was suspended in the air at the end of a long strip of truck that had been peeled up and aside.
A small crowd students, apparently finished with all their line-waiting, stood on the bridge and beside the ramp, throwing Frisbees and debris into the torn-open back of the truck, where its renters lounged in sofas and recliners and drank beer, and threw the projectiles back. Sarah thought it was idiotic, and Casimir couldn't understand it at all.
Out in the hallway, people behind them in the line were being verbally abused by an old derelict who had penetrated the Plex security system. "The only degree you kids deserve is the third degree!" he shouted, waving his arms and staggering in place. He wore a ratty tweed jacket whose elbow patches flapped like vestigial wings, and he drank in turns from a bottle of Happy's vodka and a Schlitz tall-boy which he kept holstered in his pockets. He had the full attention of the students, who were understandably bored, and most of them laughed and tried to think of provocative remarks.
As the drunk was wading toward them, one asked another how her summer had been. "What about it?" asked the derelict. "Fiscal conservatism? Fine in theory! Tough, though! You have to be tough and humane together, you see, the two opposites must unite in one great leader! Can't be a damn dictator like S. S. Krupp!" This brought cheers and laughter from the upperclassmen, who had just decided the drunk was a cool guy. Septimius Severus Krupp, the President of American Megaversity, was not popular. "Jesus Christ!" he continued through the laughter, "What the hell are they teaching you savages these days? You need a spanking! No more circuses. Maybe a dictator is just what you need! Alcibiades! Pompilius Numa! They'd straighten things out good and fast."
Sarah knew the man. He liked to break into classes at the Big U and lecture the professors, who usually were at a loss as to how to deal with him. His name was Bert Nix. He had taken quite a shine to Sarah: for her part, she did not know whether or not to be scared of him. During the preceding spring's student government compaign, Bert Nix had posed with Sarah for a campaign photo which had then appeared on posters all over the Plex. This was just the kind of thing that Megaversity students regarded as a sign of greatness, so she had won, despite progressive political ideas which, as it turned out, nobody was even aware of. This was all hard for Sarah to believe. She felt that Bert Nix had been elected President, not the woman he had appeared with on the campaign poster, and she felt obliged to listen to him even when he simply jabbered for hours on end. He was a nice lunatic, but he was adrift in the Bert Nix universe, and that stirred deep fears in Sarah's soul.
Casimir paid little attention to the drunk and a great deal to Sarah. He could not help it, because she was the first nice-seeming person, concept or thing he had found in his six hours at the Big U. During the ten years he had spent saving up money to attend this school, Casimir had kept himself sane by imagining it. Unfortunately, he had imagined quiet talks over brunch with old professors, profound discussions in the bathrooms, and dazzling, sensitive people everywhere just waiting to make new friends. What he had found, of course, was American Megaversity. There was only one explanation for this atmosphere that he was willing to believe: that these people were civilized, and that for amusement they were acting out a parody of the squalor of high school life, which parody Casimir had been too slow to get so far. The obvious explanation-- that it was really this way-- was so horrible that it had not even entered his mind.
When he saw the photo of her on the back page of the back-to-school edition of the Monoplex Monitor, and read the caption identifying her as Sarah Jane Johnson, Student Government President, he made the most loutish double take between her and the photograph. He knew that she knew that he now knew who she was, and that was no way to start a passionate love affair. All he could do was to make a big show of reading about her in the Monitor, and wait for her to make the first move. He nodded thoughtfully at the botched quotations and oversimplifications in the article.