“All right Beasty, my boy, let’s get cracking,” he said out loud, still smiling from the exchange. The car started itself, but the young man did the driving.

Spirits buoyed by Stacia’s texts, Declan headed up the hill to the big university that sat atop it, overlooking the lake.

He found parking in a faculty lot, his all-campus parking pass one of the perks of having the Demidova Corporation sponsor his unusual education.

Five minutes after that, he was settling in to what was, as least for him, a fairly new class.

He found a seat in the back, breaking out a standard notebook and pencil rather than the more common laptop or tablet technique his peers had mostly adopted. The professor wasn’t in the room yet and he took a look at his classmates. This was only his second time auditing Rural Community in Modern Society, which was a Community Development, Applied Economics Department course, a class his advisor, Professor McCraken, suggested he take to help round out his extremely eclectic curriculum.

He didn’t really take any classes, at least not in the usual sense. His schedule was subject to vast changes depending upon his extreme need for as broad an education as possible. Of course, not finishing coursework or taking tests, not to mention suddenly inserting into a class partway through the semester, was a guaranteed route to pissing off professors. But Professor McCraken, backed by the full weight of the university’s administration, had proven adept at smoothing the way… for the most part.

“How are you just now joining this class?” a voice asked.

He looked up to find a pair of girls one row in front of him, frowns on both their faces.

“I’m auditing it.”

“He audits all his classes. Doesn’t have to finish any of them,” a male voice said from two spots to his right, almost behind the girls. A bookish-looking guy was involving himself, a peevish look on his face.

“Do I know you?” Declan asked.

“You audited one of my Poly Sci classes,” the kid said, shooting a glance at the girls. They were attractive, Declan realized. Great. A Nosy Ned trying to impress the ladies.

“How are you expecting to graduate if you only audit? And how the hell did you get permission to do that anyway?” the first girl asked, frowning at him. For some reason, she was annoyed with him. Or, more likely, annoyed or frustrated with something else and taking it out on him.

“Not going to graduate,” he said with a sigh. Here we go.

“What?” she asked, too shocked to press further. He gave her a shrug and opened his notebook, busying himself with dating the top of the page and writing the class name next to it.