He asked her if anything was wrong, which surprised her again, but she said no. He offered to help with some last minute cleaning, but she declined, visibly becoming more nervous. Instead of explaining anything, which he thought (knew) would make things worse, he decided to invite Mrs. Nolla and her husband to a non-existent faculty dinner on Sat.u.r.day. She thanked him, and he left, wondering how quickly he could throw together a faculty dinner on Sat.u.r.day if they decided to RSVP.

The dinner never happened, because while Justin sat in his third period Physics course, Mr. Nolla entered his wife's cla.s.s and shot her dead in front of her twenty-six students. When he shot himself a few moments later, he had the decency to do it outside.

Justin tried to live with the guilt, but it kept growing inside him like a child, or like cancer. He sought ought a psychologist, who kept harranging that it wasn't his fault, a fact Justin knew in his head.

But his heart didn't agree, and soon the pain inside him was so bad he had trouble keeping his food down. He kept noticing how his colleagues would look at him and whisper... or how their conversations would stop when he entered the room. Finally, he resigned, sold everything, and moved to Arizona. Sometimes he would call his sister; usually, he talked to his niece, Julia.

The friends he left behind had heard that he had visited Mrs. Nolla the morning of the shooting. A few even hinted that Justin had believed that something would happen, but not what or when. Mr. Nolla hadn't left a note - perhaps there had been an affair? But despite varying theories, the general consensus was that Justin had left due to his guilt -- unable to save Mrs. Nolla's life.

They were wrong. Somehow, the life of Mrs. Nolla had seemed, and still seemed, out of his hands. Not his responsibility that morning.

Instead, he had failed those twenty-six small, shattered lives. That was what had haunted him and turned his insides out. And as he shut himself away, he told himself that he was dealing with the problem head on.

For years, he had been left alone. The few who had tried to invade his privacy found out quickly that entrance into his life was by invitation only. Trespa.s.sers were sometimes shot at, but never actually shot -- until today. If you can call a body that disappears "shot".

Justin lightly turned over the clipboard with his foot. He picked it up and raised it to eye level to be sure his eyes weren't fooling him -- they weren't. Not a drop of blood anywhere.

He turned on a light and tried to make out what he could (given that the pages were no longer in order and had a bullet hole running through them). He found a white page, marked 3G, that read: Complaints, Problems, Irregularities:

1) I don't know who's been photocopying form 3G lately, but they have been doing so on white paper. Keep in mind that the color code system is there for your benefit, and all forms marked 'G' are meant for goldenrod. You'll find it tucked away under the photocopier (under the coral).

2) After taking notes on Justin and his recent activities, call Julia and leave a message. Tell her that Justin is ill and hospitalized but that all is well. Maybe a kidney infection (?).

Justin reread the note, stunned. Some kind of conspiracy. A big one, maybe. He had been right about the danger (but then, he had known that, although it didn't hurt his faith in his own sanity to get confirmation). His hand came to rest on some gray sheets that contained a series of mathematical formulas. He gave them the once over and almost put them down before he realized what they were. As quickly as he could, he gathered all six gray papers together, put them in order, and read slowly them through. When he was finished, he was so surprised that when he stopped to scratch his scalp he -- literally -- disappeared.

17. In Charge "Everyone rises to the level of their incompetence."

-- Traditional

"And he shot me!" the Lab Coat Man shouted (again), flinging himself into a swivel office chair. He put his hands to his forehead and ma.s.saged the red spot right between and just above his eyes that would eventually scar, forever to mark the spot where the bullet struck an instant before he had vanished and reappeared back in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Right between the eyes!" he bleated.

"No, right between and just above," Neoldner corrected. "You've gone over this fifty times now..."

"Shut up!" the Lab Coat Man bellowed. "He shot me! If he had fired just a millisecond sooner..."

"You'd be dead," Neoldner noted. "So what are you going to do about Forrester?"

Prof. Sigger, huddled quietly in the corner, added: "Well, I for one am very glad that you escaped with only --"

"Shut up, both of you! I have to think!"

There was yet another crisis. Not only had he been shot (almost), two unauthorized persons had possession of clipboards. Of the two, Nelson was the most likely to make sense of them, but there was no reason to be relaxed about the other. The problem was, no one had a spare. How was he supposed to look up the relevant procedure if he had lost his (d.a.m.n) clipboard?!

Well, he was in charge now, at least until the Director showed up. Not Forrester, not the clipboard. And he needed some help. There was only one choice he could make. He walked out of the office and to the cell.

Kurt was scratching his arm in the garish light cast from the lone bulb.

"I'm afraid we're running out of time. You know what will happen if we cannot conclude matters by a satisfactory hour."

Kurt continued to scratch.

"Does your arm bother you?"

"No."

It wasn't the answer that shocked the Lab Coat Man, but the fact that he had replied at all. "Good! I mean... too bad! Good that you answered one my questions, but too bad that -- wait, what made you finally answer one of my questions?"

Kurt pondered this for a moment. "I don't know. I just got bored."

The Lab Coat Man reached for his pen in order to mark an 'X' on his clipboard, stopped, and sighed.

18. One Too Many "A story to me means a plot where there is some surprise.... Because that is how life is -- full of surprises."

-- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Julia never lost that feeling of uneasiness, so she and Rhonda had left before the screening of "Bride". As Rhonda drove them past the usual road signs and over predictable b.u.mps, Julia became aware of the magnitude of what had happened. She had lost her job and gotten a new one all in one night; she had felt something that she had always a.s.sumed was a figment of her uncle's imagination -- possibly the first symptom of a mental illness; she had sat through one of the worst films she had ever witnessed without finding an excuse to leave. Everything that she had ever a.s.sumed about this dreary town, small in both size and its collective capacity to imagine, about her life, and just about everything else now seemed strange and unfamiliar. On top of this, Rhonda, after shifting into third gear, was running a hand up her thigh.

"Uh, I'm, uh... I'm straight," said Julia.

Rhonda muttered something and shifted into fourth, charging through the intersection of Central and Oak just as the light changed to red.

When Julia finally unlocked her apartment door, she found Cecil and two messages on the machine waiting for her. Cecil purred and rubbed her shins with his head. She picked him up and pressed play on her answering machine.

Message number one: "h.e.l.lo, this is Dr. Bernstein calling for Julia Nelson. Your uncle Justin became dehydrated today and will be at St.

Joseph's for a while. We'll call you as further developments arise at..."

Uncle Justin in the hospital! I'll have to call the Manager and let him know she needed tomorrow off, she thought. Would he buy that? Oh great, I'm going to lose two jobs in two days!

Before she could rewind, message number two began: "Hon, this is Justin!" Julia gasped and dropped Cecil, who landed perfectly and returned to rubbing her shins. "Don't believe any messages you get about me unless they're from me! I shot a fella who got into my house... well, sort of shot him. I did and I didn't. He was there one minute and then Poof! Anyway, there's no body here, so there's no need to call the cops, but he left behind a clipboard that said he was going to call you and leave a message about me! I don't know what the h.e.l.l this is all about, but it's not right! Say h.e.l.lo to that cat for me."

The message ended, and Cecil, not contented with the action he was getting at foot level, jumped up to the counter just as Julia began dialing her uncle to find out just what the h.e.l.l was going on.

19. The Meeting "He that communicates his secret to another makes himself that other's slave."

-- Baltasar Gracian

Supervising Manager Denny was stocking shelves when the Lab Coat Man approached him.

"Denny?"

"How'd you get in here?"

"Back door."

Denny stopped shelving Snack Ramen (6 for a $1) for a moment and looked at his fellow conspirator. "The back door? We unlock one of the most important secrets of s.p.a.ce and time, and you walk in through my back door?"

"We, uh... lost a clipboard."