WHO: Lukas von Esper and Alex Romano WHAT: Fateful random encounter? WHEN: Thursday, Sept 4; mid-afternoonish WHERE: NYU, an astronomy classroom RATING: TBD
Today wasn't a great day for getting lost, and luckily Lukas wasn't lost. That was about all he wasn't, and things were bad enough that he'd started counting his blessings. His mother sent him out with a mission to deliver a package to his brother after school let out, and ol' Adrian von Esper, who wasn't particularly old at all, didn't charge his cellphone. Perhaps he turned it off for some godforsaken reason, but whatever the case was, Lukas couldn't contact him and had since found himself searching building to building for one Professor von Esper, retracing his brother's steps without a shred of hope of actually catching up to him. He wasn't lost, but Lukas may as well have been--and it was a truly miserable day for it. Even with the heavy fog drowning out the sun, the air was hot and humid with the heat beating down on his head like an overenthusiastic drummer high on nitrous oxide. It wasn't too pleasant. Even less pleasant was how Lukas had rapidly become aware of just how many college students didn't bother with deoderant.
Lukas had gone to Adrian's office first which was par for the course, and he would've just dumped the package there on the desk had he thought there wasn't anything important in it, but it was Mama von Esper that sent him in, so Lukas had figured it must've held something she'd rather not trust the post office with. Two classrooms and two staff lounges (all thankfully within only a few seconds walk to the next building, which left Lukas grumpy but plenty hygienic), Lukas had an itching feeling it was probably a Beanie Baby named Adrian that his mother had found amusing or something else equally worthless knowing his luck. Mind you, if Lukas' middle name was Luck, his first name would've been Bad. On the upside, one of the professors in the lounges had looked down upon him with pity, and he picked up a free can of ice-cold cherry coke from her.
He'd narrowed the trail down to being only about an hour and a half behind where Adrian was last, or that's what Mrs. Cherry Coke told him, and who was he to doubt Mrs. Cherry Coke? Now Lukas found himself walking down a clean hallway with the air-conditioning doing its best to blast any intruders into human popsicles. Rounding a corner, Lukas finally spotted a door labeled Rm337 - Astronomy. A quick glance through the window told him all he needed to know: Adrian wasn't there. Resisting the urge to bash his head into the wall, Lukas only rolled his eyes and pulled the door open to step inside. Again, Lukas counted his blessings. At least the classroom wasn't empty; there was still one poor soul left for Lukas to accost. He wasn't a bloodhound after all, a cold trail would've been the end of this, which wouldn't be all that bad, come to think of it. It'd almost be preferable if Lukas had anything better to do with his time. (As far as he was concerned, applying for college didn't count as something better to do with his time.)
Glancing around, Lukas slowed his pace to his usual jaded calm and walked up to the only remaining person in the room. "Sorry to bother you," he said, "but do you by any chance know where Adrian von Esper's gone? I was told he was here teaching a class here, but he's clearly not here anymore."