Learning and Teaching

 All of this brings us back to the current conversation I was having with my “parents”. The “family bonding” has left an untreatable psychic wound on my mind. I genuinely tried to play along at first, but something inside me snapped, and I can only dish out the pain that Nagisa made me endure. On the plus side, it was good for our cover as a pretend family, although it somehow shifted from “happy family” to “unhappy family with hostile child”, which was definitely accurate to how I felt about our current relationship.

“So son, how was your first day in Miklagardia?” asked Olson.

“Long. Long and tiring.” That pretty much summed it up.

“What happened? I thought you just had an orientation today.”

“Speaking of that, why did you rush me out here? Classes don’t start for another month.”

“Well John, we wanted you to have more time to get adjusted to Miklagardia and become thoroughly acquainted with the research facilities,” Nagisa said coyly. Alright, I get it. I can read between the lines just fine.

I gave Nagisa and Olson the gist of what happened. They responded with basic questions and chastisements until I mentioned Nika’s name.

“John!” Olson suddenly interjected. “Repeat that again. You said her name was Nika Mavrokordatos?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Is something the matter?”

“The Mavrokordatos family is highly influential in Miklagardian society. They’ve been political players for centuries,” Nagisa explained.

“That’s right,” said Olson. “Son, for the good of the family business, I need you to—no, as your father, I order you to get closer to her.”

“Closer?” I said exasperatedly. I must be really tired. I think I just imagined my commanding officer ordering me to get into a relationship.

“That’s right Johnny, you have to seduce her—for the good of our family!”

I was about to have an aneurysm, and the Ustasians on the other end must have noticed.

“Remember John,” said Nagisa, “this isn’t about you or us. Your relatives are also counting on you.”

“You also mentioned that you needed a new phone. Well, I’m sure your old Uncle Sam will gladly contribute more to your allowance once he hears how you’ve been doing, so make sure to keep it up. We’ll let you get some sleep now. Stay safe, and remember what we talked about. Goodnight, John,” said Olson.

“Goodnight, John. Love you!” Nagisa practically shouted.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks,” I mumbled before hanging up. I flopped onto my bed. It was stiff.

“Oh man, this is turning out to be one hell of a headache,” I complained to no one in particular.

Suddenly, one of my devices began ringing. It was a compact, silver machine with a foldable clamshell design, almost like a flip phone but bulkier. This was a digital satellite computer that Olson gave me shortly before I was shipped off to Miklagardia. It can upload and download text, image, and even video data with a secure one-time password. The usual problem with those is that they need to be coordinated at the same time, but Olson casually mentioned that there were a ridiculous amount of passwords on it, so I thankfully didn’t need to worry about running out of them anytime soon.

I opened up the device and entered the code to unlock it. It took me a few minutes, but I soon recognized the first image. It was that same photo of the Miklagardian Institute of Technology’s mathematics department that Nagisa showed me all those months ago. The next picture was a closeup on one of the women from the first. She was on the taller side. Her dark hair was bundled up in a ponytail, which removed any loose bangs from obstructing her thick, square glasses in front of the dark circles under her eyes. I looked at what the description said: “Athena Mavrokordatos”. Was she one of Nika’s relatives? I suppose the commanders must have thought so. It was another mystery among mysteries I’d have to tackle later on; for now, the most pressing issue I had was using my deductive powers to capture Nika’s heart. If I didn’t, I’d be in a load of trouble back on base. What a nightmare.

I flipped through the stack of papers the coordinator had given me. Perhaps I’d get some inspiration from here. Still, it’s not as if Nika would magically be available the next day.

“I have to say, John, this was perfect timing,” Nika commented as we walked down the street together the next day.

As it turned out, she was magically available. Even better, she’d already scheduled for the same event I had suggested last night.

“Still, I didn’t think your phone was working. I was pretty startled when you called,” Nika said.

“Yeah, thankfully there’s a landline at my apartment building, but it’s pretty inconvenient to use,” I replied.

“Was your uniform also in your building? You look pretty smart with it on. Way better than those other tacky clothes you had.”

I found out soon after discovering the phone that the coordinator had also left me the university’s uniform as well. It was the same garish purple that Nika and the rest wear, but in a men’s style. The uniform itself was decently comfortable, but the tie I had to use was stifling and uncomfortable, chafing my neck.

“Well, thanks, although a T-shirt and jeans feels much less restrictive.” Nika rolled her eyes at that.

“Anyway, thanks for taking me to the local school. I gotta say, though, I wouldn’t have imagined you would be interested in basic history. I figured you already knew all about it,” I said.

Nika stopped and stared at me.

“John, you did know that this was for teaching history, not learning about it.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

She shook her head.

“I am serious. There’s a shortage of teachers right now. This event was to get university students to volunteer to help teach elementary school students. We may be on break, but they’re not”

“So you just volunteered to do this?”

"Absolutely! As an upstanding Miklagardian citizen, it's my duty!" You should also help out where you can! Besides, I always wanted to try teaching a class.”

“No! They’re just exploiting you for free labor!”

“If you feel that strongly about it, why did you even volunteer? Didn’t you know this was a teaching position?”

I took out the international study coordinator’s recommended activities paper from my bag and handed it to Nika. She perused the document while I explained.

“You see? This says it’s an event to help me learn about Miklagardian history. Apparently, I need to take an exam to test out of it at the beginning of the year, even though I’m in the computer science department.”

“Ah! I see,” Nika said with a bit of a laugh.

“See what?”

“There’s an old saying around here: ‘the best way to learn is to teach’. They probably think that if you can teach it to children, you’ll understand enough of it to pass the test.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now if you like it or not. I contacted them after you called me. You’re signed up for this whether you like it or not,” Nika shrugged off my concerns.

I could choose to run away and hide, but that wouldn’t be good for my reputation, especially on my second day in this country. Nika took a book out of her bag and shoved it into my hands.

“Here, this is a quick crash course on everything you’ll need to know. You’d better cram it fast,” she said while speeding up.

I struggled to match her pace while skimming through the book. But in all honesty, I wasn’t worried at all. For I had a secret weapon lying in wait.

Soon enough, we arrived at the elementary school and met with the staff, who hurriedly herded us to the staff room to prepare our lectures. Luckily for me, I found a small projector that could connect to my machines. I whipped out my laptop and got straight to work. Nika peered over my shoulder to assess my progress.

“So John,” she said while leaning down to look at my screen, “you think you’re ready? You don’t need to focus on making a fancy slideshow. Lecturing and answering questions for a couple hours should be fine enough.”

“I’m not making a slideshow, and with one more keystroke, I won’t need to lecture at all!” I proclaimed. Nika looked at me with a baffled expression as I hit the Enter key. “Alright, Lacey! It’s time to make your international debut!”

A program opened up on my laptop screen. At first, the window was blank, but soon enough, the image of a young girl popped up on screen. She had long blonde hair reaching back over her shoulders, past her blue blouse. Her blue hair band wrapped around her ears with headphone pads fixed on the ends. Her eyes, also blue, shot open and glistened with wonder.

“Wow, so this is Miklagardia! The network feels way different here than in Ustasia!” she exclaimed.

“Why is there a girl on your computer screen?” Nika asked.

“I’m not some girl! My name’s Lacey!” said the girl on screen.

Nika shrieked out as she hid behind me.

“It’s alive! The computer’s talking!” she cried. “Grandma was right. Computers really are satanic!”

I quickly turned around and caught Nika by the shoulders.

“Calm down! This isn’t satanism or magic or anything.” I said as I gestured toward the screen. “This is Lacey. She’s an artificial intelligence program I’ve been working on. Say hello to Nika, Lacey.”

“Hello!” Lacey cheerfully chirped.

“You see, Lacey, short for Lovelace, is an AI that I created to mimic human behavior. I’ve programmed her to want to act like a regular girl. Isn’t that right, Lacey?”

“I want to be an astronaut!”

Nika looked at me like I was insane.

“Well, I’ve got some kinks to work out, but she acts normally for the most part. Pretty nifty, eh?”

Nika stared at the screen with less fear, but still a bit of trepidation.

“I… see,” she said. “But why are you starting this now?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m gonna let Lacey teach those kids while I kick back,” I said.

“What?”

“That’s right! I’ve already trained her on the course curriculum, teacher’s resources, and all the information there is online about Miklagardian history. I bet Lacey could probably teach better than some of the teachers here!”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Ah, it’s fine! At the very least, it’ll be good data for research back at the university. It’s why I came here from abroad in the first place.”

And with that, Nika watched as I stood up and took my laptop and projector to the classroom. It was time for Lacey’s first trial.