Main Page: The Legend of Aaron LaBarr

Chapter Two

Useful things, cuff links. Not just your average worthless formal attire. They gave one something to fiddle around with in one’s spare time, and look all the more professional into the bargain. Or so Aaron had always believed, and he hoped now that it was somehow true.
           
It had been an hour since the dean of Sternweld University had finished his speech; forty-five minutes since Aaron had given his, briefly, and politely told everyone to chillax. For the better part of that time, the woman across from him had been talking a blue streak about her bizarre opinions on every academic subject under the sun. He had been tuning her in and out at random, or whenever he heard a key phrase that piqued his interest.
           
But there wasn’t much else to pique it, after all. These banquets were such a bore. He hadn’t been at one since Honor Society in Junior High, but he remembered vividly that they never got any better than this. And this sucked. He was a man of action, or at least mildly interesting lack thereof.
           
He recognized the dean, of course; and his old acquaintances Bryan Gilmore, and recently requited lovers Paul and Mary Binyird. He had waved as they came in, but they sat too far away to engage in any sort of conversation. Many of the other scientists present were somewhat familiar, but he’d never paid much attention to the news beyond his own life. And forget the student interns.
           
Still, being bored, Aaron had eventually decided to start a conversation with the woman across from him. A conversation he had thus far had no participation in.

[gap]
 
Suddenly, one of the young students from the banquet came racing around the corner, crashed into him, dropped her books, and fell down on her rear end.

She sat, gaping up at him, trying to figure out what had just happened. He extended a hand and helped her up.

Flustered, she quickly brushed herself off. “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir,” she stammered.

Aaron shrugged it off. “Not a problem,” he said, as he knelt down to pick up her books, but she swooped them up herself with one fluid move.

“Thank you, but it’s my fault,” she insisted, and clutched them to her chest. “Now I must go. Goodbye.” She hurried and turned away, muttering, “Great, Shelby, you just had to go and attack the greatest guy in the history of science…”

So, perhaps I’ve finally become a legend, he thought. Kids these days. “What makes you think I’m so great?” he couldn’t resist calling after her.

She stopped and turned around, then took a few tentative steps forward, as if to retrieve a gem guarded by snakes. “Well,” she began, “you do all this great stuff…” then she seemed to warm up, and gushed, “Oh, Dr. LaBarr, sir, I’ve read both of your books. I just think it’s so great how you go on all those adventures, and make those discoveries, and survive all that dangerous stuff.” She shrugged.

“Call me Aaron,” he said.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t –”

“I insist. What’s the hurry, anyway, dollface?”

Aaron was satisfied to see her blush. She was an adorable thing, he noticed.

[gap]
 
Stop it, he told himself sharply. You may be any number of things, buddy, but you’re not a pedophile. And let’s keep it that way.     

“Well,” she said, “I have to get back so I can start planning. You know, I have to do a field research project before I get my degree.”

“And what did you have in mind?”

She shrugged. “Well, I’m still not quite sure,” she said, “but I was thinking I’d go help with the excavation on Twantikus Prime. Of the recently discovered labyrinth believed to date from the reign of Delinius the Fourth…” her voice trailed off when she saw he was faking a yawn.

“I’ve been there, kid, and it ain’t much,” he insisted. “Just a bunch of rock walls going on for kilometers in every direction.”

“Well, perhaps when we complete the excavation, we’ll find its purpose…”

“Okay, I’ll admit that’s a possibility, but it’s been years, right? I’ve got a better idea, and it guarantees excitement.”

She stared at him in astonishment, which was surpassed only by his own. He could not believe what he was suddenly planning to do.

[gap]
 
One minute. Irrational though it may seem in hindsight, he would have traded ten years of his life for one minute to rest, to recuperate. To recover his senses from this madness.