Sideswiped - Kim Harrison Page 0,2

drafted timelines and even better at fixing them back into a drafter’s mind. Too good, actually, to risk in the field. Blaming it on his size, they shoved him into theoretical, where he excelled in meshing the surety of electronics to the vagaries of the human mind. He already had one doctorate degree in psychology, gained before he found out he had the ability to be an anchor. Earning another in drafter studies was easy, seeing as he was adding to the technologies as he went.

“Silas.” Professor Woo was closer this time, and, seeing his professor’s inquiring glance, Silas shrugged. He didn’t know every drafter, just most.

Scowling, Professor Woo turned to the instructor who’d come in with him. “Go see if you can find out who that was,” he said, and, nodding, the older woman paced quickly back into the hall.

Students were beginning to stand, questions rising, and Professor Woo held up a hand. “Sit down. Sit down!” he said in perfect midwestern English. “Or all your tablets will be invalidated.” Eyebrows high, he looked at Silas’s red-framed tablet. “Doctor?” he questioned.

“She touched my tablet,” Silas said sourly, wondering if he could find out who she was that way.

Professor Woo squinted in concern as he pulled a handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and handed it to Silas. “It looks like she touched your forehead, too.”

Silas dabbed at it, relieved the blood had slowed.

Taking up Silas’s tablet, his professor typed in his instructor code and the flexible screen went dark. “You can retake it tomorrow,” he said as he rolled the tablet into a tube and tucked it away.

Annoyed, Silas glanced at the window. There was shouting coming in from beyond it, but he doubted the woman would need to draft again. She was good, exceptionally so, and probably a freshman, since he hadn’t seen her before. “Why?” he said, taking his coat as Professor Woo handed it to him. “Can’t you reset it? It was just a bump.”

But his professor shook his head and gestured at the door. The instructor had returned and was addressing the class, trying to get them settled and explaining how they were going to adjust the time for the interruption.

“I was coming to get you,” Professor Woo said as he put a small hand on Silas’s shoulder and got him moving toward the door. “Professor Milo’s assistant took a bad hit this morning in training and broke his wrist. They need someone to monitor the slick-suits in his finals. Now.”

Professor Milo? Silas’s pace slowed to a halt. The man was a prejudiced prick. “Can’t you get one of my students—?”

Smiling, Professor Woo shook his head and pushed open the door. Echoes from the hallway slipped in. “Busy with finals or gone for the summer, and no one needs extra credit that badly. Just do it, Silas,” the smaller man coaxed. “You never know when you’re going to need a favor. And besides, you might get more data for your thesis if someone drafts.”

The chances of that were pretty good, and, feeling the pinch of avarice, Silas let the testing door shut behind him with a small click. The expansive hallway was open to the courtyard at both ends, and he looked for any activity, seeing nothing. Getting more data would be worth it, and he went still as he remembered that tidy little draft, wishing she’d been wearing a slick-suit at the time so he could have seen her reach. It bothered him that he didn’t know her by sight, but he’d been letting his students do most of the slick-suit fittings lately, and so he didn’t know everyone anymore.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, and Professor Woo brightened, slapping him across the shoulders. “Where are they?”

“Thank you, Silas.” His professor reached into his suit coat’s inner pocket for an envelope. “If you’d said no, I would’ve had to do it, and I don’t know how to fix the suits if there’s a problem.”

Silas took the extended envelope. There were too many eyes and ears in Opti’s academy to risk saying aloud where this year’s drafter/anchor testing was, not when every student vied for any advantage.

“He’d like you there by eleven tonight to set up. You’re a lifesaver,” Professor Woo said. Then, giving Silas a last nod, he turned and strode briskly back to the testing room.

“Lifesaver,” Silas grumbled, not agreeing as he opened the paper. Sighing, he folded it back up and stuffed it away.

God bless it, I’m going to have to wear