Chapter 51
Chapter 51
There are both costs and benefits of having a teacher who spends most of their time actively pursuing their chosen subject. The costs are simple and obvious: they aren’t always equipped to teach. Professor Tawny was not particularly talented in a classroom setting. His soft voice, his mild-mannered demeanor, his low energy, none of these things helped keep a student’s attention. His lectures, while technically informative, had as much flavor as an MRE. They lacked the ability to capture one’s interest.
In a classroom setting.
Fortunately, search and rescue is not a course that can be optimally taught indoors. At some point, a student must venture out into the world, and get in some good, old-fashioned, hands-on experience. And thus, the benefits of having an active professional teaching a course: connections.
“Tomorrow, we’ll be going to the Red Creek Ranch, about thirty miles northwest of the city,” Tawny explained to the class. “Gregoir is handing out pamphlets containing the location details, and your syllabus includes the address as well.”
Dan quietly examined what he was certain was a tourism advert as Gregoir whistled merrily past him.
“I’ve arranged for a van to be here tomorrow morning, for those of you lacking transportation,” the dog-eared officer continued. “Take it or leave it; so long as you arrive on time, I couldn’t care less how you arrive.”
Fred raised his hand, getting a nod from Tawny.
“What will we be doing there, sir?” the ginger asked. Despite Tawny’s request for informality, the youngest student had never failed to include a ‘Sir’ or an ‘Officer’ at the end of every sentence. The lawman eventually stopped correcting him. He clearly recognized a lost cause when he saw one.
Tawny scratched the side of his head, just beneath his ears. “I, and several of my associates, will run you through a few drills, followed by a simulated grid search of the habitat. It’s a reasonably popular location for wilderness hikes, and people get lost on occasion.”
Fred’s eyebrows shot upward. “More private investigators?” His voice was loud, incredulous. Also, accidental, if his reddening face was any indication.
Fortunately, Tawny seemed to take no offense at the less than subtle shade thrown at his former profession. He smiled blandly. “Not as such, Mr. Sawyer. Two additional officers will meet us there, both as qualified as I. In addition, there will be three certified volunteers, who will accompany you throughout the ranch, and an upgrade analyst.”
The last item caught Dan off guard. “Upgrade analyst?” he asked, wincing as he realized that his hand was lowered.
“Yes,” Tawny nodded, apparently in a forgiving mood. “She’ll be taking a look at each of your upgrades, and advising you on how they can best be used for search and rescue. Specifically, in a forest environment. She might give you more than that, but don’t expect it. She charges quite a bit, and this was a favor for me.”
Dan, actually raising his hand this time, remarked, “I’ve never heard of a profession like that.”
“They are not common,” Tawny confirmed with a shrug. “Dead useful, though.” He took a moment to consider it. “I believe they are most commonly used when someone is changing professions, but said person has an extremely specialized upgrade. An upgrade analyst steps in, figures out how the specialized upgrade can be adapted for a different job, and voila! These are people who regularly think outside the box, so to speak, so pay close attention to whatever she says.”
“Of course,” Dan said, an affirmation echoed by his fellow students.
“Right.” A nod. “Any other questions?”
The dog-eared officer glanced around the room before nodding once more. “Okay then. Van departs here at 8:30 in the morning. Don’t be late. If you aren’t here, I’m assuming that you’ve found alternate transportation. Class dismissed.”
There was no grand screeching of chairs at this announcement, just a light shuffling. Laptops and notebooks were put away at moderate speed, and Tawny was the first person out the door. Fred followed soon after, having brought and used the very minimum amount of school supplies. He walked out the door with a cheerful, “Catch you later!” and a jaunty wave.
Dan’s packing did not take long. He simply had to shut his laptop, and loop an arm through his satchel. His power made transportation rather trivial, and he was usually the first to disappear from the room.
Not today. For the first time in… ever, Dan waited. Freya put away her laptop, her spare notebook, neatly organized her pens inside a dark blue case, and stacked everything evenly within her backpack. She stood up and made for the door. Gregoir was still in the room, a fact that physically pained Dan, but it was now or never.
“Freya,” he called, immediately realizing his mistake. She spun to face him, disapproval blazing in her eyes.
“Miss Valentine,” Dan amended carefully. Her visage softened not at all, but he continued bravely onward. “How is Mister Graham?”
He was slightly ashamed that it had taken two weeks to ask the question. In his defense, he had been doing his best to avoid Gregoir without being obvious about it. This had mostly involved leaving the class room as quickly as possible whenever there was an opportunity. The big man, in turn, had persevered in his efforts to corner Dan, bearing his escapes with relentless good cheer.
Dan wasn’t even sure why he was avoiding Gregoir, other than the fact that he really did not want to have a conversation about their mutual adventure. Dan had zero interest in reliving that day; he had only just stopped feeling guilty about the whole mess, and Gregoir was sure to bring it up.
Even so, it wasn’t right for Dan to ignore the actual victim of kidnapping (Gregoir didn’t count). He had said all of maybe ten words to Freya in the past two weeks. She wasn’t rude, nor cold, so much as distant. She had clammed up, hard, after her initial argument with Fred, and only offered opinions when directly called upon. Dan lacked the social kung-fu necessary to fight past her defenses, so he had settled for a battering ram.
It worked. For the briefest of moments, Freya’s indifferent mask broke. Something fragile and sad flitted across her face, before the wall went back up. She inhaled softly, spoke quietly.
“He is well.”
Dan frowned. He had hoped for more than that. “He’s holding up okay?”
“Of course,” Freya replied politely. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
“…Because he got kidnapped?” His response was slow, dripping in sarcasm, as if speaking to a particularly dim child. The kind of response he’d give Abby when they argued with each other. As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. His jaw clicked shut, and visibly cringed at himself.
Freya was equally unimpressed. Her expression closed off and grew haughty. “He signed the same forms as you. He understood the risks.”
Ah well, in for a penny, in for a pound.
“Nobody takes those seriously, though,” Dan pointed out. “It’s just, like, a disclaimer.”
The younger woman’s eyes flashed with anger. “We took them seriously!” she snarled. “Of course we took them seriously! I don’t know what your mentors taught you, that allows you stand there and spout such disrespectful tripe, but mine made sure we knew the risks long before we stepped foot into that police precinct!”
Why does Dan say things? Why does he ever open his big stupid mouth? Disaster only ever follows.
He backpedaled harder than a cat dropped into a tub.
“I didn’t mean that literally!” he exclaimed. “I just meant— well, nobody expects something to go wrong. Not on something like a ride along. It shouldn’t have happened.” He could see Gregoir slump out of the corner of his eye.
Freya’s eyes narrowed, examining his face for deceit. Dan didn’t know what she saw, aside from sheer panic, but she sighed.
“No, it shouldn’t have,” the Nordic goddess agreed wearily. Her anger was like a match, burning brightly, then fading away. “It says much about your skills that you were able to escape.”
Dan managed not to flinch. “That was pure luck. My p— um, personal upgrade interacted oddly with the kidnapper’s.”
The look she graced him with could’ve been prescribed as a laxative. For an elephant. “And the capture of the criminal’s accomplice? Was this, too, pure luck?”
“Ah, no.” He had fucked up somewhere during this conversation. Most likely dozens of times. “That one was all me.”
Freya smiled bitterly. “You escaped a professional mercenary, defeated another, stopped a bomb plot, brought critical information to the police. All of these things, while my intended was held captive, helpless. At another’s mercy. Yet you ask me: How is he doing? How do you think he is doing, Mister Newman?”
Ah. That was… not something Dan had considered. Mostly, because he found the idea ridiculous.
“He shouldn’t compare himself to me.”
Freya cocked an eyebrow. “If not you, then who? Officer Pierre-Louis?” She gestured with her chin, to the skulking Gregoir, who was doing a terrible job of hiding behind a potted plant. “Should he compare himself to the man that freed them both, effortlessly? A fully trained, veteran officer? Or to you? The man who was never captured in the first place?”
“Neither,” Dan replied with pursed lips. “My success or failure has nothing to do with him.” Dan had learned that lesson a long time ago. Envy was not Dan’s sin. He coveted his own growth, not that of others.
The girl wasn’t biting. “You appeared before us, an untrained civilian,” she informed him. “A talented one, perhaps, but not someone who has spent his life training for a moment like the one you faced several weeks ago. You faced the same trials as my Connor, and you succeeded, whereas he failed. How can you claim no relation?”
Dan flailed for an answer, but debating had never been his strong suit. He wasn’t here to play word games. He had only wanted to assuage that small part of him that still felt guilty, not solve whatever idiotic mental problems Graham was facing. Time for the battering ram once more.
“Just to clarify,” Dan said slowly, not bothering to hide his annoyance, “Graham is not doing well, because I managed to get myself out of a dangerous situation, without help, and he did not. Because I managed to capture a dangerous criminal, and he did not. Because he had to be rescued, and I did not? And now he’s, I dunno, moping somewhere, alone, like fucking Eeyore?”
“That is an accurate summation,” Freya replied dryly, not batting an eye at his Winne-the-Pooh reference.
“Right.” Dan nodded. “Tell him to get over himself.”
Freya rolled her eyes at Dan, unimpressed by his bravado. “I did that already.”
“You— what?” Dan floundered, mouth dropping. His reaction didn’t win a smile from Freya, but it was likely a close thing.
“My fiancé suffers an overabundance of pride,” Freya explained head tilting slightly skyward. “Male ego.” The words were lamenting. “The curse of your gender.”
“Yeah, you’ve got no ego at all,” Dan drawled.
“I have confidence in my abilities,” Freya sniped back, preening slightly. “I know what I am capable of. When I encounter something I am not, I strive to learn it.”
Something clicked in Dan’s head. A proud girl, sitting anxiously at the police precinct. Called back early, told that her lover was missing. Waiting for news of a rescue that might never come. Unable to do a thing.
“You don’t like being helpless.”
Her face settled back into aloof superiority. “No.”
“Right.” Dan considered the situation. How much he was willing to help. How badly he was willing to inconvenience himself. He didn’t care about these people, not really.
But it was the right thing to do. Probably.
“Tell Graham that we never got to settle the score between us,” Dan suggested. “Tell him I think he’s a puffed up peacock, and that I’ll be waiting for whatever challenge his narrow little mind can conjure.”
Freya seemed to bristle automatically at the insults, but subsided once she processed his words. After a considering moment, she admitted, “That might actually work.” A pause, then she spoke once more, her voice containing the barest hint of gratitude. Small, so small, but there. “Thank you.”
“Sure,” Dan replied, extremely done with this conversation. He had just consigned himself to spending time with someone he very much disliked, for an indeterminate amount of time. Because he was an idiot. At least he had the field trip to look forward to.
Freya nodded politely, shouldered her backpack, and left the room. Dan was left alone.
Except for Gregoir, still hiding behind a potted plant.
Dan glanced to him. The gregarious blonde’s eyes darted to the door, where Freya had just left, then back to Dan. A smile broke out on his face, and he stepped out from behind his ‘cover’, a greeting on his lips.
Yeah, no. Dan had met his limit on insane interactions for today. He’d deal with Gregoir later.
He closed his eyes, and fell into the void.