Scene 1 — Move-In Day

The Fedora Handbook, Rule #1

“Don't quote me on this.”

New Carthage University — that is to say, anywhere.

A banner:

WELCOME, CLASS OF 20XX!

Under it, a second banner:

RANKED #1 IN STUDENT ENGAGEMENT*

*According to New Carthage University.

A tuba.

A girl is sick into a hedge. Her mother films it.

Owen Mercer enters with a suitcase and a desktop tower.

Owen

Okay.

A football hits him in the chest. He catches it with one hand, at the cost of the suitcase.

CHAD arrives. He is enormous. Two women hang off his arms, a third follows with a baby.

CHAD

Shit! Sorry, bro. Nice hands.

Owen

It hit me.

CHAD

You play?

Owen

Not intentionally.

CHAD

I'm Chad.

He looks at the tower.

CHAD

What's that?

Owen

A computer.

CHAD

Where's the screen?

Owen

It's the part that thinks.

Chad looks at it for some time.

CHAD

Is there a Help in it?

Owen

No.

CHAD

Whoa, sick.

GIRL ON CHAD'S LEFT

He's Legacy.

CHAD

Legacy don't carry their own stuff.

Owen

(Passing the football back)

I'm a scholarship.

CHAD

Restoration?

Owen

Provisional.

CHAD

(Spinning the football on his finger, effortlessly)

My cousin went Provisional.

He does water now.

The women nod. It is a good outcome.

CHAD

Party Friday.

Bring the thinking part.

He throws the ball back over his shoulder toward the team.

WOMAN WITH THE BABY

(flat)

He does that.

VICTOR (O.S.)

FRESHMAN.

VICTOR crosses the quad at a diagonal. Three men follow him in a wedge.

VICTOR

Victor Ashcroft.

Senior. President. Mentor. Visionary.

Supreme —

Miles coughs.

VICTOR

— Moderator.

Not officially.

-not yet.

He puts out hand. Owen takes it.

Owen

Your hand's wet.

VICTOR

Yes.

He does not let go.

VICTOR

Do you believe society has gone terribly wrong?

Owen

I got here thirty seconds ago.

VICTOR

Exactly when they get you.

MILES

His family was almost Legacy.

VICTOR

We were on the list.

DEREK

There was a list.

He points at a folding table. It is the Anime Society's table. A paper is taped to the corner of it.

FEDORA SOCIETY

Logic. Debate. Civilization.

FREE PIZZA

There is no pizza.

MILES

Is there pizza?

VICTOR

Q2, Miles.

DEREK

(with his mouth full)

This is what they did in Rome.

Owen

What's he eating?

SIMON

Nobody knows.

Derek drops it. Victor steps in it.

VICTOR

SHITTE.

MILES

(reverent)

He says it the old way.

Victor scrapes his shoe on the Chess Club's table, then kicks the table over.

VICTOR

Thursdays.

Bring a friend.

Bring several.

Nobody looks up. The Anime Society tries to pretend Victor doesn't exist.

CHESS CLUB PRESIDENT (O.S.)

Don't sign anything.

Victor is already forty feet away, saying the same sentence to a family who are here for a wedding.

The tuba plays three notes.

The third is wrong.

Blackout.

The Fedora Society

Logic. Debate. Civilization.

Meets Thursdays, 7:00 PM, Student Union 3C (pending)
Dues None. Dues are a mechanism of control.
Contact Discord (link on request, request in person)

WE DISCUSS: epistemology · rhetoric · the decline · LAN

WE DO NOT DISCUSS: the stain

FREE PIZZA

INT. THE OLD GYMNASIUM — ENROLMENT — CONTINUOUS

Hundreds of new freshmen are present with their parents in a queue going around the room twice. Six tables, with a woman at each one, and a screen turned away from the queue.

It moves fast. Nobody is filling anything in.

THE WOMAN

(Reading at the speed of somebody who has read it since eight)

Your day is saved. Saving is continuous, and

doesn't require anything from you.

Owen

Okay.

THE WOMAN

Peripherals are separate.

If you've been issued a peripheral, it's on a

different sheet, and I haven't got that sheet.

Owen

I haven't got a peripheral.

THE WOMAN

Most people haven't.

You may nominate one person who can speak to you

privately.

Owen

Privately?

THE WOMAN

Without asking...

Everybody else has to ask. You'll know they're

asking, and you can say no.

Owen got here at six this morning and has spoken to a quarterback and whatever Victor was.

Owen

Can I do it later?

THE WOMAN

You can do it whenever you like.

It's blank until you do.

She turns the screen a quarter of the way round. Not far enough to read, and taps it once.

THE WOMAN

Next.

Cut to:

NEW CARTHAGE UNIVERSITY · ENROLMENT · ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Read aloud to the student. Not signed, not a form.

You confirm that your day is saved.

You confirm that saving is continuous and requires no action on your part.

Peripherals are issued separately and are not part of this acknowledgement.

You may nominate one person who may speak to you privately.

You may change the nomination at any time. You may leave it blank.

Nothing in this acknowledgement is a component of review.

Acknowledgement is recorded.

INT. THE OLD GYMNASIUM — FOUR MINUTES EARLIER

The BOY at the front of the queue is nominating somebody and it is taking a while, because the field wants a code and the person he wants does not have one.

THE BOY

It's my mother.

THE WOMAN

She'd have a code if she were enrolled anywhere.

THE BOY

She isn't.

THE WOMAN

Right. Then I'll do it by name and district.

It takes her four goes because he doesn't know the district and has to be talked round to it by way of what the bus said on the front.

The queue does nothing. No one speaks, and four hundred people wait for this boy to remember the bus line home.

THE WOMAN

There. She can talk to you whenever she likes.

THE BOY

Thanks.

Cut to:

Classes start Monday. Owen has looked up what CS 101 is twice and both times the answer was the same four lines.

HELP · personal · v9

USER

what is cs 101

ASSISTANT

CS 101 · Introduction to Programming · A. Reyes · Meridian Hall · 8:00.

Would you like me to complete the first assignment?

USER

there isnt one yet

ASSISTANT

Would you like me to complete the first assignment?

USER

write something that says my name

ASSISTANT

(def registration "3812")

(defn say-me [] (str "hello, provisional # " registration)

(say-me)

Dining Dollars do not roll over.

$ clj -M -e "(load-file \"say.clj\")"

Syntax error reading source at (say.clj:3:1).

EOF while reading, starting at line 2.

$

(def registration "3812")
 
 (defn say-me [] (str "hello, provisional # " registration)
 
 (say-me)

Owen looks at it for about ten minutes. Then he puts a closing parenthesis at the end of the second line, because its the line that indicates a problem, and he doesn't know what else could be wrong.

Owen takes the paren out again to see. It stops working, so he puts it back. It works. Owen doesn't feel like he learned anything from this, but he plays around with it, entering a couple different names anyway.

say.clj

Owen

(To himself)

Wow, I don't feel like I learned anything from

this.

His help

I can tell you are having trouble with the first

assignment, Would you like me to complete the

first assignment?

Owen

((sighing) To his help)

No... not right now.

Blackout