Fallen University: Year Two

Kingston huffed at him. “No. Have any of you noticed who’s been missing from the school this whole time?”

We all shared looks. Even I didn’t know the answer to this one, and I’d thought I was pretty well in tune with Kingston’s plan. The man in question groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.

“Dru,” he told us. “And his elite team of third-years. They left on a mission right before we came here. Remember? There was a whole thing about him wanting to bring students for extra manpower and Toland being on the fence about it but finally agreeing to let him have a small team. Am I really the only one who eavesdrops around here?”

“Yes,” Jayce said.

“Obviously not,” Kai said at the same time, and he and Jayce shared a mutually distrustful look.

Then Jayce grinned, reverting back to his default state of easygoing cheerfulness. “Okay, apparently not.” He turned to Kingston. “But I get what you’re saying. If Dru took the team out before the school got transported, that means he’s still on earth somewhere.”

“Exactly.” The elegant man nodded in satisfaction.

“So we should take the phone to Toland—”

Jayce didn’t even get the whole question out before he was cut off by a chorus of, “No!”

He paused, looking around in confusion. “But won’t Toland know Dru’s number?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter if he does or not. We can’t tell him that Kingston has been carrying an illegal cell phone around this whole time. He’ll be expelled.”

“Really? Even though it’s an emergency? And maybe our only way home? I don’t think he’d expel him.”

“Not immediately,” I agreed. “He’d make the phone call first, then he’d expel him. Toland rides the line between pragmatic solutions and the letter of the law like a sex therapist with a license to hook.”

Jayce’s face fell, and he glanced dourly at the phone. “Well, what do we do with it, then?”

Xero shook his head. “Fuck. I don’t like knowing about this. If they find a reason to interrogate us again…”

He let the thought trail off with a small shudder.

“No, it’s fine,” Kai said sharply, and I got the feeling he was trying to convince himself his words were true. “We just won’t be suspects next time around.”

“Really? We won’t? We always are,” Xero pointed out.

“Well, next time someone should persuade them that we’re above reproach.” Kai shot me a meaningful look.

I shifted uncomfortably. “We need to get in touch with Dru.”

“Okay,” Kingston said. “Anybody got his number?”

“You know we don’t.” Jayce made an exasperated noise.

“Then what are our other options?”

“Can’t you have someone on your staff look him up?” I asked. “You already said you’ve been using the phone to keep in touch with people at your family’s company. Don’t you have an assistant who can help find him?”

He shook his head, looking a little disgruntled. “I already tried that. Dru isn’t exactly ‘on the grid’. There’s no data on him at all—as far as human record-keeping goes, the man doesn’t exist.”

“Shit.”

We sat in silence for a while, contemplating.

Maybe there was someone else we could try to reach out to for help? I didn’t have a whole lot of connections left earth-side, and the ones I did have wouldn’t know where to begin looking for answers. Every direction my thoughts took led me back to Dru. He was the only person in the world who could help. I was sure of it.

“Dru used to talk about his away missions.” I massaged my temples with my fingertips, wishing I could get Cassandra to poke around in the dark corners of my mind a little to see if any information was hidden there. “If we can remember some of the specifics, we might have a shot at reaching him somehow.”

“He liked Seattle,” Kingston recalled. “And Canada. He made a point of volunteering for those places.”