LINDA'S NEW SCHOOL

BY JOREYMAY

[ part 19 ]

Inspectors

Morning came far too soon, with Victoria shaking her awake.

"You've got to cut back those nights of debauchery. At least on school nights." she snickered. "You slept right through the bell."

"I'm up. I'm up." she replied, blatantly fibbing.

"Don't make me get the ice water!" the redhead threatened.

Mumbling imprecations under her breath, she got up, made her bed, and laid out her clothes. Joining the others, she staggered out the door and into line. As they made their way toward the pool, she heard quiet humming from parts of the line. It stopped every time they approached one of the watching teachers, then continued once the performers thought they were far enough away. While the teachers looked disapproving as they scanned the lines and tried to catch the hummers, several of them looked distinctly uncomfortable or even a bit afraid as they spotted her.

The long lines of naked girls moved as slowly as they had the morning before. Linda wondered uncomfortably whether the monitor was watching her. Or even worse, recording her. Even though the video streams were no longer going out, the thought of being watched while she was naked made her uncomfortable. It was one thing when everyone was pretending to pay no attention. But deliberate watching... that was just wrong.

Other than the uncomfortable thoughts, the morning ritual started pretty much as it had the day before. Nobody made any move toward her things while she rinsed off in the shower. Some people looked at her a bit strangely when she went to get in line. As she approached Victoria, she realized that she was carrying her towel much the same way as the cartoon had her holding Blue Boy. She shifted her hold uncomfortably.

As before, she excused herself to hand her things to a nearby teacher. As she approached, the cell rang. She saw that it was her watchers, and quickly answered it. After her initial greeting, she didn't say anything until she ended the short call. She turned to the teacher.

"Get everyone out. Now! There is a ministry car on the way with two men in it." She turned and looked at the place where she knew one of the cameras was. She held up the cell as though talking on it and continued, a bit more loudly. "Emergency! Have Miss James call me at once! A car is on its way in!"

The teacher blew her whistle three times. "Everybody out! Men are coming! You girls!" she pointed to the group still waiting for the pool. "Upstairs and get dressed! Now! The rest of you, get to the dorm showers, and rinse off and dress as quickly as you can! Go, go, go!" She caught the attention of one of the other teachers, and motioned her toward the changing room. The other nodded, and rushed off in that direction.

As Linda joined the rush to the door, the cell rang again. It was the headmistress. Linda told her that a Ministry car containing two men and a woman was coming in through the woods. She went on to assure her that none of them were affiliated with her group, and that all of the girls were on their way to the dorms. She also suggested some mops be sent to take care of the trail the wet girls were leaving enroute to the dorms. She ended the call, and concentrated on not getting trampled. As she turned the last corner, she heard the three bell signal.

Unlike the orderly lines of the morning march to the pool or the trickle of bodies as the girls individually returned from that swim, this was a moving crowd. Feeling parts of her body rub up against the naked bodies of the other girls made her much more aware of her own lack of clothes. It also reminded her of the bra incident, embarrassing her even more.

She thought to stop by the shower room and grab a handful of powder, but by the time she got there it was too crowded. She got to her room, dressed, grabbed her brush and comb, and made for her office. She tried brushing her hair on the run, but quickly gave up.

Once she reached her office, she quickly neatened her hair as she stood just inside her open door. She heard The three approach, walking with the headmistress. In front of the latter's office, the woman directed the men to go inspect the pool area while she spoke with the headmistress. Linda closed her door, grabbed the cell, and called the watchers. She had them patch the bug in the headmistress' office through to her. As they did so, they relayed the name of the woman, and what they had already heard. As she waited for the feed, she went through school records. She found the one for that woman, an expelled student of the school, just as she started hearing the relayed conversation.

The woman was bitter, and saw the current situation as a way to get back at the people who had abused her so badly when she was there. She named the teacher Linda had punished as one of those at the top of her list. Hearing that, Linda used the desk telephone to call the monitor room. She told the monitor to make her a dvd of the punishment, and to rush it down to her.

In the meantime, the former student was demanding various records and the headmistress assured her they would be provided. Then she demanded that she be allowed to interview Linda. The headmistress allowed as how she had the right to make that demand, and reached for her phone. Linda couldn't tell who she called, but she asked whoever it was about Linda's own location. She ended the call and told the woman that she was most likely on her way to her office. She then went on to explain that Linda was given the office in order to be able to meet with the expected people without unnecessarily disrupting the school. She then picked up her phone, and called Linda's office number.

Linda answered the call, as she cut the connection on the cell. She acknowledged the request of her presence, saying she would be right there. She set the cell to vibrate and slipped it in her pocket. She stepped out of her office and over to the door of the headmistress' office. She knocked and, greeted with an invitation, stepped in.

The woman was a few inched taller than Linda. She was dressed in the severe style of Ministry agents, no matter what Ministry they are from. Her dark blonde hair was styled in the short, neat style favoured by female bureaucrats and the like. Other than that, she had changed little in the five years since the picture in her file had been taken.

Miss James introduced her as being from the Ministry of Education, and told Linda that she was here in connection with the attack and the proposed shift in the Board of Governors. Linda shook hands with her, then invited her to her office.

Once there, she closed the door, offered her a seat and rounded the desk to seat herself. Her chairs were of a normal size, so the woman could sit in relative comfort. Once seated, she got right to the point.

"I suspect you have things to ask on the record, and things to discuss off the record. Why don't we get the official stuff first?"

A bit startled, the woman agreed. First, she asked Linda's name and why she was there. Linda gave her name, but described her situation as having caught the attention of the wrong people one too many times. The woman nodded knowingly, then asked about the incident in the changing room. Linda described her official version, including the part about flinching when the finger found the wrong place, sending someone for help, and being examined by the ambulancewoman. She didn't have to act to show embarrassment about some parts.

Acting a bit upset, she got up and took hold of Blue Boy. Cuddling him, she returned to her desk. Once she was seated, the woman looked at her and asked whether they could be frank. Linda agreed, but only on condition that the recording device be turned off. The last was said while looking directly at the woman's clutch. The woman sighed, then reached inside and seemed to be working a control.

"Very well. The first thing I will frankly say is that in about a minute, any active recording or transmitting devices in this room will be disabled and may be severely damaged. If you have a cell in there, I suggest you turn it completely off or take it out of the room. The device my father brought me is quite powerful." Suiting action to word, she disconnected her desk phone.

The woman took a cell from her jacket, turned it off, then returned it to her pocket. She then gestured her readiness.

Cuddling Blue Boy with one hand, she opened a desk drawer with the other. As she reached into the drawer, she used her other hand to activate the bunny's equipment. She closed the drawer, and put the seeming toy on the desk, near the clutch. After a moment, there were screeches, pops, and small puffs of smoke from the clutch and the woman's jacket. The woman jumped up, beat at her lapel for a moment and, finding the danger over, looked unhappily at her clutch.

"I did warn you. Now we can talk, Claire." The woman looked startled. When introducing them, the headmistress had not used her first name.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. "Just a minute," she responded, going to the door. It was the monitor, with the DVD she had requested. She thanked her, and sent her on her way. She returned to her desk, puting the unmarked case near the jammer.

"Now that we are really off the record, what do you want here?"

"I want to shut this place down, and punish the bitches who abused me."

Her bluntness startled Linda, but the vehemence was pretty much what she expected.

"If you *had* to choose between the two, between closing the school with no other punishments of the teachers and keeping the school open while punishing the teachers, which would you choose?"

"What do you mean?"

Linda loaded the DVD into her computer. "Let me show you what I mean." When she saw the teacher, the woman's eyes hardened. But as the scene unfolded, they widened with surprise, then settled into a sort of grim enjoyment.

"I arranged for that, and I can arrange appropriate punishments for the more abusive among the others. But only if I can keep the school open and complete my other plans. But if you interfere with that, if you force the school to close, the backers of the school will protect most of the teachers from anything worse than being unemployed. And what of the students? If you close the school, many of the current batch of girls would likely end up in Borstall or the like."

"If I succeed in gaining control of the school and keeping it open and free of public scandal, I can turn it into what it was supposed to be. Instead of broken sex toys and submissive sheep, it will be producing confident, productive women who are fit to assume the leadership roles their families might have expected of their precious sons. But I can't do that if you sabotage the process."

"Normally, the combined influence of the backers of this school would be such that neither of us could move against it. If you tried, you would find yourself blocked from above. If you made enough of a fuss, you might even disappear quietly. And I would have gotten nowhere with my plans. But a number of unusual events have come together to make my moves possible. But only if I do this now, and without outside interference."

After more discussion, Linda all but had her on her team. She had to promise a copy of that DVD and those of other punishments, to be delivered after the changes were completed. She would also warn Linda about any potential problems from within the Ministry.

By the time they were done talking, she realized that she would have to hurry if she was going to make it to breakfast. She put Blue Boy next to pinky, covertly deactivating the jammer at the same time. She locked her office and rushed to the Refectory. There was nobody in line, so she was able to get right to the food and serve herself. She took her tray and quickly found Victoria. She made a quick show of a breakfast prayer, then started eating.

As she ate, Victoria filled her in on the events of the morning. The inspectors had seemed rather disappointed to find the pool empty and the girls dressed. While they couldn't find an excuse to go to the dorms, they had looked around the building for anything else they could report. She didn't think they had found anything. Now they were there, at another table, sampling the breakfast.

As she was describing the last, she drew Linda's attention to the entrance of the woman. The men did not seem pleased with her. After a brief conversation, they seemed even less so.