"
I
," I said archly, "am even reliably able to operate the square root button on my calculator!" On that high note, I waved goodbye and turned from the door, more light laughter behind me.
"I hope you're ready for tomorrow," Shawn called after me.
Shit. I could not go back now and interrogate her about Jimmy's nefarious plot. I'd dropped the mike and left. You don't turn around after that, go back and say, 'um, and I have a few questions, if you don't mind.'
And why, I asked myself as I bounced back down the stairs, was she so focused on whether I was ready for tomorrow? Or was she wondering if I was prepared for whatever Jimmy had cooked up?
*
Sunday, when my alarm went off, I was out of bed like a shot, ready for the day. I was clear-headed, with no hangover from booze or sex. I'd been a good boy the night before. It had been agony... There had been not one, but two opportunities, neither with any downsides, and both unlikely to present themselves a second time. A month ago, I'd have viewed either of those girls as a once in a lifetime opportunity worth chewing my leg off for, but I had held firm and went to bed by myself.
Mitch slept through my awakening, dressing and departure. Bastard.
The dining hall does not open on Sundays until 9:30, because why would it? The only people up at 7:15 on a Sunday are zealots, and people under the thumbs of the evil anti-vampires of the engineering faculty, who all explode into a cloud of dust unless they are up, having shit, showered, and shaved, by the crack of dawn. I went through our common room, used the machine there to brew a double cup of French Roast, and toasted a couple of Pop-Tarts I brought down from my desk drawer.
I met Dale at the engineering building right at eight on the dot. Most of the other competitors arrived also within plus or minus two minutes of our official start time. Precision's kind of our thing.
Ever since about 10-15 years ago, when the faculty had discovered that normal people would show up for the Vehicle Demonstration, the competition mercifully had been moved to 10:30. But we participants still were required to be there early to go over the rules and endure other last minute discussions... every single element of which we had all been over collectively, 25 times before.
The meeting was done with more than an hour before the actual start of the competition, and we all wandered off in our teams. Most pairs were feverishly having last-minute discussions, making plans or still, amazingly, working on their machines. Dale dismissed any of that last group as potential contenders, and I agreed. I looked around and there were maybe five other teams that were just sitting around like us, waiting. They were our competition.
The only tense moment for everyone was when we got the signal and everyone picked up our vehicles and carefully, oh, so carefully, carried them out in a group to the courtyard garden in front of the Mechanical Engineering building. Professor Thalmann, who thinks he is as funny as he actually is brilliant, had the idea to play the Olympic Fanfare on the portable karaoke machine he had brought to announce the teams and narrate the event to the ignorant masses who came to watch. We, to a man and woman, all felt ridiculous walking out there. But I swear to God, everybody stopped slouching.
And there was approaching an actual mass of spectators lining the garden, leaning on railings. Small clots of kids waved or called out encouragement when one team or another appeared through the doorway. It was anything but crowded, but it was a heady amount of attention for most of us. When Dale and I came through, I saw no one from my dorm, and heard no reaction other than a scattered, 'Oooh' here and there as someone recognized me as a participant. My Reputation held everywhere.
The lack of my 'supporters' did not disappoint me. It made me nervous. I was quite sure that whatever Shawn wanted me to be 'ready' for, it was not nobody showing up. I shook my head and concentrated on not dropping the vehicle. I knew of no other dorm groups that were coming to this, and I was sure someone had made mine late. Or they were doing it intentionally, to make me stew.
Dale's and my turn for our main run would come about two-thirds of the way through the morning, so we had a while to wait. I scanned the area. The garden that was the venue has two levels. There is a pond down below in the center, surrounded by a sidewalk that also allows access to doors leading into the building's basement. That level is surrounded by a circular embankment, thick with low flowers and other foliage, and there is a second walkway with hand rails circling the ridge of that slope. There is a sweeping, semi-circular ramp that curves up from the sidewalk across the pond from the building, along the left embankment, reaching the ground level sidewalk just at the entrance on the main floor.
Our little wood and paper cars had to drive themselves across the lower level sidewalk, then up the ramp, and then across the straight sidewalk up top. The idea was for it to do that without being touched more than twice by the makers after the start. Yes, it is not an easy thing to make such a vehicle, and power it with a single rubber band.
The order of participants was supposedly random, but if the first two groups were not deliberately picked by Professor Thalmann, I'll eat my hat.
The first group were two girls from my section, who were both competent but uninspired engineering prospects. They followed the basic, provided design example, built the machine well, did everything you are suggested to do... and failed gently. They ran out of power on the ramp twice, which cost them big points for each re-wind. At the top, when they took the second of their two allowed 'adjustment time-outs' to straighten out their wheels for the final, flat straightway, they broke the axel. Once they had fixed it, their vehicle crossed the finish line almost a minute and forty-five seconds beyond the allowed window.
It was a perfect example of a workman-like failure, just as most others would be.
At the start of the run, I had been scanning the assembled onlookers, waiting for my 'cheering section' to arrive. Most spectators were arrayed along the railing atop the bluff, leaning casually and looking down. Many had just been walking by and had stopped to see what was going on. Across the way, I saw a girl that I did not recognize. She stood out in the crowd, in part because parts of her stood out on her body... outstandingly, and in part because she clearly recognized my face, and knew about me. She wasn't watching the crowd, she was watching me, an openly speculative look on her plain but pretty enough face.
The second run was what many people were here for.
Caden and Kyle were also in my section, and the sooner they realized that Mechanical Engineering was not their calling, the safer it would be for all humanity. They still labored under delusions, however.
Their vehicle was decorated ridiculously, with flames and racing stripes painted all over it (quite expertly), and two cool little flags waving overhead. Maybe one or both of them should transfer to the Art department.
"They must have 300 grams of paint and accessories on that thing," Dale marveled. We had allowed ourselves 35 grams of paint for some restrained racing stripes. And we had argued about budgeting that much mass.
Caden and Kyle's little car, in all its glory, shot off far too fast across the lower flat at the start and smacked into the concrete wall at the base of the ramp. I suppose that that was one way to avoid having to figure out how to stop your car before reconfiguring it for the ramp...
The crowd oohed. I looked up for the busty chick who had been checking out Shower Guy, but she had moved on. Oh, well.
Caden and Kyle ran over to their car, which had miraculously not shattered, and carefully adjusted the steering to a marked point. They set it down, thoroughly rewound, at the bottom of the ramp, and let it go. They of course had the turn radius miscalculated, and it ran into the curb on the outside of the curb, bouncing into the air and letting all the power left in the rubber band unwind uselessly. As they sprinted up the ramp after it, having to use their second allowed touch of the vehicle too soon, I rolled my eyes upward.
And found that my boobalicious stalker had not left, but had repositioned herself along the upper level railing right over my head. In tight jeans, and a pink teeshirt tucked into the waistband, straining over her bust, she looked quite nice from the angle below. She wasn't looking at me right now, but she had to have chosen the new vantage on purpose.
The competitors had rewound, and adjusted the steering again. They let the car go.
Of course they had over-corrected the turn radius. And over-wound the rubber band.
The car shot off, turning too hard toward the right. It missed any of the vertical supports of the metal rail and shot out into the air at high speed. It curved gently through the air, like every junker car from every bad 70's TV cop show, and proved that as an aircraft, it was even worse than as a car. It plummeted down and into the pond, shattering on impact and sinking the two feet to the bottom, still visible through the murky water. Bits that came loose bobbed to the surface.
The cheers were deafening. Even Caden and Kyle laughed and high-fived sheepishly. Idiots.
I shook my head and looked upward. The girl was still there, laughing and pointing at the additional pieces of half a semester's wasted opportunity, as they bobbed to the surface.
