The door to the anthropology exhibit could not have been more dubiously located. The exhibit wasn't a building in its own right. The door wasn't accessible from the outdoors, and one had to navigate the halls of anthropology complex in order to find it. It was not shown on campus maps, or rather, it was listed in the legend, but its corresponding symbol appeared nowhere on the map itself. It seemed, for all purposes, to be a place that the university would advertise and occasionally mention to prove their dedication to the social sciences, but aside from these bone-throws, they would rather like to keep it hidden.

And it seemed logical. The exhibit caretaker, if his guest appearance was an accurate representation of his character, was eccentric, frank, and not someone you'd like to introduce to university beneficiaries. Claudia wondered if the man had previously been more approachable, secured tenure, and then let his mind slowly atrophy in some de-humidified crypt in the corner of campus.

She then wondered why she was pursuing this thread.

It was believable for her mind to transplant people she knew, that is, the Buddhist cultist and Leena, into some waking hallucination. It was also likely that her mind could create strangers – the others from that place – by generating composite faces, bodies, and behaviors from people she's met over her lifetime. But to have the precise likeness of a person whom she had not yet met, whom she couldn't have possibly encountered before then, appear in this dream and show up the following day; that was a pure impossibility.

In her snaking through the halls, she had more than once passed the same metallic door, an inappropriately large door with something like a brass ship's wheel as the only sign of its opening mechanism. She had assumed it was a wall fixture with no actual function, something to commemorate a certain anthropological age. It was on her third roundabout sweep of the halls, the last attempt before resigning herself to her dorm, that she noticed the small placard at floor level next to the door.

Items in the anthropology exhibit will cause irreversible bodily harm.

Enter at your own risk.

Here was the clearest sign of an occupant who did not want to be bothered.

Claudia stood, wide-stance in front of the door, arms folded, silently amused by the neuroses of this strange man. His mannerisms, style of dress, and everything down to the trim of his goatee were exactly as she had seen them in that bizarre dream. The Zen boy had been remarkably different though – more matured, Buddhism intact, but hair kept in a short, clean cut. Hemp jacket abandoned, and replaced with a certain assuredness that was pathetically absent in his doppelganger here.

And her? Her hair had been dyed.

A faint buzzing noise pulled her pack to the present, and a security camera on the ceiling behind her slowly turned on its axis. It had previously been pointing down the length of the hall where she'd passed through several times prior, but now it rotated until faced the door – and then tilted down to gaze directly where she stood.

She lifted a hand, but quickly curled in her fingers and decided better of waving.

Something shifted in the door, the sounds of metal clanging on metal, reverberating down the hall, and Claudia withdrew against the opposite wall. The little camera buzzed as it pivoted toward her new location.

The wheel spun on the door, and with another clunk, the massive door creaked ajar.

Bristles poked out from around it, and glasses followed, until the face of that same man peered around the edge to stare directly at her. Its eyes were masked with suspicion.

"Are you the chancellor?"

Before Claudia could answer, the man interrupted himself.

"No that's absurd, you're too young, you must be a student. You're here for the internship."

He paused. His heavy brows furrowed.

"Why?"

Claudia, still backed against the wall, struggled to recall the dialogue she had rehearsed countless times while wandering through the halls. Her mouth opened, but only to reveal uncomfortably clenched teeth. No sound was produced.

"Are you mute? Do you want the internship?" the man's voice became irritated, impatient. "Or are you…oh." His brows un-creased, expression softening. The man inched through the narrow opening into the hallway, and straightened his back, apparently flustered. "You want to see the exhibit?" He brought his hands together, attempting to fold them nonchalantly before him, but instead he began to wring them unconsciously.

"Yeah," Claudia regained her voice, though did not move. "I just want to look around, but if you're busy I can come back another time."

The man weighed this notion, and the small security camera turned until it focused on him, as if it too was waiting for a response. The man's eyes darted up to the camera, he scowled visibly at it, then let out a sigh.

"No, no, it's fine. I can give you a tour today. Follow me."

He slipped back through the doorway, and seconds passed before Claudia found the faculties to uproot her feet and cautiously follow him through. She found herself in near darkness, if not for the small stream of fluorescent light flowing in from the hallway.

"Oh, and close the door behind you."