Dorm Block A, 9:51 AM
Distantly, Eric could hear a droning noise. A long, drawn-out tone...kinda like a bell...
Oh, crap—the bell!
Hurriedly, he leaped out of bed, pulling on an orange shirt and the baggy jeans lying next to his bed. Spritzing his hair with water from a spray bottle, he dragged a comb through it once and applied liberal amounts of gel, freezing it into short spikes. As he laced up his sneakers, he stole a glance at the clock.
"Let's see...time for math," he muttered, rushing out into the hallway and snagging his bag on the fly. "Room 201 A." He managed to find the correct building and floor after asking a younger student named Milly for directions (and watching her face turn red from the shock of an older student actually speak to her), but as he was about to find the room, he saw Nicholas at the other end of the hall. Their eyes locked, and Nicholas let out a savage growl.
Eric gulped and doubled back on his path, skidding around a corner at top speed. He spied what looked like a janitor's closet. Launching himself into it, he almost toppled down the flight of stairs the door concealed.
"Who puts stairs in a janitor's closet?" he asked the air idiotically. He could hear the pounding of Nicholas coming after him and swung the door closed, punching the small button that locked it.
The obedient part of his brain told him to get back to class, ASAP. The logical part of his brain told him that this part of the school was probably off-limits for students, and probably for a reason.
Eric told obedience and logic to take a long walk off a short pier and started down the stairs.
Room 201 A, 10:01 AM
"And Mr. Champlain was still asleep when you left for breakfast, Mr. Belpois?"
"Yes, Dr. Percoucou," Jeremie replied.
"Hmm. Probably jet lag. Well, we'll excuse him for it this once, but next time, I'll expect punctuality. And that goes for all of you. Now, class, a polyhedron is made up of..."
Odd scribbled a note furiously and passed it to Jeremie. Where 'mad genius?' Jeremie shrugged. "Can't you use real sentences?" he hissed. "Perhaps he got lost."
"Hopefully Nicholas isn't still mad about yesterday," Ulrich replied softly. "He seemed mad for some reason about Eric's little trick. I don't know why you could get mad with a dozen pigeons over you." Odd snickered at the memory.
"Well, I don't think that he's dumb enough to leave the campus," Jeremier said. "Even Nicholas wouldn't risk trouble with Sissi's dad."
"I can't believe I was dumb enough to leave the campus," Eric said to himself as he edged along the sewer walkway. "What was I thinking?" Ahead, in the murky darkness, a crescent of sunlight glimmered where the pipe opened onto the river. There was also an access ladder, which Eric managed to clamber up onto. He struggled with the heavy manhole covering the exit, forcing it aside enough to squirm out and onto the bridge it was positioned on. In front of him was the factory he had noticed yesterday.
"Well, in for a penny, in for a pound," he sighed, walking towards the large double doors. He pushed and struggled with the doors, finally opening one enough to slip inside. It opened onto a platform that overlooked the factory floor. It was discouragingly bare. All the machinery had been taken out, leaving a wide, dusty floor. One discordant element, however, pervaded the abandoned-building milieu: an acrid, burnt ozone smell reminiscent of the aftermath of a lightning strike.
"Creepy," Eric muttered to himself. As far as he could see, there was no way down from here. A lone support girder bridged the ceiling, but offered no possible descent.
"I'm going to need rope," he said. "Lots of rope."
Ms. Hertz's Room, 10:49
"Is Eric back yet?" Odd whispered to Ulrich as Ms. Hertz began roll call.
"I see Jeremie, but our other genius isn't here," Ulrich replied. "Wait a minute...yeah, there he is, coming in now." Eric dashed into class, sliding across the tile floor to land in his seat at Jeremie's lab table just as Ms. Hertz called his name.
"Present!" he gasped.
"Did someone just wake up, Mr. Champlain?" she quipped dryly.
"Uh, yes, ma'am," he said quickly. "That's what it was. You know, jet lag and all."
Ulrich looked at Eric sharply. It was obvious—to him, at least—that Eric was lying. Why?
Beside him, Odd was scribbling a note to Jeremie. He showed it to Jeremie, who looked back at him, completely baffled. Ulrich looked over. Odd had written Why Eric has sewer shoes? He looked perplexedly at Odd. "Sewer shoes?" he mouthed.
A tap on the window distracted him. It was Yumi, standing outside looking lost. Ulrich opened the window a crack.
"How do I get to 505 B?" she asked.
Ulrich glanced at Ms. Hertz, who was discussing the atom and the Bohr model, and Jeremie and Eric, who were interjecting bits about quarks and Dirac's model. Satisfied that the class was sufficiently distracted, he wrote down the directions for Yumi. "Thanks," she said, smiling at him. "You're a lifesaver." Suddenly Ulrich wanted nothing more than to do something to make her smile that way at him again. As she turned to leave, he called back at her. "Hey, Yumi. Are you...um...well, are you going to this dance that Eric plans on dragging Jeremie to?"
"Maybe," she said. "Um...are you going?"
"I, uh, I guess so," he said, blushing like mad.
"Cool," she said, turning an interesting shade of maroon herself. "Well...see you."
"Yeah," he said to himself as she left. He turned back to Odd, who had been poking him with a pencil the entire time. "What?" he hissed. Odd pointed at Eric's shoes. Vans, an odd choice since Eric was certainly not a skateboarder. Then he deciphered Odd's note. On the soles of Eric's shoes were trace bits of sewage. Ulrich stared at them, growing more and more confused. What on Earth was going on here?
