Monday March 29 2004
MacArthur University

Joel sat at his usual lunch spot, his books spread all over the six-place table's surface. Also as usual, he didn't have to worry about crowding anyone, because he was alone. He couldn't remember the last time the cafeteria had been so busy someone had been forced to share a table with him; Freudian block, he supposed. Joel didn't make small talk, and striking up conversations with strangers was a completely foreign concept. As far as he was concerned, lunch was just a study hall with food handy. He barely noticed the noise and chatter around him as he dug into his work.

A book thumped onto the surface of the table on top of one of his papers, and a bag into the seat across from his. "Be right back." He looked up just I time for an eye-level close-up of Kat's booty as she turned towards the serving line.

When she came back, laden tray in hand, he had most of his clutter put away. She settled into the seat and bumped knees with him under the table. "Sorry."

"Nada. What are you doing here? This isn't your lunch."

She stretched out, unselfconsciously putting one of her legs between his. "Teacher's sick, no sub. They asked me to do it, can you believe?"

He smiled up at her. "Why not? I bet you're prepared."

"I know the material, maybe, but I'll never be prepared to stand up in front of an audience and teach. Just not my style." She lifted a bowl of soup from her tray, set it in front of him, and stuck a spoon in. "The food's not bad here. You shouldn't go all day without eating."

"Yes, Mother." He raised a spoonful to his face and blew. "Why'd you pick this table to sit at?"

Her brows gathered. "Is that a trick question?"

He nodded across the way to a large table half full of male students, all of whom were looking their way. "Bet they'd make room for you. And you can bet they're better conversationalists."

She shook her head softly, a smile touching her lips. "And what would we talk about, Joel?" She leaned forward, and he caught a hint of perfume. "I told you before, I'm not into that. Speaking of which. How was your date?"

"Tolerable," he admitted. "Alex behaved herself, mostly. A little handsy."

"She's an artist. They're expressive people, not like us reserved scientist types." She blew on her own spoon. "So, are you going to ask her out again?"

"Haven't decided."

"Well, don't wait too long. A girl like Alex must get offers all the time. She's been waiting for you to notice her, but now you've gone out. If you don't follow up, she'll figure she's wasting her time."

"For a girl who doesn't date, you know a lot about the politics."

"Older sister. Cousin, actually, but she might as well be. I live with my aunt and uncle."

"Oh? Where?"

She hesitated. "Washington State. Seattle."

"And your last school was in Maryland. Rutherford."

"Yes," she said faintly. "My last school."

"Hey," Alex's voice came from behind him, "how are our two resident brainiacs doing?" She sat beside him with a smile.

"Alex," he said, "the Ed Sciences building is halfway across campus. What are you doing here?"

"Heard about the soup." She dipped his spoon into his bowl and touched it to her lips. "So the stories are true. I thought they fired any cook they caught making something edible."

He smiled despite himself. "She's on probation. Tomorrow is cardboard pizza day. If anyone gets back in line for seconds, she's out."

"My God, he has a sense of humor. Stunted and weird, but still." She turned to Kat. "What have you been doing to him?"

"Chipping at the block of stone to free the sculpture trapped inside."

"Gad." Alex widened her eyes theatrically. "A computer science major who quotes Rodin. The world is coming to an end."

"Um, Michelangelo said it first."

"When's your next gig?" He said, a little rougher than he'd intended. Sometimes he didn't know how to take Alex. He hoped she was just teasing Kat, but he wasn't sure.

"Week from Friday. Another bar in University Heights."

"So you're free this weekend?"

The banter disappeared from her voice. "I'm headed to TJ with my sister and her boyfriend Saturday night, is all."

He swallowed. "Want to do another movie Friday?"

"No, thanks." An unaccustomed heaviness settled in his shoulders before she said, "I think I'd rather take a drive. What say we ride the Coast Highway to Santa Monica? Stroll the boardwalk, watch the sunset, grab a bite, drive home."

"Alex," he said slowly, "Santa Monica's two, maybe three hours away. Even without stopping to eat, that's five or six hours in the car with nothing to do but look out the windows and listen to the radio…" He swallowed. "And talk."

She gave him a funny little smile. "That's kind of the idea."

"We probably wouldn't get home before midnight."

"Gotta be home before the streetlights come on? Maybe I can ask your mom if you can stay up past bedtime." She turned to Kat. "Are you geniuses all like this?"

Kat dipped her chin. "Hope not, we'll never reproduce."

"Hey, Sis. You cutting class or something?" One of the newcomer girls Kat ran with, a little cheerleader type with short black hair frosted purple. She dropped into the seat beside the big redhead, just as another one showed up, the Asian-looking girl with the waist-length black hair. "Sarah, grab a seat."

Kat made introductions while Joel glanced around, feeling hunted and exposed. As he expected, guys and more than a few girls were glancing toward his table and talking with lowered voices.

"Something wrong, Joel?" Kat's eyebrows were gathered in concern.

Zysik was right: life as I know it is about to end. "Right now, fifty horn dawgs are watching me share lunch with four of the hottest girls in school. Tomorrow I won't be able to find a place to sit without a squad of them dropping in all around and cluttering the table and poking me with their elbows while they wait for you."

Alex quirked a smile. "Only you could make that into a reason to gripe."

"If I wanted to be popular, I'd get a lobotomy."

"I doubt that would be surgery enough," Sarah said as she stood and turned towards the serving line. "I'm sure you'd need a personality transplant as well."

Alex stared after Sarah. "She come from Rutherford too? Cuz, frankly, she's more like I would expect."

Roxy giggled. Kat shook her head. "Believe me, the girls at Rutherford are nothing like Sarah."

Joel sat back and followed the conversation as the girls talked. He was glad they stayed away from "girl subjects" – gossip and clothes and such – even though he didn't join in. Alex tried to draw him in a couple of times, but he backed away with a neutral statement, content just to listen and…

And be included.

"Water polo? Kat, I know you said you like to swim, but…" Alex shrugged. "I thought you couldn't touch the bottom of the pool in water polo."

"You can't. That's why the players are usually short." Kat sipped her bottled water. "But I've got a very strong kick, and I can keep my feet tucked just fine. They made me a goalie."

"O-kay. So, what are you guys studying?" Alex addressed Sarah and Roxy.

"I'm just moving out of core subjects," Sarah said. "I think I'll be majoring in climatology or meteorological science. I'm developing an interest in weather."

"Same." Roxy noshed a carrot stick. "But I'm headed for a physics major. Astrophysics, I think. I want to study gravitational effects."

Alex groaned. "God. Two more cheerleader geeks. Don't you know you're flying in the face of centuries of male research? Girls cannot be brainy and good-looking both. It's a law of nature." She rested each of her hands on one of theirs. "It's not too late," she said earnestly. "We've lost Kat, for sure, but we can still save you. Come over to the Liberal Arts College. We'll set you up with a bunch of fluff courses and teach you to toss your hair and giggle."

Sarah's eyebrow merely lifted, but Roxy snorted. "Well, I am taking a couple dance electives. Wish I hadn't though. They're not fluff, but I'm not gonna learn much either."

"Oh? You dance?"

"Only since I could, like, walk. Self-taught."

Alex lowered her voice. "Like Bobby, huh? I'll bet you're good."

Sarah stood, tray in hand. "My next class is halfway across campus. Nice meeting you, Alex." She looked down at him. "You too, Joel. When you've heard a million variations of pickup lines, you start hearing them even in innocent remarks." She turned for the kitchen conveyor at the exit.

"Well," Kat said quietly. "That's the closest to an apology I've ever heard from her. You must have made an impression."

"Well, it's true," he said stubbornly, feeling defensive. He'd never tried a pickup line in his life. "You guys are okay, don't get me wrong, but having girls like you and Alex around complicates my life."

Alex rolled her eyes. "I swear, Joel. If you were sharing sheets with Jessica Alba and she was handing you her paycheck, you'd bitch about her cooking." But she smiled at him in a way that made him feel warm and strange. He couldn't guess why, but the little blonde was clearly pleased with him.

Kat was working her way through her meal with efficiency and speed; any guy he knew who ate so fast would be getting food on the table. And his tablemates. She came up for air long enough to ask Alex, "Who's Jessica Alba?"

"Girl, where have you been? She's the latest fantasy girl for every guy on the planet. Big dark eyes, pouty lips, gym-rat physique, long dark hair. She did Honey. I think she's gone blonde for Fantastic Four."

"I don't go to movies much." Kat picked up her fork again. "TV, either. Sometimes the Discovery Channel has something I want to watch, or Roxy will drag me to the couch to watch one of her favorites."

"Kat, you are such a geek."

"I'll take that as a compliment. Why waste your time watching some boy-toy with a sixth-grader's acting skills stumble through an inane skin flick?"

"No, actually, she can act when they let her. I loved her in Dark Angel."

"Sounds sexy and dangerous. A bad-girl movie?" She forked another bite.

"TV series. Sci-fi. She played this genetically-engineered superchick escaped from a government lab."

Kat's fork paused an inch from her mouth. It occurred to Joel that he ought to compliment her on whatever change she must have made to her hair and makeup, because she was even even prettier than usual today. "Really."

"Yeah. The government was trying to grow super-soldiers or some such, and a bunch of them got away. It got canceled after two seasons. I liked the first season best, where she was trying to hunker down and not get caught while she made a life for herself. In Seattle, of all places." Alex took a spoonful of Joel's cooling soup. "They kinda jumped the shark at the end of season two. Introduced a bunch of new characters, mutants with freaky talents. Still, not bad." She frowned at Kat. "Something wrong?"

Kat set down her fork. "Ate too fast."

Something strange was happening with Kat, Joel thought, but it wasn't wrong. Nothing about Kat could ever be wrong. She was absolutely the most perfect female he'd ever seen. Her eyes were priceless jewels; her hair a shining crown, her lips a prize any man would sell his soul to possess. He leaned forward…

…and shook his head to clear it. Was I really thinking of kissing her? He stared at his lab partner, who was still intent on Alex and oblivious to what he'd just done.

He felt his eyes pulled back to her, to her long slender fingers and coral-colored nails that matched her lush mouth. When his eyes started drifting to her chest, shame tore his eyes free and directed them past her shoulder.

The male diners had been glancing this way since the girls had gathered at his table. They'd smiled and made ridiculous facial gestures and leaned forward to trade comments, comparing notes on 'Fantasy' Fairchild, the tall busty redhead that nobody but supergeek Joel Richards could score even a study date from.

That had changed since Alex had started talking about her silly TV show. The onlookers were now staring openly, silent and vacuous as moviegoers. Or hypnosis subjects. A couple got to their feet as if sleepwalking and took a slow step towards the table. It reminded Joel of some creepy zombie flick.

It was incredible. He'd heard that some girls were cute when they were mad, and he supposed it was only natural to feel drawn to a girl, especially a pretty one, who was troubled, but…

Kat stood with tray in hand and reached for her bag. "Those last few bites didn't settle so well. Think I'll hit the bathroom before class. See you, guys."

Joel was suddenly aware of Roxy, still sitting at the table. He wondered what the little brunette had been looking at when he'd been putting on his disgraceful performance. Right now, she was watching the half-dozen guys drifting towards the door in Kat's wake. They seemed to reclaim their wits more or less at the same time, and walked back to their seats or continued out the door with a puzzled expression. The girl's violet eyes flicked his way and back to the guys at the door, and he knew she'd seen him. She shook her head slightly. "Poor Kat."

Alex had been watching the parade. "I should have her problems. Bet I wouldn't be working near as hard for my As."

"Alex," he said, "she works hard for every point she gets."

"Don't doubt it. But I'm an Ed major, remember? Lots of essay questions in my exams. Bet my teachers would be softer grades if I had a nickname like 'Fantasy.'"

-0-

Gordie Wilson looked exactly like a nerd to someone who knew real nerds and knew how they really looked. For example, that their appearance often fell outside one end or the other of the norms for actuarial weight and personal hygiene. Some geeks were AR about their grooming, and skipped so many meals they were skinny as castaways. At the other end of the spectrum were guys like Gordie, who clearly spent most of his life in front of his monitor, neglecting sleep and personal care, cramming convenience food into his doughy mouth as he worked. He looked up from his big padded office chair as Joel came in, and Joel could see a fingerprint in the middle of his right eyeglass lens. "Let me guess. Another workup on a teacher."

"Not this time. Student. Caitlin Fairchild."

Gordie studied him a moment. "Caitlin Fairchild, huh? Gotta say, didn't expect it from you, Richards." He turned to his monitor and tapped at the wireless keyboard in his lap. "Alex Shearson, that's another story."

His ears burned. "I dated her one time, Gordie. How did you even know about that?"

"Just cuz I graduated, it doesn't mean I'm not plugged in. Why you chasing after 'Fantasy' Fairchild?"

"She's my lab partner. I want to know more about who I'm sharing my last lab with."

"Kay. Stick or hardcopy?"

"Stick. How soon, do you think?"

Gordie plugged a memory stick into a port and clicked the rollerball on his keyboard. "Bout ten seconds." He looked up. "What, you think you're the first guy asked me for a workup on this chick? Or the thirty-first? Be warned, you're gonna find some mysteries and disappointments in here. No bra size."

He tucked his chin. "Why the hell would I want to know her bra size?"

Gordie gave him a you're-hopeless look. "A guy wants a file on some girl, that question's always in the top ten. Along with birthday, address and phone number, hobbies, and hangouts. With this chick, the bra-size thing is question number one, three times out of four. Nobody cares about academic records, which is a shame, cuz it's the most interesting thing about her file. Besides the fact she's jailbait." He handed over the stick. "Oh, you knew, huh? Their chins usually hit their chests when I tell em that."

Joel nodded. "How much for this?"

Gordie waved him away. "The stick is six bucks, my cost. I already made a fortune on this file. Some of these losers, it's a pleasure taking their money." As he turned away, the computer geek suddenly said, "Wait." Gordie paused, and plunged in. "What's she like, really?"

Joel smiled down at him. "Crazy smart. Sharp-witted, but not sharp-tongued. Nice sense of humor. And she's so not stuck on herself. If you walked up to her and introduced yourself, she'd talk to you, man. But she doesn't trust guys who come on to her. She takes herself serious, and she won't hang with somebody who thinks of her as a playtoy."

Gordie smiled back. "So, you like her, huh?"

"Not like that. Well, mostly not like that. But the more time we spend together, the less I'm sure I know about her."

Back at his bedroom workstation, Joel sat down with a plate of leftovers at one hand and a pad and pencil at the other and opened the file.

Caitlin Marie Fairchild had been born August second, nineteen eighty-six, in Annandale, Virginia, to Colleen and Alexander Fairchild. Her mom's occupation was listed as 'legal secretary'; her dad's was blank. That seemed odd. Gordie should have been able to dig that item out with ease. Joel couldn't believe the man was some jobless loser; Kat would have come from quality people.

He saw her mother had divorced her father three years later. Maybe not. Then a newspaper article describing the death of Colleen in February of ninety-one, when Kat was five and a half. Joel felt an unaccustomed pang. Next of kin was listed as Nathan Fairchild, Alex's brother, in Seattle, Washington. She said her uncle and aunt raised her.

The next ten years of Caitlin Fairchild's life were an unbroken string of outstanding academic achievements. Early on, her aunt and uncle had seen her potential and had dropped eight grand a year to enroll her in private school. Even in the most academically challenging environment they could buy her, she'd blown the doors off the school curriculum and reached the ninth grade by age eleven. Her dad had gone to court to get her enrolled in a private high school. She'd breezed through her four years, loading on half a year's worth of college-credit electives as well, and given the commencement address at fifteen.

He studied her yearbooks. The posed photos showed a little redheaded elf with a serious expression. Her eyes, still a luminous green, were magnified behind thick lenses. Her extracurriculars consisted of the school chess club, computer club, and the Pioneer Club, a geek association that put together projects to compete in science and technology fairs. No sports, no social organizations. She didn't have time for that. In her senior yearbook, she'd been voted 'Most Likely to Do Absolutely Anything except Score a Date.' He could sympathize.

You'd think colleges would be falling over each other to woo such a student, but, apparently, there were liabilities to consider before accepting a kid no older than most high school sophomores. Some of them were legal, involving various state regulations and age of consent. But, reading between the lines of a few of the many rejection letters in her file, he suspected more than one institution of higher learning was nervous about setting her loose on their syllabus and casting doubts on the quality of their courses. Her uncle started threatening to go to court again.

Rutherford University, a prestigious Ivy League school in Maryland, had agreed to take her in. But they hadn't made it easy; in fact, they'd almost seemed to be making it hard as possible for her. The school had set aside her earned credits and hadn't allowed her to comp-test out of any subjects, forcing her to grind away doing schoolwork in courses she probably could have taught for half her freshman year. He was shocked to see they hadn't offered her a penny in financial aid, declaring her too young to be eligible. Without school backing, scholarships and grants had been almost impossible to secure; what she and her parents had been able to acquire had amounted to chump change. She filed her first tax return that year, having apparently taken a job to defray costs. Her income had been low enough to make filing optional, and probably hadn't paid for her books. She'd finished her freshman year in spring of oh-three and hadn't gone back, no doubt tapped out. Rutherford had run her out of school while avoiding any doubts concerning their ability to teach her, even though she'd learned damned little there.

Joel ground his teeth at the duplicity, and the waste. His outrage changed to puzzlement when he saw that her records ended at that point. He called Gordie. "The file's short, Wilson. It ends at her freshman year at Rutherford."

"Because that's where the data trail ends. I can't find any current information on her."

"Oh, come on. She's enrolled in classes. Her grades are being recorded. She's got to have a file at MacArthur, at least. And she drives."

"No. No license application, ever. No registration. No tickets, no arrest record. No apps for financial aid in two years. No official paper at all. No charge accounts or financials of any kind, not even a tax return. She hasn't even filled a frickin prescription since September of oh-two. Her last year is a black hole."

An idea occurred. "She's a computer science major. She does stuff with a laptop you wouldn't believe. Could she maybe…"

"If she's that good, she's got no business in school, Richards. MacArthur's got nothing to teach her. Cuz, frankly, I can't do it, and I can't even guess how it could be done without official cooperation. I'm talking everybody from school administrators to the Federal government. Which brings us to the next phase of our little conversation. You're about to ask me for workups on her friends, right?"

He caught it. "Which you already have. You're making a fortune off these guys, aren't you?"

"The girls especially. You want the actual files, or just a Gordie's Digest?"

"Tell me."

"All their tracks disappear into the rocks in the spring or early summer of last year. Before that, there's no evidence they even knew each other."

"Kat and Roxy are sisters."

"With different last names, different moms on their birth certificates, and last known addresses three thousand miles apart. They were all scattered across the country, with no associations I can dig out. None of them has an academic record even close to Kat's. Bobby Lynch was in remedial school when he dropped off the grid."

"And now they're here, all of them quietly taking courses years ahead of their normal grade level. What do you think?"

He could almost hear the shrug. "Witness Protection Program, maybe? It doesn't really add up, but it's all I got."

He felt a chill. "If they are, you're not doing them any favors selling their files, Gordie."

"Which is why you're the only guy who's seen one of the real ones."

"Wait. You made up files to sell?"

"Well, I stuck to the truth where it mattered to them, Richards. I told you they're not looking for substance, just grist for pickup lines mostly. None of them questions why the file is thin. I pass off the lack of current info as 'information lag.' You'd think most of them would know better."

He shifted the phone to his other ear. "What kind of trial would bring them together in hiding here?"

"Again, no answers."

He said carefully, "Any history of sexual assault? On any of them?"

"No. Well, no, but… Watch your back around Bobby Lynch, man. That guy… well, digging through his history's like crawling through concertina. Left on a doorstep as an infant. Had a foster family till he was six, then taken out of the house for 'medical reasons.' Very unusual, sounds fishy as hell to me. Three years in the orphanage, no adoption offers. They didn't even try to foster him out, just kept him in the dorm while twenty kids came and went. I got a photo of him at age nine that looks like a walk-on from Children of the Corn. Lots of bad behavior and time in juvie. He finally fosters out, and his people send him back a year later, and he goes straight back to juvie. He gets shipped out as soon as the cell door opens, and then things get really strange. He drops off the grid for two years, at the end of which time his fosters are charged under a sealed indictment and convicted. The court records are sealed, too, which means two things. One, it involved victims who are still minors, and two, it was really bad. I'm guessing kiddy porn. Since then, he's lived quiet with a new set of fosters and worked hard to fit in. But then comes this common event that pushes them together and wipes all their records. I wouldn't want to be in a room with him when he snaps."

He remembered meeting the neat and unassuming blond guy Kat was so fond of when he'd picked Mel up for her date, and how impressed his sister had been with him. And wasn't he in her band now? "I've met him. He seems okay. Mel likes him."

"I hear sociopaths can be charming. Richards, every time they find body parts in some guy's freezer, the neighbors always say the same thing. 'I just can't believe it. He seemed so normal. I didn't have a clue.'"

He shook his head. "I think you spend too much time alone, Wilson."

"Look who's talking. Sure you don't want a workup on Alex?"

He stilled. "You've got one already?"

"Again, you wouldn't be the first to express an interest."

"Who?"

"Tsk. Tsk. You know my client records are confidential."

"You break into people's lives for a living, sell their underwear sizes even, and you won't tell me who's been checking out my girlfriend?" Girlfriend? "Wait, no, that just slipped out."

"Yeah. It just did. Capricorn, thirty-four B, and she's not on the Pill."