With a few students and a teacher missing from the classroom, the almost filled room of children was noisy and seemingly hyper after the weekend. The tables were in three long rows of six tables, with two seats to any given table. Currently, two girls in the middle of the room, a group of six or seven boys on the left side and another three boys at the front left were the only sources of sound, which still filled the room completely. Silence was also there, sitting in the back left corner, isolated from each of the conversations.
Her face was scowled, creating barely visible creases on her forehead, 'So... shopping was a waste of time. But more importantly, the event... The pitch of my voice doesn't matter since only shouting or screaming actually did anything. I also factored out any other noises like jumping and stomping in that session too... I mean, come on! There has to be something I'm missing here! Am I actually going to have to train my voice or something? That sounds like a hassle if ever I've heard one.'
Whilst she trailed off into her own world, more seats had been filled and the number of conversations had risen with the over all volume in the group. But it suddenly dropped as the teacher also appeared in the same mysterious fashion as he did for every lesson.
All eyes were quickly drawn to him, except Silence that is. With intensive staring and commentary not getting through to her, the girl sitting in front of her took the bullet and tried to get her attention.
Even this took her a while to realize, though, she knew the situation soon after and apologized, "Sorry sir."
"Thank you for getting her attention Demo. Anyway, with everyone's attention let's begin. I know that I dumped a lot of information to you in the last tutorial session, this is only your first year, so if anyone has any questions I'll be happy to answer them now," the teacher said in a soft tone.
-
A barrage of questions popped up. Most asked for the point behind doing most of the subject except for Espionage, which was, of course, only answered by the infamous 'it's extra credit so just do it' line.
The only other questions centered around the exams. And to sum up the questions and answers, there seemed to be an exam during all of the three terms. They were just for progress reports apparently but were still compulsory and could redefine your schooling experience depending on how you did. Fifty percent or higher were passes, pass and nothing exciting or bad happened. But getting under that meant that you had to redo the test, have a long discussion with parents or carers and a hit to your rank.
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When no one else bothered to ask anything, the teacher took it as a sign to speak up about the schedule for the rest of the day before dismissing everyone twenty minutes early.
Silence, who didn't eat or talk during breaks aside from lunch, simply went to the permanently empty field to rest away her extra time in serene bliss.
-
After the fifty minute break the students went to their gender's changing room and went to one of the numerous free fields as the class started. Silence, who was the only one not shivering, was at the back with a bored expression as she waited quietly.
The teacher flashed into the middle of the field and started to recount the weeks espionage activities, "So as I said in the classroom, this week will be slightly, different. Last time was a test which I didn't expect anyone to actually succeed in, although someone did due to a clear oversight on our behalf... Anyway, that's about the level of security we'd expect you to deal with in the second year, so all of you did well in that regards. This time will be a similar event, there'll be a card with your name in a room in a practice building, and you'll need to get past the security to get it and return without getting subdued. The difference being that you'll be in teams instead of being on your own."
With a small pause for breath, his explanation continued before turning into a list, "In the world of espionage, you'll rarely be on your own without any possible backup, since that's just suicidal in most cases. In most cases you'll have a team to collaborate with, so even though only a third of your final exam will be marked in groups, we think it's important enough to use such examples primarily in lessons like this. Since I've decided on the groups, I'll now go through who's in which, set up the security, and you to it for the next hour. Now then, the groups are..."
-
After the lengthy process of sorting out teams, Silence was grouped with two boys, 'Snake' and 'Headache'. They bunched up and discussed their plan before making their first attempt.
Snake, a tall, mildly bulk boy with an annoyingly long hair that completely coated his face, was the first to talk, "To think I'd be grouped up with you two. It's not a bad thing mind you, considering you especially won the last challenge, but our abilities aren't really compatible, are they?"
"What do you mean by that?" Headache scratched his head as he asked.
"Well, what are your abilities?" Snake returned the question.
"I fabricate random sounds around someone, and she... Oh, I get it now. We have two people with audio abilities and yours which is... I dunno. What's yours again?" Headache replied, answering his own question in the process.
"I can travel quickly whilst paying attention to my footing and therefore not produce much sound. Yeah, this group seems pretty underhanded compared to the others. Any ideas Silence?" Silence was deep in thought herself, so ignored Snake's eventual prompt.
They eventually got her attention and began to plan together.