"What will happen next?" I ask the native.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"After everyone has gathered, what will happen?"

"Oh," she said, lifting her finger to her mouth in what I had come to label the 'thinking position,' since she made it almost every time I asked her a question, "Well, usually Principal Gardner, the school principal, comes out and gives a really boring speech, then we separate into lines and get our school schedules and go to class."
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"That seems non-optimal. Surely we all were briefed before coming here, they could have given us our schedules then as well as skipped this speech."

"I guess it's for people who forgot."

"People who forget their objectives while in the field are left behind so that they don't drag down the team, or they are simply shot."

"Yeah...I don't think they'll do that here. Nobody has guns."

"Are you certain?" That would be vital information to have since my own was taken away

"Umm...I think so? It's against the rules, but I guess we don't have any metal detectors..."

"You are not certain then."

"I guess not."
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"Highly interesting." This information had disturbing implications. If even the native to this area was not certain who was and was not armed, what hope did I have of properly evaluating the threat levels of all students present? I didn't have time to explore that train of thought, however, since at that moment the room hushed as a man came in from the entrance and stood on a small podium in the center of the room

"That's Principal Gardner. He runs the school," said Vi

"He is the commanding officer of this installation then. Is he effective?"

"Not really; he doesn't do all that much, but I guess he's really good at talking to his bosses since the school gets more funding than a lot of the others in the district." I wonder to myself if it's really as Vi says and what it would imply if she was wrong; this overseer was either more capable in backroom politics than he was at managerial duties, or he was receiving income from other sources. Couldn't be illegal or he wouldn't be able to pour it into the school, so if the money is coming from another source it would have to be from the CIA as compensation to the school for housing me. The latter seems the more likely of the two, but the possibility of the former being true is reason enough for me to be cautious about this man.

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