Room Reassignment

[Thunder Cascade]

Monday, July 6

Simple systems are the best systems. One meant all clear. Two meant someone was coming. Three meant it was a student. Four meant it was faculty. Five meant abort, they found out somehow and there are a lot of authority figures coming our way.

“One.” Arlina’s voice sounded softly in his ear. He’d put an earpiece into his phone, so he wouldn’t have to try to balance it on his shoulder while he worked.

“Fifteen and counting,” he replied softly. If it took him more than ten minutes, he’d be a little surprised. He slapped a pair of admittedly primitive blueprints up on the wall, the gummy tape crap he’d borrowed holding them there without a mark. They represented the rooms to left and right, namely Quads 10 and 11 of the girls’ dorms. Ves, Reimi, Elly and Kena. He didn't know Elly or Kena very well, but he knew the girls in 12 less, so it seemed like less of a risk.

If this worked, he’d be able to get everything from one into the other, and vice versa, at the same instant. If he couldn’t, or there was a delay… well, he genuinely had no idea what would happen then, but it was bound to be interesting. Besides, the school had to have some kind of budget for replacing things wrecked by super powered teens, and he was fairly sure he hadn’t used up whatever had been allotted to him yet. Being killed by the girls was a worry, but it would save him from the wrath of the nuns.

Both were empty at the moment. They’d made sure of that before they got started. Arlina was down at the entryway, pretending to be on the phone. And Ves would never see it coming. Sure, it wasn’t the worst he had, but it was a great chance to practice. He began going over the blueprint for Quad 10, visualizing the room, using the rough outlines drawn on the paper to remember where furniture was, how the place was arrayed, and tracing runes in the air that represented them with his left hand, in the direction of Quad 11.

“Half,” he murmured softly as he finished tracing the bed frame and pillows. He looked over the runes, taking slow breaths as he focused on keeping them there. If he slipped up now, and it went, it would be… bad wouldn’t sum it up. Four angry girls, a room with two rooms’ worth of things taking up the same space, and a faculty full of people with limited senses of humor wasn’t part of the plan.

He took a deep breath and started working from the diagram for Quad 11. “Two.” The voice sounded in his ear, and he froze, then strained to keep the spell from unraveling. Two was fine. More than two was when things got bad. Two and nothing else meant they walked by. He kept going.

“Three.” Mostly done. If it was just a student, odds were good they wouldn’t get this far. He focused on holding the spell and wove a net of invisibility over himself. With any luck, whoever it was wouldn’t get this far. Who’d be here at this time, anyway?

“Hey, Laurel.” A muffled voice responded. Casey thought for a moment, then blinked. He couldn’t remember which quad she was in, but he could’ve sworn she was in one of the ones past him. That meant panic. He let the spell sizzle, grabbed the blueprints, and ported into Vesper and Reimi’s room.

This would get very awkward if by some horrible mischance Vesper had asked Laurel to grab something for her. Very, very awkward. At best. He pondered that Laurel probably wasn’t the type to hurt him. Probably. He waited in absolute silence, refreshing his spell of invisibility before it failed just in case. He wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to see through it, but it never hurt to be sure. For all he knew she had crazy infrared sight or something.

Footsteps passed the door, and after a moment he heard a door down the hall open, then close. More waiting. After about a minute, the door opened again, then closed. More footsteps passed. Casey let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“One.”

He ported back out into the hallway, slapped the drawings back up, and started over. “Fifteen and counting… again,” he murmured, tracing the runes as quickly as he could, forcing himself to double-check each one to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.

“Two.” He had almost finished Quad 10 again. He kept going, waiting for another signal, but tensing to move again if he had to.

“One.” He relaxed, and almost lost the spell. One of the runes split apart, and there was a slight pop as something moved. He blinked. Nothing sounded broken. There would be time to figure out what that was later. He kept going, finished off the quad, then moved to Quad 11.

He realized as he traced the runes for Vesper and Reimi’s room that this was the kind of thing that would land him in detention for at least another month, maybe more. If they were particularly displeased, they might even make him put it all back. Maybe by hand. But it was way too late for him to back down now.

He finished the runes for Quad 11, then looked at each. Aside from the one that was missing, they were all there, and all looked good. He relaxed a bit, and began to release the spell, feeling the air move as things were switched from one room to the other.

“Two.”

A sudden jolt, and he lost the spell. This should be fine, of course, and Casey knew that. Everything should simultaneously switch places, he’d go make sure nothing went wrong, and then everything should be fine.

Of course, nothing was supposed to crunch, either. Suddenly he wondered how much it would cost to replace whatever he broke, how long that would translate into eating ramen and sponging off of Kasi, and if he’d still think it was worth it by the end. He ported into Vesper’s room first. And… it looked mostly fine.

That wasn’t why he’d gone in here first, naturally. The crunch came from the other room. Still, he was fairly confident he’d at least done things half right. He ported to the other room.

At first, it looked fine. Then he took a close look at the desk. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a… chair?” he murmured.

“I hope not, or we’re in trouble,” came the quiet reply. “Four.”

She might as well have pulled the fire alarm. Casey’s eyes widened, and he looked around rapidly. Then he noticed. The dresser had desk legs under it, that had obviously been violently broken off.

He shuddered at the thought of what either girl would do to him if they knew he’d gone through their stuff, but he had to know. He opened a drawer at random.

The good news, for his sense of self-preservation, was that there were pants in there. The bad news was that those pants were covered in hot wood slivers. “Whoops,” he murmured. “Found the chair. They’re gonna need a vacuum, I think. Maybe a dry cleaner.” He closed the drawer.

For a moment, he thought about what he must have done wrong, then he remembered there was a nun coming. And knowing the nuns, they would seek out his exact location by following the scent of fear. “Think we’re done here.” He went to the window, looked across the way, and ported to the roof of a building. “Man, I hope this is worth it.” Then he sneezed. “Freakin’ sawdust.”

[Vesper Fiend]

After having two days without classes, homework was hard to tackle on a Monday. Ves jammed her key into the lock cylinder, not too hard, given that it was hardly the lock’s fault, and opened the door. She was two steps into the room by the time she realized it wasn’t hers.

Only it was. Sort of. The furniture was mostly in the right place, but it was all wrong. The bedding was the wrong color. A handful of personal items adorned the desk and dresser, but they weren’t hers or Reimi’s. She’d never seen that radio before... She turned back to the door. Then she remembered the key in her hand. This had to be the right room.

She put her backpack and a couple of books on the nearest bed, and left the room. It was the right door alright. A detailed examination on her way in convinced her. The view from the window was right. Walls and ceiling looked pretty much normal down to the barely noticeable crack in the plaster above the window. Even the couple of posters and a picture of Jake tacked to the wall were in place.

”So what the hell is going on?” she wondered.

[Elly]

Elly stepped back out into the hall and checked the door. That was clearly a 10. This was the right quad. So why was all the furniture rearranged?

No, not just that. Those books on the shelves didn't belong here at all, unless Kena had done some major splurging at Barnes and Noble since that morning. And the pictures on the desks didn't belong either. Elly didn't have pictures on her desk, not even of Diyar; all the reasons to ask for one ("I want to be able to see your face even when you can't be there!") were too cheesy and pathetic for her to voice.

Had D snuck in here somehow and left one? She walked over to investigate and picked one up.

That damnable smile faced her.

That smile that faded into hiding, followed by its bearer, whenever it noticed her in the hall. That smile that would still present itself to Elly's tailed neighbor, who didn't seem to give a rat's ass what kind of bastard she was dating (engaged to!) That smile that, last October, Elly would have sold her soul to see again.

She threw the photo of Jacob against the wall. Some f#%$er was going to pay for this.