Chapter 5

We had priority to take off from Lee, but on the return, our flight was delayed and shuffled to the back of the queue. Leaving Lieutenant Perkins to take the car home after reporting in on the mission and my message to her Superiors, I hurried to class.

Landing from my cooldown jump, I took off at a brisk pace towards the Kresge building. I had minutes to get to class, so with shoes in one hand and briefcase in the other, I wove between the students, entering the building and leapt up the flight of stairs, making it through the door seconds behind Professor McCallister.

With a disapproving look at my shoes in hand, “Did you run all the way here?”

“My plane was held up, Professor McCallister.”

“Take a seat, Mr. Bach.”

I did, a brunette in the side column was staring daggers at me, which I ignored as I sought my seat in the rear. The next ninety minutes dealt with the continuing early waves of immigrants and the troubles that were encountered. I took notes and noted, with my orange marker, the two points in which her taught history differed from my experience.

After class, I withdrew from my briefcase the stack of assignments that I had missed by registering late and approached the professor who was dealing with the same morbid obese kid’s querulous speech on why he believed his quiz should have received a better mark.

She wasn’t buying his reasoning, I wasn’t either, not that I was grading his work. The auburn-haired professor dismissed the blabbering student with facts. Then him.

“Your plane was late?” the professor asked, not buying my excuse for almost being tarty to her class.

Accepting my papers and paging through them, she questioned me. “Do you have class after this, Mr. Bach?”

“This is my only class, Professor McCallister.”

“Do you always fly in ten thousand-dollar suits? Let’s continue this in my office.”

Silently, I followed her up a flight of stairs and to the rear of the building. Unlocking a closet with her name on it, which contained a desk, two chairs and three bookshelves, she sat in her imitation leather office chair.

Paging through my work, “Where were you that you had to fly back just to attend my class, Mr. Bach?”

“Manaus City.”

“You had work in the Amazon?” glancing up, she paused for a minute to reconsider her opinion of me.

“A kidnapping. The locals were inept.” I replied automatically, while waiting for a comment on my submissions. Thank god for computers and printers, my printing was never good and cursive was nonexistent. With Quill and ink, I made a mess and knew it, but at least I was legible with those. I wouldn’t discover until later that no one handed in handwritten assignments anymore. Computer printouts were the only accepted means of handing in homework, unless it regarded outlines or in class assignments.

Looking up. “Are you a mercenary, Mr. Bach?”

Smiling. “Some would say so. I don’t consider myself such.”

“What would you consider yourself as?”

“Oversight.”

“Ok, I’ll bite.” Looking up again from my essay, the woman showed increasing interest in our conversation, “What exactly do you oversee when not rushing to my class?”

“Supers. Those that get out of hand at least.” I seemed to be telling more people what I was up to these days than I had ever in the past. Maybe it was me telling myself that I did need more help.

Setting her pen down. “Do you expect me to believe you are part of some Super-secret discipline force that punishes misbehaving Super Heroes?”

“And Villains. And no, I am not part of it. I am it. Though I am recruiting. Want a job?”

“I have one. Maybe you are in the wrong class. Have you considered creative writing?”

“I’m too busy to make things up. How are my submissions?” If she didn’t want to believe me, that was fine. I was here to get her perspective, not to convince her of my self-appointed task.

“Good. Your writing is stiff and some of your theories are too speculative based on the indigenous population being overly combative amongst each other.”

Looking up from one of my essays, she posed, “Do you actually believe that the Powhatan tribes took in the Roanoke colonists to save them from famine, only to have the Chesipeans attack both the remaining colonists and the Powhatans? And here, you suggest that there was a splinter group that abandoned the colony entirely and headed southwest.”

“Are you writing a fantasy?” she concluded.

“Professor, are you familiar with the Castle on the Hill, on the northern edge of the city?”

“No. I moved here in the summer. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Before you question my responses, please find out who lives at 19 Maple Lawn Hill. I will try and not be late to your class in the future, but life is not as predictable as we hope.”

“Why are you so sure that there was a splinter group that migrated south west from Roanoke?”

“There were survivors.” I turned and stabbed my finger on a specific point against the computer rendered, 17^th century map taped to the back of her door. “See you Friday, professor.”

The learned woman returned to my essay, not following me, nor leaving her office after I silently closed the door behind me. I was curious to what her reaction would be when she discovered my identity. I needed a shower, a change of clothes, and food. Even one of Rebecca’s failed experiments would do.

Looking at my cell phone, I noticed a missed call from Lea. First her, then Lillian for a ride.

“Hi, this is Bach.”

“Hi, yourself. I heard there was a Bach sighting in Brazil.”

“A kidnapping. The locals made a mess of it.”

“Sorry. My side isn’t any better. Where are you?”

“The front steps to Wilson Hall, I just left my professor’s office.

“I’m in the library, want to get coffee?”

“Sure. I don’t have a car here. I’ll need to call Lillian.”

“I’ll drive. I can imagine you with road rage.” She giggled.

Why did everyone think I was a bad driver? “I am on my way there now.” Click.

Click. “Lillian, I am meeting Lea Billingsly. I should need you later for a ride.”

“Okay, boss. Nan is knee deep in mud, one of the sprinkler heads exploded.” She laughed. I listened to the story on the walk to the library.

“Hi Samantha, are you settled in yet?”

“Getting there. I’m mostly unpacked.” Considering whether or not to test out her student’s story she hesitated, in case it turned out to be a prank. It would not be the first nor the last, if that were the case. “Dean?”

“What’s up? Student issues?”

“I heard a story about a castle on the hill. Maple Lawn or something.”

“Bach’s estate. It’s a landmark.”

“Who is Bach?” Suddenly, the need to know outweighed the possibility of a silly prank.

“Bach is Bach.” The older dean of the history department responded enigmatically. “He is the Alpha of Supers. Good, bad, or neutral, all are below him. He seems to act arbitrarily on beating down those he thinks deserve it, but I believe he gets better intelligence than the rest of the world. Otherwise, he stays in his Club or travels around the world taking out the Super powered trash.”

“How old is he?” His actions and reasoning behind them mattered little to her at this point.

“No one knows. Charlie Dunn in archives swears he has a Civil War photograph with Bach in it. I’ve seen it, it’s grainy and it could be just about any six foot four, twenty stone, Caucasian male from 1850.”

“He could be older?”

“Or younger. I do know he has been living in that same house since July, 1929.”

“Has anyone interviewed him? If he is from the Civil War period, he must know more than is written.”

“I don’t recommend that you seek him out. He doesn’t have the best reputation with reporters, or anyone else really.” Leaning against the door frame, the head of the History department seriously advised his newly arrived associate professor from California.

“If you could ask him anything what would it be?”

“If I could join his Club when I retire?”

“He has a club?” Her day was getting weirder.

“‘The Gentlemen’s Club of Central City’. It supposedly has thirty members. None under the age of fifty, all very wealthy.”

“One of those...”

“Not like how you are thinking, Samantha. No woman has ever stepped foot in the place. It was founded in the 1830s, no women means no women, children, or anyone that would bother them. I can picture their book collection, snuggle up in a large chair and just read with no one to interrupt. No outside world.”

“Sounds ghastly.”

“You’re twenty-seven. Wait forty years and then criticize.” Dean Lancaster suddenly did look worn and tired to her. Taking a step back mentally, she considered that the effervescent older historian might have been in his seventies after all.