- 15 -
Sci-Tech
Carter wasn't at school the next day. Mary wondered if he was okay, but no one talked about him in the hallways anymore. Since he hadn't done anything scandalous for a while, he was old news, and people had already moved on to the next juicy bit of gossip.
In the afternoon, Mary had brought a change of regular clothes and grabbed the bus to the university. She'd been there once before to see a play with Ba and Mom. It was Pinocchio, but really different from the Disney movie. Mary remembered loving the elaborate sets and costumes.
She walked around the campus for a bit before asking a pair of college kids where the science and technology building was.
"Sci-Tech?" one of the girls said. "It's that big ugly building over there."
Mary looked where she pointed and saw a pimple of a concrete structure that was all age and no charm. "That's it?"
"Yeah. Piece of crap, huh?" the girl said. "You'd think something we call 'Sci-Tech' would be shiny and have lots of windows and stuff. But all the money went to building the new football stadium."
"Which isn't even complete, because the money ran out," her friend said. "The fine arts building is garbage, too."
"Well, thanks for your help," Mary said, and she left them.
The inside of Sci-Tech was about as ugly as the outside, with cracking linoleum floors and snot yellow walls. The halls were narrow, the ceilings low, and the fluorescent lights hummed. Sci-Tech was also a maze. There were no helpful signs anywhere, and Mary wondered about aimlessly for a while. As she was meandering down a hall, she heard singing. She followed the voice until she happened on a janitor emptying out a trash bin.
"Excuse me?" she asked. "Can you help me?"
The janitor stopped singing and looked at her. "I can try. What do you need?"
Mary studied him for a moment—his tied back hair, his cleaning uniform, and the red athletic wristbands on his hands. For some reason, he seemed familiar. "Have I seen you before?" she asked.
He chuckled. "Probably. I'm around this place a lot."
"No, I mean I'm not a student here. I'm actually looking for someone. I just had this weird thought that…" She was sure she'd never met him until now. But there was just something about him. She just couldn't put her finger on it. "Sorry. I'm not making any sense."
He chuckled again. "It's all right. I have that kind of face. Anyway, who were you looking for? Student or teacher?"
"I don't know," she said, taking out a piece of paper from her pocket and reading the note she had written on it. "His name is Drew, and I think he works in the astronomy department."
"I know where that is. It's on the second floor. I'm on my way up there, so you can follow me." He finished with the trash bin and began pushing his cleaning cart down the hall. "I'm Josh, by the way."
"Mary," she said.
"Nice to meet you. Do you go to another college?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. I'm still in high school."
"I see," he said. "An artsy type, aren't you?"
"How did you know?" she asked.
"You've got a creative air about you," he said. "And some paint on your arm."
Mary twisted her elbow around and saw that she had a little blue and white paint on it. "Oh, thanks." She licked her hand and tried to rub it off.
"Here, this works better." Josh sprayed her arm with some window cleaner and gave her a towel to wipe it off.
They boarded the ancient elevator. It made some loud creaks and groans, and Mary questioned for a moment whether it would make it safely. Fortunately it did, and she followed Josh and his cart out. They passed through another maze of hallways before coming to an unimpressive door marked "Astronomy."
"Here you are," Josh said. "Anything else?"
Mary shook her head. "Thanks for your help."
"My pleasure. Take care," he said and moved on down the hall.
The Astronomy door led into a room stuffed with equipment. A few people sat at various stations, focused intently on their work.
"Um, is there someone named Drew here?" she asked.
A pimply guy, with a shirt that screamed "BAZINGA" on the front, looked up at her. "I'm Drew. What's up?"
Mary walked over to him. "I wanted to ask you about alien possessions."
The other people in the room raised their eyebrows.
Drew stared at her for a moment before laughing uneasily. "I don't think I can tell you much. This is a university lab. We don't do that kind of stuff here."
Mary looked at the piece of paper with her notes. "Aren't you JediMasterDrew89 on some of the online forums about aliens and—"
"Ooookay," he said quickly. "I think you and I need to step into the office for a minute." Drew got up from his station and ushered her into a cramped little room that looked like it was being used mostly for storage. "Are you crazy?" he hissed. "How did you find me?"
"I saw your posts on some forums," she said. "You got into some flame wars, and you said once that you were a scientist at the university, so you should know what you were talking about. You had an old profile link to your undergrad page. That's how I found you."
Drew sighed. "I thought I'd deleted all those links. Guess there was still one out there."
"Are you a scientist?" she asked.
"Sorta," he said. "I'm a grad student. I have a double major in biomedical and astronomy, and now I'm working on my masters in astrophysics. But I don't broadcast to everyone that I do research into extraterrestrials and conspiracies on the side. People would laugh at me."
"I see," she said. "I'm sorry. I guess I shouldn't have blurted out stuff in there. But the thing is…well, can I just tell you why I'm here?"
Mary recounted what happened since the accident and how Carter had changed. Drew listened intently, and he laughed when she told him about the salt and holy water not working. When she was finished, he leaned against a cluttered table and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were screwing with me."
"I'm not!" she said. "If Carter is being possessed by an alien, I want to know what it would take to get rid of it."
Drew stared at her for a long time. At last, he put on his glasses again and sighed. "Look, the first thing to do is figure out if he's even possessed. I'd need a blood sample. Can you bring him here some time? Or have him go to a clinic?"
She shook her head. Taking Carter to church was one thing. She could use the choir thing that Father Cohen talked about as a cover. She didn't have any excuses for getting blood from him without raising suspicions.
"What if I got it without him knowing it?" she asked. "I have a date with him coming up."
"Well, you'd have to be careful not to contaminate the sample," he said. "But you could try."
He told her what kind of blood test kit to buy. They were apparently pretty common at the pharmacy.
"Just follow the instructions in the kit," he said.
"Thanks," she said.
As she headed for the door, Drew asked, "I'm curious about something."
She stopped and looked at him. "What is it?"
"Let's pretend for a moment that we know for sure he's possessed," Drew said. "If he's a better person like you say he is, why are you trying to make him go back to the way he was?"
Mary thought for a moment. And she realized she had no good answer.
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