My phone finder app has finally located her. A passing student calls out "Hey you two! Get a room!" Is there any way I can salvage my cover?
I disengage from Regi's embrace. "Your students are very friendly." "And she knows your name, how?" Stacy asks. "My reputation precedes me."
Stacy's not buying it. Clearly, she's nobody's fool and just as clearly, I'm not. David says "I thought you came here looking for a girl."
How do I deflect this revelation? "Not a girl, a medical student." Stacy says "Looks like you found one. Why are you looking for a medical student?"
"Aren't we all?" Stacy frowns, blocking my way. Regi steps in. "Mr. Arkaby followed in my father's footsteps." "And who is your father?"
Regi squares off. "My father was Willum Granger, a cloning pioneer and a world class podcast mime." "A what?" "Let me clear this up" I say.
I take out my cell phone to play Granger's last podcast. After a moment Stacy says "I don't hear a thing." "Exactly" I say "He's brilliant."
"That's his last pod cast?" "Wait for the big finish." We listen for a few more seconds and a voice says "How can you do mime in a podcast?"
"Who was that?" "That was his killer." "What? The man who killed him was standing there right next to you?" "I didn’t know it at the time."
"So you're an agent?" "That's exactly what I am." "Family and friends usually visit on Parents' Day, but I guess Regi can show you around."
Regi takes my hand "Don't say anything more." We walk through the gate. David shouts "You have my card if you need a ride." We walk faster.
As we turned a corner Regi asked "Really why are you here?" "I could ask you the same thing." Could I reveal her father's duplicate sent me?
Instead I ask her "Tell me about the campus. I see the humongous dormitories. Where are the classrooms?" "You see that building over there?"
"That one?" "No. That's the desalinization plant." "That one?" "No. That's the power plant." "That one?" "No. That's the sewage plant."
"Our campus is a completely self-contained, self-sufficient community. We make our own water and electricity. We clean up after ourselves."
"How about that eyesore on the hill?" "That's the Chancellery." "Where you grow and preserve vegetables?" "Chancellery, not canned celery."
"I see the facilities. Where do you learn?" We enter a small building crowned by a big horn. "This is Fog Horn Hall, our main lecture hall."
The room is crammed with extra rows of seats and chairs along the aisles. "How do students up front see the screen?" http://bit.ly/17CoXSJ
"They squint. Each year the school admits more students to cover losses and then adds more seats to the lecture hall." http://bit.ly/13LZJE7
"What about violations of the fire code?" "There isn't any fire code. Now they're looking for financing to build a 1000 seat lecture hall."
"Hmm. Looks to me like your school is a medical education Ponzi scheme. Why do the faculty put up with this?" "There are very few faculty."
(The Twitter Mystery continues daily at @Twitstery)
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