Vernor Vinge - Fast Times at Fairmont High

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Science Fiction

By Vernor Vinge

Fast Times at

Fairmont

High

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

Fictionwise

www.fictionwise.com

Reprinted from "The Collected Stories of Vernor

Vinge", Tor Books, 2001

NOTICE: This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser

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Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

Juan kept the little blue pills in an unseen corner of his

bedroom. They really were tiny, the custom creation of a lab

that saw no need for inert fillers, or handsome packaging.

And Juan was pretty sure they were blue, except that as a

matter of principle he tried not to look at them, even when he

was off-line. Just one pill a week gave him the edge he

needed....

* * * *

Final exam week was always chaos at Fairmont Junior

High. The school's motto was “Trying hard not to become

obsolete"—and the kids figured that applied to the faculty

more than anyone else. This semester they got through the

first morning—Ms. Wilson's math exam—without a hitch, but

already in the afternoon the staff was tweaking things

around: Principal Alcalde scheduled a physical assembly

during what should have been student prep time.

Almost all the eighth grade was piled into the creaky

wooden meeting hall. Once this place had been used for horse

shows. Juan thought he could still smell something of that.

Tiny windows looked out on the hills surrounding the campus.

Sunlight spiked down through vents and skylights. In some

ways, the room was weird even without enhancement.

Principal Alcalde marched in, looking as dire and driven as

ever. He gestured to his audience, requesting visual

consensus. In Juan's eyes, the room lighting mellowed and

the deepest shadows disappeared.

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

“Betcha the Alcalde is gonna call off the nakedness exam.”

Bertie Todd was grinning the way he did when someone else

had a problem. “I hear there are parents with Big Objections.”

“You got a bet,” said Juan. “You know how Mr. Alcalde is

about nakedness.”

“Heh. True.” Bertie's image slouched back in the chair next

to Juan.

Principal Alcalde was into a long speech, about the fast-

changing world and the need for Fairmont to revolutionize

itself from semester to semester. At the same time they must

never forget the central role of modern education which was

to teach the kids how to learn, how to pose questions, how to

be adaptable—all without losing their moral compass.

It was very old stuff. Juan listened with a small part of his

attention; mostly, he was looking around the audience. This

was a physical assembly, so almost everybody except Bertie

Todd was really here. Bertie was remote from Chicago, one of

the few commuter students. His parents paid a lot more for

virtual enrollment, but Fairmont Schools did have a good

reputation. Of the truly present—well, the fresh thirteen-year-

old faces were mostly real. Mr. Alcalde's consensus imagery

didn't allow cosmetics or faked clothes. And yet ... such rules

could not be perfectly enforced. Juan widened his vision,

allowed deviations and defacements in the view. There

couldn't be too much of that or the Alcalde would have

thrown a fit, but there were ghosts and graffiti floating around

the room. The scaredy-cat ones flickered on-and-off in a

fraction of a second, or were super-subtle perversions. But

some of them—the two-headed phantom that danced behind

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

the Principal's podium—lasted gloating seconds. Mr. Alcalde

could probably see some of the japery, but his rule seemed to

be that as long as the students didn't appear to see the

disrespect, then he wouldn't either.

Okay, platitudes taken care of, Mr. Alcalde got down to

business: “This morning, you did the math exam. Most of you

have already received your grades. Ms. Wilson tells me that

she's pleased with your work; the results will make only small

changes in the rest of this week's schedule. Tomorrow

morning will be the vocational exam.” Oh yeah. Be ready to

learn something dull, but learn it very, very fast. Most kids

hated that, but with the little blue pills, Juan knew he could

whack it. “Soon you'll begin the two concurrent exams. You'll

have the rest of finals week to work on them. I'll make the

details public later in this assembly. In general terms: There

will be an unlimited exam, where you may use any legally

available resources—”

“All right!” Bertie's voice came softly in Juan's ear. All

across the hall similar sentiments were expressed, a kind of

communal sigh.

Mr. Alcalde's dark features creased in a rare smile. “That

just means we expect something extraordinarily good from

you.” To pass the exam, a team had to bring in three times

tuition per team member. So even though they could use any

help they could recruit, most students didn't have the money

to buy their way to a passing grade.

“The two concurrent exams will overlap the usual testing in

visual communication, language, and unaided skills. Some of

your parents have asked for more concurrency, but all the

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

teachers feel that when you're thirteen years old, it's better to

concentrate on doing a few things well. You'll have plenty of

time for jumble lore in the future. Your other concurrent

exam will be—Miss Washington?”

Patsy Washington came to her feet, and Juan realized that

she—like Bertie—was only present as imagery. Patsy was a

San Diego student so she had no business being virtual at a

physical assembly. Hmm. “Look,” she said. “Before you go on

about these concurrent exams, I want to ask you about the

naked skills test.”

Bertie gave Juan a grin. “This should be interesting.”

The Alcalde's gaze was impassive. “The ‘unaided skills’

test, Miss Washington. There is nothing whatsoever naked

about it.”

“It might as well be, Mister.” Patsy was speaking in English

now, and with none of the light mocking tone that made her a

minor queen in her clique. It was her image and voice, but

the words and body language were very un-Patsy. Juan

probed the external network traffic. There was lots of it, but

mostly simple query/response stuff, like you'd expect. A few

sessions had been around for dozens of seconds; Bertie's

remote was one of the two oldest. The other belonged Patsy

Washington—at least it was tagged with her personal

certificate. Identity hijacking was a major no-no at Fairmont,

but if a parent was behind it there wasn't much the school

could do. And Juan had met Patsy's father. Maybe it was just

as well the Alcalde didn't have to talk to him in person.

Patsy's image leaned clumsily through the chair in front of

her. “In fact,” she continued, “it's worse than naked. All their

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

lives, these—we—have had civilization around us. We're

damned good at using that civilization. Now you theory-

minded intellectuals figure it would be nice to jerk it all away

and put us at risk.”

“We are putting no one at risk ... Miss Washington.” Mr.

Alcalde was still speaking in Spanish. In fact, Spanish was the

only language their principal had ever been heard to speak;

the Alcalde was kind of a bizarre guy. “We at Fairmont

consider unaided skills to be the ultimate fallback protection.

We're not Amish here, but we believe that every human being

should be able to survive in reasonable environments—

without networks, even without computers.”

“Next you'll be teaching rock-chipping!” said Patsy.

The Alcalde ignored the interruption. “Our graduates must

be capable of doing well in outages, even in disasters. If they

can't, we have not properly educated them!” He paused,

glared all around the room. “But this is no survivalist school.

We're not dropping you into a jungle. Your unaided skills test

will be at a safe location our faculty have chosen—perhaps an

Amish town, perhaps an obsolete suburb. Either way, you'll

be doing good, in a safe environment. You may be surprised

at the insights you get with such complete, old-fashioned

simplicity.”

Patsy had crossed her arms and was glaring back at the

Alcalde. “That's nonsense, but okay. There's still the question.

Your school brochure brags modern skills, and these

concurrent exams are supposed to demonstrate that you've

delivered. So how can you call an exam concurrent, if part of

the time your students are stripped of all technology? Huh?”

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

Mr. Alcalde stared at Patsy for a moment, his fingers

tapping on the podium. Juan had the feeling that some

intense discussion was going on between them. Patsy's Pa—

assuming that's who it was—had gone considerably beyond

the limits of acceptable behavior. Finally, the principal shook

his head. “You miss-take our use of the word ‘concurrent'. We

don't mean that all team members work at the same time all

the time, but simply that they multitask the exam in the

midst of their other activities—just as people do with most

real-world work nowadays.” He shrugged. “In any case, you

are free to skip the final examinations, and take your

transcript elsewhere.”

Patsy's image gave a little nod and abruptly sat down,

looking very embarrassed; evidently her Pa had passed

control back to her—now that he had used her image and

made a fool of her. Geez.

Bertie looked faintly miffed, though Juan doubted this had

anything to do with sympathy for Patsy.

After a moment, Mr. Alcalde continued, “Perhaps this is a

good time to bring up the subject of body piercings and

drugs.” He gave a long look all around. It seemed to Juan

that his gaze hung an instant in his direction. Caray, he

suspects about the pills! “As you know, all forms of body

piercings are forbidden at Fairmont Schools. When you're

grown, you can decide for yourself—but while you are here,

no piercings, not even ear- or eye-rings, are allowed. And

internal piercings are grounds for immediate dismissal. Even

if you are very frightened of the unaided skills test, do not try

to fool us with implants or drugs.”

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

No one raised a question about this, but Juan could see the

flicker of communications lasers glinting off dust in the air,

muttered conversation and private imagery being exchanged.

The Alcalde ignored it all. “Let me describe the second of the

concurrent exams, and then you'll be free to go. We call this

exam a ‘local’ project: You may use your own computing

resources and even a local network. However, your team

members must work physically together. Remote presence is

not allowed. External support—contact with the global net—is

not permitted.”

“Damn,” said Bertie, totally dipped. “Of all the artificial,

unworkable, idiotic—”

“So we can't collaborate, Bertie.”

“We'll see about that!” Bertie bounced to his feet and

waved for recognition.

“Ah, Mr. Todd?”

“Yes, sir.” Bertie's public voice was meek and agreeable.

“As you know, I'm a commuter student. I have lots of friends

here, people I know as well as anyone. But of course, almost

none of that is face to face since I live in Chicago. How can

we handle my situation? I'd really hate to be excused from

this important part of the finals just because I lack a physical

presence here in San Diego. I'd be happy to accept a limited

link, and do my best even with that handicap.”

Mr. Alcalde nodded. “There will be no need, Mr. Todd. You

are at a disadvantage, and we'll take that into account. We've

negotiated a collaboration with the Andersen Academy at

Saint Charles. They will “—

Fast Times at Fairmont High

by Vernor Vinge

Andersen Academy at Saint Charles? Oh, in Illinois, a short

automobile drive for Bertie. The Andersen people had long

experience with team projects ... back into prehistory in fact,

the twentieth century. In principle they were far superior to

Fairmont, but their academy was really more like a senior

high school. Their students were seventeen, eighteen years

old. Poor Bertie.

Juan picked up the thread of Mr. Alcalde's speech:—"They

will be happy to accomodate you.” Glimmer of a smile. “In

fact, I think they are very interested in learning what our

better students can do.”

Bertie's face twisted into a taut smile, and his image

dropped back onto the chair beside Juan. He made no

additional comment, not even privately to Juan....

The rest of the assembly was mostly about changes in

exam content, mainly caused by the current state of outside

resources—experts and technologies—that the school was

importing for the nonconcurrent exams. All of it could have

been done without this assembly; the Alcalde just had this

thing about face-to-face meetings. Juan filed away all the

announcements and changes, and concentrated on the

unhappy possibility that now loomed over his week: Bertie

Todd had been his best friend for almost two semesters now.

Mostly he was super fun and an amazing team partner. But

sometimes he'd go into a tight-lipped rage, often about things

that Juan had no control over. Like now. If this were one of

Bertie's Great Freeze Outs, he might not talk to Juan at all—

for days.

* * * *

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ScienceFictionByVernorVingeFastTimesatFairmontHighFastTimesatFairmontHighbyVernorVinge2Fictionwisewww.fictionwise.comCopyright©2001VernorVingeReprintedfrom"TheCollectedStoriesofVernorVinge",TorBooks,2001NOTICE:Thisebookislicensedtotheoriginalpurchaseronly.Duplicationordistributiontoanypersonviaemail...

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