Action in this chapter - and the Arrow, at last! Enjoy. Don't forget to review.

Gary stretched the phone's extra-long cord out into the hall so he could get some privacy without asking Joe to leave him alone in his dorm room. When he heard Aaron Johansen pick up, he disguised his voice as best he could so the other man would not realize Gary was the one he had talked to that morning.

"Mister Johansen, my name is Chuck Fishman. I'm your son's guidance counselor at Starling Tech."

"Guidance counselor?"

"Yes, it's part of a new program. There's one assigned to each upperclassman now."

"That seems like it would take a lot of manpower."

"Each counselor is assigned several students, so there only have to be a couple dozen of us."

"Oh, I see. What can I do for you? I'm just about to go to lunch."

"I won't take much of your time," Gary said quickly. "It's just that I had my first meeting with Mike today, and I got the impression he was very depressed about something. It's hard to get a kid to open up to you in just a few minutes... I was hoping you could give me some insight."

"Mike seemed depressed? That's news to me."

"How often do you talk to him?"

"Every week or two."

"You think you can know what your son's going through if you're communicating on a biweekly basis?"

"Maybe not. but if Mike is depressed I doubt he'd mention it, even if we spoke every day." Johansen sounded irritated now.

Oh well... Gary never expected to be popular with the people he helped. "Maybe he wouldn't, but that doesn't mean it isn't serious."

"You really think it is?"

"Well, sir, I wouldn't be calling you if I didn't think so. I see stressed-out kids all the time, but this is different. It's deep in there. Something's really bothering him."

"Look, Mister..."

"Fishman."

"Mister Fishman, I won't try to tell you how to do your job, but you said this was your first meeting, right? The kid was probably just uptight because he doesn't know you. Mike's always been like that. He's really smart, but it takes time for him to trust people."

"Well, I - "

"I'm sorry, but I need to go now."

"If you'd just - "

"Goodbye, Mister Fishman." Johansen hung up.

Gary looked at his watch. Less than an hour until the class began. He went back into Joe's room and hung up the phone. "Joe, do you know if Mike does his studying in his dorm room? He said he had this hour free..."

Joe smirked. "Studying? I don't know if Mike ever studies. I heard he reads his textbooks for 'light reading' and the rest of the time he's studying stuff online. Projects going on with scientists and engineers and stuff. He gets good grades without even trying."

"Seriously?" Gary frowned. "So, if there was a pop quiz in physics next hour..."

"He wouldn't sweat it. Just bonus points for him."

He ditched me. It wasn't the first time, but that didn't make it a nice feeling. "If he doesn't need to study, what would he do with a free hour?"

"I don't know... he's always got some project. He likes to design stuff. Could be in his room, could be in the library..." Joe shrugged.

"What's his dorm room?"

"Gray something... third floor, I think. Don't know beyond that. We could look him up in the directory. Is everything okay?"

"I'm not sure. I think there's something bad going on with Mike, but I don't know how to help him. I'd appreciate it if you keep that to yourself, though."

"Yeah, of course." Joe went to his desk and woke up a laptop computer. "Just a sec and I'll find his room."

It took a few minutes for Joe's computer to come alive and for him to log into the school directory. "Gray three-twelve," he reported.

"Which dorm is Gray?"

"It's the one on the other end..."

"Of course it is," Gary muttered. "Okay, thanks. If he's not there, I'll try the library."

"I hope you find him. Let me know if I can do anything else for you."

"Yeah, thanks a lot." Gary patted Joe's shoulder and hurried from the room.

He walked briskly up the sidewalk toward Gray dormitory. He would have run, but he didn't want to attract a lot of attention. It seemed like he would never arrive, but finally he did - and then he had all the stairs to deal with. There were no elevators in the dormitories. Finally, out of breath, he came to Gray 312 and knocked on the door. There was no answer.

"Great." Gary was about to turn away when his eyes fell on the sign on the door. It was a sheet of poster board with pieces of colored paper taped on. Each paper bore a different name. One said, "Mike Johansen, Junior Engineering major."

After a moment's hesitation, Gary opened the door and slipped inside. No one was in the room, and from experience Gary knew he should make his search as quick as possible. He took his best guess at which area was Mike's... Yeah, probably the desk with the Rube Goldberg-looking... thing on it... and began hunting through drawers and folders. Papers. Essays. Quizzes. Tests. Scantrons... they still use those in 2015? Huh. Pictures...

The pictures were of a pretty girl. There were none of his father, it wasn't old enough to be his mother, and with no one else represented, Gary highly doubted that this was Mike's sister. She looked college-age. Hesitating only a moment, Gary tucked one of the pictures into his breast pocket. Then he put the folders back hurriedly and went to the door.

No one was in the hall when he left the room. The wall clock told him he had half an hour. He would take a quick look around the library and then head over to the Jackson building. At least the two buildings were close to each other.

It was hard trying to recognize someone you barely knew when you were in a hurry. Gary had a lot of experience at it, but it didn't seem to get much easier. He rushed through each section of the library, sparing only one hard look at each dark-haired male he encountered. Mike wasn't there, as far as he could tell.

He jogged across to the Jackson building, not caring anymore whether people thought his behavior was odd. He used the railing to tug himself up the steps faster, skipping every other step. He arrived at room 208 with more than ten minutes to go. Another class was in session inside the classroom. Gary looked up and down the hall. He took out the paper and watched it desperately. He began to pace.

The bell startled him. Students began pouring from the classrooms. Gary stood to one side of the door and waited for a break in the human traffic before entering. The teacher was packing up his materials, so he clearly wasn't staying to teach another class. A couple of students entered the room and went to their desks. The teacher left and another finally came to take his place.

"Doctor Cleveland?" Gary asked.

"Yes," the teacher answered. "What can I do for you?"

"Uh, my name's Gary; I'm a guidance counselor to some of your students."

"Good to meet you, Gary." Cleveland shook Gary's hand.

"Listen, is it okay if I audit today's class? I know you're supposed to arrange these things ahead of time, but I've been so busy getting ready for my trip out of town..."

"I don't mind," the teacher answered, looking only mildly suspicious. "There are some empty seats in the back."

"Do you have a seating chart?"

Now Cleveland definitely looked suspicious. "I do..."

"See, I want to make sure I don't put myself too close to any of the students I'm counseling - I don't want to distract them."

"I see." The teacher opened his briefcase and shuffled some papers before producing the one Gary wanted.

Gary looked over the chart. "Okay," he muttered, eyes flitting from one name to the next. Finally, he spotted "Mike J." "Got it; thanks." Mike sat near the back anyway, so Gary was able to take the desk behind Mike's without arousing the teacher's suspicions any further.

He watched the students coming in. They gave him curious glances but didn't ask any questions. The bell rang again. It was two o'clock.

Mike slipped through the door a moment later and closed it behind him. Gary tensed, ready to spring from his seat, but not knowing exactly what he would do. Mike came toward him, looking like he didn't know what to make of Gary's presence. Gary gave him the most positive look he could muster and mouthed, "Hey."

Mike took his seat slowly and set his backpack on the floor by his desk.

Being careful because you're hiding a gun somewhere? Gary thought, his heart rate beginning to pick up speed. He could see students pulling out phones and calculators - no, they were all phones. Phones are that small now? And they don't have buttons... you just touch the screen? They seemed to be checking messages right on their sleek little phones. It was hard to focus.

"All right, class," Dr. Cleveland said briskly, "let's begin. Please put your phones away. Come on, everyone. You too, Miss Brown. Thank you. Now, you may have noticed we have a guest today; Gary is just here to audit the class, so please don't allow him to distract you. If you have your short essays on inertia, please pass them forward."

There was a lot of rustling as students got papers out of their folders. Mike opened his bag and pulled out something dark that glinted in the light streaming through the window.

Gary lurched forward and grabbed Mike's arm with both hands. "Don't do it, Mike."

Surprised, Mike struggled for a moment before passing the gun to his other hand and firing it indiscriminately. A couple of students screamed. Gary moved to get hold of Mike's other arm, but he was soon faced with the barrel of the gun and he let go.

"You don't want to do this," Gary said earnestly.

Cleveland had gotten out from behind his desk and was now covering the short distance to Mike's. Mike turned forward and fired again. Cleveland staggered to the floor. Mike turned the gun on Gary again and stood up. "Don't move! Everyone stay where you are!"

Gary looked around for the first time since the gun appeared. A girl was slumped over her desk her neighbor was doing her best to wrap the girl's injured arm in some light article of clothing. Cleveland was leaning back against his desk on the floor. It could be worse... the paper said the first victim was killed before Cleveland got hit. No one's dead yet. He noticed the gun itself - there was something strange about it. It looked like a revolver, but there seemed to be extra cylinders mounted around the frame.

"It's okay," Gary said, not very calm but trying to project calmness. His heart was pounding and his hands were beginning to tremble. The paper said a lot of people died. If he wasn't careful, he could be one of them. "You don't have to do this, Mike. Just tell us what you want."

Mike moved to the front of the classroom. "What do I want," he scoffed. Suddenly, he looked at the door and pointed his gun toward it. A face disappeared from the narrow window in the door. "If that door opens, I kill a hostage!" he shouted. Then he chuckled quietly. "Not like I won't anyway."

"What's wrong, Mike?" Cleveland asked from the floor, struggling for breath. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why? Why not do it? What does it matter? Look at this!" He knelt by the teacher and tilted his gun one way and then the other. "Nice, isn't it? Four cylinders. Each one's loaded with six shots. I can kill everyone in this room without having to reload!"

"What's the point?" Gary asked. "Why do you want to kill your classmates?"

"You've got no clue!" Mike shouted. "Your brain's so tiny you can't see it! Look! I made this. I have dozens of projects like this. I could do anything I wanted but I'm stuck here taking this stupid class from a teacher I could be teaching."

"Okay, so you're head of your class and you're not being challenged..."

"It's not just this. Everything's like that - everything's pointless. I can do whatever the hell I want, and there's not a single thing I want to do!"

"There's still so much we don't know," Cleveland said weakly. "You were interested in biomechanics, weren't you? Think of how medicine and engineering can work together to prolong people's lives... isn't that something you'd like to pursue?"

"I'm past that. I'm way past that. You should know that from the hole in you. You really think I can just settle down and go back to engineering and everyone will forget this? I wouldn't want it that way even if it were possible. I'm making my mark here. This gun is going to be famous long after no one remembers who invented it. The Starling Tech Shooting gun. And that's how I'll live on and laugh at you ants trying to live a life that means something. Nothing means anything." Mike lifted his gun again.

Gary jumped out of his seat. "Don't!"

Mike turned the gun on Gary and fired.

Gary felt a sting at the side of his neck. He covered the wound with his left hand and leaned on the desk of a shuddering boy. "Mike, you haven't killed anyone yet. This doesn't have to ruin your life."

"I told everyone to stay put!" Mike exclaimed angrily. "Get back to your seat!"

"Okay..." Gary held out his free hand in an appeasing gesture, slowly made his way backward to the desk he had occupied and sat down again.

"You came to this class because you knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

Gary had pulled his hand off his wound long enough to see that it was bleeding quite a bit. He had thought the bullet barely nicked him, but maybe it was more serious after all. "This or something like it," he said, deciding that denying it wouldn't help.

"You're smarter than I gave you credit for."

"Thanks."

Gary heard the faint wail of a siren. Students began to look up expectantly.

"Round two," Mike said. "Almost time for the real fun to start."

Just then there was a terrific crash as a dark shape came through the window at the front of the class, just beyond the first row of desks. A figure dressed in green landed on three limbs before springing up, lifting a bow Robin Hood-style and drawing back an arrow on the string. Mike fired, but his shot went wide, punching a hole in another pane of glass.

"The real fun already started," the newcomer declared in a deep voice.

Gary had almost forgotten about the vigilante. That's him? Geez, I hope he doesn't get us all killed.

Mike cocked his gun and fired again, but the vigilante was a moving target. An arrow glanced off the gun and stuck in the door behind Mike.

"You have a good grip," the Arrow commented as he dodged closer to the shooter.

Mike suddenly turned his gun on the cowering boy near the front of the room. "Get back!" he shouted. "I'll kill this guy - swear to God!"

The Arrow was poised to take another shot, but he hesitated.

"He's not bluffing," Gary said urgently. "He's a desperate man. He doesn't plan on walking out of here himself."

"Shut up!" Mike growled.

The Arrow backed up two steps. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"Never mind how - I just know."

"You're not a regular guidance counselor, are you?" Mike's tone was dry. To the Arrow, he said, "Come on, back it up, Hood."

The Arrow took two more steps back and lowered his bow, but he didn't take the arrow off the string.

There was a knock on the door then. Mike kept his gun aimed at the frightened boy. "Knock knock, who's there?" he said.

"This is the Starling City Police," a voice called. "I'm officer Blakeley. Can you tell me your name?"

Mike smiled slightly. "Like I said... time for the real fun to start.

Yup; evil cliffhanger. Anyone reading? Leave a comment.