X is for Xindi Fighter

Thanks to Jels for allowing X is for Xindi (we know there is no such word , only in make believe world)

While waiting to pick up Charlie at CalSci, Don had been unwittingly been selected as a contestant in the Forum Magazine of the Students.

X is for Xindi Fighter

"Hi Charlie, are you ready to go? I'm still at home, I won't come until you say you're ready, I don't want to wait for you in the grounds." Don said.

Don had made arrangement to have lunch with Charlie today, yesterday.
Charlie had said he only had two classes in the morning, then he'll be done for the day and they could continue after lunch and do whatever they fancy.

It was agreed then but this morning, he saw in the newspaper that an established library was having a closed down sale due the construction of the new mall a few doors away.
The library was getting rid of all their books at a very special discount and Charlie especially wanted to look for some math books.

He gave a call to his brother and told him that, Charlie was mildly surprised that
Don said after lunch he will follow him to the library.
What surprised Charlie even more was that Don said he might want to look for some nice Science Fiction books.

He knew Don read a lot, a lot of reports and FBI related materials but he hardly seen him with a fiction in his hand.
Or maybe he did that in his apartment, which would not be surprising for sometimes Don doesn't come to his house for days.

He reminded himself that he must go by his apartment and check on his shelves and get some books for him.

"Alright give me another twenty minutes, then you can start coming to CalSci for me."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, I will be on time this time." Charlie laughed .

Incident two weeks ago when Don had lunch with Charlie.

Don was on half day's leave so he came to the office to pick Charlie up for a late lunch. He went home to change and came in a short sleeved body hugging red tee(Don loves red) and faded jeans with boots.

He thought he could just go round and pick up Charlie when he came out but he didn't see Charlie and Don didn't want to go up to his office, so he went off to the car park, parked his SUV and with engine running, he listened to an upbeat song from the radio station a song by Akon, he enjoyed it and after that song ended, still no Charlie.

He switched off the engine, climbed out the SUV, stood beside it, oblivious to the students sitting on the lawn, on benches scattered around, he did some stretching exercises to loosen the kinks on his neck and back, he then leaned back against his SUV and put on his shades.

He heard some clicks and he opened his eyes and saw some girls nearby, he tilted his head at them and resumed his post, he heard more clicks but he didn't pay attention to them.

He flipped his phone again and this time he got Charlie,
"Charlie, I've been waiting for umm(looking at his watch) twenty minutes. Are you coming?" (click) he heard again.

"Don, sorry, waylaid by students just now, coming out of here now. You're in the same spot?"

(click) "Yea, better be quick, heard someone, somebody taking pictures but can't identify who."

"Taking pictures of you?"

"No, taking pictures of my SUV, I don't know." Don was annoyed.

The incident was forgotten when Charlie came running out and the brothers went for lunch.

Two days ago…
Charlie went back to his office to prepare for the next lesson which was in the afternoon. He was supposed to meet up with Amita for lunch, so he waited for her in his office.

He saw the Forum Magazine a bi-weekly of the students in his in-tray. This bi-weekly was published by the students for the students and all faculties in the Uni were given a complimentary copy.
He was always interested in the math section and he found the articles interesting and some were written by his math students. He liked to see that his teachings were not lost to them.

But the rest of the articles were deemed frivolous ranging from absurd to ridiculous. Amita liked to read those, Larry will avoid the magazine like plague, it usually ended up in his wastepaper basket as soon as it arrived on his desk.

Charlie usually will just flip to the math section and skipped the rest.
As he was flipping, something red caught his eye, he double back to check the page. He laughed out loud.

On the SciFi Contest section:
There was the eye catching header in bold red:

'CHOOSE YOUR PARTNER TO TRAVEL OFFWORLD TO FIGHT THE XINDI"

Below are 10 of our gallant XINDI FIGHTERS, choose the one you want to partner for your quest:

Choose your partner (only one) and email their tag name to the partner you have chosen is voted number 1 (most voted) you will win a voucher to Jackie's Fabulous Ice for one of her Fabulous Three tier Rocky Mountain Explosion.

Rules:
No forms only email entries accepted.
One student per entry.
Just key in Xindi Fighter tag name: EG: Green
Then put your name and student number.

Hurry you have only this week to vote, last email in10pm Friday.
Results: Monday 9am .
Winners will be notified by email.
Winners to collect vouchers from Vickie from Math Department.

Note: Pictures can be view on our site under heading: Hot Xindi Fighters

Charlie saw the pictures of the macho men, some were in their uniform and some were not.
All of them were carrying a heavy looking firearm.
Charlie knew some of the firearms were superimposed onto the pictures by clever computer manipulation.
There were altogether ten pictures and underneath each picture were names of colours denoting something they had on with the same colour.

Green was a man in a green army uniform and holding a nasty looking firearm.

Blue was the uniform of a Navy man holding another firearm.

He was interested in RED who was Don leaning against his SUV in his hugging red Tee and faded blue jeans, he was wearing his shades and his hand was by his side they cleverly put a heavy looking gun hanging from his hand.
Charlie looked at it carefully and it looked so real that Don was holding the gun nonchantly.

He laughed again and this time Amita came in, hand holding the magazine.
They both laughed and laughed.

Amita said in midst of her laughter, "OMG! Don will be furious.!"

'Oh dear, Don wouldn't want to come to CalSci anymore." Charlie said, wiping his eyes.

"Oh gosh, Charlie just look at him, he's so that part, leaning against his big machine in his shades and holding the gun." Amita screamed with laughter again and she stopped to say, "I'm going to vote for him. He's going to be my partner to go off world to fight the Xindi" Amita hooted again.

"OK, Ok wait, let me email Vickie." Charlie went to his laptop and call up his email page and key in a few words and pressed send and waited.

"What did you send Vickie?"

"I asked her to forward the pictures of Don with and without the gun to me,
OK here's it. Ha,ha,ha. Oh great!"

"What?"

"Vickie said,
"Professor, you got one hot brother, banking on him to win,
we love Fabulous Three Tiers Rocky Mountain Explosion.
The Math Dept."

"Oh dear, wonder what Don would say to that!

Let me forward it to Dad, er.. one without the gun of course."

His phone rang in a little while and he looked into the small screen, he said,
" Wow so quick, dad must be doing some work on his computer."

"Dad, yes. You like it, Yeah I think so too. Huh? Ask him. OK dad, See you."

"What did your father say?." Amita asked Charlie.

"Dad said it was a very nice picture and asked how come the girls didn't notice. You know what dad said?"

"What?"

"He's a hot catch." They both started laughing again.

That was 2 days ago and yesterday, Megan came back from lunch laughing.

She went up to Don and said ,'Hey Xindi Fighter."

Don looked at her queerly, "What Xindi fighter?"

"You didn't know? Charlie didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what? You're talking in riddles." Don said and went back to his work.

"Well, did you go to CalSci say last week in a red tee shirt?"

Don without looking up replied, "I was there last week when I had the afternoon off. We went out for late lunch. So?"

"You knew someone took your picture don't you?"

"I told Charlie I heard clicking sound but I can't identify the culprit. "

"Well OK good news is that the picture turned out pretty well, in fact very macho looking." Megan laughed and put the magazine on Don's table.
"See page 14 ."

Don stopped writing and looked at Megan, took up the magazine and he saw that Megan had already tabbed it at page 14.
He saw what was written and he saw what they did with his picture that they took.

He said,"Gotta call Charlie and asked him to get me a copy of the picture. I like that red tee. I looked nice don't I?"

"Huh!" Megan walked away, she was sort of disappointed that Don was not furious, angry or amused.

Actually Don was fuming, but he kept quiet. He played smart, he knew getting angry would be of no use, he kept his cool and pretended that it didn't bother him a bit.
Come to think of if, he knew he wasn't vain but looking at the photo, he had to praise the mystery photographer, he or she did make him looked very good.

His sudden temper died down and called over to Megan, "
Megan, can I keep the magazine?"

"Go ahead, Amita gave me Larry's copy that she found in his wastepaper basket."

"Thank you."

He was secretly pleased, he will take the magazine home and that's that, hopefully.

He put in a call to Charlie and he made sure Megan heard what he said to him.

He ask him if he could get the picture and he sort of told Charlie off for not telling him.

Charlie mumbled something like he was scared that Don would be mad and Don told him its OK and that he wanted a copy of the picture.

Charlie asked him,"Er.. with or without the gun?"

"With of course, this is very good." Don said and it surprised Charlie to no end for he didn't think this would be Don's reaction.
Charlie then knew that Don didn't see the email that he had sent yesterday.

"Well, OK then. I'll get that one for you, the other is already in your in-box, You never checked you mail?"

" Too many, next time call me if you have something in the mail for me if its urgent. I will see it eventually if its not important like this one.
Charl? You want to get together tomorrow?"

"OK." Charlie said quickly, he will never turn down any leisure time he can spend with his brother.

"Tomorrow I get you for lunch and then we'll see where we go from there, how about it?"

"Yes, yes, that'll be good."

The end.