looking up.
I realized I had been making a kind of growling noise in the back of my throat.
“We need to find them,” I said and then paused. Who said drinking jumbo coffees wasn’t good for you? My brain was now working. I looked around, especially at the windows of the buildings surrounding the quad.
“They’re already here. They must be. They’d have wanted to see what happened with their stunt. Video it.”
Alice nodded. Okay, so maybe my brainstorm wasn’t such a big deal. She’d already thought of it.
“Yeah. They’re here. Bound to be. Several on the force have already fanned out into the quad buildings now, looking for who shouldn’t be there at this hour.”
Well, good, but there was a lot of space to cover.
I turned to talk to Adelaide, and she was looking at the screen of her cell phone.
“I just wrote an email to Abubakar. I’m asking him to come to my office as soon as he can. I didn’t say why.” She continued to look down at the phone, re-read what she’d written, I assumed, and pressed send.
A heavy sigh escaped her lips that seemed to rise all the way up from the bottom of the soles of her feet.
“We’ll need an emergency faculty meeting, too. Update the others. What a mess.” Her large shoulders slumped. She’d fought hard for this new appointment in our department. I had too.
Adelaide said a brisk good-bye and indicated she was heading to the office. Alice turned away and walked toward her colleagues collecting the flyers.
I threw away my empty coffee cup and walked over to the center of the quadrangle. I just stood there alone and then turned slowly and faced each building in turn. I wanted them to see me, their beloved image of the white, Viking goddess. I was silently promising them they would find out what it is like to piss off a Viking goddess.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Alice asked from behind me.
“You know exactly what I’m doing, Alice,” I said, not stopping my slow turn around the quad.
“This is what happens when you drink a whole jumbo cup of coffee, you know,” Alice said, deadpan.
Yeah, well maybe. But right then, I was so incensed I could feel my blood pounding in my ears. If I’d had a sword, I would have waved it over my head.
“I’m coming for you,” I vowed, glaring at the dark, staring eyes of the windows on the encircling buildings where I knew they’d be watching. Then I realized I’d spoken aloud.
“Oh crap,” said Alice. “Here we go again.”
Chat Room of Video Game “Revenge”
Monday, early morning
Demon196: u did great, showed those N****** what the F*** is down white is right white is power
Vampire726: no s***, no s*** shoulda seen those C***s lookin at it the N***** bitch and the white bitch what the F***s up with that she’s like Sonja in Mortal Kombat big tits huge
Demon196: betraying her race that white C*** needs to be taught a lesson for damn sure hangin with that N***
Moloch111: damn right what’s next, what’s next
Demon196: Not here
Chapter 2
Go to university? Modern day propaganda factories
Monday
After I had finished glaring at the windows of the buildings on the quadrangle, I realized I had time to hurry home and have breakfast with my twin boys, Sam and Mike. Adelaide had already texted that the emergency faculty meeting would start at 8 a.m. I looked at my watch. It was barely seven. As I jogged along the sidewalk, I reflected how much I could get done if I always got up this early. Hah. No chance of that. I am not a morning person.
The boys and I lived a scant three blocks from the campus, the reason, and really the only reason, I’d bought our aging Prairie Victorian house. It needed substantial renovation, and the contractor I’d hired had barely started. He’d taken my deposit check, sent some painters who took months to dab paint on the outside, and I hadn’t seen him since. Another problem to address, but not right now.
A live-in couple, Carol and Giles Diop, helped me with the boys and the household chores. Carol, who was from Maine, was finishing a Masters degree at the School of Social Work. Giles, who was from Senegal, was a math Ph.D. candidate. They had a separate apartment on the top floor of the rambling wreck we called home. I’d texted Carol that there was an on-campus emergency before I had dashed off before dawn.
“Mom!” There was a joint chorus from the back of the house where the kitchen was located as soon as I opened the door. Our golden retriever, Molly, woofed a greeting, but stayed where she was. She would never abandon her spot under the kitchen table while the boys were having breakfast. Food rained down for her like mana from heaven when the kids ate. Dog theology is very literal. Why not? It works for them.
I headed back to the kitchen and greeted the boys, who were bouncing around in their seats at the kitchen table, and Giles, who was standing by the stove, stirring a heavy, cast-iron pot. Carol must have been upstairs. Giles did all the cooking and, if your stomach could take the spices, it was marvelous. What I smelled was Senegalese flour porridge. If you didn’t stir it, I knew, it became a big lump.
“You have not eaten, yes?” Giles said, not turning his head from the pot. “I have made Bori. It is ready.” He lifted the heavy pot and turned, carrying it over to where the boys and Molly were squirming around waiting. Giles was about 5’8” and very thin, but he was also very strong. His wiry arms handled the cast-iron like it was a teacup.
I got my own bowl out of the cupboard and hurried over, holding it out like I was one of the kids. Giles ladled the Bori into our bowls, gave us all his shy smile, and then, seeing Molly’s disappointment, went to her bowl on the floor and scooped some of the porridge into it. Giles cannot bear to disappoint anyone.
The boys and Molly started literally inhaling their food. Not a moment was spared by my children to converse with Mom. Usually, at least Mike, my oldest by about 15 minutes, would have quizzed me on where I had gone so early. But now, at seven, it was food first, talk after. They could eat nearly as much as I could. I thought perhaps they were in a growth spurt. I looked across the breakfast table at the two heads bent over their bowls. Their thick, chocolate brown hair was tousled and when they looked up with their dark brown eyes, they were the mirror image of their father, Marco Ginelli. My Marco. A Chicago detective who had been killed in the line of duty when they were less than a year old. I still believed Marco had been murdered, but I’d never been able to prove it. I felt a sharp pang of grief. I shook myself. Of course I was feeling emotional given the way the day had begun. Emotion bleeds from one hurt to another.
“So, guys, backpacks packed and ready to go?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said, one hand suspiciously under the table. I could tell he was holding his bowl down for Molly to lick.
“Great,
