"I know that!" he says, defensively. "So they should all be gay! Clearly Huxley didn't think this through."

“…it would be pretty weird if they were all straight,” another student admits. “Like, since they’re all supposed to be having a bunch of sex all the time anyway…”

“Most people just aren’t gay!”

"Wanna bet? -- HEY GUYS RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU'RE GAY!"

There is, rather than a helpful count, a general uproar.

It takes their teacher a minute or two to quiet things down.

This is a minute or two for which Camillo is spared small-group discussion.

(He is incredibly smug.)

After another few minutes of argument, Mr. Teegarden stops them all to solicit insights from the class at large.

Camillo's hand is in the air immediately.

"They keep calling girls pneumatic. It's the thing where they're making humans into machines again. Which I still think is just that Huxley doesn't get people or machines. He has them massaging sunburns!"

“Good insight!”

He notes it on the board— HUMANS INTO MACHINES — “PNEUMATIC”.

“Can anyone else give me examples of the same thing from this chapter? Humans being made into machines?”

This goes on for a little while — he collects themes and examples, letting the occasional argument among the respondents play out until it veers a little too far off topic.

Camillo basks in the praise for a good five minutes before he loses the battle of self-control and surreptitiously opens his handbook back up.

(...adding "mutants" to the protected categories probably wouldn't get him X-men if it even went through, just nuclear fallout ... it would be very wrong to edit the section on corporal punishment ... probably the rules about teachers texting students are there for a good reason, and probably he couldn't get Mr. Teegarden's number anyway...)

“…before we begin, does anyone have questions?”

He has lots and lots of questions but somehow he thinks can I have your number? I know I'm the best student in the class but am I your favorite? have you ever taken off your jacket even once? what's your middle name? have you ever heard of grindr and would you consider getting on it? would it be terribly wrong of me to alter the universe so I can suck your dick? wouldn't entirely fly.

By way of substitute, he wracks his brain for questions about the reading, but he can't come up with anything better than why is Huxley so mad about people having nice things all the time? which isn't exactly an impressive literary analysis question, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Then I’ll leave you to it. You have twenty minutes!”

He surveys the class once more, as notebook paper rustles, and then steps carefully out the door and shuts it behind him.

....shit shit shit he was not paying attention and, in retrospect, should have had questions like what are we doing and did you say anything important in the first part of class.

He nudges Ginger. "What are we doing?"

“—oh! It’s, um, we’re picking two or three of the themes off the board and writing a paragraph. About  a point he might be making with them all together. Do you need some paper?”

"I'm good. Thanks."

Ginger is a sweetheart. And the assignment isn't bad. He can write about ... technology and religion? Too easy. Extended adolescence? No he hates that shit. Individuality versus mass production, okay, and -- sterility? consumerism? -- where is Mr. Teegarden, shouldn't he be proctoring -- bathroom, probably -- right, individuality versus mass production and consumerism, that works well --

-- oh, god, is he in the bathroom like that, it's not like passing periods are enough time, right, teachers must need to use the other stalls too --

-- consumerism! Okay citations citations he has to say something about the centrifugal whatchamacallit, and about the surnames -- does that really tie in with consumerism though -- but there's something to be said about Marx -- that's a paper not a paragraph -- the clothes, the obsolescent clothes and the obsolescent people and Mr. Teegarden in the bathroom, one hand on the wall and his pants unfastened, head hanging down, breathing a little heavy -- focus -- everyone belongs to everyone else --

-- he could just change something for a minute, some rule that would let him go make himself useful, something like the PSP, he could go help Mr. Teegarden in the bathroom and then he could change it back and it would never have happened, no one harmed, no one would know --

In Huxley's Brave New World, says his paper, and then a blank expanse.

Mr. Teegarden returns to the room and takes a seat at his desk.

Oh no oh no oh no oh no.

Two minutes left.

He should write something quickly but he's panicking. In Huxley's Brave New World ... people do things ... mass-production ... shit, shit, what rule can he change to fix this -- it won't help if he makes the rules say that he can't get in trouble for not writing it, that's not what he's worried about, he can't make a rule that Mr. Teegarden won't look at it -- wait maybe he can -- what the hell is it going to do to the world if he makes a rule that teachers can't look at students' assignments--

“All right — make sure your name is on your paper and pass it to the front, please.”

In an act of desperation, he passes his paper to the front unattributed.

Papers are passed and collected.

The rest of the class period is, apparently, open for reading. Mr. Teegarden thumbs through the papers at the front of the class as his students take out either their books or their phones.

Phone. Google.

B-U-K-K-A-K-E.

The very first image result is a young woman dripping white from head to toe, tongue out, beaming and flashing peace signs.

It looks like this is roughly the same as it is on earth, just…more so. (There is a truly incredible video, thumbnails of which are linked often and enthusiastically, of an extremely feminine young man reclining in a clawfoot tub, painting his nails as man after man approaches the tub and comes into it. There is vigorous debate about how much if any of the fluid filling the tub was fake.)

...okay that's pretty incredible.

Also it's some kind of testament to the human psyche that, no matter how much people come, they'll still go okay, but what if we came way more.

......seriously, pretty incredible, though. He can watch that a few more times. For ... research.

He’s tapped on the shoulder.

“Camillo—”