Chapter 10: Structural Integrity (Part III)

“Oh that’s absurd.”

“Hah, if you only knew. I said that the first time. But now I know better…and…that’s done! Excellent. Simulation positive. Check and check and…huh.”

Now that he’d collected some of his wits he didn’t feel so good about having her standing in his room. He was the youngest of four, so he he’d gotten very used to people breaking into his room and messing with his personal space, but at some point a foot had to be put down. Especially about total strangers, even if they were amazingly curious.

Amazing and curious.

Roger doubted that any Baroque artist would have been able to aptly capture this girl in a painting.

“I’ll have your ceiling fixed in a jiffy,” she said. She closed the phone with an audible click and then flipped it open again, the soft hum of an almost dial tone sang from it and she said: “Protocol Lambda Seven buffer and execute. Mark.”

“How are you going to fix the ceiling?”

What, did she have an entire team of roofers on call or something? Suddenly Roger realized that she was right, Residence Life would not like that a hole had been smashed in his ceiling. But, what could he do? Keep her here and call campus security? What if she left before they arrived?

That was when there was a knock at the door.

The girl had climbed up onto his bed and held her phone up to the hole in the ceiling when he turned to get the door. Whoever was knocking was banging on the door with an urgency. He almost called out to say that he was okay—surely someone had heard that—but opened it instead, prepared to explain, or try to explain.

Standing there, her hand raised in a closed fist was a girl with green hair. Tall, but compact, round eyed and smiling as only a confident person could. She wasn’t exactly wearing a fencing uniform, but he could see her in one—instead, she dressed like a demented ASU cheerleader, blouse-jersey with crossed swords, white sweatpants with maroon and gold stripes on white. She had her mouth open to ask a question, but when she saw into his room she sighed loudly.

“Ah ha, I see that you found my missing geek,” the green-haired girl said. “Can’t let them off the leash you know.”

“Frog!” the girl from inside his dorm room cried. “Please not the leash again.”

“Well I—”

“Mind if I took her back?”

“Well, no, but—”

She brushed past him with a fluid displacement, he had his hand across the door, but she leveraged herself so expertly that he couldn’t but move out of her way as she walked past. Unlike the goggled girl, the green-haired girl smelled very womanly, perfumed, and tantalizing, almost alcoholic. He turned in her direction to say something but she’d already grabbed her friend and was yanking her out of the room.

There was no debating with these women!

“We’re getting out of here,” the green-haired girl said.

The goggle-girl looked up at him sheepishly as she was drawn out into the hall. “Sorry about your ceiling. Hopefully I can make it up to you someday.” She pulled a card out of her belt and tried to hand it to him—he missed and it fluttered to the floor. She yelped and griped at her friend as she hauled her down the hall. “Don’t worry. Nobody will notice! I promise!”

Yeah, right, who wouldn’t notice a gaping hole in his ceiling?

He glanced at his bed, covered in bits of plaster and shattered remnants of metal. Footprints in white printed across his floor like waltz instructions from where she’d walked as she scouted the wires and checked out the TV. And then there was the hole in the ceiling—

That had to be a trick of the light.

The ceiling above his bed appeared intact.

Roger sprang from his door and climbed onto his bed. Plaster crunched under his foot. It certainly looked intact. He grabbed a pencil and prodded at it. Harder. It didn’t give. The ceiling looked pretty much exactly like it had before… Well, before the girl had crashed through it and into his life—although promptly out of it again now.

He hopped down from the bed and bent to pick the card up from the floor.

It was a regular business card.

Elaine Mercer

Private Detective

magic spells, hacking, computer troubleshooting

“Hey, man,” Howie said from outside the door. “I heard, like, a brawl over here. Your door was open, I hope you don’t mind. Do you know what happened?”

Roger looked at him and then at his books. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said. He grabbed one of the books and slapped it shut. Then, almost as an afterthought, he tucked the card into his pocket. “I really don’t.”

Howie watched him as he grabbed his jacket from atop the dresser and headed to the door. His friend’s eyes played over the carnage in the room without comment, but he did pause to ask:

“You want me to shove off? I know you want to study.”

“No. I think maybe I’ve studied enough. You want to get me that beer?”

“Dude, really? You’ve got good timing, man,” he said as the door closed behind them. “Have I got the a line on a couple of hot babes going out tonight and I could use a partner. You are so invited.”