Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [66]
“Do you have any ideas yet?” Will asked him. “Anyone you’d like to research?”
“The first thought that came to mind was James T. Kirk,” Dennis told him. “But then, I figure he’ll get a dozen of those.”
“You’re better off picking someone less well known,” Will agreed. “Less competition for original ideas, less chance that Kimball will have already reached his own conclusions.”
“Harder to find source material, though,” Dennis said as they walked across the open campus. “If I pick someone who’s not well known.”
“There are ways around that,” Will told him. The sky was the color of lead, and cloudless, and the air carried that metallic, charged tang that it sometimes did when it seemed as if the weather might assert itself.
“What about you?” Dennis asked him. “Got any ideas? You’re always so good at coming up with creative twists.”
“I’ve got a couple of possibilities in mind,” Will said. This was a lie, though. He had made up his mind as soon as Kimball had described the assignment. He owned, thanks to his father, the diary of an ancestor named Thaddius Riker, who had fought in the American Civil War. That’s who he was going to write about-his own kin.
He and Dennis were continuing across campus toward their next class when Will noticed a familiar, dark-haired shape walking toward them. “It’s Felicia,” Dennis said.
“So it is,” Will noted. He hadn’t talked to Felicia much since the end of the last school year. He had thought that maybe she was interested in him, during Admiral Paris’s survival project. But after the project’s disastrous end, he had come out the superintendent’s office and she had been gone, halfway across the Quad, lost in conversation with Estresor Fil. He had kind of expected her to be waiting for him, and when she wasn’t he became convinced that his typical luck with women was holding, and he had only imagined that she might be attracted to him. Embarrassed by his own ineptitude, and moody and depressed at being, once again, stuck on Earth all summer, he had avoided contact with almost everyone he knew. The longer he had gone without talking to anyone, the more shy he had been when he’d seen them again. With Paul and Dennis and some of the others, he had fallen quickly back into old routines once school started up again. But with Felicia, he had never been able to overcome that double dose of awkwardness. And this year, they had no classes together. The few times he’d run into her it had been with a lot of people around, and he’d managed to avoid having an actual conversation with her.
Now as she approached, he saw on her lovely face a sly half-grin.
“Excuse me,” she said, projecting a naivete that he knew was an act, but which he found somehow appealing anyway. “You look a lot like a young man I used to know. His name was Will Riker. Have you ever heard of him?”
Will had to laugh. “Yes, Felicia,” he said. “Yes, I’m a big fat loser. I admit it. I’m sorry.”
“I was thinking along those same lines, Cadet Riker,” she said. “Though a little stronger, perhaps. Hello, Dennis.”
“Hi, Felicia.”
“I don’t suppose you’d mind leaving Cadet Riker and me alone for a little while,” she said, still directing her words to Dennis. “Will and I need to talk about how he’s going to atone for his foolish and, may I say, ungentlemanly behavior.”
Dennis seemed a bit flabbergasted, but she had made it clear that she was demanding this, not really asking, and he responded with his typical good humor. “I… uh, sure. I’ll leave you two alone. Send Will’s pieces back in a bag when you’re done with him.”
“I’ll do that, and thank you for your consideration.” She stood with her hands on her hips, watching Dennis get beyond earshot, then faced Will. Her stance was determined, and Will figured he was in for a severe admonishment. Which I no doubt deserve, he thought. Not that that’ll make it any easier to hear. She pointed to a nearby bench, and they both sat down.
“Felicia, I-” he began, hoping to ward off the brunt of her attack with some kind of excuse. But he didn’t really have one, and she