Chapter 7
But mother . . ." a new, but known, voice whined. Lisa didn't have to face it to know what words
were going to come next. In her mind's eye she could see the hideous pink formal dress; could
feel her mother's hands picking at her, straightening imaginary wrinkles, removing imaginary
dust particles.
"The only actors in them are dogs," she heard herself say. That was the night of the talent show,
the one she hadn't wanted to go to because she knew she'd be the only one there over the age of
eight. But her mother had insisted and, as usual, got what she wanted since she had cultivated her
selective hearing to an art form. It had been a talent show, all right, but not for the talent she had
wanted to show. That was the night Lisa had teleported for the first time, and started the chain of
events from which she had only thought herself freed.
What had sounded like reasonable arguments at the time now sounded like the complaints of a
spoiled child. Embarrassing complaints that she was glad no one but Adam was witness to.
Unless . . .
And there was Sara again. The same face, same long hair. This new sequence started off to the
side, almost out of sight. The sense of movement got Lisa's attention first. She glanced at it,
pulled her head back in surprise, then whispered, "Adam, look."
They saw the teenager walking through endless space; there were no walls, decorations or carpet,
so no indication of where she was or what she was doing. She stopped and looked around, as if
planning her next move. Pulling a small vial out of her jeans, she unscrewed the top and waved it
beneath her nose. With a satisfied nod, she leaned across something invisible and started to pour
out the liquid, one careful drop at a time. Beneath her bracing arm, a bed became visible. With
it, the older Asian woman who was napping on it, her mouth open. The woman wore a tailored
black business suit minus the blazer, and was prone on top of the untucked bed sheets.
The drops fell into the woman's mouth. She snorted, her face screwing up in displeasure, but
didn't awaken. Two more drops, and she reacted again, this time in pain. She sat up suddenly,
awake, hands clawing at her chest. Turning a panicked gaze to the girl, she mouthed something
undiscernible. In response, the girl pocketed the now empty vial and vanished.
She didn't fade out of view; she teleported, complete with the flash of light and the pop of
imploding air.
Then the whole scene erased, as if it never happened.
Lisa opened her mouth to comment, and couldn't control the rush of words that followed. "That
was Sara. Did you see it, Adam? She's one of us for sure. I know a teleport when I see one,
though I have no idea how to explain the rest of what we saw. That was her memory. Adam, we
know she's here. I think they're all here: Alejandro, and, what was that guys' name? Eric," she
said, recalling the stitching on his jacket.
"They are," he said, simply. "They're not supposed to be, but they are."
"I saw that guy walk through the door, and now we're watching one of his memories," she
continued, oblivious to his comment. "We came through, and--" she made a vague gesture with
her hands that meant see for yourself', "and Sara's here, and . . . she said there had been others.
How many others?
"What kind of others?" she stopped, eyes widening as she started figuring out the answers to her
own questions. "Oh God. She *told* me the door wasn't an exit."
Before Adam could speak again, she was striding back across the threshold, back into the world
of grey inhabited by one lonely soul.
"You have to let them go," she yelled, willing the girl to hear, wherever she was. "You brought
them here, and you're keeping them here. But they don't belong here, Sara."
"No one's ever answered before, Lisa," came the timid response. "I told them not to go through. I
told them, and they didn't answer."
"That's no excuse," Lisa said. "No excuse. Can't you see that you're the one keeping them here?"
Then, recalling another part of their first conversation, Lisa asked, "What are you waiting for?"
The answer was slow in coming. At some point she became aware of Adam standing next to her,
and then of his presence in her mind, lending strength and patience. The ship was there too, just a
dull hum in the back of her consciousness. Then both feelings started to recede, and she could
feel the mind merge coming to an end.
[Wait,] she protested, struggling against waking up. Lisa reached to grab the teen's wrist, a
temporary anchor she hoped until she at least got that question answered.
Instead Sara froze into place, a stricken look on her face. Her skin had drained of color. "There
will be no touching," Sara informed her in a flat, clipped voice. "Not at all."
Sara struggled to release herself from Lisa's grip; Lisa held on tight. This wasn't the real world,
and physical contact here abided by no rules except those believed by the minds of the
participants. In that, Lisa had the advantage because her mind was set. [Sara,] she warned,
tightening her hold.
[We have to go,] Adam said, sounding distantly panicked.
The girl struggled, and Lisa could feel the reality of the ship begin to dominate over the
perception of the mind merge. At the last moment, Sara stopped fighting the contact and, with a
baleful expression, rammed Lisa's mind with her own, hitting her with every thought at her
disposal in one, unfocused attack.
****
Lisa woke up this time passing through all the stages of sleep painfully and with great reluctance.
A headache pounded in her temples that she knew would get worse when she opened her eyes.
She'd never had a hangover, but she was pretty sure if couldn't be anywhere near as bad as this.
Lisa curled her arm around the pillow, burying her head in the security it promised . . . if she
could return to sleep. Instinctively, she turned towards the wall, towards the darkest part of the
room. It wasn't night time; the pink light she saw behind her eyelids gave mute evidence to the
time of day. It hurt her head more just to think about the increased brightness if she succumbed
and opened her eyes.
But sleep would not come. It wasn't dark enough, the noises were all wrong, and now her throat
burned with an abrupt announcement of dehydration.
She gave in, turned away from the wall and let her eyes flutter open. The light wasn't quite as
bright as she had anticipated, but it still burned. Then it began to resolve: first into colors, then
shapes, then textures.
The color and shapes and textures became Adam. He was leaning over her, concern marring his
gentle face. Out of nowhere a hand pressed against her forehead. It felt cool and dry, and then her
head didn't hurt quite so much.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
The response stuck in her throat. She tried to muster enough saliva to swallow, relieve the
soreness long enough to answer, but to no avail. With a shake of her head, she collapsed back
against the pillow.
Somehow Adam seemed to understand anyway. He disappeared from her view, then returned a
minute later with a coffee mug. Together they got her sitting up enough to drink the cold water,
which almost hurt her throat more than the light had hurt her eyes. This pain was welcomed,
though, it was temporary in itself and it banished another. She accepted the mug from Adam and
pressed this new coolness to her forehead.
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but . . . what happened back there?" She was able to
sit up now as straight as the limited space under the bunk bed allowed, and she was hot. Too hot.
She pushed the blankets down the end of the bed; blankets, she saw, which had been pulled up
around her as if she had been tucked in.
"You passed out. I couldn't wake you," he answered simply.
That explained the tucking in. "So you brought me here," she said. To her dorm room. Thank
goodness Tanya hadn't been there.
"Yes. The Ship thought you'd be safer there." He took a seat on the floor, crossed his legs, then
leaned forward with his elbows planted on his knees. "I thought you wouldn't want to hang
around there if you didn't have to."
"Thank you," she said.
He hesitated, then continued, "Megabyte and Jade were on their way to the ship."
"I--"
"I brought you here before they arrived."
She blinked, considering what he just told her. He did understand. Without being told, without
the topic even coming up, Adam understood that she wasn't ready yet to deal with the other
Tomorrow People. He was going to let her readjust on her own terms. Or, at least, the terms Sara
allowed them. "Thank you," she said again. "I mean it."
"You're welcome."
She took a long sip of the water, then turned so she was sitting on the side of the bed instead of
laying in it. "So, did we learn anything? Was it worth it?"
"I think the Ship was trying to give us some answers," Adam replied.
"Answers? It didn't show us anything that made any sense." Lisa said, her memories of the
mind-merge beginning to surface. "Wasn't this supposed to tell us what to do next?"
"It doesn't work like that," Adam said. "The Ship allows us to re-access information we all ready
have. It'll show us what we need to know, but only if we already know it." He stood up and
started to pace, the nervous energy that had long been his hallmark needing outlet. "This time it
connected us with Sara, so her thoughts were in the mix too. It must have had a reason for
showing us the things it did."
"It wanted to confuse us?" Lisa asked, with mock hopefulness.
"The Ship isn't malicious, Lisa. It's on our side; it wants to help us as much as it can."
"I mean, what did we learn?" she continued as if Adam hadn't spoken, "Sara's doing something to
some people for some reason that's causing big problems." She scowled. "That was so vague it
was barely a sentence. Why didn't the Ship just tell us what to do? There was a lot of stuff
happening in my head, but it didn't show us the one thing we went there to find out: how to find
her."
"Maybe it did," Adam said, growing thoughtful.
"What?" Lisa demanded. "What did you see?"
"I think we should look in the obituaries." He started pacing again.
"You think she's dead! Then how did the Ship connect us with her? Don't tell me that ghosts can
mind merge."
"No."
Lisa sighed "Good. That was just too creepy. I don't even want to think about ghosts."
"I think she killed someone."
"That's not any better! Where'd you get that from?" Lisa stood up, almost hitting her head on the
top bunk in the process. "Please stop pacing; you're making me nervous. We can't kill, Adam.
Remember? Or did something change while I was out of the loop?"
Adam shook his head. "No, and yes."
"Oh, that clears things right up."
He sat on the edge of Tanya's desk. "Did you hear what happened over the summer?"
"Uh-uh. But I'll take a guess and say it wasn't any fun."
The corner of Adam's mouth quirked up in an involuntary smile. "No, it wasn't any fun," he said.
He pushed a stack of books out of the way, got more comfortable on the desk, and told her the
whole story. There had been yet another in a seemingly endless line of secret government
projects intended to use telepaths and teleporters as spies and assassins. In the end, they had
caught the people responsible, and learned of at least a dozen teenagers who should have become
Tomorrow People. Their destiny had been stolen when they'd been forced to commit the one
crime of which Tomorrow People can't even conceive.
"That's awful!" Lisa responded, fighting off a wave of revulsion. "You think she was part of
that?"
"I think it's a place to start. Where's the library?" Adam held up his hands, palms facing her.
He wants to teleport there? Oh, won't that be a riot . . . in more ways than one. "About two blocks
from here," she answered, deliberately not matching his gesture. "but," she looked at his feet on
which he had slipped a pair of laceless shoes appropriate for the beach and little else, "You're
going to need socks."
"Socks?"
"And a jacket. Remember, December in this part of the world means winter. It's cold outside.
And we can't just teleport in." Off his confused look, she explained, "Finals are next week; the
place is going to be packed."
The sentence still hung in the air when the door to the room crashed open.
"This is so unfair!" Tanya burst into the room, a crumpled sheaf of papers clutched in her right
hand. "Can you believe how unfair this is? I worked on this forever, and that dumb professor
practically flunked me. I can't believe he *did* this to me?" She held aloft the sheaf, revealing it
to be a research paper. Lines of tight, red writing marred the lower half of the cover page.
Lisa blinked once, trying to adjust to the shift in conversation. "What did who do to you?" she
asked, before it occurred to her that it might have been better to keep her mouth shut. She
grimaced as that thought caught up with her, then held her breath while she awaited the
forthcoming barrage of words.
Beside her, Adam seemed calm, almost expectant of the interruption. But, the flicker of panic
Lisa felt in her mind gave him away.
"That dumb professor. You know. I worked on this paper for, like, a whole day and he had to go
and give me a B+. Can you believe it? He said it's too long, and," she squinted at the writing,
"'the argument isn't carefully defended'. Yeah, whatever that means. Like you can deal with that
topic in ten pages and even begin to stay what needs to be said. If he knew his material better,
he'd know that this is an A paper."
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but which 'dumb professor'?"
"You know, Prof. G." Tanya stormed over to her desk, threw the paper on it, then picked it back
up and tucked it into the lower drawer. "He's going to ruin my whole grade point average. And
I'm never going to forgive you, either," she said, rounding on Adam.
He opened his mouth to respond, but she didn't give him the chance.
"We were supposed to have a coffee date? Or has Lisa been saying bad things about me again? Is
that why you didn't show up? You told me you loved coffee, and I love coffee, so it just shows
that we're destined for each other. We both love French Silk Mochas. How much more perfect is
that? I waited for you for, like, hours at that coffee shop and you didn't even have the decency to
show up. I have never been stood up before, and I'm not going to start tolerating it now." She
glared at him. "Well, aren't you going to apologize?"
"Pardon?" Adam said, sounding more like he wanted to be anywhere else really fast.
"And you," Tanya continued, aiming her glare at Lisa, "How could you not tell me that the shop
was closed? The sign on the window says that Health Officials closed it last semester. You know,
you could have saved me tons of embarrassment if you'd mentioned *something*. I would have
told you. But, no, you let me stand outside that shop, making a complete fool of myself. I hope
no one saw me."
She stormed back across the room to her closet, where she began rooting through the clothes that
threatened to burst out of it. "Now I'm going to have to change so no one recognizes me. Thanks
a lot. I was hoping not to have to do laundry this weekend." She yanked something out of the
closet that looked like a large, red t-shirt. Turning around, she held the hanger up under her chin,
revealing the article to be a short sleeved dress that barely reached mid-thigh. "What do you
think?"
"Umm, it's December," Lisa said, feeling oddly repetitive. "It's cold out. You're going to freeze if
you wear that."
"Who's Professor G?" Adam asked.
"Greenberg," Lisa replied. "We have an English class with him. Why?"
"I don't know. It just feels important. I feel like there's something--"
"Greenberg? I don't think so," Tanya interrupted. "Greenberg is such a loser. I dropped his class
like on the second day. I'm taking it with that other guy now. You know, the one with the beard."
"Beard?"
"I think he has a beard. Do you remember if he had a beard? No, you wouldn't, cuz you can't
seem to remember *anything*. You need to pay attention better." She let the dress drop to the
floor, turned around and began rooting through the closet again. Seconds later, she emerged with
a black pantsuit. "He's the one with the kid. The papers went on and on about it over the summer.
Like no one else ever had a kid run away before. Please. He's so mean he's probably got her
locked in the attic."
Adam had a strange, thoughtful look on his face. "Is his name Grimm?" he asked while Tanya
took a breath.
[What are you doing?] Lisa asked, his question catching her off guard.
[Playing a hunch,] Adam responded, then: [Welcome back.]
Tanya rolled her eyes. "Duh. I told you that. God." Without a comment, she added the pantsuit to
the growing pile on the floor and returned to her closet.
Lisa turned to Adam slowly. "She is at this school. She's just not a student here. Come on." She
pulled him into the hallway, making sure the door shut behind them. "Look, go home, get some
socks on," she whispered, knowing that Tanya could listen through the door. "A jacket, too, if
you have one. Then meet me . . ." She threw her hands up. "I don't know. Meet me at the English
building."
"You know where this Professor is?"
"No. But if he teaches here, he's got to have an office. We find the office, we find him. The
problem is catching him during office hours. Professors are notorious for scheduling their office
hours on something other than Earth time."
Adam nodded, and looked up and down the hallway. The mural was finished, and for once since
its inception, the hallway was empty. "The English building," he said.
"Yes. Find me."
He nodded again, then vanished.
But mother . . ." a new, but known, voice whined. Lisa didn't have to face it to know what words
were going to come next. In her mind's eye she could see the hideous pink formal dress; could
feel her mother's hands picking at her, straightening imaginary wrinkles, removing imaginary
dust particles.
"The only actors in them are dogs," she heard herself say. That was the night of the talent show,
the one she hadn't wanted to go to because she knew she'd be the only one there over the age of
eight. But her mother had insisted and, as usual, got what she wanted since she had cultivated her
selective hearing to an art form. It had been a talent show, all right, but not for the talent she had
wanted to show. That was the night Lisa had teleported for the first time, and started the chain of
events from which she had only thought herself freed.
What had sounded like reasonable arguments at the time now sounded like the complaints of a
spoiled child. Embarrassing complaints that she was glad no one but Adam was witness to.
Unless . . .
And there was Sara again. The same face, same long hair. This new sequence started off to the
side, almost out of sight. The sense of movement got Lisa's attention first. She glanced at it,
pulled her head back in surprise, then whispered, "Adam, look."
They saw the teenager walking through endless space; there were no walls, decorations or carpet,
so no indication of where she was or what she was doing. She stopped and looked around, as if
planning her next move. Pulling a small vial out of her jeans, she unscrewed the top and waved it
beneath her nose. With a satisfied nod, she leaned across something invisible and started to pour
out the liquid, one careful drop at a time. Beneath her bracing arm, a bed became visible. With
it, the older Asian woman who was napping on it, her mouth open. The woman wore a tailored
black business suit minus the blazer, and was prone on top of the untucked bed sheets.
The drops fell into the woman's mouth. She snorted, her face screwing up in displeasure, but
didn't awaken. Two more drops, and she reacted again, this time in pain. She sat up suddenly,
awake, hands clawing at her chest. Turning a panicked gaze to the girl, she mouthed something
undiscernible. In response, the girl pocketed the now empty vial and vanished.
She didn't fade out of view; she teleported, complete with the flash of light and the pop of
imploding air.
Then the whole scene erased, as if it never happened.
Lisa opened her mouth to comment, and couldn't control the rush of words that followed. "That
was Sara. Did you see it, Adam? She's one of us for sure. I know a teleport when I see one,
though I have no idea how to explain the rest of what we saw. That was her memory. Adam, we
know she's here. I think they're all here: Alejandro, and, what was that guys' name? Eric," she
said, recalling the stitching on his jacket.
"They are," he said, simply. "They're not supposed to be, but they are."
"I saw that guy walk through the door, and now we're watching one of his memories," she
continued, oblivious to his comment. "We came through, and--" she made a vague gesture with
her hands that meant see for yourself', "and Sara's here, and . . . she said there had been others.
How many others?
"What kind of others?" she stopped, eyes widening as she started figuring out the answers to her
own questions. "Oh God. She *told* me the door wasn't an exit."
Before Adam could speak again, she was striding back across the threshold, back into the world
of grey inhabited by one lonely soul.
"You have to let them go," she yelled, willing the girl to hear, wherever she was. "You brought
them here, and you're keeping them here. But they don't belong here, Sara."
"No one's ever answered before, Lisa," came the timid response. "I told them not to go through. I
told them, and they didn't answer."
"That's no excuse," Lisa said. "No excuse. Can't you see that you're the one keeping them here?"
Then, recalling another part of their first conversation, Lisa asked, "What are you waiting for?"
The answer was slow in coming. At some point she became aware of Adam standing next to her,
and then of his presence in her mind, lending strength and patience. The ship was there too, just a
dull hum in the back of her consciousness. Then both feelings started to recede, and she could
feel the mind merge coming to an end.
[Wait,] she protested, struggling against waking up. Lisa reached to grab the teen's wrist, a
temporary anchor she hoped until she at least got that question answered.
Instead Sara froze into place, a stricken look on her face. Her skin had drained of color. "There
will be no touching," Sara informed her in a flat, clipped voice. "Not at all."
Sara struggled to release herself from Lisa's grip; Lisa held on tight. This wasn't the real world,
and physical contact here abided by no rules except those believed by the minds of the
participants. In that, Lisa had the advantage because her mind was set. [Sara,] she warned,
tightening her hold.
[We have to go,] Adam said, sounding distantly panicked.
The girl struggled, and Lisa could feel the reality of the ship begin to dominate over the
perception of the mind merge. At the last moment, Sara stopped fighting the contact and, with a
baleful expression, rammed Lisa's mind with her own, hitting her with every thought at her
disposal in one, unfocused attack.
****
Lisa woke up this time passing through all the stages of sleep painfully and with great reluctance.
A headache pounded in her temples that she knew would get worse when she opened her eyes.
She'd never had a hangover, but she was pretty sure if couldn't be anywhere near as bad as this.
Lisa curled her arm around the pillow, burying her head in the security it promised . . . if she
could return to sleep. Instinctively, she turned towards the wall, towards the darkest part of the
room. It wasn't night time; the pink light she saw behind her eyelids gave mute evidence to the
time of day. It hurt her head more just to think about the increased brightness if she succumbed
and opened her eyes.
But sleep would not come. It wasn't dark enough, the noises were all wrong, and now her throat
burned with an abrupt announcement of dehydration.
She gave in, turned away from the wall and let her eyes flutter open. The light wasn't quite as
bright as she had anticipated, but it still burned. Then it began to resolve: first into colors, then
shapes, then textures.
The color and shapes and textures became Adam. He was leaning over her, concern marring his
gentle face. Out of nowhere a hand pressed against her forehead. It felt cool and dry, and then her
head didn't hurt quite so much.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
The response stuck in her throat. She tried to muster enough saliva to swallow, relieve the
soreness long enough to answer, but to no avail. With a shake of her head, she collapsed back
against the pillow.
Somehow Adam seemed to understand anyway. He disappeared from her view, then returned a
minute later with a coffee mug. Together they got her sitting up enough to drink the cold water,
which almost hurt her throat more than the light had hurt her eyes. This pain was welcomed,
though, it was temporary in itself and it banished another. She accepted the mug from Adam and
pressed this new coolness to her forehead.
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but . . . what happened back there?" She was able to
sit up now as straight as the limited space under the bunk bed allowed, and she was hot. Too hot.
She pushed the blankets down the end of the bed; blankets, she saw, which had been pulled up
around her as if she had been tucked in.
"You passed out. I couldn't wake you," he answered simply.
That explained the tucking in. "So you brought me here," she said. To her dorm room. Thank
goodness Tanya hadn't been there.
"Yes. The Ship thought you'd be safer there." He took a seat on the floor, crossed his legs, then
leaned forward with his elbows planted on his knees. "I thought you wouldn't want to hang
around there if you didn't have to."
"Thank you," she said.
He hesitated, then continued, "Megabyte and Jade were on their way to the ship."
"I--"
"I brought you here before they arrived."
She blinked, considering what he just told her. He did understand. Without being told, without
the topic even coming up, Adam understood that she wasn't ready yet to deal with the other
Tomorrow People. He was going to let her readjust on her own terms. Or, at least, the terms Sara
allowed them. "Thank you," she said again. "I mean it."
"You're welcome."
She took a long sip of the water, then turned so she was sitting on the side of the bed instead of
laying in it. "So, did we learn anything? Was it worth it?"
"I think the Ship was trying to give us some answers," Adam replied.
"Answers? It didn't show us anything that made any sense." Lisa said, her memories of the
mind-merge beginning to surface. "Wasn't this supposed to tell us what to do next?"
"It doesn't work like that," Adam said. "The Ship allows us to re-access information we all ready
have. It'll show us what we need to know, but only if we already know it." He stood up and
started to pace, the nervous energy that had long been his hallmark needing outlet. "This time it
connected us with Sara, so her thoughts were in the mix too. It must have had a reason for
showing us the things it did."
"It wanted to confuse us?" Lisa asked, with mock hopefulness.
"The Ship isn't malicious, Lisa. It's on our side; it wants to help us as much as it can."
"I mean, what did we learn?" she continued as if Adam hadn't spoken, "Sara's doing something to
some people for some reason that's causing big problems." She scowled. "That was so vague it
was barely a sentence. Why didn't the Ship just tell us what to do? There was a lot of stuff
happening in my head, but it didn't show us the one thing we went there to find out: how to find
her."
"Maybe it did," Adam said, growing thoughtful.
"What?" Lisa demanded. "What did you see?"
"I think we should look in the obituaries." He started pacing again.
"You think she's dead! Then how did the Ship connect us with her? Don't tell me that ghosts can
mind merge."
"No."
Lisa sighed "Good. That was just too creepy. I don't even want to think about ghosts."
"I think she killed someone."
"That's not any better! Where'd you get that from?" Lisa stood up, almost hitting her head on the
top bunk in the process. "Please stop pacing; you're making me nervous. We can't kill, Adam.
Remember? Or did something change while I was out of the loop?"
Adam shook his head. "No, and yes."
"Oh, that clears things right up."
He sat on the edge of Tanya's desk. "Did you hear what happened over the summer?"
"Uh-uh. But I'll take a guess and say it wasn't any fun."
The corner of Adam's mouth quirked up in an involuntary smile. "No, it wasn't any fun," he said.
He pushed a stack of books out of the way, got more comfortable on the desk, and told her the
whole story. There had been yet another in a seemingly endless line of secret government
projects intended to use telepaths and teleporters as spies and assassins. In the end, they had
caught the people responsible, and learned of at least a dozen teenagers who should have become
Tomorrow People. Their destiny had been stolen when they'd been forced to commit the one
crime of which Tomorrow People can't even conceive.
"That's awful!" Lisa responded, fighting off a wave of revulsion. "You think she was part of
that?"
"I think it's a place to start. Where's the library?" Adam held up his hands, palms facing her.
He wants to teleport there? Oh, won't that be a riot . . . in more ways than one. "About two blocks
from here," she answered, deliberately not matching his gesture. "but," she looked at his feet on
which he had slipped a pair of laceless shoes appropriate for the beach and little else, "You're
going to need socks."
"Socks?"
"And a jacket. Remember, December in this part of the world means winter. It's cold outside.
And we can't just teleport in." Off his confused look, she explained, "Finals are next week; the
place is going to be packed."
The sentence still hung in the air when the door to the room crashed open.
"This is so unfair!" Tanya burst into the room, a crumpled sheaf of papers clutched in her right
hand. "Can you believe how unfair this is? I worked on this forever, and that dumb professor
practically flunked me. I can't believe he *did* this to me?" She held aloft the sheaf, revealing it
to be a research paper. Lines of tight, red writing marred the lower half of the cover page.
Lisa blinked once, trying to adjust to the shift in conversation. "What did who do to you?" she
asked, before it occurred to her that it might have been better to keep her mouth shut. She
grimaced as that thought caught up with her, then held her breath while she awaited the
forthcoming barrage of words.
Beside her, Adam seemed calm, almost expectant of the interruption. But, the flicker of panic
Lisa felt in her mind gave him away.
"That dumb professor. You know. I worked on this paper for, like, a whole day and he had to go
and give me a B+. Can you believe it? He said it's too long, and," she squinted at the writing,
"'the argument isn't carefully defended'. Yeah, whatever that means. Like you can deal with that
topic in ten pages and even begin to stay what needs to be said. If he knew his material better,
he'd know that this is an A paper."
"I know I'm going to regret this," Lisa said, "but which 'dumb professor'?"
"You know, Prof. G." Tanya stormed over to her desk, threw the paper on it, then picked it back
up and tucked it into the lower drawer. "He's going to ruin my whole grade point average. And
I'm never going to forgive you, either," she said, rounding on Adam.
He opened his mouth to respond, but she didn't give him the chance.
"We were supposed to have a coffee date? Or has Lisa been saying bad things about me again? Is
that why you didn't show up? You told me you loved coffee, and I love coffee, so it just shows
that we're destined for each other. We both love French Silk Mochas. How much more perfect is
that? I waited for you for, like, hours at that coffee shop and you didn't even have the decency to
show up. I have never been stood up before, and I'm not going to start tolerating it now." She
glared at him. "Well, aren't you going to apologize?"
"Pardon?" Adam said, sounding more like he wanted to be anywhere else really fast.
"And you," Tanya continued, aiming her glare at Lisa, "How could you not tell me that the shop
was closed? The sign on the window says that Health Officials closed it last semester. You know,
you could have saved me tons of embarrassment if you'd mentioned *something*. I would have
told you. But, no, you let me stand outside that shop, making a complete fool of myself. I hope
no one saw me."
She stormed back across the room to her closet, where she began rooting through the clothes that
threatened to burst out of it. "Now I'm going to have to change so no one recognizes me. Thanks
a lot. I was hoping not to have to do laundry this weekend." She yanked something out of the
closet that looked like a large, red t-shirt. Turning around, she held the hanger up under her chin,
revealing the article to be a short sleeved dress that barely reached mid-thigh. "What do you
think?"
"Umm, it's December," Lisa said, feeling oddly repetitive. "It's cold out. You're going to freeze if
you wear that."
"Who's Professor G?" Adam asked.
"Greenberg," Lisa replied. "We have an English class with him. Why?"
"I don't know. It just feels important. I feel like there's something--"
"Greenberg? I don't think so," Tanya interrupted. "Greenberg is such a loser. I dropped his class
like on the second day. I'm taking it with that other guy now. You know, the one with the beard."
"Beard?"
"I think he has a beard. Do you remember if he had a beard? No, you wouldn't, cuz you can't
seem to remember *anything*. You need to pay attention better." She let the dress drop to the
floor, turned around and began rooting through the closet again. Seconds later, she emerged with
a black pantsuit. "He's the one with the kid. The papers went on and on about it over the summer.
Like no one else ever had a kid run away before. Please. He's so mean he's probably got her
locked in the attic."
Adam had a strange, thoughtful look on his face. "Is his name Grimm?" he asked while Tanya
took a breath.
[What are you doing?] Lisa asked, his question catching her off guard.
[Playing a hunch,] Adam responded, then: [Welcome back.]
Tanya rolled her eyes. "Duh. I told you that. God." Without a comment, she added the pantsuit to
the growing pile on the floor and returned to her closet.
Lisa turned to Adam slowly. "She is at this school. She's just not a student here. Come on." She
pulled him into the hallway, making sure the door shut behind them. "Look, go home, get some
socks on," she whispered, knowing that Tanya could listen through the door. "A jacket, too, if
you have one. Then meet me . . ." She threw her hands up. "I don't know. Meet me at the English
building."
"You know where this Professor is?"
"No. But if he teaches here, he's got to have an office. We find the office, we find him. The
problem is catching him during office hours. Professors are notorious for scheduling their office
hours on something other than Earth time."
Adam nodded, and looked up and down the hallway. The mural was finished, and for once since
its inception, the hallway was empty. "The English building," he said.
"Yes. Find me."
He nodded again, then vanished.
