Quinn had a few moments so she wandered across the lab to where Dr. Emerson was reading a journal article. He looked up at her approach and smiled.
"Taking a break?" he said.
Quinn nodded. "My computer's tied up with some number crunching on that reuptake program. It'll be another ten minutes or so till it's done."
"Very good." He nodded and returned to his article.
"Uh, Dr. Emerson," Quinn said, not sure of how to broach this. She'd rehearsed her opening all last night and most of today, but still she felt awkward. "Can I ask you a strange question?"
"Sure," he said, still reading. "Go ahead. I've always liked strange questions."
"What's going on here?"
He looked up at her over the tops of his reading glasses.
"I'd think you'd know the answer to that by now. We're putting 9574 through—"
"No. Not here in your lab. I mean in the school. In The Ingraham. What's going on here?"
Dr. Emerson put the journal down and removed his reading glasses. He stared at her.
"I'm not quite sure I'm following you, Quinn."
She dropped into the seat opposite him. "I'm not sure I'm following me either. It's all so vague." She groped for the right words, the appropriate analogy, but came up empty. "It's just that everybody here at The Ingraham seems to think alike, seems to have the same point of view."
"That's not so unusual, really," Dr. Emerson said. "It happens at many academic institutions. Certain points of view gain favor with an influential segment of a department, take root, bloom, and draw other like-minded individuals. As this group gains influence and tenure, those who strongly disagree with its positions tend to drift away, while those who agree or are indifferent stay on. Look how the deconstructionists came to rule the English department at Yale. Or—"
"But I'm not talking about a department. I'm talking about a whole institution—students and faculty alike."
"The Ingraham? Maybe you'd better explain."
Quinn took a deep breath. How was she going to explain this in a sane and coherent manner when it all sounded pretty crazy to her?
"Everyone's starting to sound like Dr. Alston."
Dr. Emerson burst out laughing. "Oh, I hope not! I truly hope not!"
"It's true. They're all starting to sound like his lectures. Why just last night—"
Dr. Emerson put one hand and her arm and raised the other to wave someone in from the hall.
"Arthur! Come in, Arthur. I want you to hear this."
Quinn turned and started at the sight of Dr. Alston strolling through the door and approaching them. What was Dr. Emerson doing? Was he trying to get her in more trouble with Dr. Alston?
"You remember Miss Cleary, don't you?"
"Ah, yes," Dr. Alston said, nodding to her. "The object of my wrath a few weeks ago. I do believe I overreacted. My apologies, Miss Cleary."
"I'm glad you apologized, Arthur," Dr. Emerson said. "Because Quinn here just paid you a compliment."
Dr. Alston smiled thinly as he looked down at her. "Did she now? And what did she say?"
Quinn fought the urge to tell him not to refer to her in the third person. She was here in the same room and quite able to answer for herself.
"She thinks you're a very persuasive lecturer."
The thin smile broadened. "Is that so?"
"Yes. She says the whole student body is beginning to sound like you."
Dr. Alston's gaze became penetrating. "May I infer from your perspective that you have somehow managed to remain immune to the sway of my rhetoric?"
Quinn swallowed. This wasn't going well at all.
"I think you argue your points very well, but I find it difficult to accept the concept of rationing medical care on the basis of social and economic worth."
"Given the inevitability of such rationing," he said, his manner cooling quickly, "what criteria do you propose?"
"I don't think I'm qualified to make decisions of that magnitude," Quinn said. "I don't know if anybody is. But I've read where it used to be widely held that global communism was inevitable, how it was only a matter of time before Marxism took over the world. And now the USSR is gone. I'm sure there are plenty of other 'inevitabilities' that have never become reality."
"I'm sure there are too, Miss Quinn," Dr. Alston said, nodding slowly as he stared at her. His gaze made her uncomfortable. "I'm glad we had this little talk. You've given me something to ponder."
He nodded goodbye to her and Dr. Emerson, then left.
Quinn shook off a chill and turned back to Dr. Emerson.
"Am I such a Pollyanna?" she said. "I mean, why do I seem to be the only one in The Ingraham who isn't falling into line behind Dr. Alston's bleak outlook?"
"Knowing Arthur," Dr. Emerson said, "I'm sure he's wondering the very same thing."
*
As Louis Verran approached Alston's office in the faculty building, he wondered what Dr. Tightass wanted. Whatever it was, he knew it couldn't be good. Not from the tone of voice he'd heard on the phone a few minutes ago.
Please come to my office immediately, Louis. I have made a fascinating discovery that I wish to share with you.
Right. Verran had little doubt that the fascinating discovery meant Alston had tripped over a glitch in security and was going to rub his nose in it. He just hoped he hadn't somehow heard about the lost bug.
Damn it! Where the hell was it? They'd swept the halls on both levels of the dorm but still hadn't found it.
Verran knew he wouldn't have a decent night's sleep until he'd found the damn thing.
He knocked on Alston's door.
"Come," came the reply from the other side.
Come? Gimme a fuckin' break!
He stepped into the office—dark, oak paneled, the largest in the building, befitting Alston's status as DME—and saw him behind his desk, leaning back in his chair, his fingers steepled before his mouth, looking like the proverbial cat with a bad case of canary breath.
Verran took one of the chairs without asking. He noted with satisfaction how Alston stiffened when he put his feet up on the desk.
"What's up, Doc?"
"One of the dorm SLI units is malfunctioning—and please take your shoes off my desk."
Verran dropped his feet to the floor to cover his relief. Alston hadn't heard about or found the bug.
"Yeah? Which room?"
"I don't know the number, but I know the student's name. You're capable of following up from there. But I didn't call you here merely for informational purposes. A simple phone call would have sufficed for that. The truth is, I'm more than a little disturbed by the fact that if I hadn't learned of this by sheer happenstance, she might have gone all semester without hearing the night music."
Verran had to admit this was no petty matter. A malfunctioning SLI undercut The Ingraham's very purpose. But Alston's notion didn't necessarily equate with an established fact.
"What makes you think it's not working? I doubt the student came up and told you."
Alston smiled. "In a way, she did. She told me she saw all her fellow students swinging their points of view toward mine on certain matters, and she couldn't understand why." He leaned forward. "Obviously her viewpoints are not changing. Ergo, she's not hearing the music. Conclusion: her SLI is malfunctioning. Can you dispute that?"
Vaguely uncomfortable now, Verran scratched his jaw. "No. It's logical."
"My question, Louis," Alston continued, "is why didn't you know about the malfunctioning unit?"
Verran shrugged. "All our SLI indicators are green. No signs of trouble anywhere. Every unit got its usual overhaul this summer. Everything checks out fine every night."
Alston furrowed his brow. "But something is obviously awry. I want you to check into it immediately."
Verran gritted his teeth. He didn't need Dr. Tightass to tell him that.