All except for one something anyway. There had been something made out of black material in the middle of the room. Someone had used various heavy objects to smash it. Heavy objects and, probably, magic. Whatever the thing had been, it was in pieces now and the postgrad who had found it was having a fit.
‘It’s incredibly important! Lambert will be beside himself!’
Courtney examined the rather cute blonde who was doing the wailing. There was a vague memory of someone of that build – short, enormous bust, voluminous hair – graduating last year. What was her name? ‘Please calm yourself,’ Courtney said. The name was not coming. Academic track in the last two years… ‘Professor Lambert Stenger Mendel. He’s in charge of this lab?’
‘Yes,’ the blonde said. ‘I’m surprised he’s not here. I was sure he’d be here early before he had to go teach.’
‘Well, since he’s not, why was this particular artefact so important?’
‘It was still working! Obviously, it’s not now. We’ll never be able to put it back together. We have some data recorded. Maybe I could work through that and see whether I could piece it together…’
‘Hoshi Horne,’ Kyle said. ‘I think we need to determine what happened before you worry over this jigsaw puzzle. Who was the last person in here last night? And are the security cameras operational?’
Hoshi Horne Sonkei! Right. Trust Kyle to remember the name of a stacked blonde. Sometimes, Courtney was left feeling inadequate. Now was not the time.
Hoshi was looking up toward the corners of the room where it was quite clearly visible that the cameras were not operational now. ‘I don’t think they were damaged like that before. All the data is filed centrally. The SSF has access to that, right?’
‘We do,’ Courtney said. ‘I’ll file the request to pull last night’s data on my way to class.’ She sighed. ‘Why do I feel like this is just the start of a long, annoying day?’
‘Because you’re just that smart, boss,’ Kyle replied. It was not an especially comforting statement.
~~~
Sure enough, things escalated rapidly. Courtney was just waiting for her tactics teacher to arrive for second period when her ketcom signalled the arrival of an urgent message. Being captain of the SSF came with responsibilities which occasionally included having to do catch-up on her own time because she had to skip the odd class, and it looked like her tactics instructor was about to be annoyed with her.
The message was short: Professor Lambert Stenger Mendel reported missing. Security records indicate that he was the last person to leave Laboratory 126 in the Magical Sciences Building. The school requests an official SSF search for Lambert Stenger.
Great. It looked like she was not the only one who would be missing a few classes today.
~~~
As the search began for the missing lecturer, Lambert Stenger was hidden away in the basement of the Magical Sciences Building, using his ketcom, plugged into a service terminal, to access a lot of information that Lambert Stenger should have already known.
He was having considerable trouble operating the interface, but he was managing to pull up historical records going back to the start of the Clan Worlds Alliance and even further back. He was learning why the galaxy was the way it was, but not what he wanted to know.
A memory surfaced and he made a new search: Harbingers.
With a growing feeling of disquiet, Lambert began to read the new documents his search had brought up.
~~~
Combining a search for Lambert Stenger with a routine patrol seemed to Kyle like a worthwhile use of his time. Classes had just let out for the afternoon. This was frequently the time when shit happened. He had heard the term spoken by some sort of monster on a truly ancient, absolutely classic old Earth action/horror movie and it had stuck in his head. He considered ‘shit happens’ to be an excellent summary of the nature of the universe, not to mention exactly what you could expect when a bunch of young adults armed with lethal sorcery came rushing out of boring lectures.
He moved at a leisurely pace, taking his time and keeping his eyes open for problems. Marching around like you had a purpose tended to attract attention, which was not what he wanted. Kyle’s grandmother had been fond of the phrase ‘you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.’ Kyle had found that you caught more students up to no good by making sure they did not know you were there until you had them in an arm lock. Of course, students were not flies. Well, maybe some of them were not that different…
He was walking the boundary between the school – the part devoted to teaching – and the postgraduate research area when he finally spotted something wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, but also not right. Someone was wandering along a path, looking like they had no idea where they were or what they should be doing. They did not get many visitors at the school because it was some distance from the nearest town. The visitors they did get usually had some idea of what they were there for, or they were with someone who did. And on closer inspection, they were not usually a member of faculty reported missing that morning.
‘Professor Lambert Stenger?’ Kyle asked as he approached the confused man.
Lambert blinked at him. ‘Uh, yes. I think.’
‘You… think?’
‘I… I woke up in a storeroom. W-what day is it?’
‘Monday. We’ve been looking for you, Professor. There’s–’ Kyle stopped himself. If this was not some sort of act – and the man certainly looked confused – then Lambert might not take the destruction of his prized artefact well. Interrogation could come later. ‘Why don’t you come with me. We’ll get you checked out by a meditech and we’ll go from there.’
‘I need to get home. My wife, she’ll be worried.’
‘Medical check first. If they say you’re good, then we’ll get
