She looked awful.
She raised her hand in the direction of the bartender. "Another one of these," she asked.
One more, and then she'd try to figure out where she was so that she could go home.
8
"COOL," GLEN SAID, LIFTING A GLASS OF beer to his lips and drinking. "I mean, this is a really cool thing to do, Dr. A."
"Thank you for completing the sentence, Glen. Don't forget what you're here for, though." She turned to the cluster of students gathered around the wooden table in the food service area of Cutters Bar. It was a wings-and-things night—free wings with two beers—and crowded.
She decided to hold class here so that the students could get an idea of what ritual was from observing their own rituals, in their most familiar ritual setting. She thought that might help them connect the dots of learning and life, and she was also damn glad not to have to run a class. The chant-shape was making it hard for her to focus. Tonight all she had to do was make sure they were here, and that they didn't get too rowdy.
"Your job is to observe," she told them when they arrived. "Look as if you were studying a foreign culture. Notice gestures, and what they mean. Particularly notice gestures that are repeated, and see if they're repeated for the same reason. And don't drink too much, okay?"
"Would we do that, Dr. A?" Jesse Goodman asked, nudging her with an elbow and spilling some beer on her shoulder in the process. "Sorry," he said, taking a swipe at it.
She watched it soak into her white cotton shirt. Every good idea has its drawbacks, she thought.
"All right," she said, waving her money card at Jesse. "Make up for it. Go get me a Guinness. I could use it. And the rest of you—disperse. We aren't under siege here, you know."
"Sure—hey, anyone wanna play holodarts?" Joey pulled at Glen's arm, and they moved through the crowds toward the game area.
The others mulled around in tight knots of friends, not sure if it was really okay to enjoy themselves this way during classtime. Some wandered off toward the VR room to play Glendarrow. Others made for the empty bar seats. They'd get over their wariness in about another beer and ten minutes, she thought, and when Jesse brought her drink to her, she sat back and watched the show.
Steve was standing, stiff and unsmiling, next to Katia, who sipped carefully at something that wasn't a beer, and peered out over the rim of her glass wistfully at the people around her. Someday, Jaguar thought, Katia would learn to look to her own needs first, and then she'd be quite a woman.
A group of young men she didn't know stood laughing with some of her students, and she noticed the gestures made toward her. One of hers—was that Joey? Yes, it was—turned and waved. She wiggled two fingers at him, and nodded. He raised his beer and shouted over the din of the soundjuke to her.
"Hey, Dr. A. Does it count as a ritual when a guy wants to pick someone up and he's checkin' her out from across the room?"
This, followed by a punch in the arm from a young man in black clothes and dark glasses.
"It counts, Joey," she shouted back.
At the bar, Selica, Taquana, and a few other young women clustered in what looked like a deep discussion. But Jaguar knew better. Probably nail color was as deep as it was getting. Pretty soon they'd rise and visit the bathroom together like a flock of young quail. They emerged from their huddle and screeched in laughter, waved at her, then returned to whatever they were whispering about.
She hoped they'd get something out of this besides a hangover and a night off.
Jaguar let her gaze pass over the variety of faces and costumes and postures at the bar, and as she did so, she saw that one man's eyes stayed with hers. He sat at the far end of the bar, opposite her trio of students, and he was staring at her. She returned the stare, waiting for him to drop it first.
He didn't.
Okay, she thought. I can play that way. She continued to stare at him, making no motion with her body or her face. She could do this all night, especially since he was a rather fine specimen of maleness to consider so closely. Classic chiseled face, broad shoulders, blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. Not a bad view as far as she could see.
"Hey, Doc—oh, shit, look out."
She turned reflexively, in time to see a glass of beer arc over her head and splash across the table where she sat.
"Oh man. I'm sorry, Doc. I'm really sorry. Lemme get it, okay?"
She stood in time to avoid the trickle that ran directly toward her chair, and grinned at Ivy, a tall and gangly woman who hadn't yet learned to control her length.
"It's all right, Ivy. I'm just glad they give you guys plastic cups. No, really. I was just getting up anyway. Was there something you wanted?"
Ivy looked at her blankly. "Oh, yeah. But I forget."
"Maybe you'll remember later. I'll be over there." She indicated the bar, which she walked toward, working her way around a pack of people who had jammed themselves in front of it, reminding her of a herd of cows clumped together in front of the feeding trough.
She leaned on the bar, waiting to get the bartender's attention, tapping her money card against the plastic-coated wood. It did not surprise her when a softer, older male voice spoke somewhere in the vicinity of her left ear.
"Pack animals, aren't we?" it said.
She twisted around and regarded the man who had been staring at her.
"Some of us are," she said.
"And every once in a while you find someone who's not," he commented, letting his gaze slide up her long legs, her slim torso, her breasts.
"I like your opening line," she said. "What's next?"
He laughed, and tossed back the remainder of his drink. "Nothing half so impressive. Just a little chatter. My name, then your name. What you like to do, what I like to do. Your job, my job. That sort of thing."
"And then?"
He took in a slow breath and put his empty glass down on the bar next to her. "I buy you a drink. Or I offer to."
"So far so good. Anything else—or just more chatter and an exchange of phone numbers."
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then turned to look around the room. "You wouldn't know it from in here, but there's a pretty moon tonight."
"Is there? And does that signify?"
"I think it does to you, Jaguar," he said.
She would be damned if she would let him see her surprised. She smoothed her face, and let her gaze run from the top of his head to his shoes. It was in the vicinity of his belt that she saw the transmitter and the sensor, both army style.
Shit, she thought. A brat. That was what she and Alex called army. Brats. And he knew her name. She saw no weapon, but he could have something small and interesting palmed. The army did like its toys.
"How do you know my name?" she asked.
He laughed again. "That gaggle of gigglers at the other end of the bar. I saw them wave to you, so I went and talked to them. They told me all about their assignment."
He raised a finger and ran it down the side of her cheek. "I like it. Shows style. By the way, my name's Phil."
"Nice to meet you, Phil," she replied, taking a very small step back. He was cute, but he was also army.
"How about a walk in the moonlight?" he asked. "I'm sure your students wouldn't miss you."
"But, Phil, you haven't even done the chatter part of the evening, much less the part about buying me a drink," she said disapprovingly.
"We could skip it. Or, we could do the chatter under the moon and the drink a little later."
"I don't think I'm interested," she said, and turned back to the bar.
A hand on her shoulder told her he wasn't taking it well. She shrugged it off, twisted her neck around to face him, and said again, "I'm not interested."
As she turned, she could see Glen and another young man she didn't know watching from across the dining area. They seemed fascinated by the interaction, and she wondered if they had bets on what would happen next.
"Hey," the man said, "it was just an idea. I d
on't intend to push it if it feels that heavy."
"That's good," she said, and grabbed the bartender as he soared past her, ordering another Guinness, which he brought to her promptly. When she turned to find her way back to her seat, Phil was blocking her way. Across the bar, Glen nudged his friend and whispered something behind his hand. Great, Jaguar thought. What an example to set. In the corner to their right, she saw Katia staring openly, eyes wide with something that might have been anger. Anger?
No, she thought. Must be misreading that one. Katia never got angry. Then she saw that behind Glen was another man, tall and broad and blond, attending to her and Phil. She ran her eyes down his outfit, and saw the same sensor, the same transmitter at his belt.
And as she saw this, Phil reached over with his left hand and grabbed her by the wrist.
She didn't pull back, but only looked down at his right hand, cupped loosely open, and realized that she had approximately three more seconds to call this one. Did he have a stunner in his hand, and would he take her out of here unconscious, or was it all her paranoia? His grip tightened.
She called it.
Pressing the button at her wrist, she released the blade into the palm of her own hand and brought it slicing down the inside of his arm. Sleeve and skin parted like water, and he released her with a small cry of surprise rather than pain. It would take a few seconds before the blood appeared and he felt the rending of tissue. She sidestepped around him and would have been out of his way except for a very sodden student—not her own— who stood swaying and leering directly in front of her.
Behind the student, Phil's friend had planted himself.
She pushed at the semiconscious young man, who stumbled and knocked against Phil's friend. As he fell, he reached out and grasped her shoulder, almost bringing her down, and causing some commotion around her. At this point Glen waxed chivalrous and shouted, "Hey—leggo my teacher," as he came rumbling across the room like a heavy storm.
Drinks were put in pause between tables and lips while heads turned her way. By this time Glen reached her, pulled back his meaty arm, and swung.
The punch landed.
"What the fuck is this?" someone shouted.
"Mind your own fucking business," someone else shouted back. Jaguar slipped her position and found a place to stand away from the possibility of entrapment, remembering to take her Guinness with her.
When she could turn and watch, she saw that Phil was down and out, but his friend was still punching, and Glen was punching back. Taquana had jumped his back and was pummeling it soundly, but another young woman she didn't know was trying to pull her down.
"Odd," Jaguar commented to her brew, "I wonder if she knows Phil." Checking the young woman's outfit, she saw the standard army belt. She sighed. They were after her.
Taquana seemed to grow tired of being pulled at, and jumped off the man's back to turn on the young woman, ripping with gusto at her blond hair. She came up waving a handful and howling gleefully to her friends, who were trying to make their way across the floor, which had gotten slippery with spilled beer. Selica got there first and rammed the blonde in the back with a head butt sufficient to bring her to her knees.
It was then that the pileup began in earnest.
Jaguar took a long draw off her Guinness and considered what she ought to do next.
She saw that most of her students—or the parts of them she could distinguish—were taking joyous part in the fracas. Peripherally, she saw Steve trying to hustle Katia to the door, and Katia resisting. That figured. She supposed she'd get in trouble for this, but right now she was primarily concerned that her students come out relatively unscathed, and who could tell what other weapons might appear in the now bar-wide struggle?
And then she heard the call.
Old friend, running to her.
Her skin tingled as she was pulled into the energy of the chant-shape, its power filling her, taking her over.
Now? she asked. Here?
But what choice did she have?
She relaxed. Breathed in beyond the din of Rank music combined with howls, screams, and hoots, breathed in to the space where events flowed around her and were not part of her, taking a moment, she welcomed her friend. She let go of herself and let herself be all of who she was.
In the bar everyone simultaneously experienced the distinct impression of a presence not normally associated with a bar fight. They heard the growl, saw the flashing eyes, felt the hot breath, the pulsing heart, the body in motion.
In a click of time all fighting ceased in surprise and fear.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," someone whispered reverently.
Then it was gone. Whatever they saw receded into shadow, but the momentum of the fight was lost, and the security people from campus opened the door and looked around.
"Okay," one said. "What's the problem?"
Jaguar walked over to him to try to explain.
Planetoid Three, Toronto Replica
"Who is it?" Rich Forrest asked sullenly and groggily. He glanced at his bedside clock, noted the time was very late—or early in the morning, depending how you looked at it.
A voice barked at him on the other end of his line, and he sat up. "Yes, sir. I'm listening." He absorbed the information, processed the questions. "No, sir. I didn't give any instructions to take her. Of course not, sir. I'm following the agenda."
He listened more. Fools. Idiots. But so was Durk, for putting nonintelligence people in the project at all.
"All right, sir. I can meet you at 0900. Will he be there, too?"
No, of course he wouldn't. He stayed out of it, and took care of his own business.
Rich nodded, agreed again, prepared to sign off. But there was one more thing. He listened more.
"A—what, sir?"
Durk repeated his words.
"No, sir," he said definitively. "I have no idea what would cause that. Maybe—nerves?"
Durk's voice rambled something to him, but he barely heard it. He was still chewing on the last sentence.
The three people assigned to Jaguar all swore they had been attacked by a great black cat.
9
"BUT, DR. ADDAMS, YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY expect these students to create their own learning in a— in a bar, can you?"
Jaguar regarded Emily coolly. "Actually, that's where they learn most of what they know. About how to be in the world. About how to be. And the legal drinking age in your state is eighteen, isn't it?"
"Emily," Ethan said, "it's quite all right. Really it is. I've spoken with Ja—Dr. Addams about University liability in these matters, and she understands the difficulty of our position when trying innovative pedagogies. It won't happen again, I'm sure."
"No," Jaguar said, "it won't. They've learned what I wanted them to learn from the experience, and we'll be moving into a new study unit."
"What?" Emily asked.
Jaguar shrugged. "We have other material to cover."
Emily began to look shocked, then turned grim. She stood and smoothed down her skirt, moved toward the door. "I guess I was foolish to expect better from you," she said. Then, to Ethan, "See you around seven?"
He nodded, smiled. She returned the smile and left. After she was gone, Jaguar tried to suppress her grin, but gave it up when Ethan threw his head back and laughed long and loud.
"Jaguar," he said when he'd recovered himself, "you really shouldn't torment her so. What has she ever done to you, after all?"
"I'm just telling her the truth," Jaguar insisted.
Ethan wiped at his eyes. "You're a wicked woman, but I suppose you know that. And in all seriousness, you must not bring your students to bars anymore. Or to— well, what would be worse? To strip joints, or to cybersex houses. If there's anything else, I can't think of it offhand, but you get the idea, don't you?"
"I believe I do. By the way, do I need to do the honorable thing with Emily and explain that I have no designs on you? Or did you take care of that after I left?"
She opened her mouth to answer, not sure whether she was about to accept or decline, when a tap on the door interrupted them, and Samitu stuck his head in the door. "Giving boxing lessons, Dr. Addams? Rumor has it—"
"Rumor has it she's a karate expert hidden among us to make bad martial-arts films, Samitu. Is there something you wanted?"
Samitu chuckled, and waved a hand. "I just wanted to see if she had any bruises or whatnot."
"Not her. Better check the opponent, though. For signs of life."
He ducked back out, still chuckling, and Jaguar turned her hands palm up. "I suppose I'll never live it down," she said.
"Never. It is now inscribed in University legend."
And in student legend, too. They'd shown up at her office en masse that morning, to work off the lingering adrenaline.
"Did you see Glen?" Jesse kept saying until she listened. "Did you see him? I mean, he just went for the guy, and the guy went down."
"I saw him, Jesse. Glad I did, too."
Glen had flushed from forehead to neck and probably, though she couldn't see, beyond. "That guy was a real asshole, Dr. A," he mumbled. She had to agree.
"Glen, hell," Selica had retorted. "Did you see Taquana dancing around with that hunk of hair in her hand? I swear, she's making a trophy out of it."
Jaguar kept waiting for one of them to talk about the moment when something large and startling had appeared to stop the fight cold. Not one of them said a word. Either it had faded from their memories, or they were embarrassed to mention it. Whichever it was, she was relieved.
"Well," the dean said, "the important thing is that no one was hurt."
"Of course."
She rose to leave, and as she did so, he held up a finger to halt her. "Wait—are you aware that the rumors of the incident include reports of a very odd phenomenon?"
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