She wasn’t trying to keep him in suspense, but his reaction—his fear—had shocked her momentarily silent. “On—on the Ashburn website,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
But no, of course he didn’t. Otherwise his name wouldn’t have been misspelled.
“Admin handles the website,” he said, dashing out of her office. “Idiots!”
The Inferno door slammed shut behind him before she could think of a response. She lunged for her computer and printed the profile out, suspecting that some of the details would soon disappear.
She’d underestimated him. When she checked on the profile fifteen minutes later, it was gone—all of it, even “Alexander Hartgarve, director of the Office of Information Technology Help Desk.”
Oh yes, she wasdefinitelyon to something.
. . . . .
The history department met for a staff meeting every other Thursday, though Emily had yet to figure out why. It was the academic equivalent of a time loop.
Professor Fletcher, the pinched-looking chair, always offered an update on the humanities building renovation plans that boiled down to “still no progress,” but it took ten minutes at minimum because of questions and objections. Then Fletcher would open the floor, which was worse.
Professor Dettman, the Eastern European specialist, inevitably complained that the department was out of some manner of office supplies. This would set off an argument, because Professor Tanner, American studies, always accused someone or other of filching them.
And then Professor Aldridge, a Marxist with a salary three times Emily’s, would go off about the appalling favoritism toward the maths and sciences at the expense of worthier subjects, example one that the engineering department was justswimmingin office supplies.
This happened at every meeting.
Bernie’s advice, when she’d griped to him about it, was not to begrudge the professors their little dramas when “little dramas are obviously all they’ve got.”
This morning, however, she was very begrudging. Never mind the wild urge to figure out what was up with Hartgrave—her previous two classes generated fifty papers, and she couldn’t delay grading with final exams looming. She tapped her pencil on the table and hoped the rest of the group felt the crush of deadlines, too.
“Coffee, m’dear,” said Professor Blair, sliding a full cup in front of her and laying his free hand on her shoulder.
She forced a smile. Blair had been teaching Western Civ at Ashburn for as long as she’d been alive, but heregarded their age gap as if it were nothing. Possibly a side effect of covering six thousand years every semester.
During Fletcher’s non-update, Emily considered the coffee cup and its Ashburn logo—perhaps even the one Hartgrave had convinced back together. How amazing it was that a broken cup could be made perfectly whole. She rhapsodized to herself along these lines until Dettman’s fist hitting the table brought her back to attention.
“Yah, I have an issue,” he said. “I’d rather have a pen than an issue, but oh what a surprise—no pens!”
“And do you know why?” Tanner, of course.
Emily, to keep from rolling her eyes, turned them back to the mug. If it was the magically repaired one, perhaps there’d be some detectable sign. A slight glow? She looked at it without blinking for as long as she could. Then she tried squinting at it.
“I’ve never been so insulted in mylife,” barked Professor Brown, the ancient Greece specialist, whose turn it apparently was to be accused. For the third time that semester, by Emily’s count.
She sighed. How was squinting at cups any less ridiculous than retreading the same argument? Why, with a magic-user for a next-door neighbor, had she let mysteries sidetrack her from the real goal of persuading Hartgrave to give her lessons?
“... and it is a, quote, ‘transgression punishable by the docking of wages’ ...”
She glanced at her watch, recalled that it had once again stopped dead and casually shifted in her seat untilshe could make out the time on the conference room clock. Half an houralready?It was no sacrifice for Tanner to go on and on, Tanner with her easy load of two classes, but some people had five—
No, scratch that.Oneperson. Just her.
She swallowed a scream.
“... a half-dozen pens in the supply closet Friday afternoon. On Monday morning—none. And when I left Friday, only one of us remained—”
“Two,” Emily said.
Everyone looked blankly at her. This was not in the script.
“I was here quite late on Friday,” she said.
