Get ready for a thrilling ride into a future where robots and humans clash for control in RoboNomics, the updated and refreshed version of the 2013 sci-fi classic.
In Toronto, elementary school teacher Andrea Anderson's world crumbles when she's rep...
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Barely a week later, another crop of teachers lose their positions.
I exchange a set of messages with Henri, and he doesn't sound good. So I invite him along with another teacher friend, Elizabeth, to my apartment one Friday evening.
Elizabeth gets there first, and we install ourselves in my tiny sitting room to speculate what's up with Henri.
Elizabeth is a teacher at another school in the district. I'd met her at a district teacher conference before I'd heard of the I.I.U.s. I recall being shuffled from room to room and feeling like I was suddenly missing a limb, being out of my classroom. Then I saw her, this achingly beautiful lady with a deep brown complexion and black dreadlocks down to her hips. They were interlaced with bright streaks of blue and purple. If it weren't for the pink button down shirt and khakis, I wouldn't have thought she was a teacher. Elizabeth accepted me unconditionally from the moment we met, quirks and all. She is one of the few people in life who have ever done that, and I've loved her for it ever since.
When Henri finally rattles the flimsy door in the back hall, I call to him to come in. The door swings open to reveal fogged up spectacles, a long wool scarf and close cropped hair. At the sight of him, I feel a pang of belatedly missing him.
"How's it going?" I attempt.
"Oh you know," he says, his breath swallow as he recovers from the January cold. "As well as can be."
He deposits his boots and coat, then walks past us into the kitchen, carrying a covered tray. When he emerges, he's unveiled a platter of phyllo-wrapped savories. I can tell that he's made the snacks from scratch.
"Well, I've been canned," Henri announces as he sets the platter down on my coffee table and sits heavily into the busted green armchair in the corner. "My electronic doppelganger took me out in record time."
"No," Elizabeth and I both exclaim as we rise from our seats.
"You've gotta be joking," I add.
"It's true," Henri continues. He stuffs one of the cheese and spinach filled pastries into his mouth, not bothering to wait as he usually would for us to try them first.
"I can't believe it," says Elizabeth.
Henri swallows. "That sounds like a platitude."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"Oh, come on," he replies. "I told you when that...machine first came into our school. If it weren't for this whole seniority thing, all the teachers would be gone by now. And wouldn't you know, no one at that school dares to question whether or not the machines will stay now."
"Will they add more, you think?" I ask.
"For now, it looks like it's just you and me." Henri reaches for another hors d'oeuvre. "But next year, who knows?"
