fandomhigh | Personal Improvement Through Science: Aperture Laboratories Presents Physical Education (Wed/Per. 2)

Upon entering the classroom through the circular sliding doors, students would find themselves in a short corridor with a plain white wall at the far end and two much more boring rectangular doors on either side, each one labeled ENRICHMENT CENTER PRE-TEST EQUIPMENT REQUISITION CHAMBER. At least the little figures on each sign matched the kind you might find on any public restroom door if you needed to know which one to use.

Behind each of those doors was a locker room: much fancier and cleaner -- you could even say sterile -- than an ordinary locker room. (You know, like the locker rooms in the school gym, which begged the question of why exactly physical education was meeting here, didn't it? Well, that question was irrelevant to the task at hand: namely changing into . . . not exactly typical gym wear.) Each student would find a locker with their name on a placard that read "The enclosed Vital Testing Apparatus is mandatory. Thank you for helping us help you help us all!" Each locker contained a bright orange jumpsuit and white tank top, as well as a pair of high-tech-looking white boots. Look, kids, just be glad you got actual locker rooms with walls. Most test subjects just got to wake up from suspended animation in a clear glass cubicle. The locker rooms did have one thing in common with Relaxation Vaults, though: if you flushed any of the toilets, they would cheerfully inform you that your business was appreciated.

After ten minutes or so, a chime rang out over the PA system -- yes, in the locker rooms -- and a prerecorded voice, pleasant and apparently male, announced, "Once preparations are complete, please proceed to the testing area entrance."

On cue, but without explanation, a blue oval hole suddenly materialized in the middle of the wall at the far end of the corridor. Through the door-sized hole, another, larger room was clearly visible.

Well then.

"Welcome to the Enrichment Computer-Aided Satellite Learning Center," said a second voice, this one slightly electronic, monotonous, and female, coming from well-concealed speakers once students had entered the main chamber. You did walk through the glowing blue portal, right, kids? Because if you did, you'd realize that you were standing on a platform about twenty feet above the floor, where you could look down and across the room at the blue portal you just stepped through. As a matter of fact, you could see the locker room corridor through it, and any classmates who might have been behind you standing there . . . until they emerged through the orange portal behind you. Mounted high on the wall near the orange portal was a white surveillance camera with a blinking red LED, because that wasn't creepy at all. "As a preliminary exercise, please state your name and class year. This activity will serve to confirm our testing roster."

There was a brief pause. "In addition, any conversation that may occur as a result of this preliminary exercise will be a valuable bonding experience." A chirping sort of beep. "Sarcasm self-test complete."

"I'm kidding about the bonding experience," the voice went on, sounding much less digital now, closer to human, and even conversational -- if condescending. "I really don't care about that. Do that on your own time, somewhere far away from me. Oh. What I said just now wasn't sarcasm, by the way, unlike the last thing. Just clarifying that in case you're incapable of telling the difference. I wasn't kidding about the testing roster, though, so get on with the names, if you have them. After that, we can start."

[OOC: OCD is up. Have at.]

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"... Umm..." Evan very nearly glanced over his shoulder to look at Topher incredulously at that one. "I'm not sure. I haven't ever looked to see how much organs go for on the black market. Lots?"

Excuse you, Evan, this was a locker room. Have some decorum and talk about the contents of your insides like a civilized person, but don't look at people changing. Good god.

"But like, more than mine or that guy's," Topher checked, gesturing to... he didn't know who, because of the looking-into-his-locker thing. "Right?"

Evan hadn't looked! He hadn't, he swore!

"... Probably," he ventured. "You're human, right?"

He had no idea who he was talking to. What with the whole not looking thing he had going on there.

"Yup," Topher confirmed. "No powers or anything. Just a straight-up left-handed skinny nerd."

"You might get bonus points for the nerd part," Evan offered, trying to be nice. "I'm not."

A beat.

"Baseline human, I mean. I'm pretty nerdy, I guess."

"So hey," Topher said. "Congrats on the expensive organs."

This was shaping up to be a fun locker room chat.

"Thanks?" Evan was not quite certain what to make of that, no. Maybe that was for the best. "Um."

Um, indeed.

"If I'm ever really strapped for money, I'll probably have to sleep on it before trying to pawn off a kidney, though."

"Eh, what do you need two for?" Topher reasoned practically. "If you sell it, there can be science!"

"I do like science," Evan allowed, fidgeting, and then pulling his shirt on. "Being operated on, not as much. I guess it would have to depend on what kind of science, you know?"

"I don't know if they let you choose," Topher said thoughtfully. "When you sell your organs, I mean."

"Can't I even pick who I sell them to?"

Maybe he'd be okay with it if he could!

... Maybe?

"...I don't think so." And there was an actual reason for that, Evan, because-- "That way people could, like, discriminate. Unfairly. And stuff."

"Somehow I don't think unfair discrimination is something people are terribly worried about on the black market," Evan pointed out, slipping his shoes on his feet. "I mean, the moral high ground isn't really something that's usually high on their list of priorities, is it?"

"Waaaaait." Topher held up a hand, which looked very silly since he was, you know, talking to his locker. "You can't sell that stuff, like, legit?"

Topher... really?

"I'm pretty sure there are laws about that. Even for selling mutant parts."

If there weren't, the Phoenix Five would probably make some. And you didn't want to mess with them, Topher. Just trust Evan on that.

"I never knew that," Topher announced, probably surprising no one. "Huh."

"I'm... pretty sure it's to prevent people from hunting and killing the innocent for spare change," Evan offered. It seemed like a pretty valid reason to him, anyhow.

"You know, that makes sense," Topher decided. "Except! The kind of people who would do that probably know their way around the black market anyway."

"Probably," Evan replied, blinking. That was... weird logic, but it worked. Huh. "But at least this way it means that the police can do something about it if they catch people doing it, right?"

"But they could do that anyway with just the hunting and killing parts!" Topher pointed out. "You don't need charges of organ sales on top of that."

"Well... no. But being able to sell them just gives more people reason to... do it?"

Evan was pretty sure he was being talked in circles, now. It was starting to make him dizzy.

"Even with the black market as an option the whole time?" Topher pointed out. "I don't knooow..."

"Well, if it was legal to sell body parts, people wouldn't need the black market," Evan noted. And then blinked. "But it's not legal! For good reasons!"

Ones that were slowly being reasoned away and it was kind of making Evan's head hurt.

"I dunno, man," Topher decided. "I kinda think it should be okay. Like, how else would people be able to get stuff if they were on the bottom of the donation list?"

Topher. This was weird. Cut it out.

"... But there wouldn't be any way to ensure that it was a healthy body part," Evan settled on, reaching right back for science, because that just seemed easier. "If people are just getting them somehow and buying and selling them, that lung could have come from anywhere."

Re: Locker Rooms: After Class [PItS Week 1]

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