Chapter 28: To Turn a Phrase (Part II)

Roger edged to the doorway to get a better look at the girl Howie had referred to but found Elaine blocking his way. She shook her head and grabbed onto the door.

“Could you boys wait out in the hall for a moment?” she said. “I need some privacy with Frog for a moment to get something done. We won’t be long.”

The door closed and Roger pursed his lips at its unexpressive surface. Well, he certainly had nothing except time to spend waiting for them to get done with whatever happened to be going on in there. He glanced at Howie, who shrugged; then at Andrew, who wore an equally blank look on his face.

Andrew became the first to break the silence. “This has been interesting,” he said, finding a place to lean against the far wall, next to another door. “And a little strange, don’t you think? Elaine, the girl with the goggles, she seems a little gone if you ask me. Did you catch her expression when her friend knocked out that cop? She didn’t even react. And here I am, committed a felony and it’s not even five PM.”

“I don’t think he’s a cop,” Roger said, “and I don’t think he had good things in mind. They know each other anyway. I’m sure Elaine and Frog will settle that out without it becoming a problem for us.”

“If you say so.” Andrew crossed his arms and let out a long sigh. “These two your girlfriends? You and Frog seem to be pretty cuddly…if so Roger—it is Roger, right?—if so, I’m sorry for what I just said. I’ve just feeling a little uptight about all this. People have been acting creepy all week.”

“No,” Howie said. He ran a hand over his hair, slicking it back against his skull. “Give me a few more hours, she’ll be mine. There’s no chick alive who can resist the How’s charms. In a few days she’ll be eating out of my palm.”

Roger cast a glance past Howie, trying to keep the image of Frog punching him from dominating his expectations. “Elaine’s not my girl either,” he said. “I got caught up in this stuff earlier and it just hasn’t let me go. Of course, I guess the alternative is that I’d be a mind-controlled zombie like the rest of the Vote Early crowd. Plus, Elaine is pretty smart and I don’t mind hanging out with her. And yeah, she’s really odd, but I think in a good way.” In spite of his words, Roger couldn’t go on, especially with Howie standing right there. As a friend he did okay, but sometimes Roger really felt uncertain of his motives. Party-by-day didn’t really work with all the classes Roger had to take, especially constantly offering to play tutor.

Of course, silence would not keep Howie from his appointed rounds.

“She broke into his dorm room and now he has a crush on her.” Howie prodded Roger with his elbow. “Admit it, dude, you like her. Tell it to me straight, she’s your type. Another nerd. Plus, she seems to be into the whole goggles and geekery thing. Maybe you can get a date with her and watch Star Trek. The best part about this? She’s friends with Frog, which means you and I stick together it’s a sure thing.”

“Shut up, Howie,” Roger said.

“You two roommates?” asked Andrew.

Roger snorted. “No, but it sure feels like it sometimes. You have a roommate?”

“Yeah and sometimes our conversations go exactly like that.” He paused and stared at the door to Elaine’s room for a moment. “What do you think they’re doing in there anyway?”

“No clue.”

“Three chicks in a room, alone?” Howie said. “The possibilities are endless.”

After placing the three containers of Essence au Frog on the lamp desk, Elaine wondered how many other odd experiments might be hiding in her minifridge. In fact, she suddenly realized, residing within the confines of the fridge stood several other unregistered containers—although, she suspected, at least one of them must have been eggdrop soup that Frog ordered a week earlier but forgot to take back to her own room. Before closing the fridge, Elaine stared for a long moment at the possibly rancid eggdrop soup and pondered how it might be useful to her. Nothing coming to mind, she let the door slide shut.

“Which one do you think it is?” asked Frog.

Elaine shrugged as she uncapped each of the perfume containers, checking each. “Why does it have to be one of them?” she asked.

“That’s the way this always works,” Frog replied, lounging on the bed. She gazed at Hadaly and made a languid motion with her arm, passing it through the AI’s avatar body.

Hadaly gracefully slid away from Frog, and stuck her tongue out at her, quickly recomposing herself when Elaine turned around again. “Probability seems rather high,” she added. “How else would Zach have been able to ambush you on your way back to your dorm room. The virus must be getting its intelligence from somewhere, and I’ve got most of the network across campus jammed at the moment.”

“The nam-shub could be spreading knowledge via the power lines,” Elaine said. “It’s using gremlins. Frog’s Inside Man hypothesis lacks support.”

“I’d keep my eye on Andrew,” Frog said. She put her fingers around her eyes and forced them wide. “Or…” She slipped up behind Elaine—who had busied herself filling small aerosol containers with the perfume; notably taken from various places around the room where Frog had left them after they’d run dry of whatever they originally held. “Perhaps it’s Roger. He’s been with us this entire time; what if he happens to be indoctrinated and we don’t know it? He could be passing notes to the enemy.”

“I’ve seen no evidence that Roger is indoctrinated.”

“Why take the chance?”

Elaine shook her head and gently moved Frog out of her way as she poked around the room, looking for another spray bottle. In spite of having her own room, Frog managed to leave her stuff in the oddest places throughout the dorm room. It probably explained why her little brother liked her so much; they were both a little bit slob on the inside. Under normal circumstances, Elaine didn’t care a single bit—unlike Zane, Frog didn’t leave week-old-pizza on the couch. No, just empty containers. And, she reminded herself, sometimes she herself would forget a can of Mt. Dew on her desk for several days. After a little bit of hunting and musing about her friend’s hygiene loci she found the last bottle. A now-spent container of bath spray that smelled to once contain something strongly scented bubblegum-ish.

“Hadaly,” Elaine said, peering into the bottle at some scum collecting at the bottom of the glass. She lifted her head until she could see the light from her monitor across the room. Her hand dropped into her pocket where she’d put Emily Early’s iPhone after getting it back from Zane. A smile flickered onto her lips as she thought about how she could handle Frog’s objection and still affect her original plan. “Status and diagnostic on your body?”

“Green across the board and raring to go, mon capitan!” Hadaly’s fierce grin added to the overall luminescence in the room.

“Spin up,” Elaine said. “You have a mission.”