from the overnight printer."
Six bows slowly and walks out of the bedroom with an even pace, her wide hips swaying from side to side. Peter follows her briefly, swearing that it wasn't for that view, before splitting off to the kitchen to start up some Quinoaflakes and milk.
The smell of the flakes pouring into the milk reminded him so much of home back where they made them on Archigan, though this brand wasn't it... didn't taste as good either, he reflects, standing around in only his trousers.
One day, he would have to let go of a lot of things he could get away with right now, when the startup got too big and Berequel Customs insisted on his presence in the office on a regular basis, surrounded by such uglies as Personnel Resources, actual human colleagues who might get offended or too handy with the product, and extra people between him and the CEO who'd approved the initial idea and given him the expenses needed to get the first few units off the ground. His wife had proven quite a blessing in selling the feasibility of the idea behind Berequel EducationalAssist. (he was briefly tempted to put his name on it, but decided he still needed to keep a low profile because of bad vibes back home.
But right now, having a sybarite dressed in next to nothing standing by his side (even if it was a mere plastic doll and not his wife), a bowl of quinoaflakes, and a traditional sheaf of printout paper rather than the workpads so many people preferred in his hands, life seemed perfect. He looked down the paper and smiled at the thought... that is, until he got to the entry printed in bright red:
3. Hailey - Sumifrugattu Technical College - Attempted Physical Assault On Unit
He looks up from the printout, his morning ruined. He looks further down to check that Margot (formerly Unit 2) and Amarie (formerly Unit 4) weren't in any trouble as well (they weren't), before looking at Six. "Six, switch to teaching uniform and meet me inside the office."
He curses a little. Isabel (formerly Unit 5) and Akane (his wife) weren't due to report in till later today, but he hoped this was all the bad news that would be coming, as he decides to finish his quinoaflakes before making the phone call he didn't want to make
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