‘Precisely. The only thing we can’t get out of Leland at the moment is his supplier. I don’t think we’re going to get any names there, to be honest. He seems more scared of them than he is of anything the SSF, school, or ASF can do to him.’
‘There is another thing,’ Marie said. Courtney almost jumped; the treasurer did not speak often at meetings. She was almost quieter than Melissa. She was a relatively slight woman, pretty but a little too long in the nose to be called beautiful. She wore her light-brown hair in a bob, but generally kept the left side tucked behind her ear. Moderately large, brown eyes gave her a doe-like look, but she was uncommonly smart and was likely to end up on the academic track in her final two years. ‘Where did Leland get the money to finance this operation? His clan is a strong one, but he is here on the standard sort of allowance for a student of his status. It seems relatively unlikely that he could personally get the cash together to purchase Crystal Mana in bulk.’
Courtney frowned. ‘That’s an interesting point. He hasn’t mentioned anything financial… I’ll look into it.’
‘It seems that we have this almost wrapped up,’ Mitsuko said. ‘All we have to do now is deal with the fallout. Courtney has made a number of arrests today. There are students who may or may not be expelled, but certainly need help in overcoming a serious addiction. Some of them may suffer power loss as a result of giving up the drug. And, somehow or other, we have to hold the EAC together through this. Naomi, I need you to begin the process of electing a new chair for your committee. Leland will not be returning, and I think you should just get it over with. Whether you take the chair until the next elections and you bring in a new vice chairperson, or you hold full elections now, I don’t really care. But it should be done, and without delay.’
Naomi nodded. ‘This is a terrible day for the EAC. It will take strong leadership to bring things back from the edge.’
‘The EAC will have the support of the student council.’ Mitsuko looked at the empty chair beside her where Darius should have been sitting. ‘Whatever form the council takes, you’ll have our support.’
235/4/10.
Nava watched Mitsuko emerging from the bathroom with her usual taciturn expression. Mitsuko was rubbing at her hair with a towel and all she was wearing was her red robe. ‘You should put some clothes on,’ Nava said.
‘And I thought you liked this robe.’
‘I do. And when Chess arrives at some point in the next few minutes, I’m sure he’ll also enjoy it. However, I refuse to clean up the ocean of blood that’s sure to fountain from his nose and I’m not going to catch him when he faints.’
Mitsuko paused in her rubbing for a brief second and then turned, heading for the bedroom. ‘You make a valid point.’
Nava returned to reading a document on quintessence particle theory on her ketcom, only to be interrupted after a couple of seconds. ‘You know, I could’ve lent you some casual clothes to wear or got you some sent over.’ It was called out through the partially open door, but it was quite audible.
‘I’m not a charity case, Suki.’
‘I know that, but you’re still in uniform and this is a party.’
‘Bet you Courtney turns up in uniform.’
‘Huh. You might be right.’
‘Anyway, the only “party dress” I have is that black one you bought me. If I wore that, we’d have the same issue with Chess. Hey, you’re not wearing–’
‘No, I have a different outfit for tonight. More casual.’
Nava was just wondering what could possibly be more casual than a barely existing, transparent dress you had to wear pasties under when Mitsuko emerged from the bedroom. More casual apparently meant a pink camisole top with the kanji characters for her family name in red on the front, a pair of pink shorts which were closer to panties and tight enough to show a clear impression of her labia, and strappy sandals which were mostly transparent plastic to add to her height.
‘I’m going to find a mop and bucket,’ Nava said.
~~~
As it turned out, Rochester had double the reason to collapse in a dead faint; Melissa turned up in an off-the-shoulder, long-sleeved top which left her belly bare, shorts which deserved the name more than Mitsuko’s but were still brief, and high-heeled pumps with a slight platform. The top was a rose pink with ‘LOVE’ in white stretched across her chest. The shorts were blue fading to white as they went down. She looked great, and Rochester did not know where to put his eyes.
Nava was actually wondering how Rochester had managed to walk to Mitsuko’s building. He had, all gentlemanlike, escorted Melissa from her apartment. That meant he had been in danger of his knees giving out for a good fifteen minutes before arriving. Then he had got there and… Well, the mop and bucket had not been needed, but Melissa had steered him into a seat before he fell over.
Rochester had casual clothes, which almost surprised Nava. He was in a T-shirt and pristine denim jeans. Running shoes adorned his feet. His T-shirt had an equation printed on it, sort of. It was a superposition expression representing the half-dead, half-alive state of the cat in Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment. A quantum physics joke. It suited him down to the ground and, truth be told, he looked quite handsome out of uniform.
Then Courtney and Kyle arrived, both of them in uniform, though Kyle had loosened his tunic to make it a little less formal. As far as Nava was concerned, the female uniform was not exactly formal anyway. Anything that revealed that much cleavage could not be viewed as formal.
‘I’m still not sure what the point of this is,’ Courtney said as she came in.
‘The point,’ Mitsuko
