The Snow

“Hey, Jess, c’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

“Do we have to?” I sigh and roll my eyes as Kris pulls my hand to get me to stand up. “I have homework.” I tell her, but she doesn’t buy it.

“Yes, but we both know you would end up going home, putting on pajamas and watching TV instead of actually doing the work.” Kris says as she pulls my hand again.

“And what’s wrong with TV?” I ask, pretending to be offended.

“Absolutely nothing.” She quips and takes my tray from me, walking to the bin to throw out the trash and setting the lime green tray on top. “But this gets us a whole two credits, and it’s only an hour of our time.” 

“And then three weeks of monitoring and giving feedback.” I mutter, but pick up my messenger bag and follow her out of the seating area.

“Yes, but that’s easy,” She pauses, turning around to walk backwards in front of me. “Or would you prefer to take Statistics instead?” I smile at her.

“Fine,” I say, only pretending to be annoyed now. She spins back around, and her loose yellow dress follows the movement. She’s wearing a dress, despite the fact that it’s November and snowing outside. This only further justifies my thought that those who live on campus, especially in apartments connected to the main building, are a whole other species of student. 

Some of us still have to live with our parents, and bus home, I think to myself.

I met Kris in one of my first classes at college last year. She had missed a couple of classes because she was sick and asked if I could email her notes from the class. And while I might hate doing homework, I actually take decent notes, so I agreed.

We started chatting in class, and now we’re both in our second year. She’s working to become an event planner, which I think is a great fit for her. I’m taking classes, but I haven’t declared a major yet.

That’s why Kris signed us up through a friend of hers to take part in a student study for the Engineering or IT students. Honestly, I wasn’t really sure what class we were helping, but it gave us credits, and as Kris mentioned, I really didn’t want to take statistics.

She said we only need to show up for an hour today, and they give us a test or something.. And then we report back once a week for three weeks. In reality, it didn’t seem that bad.

“Oh,” Kris says as she looks at her phone, and then glances out the large glass windows we’re passing. “It’s snowing.” She looks disappointed now, glaring at her bare legs. 

“Well, at least you’re wearing shoes.” I say, “Where are we going anyway?” She bites her lip and fiddles with her nose ring. 

“Uh, somewhere across the quad. It’s one of the two crooked middle buildings. I don’t know which one, but it says it’s the “Mary-Ann House”?

Our campus held a few older buildings, and I’d only been in them a couple of times to meet with teachers. The stairs were steeper than what would be allowed today, and I swore all of the buildings were sinking into the ground. You felt off-balance as soon as you entered them.

“Let’s go.” I say, mocking the tone she used earlier. She huffs and crosses her arms, but I already know she’s too stubborn to go change. That, and the fact that there’s no way she would risk being late for someone practically handing out free credits.

We hurry our way out the doors and past the nearest buildings. We cut through a path and Kris walks behind me, trying to follow the footprints I make in the snow. I’m dressed in jeans and a winter jacket, a stark contrast to her yellow dress.

“You gonna make it?” I joke, turning to look at her. She’s keeping up, but has folded in on herself, bracing against the cold.

“Yeah, just don’t stop.” She calls, so I keep walking.

We make it across the quad with no problem, and I walk up the short steps to the first building. But it says “Hardy Brown” on a plaque outside, so I move quickly to the next one. Kris makes an irritated noise at me, and I try not to laugh.

I go to the next building on our right, and this time I see the name “Mary Ann”. I open the door and let Kris run inside, as she precedes to stamp her feet and rub her arms.

“It’s cold,” She says, more to herself than to me.

“It’s November.” I reply, unable to help myself. She sticks her tongue out at me and then bounds up the stairs. I sigh. I miss Netflix already.

“Found it.” She calls, and then whispers as her voice echoes in the stairwell. “It’s up here.”  I follow and she points to a handwritten note on the door. TECH 421 - Testing Group B. 

I raise my eyebrows. At least this is being done by fourth years. I’m nervous now, and I am wondering why I never thought to ask Kris to double check what we were signing up for. I wasn’t even the one to sign up. Was there a waiver?

I stay quiet as Kris opens the door, and someone beckons us to take seats. It’s a weird classroom and lab combination. With rows of tables and stools. Kris and I take seats at the back of the room, exchanging dubious looks.

“Free credits.” She whispers as we sit, and I stick my tongue out at her.She laughs and doesn’t try to be quiet. 

“Alright everyone,” A professor, I assume, though he’s in blue jeans and a rumpled-looking dress shirt, stands up at the front of the room. “Thank you all for being here, and since this is a student project, I will pass you along to them. I’m just here to oversee.”

He takes a seat, and someone starts passing out pens and a form. I pull out my own pen from my bag and start filing it out. It’s a waiver, as I was expecting. There’s also a name tag. 

“Basically, we’re relinquishing our parents' right to sue them if we die.” I whisper to Kris dramatically, and she rolls her eyes. I sign it anyway, and put today’s date, then pile it on top of Kris’ and give them to the student in front of us. The stack gets passed to the front of the room.

Another student, presumably a fourth year, flips through the pages, and seems to count them, ensuring each is signed. I fill out my nametag in the meantime, and stick it on my shirt, removing my winter jacket and draping it over the empty chair next to me. Turning to face Kris, I see she has hers on her dress already.

“Okay, now if everyone could watch this quick presentation, we’ll run you through what you’ve signed up for, and what we need from you in order to get the credits.” 

Someone turns off the lights, and a projector buzzes to life on the ceiling. I hear Kris rummaging behind me and I see she’s pulling paper out of her bag to take notes. I don’t bother, as I doubt they would make this complicated for volunteering students.

“In short,” The boy at the front starts. “We’ve created an app, and a piece of wearable technology, similar to a smart watch, though I’ll admit, it’s not as fancy looking.” He flips to the next slide, where he shows a black band, with a black circle in the middle, where the face of a watch would normally be. 

“You’ll wear this, on your left wrist preferably, for the next three weeks. Over that time, you’ll be able to use this to access all student campus computers without logging in and without swiping your ID. Now,” He pauses and raises his hands as if we had all started yelling ,but the room remained silent except for the projector hum. “Before you freak out, it’s set to an app on your phone as well, so it’s totally secure.” 

Okay, I think, it might be useful.

“Instead of having to make sure you’ve got your login info, your student id card, and your bus pass - it’s all on the band instead.” 

“So, like Disney World?” Someone in the room chimes in, and we all laugh.

“Actually yeah, similar to those bands.” The boy presenting agrees. “So your job is to just use it. Your day-to-day stuff around campus, making purchases, using the printer. Just scan the band how you would your ID card. But you’ll need to download our app as well, in order to sync the info from your card. But that’s just a one-time thing and we’ll make sure you’re all set up before you leave.” He takes a breath.

“In a week, you’ll come back and let us know how your experiences have been. If there’s been any bugs, which, I mean, hopefully not, but if you’ve had any issues with it, we’re giving you our cell phone numbers, as well as Carter’s - our professor, in case of emergency.” 

“Of course,” The professor who I now know is Carter, speaks up. “These are only to be used in the case of emergency, and in the event of a real emergency, please call 911 instead.” He grins at the student and motions for him to proceed.

“Yes, of course,” The boy says. “So, any questions?” Someone flicks on the lights again and we all wince, eyes blinking, adjusting to the brightness.

“Alright then, let us give you your bands.” I startle slightly as another student moves between Kris and I and places two bands on the table. 

“Oh,” The boy at the front calls out over the noise of the class. “And don’t submerge them in water, we haven’t fully tested that yet!” 

I take the band and turn it over. It feels cheap, like dollar store sand buckets. Then I think, maybe it is, it wouldn’t surprise me on a college student budget. 

The same student who passed out the bands, hands out scissors next so we can trim the excess band once it’s on.

Mine only needs a little, but Kris cuts more off of hers. She picks up both of our leftover pieces and walks to the front of the room to dispose of it. People are already heading out, when I notice the professor say something to the boy out front. He looks shocked and runs out the door, yelling down the hallway, “Wait, the app!”

Some of us laugh, but he returns to the classroom along with a few other students.

“Right, so the app is called UofTVision”, you can find it on your phone’s application store.” We all pull out our phones, and the room is silent except for the tapping of screens.

“There’s school wi-fi in this building too, believe it or not, so you can use that when downloading.” Professor Carter chimes in.

We all download it, and I open it up right away. I type in my username and password and follow the directions. There’s a small button that I didn’t notice on the right side of the watch, and I hold it down for three seconds and it syncs. A notification pops up on my phone. 

Balance: $272.45

Student Name: Jessica McKay

It also lists my student ID number, and birth date. 

“Cool,” I say, turning to Kris. She nods, but she’s busy scrolling through the app. I return to mine, and scan through it, but it’s pretty basic. 

“Alright, any other questions?” The boy in front asks again. We shake our heads and few people murmur a quiet ‘no’. “Okay, please make sure you come back next Friday between 2pm and 6pm, if that doesn't work for your schedule please text or email one of us, and we will make it work. Thank you!” 

Kris and I leave the room, and walk down the stairs. 

“I wish it was more comfortable.” She says, glancing down at the new watch band. I noticed that the beaded bracelet she normally wears had to be moved down to make room. 

“Yeah,” I agree, “But it’s for free credits, right?” She nods. 

“This is a lot better than a stats class for sure.” I wave goodbye to Kris as we leave the building and head to the bus stop. I check the screen above the stop and thankfully the bus is only five minutes away. It’s already starting to get dark and it’s only 5:45pm. 

I stand around, putting on my headphones and listening to music as I wait. It’s stopped snowing for the moment, and there are a few other students here too, but no one I recognize. 

When the bus shows up, I step on and use the watch to pay. The bus driver didn’t even look up from where he sat, and the LED light on the scanner flashed green, indicating that the payment went through. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket as I make my way to my seat.

Sitting by the window at the back, I pull my phone out of my pocket and see a notification. Taking off my gloves, I unlock the screen. There’s a little checkmark icon next to the notification, and I click on it to open up the main app. 

$3.75 deducted from account ******42. UofTVision now activated. See this link for more instructions. 

I don’t bother, and exit out of the app. At least I know it works. But then my phone vibrates again.

$3.75 deducted from account *******12.

And again it vibrates.

$3.75 deducted from account ******76

And again, and again. All with different account numbers.

What was happening? I turned my phone to silent and while the notifications kept coming in, I managed to click through to my university's student app which includes my student balance.

After the third time trying to type in my information with the notifications stopping me. I exit out, and click through settings, muting the app notifications for 30 minutes. I flip back to my student app, and look at my account. $317.45. 

That’s definitely more than I had there before.

I scroll through and see that there’s 12 or 13 notifications, all saying that accounts have deposited money onto my student card. All in the same denominations as the bus pass. Was it taking the account information from the scanner? I didn’t think that was possible.

I refresh the page and see that there’s even more deposits. I press the stop button for the bus, and get off at whatever the next stop is. 

As soon as I’m off the bus I dial Kris. 

“C’mon, pick up, pick up.” I mutter as it rings once, twice, three times. 

“Hey, what’s-” Kris starts.

“Don’t use it. The bracelet. Don’t use it.” I practically scream at her, earning me more than a few looks by those around me. 

“Why? I just bought a sandwich on campus, and it worked fine.” The sound is muffled as I’m guessing she moves the phone to look at the screen. “I got a notification that it was activated, and - oh, wait, there’s more coming in.” I pinch the top of my nose, waiting for her to realize what’s happening.

“Wait, I have, no - that can’t be right.” 

“Check your student account, and call me back. Oh, and you’ll probably want to mute all notifications so you can sign in.” I end the call, and wonder why I feel so calm now. I take a deep breath and open the app again, refreshing the page.

The last notification was from 2 minutes ago. Hopefully that means it’s stopped now. I cross at the next set of lights and wait on the other side of the street for a bus back to campus. According to the LED screen above the stop, it should be here in 10 minutes.

My phone rings again, it’s Kris.

“What the hell is going on?” She asks me, and I take a deep breath before answering.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“The cafeteria hallway, I just ordered a sub, but now,” I can almost picture her biting her lip.

“Okay, don’t say anything, just go up to your room. I’m taking a bus to come back. We’ll figure it out.” I pull my phone away as the screen lights up. Another call. 

“I’ll see you soon.” I say, and hang up, answering the other call.

“Hello?” I answer. The sign now says 8 minutes until the bus shows up.

“We turned them off, the, the bracelets, they’ve been deactivated, but they’re - they’re coming. They’re coming for all of us.” The call disconnects, and I look up at the sky. It has started to snow again.