XXX: In Which Steve Waits For Class

“Four dollars and thirty cents, sir.” The cashier said pointedly.

“Oh. Oh yeah.” Steve distractedly scanned his ID card. He took his coffee over to a free table in the college café and sat down. It was another half-hour until his next class started and he didn’t have much to do other than think. Two weeks ago he was just another loser with an undefined major and a dead-end job. Now he was expected to be some sort of hero. First for a dead guy he’d just met, and now for some poor girl he didn’t even know.

And he was damned well going to do it.

The waiting was the hard part. He’d done some research and figured out the girl was most likely in softball, volleyball or soccer and from one of three public schools or two private schools.  Unless she’d come in for an away game. F**k! There were just too many variables to narrow it down.

“Hey, do you mind if I sit here?” A guy asked, pointing to one of the seats at Steve’s table. Steve looked around and saw the café had filled up since he’d last looked.

“Free country.” He said and took a sip of his cooling coffee.

“Bullshit propaganda, but I appreciate the sentiment.” The guy took the seat. “Dunno why I have to take U.S. History for a core class. Are we going to learn about the Trail of Tears? The Tuskegee Experiment? The Tulsa Race Massacre? MK Ultra? Installation of dictatorships in Latin and South America? Nope. Just a bunch of ‘Go ‘Murica! Hoo Rah!’ Makes me sick.” He mimed spitting.

“Sounds like you know quite a bit about those things already.” Steve said casually.

“Yeah, but I don’t want my courses to ignore the ugly side. This country’s never been perfect, but they want to pretend slavery was the only thing we ever did wrong.”

“You going into Poli Sci?” Steve asked.

“Oh, hell no! Computer Science.” The guy looked appalled. “You?”

“Undecided. Family forced me into college, but I have no idea what I’m doing here.” As if he ever really knew what he was doing.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Either that or you’ll just build up credits until the predatory loans run out.”

“You are just the ray of sunshine I needed today.”

“Sorry, man. I just have opinions on lots of things. When something ain’t right it digs at me and I’ve gotta talk about it.”

“I feel you.” Steve’s phone beeped. “Hey, I’ve got to get to class. Nice meeting you. Name’s Steve, by the way.”

“Thad. Have a good time in class.”

Class wasn’t necessarily a good time, but thankfully it went by smoothly. Unfortunately it added another paper to the assignments Steve already had to do. He was already considering a topic like John Dee’s contribution to modern cybersecurity. Could be interesting.

On his way out he decided to stop by the school’s café and grab another coffee. As he entered, he saw Thad again by the bulletin board, hanging something up. He went over to check it out.

Thad walked away just before he got there, but it turned out he’d hung a flyer for a concert at a local bar, featuring a band called OSI. The flyer was partially obscured by a missing persons poster for someone named Celeste Barnett. Thad must not have wanted to cover it up. The concert was next Friday, November Fourth. Hey, he had that day off.”