The Paladin Prophecy

AJAY JANIKOWSKI

Ajay darted ahead of Will into the hallway and through a side door.

“We’ll take the stairs,” said Ajay. “The elevators date from the early days of the Harry S. Truman administration. They’d finish third in a race with a glacier and a deceased postal worker.”

Ajay bounded down the stairs ahead of him, brimming with energy he hardly seemed able to contain. Will struggled to keep up with him.

“How badly are you injured?” asked Ajay.

“Not seriously.”

“And you just arrived this morning. Where did you fly in from?”

“Southern California.”

“Are those the only clothes you brought with you?”

“More or less.”

Ajay stopped on a landing and assessed him. “You’re going to die almost immediately from hypothermia.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“How much money do you have?” asked Ajay.

“What comes below abject poverty?”

“Tell me you don’t already have a mad crush on Brooke.”

Will finally caught up, his head throbbing. “What makes you think that?”

Ajay shook his head in disappointment and continued down. “Good God, man, we have our work cut out for us.”

Ajay pushed through the ground floor door and set the same brisk pace outside toward campus. The temperature had warmed considerably, from crippling to just below disfiguring. Will zipped up his jacket and shivered.

“Why would you assume I have a crush on Brooke?” asked Will.

“Please, Will. Destiny clearly intends, by virtue of domestic proximity, some form of friendship for us, but you simply must acknowledge the danger of our situation.”

“What would that be?”

Ajay’s big eyes got even wider. “Why, the astonishing and nearly supernatural attractiveness of not just our two extraordinary roommates, but the school’s entire female population.”

“You mean … they’re all like Brooke?”

“No, that’s just it,” said Ajay, gesturing expansively. “They’re all as different as snowflakes. Beautiful, interesting girls, each capable, in her own delicious way, of driving you to madness. Any red-blooded male would swim shark-infested waters with a Bantu spear through his leg to change places with us. But if you don’t control yourself, your nervous system will detonate like a string of firecrackers. A bomb-sniffing dog couldn’t save you.”

“How old are you?” asked Will.

“Fifteen. But chronological age is a most unreliable method of evaluation.”

“Okay, so I think Brooke is a flat-out slammin’ babe and will someday rule the world. That better?”

“Yes! We’ve established that you’re not a robot.”

Ajay slapped him on the back, laughed heartily, and led them into one of the larger buildings. A substantial sign read STUDENT UNION. It did nothing to prepare Will for what awaited inside.

The student union was the size of a shopping mall. A grocery store took up the southwestern corner. He saw a laundry and dry cleaners next door to a bank, a massive sporting goods store, and a store offering every art or academic supply imaginable. The school bookstore seemed to go on forever. It opened into a busy food court offering eight different cuisines, none of which looked fast, cheap, or unhealthy. Across from that was a duplex movie theater; one showed a film that was still in general release. Ajay explained the other theater ran only classics from the “Golden Age”—way back, before Star Wars—as part of a film studies course. The marquee read HITCHCOCK’S “REAR WINDOW.” Next door was the six-lane bowling alley and soda fountain that he’d seen in the school’s promotional materials.

Will followed Ajay into a clothing store as big as a football field, with row after row of every item you could imagine in variations of the school colors. Will felt overwhelmed and intensely aware he had only a hundred dollars left in his wallet.

“Start your engines,” said Ajay, handing Will a wheeled shopping cart. “I’ll be right back.”

Ajay hurried off. Will pushed the cart to the winter wear section. He didn’t see any price tags, but the piece he wanted most—a heavy blue fleece sweatshirt with a gray CIL embroidered on the chest—had to cost half of what he had to his name. Reluctantly he tossed it into the cart. He was trying to decide whether to spend the rest on a pair of khakis or a rugby shirt when Ajay returned.

“This was waiting for you at the counter,” said Ajay. “You didn’t tell me you were on full scholarship, man. That’s a horse of a different color.”

Ajay handed him a thick plastic credit card. It was blank, with the same deep blackness he’d seen in Robbins’s expanding tablet. Ajay ran a finger along its outer edge, activating a sensor. The school’s crest appeared, floating in its center. Below that was a sixteen-digit code number and the name WEST.

Will turned it over. A standard magnetized credit card strip ran along the back. His parents had explained how these strips worked, how banks and companies used them to store confidential information they’d gathered about you. He wondered how much information was already embedded here.

“Do they take cash?” asked Will.

“Cash? For heaven’s sake, man, you don’t need cash anymore. You have the Card now. You can use it everywhere.”

“Did they mention what my limit is?”

“If there is a limit, it will now be your job to find it,” said Ajay.

Living expenses, books and supplies, all included. Once again, Dr. Robbins had delivered what she’d promised.

“Let’s do it,” said Will.

Will dropped the pants and the rugby shirt into the cart. He’d never shopped anywhere without the pressure of a budget. The prospect made him giddy, but despite Ajay’s encouragement to break the bank, he still felt like he was taking advantage. Ajay kept tossing things into the cart and Will kept putting them back.

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