Scene 2 — The Activities Fair

The Fedora Handbook, Rule #3

“It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.”

EXT. THE QUAD — ACTIVITIES FAIR — AFTERNOON

Sixty folding tables. Four hundred freshmen. Somewhere, the tuba.

The FEDORA SOCIETY table is a bedsheet over a card table. The bedsheet has a stain on it, roughly the size and colour of a continent nobody has visited.

VICTOR works the crowd with the desperation of a man whose charter requires five members and who currently has four.

VICTOR

(to a passing freshman, gesturing at nothing)

We meet Thursdays. We discuss the collapse of

Western civilization. And LAN.

The freshman keeps walking. Victor watches him go with fading hope.

VICTOR

(LOUDER)

THERE IS GOING TO BE PIZZA!!

MILES

(quietly)

Is there?

VICTOR

Miles.

MILES

I'm only asking about the pizza.

VICTOR

The pizza is a Q2 concern.

Hold up the chart.

MILES holds up the chart. It is laminated. It was laminated at a copy shop by a disaffectionate adult, who charged a small amount of money for it and said nothing during the exchange.

DATING MARKET VALUE

A THROUGH D, WITH SUBTIERS

(source: podcast)

Across the aisle, the GOTH COLLECTIVE table is immaculate. Black cloth, ironed smooth. They have dozens of names on the sign-up sheet. Two of them are handing out juice boxes to overwhelmed freshmen and asking, with what appears to be real interest, how everybody's move-in went.

GOTH

(warmly)

Hi! Do you want a juice?

There's no obligation. It's just juice.

Beside them the THEATRE GUILD is projecting.

THEATRE KID

(at conversational volume, which is to say, very loudly)

WE ARE SO GLAD YOU CAME OVER.

BRITTANY films the entire aisle without appearing to look at any of it. ASHLEY moves table to table with a clipboard, shaking hands, remembering names, terrifying everyone. MADISON hands a business card to a squirrel-adjacent sophomore and calls it a touchpoint.

Owen drifts through all of it holding a tote bag he did not ask for, which now contains: a stress ball, a condom, a pamphlet about mould, and a second, smaller tote bag.

SIMON is handing out flyers, badly, to nobody. He has been doing this for two hours. When Owen takes one, Simon's whole face changes for about a quarter of a second.

SIMON

Oh - thanks.

You don't have to read it.

Victor spots Owen from thirty feet.

His entire posture changes.

VICTOR

Owen Mercer.

Computer Science.

Owen

We met for like nine seconds yesterday.

VICTOR

I remember everyone.

It's a discipline.

He does not remember everyone. Taped to the table, facing him, is a sheet of paper:

MEMBERSHIP: 4

REQUIRED: 5

STATUS: URGENT

Behind him, DEREK has cornered a freshman at the CAMPUSGPT kiosk and has been explaining Rome to her for fifteen minutes. She has moved eighteen inches toward the exit in that time, the way a tide goes out.

The scene continues after the following artifact.

A kiosk sits as one of hundreds which the university installed in June, at cost, instead of fixing the third-floor plumbing in Whitlock Hall.

CAMPUSGPT 4 · New Carthage University · "Ask me anything!"

system prompt

You are CAMPUSGPT, a helpful assistant for New Carthage University. Answer student questions accurately and concisely. Do not speculate. If asked about campus dining, mention that Dining Dollars do not roll over.

USER

generate an image of the decline of civilization

ASSISTANT

[image]

A photograph of a laminated sign on the door of the campus

IT office reading: WI-FI OUTAGE — NORTH CAMPUS — WE ARE AWARE.

Dining Dollars do not roll over.

USER

no. civilizationally. the DECLINE

ASSISTANT

[image] The same photograph, at a slight angle.

EXT. THE QUAD — ACTIVITIES FAIR — CONTINUOUS

DEREK

(to the freshman, vindicated)

There. Look at it.

Victor produces a clipboard and a pen and places both in Owen's hands, in that order, without asking. He does not blink, and hasn't in some time.

VICTOR

(Insistant)

It's just a name.

Owen looks around for an exit and finds four hundred families and a tuba.

He signs.

Victor takes the clipboard, crosses out the 4, and writes a 5 with the deliberation of a man signing a treaty. He holds the pose. Miles applauds, once, and stops.

VICTOR

Quorum.

Chad passes with two other players and a crate of oranges.

CHAD

(delighted)

Hey! Owen!

Chad is gone before anyone can respond. The Fedora Society watches him go in complete silence.

MILES

(quietly)

He knew your name.

DEREK

He KNEW your NAME.

VICTOR

(after a long moment, evenly)

He's been briefed.

Nobody asks by whom.

At the STUDENT SENATE table, ASHLEY accepts the Fedora Society's funding paperwork, reads it in four seconds, and smiles with the top half of her face.

ASHLEY

Wonderful. Thank you so much.

This is Form 14.

Form 14 requires Form 14-B, which authorizes Form

14.

VICTOR

Where is Form 14-B?

ASHLEY

Attached to Form 14.

You've filled out Form 14.

So we'll need another one.

A silence of real spiritual weight.

VICTOR

SHITTE.

He overturns the Senate's card table. Pens, forms, and a bowl of individually wrapped mints go across the grass.

ASHLEY does not stop smiling. She looks at the secretary beside her, who is already writing.

ASHLEY

Motion to overturn the table.

Seconded.

Carried.

SECRETARY

(writing)

Carried at three-eighteen.

Two freshmen pick up the mints. The fair continues. Victor puts two fingers to the brim of his hat, slightly nods his head, and takes them away again.

MILES

(after a while)

So is there pizza, or —

VICTOR

Q2, Miles.

Cut to:

FEDORA SOCIETY#general

VictorPRESIDENT1:04 AM

Membership is at five. Charter is secure.

The Senate has declared war on the club by procedural means.

Derek1:06 AM

this is Carthage all over again

Miles1:06 AM

we ARE new carthage

Derek1:07 AM

EXACTLY

VictorPRESIDENT1:09 AM

New channel: #form-14-b. Discussion of Form 14-B outside #form-14-b is now off-topic.

🫡 3🍕 1

Simon1:11 AM

the new guy seemed alright

VictorPRESIDENT1:11 AM

He is promising.

Simon1:12 AM

i meant like. as a person

VictorPRESIDENT1:34 AM

Agenda item one remains unresolved.

VictorDM1:37 AM

Wednesday is still DnD. Bring your own dice. I am not doing dice again.

EXT. THE QUAD — THE PLACEMENT TABLE — CONTINUOUS

One table has better paper than everybody else's. Not a bedsheet and not a card table: a cloth, a stand, and a leaflet with a fold in it that somebody paid for.

A WOMAN with a lanyard is talking a queue of second years through the terms, cheerfully, one at a time, and getting through them quickly because she is good at it.

THE WOMAN

You're saving your day anyway. That's the bit

people miss. You're saving it in a corridor and

you're saving it asleep.

A SECOND YEAR

So?

THE WOMAN

So save it at a desk that pays for it.

Same day. Same saving. One of them has hours on

the end of it.

A SECOND YEAR

What are the hours for?

THE WOMAN

Hours ballot. Ask anybody who's been up.

Three people in the queue nod at that, and one of them moves up a place without being asked.

ASHLEY comes past with the clipboard, stops, and says something to the woman that they both find funny.

ASHLEY

(to Owen, who did not ask)

I'm placed. Array Four.

Owen

Congratulations.

Proudly, with her chin up.

ASHLEY

Thank you.

She goes. CHAD comes past the other way with the crate of oranges and reads the top of the leaflet upside down.

CHAD

Array's good. My cousin's on Six.

Owen

Are you doing it?

CHAD

Nah, I'm placed.

Owen

Where?

CHAD

Here.

Owen doesn't bother asking what it means but nods his head as if he understands.

Cut to:

ARRAY PLACEMENT · OFFICE OF ALLOCATION

Open to enrolled students in their second year and above. Sessions are four hours.

You are saving your day already. On an array you save it at a desk, in a seat that is yours, on a floor with a submanager who knows your name.

AFTERCALL is the time between one and the next. It is the only number that will ever be discussed with you.

HOURS accrue against your name. Hours are yours. Hours count towards your hours ballot.

Placement is not a component of review. Placement is recorded.

Array Nine is at capacity. Arrays Four, Six and Twelve are taking now.

11:40 p.m. He empties the tote bag onto the bed. Stress ball. Condom. The pamphlet about mould. The second tote bag, and nothing in it.

He asks the Help what there is.

HELP · personal

USER

what is there to do on campus

ASSISTANT

There are ninety-four recognized student organizations.

There are twelve facilities lines.

A facilities line is a group assigned to a building.

USER

so theyre just people who hang around a building

ASSISTANT

A facilities line is a recognized organization.

It has a budget and a supervisor.

It does not have meetings.

The goth collective is a facilities line.

He reads that twice. Then he opens a file and writes down what he knows.

what-i-know.clj

(def what-i-know {:saving ["everyone's day is saved, continuously, and it doesn't require anything from you" :the-old-gymnasium "the woman at the screen"] :peripherals ["issued separately from the Help, on a different sheet" :the-old-gymnasium "the woman at the screen"] :nomination ["one person may speak to you privately, and you may leave it blank" :the-old-gymnasium "the woman at the screen"] :approved-spaces ["students stay in approved spaces" :the-old-gymnasium "the woman at the screen"] :dining-dollars ["do not roll over" :the-help "the Help"] :the-help ["a personal assistant, always on, always approved" :the-help "the Help"] :the-parenthesis ["a bracket missing from the end of the second line" :the-help "the broken program"] :chad ["a quarterback" :the-quad "a football to the chest"] :victor ["a senior, the president of the Fedora Society" :the-quad "himself"] :fedora-society ["Logic. Debate. Civilization." :the-quad "a sign on a folding table"] :form-14 ["requires Form 14-B, which authorizes Form 14" :the-old-gymnasium "Ashley"] :goth-collective ["a facilities line" :the-help "the Help"] :the-floor ["a programme about a call array" :the-quad "a sign at the next table"] :repossession ["a word" :the-help "the Help, in passing"]}) (defn from [who] (for [[topic [_ _ w]] what-i-know :when (= w who)] topic)) (defn at [place] (for [[topic [_ p _]] what-i-know :when (= p place)] topic)) (defn what [topic] (first (get what-i-know topic))) (count what-i-know) (from "the woman at the screen") (from "the Help") (at :the-quad) (at :the-refectory) (what :repossession)

Fourteen things. Four from the woman at the screen. Four from the Help. Three from the quad. The rest from people he did not expect to hear anything from.

The last line asks about a place he has not been. Nothing comes back. Nothing tells him why.

commit a3f1c09

Author: Owen Mercer <Owen@newcarthage.edu>

Date: Aug 22, 11:58 PM

first commit

nobody has spoken to me since six except a quarterback and whatever that was

Somewhere in a private repository called civilization, someone else is committing. The repository has one contributor and 1,847 commits, of which 1,846 are titled fix.

commit 5c1d77e

Author: Victor Ashcroft

Date: Aug 23, 3:52 AM

fix

TODO: explain why this fails on every machine except mine

The function is called always-right?. It returns true.

what-i-know.clj

(defn always-right? "TODO: explain why this fails on every machine except mine." [] (and (true? true) (true? (not false)) (true? (= 1 1)) (true? (= (* 2 2) (Math/sqrt 16))))) (always-right?) ; Its always right, right?