Micah's Midterm Malaise

I settle into my office in the Villa’s administration building. Wednesday afternoon, which means after picking up my lunch from the cafeteria, I have my office hours. Only advantage of Wednesdays is that, after these three hours where I have to be available to my students in the unlikely case that they want to risk being seen visiting me, I have nothing else related to the Villa to do. At least, not directly related. Pulling out my pen and paper, I begin to work on some coding for later. I really should spend some time on my thesis, but that would be inefficient. This Villa agreed to continue my stipend at a cost-of-living scaling rate for up to seven years, and laying low this far out of the way can help me in spotting issues that will come up with Hilarie and Isolde’s more rapid rises. I figure I’ll start work in earnest on my thesis in a year or so. In the meantime, I have more urgent concerns.

As I sit and write, the man I share this office with enters. Xavi is much taller than I am, though that is not particularly saying much. And more friendly. “Micah,” he says with a smile as he sits down at his desk, “How are you doing?”

I shrug. “Based on their last work, there are at least seven students from Observation 212 who should be showing up today before the midterm tomorrow. We’ll see how many actually show.”

Xavi laughs a deep, echoing chuckle. “Fair enough,” he says as he pulls out his laptop and plugs it in, “Do you still have your MT slides? Because my ex went and destroyed my backup so I need to get these things out fast.”

“I never taught Mystic Theory,” I state plainly. I scratch out a whole section of the work, to redo it.

My fellow magister looks up, baffled by that statement. “How on earth did you get out of the MT time? I thought this is like a rite of passage thing?”

I look up at him. “Must be my sparkling personality,” I say with a smirk.

“Screw you,” he counters.

“Isn’t this your fourth semester teaching MT? Must be a pretty long passage for you…” I let my voice trail off, though my smirk remains strong.

“I believe I already said, screw you.”

I shrug as I get back to work. Xavi doesn’t care enough about what I’m doing to ask. Not quite accurate. He has too much work to do before his three o’clock class to spend any more than the polite requisite on me. Especially after learning I could not help him. As we both start working intensely, there is a knock at the door. On the open doorframe. We both look up, but it’s Felo. I wave him over as Xavi gets back to work. I shuffle the paper away as I smile halfheartedly. “Hello, Felo, what brings you here today?” I emphasize today, because Felo frustratingly shows up at all my office hours and rarely is it about anything actually important. Unlike some other advisees, he respects my work-life balance. Unfortunately for him, that respect comes more from inability and ignorance than respect for my me-time.

Felo begins to speak, sounding somewhat nervous. “I wanted to talk about,” he looks over his shoulder at Xavi, “something you mentioned in class.”

“You don’t have a class with me this semester,” I scold him for lying.

Felo gestures towards Xavi, raising his eyebrows as though trying to tell me something. Probably is nervous about airing things in front of a magister he doesn’t know well. “Xavi, please ignore this conversation,” I say loudly to my office-mate.

“Already done,” Xavi replies. This isn’t the first conversation he’s been around. And not the first time he’s heard Felo ramble. Normally it is ostensibly about coursework, so Felo didn’t care as much, but that doesn’t change much.

I smile, then look back at Felo. “So what is this about?”

Felo sighs, and continues to look around paranoid. “I think someone’s watching me,” he says in a hushed tone.

“Many are,” I reply frankly.

“No, I mean, I feel like someone is watching my apartment, off-campus,” he says again.

I nod. “Likely true. Why do you feel that?”

He looks confused. “I don’t know, just like a prickle in my neck, you know? Ever since our obs class freshman year, I’ve gotten a sense of things. A bit of one at least.” Which is to say, he doesn’t actually know anything, and just is feeling paranoid.

“Any idea who it might be?” I ask frankly.

He shakes his head. “That’s why I was coming to you, I was wondering if you’d heard any rumors or anything about it.”

I hold back a sigh. “Nothing yet, but I can ask around and get back to you if anything comes up.”

After a moment and some nodding on Felo’s part, he heads out. I wait for about thirty seconds after he leaves before I let the smile go and release the sigh I’ve been holding back. “Not one of the seven, I take it,” Xavi says, not looking up from his laptop.

“Not one of the seven,” I reply. I need a break from thinking. I turn to my filing cabinet and start to rifle through my files to find the slides that are relevant for tomorrow’s test. Maybe if I have them out, the world will actually get these students to show up.

By the end of my office hours, exactly four of the students who are having some trouble understanding the concepts actually decided to show up. Nuria showed up to ask about the most recent lessons, and I helped her see the cost-function’s nature in scrying. Roland had some questions about the study guide, which he had very wisely marked up extensively. Jean walked in, without Heather nearby and looking rather tired, asking about how far back the test was actually going to cover. Xavi leaves for his class before the final hour of my availability. And Yurena had questions about the actual practical processes of the rituals in the real world. My favorite of the meetings, though it does make me think she believes the midterm to include a practicum element, even though that is a separate project outlined in the syllabus. The clock hits four and I stand up from my desk. I put my slides away, lock my cabinet of slides, and put my mostly completed paper copy of the code I’m working on into my bag.

As I am leaving the admin building, I pass by Xavi, who’s headed back for his own office hours that start a half hour after mine. He gives me a nod as he approaches and asks once more, “So, have you figured out how you’re doing?”

I sigh, shrug, and say, “Better than last semester midterms, at least.”

He chuckles at that, a softer version of his deep, echoing laugh. “That’s not saying much. Hopefully it isn’t a slaughter.”

I shrug. “See you tomorrow.”

He smirks. “Probably,” he half jokes, “No promises.”

I shake my head as I head out to my bike. I begin the rather long ride across town, to my apartment building. It’s a nice way to clear my head, let the brisk air rush past me as I bike through the valley. Coming to the other side of the long city, I pull up to my building and begin to roll my bike inside. As I do, Heather shows up. “Had a question,” she says from behind me. Because some of my advisees have no respect.

“Of course you did. I have one as well.” I’m not very surprised, she does live two buildings over, but still. I turn and look at the sophomore.

She shakes her head. “It’s a little chilly, are you going to let me into the lobby so we can chat?”

“No,” I state, staring her down.

She sighs, rolls her eyes, then speaks. “Why are you spying on me?” she asks as she tosses me a small bug. Fascinating.

I look at it. “I’m not,” I state. Why would anyone be bugging her? The other left? Maybe, but only if she thought it would give her information about me. Interesting. I’ll have to ask somehow. “Why were you not with Jean earlier?”

She looks me in the eyes. “Why should I tell you if you’re just going to lie to me?”

“I’m not lying. Have you irritated anyone recently?” I counter.

“Besides you? No one who could bug me without me noticing.”

I turn it over in between my thumb and index finger. “This is concerning. Now answer my question.”

“Only if you tell me once you’ve figured that thing out,” she presses.

I look at her, my demeanor falling to its natural, somber countenance. “I did you the kindness of not asking Jean,” I counter, “But don’t test me.”

She shakes her head once more, but answers me. “We had a bit of a disagreement about my developing friendships with normies in my building. You’d know that, if you paid more attention.”

“It’s midterms. Sue me for focusing on trying to get you kids to actually pass.”

She chuckles, “I just might. Now are you going to let me in?”

I shake my head. “Of course not,” I say as I head into the building.

She follows me in, anyways. “What are you planning to do today?” she asks.

“Resting,” I lie.

She looks at me as she presses the call button for the elevator. “Lies,” she states.

I swing by the mailboxes. Opening mine and pulling out the junk mail. Some of it may be important, as that’s one of the easiest ways to communicate without onlookers becoming suspicious. Shoving the junk into the back, open pocket of my bag, I return to the button. “Yes, but what I actually am going to do equally doesn’t involve you.”

“I need advice,” she begins.

“Office hours are tomorrow at four,” I state, keeping my voice flat.

The elevator opens and, yet again, she follows me. “I need advice that isn’t being listened to,” she insists.

I hold up the bug she gave me. “Evidently, that also doesn’t apply.”

“Look, I know you’re bored. It’s midterms week, which means you’re both busy and busy with uninteresting problems. So, let me pose you a puzzle to solve.”

“Why are you kids so irritating,” I groan as the doors open to the fifth floor.

She realizes what this is actually about. “You had to deal with Felo.”

I nodded. “And evidently, he might not be as paranoid as I figured he was.” I head out to the floor and start walking towards my apartment.

Following me, she decides to give me her problem anyways. “Jean’s smothering me. I can’t break up with him because he hasn’t done anything wrong. So, I need him to decide to break up with me. But I can’t be the bad guy, or else Laura and Gemma will stop studying with me.”

“That’s not my problem,” I begin.

She nods. “I know,” she says as we approach my door, “But we both know that you’re incapable of letting sleeping dogs lie where complex systems are concerned.”

I sigh as I unlock my apartment. “I hate you,” I state, audibly exasperated. Because she is right. “Beer’s in the fridge. I have a few things I’ll need to do first, so give me fifteen.”

She nods and heads over to the kitchen. I go to my ancient laptop, open up the tor browser and type from memory the message board’s address. Then, I post ‘why infest the kiddos? -helLHound’. And I wait. While I wait I move over to my real computer, and type out the code from that sheet of paper. My laptop bings. It’s a new post. ‘curious. most are boring, but one isn’t. Haven’t you? -alLHands.’ It makes sense, but that’s just frustrating. Means she has someone in his Villa. Not ideal. I need to figure that out, but she won’t tell me. With a sigh, I log out, close the browser, then shut down the old laptop. I grab a legal pad from my desk and a pen. Then I walk back into my living-dining area. Heather is sitting there, sipping a beer. “So,” I say, “I’m going to need all the information. No matter how insignificant the detail.” I seat myself on my couch and get ready to take notes.

“How far back?” she asks.

“Everything, from the beginning. Before the beginning, if you know,” I say as I smirk. To figure out any puzzle, you need to know everything about it. All the strange and intricate details. Only then, once it is laid bare before you, does it become easy to see the solution.