"Ms. Anderson?" Vern asked the girl.
"Um... yea?" The girl was several inches shorter than Vern, though as she tried to duck away from the security guard, it looked more like a foot difference. She held her books close to her chest, as if she thought he might take them from her.
"I'm Officer McNamara," he said, stressing the word Officer. Ellie wasn't sure if the security guards were officers, but it was clear that he was trying to make it sound like he was more important than he actually was. "Do you have a moment?"
"Um... sure..." She dithered in place, looking back into the library towards an empty table near the front. Ellie's heart plummeted when she did, worried that, if she led Vern into the library, there was no way she would be able to slip away unnoticed.
"Here's fine," Vern said. "It won't be long. I just have a few questions. Do you know an Ellie Neilson?"
"Not really," she said. "Isn't she the daughter of the Physics professor?"
"Yes, I believe she is. Have you ever interacted with her?"
"I was in a study group with her once," she said. This surprised Ellie. She didn't remember her being in the study group.
"When was this?" Vern asked.
"Oh, a few weeks ago. I think it was the first Friday of the semester. Why?"
"Were you aware of any animosity between her and a Rebecca Anne Masterson?"
"Who? I don't know who that is."
"Sure you do. She's a rather prominent member of your class."
"Nope, I'm afraid not. The name doesn't ring a bell. Sorry."
"That's fine, that's fine," Vern said. "Were you aware of any animosity from Ms. Neilson, then?"
"No. Not really. She seemed nice. A little shy I guess, though, but there's nothing wrong with that." As if to demonstrate, the girl took another step further away from Vern's looming form.
"Did you hear about a break in a little over a week ago?"
"No," the girl said. She sounded completely shocked by the prospect. "Did Rebecca Anne break into Ellie's room?" Ellie tried not to laugh out loud to that comment.
"Uh... no. She-she broke into Rebecca Anne's room."
"That doesn't sound like her."
"You said you barely know her," Vern said.
"It doesn't sound like something any of us would do. Isn't that something that the school would usually reject someone for doing?"
"Well... As I said, there was some animosity between the two girls."
"Women," the girl corrected. Ellie bristled a little at the term. She had still been referring to the girl in her mind as a girl. Besides, a girl would get probation for breaking and entering. A woman would get sent to prison.
"Women," Vern allowed. "There was some animosity between the two women, and Ms. Neilson allegedly escalated the conflict to breaking and entering."
"Well, as I said, I haven't heard anything about that, and she doesn't seem the type to do it. Now, did you have any other questions, or baseless accusations, to ask me about?" Ellie smiled at the girl, who seemed to have grown more of a backbone as the conversation progressed.
"No, that's it," Vern said, dejectedly. Apparently, the investigation wasn't going so well for him. Ellie was a little surprised that, between Rebecca Anne and Sam, who would have no doubt confirmed her story, he didn't have enough to arrest her.
Ellie stayed where she was for a few minutes, while the girl and Vern headed off in different directions. She waited, hoping to avoid running into either of them for at least a few minutes, so they wouldn't find out that she had been listening in. Once the coast was clear, she headed back to her room to hide for the rest of the day.
The investigation was on her mind for much of that day, and the morning of the next, right up until the time for the second test in Physics. As if she didn't have enough to deal with, with homework, studying for another monster of a test, and the alien cabal hot on her tail, she had to start worrying about Vern getting enough evidence, real or not, to arrest her. She was hoping that it wouldn't come to that, but she had a sinking feeling that the only thing to save her from it would be Agent Gorning's own investigation. And that seemed like it was very far off indeed.
"You okay?" Eric asked, jarring Ellie out of her inner musings. She looked around herself, around at the room they were in, the familiar room that she had been spending way too much time in. When she remembered what that room used to mean, what had happened there to her father, she laughed that the place seemed more of a home than her own room sometimes. "I'm guessing that's a no."
"I'm fine," Ellie muttered. She looked towards her father, who was already passing out the second test, oblivious to the fact that half of his students were aliens. There were times when she wondered about telling him, unsure how he would react to it. The geek in him would probably be thrilled, though the parent would pull her out of school in a heartbeat if it meant protecting her. Just like with Mare, though, it was completely out of the question. "How are you handling all of this?"
"I'm mostly just ignoring it," Eric said. As if to demonstrate, he scooped up the stack of papers that was being passed to him by the alien in front of him, like it was any other student in the class. The guy wasn't one of the ones they usually interacted with, and he barely looked over at Ellie at all, so it was likely that Eric just didn't know about him.
"Does anyone not have a test?" Professor Neilson asked. He was holding a stack of papers over his head, those that were left over from passing them around, but no one seemed to need any.
Since the first test, several of the students had disappeared from the class, leaving many seats empty throughout the room. Ellie was certain that not a single one of the missing students was an alien, or, at least, they hadn't been before they went missing. She had seen a few students around campus that she thought had been among the missing but, since she never really interacted with them, she couldn't be certain. It did comfort her, however, that none of them were sporting newly developed abyssal eyes.
"The first test seemed to be too easy," Professor Neilson said.
"Too easy?" Eric muttered, just loud enough for Ellie to hear over her father.
"Usually there's about one or two students that score well, while the rest just barely scrape by with a passing grade. Despite a few students who found the test too hard to continue in this class, half of you came out of the first test with almost perfect scores." He looked up at Ellie in the back row, smiling with pride, as he said this. With everything that she had been going through, Ellie hadn't gotten a chance to check her grades online. "This latest test is a bit more difficult, adding some new twists to how the questions are worded and complexity to the problems themselves. You should still be able to solve the questions based on what we've been covering lately. I know, some of you don't like that the problems aren't given to you straight like you're used to, but I'm not here to make it easy for you. I'm here to teach you. Real life problems don't come at you head on."
"That's for sure," Ellie mumbled. She looked around at her fellow classmates, wondering how many of them were out to get her. She figured that, other than herself and probably Eric, most of the students that did well on the first test were the aliens amongst them. She didn't like the comparison between her and them, but it was one she couldn't quite escape, no matter what she did.
"I hope you enjoy this test, because it took me a lot longer than it usually does to write it. Please don't tear through it like you did the first one. In either case, you may begin. You have an hour." He went back over to his usual place behind the desk, pulling another book out of his suitcase. Ellie's eyes lingered on the book cover, trying to make it out across the distance, only turning to her test when the sounds of feverish writing reached her.
The test was much like the first one, a whole lot of nothing. It took Ellie two minutes to untangle the wording of the first question, but once she did the problem just fell into place. The rest of the test proved to be equally easy and, once again, barely twenty minutes after the test started, she was finished
and left looking around the room aimlessly. This time, though, she wasn't the first one done. Several other, darker eyes were similarly drifting.
Her mind wandered down the usual avenues, bouncing between her girlfriend and the plans they were making, the problems with having classmates who were aliens, and the impending investigation. She wondered if her father would ever break from his usual rules about leaving early, especially considering the fact that all the aliens, plus her and a couple others, seemed to be finished already with barely half the time gone. When they met eye contact across the distance, he just gave her the smallest shakes of his head, making it clear that he wouldn't be changing the rules that day.
It was still early in the day, not even half past eight in the morning just yet. Ellie had plans to speak with Mare later, celebrating her birthday as best they could over Skype. It pained her that she wasn't able to take off, to escape the trappings of U of C and see her girlfriend on her birthday. But with the schedule of the test it couldn't be helped. She had even checked the possibility of getting away right after the test, heading over to Colorado to meet up with her. The schedule of the day was too tight for it. It was a fifteen hour drive, and even the flights, which she couldn't afford, would have wasted half the day.
Besides, the part of the day that they had both been looking forward to was the launch, and that was scheduled to take place at noon. That wasn't something that either of them could reschedule, or miss.
Or, at least, that was the plan. Things hadn't exactly been going the way she had been expecting lately though. And when Vern's familiar face peeked into the room, she figured this was more of the same.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Vern's Victory
Ellie watched as Vern made his way across the front of the room. Several faces in front of her flitted between the guard and her, as so many of the people in that class knew exactly what was happening with him. Everyone knew, of course, because they were all in on it. Ellie wouldn't have been surprised if every single one of those aliens had spoken out against her. If that were the case, though, it would mean that he probably wasn't there to question her father. With that many people speaking out against her, he might be there to arrest her. Or worse, maybe he really was there to question her father.
Dave didn't look up from his book until Vern was right in front of him. At first, he looked up at the man with annoyance, ready to chastise whatever student had come up to ask him a question. His face fell when he noticed who Vern was, changing to one more of curiosity and cooperation. Ellie couldn't hear the words that were passing between them. With Vern's back to her, all she could do was watch the reactions of her father and hope that he would give her some signal to run, if it came to that.
"They're in the middle of a test," Dave said. His voice was too low to reach Ellie's ears, but she was able to read his lips easily enough. "No, you can't just take one. It's another twenty minutes before the end of the test. You can take them then. What did they even do anyway?"
Shock flitted across Dave's face as Vern continued. Vern looked back towards Ellie, a grin spread wide on his face. When Dave followed his eyes up towards Ellie, his shocked expression only grew worse. Ellie slumped down in her seat, trying desperately to disappear. It seemed to only get worse as the seconds ticked on. Dave just managed to school his expression before Vern turned back to him.
"No," Dave said. "You'll have to wait outside. There's only one door that’s usable, it's not like she can make a run for it. Like I said, twenty minutes. No. No one leaves until the test is over. I don't care if she looks like she's done. She has the same amount of time as everyone else, whether or not they choose to use it wisely. Just... Just go away. You're distracting the class." He pointed emphatically towards the door.
Vern did turn away from him, finally, but he didn't go far. He chose to stand next to the door but against the front wall of the lecture hall, facing the students. His eyes never left Ellie's, and his smile never lessened. Those last twenty minutes were hell for Ellie, locked in an eternal staring contest with the man. For once, she was actually glad that the man was human, though his actions might have suggested otherwise. She wasn't sure how she would have fared under that glare if it was done by the dark, abyssal eyes of one of the aliens. Even as she stared down the man in front of her, the aliens in her class took peeks over their shoulders back at her. Small jabs of fear hit her from all sides, rather than a prolonged frontal assault by Vern.
"Five minutes," Dave called out, after what felt like hours locked in that state.
Ellie couldn't quite make out the blue that she knew Vern's eyes were, but they were most definitely not black. She remembered that she had once thought his eyes almost beautiful, but stuck in that unwitting traitor's face made them a lie. They might as well have been as dark and black as those of an alien. She wondered, only briefly, what he would do if he knew the truth. If he knew who, what, he was helping by investigating this supposed crime. By the end of the hour, she had almost convinced herself that she never really broke into the room to begin with. That it was just part of the alien cabal's conspiracy against her.
"Time," Dave called out.
Noise surrounded Ellie from all directions, a mixture of annoyance from those that hadn't finished in time, pain from those that had finished but barely, and relief from the aliens that finished the test way too quickly and were stuck sitting there with nothing to do the entire time. As the students got up out of the chair, some stretching, some racing for the front of the room, Ellie's view of Vern was blocked. As was his of hers. For a moment, for the slightest few seconds, she considered doing exactly what her father said she couldn't, namely making a run for it. That other door, the one that led to the alley, was just as close to her as the front was. But she knew that such a move would only delay the inevitable. Besides, if she ran, it would only make her look more guilty than the aliens had already done.
"What do you want, Vern," Ellie asked. She came up to him hidden by the mass exodus of the students, so he hadn't spotted her until she was right on top of him. He jumped a little, his hand going to his chest.
"I'm here to take you in for questioning," Vern said, once he got over the shock. "If you'll come with me."
"Aren't you going to read me my rights?"
"I'm not arresting you. Not yet. But if you're not going to come willingly..."
"She has the right to have a parent present when being questioned," Dave said, coming up behind her. Ellie looked back to him, surprised that none of the students had tried to corner him. There were a few of them over by the desk, looking at him questioningly, papers in hand. But he was completely ignoring them as he came to her rescue.
"That's only for minors," Vern said.
"She's seventeen."
"She's what? Wait, how do you...? Oh."
"That's right," Dave said. He came up next to Ellie, putting his arm protectively across her shoulders. "I'm her father. Anything you have to ask her, you'll have to ask while I'm here."
"Is that right, Ms. Neilson?" Vern asked, pointedly.
"I have no secrets from my father," she lied.
"Very well. Where were you this weekend?"
"How is that in any way your business?" Dave asked.
"I was off campus," Ellie said. "So, it very much isn't."
"Can anyone corroborate--"
"I was with my friends, the entire weekend. So, whatever Rebecca Anne is claiming I did this time, I didn't."
"Who said anything about Rebecca Anne?"
"Isn't this what your whole investigation has been about?" Ellie asked. She fidgeted under his increased scrutiny, even though she knew that she hadn't done anything wrong... at least not recently... that was within Vern's jurisdiction. "There was no evidence of any wrongdoing, but I snubbed you so you're going out of your way to prove something that didn't happen."
"Is that true?" Dave asked. "I hope you're not targeting my daughter because she's gay."
"I'm not targeting anyone,"
Vern insisted. "I'm just trying to do my job. That means investigating all alleged crimes, including breaking and entering. There have been rumors that you were doing just that again this weekend."
"As I said, I wasn't on campus, so whomever claimed that I broke into their rooms this time was lying."
"This time?" Vern asked.
"This time?" Dave asked.
"Last time as well, but I've already told you that the night it-- the night I was accused."
"And, yet, another case of breaking and entering would suggest otherwise," Vern said.
"Even if my daughter broke into Fort Knox this weekend, it wouldn't prove anything about any other incident. Unless you have some questions about the events happening on campus, this interview is over."
"Fine," Vern said. "What were you doing that night again?"
"What?" Ellie asked. Her mind whirled, racing back to that night to try to remember the story she had told at the time. All she remembered was the break in, and the subsequent chase. It was late when she was coming up with her alternative story, and a lot had happened since that night.
"What did you tell me you were doing when I pulled Rebecca Anne off of you?"
"I... I was coming back from a party?" she asked.
"Which party?" Vern asked, not missing a beat.
"Oh, I don't remember which party. It was over a week ago. And... And I wasn't the one that chose the party. I was just hanging out with my friends and we decided to go to a party."
"And then you left by yourself?" Vern asked. His smile kept getting bigger the longer she talked. Then, as it threatened to consume the rest of his face, she suddenly remembered the lie she had told him that night. Her stomach fell out from beneath her as she tried to recover.
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