Pulse

dragged him into a classroom.
    “Such a tool ,” Faith whispered. Amy was the other person besides Liz who remained in Faith’s life from the old days. She still played a lot of junior high drama games, and when it came to guys, Amy was a terror.
    Faith showed up late to her first class with Miss Newhouse, who made up one half of the teaching staff. Miss Newhouse hardly paid attention to anyone in the room, and this was the other reason why so few teachers were present at Old Park Hill.
    They weren’t really needed.
    It was often hard for Faith to imagine it any other way, so completely did her Tablet assume the role of teacher, counselor, and truant officer. The teachers didn’t teach. They babysat. The Tablet did all the real work. Lectures were streamed in from the best teachers in each of the two States, who were given multimillion-dollar contracts and fancy cars and big houses for being not only experts in their field, but outrageously talented at teaching the material they knew. The local teachers at Old Park Hill wouldn’t even administer tests. They were there to make sure no one got hurt, contain the drug use, stop fights from breaking out, and keep the lights on.
    Faith sat down at her desk and reached for her Tablet. “Who do you have for English lit?” said a voice behind her. “I’ve got Rollins. Oh, my God, he’s insane. So good. If he weren’t teaching Shakespeare, he’d be a comic genius, no joke. Who do you have again?”
    Faith turned around in her seat and saw a short, geeky-looking kid. “I haven’t said,” Faith whispered, and then turned back around as her own lecture started (not Rollins, but Buford, who was also amazing, but widely known as “not funny”). She put on her headphones and began listening while a red keypad was projected onto the flat surface of the desk in front of her. She was able to take notes on the lightboard and insert them on a time line running along the side of the lecture, where she would also be able to reference the material later. This was how she took quizzes and tests as well, and asked questions when she needed to. Teachers had between a thousand and ten thousand aides, depending on how many students were taking their classes. If a student had a question, he could type it in twenty-four hours a day and usually get an answer within five minutes. The Tablet delivered study halls, test prep units, and instantaneous feedback on homework. The only thing it didn’t provide was microwavable snacks, and there was a rumor floating around that a future version would even do that.
    A message appeared along the bottom of Faith’s screen, which surprised her. Usually when a lecture began, her Tablet automatically locked out all incoming messages.
I see you got Buford. He’s pretty good. Rollins is better. What’s your name again?
    Faith looked around the classroom, filled with thirty other students. Another message appeared on her screen.
Behind you : )
    Faith slowly turned around and smiled painfully. Then she turned back to her Tablet, rolling her eyes as soon as she could without being seen by the crown prince of dorks.
    Perfect, Faith thought as she listened to Buford dissect the meaning of Henry the Fifth . I’m here ten minutes, and I pick up a stalker. And a hacker.
    Faith typed out a terse message and tapped SEND .
How did you activate messaging during a lecture? And I’m busy.
    There was a pause of about four seconds.
Easy! There’s a back door in version 25. It takes about an hour to code for each Tablet, but once you’re in, you can com with anyone during lectures. It’s a two-way door when I open it. Cool, right? Didn’t you hear about it?
    No, Faith thought, I don’t troll the online nerd threads.
    Faith tried to listen to Buford until another message scrolled across her screen.
I’m Hawk. And you are?
    Faith ignored Hawk and went back to work, tapping out notations and tagging them to the screen with her finger. She tapped the corner of the screen on the Tablet, and a menu appeared, from which she chose a drawing stylus. A square of soft light appeared on her desk next to the lightboard, and she began drawing the outline of a face. She was very good at faces and usually only needed to get a really good look at people once in order to draw them.
    She looked around the room for a subject, taking in the new students, and her eyes landed on a guy in the back row. He wore skater shoes, skinny jeans, and a tight V-neck T-shirt. His hair