I searched every corner of the campus but I couldn't find him. So I consulted the campus police. We watched hours of security camera footage. Only to find him enter a cab in the parking lot at the same time I was searching my usual hiding space. The brain damage seeming like a ploy now to get to her.

Before the campus police could call the real police. I somehow lied to them successfully that my aunt had found him and all was well. I don't know what came over me. I presume I just didn't want to 'rat' myself out.

There was so many questions however. I spent the next two nights researching. Trying to take in the calculated risk. Global warming was a possibility. Apart from a toss up in Kosovo. World war three seemed like a ancient fear. I was sure hydrogen fuel cells will help us go from oil to coal/gas/renewables/fusion easily enough. I knew I was dawdling.

That blasted phone number played in my head again and again. Worse still I could hear it in her lyrical voice.

Damn her I thought. Dialling the number, I closed my eyes in horror.

Her mother answered. After I convinced her I was not her daughter's drug dealer or pimp. She put Amy on the line to try and get rid of me.

"Hello Sheldon".

"How did you know it was me? You're mother didn't say".

"I'm not frequently contacted by boys. How is you're uncle?".

"He is somewhere else. Safe and sound". It was hard to lie to her.

"Good to hear that you getting some relief".

"Yes". I left out a sigh following a long pause.

I started the interrogation. We talked for up to half a hour about current affairs, scientific developments as well as my own desk research on nootropics. I pressed on to open any discussion on a potential apocalypse. It turned into a game of what ifs which turned into alternate histories which turned into counter factual. Suddenly it seemed she was arguing with her mother about time spent on the phone. A good thee hours. My heart was pounding. I didn't think it was possible to have this much fun with a girl.

"Mr. Cooper". She sounded very official all of a sudden "I am convinced you will make an excellent physics tutor. I can't understand umm the Doppler effect".

"That's easy. You don't need tuition. I'll give you a hint "buzzz". You could say I lost the run of myself but it was thrilling to have something to one up her with.

"So I am the understand you are free at seven". She started to speed up.

"I am but.."

"Excellent. Goodbye and take care Mr. Cooper".

At her doorstep I felt so nervous. Her mother opened the door and stormed off into her car. Even I missed the usual greeting. Some clap trap was playing upstairs "Beautiful people, beautiful people. It's all relevant to the size of you're steeple". What do steeples have to do with being attractive. Good lord what did he say about my knees?

She invited me to her bedroom. That made me feel worse. The music coming from her room I imagined some sort of depraved dungeon. I stared at the radio feeling uneasy. The room was dark just lit by candles. I eyed the exits.

Blowing out the candles. She flicked a switched and filled the room with incandescent light. Pressing stop on the cassette playing the noises finally came to a halt.

"I am practising in the twentieth century tradition of rebelling against my parent". She clicked through her collection. "I suppose you don't enjoy Neil Diamond?". She cringed a little at herself.

Firm I said "no, brings back too many memories of home".

"Feelings of nostalgia or resentment?".

"Oh resentment definitely". I couldn't look at her. Thankfully she couldn't look at me. We shared brief guerilla like glimpses our heads craned down. I looking at her book collection and her at her tapes. Nothing of interest in either.

I sat down at her desk and prepared to do some problems with her. She didn't have any real trouble. I wasn't sure where this was going. Our phone call made me so confused. I wasn't even sure what my research question was.

I could feel everything speed up. Not good. Not good at all. I searched for a distraction. Any sort of a distraction from all this.

Her phone rang. Be careful what you wish for I guess.

She answered. Rolling her eyes to breathing. That unbearable tension Lee created coming back to haunt me. "Grow up" she snapped at the caller abruptly putting the phone down.

"Prank call from my peers at school". She looked despondent.

I looked up to the ceiling to thank the god I don't believe in. "Oh". I quickly snapped back into the situation. A silence followed. I look down at a notepad.

With lightening speed she closed it. It was too late. It was a story about a Prairie I presume.

"That's just something very juvenile and silly". She looked into corner of the desk unable to confront me. Her face going red.

"Well I do read cheap science fiction...". I rolled me eyes.

Mortified her eyes where shut "Little house on the Prairie fan fiction. It's incredibly embarrassing".

I nodded "That does sound pretty ludicrous".

She shrugged "Well we're both adolescents. Surely we've both done something regrettable. What happened to you're arm?". Pointing at the burns with her eyes.

I remember then that she was the girl staring at me in the lobby.

"I built a home made cat scanner. Grand pappy was complaining about his hospital bills".

"What happened?".

"Well all my parents complained about the hospital and vet bills. I tested it on my hamster Snowball. He went on fire as the machine ignited and I got radiation burns. I got to fly in a helicopter to the hospital though".

Amy put her hands on her mouth as she tried to imagine the horror.

Numb remember the ordeal I continued. "From then on we had a saying. Not a snowball's chance in a cat scanner"..

Her hand still over mouth she begun to vibrate uncontrollably. Hitting my arm as she bellowed in silent laughter.

"I don't know what you're laughing about. My sister didn't talk to me for a month".

Amy continued rather insensitively. Trying to balance her self off my wrist. Finally having enough "I'm sorry. But I'm glad you're OK".

Noticing my her hand on my wrist. She quickly removed it.

"Well my embarrassing story was cool. It has a helicopter". I looked away.

"Oh yeah?". Amy curled up on the bed kicking off her pumps.

"You're feet?".

"Look closer".

"How did you get this scarring?". For some reason I visualized her in some scenes of die hard. I moved her individual toes with my fingers. Analysing them as if I was a doctor.

"I severed the webbing in my toes when I was 14. I used nitrous oxide cans as a ghetto anaesthetic.

"Kinky". I didn't say that? Did I? I wondered for ages if I did. I am pretty certain to this day I did. We made eye contact. Her glasses dropping to her nose but I'm sure she could make me out. I counted about 19 Mississippi until I thought up something to break it up.

"If you think that's crazy. I got in trouble with the FBI".

She closed her feet off with hands and braced her self for what is to come. "About what?".

"Depends who you ask. But I was looking for yellow cake to build a nuclear reactor. I got many materials around the country for a crude breeder but that would have produced a pathetic breeder. I wanted to go all the way. From watching Back to the Future I believed that Libyans actively sold the stuff. So I looked around the net and before you know it men in suits where lecturing me". I rolled me eyes.

"What do other people say?". That was her first question? What did she think of me?

"Oh that it was bomb or some other nonsense".

"Trying to fission without permission. You're the quintessential bad boy". She smirked looking into corner.

"Is that a rap?". My inner 70 year old asked.

"Yeah I'm all street. I deal drugs". Did she just let that slip? I asked myself.

"You do?". I had to be sure if it wasn't slang or worse sarcasm. Damn you Bart Simpson and the cynicism you instilled into the American youth!

"I actually do. Sheldon". She sighed. "The nootropics. Piracetams, caffeine pills, mushroom extracts. There is new powerful shit coming in from Russia too. Excuse my language. It's how do in the industry. But it all gives a lot of struggling peers in my school an edge. Nobody has died yet either. Though I have had occasional freak outs".

"Oh". I didn't have much else to say. A dope pusher. The Reagan administration told me to keep well away from her type. Why was Lee so interested in her then. But maybe this was a clue. The key to his fascination with her. Maybe he was genuinely brain damaged. Using our genius to develop a time machine before losing his mental capacity altogether.

Apparently a long silence had followed. "Can I top you up on you're 'warm beverage'" she tried to break the ice.

I just said OK. Hearing her go down stairs I rushed for her computer. I got in. I read through her emails. There where emails about Semex along with studies. Success in Post Stroke treatments and brain damage repair.

"Oh god" Amy screamed downstairs. Standing I could hear rumbling footsteps on the floor and soon on her stairs. I tried desperately to close the windows and shut-down her computer. The last remaining applications started to hang I froze up as the door opened.