Hubris (Book One of the Siren Tragedies)

Brilliance

Chapter 2: The Find

Greenridge, Maine was settling into the evening hours. The woodland area surrounding the small university was beginning to murmur with the sounds of cricket songs accompanied by the prickling voices of the grosbeaks that were searching for supper. The end of summer was still lingering around Greenridge, with the blusters of winter not encroaching for another few weeks. It was a place where continuity reigned supreme, and nothing out of the ordinary was likely to happen.

The school grounds were slowing in activity, as students either returned to the square brick buildings housing their dorms or settled into the library, where they would pull up whatever resources they could find on the topics they would be expected to research and write about for final papers due just two weeks before Christmas.

"I'm telling you, Shelly is stellar," a young man with dark brown skin and a vivid teal mohawk was insisting to his friend as he leaned against the table at which the other man was trying to work. "You'll never figure it out if you don't talk to her."

The two were sitting in the Greenridge University Library. The building was brightly lit and hosted a marble staircase to the second-floor computer lab. Like the college itself, it attempted to look current and new, when there was evidence that suggested it was anything but. Peeling paint around the resource section, computers from the early 2000s, and even a remaining card catalogue used to hold titles that would not fit in the computers' small database system disclosed the library's true age. The newer resources, such as up-to-date computers, were few and far between and were housed upstairs.

The man with the mohawk scowled at his friend, his hazel eyes catching the light as he sneered. "Eric Fennington, I know you hear me, jerk," he said loudly, "so quit lying to the both of us."

Eric winced and pulled his black beanie over his bright red curls, an embarrassed blush dusting underneath the freckles of his pale face. He looked around to make certain nobody was staring and narrowed his brown eyes at his friend.

"Look, Van," he said, his Boston accent too strong for his liking, which happened when he was irritated. "Shelly seems nice, but she's sort of a party girl. She's always drunk, and she's really young—"

"She's 22, Eric. All of five years younger than you."

"I . . . right, well," Eric said, turning his eyes back to his computer, where a current news article warned him of the strained relationship between America and China. "That's still really young considering the maturity difference."

"You mean 22 and, like 74?" Van teased as he sat against the table next to Eric. "Come on, man, you're not as old and wise as you think you are."

"I think I'm 27. I am 27. What are you doing hanging around 22-year-olds, anyway?" Eric asked, turning his head momentarily to scowl at Van. "You're two years older than me."

Van chuckled a little. "Age is nothing but a number, and numbers are not what people think they are."

Eric shook his head. "What does that even mean? Nothing, that's what it means. Absolutely nothing."

"Oh, Mr. I'm-A-Genius-Linguist is going to criticize my invaluable wisdom I deigned to impart upon him," Van scoffed, crossing his arms. "I mean, you can figure out how to speak a language in a week, but you can't figure out when a pretty girl may be interested in you?"

"Aren't you supposed to be in super-genius math?" Eric asked him, looking up to scowl. "How do you have time to notice a girl noticing me, Van?"

Van smiled, brushing his nails against his shirt. "What can I say? I can always make time for ladies. Also, people tell me things when I'm tutoring in the Math Lab. Why are you questioning important information that I've gathered for you, anyway? People pay for this type of thing, you know."