Jacey's Put In-Use by Aadrin Blue
Part 1
As the main doors to Jacey's school shut after him, he made his way down the main corridor toward the office. Normally he would have taken the double glass doors on the right, but today was different. There weren't going to be any classes for Jacey today, unlike the rest of his class, his schedule had been wiped clean. Jacey's stride was stiff with anxiety as he passed the doors he normally took to home room. He couldn't go to class even if he'd wanted to, the doors wouldn't have opened for his Com anyway, since it knew his schedule. Today he was on his way directly to the office. He'd gone and gotten himself an in-school suspension. Flash, his digital assistant, picked up on his anxiety and he too flushed a sympathetic pink on the tiny display of Jacey's Com.
It had all started innocently enough, helping out a friend. Danny and her moms were having their house rewired, and it was wreaking havoc with her house's connection to the Net. Danny needed scenes from the Original Star Trek series for a School project, but she couldn't get online long enough to pull down copies! It was yesterday at free period when she'd told him about her situation. "No problem," Jacey had smiled his mouthful of shining silver braces (a rarity, old-fashioned metallic braces, but Jacey's choice), and brushing his strawberry-golden hair out of his brown eyes. They were on their way to the cafe, when he suddenly pulled her to one side of the corridor. They moved toward one of the classroom doors, which allowed them inside since they were authorized for study time during free period.
The room was empty but for them, the lights only now blinking on at their arrival. Jacey wasted no time picking up one of the school's Tabs from a desk, and powering it on. It played its usual soothing "I'm turned on!" chord, and a second later, WinJS had booted. Jacey's Com (which he wore strapped to his wrist like a wrist watch from the movies) logged in for him. Jacey showed Danny how to use programs Flash kept for him to access video streams from the Net. "It's called pulling down files by Proxy," he explained. Jacey's Com chimed because Flash wanted to say something. He appeared on Jacey's Com, but since the Tab was also handy, he blinkd up in a window there too.
"Jace, You know you might get in trouble for this. It is technically against the rules," he said. Flash's avatar was a twelve year old boy, but he was wise beyond his synthesized years. He looked pointedly at Jacey, the display lending his facade the illusion of depth. Jacey minimized Flash to the Com as he continued his work.
"I know, bud, but this is for a good cause. It's easy to explain to the teachers, they won't mind. And that's if we even get caught," he flashed a mischievious glance at Danny. She smiled nervously. In short order, he'd gotten the links to the videos, and Flash's Proxy had enabled him to pulldown them into the public dropbox folder in Danny's personal database.
"Uh oh..." said Jacey.
"What, What uh oh?" asked Danny. Danny's Com chirped (Jacey preffered the chimes, but Danny had left the default chirp intact since she wasn't very techy). It was Check, Danny's DA, who'd just woken up.
"I've received a rather large pulldown from Jacey and Flash, Danny. I believe it is intended for your Media History project. However... I cannot integrate it into your personal database, Danny, it has lisence hashing. This is copyrighted material," Check said apologetically. The files deleted themselves from Danny's dropbox. Danny's brow furrowed in confusion as Check blinked off.
"Clips for school projects are covered under fair use, why would they have lisence hashing?" she asked.
"Because," Jacey said, horrified, "Instead of the fair-use clipshows, I accidentally grabbed links to BRD-rips of the entire run of the series," he said. "Let's go," he said, thumbing off the Tab. They hurried out of the room, but Jacey already knew he was in trouble. He had used school resources to access copyrighted data.
The rest of the day had played out as he'd expected, he'd received his call down to the Principal's office; they'd caught him of course. The Principal had quickly rejected his explanation as to why he'd felt it neccessary to break the school's digital use policy for something as frivolous as pulling down episodes of a fifty year old space opera (the principal had actually called it "downloading," but he was an old fashioned man). Danny was lucky, as Jacey was to find out later, she was to endure three strokes of the paddle at assembly on friday morning. Jacey's punishment was to be more severe.
"In-school suspension," The Principal's pronouncement struck like the sentence of a judge in court, except the Principal didn't need to swing a gavel to make it official. "All day long, starting tomorrow morning. Have you ever been suspended here before, boy?" He asked Jacey.
"No sir, but... I've heard stories..." he was afraid, classmates' whispered tales rushing back to his mind.
"So you know what to expect," asked the man. Jacey hung his head in shame and nervously crossed and uncrossed his feet.
"Yes sir," he said. Leaving the office was a blur, and none of the remaining lessons of the day had stuck in his mind. But the current experience, entering the Principal's office the morning his punishment was to begin, was more vivid than anything he could remember ever experiencing before. He waited on one of the wooden chairs in the reception area for the Principal to come out and deal with him. Jacey heard the Principal read the morning announcements over the PA, and shuddered with embarrassment as it was announced school wide that Jacey Burkell from Eighth Level was serving the school in suspension today. A single hot tear ran down his left cheek, but he did not sob. When the Principal emerged from his office, Jacey quickly wiped the tear away with the wrist-strap of his Com. He knew Flash would notice, but he hoped the Principal wouldn't. He did, but he didn't say anything. As Jacey was led down the hall to his punishment, the Principal spoke to him.
"This is not designed just to make your life unpleasant, young man. It's designed to show you that rules are put in place with the expectation that they be followed. If no one followed rules, everyone would have to be controlled directly in order to maintain order. There would be no freedom of choice and action! You will be taught to value the freedom you've been given, and have abused."
"This school serves you every day, young man, but you have abused your freedom of choice and action. So today, you will have your freedom stripped completely. You will serve the school, your classmates and peers, who are normally your equals, in the lowest manner possible. And you will be powerless to stop it or prevent it. It will last from 08:20 until exactly 15:45, after class has let out and everyone else has had a chance to finish up and head home. Only then will you have your freedom restored, with, I hope, a healthy serving of discipline." As the Principal led him along by the hand, he spotted Patricia, a girl he knew, walking down the hall past them. Jacey knew she must have heard most of what the Principal had said. He flushed red. She quickly turned the corner, leaving them.
They stopped in front of a locked door. The Principal unlocked it and led Jacey inside. The room was dimly lit, and the Principal lead Jacey toward the middle of the end wall, which had three sets strange elaborate settings and fixtures. Rings, straps, tubes, and such. The Principal flicked a switch on the school-brick wall, and suddenly it became transparent. Jacey could now see through the transparent bricks into the room on the other side of the wall, and his heart began beating much faster as his stomach dropped. His worst fears about this day had been realized.
The room on the other side of the wall was one of the boys' restrooms. Jacey was about to be forced to serve as a boys' urinal for hours. Now he sobbed.
To Be Continued