When you start having trouble reading the numbers, it’s time to knock off for the night. Spruance Del Curtin fought the urge to rub his eyes, which had grown gritty from spending the entire evening poring over the latest data sets from Dr. Doorne.
So what if he’d won the accolades of his peers by providing a key insight to what was wrong with Shepardsport’s Internet connection. It sure wasn’t going to get him any slack cut on this project. Every data set still had to be examined and sanitized the same way, and it seemed like there were more of them every day.
Not to mention that the ever-increasing burden was no excuse for falling behind on his other obligations. He still needed to go over tomorrow’s lesson plan for his teaching responsibility.
The sound of the module airlock cycling pulled his attention away from his laptop. Four guys walked into the module lounge, talking among themselves a little louder than normal.
Sprue looked up, noticed that they were younger guys. Back in Houston they’d probably still be in middle school, although up here kids their age were already beginning to take significant responsibility.
Just as Sprue was about to make a sharply worded remark about sounding like they were waiting for a bus, one of the guys came over to him. “I hear Colonel Hearne really went on a tear in Constitution class this evening.”
Sprue narrowed his eyes and studied the kid, trying to place the face. Do you even live in this module, or are you tagging along with your buddies. “I don’t know a thing about that. I did Constitution class last year. You must be thinking of Eli Mallory. He lives over in Module 28.”
The other guys started ribbing their buddy for making such an obvious mistake. Then they were heading back through the airlock, and the lounge was quiet again.
No, he was not going to text Eli and ask what was going on. Sprue had his status as the DJ to protect, and having to ask for information was not going to further that. On the other hand, Cindy Margrave was also in that class — she’d mentioned it more than once at the station.
But one look at the clock in the menu bar of his laptop made it plain it was way too late to be texting Cindy. There’d be plenty of time tomorrow. Even if he couldn’t catch her at breakfast, he could drop by the station offices on his way to his teaching responsibility, since it was in Engineering rather than the usual classroom areas over in Miskatonic Sector.
Sprue closed his laptop, then headed back to his apartment, whistling “Lake Shore Drive.”