The Autumn Prince

5. Paradigms Lost

The only people who showed up regularly on open lab days were those pursuing graduate degrees and most of them shared my motives, which meant little talking or interruption. I usually found the environment calming, permitting an inner focus that facilitated, maybe even amplified, my efforts. It was also cool as hell. Tory Hall's state-of-the-art facility resembled the set of a science fiction film with its glass and steel construction peppered with bleeding-edge technology in an orderly, functional geometry that inspired the imagination. We even had a small clean room inhabited by two versatile, robotic arms.

That morning, however, less than a minute after sitting down, I found distractions everywhere. They were the kinds of things I had previously noted as abstractions hiding outside the mental fog, but were intruding with unwelcome clarity, and I wasn't conditioned to prevent any of it.

As the other students settled in, the floating sparks from the night before returned and I rubbed at my eyes to dispel them. I could hear Shelly Jacoby, a third year biology student, unpacking her notes at the table in front of me, and the ceaseless paper shuffling soon replaced the strange, visual distortions as my primary annoyance. I dropped my hands to find Shelly staring back, favoring me with a coy smile before returning to her work.

I'd been in classes with her for months. Had she always been so pretty? She had nothing on Katherine of course, but the contour of her profile had left a rough sketch in my mind. Slight overbite. Small, gently upturned nose. Large, brown eyes with long lashes...

"Mister Corwen?" Professor Barnes interrupted my train of thought from the front of the room, and I jerked back into the real world.

"Yes ma'am?"

"When you have a minute can I see you at my desk?" She didn't look up from the open folder in front of her.

"I'll be right there."

I pretended to get my workspace organized while I pulled myself out of my head and back into the classroom. You have a girlfriend, I reminded myself.

Yes, but I'm not dead.

You will be if Katherine catches you looking at other girls like that.

Katherine isn't that insecure.

No, but she's definitely territorial.

Maybe, but it's not like I'm cheating, I hardly know Shelly.

You hardly knew Katherine nine months ago.

Dr. Dang taught me to use internal conversations as a way to order my thoughts, but I was doing it reflexively. I didn't need a complex dialog to conclude that admiring someone other than the woman I was dating felt wrong.

I stepped to the Professor's desk and waited for her to speak. She seemed busier than usual, pulling folders out of a drawer, quickly scanning the contents, then adding them to a growing, tidy stack.

Kelly Barnes had been a huge win for the school. She possessed three Ph.D.'s that I knew of and had won dozens of accolades for her contributions in genetics, and she was still in her early thirties. I'd been called a prodigy, but that was only because I was highly motivated and worked hard to learn quickly. She was the real deal. How she ended up teaching advanced biochem and managing the medical lab was a mystery. BAU was a great school, but she could have had her choice of jobs, and they'd all have been lucky to get her.

"Mister Corwen." She still hadn't looked up from her paperwork and appeared agitated. "There will be a department audit at the end of the month, and I was hoping you would allow me to present your last essay as a representation of this class."