She sat down and tried to concentrate on the properties of low frequency wave modes in magnetized plasma, which was frankly pretty cool. The physics of stars. She couldn't wait for the lab demonstrations ... the reading was slow going, but interesting. It linked to another thing about plasma physics that had caught her attention: confinement and transport. It might have been coincidence, but somehow she felt like there was something there she ought to understand. Something that related to what Myrnin had been telling her about Recomposition, which was a key element in Alchemy. Was it possible there really was a link between the two?
Plasma is charged particles. It can be controlled and influenced by shaped magnetic fields. Plasma was the raw state between matter and energy ... between one form and another.
Reconstitution.
It hit her, suddenly, what Myrnin had discovered. The doorways. They were shaped magnetic fields, holding a tiny, pliable field of plasma held in a steady state. But how did he make them into portable wormholes? Because that was what they had to be, to bend space like that ... and the plasma couldn't be regular plasma, could it? Low-heat plasma? Was that even possible?
Claire was so absorbed that she didn't even hear the chair scrape back across from her, didn't know someone had sat down, until a hand grabbed the book propped in front of her and pushed it down.
"Hey, Claire," said Jason, Eve's nutty brother. He looked weaselly and pale -- not Goth-pale, sick-pale. Anemic. There were crusty sores on his neck, and his eyes were wide and red-veined, and he looked high. Really, crazy high. He also hadn't had a bath or been near a Laundromat in a few days or weeks; he smelled filthy and rotten. Ugh. "How you doing?"
She couldn't quite think what the right move would be. Scream? She closed the book and held on to it -- it was pretty heavy, and would make a decent blunt object -- and darted a look around. The U.C. was filled with people. Granted, Michael's playing was the center of attention at the moment, but there were plenty of others walking around, talking, studying. From where she sat, Claire could see Eve at the coffee bar, smiling and pulling espresso shots.
It was like Jason was invisible or something. Nobody was paying him the slightest bit of attention.
"Hi," she said. "What do you want?"
"World peace," he said. "You're pretty."
You're really not. She didn't, and couldn't, say it. She just waited. I'm perfectly safe here. There are a lot of people, Michael's right over there, and Eve ...
"Did you hear me?" Jason asked. "I said, you're pretty."
"Thank you." Her mouth felt dry. She was scared, and she couldn't even think why, really, except what Eve had told her about Jason. He did look dangerous. Those scabs on his throat -- had he been bitten? "I have to go."
"I'll walk you to class," Jason said. Somehow, he made that sound filthy, like some p**n movie come-on. "I always wanted to carry some hot college girl's books."
"No," she said. "I can't. I mean -- I'm not going to class. But I have to go." And why couldn't she just tell him to leave her alone? Why?
Jason blew her a kiss. "Go on. But don't blame me when the next dead girl shows up in the trash because you wouldn't do me a simple favor."
She was in the act of standing up when he said it, and she just ... stopped. Stopped moving, and stared. "What?" she asked, stupidly. Her brain, which had been moving at light speed while skipping from one physics problem to the next, felt sluggish now. "What did you say?"
"Not that I did anything. But if I had, I'd be planning another one. Unless somebody talked to me and convinced me to stop, for instance. Or I made a deal."
Claire felt cold. Worse, she felt alone. Jason wasn't doing anything -- he was just sitting there, talking. But she felt violated, and horribly exposed. Michael's right over there. You can hear him playing. He's right there. You're safe.
"All right," she said, and swallowed a mouthful of what felt like dust and tacks. She sank slowly back into her chair. "I'm listening."
Jason leaned forward, rested his arms on the table, and lowered his voice. "See, it's like this, Claire. I want my big sister to understand what she did to me when she sent me to that place. You know what a jail is like in Morganville? It's like some third-world country threw it out for prisoner abuse. Eve put me there. And she didn't even try to save me."
Claire's fingers felt numb, she was holding her book so tightly. She forced herself to relax. "I'm sorry," she said. "That must have been bad."
"Bad? Bitch, are you even listening?" He kept on staring at her, and it was like he was dead or something, he never blinked. "I was supposed to be his, you know. Brandon's. He was going to make me a vampire someday, but now he's dead, and I'm screwed. Now I'm just waiting around for somebody to put me back in jail, and guess what, Claire? I'm not going. Not without a little fun first."
He grabbed her wrist, and she opened her mouth to scream ...
... and all of a sudden he had a knife, and he was pressing it to her wrist. "Hold still," he said. "I'm not done talking. You move, you bleed."
She was going to yell anyway, but when it made it to her lips it died into a weak little yelp. Jason smiled, and he tossed a filthy-looking handkerchief on top of her wrist and the knife, covering it up. "There," he said. "Now nobody's going to notice, not that they'd care. Not in Morganville. But just in case there are any dumbass heroes, let's keep this between just us."
She was shaking now. "Let me go." Somehow, her voice stayed low and steady. "I won't say anything."