Chapter Classroom NOT

Josh couldn’t help thinking about how nervous he was about using this device just one day ago and now he was ready to climb into the pod for a day at school.

The lid closed and the warm bladder pushed up against his body. It was like slipping into a warm bath on a cold winter day to lose the chill. There was momentary darkness and then he found himself sitting in class with his friends in class. “Good morning guys,” he said.

Yancy was busy trying to finish his homework before class started. Pete was thinking higher thoughts amazing himself. Sheri replied to him smiling, “Hello Josh. Did you finish your homework?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad.”

Pete chimed in, “Homework shwomework.”

Yancy was surprised by Pete’s answer and said, “How did you get all this done in one night?” He was a bright kid in many ways but also a procrastinator. He often was late on assignments.

“By setting priorities my friend.” Pete exuded confidence.

Sheri joined in, “Did you finish?” She looked at Pete in disbelief.

“Of course not. That stuff wasn’t among my priorities,” he said laughing.

The teacher spoke, “Good morning class. I hope you all were successful with your work,” the teacher got the attention of her class. There were some affirmative replies and some groans as well. “We will discuss it later after we cover some new material.” She displayed a page from her syllabus on the front wall and discussed what they would be doing in the next several weeks. While she was talking she abruptly stopped in the middle of the sentence. She stood frozen like a statue. At first the kids looked around at each other as if, what is going on. Panic struck some of them.

Pete laughed, “I guess we know now, since we are still moving and she is not, who is real and who is imaginary here.” He snickered not at all concerned. He assumed it was a glitch which would be corrected pretty quickly.

Sheri turned to Josh and Yancy not caring for Pete’s sarcasm. “What do you think happened? There must be someone monitoring don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Yancy. “These programs are designed not to be interfered with. They stand on their own with typically no input once released.”

“How do you know that?” Josh asked.

“My Dad works in the virtual applications programming field. He often does meetings in his study and I listen in through the heating duct work. It is pretty interesting at times.”

Pete walked up to the front and made faces at the teacher directly in front of her but didn’t get any laughs this time. He looked at the class and said, “Don’t tell me that this worries you?” The class was mostly silent.

Yancy continued, “He says Artificial Intelligence is good at writing software code fast, but sometimes it fails at including key ingredients that are needed for some applications.”

Sheri asked, “What kind of ingredients?”

“He says human emotion and that creative spark that people enjoy. In AI there is no joy or creative spark, just trying every possibility. They have speed in their favor. The infinite monkey’s theory.”

“Infinite Monkeys theory. What?” Josh questioned.

“My Dad told about it. It says an infinite number of monkeys hitting typewriter keys randomly could by chance eventually type a Shakespeare play? It is highly improbable but mathematically possible. The improbability is where AI sometimes fails. It can not make the leap that creativity makes. So there are still human software coders to fill in these gaps. These AI programs are either bad or simply don’t completely do what is intended. So they can end in a box canyon with no way out. He refers to these as the program name followed by ‘not’ meaning it does not work. His job is to creatively write a program that does what is needed to replace the bad file. Kind of like splicing the program in the right place with additional code.”

Josh thought for a minute then said, “So you are saying we are stuck here in ‘Classroom Not’?”

“Yes and no. I don’t know if we are stuck We can just exit out of here.”

Josh asked, “What is his job title? It sounds interesting.”

“I don’t know his job title exactly but he refers to himself as a code tinker.”

The class sat worried for an hour, but nothing changed. Pete stood up frustrated, “That’s it, I’ve had enough for one day,” and he pressed his exit button with everyone watching. Nothing happened. “Hey, this isn’t working.” His demeanor suddenly became less cocky and he showed the kind of concern on his face that the students who knew him had never seen before as he kept pressing the button harder and harder.

Molly giggled a little, “Maybe you are not pressing it hard enough Pete.” Sheri and Yancy grinned at her sarcastic remark.

Josh was still thinking about windows when he asked them, “Isn’t it peculiar that we have no windows in this class but we have a door?’ They turned and looked at the door at the back of the room they hadn’t noticed before.

Pete had returned to his seat listening in. “Maybe Miss Ursbrook is purely virtual and she comes through the door.”

Sheri, annoyed by Pete’s comment, “Would you stop goofing around and focus on this problem with us.”

Yancy thought for a moment and said, “Wait a minute. He might be on to something.”

Pete stood and took a bow showing that he was partially recovered from letting his concern show for a minute.

Josh walked to the door which was solid. He grabbed the handle and wiggled it. “It’s locked. Darn.”

Sheri joined him and took notice that when he was holding the door knob a glass window appeared on the top portion of the door and disappeared when he released it. “Look,” she said grabbing it. “I can see into a hallway.”

Josh looked through the glass as well.

Yancy joined them while Pete went to the teacher’s computer in the front with a hunch. Yancy said, “Programmers leave back doors in their code so they can get in all the usual security. My Dad showed me how to do it on our home-server router. I wonder if there is some way to over ride the lock,” he looked around the edges of the door for a switch. Suddenly a buzzer sounded followed by a snap and the door cracked open.

Yancy was wondering what he did to unlock the door until Pete cracked up laughing loudly, “Who needs passwords when you have Pete.” They all looked at him. “There is a door unlock soft button on her computer display. I pressed it and the door unlocked.” He was so proud of himself. The class looked on in wonder with several kids getting up and going to the door.

Josh stepped through the doorway and Sheri and Yancy followed while the rest stayed in the room but poked their heads out one by one though to have a look at what was out there. Pete went through the doorway and joined the group in the hall. They looked up and down the passage and it seemed to go forever in both directions with many doors on either side. There was also a door directly opposite from the room. Yancy jiggled the handle. It was locked.

Molly was browsing their on boarding schedule and came across a note. She came to the hall to tell them about it. “It says we should never try to go through the door. There was danger if we did. It was locked for that reason.” When the other kids heard that they returned to their seats.

Pete said, “It doesn’t look dangerous to me.” He closed the door and tried to open it again. He shook the handle, “Darn, it’s locked again,” While holding the handle he could see through the temporary window into the class. He began to look like he was losing his cockiness again as things took a turn for the worst.

Molly banged on the window and looked through as well and said, “I can’t get their attention,” panicking slightly.

Josh took a look and said, “That’s strange. They are not moving.”

Sheri joined him and looked, “What? Let me see. You’re right, they seem frozen.”

“Yeah, like the teacher,” Josh turned and looked directly face to face with her. She looked freaked out about what they were seeing. “Stay calm we can’t loose our heads. It is probably just some kind of glitch. They will work it out soon I’m sure.” He noticed every time one of the kids started to panic, they returned to normal pretty quickly without any resolution to their problem. He remembered his Dad telling them that the pod system monitored their vitals and would release a soothing sound modulated into their thoughts that would calm them when needed.

“I know, but I want to get out of here. We should all try our exit buttons. If one person gets out of their pod they can alert someone as to what is going on and help the rest.” Pete was the only one that tried his exit button so far so Sheri raised her wrist and looked at the button. She looked back at Josh, “Here goes,” she pressed it. Nothing happened. Then she seemed to calm down.

Yancy went next. He raised is arm and pressed his button but had no result either. Molly and Josh simultaneously pressed their exit buttons with the same negative results.

Molly said, “If we ever get back inside the classroom we can ask the rest to try as well if they haven’t already. What about the note to not go through the door into the hall for any reason. If it was something small like a glitch we may have magnified the results by being out here.”

Pete laughed, “Out, how are we out. No, we are in. In the virtual world. Those in the classroom, also virtual world.”

Yancy was getting annoyed, “Would you quit flipping between joking and being serious like that. This is serious.”

Pete replied, “Oh that was joking. Sorry if I upset any of you girls.” He gave Yancy a wide open eyed look like do you get it.

“Just knock the whole thing off, OK.” He stood torso to torso with Pete but was three inches taller. Pete shrugged sheepishly and backed away. Yancy rarely acted that way. It might have been his way of showing anxiety.

Josh looked up and down the hallway. He wondered if any of the doors would lead them to a way out of this.

Sheri was watching him while he brain stormed, “What are you thinking?”

“I say we make two teams and search these doors for one that is unlocked.”

Molly wasn’t sure about the idea, “You want us to leave this safe place for a questionable outcome in another room?”

Sheri agreed with Josh, “I don’t feel safe here at the moment.”

Josh let out his plan, “Sheri and I will try this direction. Yancy you and Pete go the other way. Molly, since you feel safe here, stay and guard this door. There are no markings so we don’t want to lose our way back into the room.” They all nodded and started on their mission.

“Don’t open any door until we discuss the next step as a team. Just jiggle and see if the handle is locked,” said Yancy.

Josh and Sheri nodded and went to the first set of opposite facing doors along their path. Both were locked. They went to the next, and the next, and the next until they were nearly out of site from where Molly stood guarding their classroom entry point. The door was still locked. She checked it several times. Yancy and Pete were experiencing similar failures. Both teams continued.

Molly kept changing her view back and forth to keep the groups in site until she could no longer see them clearly.

The next door handle that Josh tried on his right side wiggled like it was unlocked. “Hey, I’ve got one,” he looked at Sheri’s excited face. “Should I open it?”

Sheri questioned, “What about what we said about getting everyone here before doing it?”

“I can’t even see Molly, can you?” Josh said.

“No.”

“If we go for them we might never find this door again.” Then he turned the handle slowly as Sheri gasped cautiously.

“Wait, what if only one of us go for her?” she said.

“Then what, she can’t leave or we might lose are classroom mark. So then you would have to go alone for Yancy and Pete who I’m sure are out of Molly’s site if they haven’t found an open door. Then three of us would be alone, out of site. That is too risky. We must fly by the seat of our pants and explore by ourselves. You can remain outside if you want, but I’m going in,” he said. He opened the door slowly.

“Wait, what if the door locks after you are through?”

“Good point. Hold the door open and keep your eyes on me.” She nodded back looking uneasy.

They both looked through before he entered. What they both saw was a beautiful and amazing.