Day 9 (Disappointment)

RECYCLING
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Municipal Recyling Center

(651)-555-2048

1151 West 18th

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Sandys Hardware Recycling

(651)-555-8192

1024 West 16th

``For all your computer recycling needs''

M-F, 8:00am - 6:30pm

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Vasko Solid Waste, Inc.

309 Como Avenue

Hours: Mon.-Fri. 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Closed Sundays and holidays.

5 Disappointment

Meeting Rose at 6:30 meant that he'd have to cut his work day
shorter. This didn't mean he had to work less, unfortunately, it
meant he would have to get up earlier. So it was 8:00 am the next
morning when Grant awoke, groggily shambled over to his alarm
clock to shut it off, and tried to remember what he was doing
awake at what to him was an entirely godforsaken early hour. It
took him halfway through his shower to recall: He was meeting
Rosetta later that day.

Completely, entirely worth it.

He'd have to get moving if he wanted to get everything done
today. His first stop was the university to try and locate old
colleagues.

Finding academics used to be easier; once they were awarded
tenure, they tended not to move around much. More recently,
though, industry had become an increasingly attractive choice. As
Grant drove he found himself hoping that there was someone at the
place who remembered Caster. He also found himself thinking of
VonCannon. The latter would, if the hints he'd heard dropped so
far, be more difficult to locate. As far as Wynn could tell, his
GPS was functioning perfectly today, which meant that if he put
in the location of Rosetta's shop, he'd actually end up there
instead of at the old professor's warehouse. This was good news
for later in the day when his date would commence, but bad news
for slightly earlier than that when he'd need to talk to
VonCannon. He was hoping what he'd get at the university would be
enough information.

What he got at the university turned out to be a headache.
Parking was, as he well knew from his time there, poor. When he
considered it, which given the long walk from the only visitor's
parking structure he had plenty of time to do, ``poor'' was
somewhat of an understatement. He never understood why people who
were visiting the college - potential students, parents of
poential students, potential faculty especially - should have to
park so far away. Maybe less traffic encouraged a more
'residential' campus or something, but he thought it encouraged
people to go back home.

Just like when he'd originally attended college here, however, he
had no choice. He had only a vague idea of the engineering hall's
location, which didn't help his search. He'd only been there for
the few mandatory science classes early on in his college career.

Approximately ten minutes later, to help matters, he discovered
that the building he'd originally thought was for engineering
was, in fact, the Chemistry building. Eventually he tried that
last resort of lost people everywhere, asking a student. This
earned him a somewhat strange look, but thankfully clear
directions.

Another ten minutes passed before he found himself at the main
entrance to the Ashley J. Wilson Hall of Engineering. He checked
his appearance in the glass doors and took a moment to briefly
tidy himself up. He tried to appear professional at all times,
meaning he tried to look like a newspaper reporter ought to look.
When interviewing people in a bar as he had the night before, for
instance, he'd not had to change his appareance at all. This was
the reason he usually suggested casual locations for his
interviews. In this case, though, he hadn't had the time to call
ahead. Given this, his time constraints, and the fact that there
were probably research assistants older than him here, he'd made
an effort to appear actually professional today. If Anders - or
anyone else from the office for that matter - saw him dressed up
like this, they'd be pressed not to burst out laughing.

He entered the building and smiled somewhat realizing it was
probably the first time he'd done so. There was a cork bulletin
board hanging up on one of the walls, next to the entrance to a
computer lab and across form an auditorium. He went over to the
board both to look as though he belonged there and also to find
where the dean's office - or at least someone who could direct
him somewhere - was. Fortunately for him there was a rather
tattered-looking floor plan in the upper-left and it only took
him another few minutes to make sense of it.

After all this trouble, he expected to not find the dean in at
all, and was pleasantly surprised when he asked the assistant at
the desk in front of the door reading ``Guy Howard, Dean of
Engineering'' where he might locate Dr. Howard.

``Right behind you.'' she smirked.

The person who'd entered the room after Grant smiled. ``I'm Dean
Howard, can I help you?''

Grant gave his usual speil: ``Grant Wynn, reporter for the
Gazette, do you have some spare time?''

``Not really.'' Howard said honestly. ``But since my office hours
don't begin for another half hour, I'll give you what I can. Come
on in.'' he said, moving to his office.

The dean's office was far more cramped than Grant would have
expected a dean's office to be. Most of that, he imagined, was
the effect of the books: Every available vertical surface had a
bookshelf propped up against it, and every shelf was filled with
books on structural, electrical, civil, computer, metal,
software, mechanical, aerospace, or nuclear engineering. What
wasn't filled with books was stacked with magazines, and what
surfaces didn't have a magazine were hosting a computer or
scattered papers. He considered himself lucky to find a chair.

Howard himself had to pick a book or two up off of his, placing
them on top of his computer tower. ``So,'' he said when he'd made
a spot for himself and sat in it, ``what kind of story is this?''

``I'd just like to ask about James Caster.'' Grant began.

Guy's face darkened. ``My predecessor, yes. I'm not sure how I
can be of any help, really, all that was sorted out years ago.''

Oh hell, Grant thought. Not again. ``I'm sorry to be the one to
have to tell you, but he died in an accident during the outage
this weekend.''

``Oh.'' Howard looked almost relieved. ``I'm sorry to hear it.''

``I'm just asking about him, trying to put some things together
for a story.''

``You do know,'' the dean asked cautiously, ``about the rather...
suspicious circumstances under which he left, yes?''

``I spoke to Vervicom yesterday.'' Grant said. In a story like
this, the odd parts like Caster's defection and dual-payment were
usually the ones that got him interested, but he felt himself
wanting, uncharacteristically, to get past that part. It was as
though his will alone could make this a normal story, after which
he could get on with his career. The more he heard of it, the
more he doubted.

Howard looked relieved again, nearly sagging back into his chair.
``Good good, hate to relive that. Bad times, bad times, almost as
bad as that whole time machine thing.''

Grant blinked. ``Excuse me?''

The dean seemed to realize the preposterousness of what he'd just
said. ``Not a literal time machine, of course. Well, the
respectable bunch of us didn't think so, at least.''

This wasn't on the topic of Dr. Caster, but he wasn't about to
let it go. ``When was this?'' Grant inquired in his best 'just
asking out of curiosity' voice.

Guy considered. ``Maybe a year or two before I got this job. We
had a professor who'd made a name for himself for some really
bizarre idea. I don't recall it exactly, it was a while back and
had a fad following for a while, something like a machine that
couldn't be moved - it was crazy but the math ended up working
out. He built one - one, I might add, that nobody ever saw - and
then went on to build the thing he called the time machine.''

``I assume he didn't take pictures of dinosaurs with it.'' Wynn
guessed.

``Not as such, no.'' The dean smiled at the idea. ``There weren't
any of us here who could figure out what it did do, granted, but
what it didn't do was travel through time. At least not any more
so than you or I. That wasn't the worst of it, though, the damn
thing kept pulling absurd amounts of power at irregular
intervals, it flooded the network, it killed fire-suppression
systems, made a general nuisance of itself. It was Doctor Caster
who ended up having to fire the guy. VonCannon didn't even seem
to take it very hard, he'd have to had expected it.''

``Sorry, what was that name again?'' Grant said. He shouldn't
have even been surprised at that point. For a recluse, the man
was suddenly sprouting up everywhere.

Dean Howard took a moment to consider. ``Yes, Malachai VonCannon.
I don't even know what department he was in, there probably
wasn't one willing to have him, but that was definiely the guy.''
He seemed to think a moment before realizing what he'd been
saying. ``I'm sorry, I've gotten us off on a tangent, and you
with so little time. My office hours are going to begin soon, and
I've got quite a bit to get caught up on as you can see. Tell
Tina at the desk to grab Dr. Caster's old file, use whatever you
want, it's all public.'' The man paused for a moment. ``I am
sorry to hear about James' death, please understand. It was a
hard time the university went though, his having to leave, but he
was a good man.''

Grant nodded his understanding, and left.

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