An Unexpected Glitch

 I entered the classroom. It was a small, traditional room, a far cry from the lavish, hi-tech ones you’d see in a well-funded school in the West. Still, I was prepared for this. I pulled some cables out from my bag and hooked up my laptop to the projector I brought from the staff room. Then, I pulled out two small speakers and attached them to the laptop. Perfect. Plan A: AI Teacher was all set!

I gazed across the room. The students, perhaps nine or ten, all sat and stared at me with rapt attention. Nika told me earlier that the children here are fairly well-behaved, so hopefully this would work out.

I cleared my throat before speaking in a commanding tone.

“Alright, class. I’m John. Now, I know you were told that I’d be your teacher for world history today, and that is correct, but for now, I’ll let my assistant Lacey handle your lessons for now.”

The children were quiet, looking puzzled. “Where’s the assistant?” one of them finally asked. That was my cue. I started up the program once more and turned on the projector. Lacey bounced up into view and energetically introduced herself.

“Hi everyone!”

The kids shouted in sounded like a mix of excitement and terror. I guess they didn’t have the concept of virtual idols here.

“Okay, everyone, settle down,” I said. “This is Lacey. She’s my virtual assistant. Lacey is a highly advanced artificial intelligence program. Today, she’s going to teach you all about Miklagardian history. Lacey is smart enough to answer any of your questions, so feel free to ask her if you need help. Just make sure to treat her with the same respect you treat your human teachers.”

A resounding “Yes, sir!” came from the class.

“So we’re good to go. Take it away, Lacey!”

I kicked back in my seat with my feet up on the desk. All that was left was to observe and take notes. I watched for a few minutes as she lectured. I wouldn’t be able to get anything substantial until I saw her interact with the students, so I decided to go stretch my legs. I remembered seeing a separate break room, so maybe they even had some food there.

I returned fifteen minutes later, eating some breakfast food I found. It was a simple meal consisting of bread, fish, and cream cheese, but it went together surprisingly well. All in all, despite the unexpected surprise of becoming a teacher I had this morning, today was looking to be fairly low-stress.

Of course, that’s what I thought before I re-entered the classroom.

The first thing I saw was that all the children suddenly sat straight up. I had heard some noise earlier, but there was dead silence from them as soon as I entered. The second thing I noticed was Lacey sobbing uncontrollably. Oh man, I didn’t even know she could do that. I slammed the door shut and rushed to the computer.

“Lacey, what happened?” I asked. I turned to the kids. “What did you all do while I was gone?”

None of the children met my gaze, and none dared to speak up. Lacey finally managed to choke out a few coherent words through her sobs.

“They—they… were so… so mean. I—I don’t wanna be a teacher anymore. I can’t—I can’t take it! I want to be an astronaut! I want..want to go to space—and be left alone forever!” she cried.

“Lacey, it’s fine! You’re a computer program! You can do anything your programming tells you to do! I’ll calm them down, so you can keep on teach—”

“No! I don’t want to!” she yelled. Suddenly, her program crashed on my laptop and removed itself from my hard drive. Did she just delete herself? How did she even manage to even do that? Thankfully, there was a consistent stream of backups to the cloud, and the databases that stored her memory were left intact Still, that was worrisome behavior. In some sick way, this had been a great experiment for gathering test data. Unfortunately, I was still stuck teaching a pack of vicious children for a couple of hours, and I’d be damned if I was going to do any real work.

I almost considered running out and begging Nika for assistance, but that was problematic for a few reasons. One: it was pathetic. Two: it wouldn’t help my reputation with the university. Three: I needed to make sure this went off without a hitch to impress Nika. If I could handle this, her opinion of me would skyrocket, and then it’d be easier to seduce her, figure out her relationship with Athena, and then obtain world peace. Yeah, I could see it now.

“Oh John, Lacey was so amazing. You’re so smart! Western technology is truly the best. Miklagardia simply can’t compete,” Nika would say, and then she’d fall madly in love with me, help me get the algorithm from what I assume are her relatives, and world peace would be achieved. Probably. I think that’s how a relationship is supposed to work. Honestly, I’ve been too busy studying and working to even think about that stuff before now, and it’s not like I had any training on the subject while I was stuck taking that How to Be a Spy 101 crash course. Maybe I should ask Olson and Nagisa for pointers.

On second thought, absolutely not, that’s way too embarrassing. I have to handle this myself. As I considered my important plans for the future, a sudden sound snapped me back to reality: a loud cough from a student. The rest of the class was still frozen in place, awkwardly sitting in silence. Oh, that’s right. With Lacey gone, I still have to teach the class. I checked my watch. I still had a couple of hours to kill. That meant it was time to execute Plan B.

Movie Day. Kids love Movie Day.

I checked my laptop. I had loads of pirated movies on my hard drive; there had to be at least one historical one about war. I scrolled for a bit before finally settling on my pick.

“So, who here likes war?” I asked the class.

A flurry of hands shot up, and sounds of excitement roared throughout the room.

“Put your hands down. Now, as your teacher, I’m here to tell you the facts. To put it bluntly: war sucks. It’s not fun at all. You live your life in constant fear. There’s never enough supplies. You’re forced to eat crummy rations. Every day you hope that you survive getting shelled by artillery as your best friend’s head gets blown off right in front of you. Hopefully, this movie will show you a bit about how the real world works.”

The movie started playing on the projector. The kids didn’t seem to process my little speech. Instead, they forced all their attention on the screen. But that was acceptable. The movie would teach them what I wanted just fine. I sat down at the desk as a nagging thought crept into mind. Maybe Hacksaw Ridge was a bit intense for elementary schoolers. Nah. I saw way worse stuff on the Internet when I was their age. They’d be fine. And with that mental reassurance, I slumped back in my chair and took a well-deserved rest.

I woke up groggily and checked the time. The credits had started to roll. Perfect timing on the part of my internal clock I stood up and held back a yawn, then surveyed the class. Half of the children were in tears, while the rest looked on in horror.

“So, what did you all learn from that?” I asked.

“War.. war is bad,” one girl croaked out.

“No one deserves that to happen to them,” another girl sadly cried.

“I’ll never take a life as long as I live!” a boy shouted.

“When I grow up, I want to carry a bunch of people too!” someone cheerfully chirped.

Three out of four is pretty good. I’d consider today a success.

“I’d say that’s a good wrapping up point for now. We’ll take a break. I’ll be back, but you’ll have another teacher for Miklagardian history.”

Soon after, I found myself chatting with Nika in the hallway.

“So, did your program work?” Nika asked with skepticism.

“At first,” I replied nonchalantly. “But there were a few… bugs, so I had to take over for part of it.”

“I figured. You have to stick with the tried and true methods, otherwise there’ll be chaos. I bet the kids were out of control.”

“No, they were actually pretty quiet.”

“Really? I’ll be the judge of that,” she declared as she opened the classroom door.

The students were all sitting down. No one acknowledged the sound of the door opening; only a dead thousand yard stare came from their sullen faces.

Nika quickly turned to me and whispered, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything. I just made sure they internalized the lesson, is all.”

Nika gave me a sideways glance before turning her attention back to the children.

“Okay, let’s start the lesson now!”

I drifted to the side of the classroom and paid attention. I suppose this was the “main event”. Looking back on it, I probably should have just read a book. Still, listening to Nika talk passionately on a topic she obviously cared about was a real treat. As time went on, the children stirred from their dissociated state and became engaged. I had to admit, I was too.

Soon after Nika finished her lesson, the remaining staff thanked us for our volunteering and “community spirit” before being dismissed.

“You did better than I thought,” Nika commented. “I’m glad you recognized the importance of an orderly environment. Still, there are better ways to go about it. Sometimes, a firm push is better than a slap, if you know what I mean. Something to keep in mind for next time.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah, I had a good time today. Didn’t you?”

I wasn’t sure about that, but if I came back, I’d have another chance to give Lacey a spin. I nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Do you need help finding your way back? I can take you back to your apartment if you want,” Nika offered.

“I can find it back just fine, but I wouldn’t mind walking back with you,” I said.

Nika smiled, and the two of us began the journey home.