by Bret Schulte
“Loser,” one boy yelled.
“Your robot fu is weak,” yelled another.
With the battle over, the crowd quickly broke apart and went back to unpacking.
“I think I might have got him if it wasn’t for that stupid beanbag chair,” said a disheartened voice behind Lucas.
Lucas turned just in time to see that the speaker had come out of the dorm room next to his. He was a bit pudgy around the middle, and his shoulders drooped a bit. He had a radio controller in his hand.
“That isn’t your chair, is it?” the boy asked, a bit annoyed.
“Uh, no,” Lucas answered. “I’m Lucas. I’m in room 312, right next to yours.”
“Ah, you’re the one with the massive TV I saw earlier. Very nice. I’m Jerry. Jerry Little,” he said, stooping down to pick up his robot.
“So did you build these?” Lucas asked excitedly.
“No,” Jerry scoffed. “I couldn’t put a toaster back together if my life depended on it. But Esteban, the guy who did build them, challenged me to a match. It seemed like a lot of fun. Too bad I’m really bad at it.”
The scorpion robot scurried down the hall. The boys walked along behind it.
“Well, it was your first time and you were fighting the guy who built the things,” Lucas said kindly.
Jerry just shrugged in response.
Lucas noticed that the radio controller had a small screen in the middle that gave the operator the robot’s view from the little camera mounted on top. That would explain why he never saw either of the operators in the hallway; they had been controlling their machines from their dorm rooms. It looked like a lot of fun.
“So where does Esteban live?” Lucas asked, but just then he stumbled across the answer.
They had reached the only closed door in the hall, other than the bathroom, of course. But this door was different from all the others; it was solid steel. There was an eye slot in the middle of the door much like a dungeon door would have, and a doggie door at the bottom just big enough for the robots to slip inside.
Jerry pushed his robot in through the flap.
“The controller too,” came a muffled voice through the door.
“I know, I know,” Jerry said, slipping the controller through the flap. “Maybe we can have a rematch sometime.”
“Sure thing,” the muffled voice said.
“And that would be Esteban,” Jerry said with raised eyebrows as he and Lucas walked back to their rooms.
“When did you meet him?” Lucas asked.
“I still haven’t,” Jerry said as he stopped next to the door to his room. “I was dared by my roommate to knock on the door. He had that door specially installed, I guess. He sent the robots out to greet me.”
“So you haven’t seen him?”
“Nope. And I don’t think we ever will,” Jerry said wistfully. “There are cameras in every classroom of the school and he is tapped into all of them. He says that he plans to take all of his classes from his room.”
“Well, that’s weird beyond weird.” Lucas suddenly imagined Esteban as one of those six hundred pound guys who need the fire department to come cut a hole in the wall so they can get out of their house.
“You think that’s weird? You haven’t met your roommate yet, have you?” Jerry asked with a grin.
“No,” Lucas answered slowly. “Why?”
“No reason. I’d better let you get to that,” Jerry said slipping into his room.
“Later.”
He wasn’t sure if Jerry was setting him up or not so he decided to peek into his room before entering.
“People of Earth! Kneel before the might of Natch, Emperor Supreme. Give me your lives, your wealth, and your pizza rolls.” A black-haired boy sat in a high-backed office chair, hoisting a globe in the air like a trophy.
“Ahem,” Lucas said to announce his presence.
“Who goes there?” the boy asked angrily. “Identify yourself.”
“I’m Lucas Fry, your roommate. I’m-”
“Yes, I know,” the boy said, clasping his hands together under his nose. “The big-screen TV and boxes upon boxes of video games were a dead give away. You’re the guy who won the Gameco National Video Game Championship this summer.”
Lucas still hadn’t gotten used to the fame his championship win had given him. Granted, he was only famous within the gamer community, but it was still embarrassing.
“So you are a gamer?” Lucas asked.
“Not really.”
“Okay. And you are?”
“Natch,” the boy said proudly. “Future Emperor Supreme of Earth and all points beyond.”
“Okay,” Lucas said slowly. “Is Natch your first or last name?”
“Neither. Both.”
“Right.” Lucas decided to try a different angle. “So I’m sure you’ve guessed that I was invited here after my big victory.” In fact, his tuition was mostly paid off as long as he tested video games after class three times a week in Dr. Zhang’s lab. “What brought you here?”
“I’m going to take over the world,” Natch said matter-of-factly as he sat down his globe.
“Sounds time-consuming.” Lucas tore open the box holding his stash of Pizza Guy comic books. “Say, when you take over the world, can I have Australia?”
“Hmm.” He really seemed to be thinking it over. “How about New Zealand?”
“Deal,” Lucas said flipping through his comics. He hoped the local bookstore carried all of his favorite titles.
“By the way,” Natch said slyly. “Which of those girls were you hitting on?”
Lucas felt his ears burn with embarrassment.
“What? I wasn’t- Were you watching me?”
“Not on purpose.” Natch got up from his chair and pointed out the window. “I noticed you had a lot of heavy boxes that still needed to be moved and you would likely ask for my help, so I hid until you were finished. I was sitting on that bench right outside the cafeteria when you were hit by the sock.”
Lucas suddenly realized he could see the girls’ dorm from his window. Counting up from the bottom, he found the girls’ window. Unfortunately, it was too far away to really see anything.
“Here you go.”
Natch handed him a pair of binoculars.
“Uh, why do you have these?” Lucas asked, taking the binoculars.
“Always be prepared,” Natch said with extreme smugness.
“Thanks.” Lucas was beginning to think that sharing a room with a would-be world-conquering super-villain was going to take a little getting used to.
At first the only thing he could see in the room was Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out at him. Finally he spotted her standing with her back to the window, running her hand through her hair. She was talking to someone, probably her roommate.
Now he just had to figure out how to talk to her without sounding like a complete moron.
He had a better chance of flying to the moon.
Chapter 7
And So It Begins…
The horrible day had finally come. It was time for class.
Unfortunately she failed to factor in the fact that she now shared a bathroom with thirty-nine other girls. By not brushing her teeth or blow-drying her hair, she was able to make it to class three minutes late.
Her first class of the day was English with Professor Woolf. It seemed survivable enough, although she had to read fifty pages by Wednesday. The best part of the class was that Tasha and Zoey had it too. Unfortunately Zoey did not have biology next so Sam and Tasha headed over to Montgomery Hall without her.
They made sure they got seats next to each other at one of the many tables in the room just in case this was a class where you had lab partners.
As the other students filed in, she spotted Lucas and waved to him automatically. Tasha looked at her in surprise. Sam had surprised herself.
Fortunately, Lucas waved back and made a direct line to her table.
“How’s it going, S
amantha and friend?” Lucas asked as he sat down.
“This is Tasha,” Sam said, pointing to the still visibly shocked Tasha.
“Hello,” Tasha said scrutinizing Lucas. “How do you two know each other?”
“Oh, we go back a long ways. All the way to two days ago when I was nearly killed by a falling pair of socks,” he said.
“Really?” Tasha asked, her eyebrows raised to their fullest height.
“Well, they were specially designed attack socks,” Sam said, surprised at her own wittiness.
“I see,” Tasha said approvingly. She flashed Sam a look that clearly meant they were going to a have nice juicy talk about this later.
“Hey, Lucas,” a boy with untidy hair said as he sat down in the fourth and last seat at their table.
“Oh, hey,” Lucas said a bit surprised. “I didn’t realize you had this class too. This is Samantha and Tasha.”
Lucas bobbed his head expectantly a few times.
“And this is Jerry,” he said finally.
“Oh sorry,” Jerry said looking down at the table.
“That’s okay, Jerry,” Tasha said. “But one of you had better be good at biology.”
“Not it,” Lucas called quickly.
Tasha giggled.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”
Assuming Sam’s schedule wasn’t lying, that would be Professor Laurie Walsh. At least she looked like a proper professor. She seemed to be in her late fifties, and wore her hair back in a bun. Her lab coat disguised whatever fashion sense she had, but her sensible shoes indicated she was a very serious woman.
“I see a lot of unenthusiastic faces out there. I would like to guarantee that by the end of the year this will be your favorite class, but I think we both know this is just isn’t going to happen,” she said with amazing bluntness.
“But I promise we will all get through this. Step one: I hope you like the people you are sitting with, because they are now your lab partners for the rest of the year.”
There were a couple of groans and sighs of complaint among the class. Sam and Tasha smiled at each other, happy with their cleverness.
“Now then, show of hands; is anyone here planning on a future in biology?”
One hand went up. It belonged to Leslie Chang, the girl Sam saw carrying the astronaut’s helmet the other day. At their first hall meeting Agent Rosenberg, as the hall’s RA, had everyone introduce themselves to the group. It turned out Leslie’s mother was an astronaut and Leslie had dreams of being the person to find microscopic life on Mars.
“Okay,” Professor Walsh said, a bit discouraged. “How about something medical or veterinary-related? Maybe pharmaceutical or genetics-related?”
More hands went up this time.
“Well then, this is an important class for all of you. And it can be helpful for the rest of you too,” she said enthusiastically. “Honest.”
The class was still unimpressed.
Professor Walsh slumped against her desk.
“Okay. You don’t believe me. I wasn’t going to do this so soon, but it looks like we could all use a shot in the arm,” the professor said as she gestured for everyone to stand up. “We’re going on a field trip.”
There are few school-related words that can energize and excite the average student to the point of clapping and cheering, especially after they outgrow recess, but Professor Walsh had found them.
“Let’s go,” she said, checking her watch. “Bring your books; we probably won’t make it back before class is over.”
Sam noticed she was the only one at her table who had even taken their book out of their backpack. She stuffed it back in, grateful that she only had to carry three books around today.
“Where do you think we are going?” Lucas asked as they joined the throng of students pouring out of the classroom.
“Dairy Queen?” Tasha offered.
“Nice, but hardly biology related,” Sam said.
“You’ve clearly never been in the back room before.”
“All right, cross Dairy Queen off my list of places to eat,” Sam said, disgusted.
Professor Walsh led the class out the building and across the quad. As they walked along the lake towards the college side, the guessing became more and more extreme. Someone squealed with excitement.
Up ahead were the school’s stables. Four absolutely gorgeous horses stood in the pens outside. Two American Paint horses and two chestnut brown Arabian horses stood proudly by the fence, watching the students with curious eyes. Several of the girls rushed ahead of Professor Walsh to coo over the horses. Sam would have happily joined them, except out of the corner of her eye she caught Tasha rolling her eyes and Lucas shaking his head and she didn’t want to look like a silly horse-obsessed girl in front of her new friends.
“Girls, please. We are heading this way,” Professor Walsh said gently.
The girls groaned with disappointment, but they followed the professor into the building next to the stables. Sam understood their disappointment and made a mental note to come back here in her free time. She had never ridden a horse, and the idea of mixing the Sam Curse with a thousand pound animal seemed colossally dangerous, but she really wanted to try it.
The building that Professor Walsh led them into was different from the others Sam had seen on campus so far. This one was more sterile. The walls were all pearly white with shiny metal trim. Three men in lab coats met them in the lobby.
“Hello, Professor Walsh. Giving the tour a little early, huh?” one of the lab-coated men asked.
“Desperate times, Dr. Anderson,” the professor answered.
“Have fun,” he said with a chuckle. “You kids are in for a treat.”
Professor Walsh led the students through several sets of doors and down two or three hallways. Sam wasn’t sure she could find her way back out if she had to. Finally the professor stopped and let the students gather in a large room with yet another set of double doors.
“Okay, class, we are currently on university property so please be on your best behavior. I must ask that you not touch anything, especially the glass. We don’t want you disturbing the animals any more than necessary.”
Sam and Tasha exchanged excited looks. Who knew what kind of animals they could have hidden in this place?
Professor Walsh pulled a card from her pocket and swiped it through the slot.
With a loud buzz, the doors unlocked.
“Single file, now,” she said holding the left door open for the class.
“Wow,” someone ahead of Sam exclaimed.
They were right to wow. On either side of the hallway were glass enclosures with various animals in simulations of their natural habitats. Miller’s Grove had its own zoo. Sam couldn’t believe it. This certainly wasn’t in any of the brochures she saw. But it really should be.
“Miller’s Grove University takes in endangered animals from all over the world to study in order to preserve their health and hopefully return them to the wild some day,” Professor Walsh said, slipping into tour guide mode.
“Meet the triplets,” she said as the students rushed to the glass.
Three large pandas stared back at the students. Two of the pandas sat happily chewing on bamboo stalks. The third was splashing playfully in the small pond in their enclosure.
“They’re so cool,” Leslie whispered.
“I know,” Sam whispered back.
For just an instant Sam thought she saw Lucas’ reflection in the glass looking at her instead of the pandas. It could just have easily been her imagination. Before she could tell for sure he looked away.
“Technically the Chinese government doesn’t know we have them, so let’s keep this quiet, huh?”
Everyone laughed, but Sam wasn’t sure Professor Walsh was joking.
Next to the giant pandas was a forestlike enclosure housing at least six very large turtles.
“Oooh, look at these,” a girl whose name Sam didn’t know cooed, pointing at
a pen full of colorful birds.
Just like that, the group broke apart as students ran to different enclosures. Professor Walsh didn’t seem to mind; in fact, she seemed quite pleased to see her students enthusiastic about something. She walked from enclosure to enclosure, sprinkling trivia.
“Check these out,” Lucas said, pointing at a different pen.
“They look like penguins,” Tasha said.
Sam had to agree. The black and white birds were waddling around on a pebbly beach. Then, one by one they dove into the water. They shot through the water like cute little torpedoes spiraling and swirling around one another.
“Hmm. According to the sign they are Great Auks,” Lucas said.
“Still look like penguins to me,” Tasha said stubbornly.
“No freaking way,” a boy shouted loudly from five pens downs.
The entire class turned to look at him. He was pointing excitedly at the glass; his mouth hung open foolishly.
“I believe Mr. Cutler has discovered one of our special guests,” Professor Walsh said, nearly bursting with pride. “Come. Gather ‘round.”
Sam and the others crowded in around the glass as best they could. Annoyingly, Jerry and Tasha were squished in so close behind her she could barely breathe.
Four large vaguely wolfish creatures were lying in the grass. They could have been some sort of dog, except the black tiger stripes on their hindquarters made Sam think maybe they were closer to the cat family.
“These are some of the last known Tasmanian Tigers in the world. They were housed at a private zoo in New Zealand for many years before coming here three years ago,” Professor Walsh said.
“But aren’t they extinct?” the boy who found them asked.
“Do they look extinct?” Professor Walsh asked joyfully.
Everyone was pushing and shoving each other aside to get a better look. Jerry was literally breathing down Sam’s neck. It took a lot of self-control to keep her from elbowing him in the stomach.
“Oh, duh!” Tasha loudly slapped her forehead. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “I am so getting a picture of this.”
Suddenly everyone else who had a camera phone was doing the same thing.
