Lucas
It’s just another day at the races.
There’s a phrase that always just fell short of connecting with me. There’s something off about it, and I don’t know why it’s become a cliché.
Yet here we are, at the races, again. Not the dog races, or the horse races—perhaps the rat races. That’s more accurate, but it doesn’t feel right.
No, forget it. It’s just another day at BioKin, the same as any other. We’re all getting through it, helped by the useful habit, shared by nearly all of us in the upstairs offices, of leaving personal baggage at home and efficiently keeping things in the work compartment while we’re here.
I’m walking through the hallway between offices, hitting my hallway stride as my tired little amble that I start with every morning becomes a full-on strut.
This usually happens by eleven at the latest. If I haven’t hit my hallway stride by one, I’ve been known to write off the whole fucking day as a loss.
Hey, if I’m going to spend sixty percent of my day on the same mindless cardiovascular activity, I might as well make the most of it.
This time I’m carrying a folder full of printed grant proposals—after having to snatch it from the desk in Elijah’s empty office because he keeps deciding to disappear this morning—and looking askance at the ghastly fluorescent lights that we have installed in this hallway for some unknown fucking reason.
I’m still strutting, just to show the fluorescents that they can’t get to me no matter how obnoxiously they buzz, when I see that I’m not alone in the world after all.
“Oliver!” I cry out to the suited countenance walking past me through the hall, “just in time to see my hallway stride.”
“Don’t waste it on me,” he grumbles, “I’ll just break it.”
Not bad, Oliver. Better than usual, in any event.
“Hey, speaking of breaking things, can we break these goddamn fluorescent bulbs already? I mean, fucking hell, aren’t we supposed to be at the forefront of science, or innovation, or...”
Oliver stops his usual exercise of just walking away from me, and the sound of his shoes squealing to a halt actually shuts me up.
“Science or innovation, right. What was the next thing you were about to say?”
“Not having fluorescent lights. That’s something we can be at the forefront of, replacing these harsh mistresses with something eco-friendly, easy on the eyes and literally cooler.”
He’s now scrutinizing the ceiling, looking as directly at the long, cylindrical light bulbs as humanly possible without losing his sight permanently.
“You know what, I agree. Where’s Elijah?”
“Ah, the question on everyone’s mind since time immemorial.”
“Do you know? Because please just say so if you do.”
“I do n…”
I’m stopped in my verbal tracks again by the sound of yet another familiar set of shoes approaching from the adjacent hallway.
“Would you look at that, Oliver. It is a small world after all. How the hell are ya, Elijah? Haven’t seen you in these parts in...”
“Are those the grant proposals? How’d you get those?”
“Well, you certainly weren’t around to...”
I’m fucking interrupted again. The culprit this time is the blood-curdling squall of Elijah’s office phone.
“Must be important if they sent it through,” Elijah grumbles while making a sharp left turn into his office.
“Anyway,” I address Oliver, ready to start my lecture with my forefinger pointed straight at one of the light bulbs, “the energy costs of these...”
“Chloe! How good to hear from you.”
I’m going to stop even trying to get full sentences out today.
The loud, boisterous greeting coming from Elijah’s is quite un-Elijah-like. It’s definitely his voice, but the way he’s talking to Chloe on the phone...
Oliver and I exchange a look. Neither of us know why Chloe’s calling Elijah, but it must have something to do with Sofie, and that’s enough to get us both stampeding into Elijah’s office with the intensity of startled elephants.
Elijah looks up at us and for some unknown reason puts his hand over the receiver when he sees us scuttle into the office.
With annoyed eyes, Elijah gestures to the phone with his desk—can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?—before something Chloe says on the other end gives him pause.
“Yes, that’s Lucas, and Oliver...”
Oliver and I give each another look. It seems Chloe has a talent for guessing who people are by the sound of their shoes through the phone.
“I’ll put it on speaker,” Elijah conveys with the earnestness of an Eagle Scout. He gives us a weighty look, hits the button on his phone and hangs up the receiver.
“As I was saying...can you guys hear me? I thought I heard you in the background and you all need to hear this.” Chloe’s voice is loud and clear through the speaker.
“Hi Chloe, you’re coming through with perfect clarity,” I announce. She lets out just enough of a slight chuckle to signal that she gets my slight humor.
“What’s up, Chloe? Is everything okay?” Oliver’s trying to steer us towards the meat of the matter.
“Yeah. Well, sort of.”
Chloe’s response sucks the air right out of the room. It’s not usual for her to call us in the first place, and suddenly we’re all fucking worried about why she did.
“Talk to us, Chloe,” Elijah implores.
She’s sighing loud enough for all of us to hear through the speaker.
I don’t know if it’s ever been so quiet with the three of us in the same room together, and I’m almost positive we’ve never been this collectively worried.
This might be bad.
“As I was saying, I know it’s a betrayal. I mean, we’re BFFs, and you all know that.”
Oliver and I simultaneously start scrutinizing Elijah’s face for any indication of what Chloe’s talking about, and he responds by pointing at the speaker and giving us a classic ‘just shut the fuck up and listen’ glower.
“But this is just too much,” she continues. I realize that I’m practically leaning into the speaker to hear what’s next, even though the volume is more than loud enough.
“What’s too much?” I burst in with that question despite my attempts to listen keenly. I’m just too damn keen, and I can’t wait any longer to find out what’s happening with Sofie.
“Is that…well, never mind that: Sofie was expelled. From school.”
It’s not just me who’s leaning into the speaker. Each of us are hunched over, intensely intent on hearing what Chloe has to say.
After that announcement, though, we all fall out of our tense poses and look at each other. Now there are even more questions.
“Why?” asks Oliver.
Another sigh comes through the speaker. Fuck. Now all I want to know is if Sofie’s okay, but I’m guessing we’ll find out soon.
“Because of the auction.”
Just as we were all beginning to lean towards the phone again, we relapse into our confused stances.
“The date auction? The one for charity?” Elijah’s voice is growing severe in a way I seldom hear it—and I’m feeling the same fucking severity as the story starts coming into focus.
“The very same, guys. They accused her of, Christ, they way they put it is ‘auctioning herself off.”
“The way who puts it?” demands Oliver, taking the words directly out of my mouth, and I’m sure Elijah’s as well.
“The dean,” Chloe states with another sigh.
“Kent Hughes?” Damn, Elijah’s reaching a new level of intensity. I’m surprised he hasn’t slammed his fist through the desk yet.
“Uh, I guess,” answers Chloe’s voice through the speaker. “He’s accusing her of using the auction as leverage for her internship there.”
Another term people use that never quite connected with me is ‘seeing red.’ In my experience, no matter how angry I get, my visual color pattern stays very much the same.
Until right fucking now.
A vivid, crimson haze is settling over everything in front of me, a shade of red that matches the color of both Oliver and Elijah’s face as they stare hard at the phone speaker as it relays this horrible fucking story.
“You don’t say.” Elijah lets the words out in a way that could be described as calm, but could also be described as the scariest fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your life. If it’s supposed to be scary but it’s perfectly calm instead, it means you should get ready to shit your pants because it’s about to go down. Hard.
And Elijah’s tone is perfect for this moment, because I’m ready to be the scariest fucking thing some college dean motherfucker’s ever met in his fucking life myself.
“How…how dare he!” Oliver’s voice is also becoming fearsome, but in a more upfront way.
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” responds Chloe.
I’ve got questions, and as anxious as I am to test out my angry voice, I know it’ll come out as snarls and growls that hardly resemble human language. I let them do the talking.
I clench my fists at my sides and dig my fingers firmly into my palms while Elijah takes over the conversation with a tone that’s only slightly less unnerving than before.
“I’m glad you called us, Chloe,” he says.
“I think I’m glad I did too, it’s just, you know, the BFF code.”
“I understand it wasn’t an easy decision, but we’re grateful you made it.” Oh, shit, that’s me, and I’m sounding much more rational than I feel. “Did Sofie have any idea as to why this all went down? I mean, the auction was a while back.”
Okay, I got out my question, and the red is fading somewhat. Taking action on this bullshit is still as fucking pressing as anything.
“The last I talked to her,” Chloe half-mumbles, getting much quieter suddenly, “she mentioned something about her ex-boyfriend, Greg, hanging around when it happened. I don’t know what to think of that, though.”
I look at Oliver, and I look at Elijah, and they glance at each other, and we’re all on the same page: there’s almost certainly more to that than Chloe’s thinking.
The whole conversation with Chloe has been motivating enough, but that last tidbit sealed the deal:
Fuck anything we had planned at work, fuck our day at the races, we now have a mission to go see Sofie and take care of this shit.
BioKin is just going to have to fucking wait, we’ve got much bigger priorities now.