Her neighbor sounded like he might choke from just being near her if she stuck around any longer, so the drow halfling hoofed it to her car and found herself debating if it was worth it to stop somewhere before class for another homemade bandage. She decided that instead of staring at the scary Goth chick’s face, everyone could stare at the even scarier holes in her arm. Keep ‘em guessing.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
The room for Mattie Bergmann’s Advanced Algorithms graduate class was empty when Cheyenne stepped inside at 8:09 a.m. The door was unlocked, at least, but she had to turn on the lights to get to her usual seat at the middle row of tables lining the room. For the next twenty minutes, she found herself daydreaming of how nice it would be if nobody showed up.
A halfling can dream, right?
That was when the other students started filtering into the room like so many dazed, confused little bugs. There was Messy Bun with her hair done up in the same ridiculous “I spent hours on making myself look like I don’t care how I look” style, rolling her eyes as she tried not to laugh at something that Peter guy said that probably wasn’t anywhere near as funny as they both seemed to think. Cheyenne glanced at them briefly before focusing on her open laptop again. She’d be jealous if she saw my bedhead this morning.
The half-drow smelled the giant guy with the huge beard who sat behind her in half her classes about twenty seconds before he stepped into the room. The guy went back and forth between eaude Doritos and essence of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. For his sake, she hoped the smell came from having eaten one of those things at some point during the day. Others came in: a skinny guy who was so tall that his cargo shorts looked like basketball shorts from the ‘80s on him. A few other students, some of them holding hushed conversations, most of them silently minding their own business.
Still, something felt a little off, and Cheyenne couldn’t put her finger on it. Nobody said anything she didn’t expect to hear from a bunch of normal grad students, and she’d heard it all before anyway. A slow, simmering weight settled over the classroom, like the rippling heat waves rising off the sidewalk or the hood of her car on a hot day, only the half-drow could feel it. Apparently, she was the only one.
“Two minutes late today. I’m right on time.” Mattie Bergmann’s voice burst into the classroom a second before her physical person. The professor had gone with some kind of Renaissance-peasant theme today—on LSD, maybe. Neon-green flowy skirt with something glittery-pink underneath, a weird puffy shirt cut off the shoulders, pastel-purple and silver stripes clashing unapologetically with the skirt, a wide cherry-red belt over all of it, with an obnoxiously large belt buckle the woman could’ve used as a shield, earrings that matched each other only in how far they dangled below her jawline, and a navy-blue bandana covered in white paisley wrapped around the dark hair piled haphazardly on top of her head.
Cheyenne seriously hoped Mattie hadn’t spent anywhere near as much time dressing herself today as Messy Bun had admitted to spending on her hair, unaware that the half-drow could pretty much hear everything in the classroom. And I’m the one getting the jokes about Halloween only being in October. What is goin’ on with Bergmann today?
The professor’s brightly colored Tevas peeled off the linoleum floor with a sticky slurp as she rushed toward the desk at the front of the classroom. Her wheeled briefcase clicked and rolled swiftly behind her, taking its usual place beside the desk with that metal handle sticking up. Mattie scanned the dozen faces staring at her but didn’t meet Cheyenne’s gaze. “Oh, good. Everyone looks as happy to be here as I feel. Bright and early.”
For the first time, it wasn’t clear whether the woman was making another of her dry jokes or if she was serious. Stranger than that was the smell. Cheyenne had gotten a big whiff of it as the woman stormed through the doorway, but it was still there. Like a dried orange peel just beginning to mold mixed with…the closest thing the halfling could compare it to was sweat. But that wasn’t really it.
Mattie whipped a stack of papers out of her briefcase, rummaged violently through the desk drawer for the smartboard remote, and jabbed buttons to get her lesson up and running with tech that was outdated even for the undergrad courses.
Cheyenne folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. She was more rattled than yesterday. Something was wrong.
“So.” Mattie clapped and tossed the remote onto the desk before sliding it toward her again. “Who wants to play teacher’s pet this morning and—”
“Professor.” Messy Bun lifted her chin toward the front of the room and leaned forward over the long table and the university-provided computers and keyboards spread out at every station.
The professor’s smile didn’t quite finish the shape it was supposed to take. “Ms. Arcady.”
“I love that skirt.”
The only sound after that was the dull, sporadic tapping of Mattie’s index finger on the surface of the desk.
“Well.” The woman frowned like her student had expressed the opposite sentiment, and her gaze darted around the room. “Thank you. But that was most definitely not what I meant. Who’s got a refresher course from Tuesday for the professor who’s actually teaching said course? In three sentences or less would be fantastic.”
Despite her enhanced hearing, Cheyenne somehow managed to tune out everything the student picking up the teacher’s pet mantle said after that. None of it applied to her anyway; she and Mattie had already agreed that Cheyenne didn’t need this class for anything but fulfilled credit hours toward her master’s. But
