The Select (24 page)

"That's not so unusual, really," Dr.
Emerson said. "It happens at many academic institutions. Certain
points of view gain favor with an influential segment of a
department, take root, bloom, and draw other like-minded
individuals. As this group gains influence and tenure, those who
strongly disagree with its positions tend to drift away, while
those who agree or are indifferent stay on. Look how the
deconstructionists came to rule the English department at Yale.
Or—"

"But I'm not talking about a
department. I'm talking about a whole institution—students and
faculty alike."

"The Ingraham? Maybe you'd better
explain."

Quinn took a deep breath. How was she
going to explain this in a sane and coherent manner when it all
sounded pretty crazy to her?

"Everyone's starting to sound like Dr.
Alston."

Dr. Emerson burst out laughing. "Oh, I
hope not! I truly hope not!"

"It's true. They're all starting to
sound like his lectures. Why just last night—"

Dr. Emerson put one hand and her arm
and raised the other to wave someone in from the hall.

"Arthur! Come in, Arthur. I want you
to hear this."

Quinn turned and started at the sight
of Dr. Alston strolling through the door and approaching them. What
was Dr. Emerson doing? Was he trying to get her in more trouble
with Dr. Alston?

"You remember Miss Cleary, don't
you?"

"Ah, yes," Dr. Alston said, nodding to
her. "The object of my wrath a few weeks ago. I do believe I
overreacted. My apologies, Miss Cleary."

"I'm glad you apologized, Arthur," Dr.
Emerson said. "Because Quinn here just paid you a
compliment."

Dr. Alston smiled thinly as he looked
down at her. "Did she now? And what did she say?"

Quinn fought the urge to tell him not
to refer to her in the third person. She was here in the same room
and quite able to answer for herself.

"She thinks you're a very persuasive
lecturer."

The thin smile broadened. "Is that
so?"

"Yes. She says the whole student body
is beginning to sound like you."

Dr. Alston's gaze became penetrating.
"May I infer from your perspective that you have somehow managed to
remain immune to the sway of my rhetoric?"

Quinn swallowed. This wasn't going
well at all.

"I think you argue your points very
well, but I find it difficult to accept the concept of rationing
medical care on the basis of social and economic worth."

"Given the inevitability of such
rationing," he said, his manner cooling quickly, "what criteria do
you propose?"

"I don't think I'm qualified to make
decisions of that magnitude," Quinn said. "I don't know if anybody
is. But I've read where it used to be widely held that global
communism was inevitable, how it was only a matter of time before
Marxism took over the world. And now the USSR is gone. I'm sure
there are plenty of other 'inevitabilities' that have never become
reality."

"I'm sure there are too, Miss Quinn,"
Dr. Alston said, nodding slowly as he stared at her. His gaze made
her uncomfortable. "I'm glad we had this little talk. You've given
me something to ponder."

He nodded goodbye to her and Dr.
Emerson, then left.

Quinn shook off a chill and turned
back to Dr. Emerson.

"Am I such a Pollyanna?" she said. "I
mean, why do I seem to be the only one in The Ingraham who isn't
falling into line behind Dr. Alston's bleak outlook?"

"Knowing Arthur," Dr. Emerson said,
"I'm sure he's wondering the very same thing."

*

As Louis Verran approached Alston's
office in the faculty building, he wondered what Dr. Tightass
wanted. Whatever it was, he knew it couldn't be good. Not from the
tone of voice he'd heard on the phone a few minutes ago.

Please come to my office
immediately, Louis. I have made a fascinating discovery that I wish
to share with you.

Right. Verran had little doubt that
the fascinating discovery meant Alston had tripped over a glitch in
security and was going to rub his nose in it. He just hoped he
hadn't somehow heard about the lost bug.

Damn it! Where the hell was it? They'd
swept the halls on both levels of the dorm but still hadn't found
it.

Verran knew he wouldn't have a decent
night's sleep until he'd found the damn thing.

He knocked on Alston's
door.

"Come," came the reply from the other
side.

Come
? Gimme a fuckin' break!

He stepped into the office—dark, oak
paneled, the largest in the building, befitting Alston's status as
DME—and saw him behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, his
fingers steepled before his mouth, looking like the proverbial cat
with a bad case of canary breath.

Verran took one of the chairs without
asking. He noted with satisfaction how Alston stiffened when he put
his feet up on the desk.

"What's up, Doc?"

"One of the dorm SLI units is
malfunctioning—and please take your shoes off my desk."

Verran dropped his feet to the floor
to cover his relief. Alston hadn't heard about or found the
bug.

"Yeah? Which room?"

"I don't know the number, but I know
the student's name. You're capable of following up from there. But
I didn't call you here merely for informational purposes. A simple
phone call would have sufficed for that. The truth is, I'm more
than a little disturbed by the fact that if I hadn't learned of
this by sheer happenstance, she might have gone all semester
without hearing the night music."

Verran had to admit this was no petty
matter. A malfunctioning SLI undercut The Ingraham's very purpose.
But Alston's notion didn't necessarily equate with an established
fact.

"What makes you think it's not
working? I doubt the student came up and told you."

Alston smiled. "In a way,
she did. She told me she saw all her fellow students swinging their
points of view toward mine on certain matters, and she couldn't
understand why." He leaned forward. "Obviously her viewpoints
are
not
changing.
Ergo, she's not hearing the music. Conclusion: her SLI is
malfunctioning. Can you dispute that?"

Vaguely uncomfortable now, Verran
scratched his jaw. "No. It's logical."

"My question, Louis,"
Alston continued, "is why didn't
you
know about the malfunctioning
unit?"

Verran shrugged. "All our SLI
indicators are green. No signs of trouble anywhere. Every unit got
its usual overhaul this summer. Everything checks out fine every
night."

Alston furrowed his brow. "But
something is obviously awry. I want you to check into it
immediately."

Verran gritted his teeth. He didn't
need Dr. Tightass to tell him that.

"Right. Who's the kid?"

"First year. You're supposed to be
watching her closely already. Quinn Cleary."

"Oh, shit!" Verran said. "Not 252
again."

Alston straightened. "Again? You've
had trouble with Cleary before?"

Verran had to be careful
here. He couldn't slip up and spill about almost getting
caught—
or
about
the missing bug.

"No, no. Not with her personally. Just
her room. Her audio pick-up went on the fritz last month and I had
to replace it."

"Did you now?" He paused and leaned
back. "Strange, isn't it?"

"What?"

"That two electronic devices should
malfunction in the same room within a matter of weeks—in a room
with only a single occupant." His tones became pensive, almost
distant. "And that occupant...a young woman that I was against
admitting in the first place. Very strange. I wonder...is something
going on here?"

"She doesn't have any jamming
equipment, if that's what you're thinking." He grinned at Alston.
"You're not going paranoid on me, are you, Doc?"

"Not at all, Louis. I realize that
coincidences occur, but I'm always suspicious when they do. It's
the scientist in me, I suppose."

"Well, the first thing we should do,
Dr. Scientist," Verran said, rising, "is make sure you've got your
facts straight. So far as I know, room 252's SLI is working
perfectly."

"It had better
not
be, Louis," Alston
said. "Or otherwise we've got ourselves a big problem. I do not
want another problem, Louis. I had enough problems two years ago to
last me a lifetime."

Verran nodded. This was one point on
which he and Dr. Tightass were in complete agreement. That had been
a nightmare.

"Amen, Doc." He turned toward the
door. "I'll let you know as soon as I check it out."

"How are you going to work
this?"

"I'll use the old exterminator
ploy."

Alston nodded absently. "Odd, but
lately it seems that every time there's trouble, this Cleary girl
is involved. Why is that?"

"Beats me," Verran said as he stepped
out into the hall.

"Am I going to regret letting her
in?"

Verran closed the door and hoped
Alston wouldn't regret it. Because if Alston regretted letting
Cleary in, then inevitably Verran would come to regret
it.

Of course, the one who'd wind up
regretting it most would be the Cleary girl.

FOURTEEN

"Don't lock your door, Quinn," Tim
said as he heard the clink of her key chain.

"Why not?"

"They're spraying today."

"Oh, that's right."

Tim watched her tuck the
keys back in her pocket. She looked great in her slacks and
sweater, except that the sweater was too long—it covered too much
of her. He sighed as he watched her. Today was going to be an
especially long day, for tonight was the night they were taking off
for AC. A lot of quality time with Quinn—
overnight
time with her in his free
room. He'd been indulging himself these past few weeks in some wild
sexual fantasies—visions of those long, slim, dynamite legs wrapped
tight around him—none of which, he knew, had the slightest chance
of becoming reality, but still they managed to fuel his
anticipation. He'd even picked up a pack of condoms, which he
supposed was like buying a Pick-6 Lotto ticket—the chances of
winning were six million to one, but that didn't stop you from
thinking about what it would be like to be a
multimillionaire.

He smiled. And as the lotto folks
liked to say: You can't win it unless you're in it.

He stepped across the hall and took
another look at the sign pinned to the bulletin board.

NOTICE

The exterminators will be performing
their periodic

spraying of the dorm. The second floor
is scheduled

first on Friday morning, November 18.
All rooms must

be vacated between 8 a.m. and noon.
Please leave

your room unlocked and remove all
articles from your

floors before leaving for morning
classes that day.

Louis Verran

Chief of Campus Security

Something about the notice bothered
Tim but for the life of him he couldn't nail down just what it
was.

"Seen any bugs around your room,
Quinn?" he said.

"Not a one," she said as she left her
door and came over to him. "And I don't want to."

"How about the other girls? Any of
them mention being bothered by bugs?"

"Not that I recall. Why?"

"I don't know. Seems strange to start
spraying on the second floor. I'd think if there was going to be an
insect problem in the dorm it would start at ground level and work
its way up."

"You're an expert on bugs
now?"

"No. But if nobody's seen
any—"

"Sounds like preventive medicine to
me," Quinn said. "If you spray on a regular basis, you won't
develop a problem. Not a bad idea, really. Besides, the stuff
they're using is supposed to be colorless and odorless and
non-toxic to humans once it dries." She tugged on his sleeve. "Come
on. We'll be late for Path."

Tim took one last look at the notice.
Maybe it was Louis Verran's name on the bottom that bothered him.
He hadn't told Quinn about his little run-in with Verran in her
room that night. She'd already been upset about her confrontation
with Alston and he hadn't seen any purpose in bringing it
up.

But something about Verran's demeanor
that night had lingered with him like a bad aftertaste. Tim had had
a vague impression then that the man was hiding something. He'd
looked guilty. Over the following weeks Tim had written it off as a
misread, but then this notice: the second floor was going to be
empty, all the doors unlocked, with Louis Verran in
charge.