Fandom High School

Today the Danger Shop was set to resemble a rural, third-world village, complete with creaky but stable houses, more than a few people around (in actuality, probably many more people than would really be present in a small town like this), and a steady current of light rain with puddles rapidly forming in the dirt. Hope you were ready to get a little muddy, students!

In addition, each student was armed with a very limited first-aid kit, some of which had faulty hinges, just because.

"This is your final," Bruce said, swinging his arms. "It's wet and you'll be distracted, but as soon as I'm done talking, each one of you is going to be accosted by someone in this village who needs your help. And when you're done there, you'll be accosted again until time runs out. Use your supplies, don't offend anyone, and remember you're here to help."

Bruce had really enjoyed programming this, and the little details like the ambient dialogue of passersby (which was rarely in (broken) English, and far more frequently in rapid Bengali) and the growing size of the puddles on the ground were enough to make any good game designer weep.

"Ready? Go."

Today, class was meeting in the Danger Shop, and instead of desks with first-aid kits, there were a few different stations, each with different materials on them. Also, there were simulation people -- children, really -- already sitting at each station. They looked whiny.

"Today we're going to work on a few basic things," Bruce said once everyone had arrived. "Big techniques like bandaging and identifying burns are really useful, but first-aid is sometimes about removing splinters, icing a bruise, or making sure a cut is disinfected. They're... really not hard to do, but today we're just going to take some time to practice. With an extra human component, which can make things a little more difficult."

See those Danger Shop-supplied people sitting at each station? The whiny-looking ones? Bruce meant those.

He gestured to the clusters of desks. "There are three stations and you'll have fifteen minutes at each of them. At the first one, your patient has a splinter in her foot. There are instructions on the desk on how to remove it, so try your best to do that without, uh, hurting her too much or getting discouraged. At the second station, a boy sprained his ankle and you just need to ice it with one of the ice packs provided for the full fifteen minutes, but he's... going to complain, so be ready for that. And at the third station, you need to disinfect all the cuts on your patient's face and shoulders and put regular band-aids on them, but be ready to be told that it hurts... maybe seven or eight times. Minimum."

He cleared his throat. "Ready? Go."

Once again, Bruce's classroom was arranged with clusters of desks throughout the room and a sparsely-stocked first-aid kit on every table. Unfortunately for everyone, the dummy from last week was back and sitting on Bruce's desk at the front of the room. The bandages from last week were gone, but it was about to become creepy all over again, because the theme of today's class was--

( ''Tourniquets.'' )

When students arrived for Bruce's class today, they might notice that the classroom was fairly low-tech for Fandom standards, considering that teachers here had access to literally any resource they could possibly program. In this room, however, there was a chalkboard, just enough clusters of desks for the number of students registered, and a large paper bag on the desk at the front. Other than that, besides the awkward-looking Bruce standing by the blackboard, the room was pretty bare.

Bruce waited until everyone was seated and then a few minutes on top of that, then gave up hovering by the front and took a few steps forward, clearing his throat to signal that class was starting. "Uh, hi," he greeted the class. "I'm Dr. Banner. This is First-Aid and Basic Medicine, so if that's not what you're here for, you should probably check your schedule again and figure out where you're supposed to be. Most of you probably know your way around this building better than I do.

"This semester, we're going to look at some simple first-aid techniques, uh, obviously, such as CPR, constructing splints, identifying and handling small injuries, treating burns, and how to take care of all that in a pressured environment without a lot of surplus resources at hand. We've got seven weeks to do all that, which is a while longer than the typical first-aid course, so I think there's a good chance we can get it done."

He sounded… pretty much like he wasn't all that confident about that, but had told that confidence was an important quality to exude here and was now pretending. Because that was exactly the case.

"I guess we should start with getting to know each other," Bruce contined, scratching the back of his neck. "So if you could all go around and introduce yourself quickly…? I guess give your name, your year, where and when you're from, one general subject that interests you academically in your other coursework, and if you don't mind sharing, why you were interested in taking this class. I'm, like I said, Dr. Banner, I'm a nuclear physicist, and I'm teaching this because… I was told it would be useful to have on the curriculum."

That wasn't a cop-out at all, nooo. But Bruce was allergic to giving out personal information, anyway. He gestured to the students now, hoping that someone would volunteer to begin the introductions so that he wouldn't have to call on people who didn't want to go.

After the last student had finished his or her introduction, Bruce swung his arms loosely, took his time looking around the room to make sure no one had been skipped, then reached for the large paper bag by the desk in the front and began unloading several boxes of a board game that might look familiar to some students.

"A lot of medical work is about being precise but timely," Bruce said, holding up one box. "Because what you're doing is important and you should be efficient, but doing something wrong can be worse than doing it too slowly or not at all. So, today I want you to get into small groups and play a game that balances speed and accuracy and is sort of thematically appropriate. The board is set up like a person, and the way to play is to take turns removing parts of the, uh, patient's body on the board and try not to hit the sides of the openings. It's, uh… I don't think it's quite this simple when the patients aren't metal with plastic organs, but this is what we have to work with. So… find a partner or two and come get a box and you can play Operation for the rest of class."

That was it, right? There was nothing else he needed to say? Bruce glanced around the classroom again to see if anyone looked like they were expecting more information, and then, relieved to be done, took a seat at his desk.

"Oh, and – talk to me if you have any questions," he added. "Or if you're interested in being a teaching assistant. Um. Thanks."

There. That had been… not terrible, but not easy either. He was going to be slightly on edge for the rest of class, because wow was he not cut out for this, but at the very least, now he knew that his students weren't going to revolt and kill him on his first day. Probably.