The varied and comprehensive subjects covered by the Andronicus library occupied several floors of two buildings joined by a sky bridge. In truth, it wasn’t Andronicus’ library, but a national repository of literature and information that just happens be adjacent to the campus. However, Andronicus students receive special access to the repository and a student ID is as good as a membership card, so it may as well be the school library.

Unlike most schools, it wasn’t a place for recreation. The aesthetic was bland, the librarians were some of the most feared people off campus, and most people found the trashcan shaped cleaning robots unsettling. Students only visited to study, research, and on rare occasions, do homework.

Nelson happened to be there for a bit of everything. He had a project due, a paper to write, and a test coming up, and when his hot headed club member found out, she dragged him by the ear somewhere he could finish.

“I can’t believe you,” she sneered. “Who lets all their assignments pile up like this? It’s a good thing I caught you, or you’d be failing in no time.”

“Sorry, Serena,” Nelson apologized as he did his homework. “I didn’t want you to go out of your way on my account, but I never would have caught up without your help.”

She cleared her throat and looked away so Nelson wouldn’t see her blush. “Th-Then it can’t be helped. We will need to meet every day after school from now on to make sure it never happens again,” she struggled to maintain a cold veneer.

“I don’t think we need to study every day,” Nelson worriedly replied, completely missing the subtext despite her utter failure to hide her heart’s true intentions anywhere but her sleeve.

“I have to say, I never expected you to offer to help me like this, Serena,” Nelson cheerily remarked as he went about his homework. “To be honest, I thought you hated me.”

“Th-That’s not true!” she suddenly insisted, the turned beet red over the outburst and quickly backpedaled. “Don’t get the wrong idea! I’m not doing this because I like you! It’s my responsibility as your senior to help my fellow club member when they need it. Just… don’t think that’s the only reason, okay!”

Nelson’s phone chimed with a text. Before he could check the sender, one of the library’s cleaning robots abruptly stopped in its circuit, turned to face them, and made a shushing sound. Then, in a heavily synthesized text to speech voice, said, “Please leave your devices on silent while in the library.” The cadence was almost more unsettling than the rattling noise it made getting back to its rout.

They watched the corner it disappeared behind for a few moments before returning their attention to the message.

“Who’s texting you now?” Serena impatiently asked at a moderate volume.

Nelson read the text. “Oops.”

“What?”

“It’s Chiho,” he remorsefully informed. “I forgot she made me promise we would get smoothies after today’s test. I can tell her to meet me later– oh, but the smoothy stand closes soon.” He erased the partially composed text.

Serena huffed and turned her back with her arms crossed, brow knitted in the decision she had to make. “Well… I suppose it can’t be helped if you made plans beforehand,” she begrudgingly conceded. “We will pick this up tomorrow. Same time. Don’t make any other plans.”

“You mean it?” Nelson gratefully cried. “I’m going to make sure to leave my whole afternoon wide open! Don’t worry–” another robot came around to silence his outburst and rattle away ominously. “I’ll make sure to study extra hard tomorrow!” he quietly and excitedly assured.

“You should study hard every day,” she glumly pouted. “It would help if you paid more attention to the people around you too…”

“What was that?” Nelson asked, since he was too busy packing his things to hear the last part.

“N-Nothing!” she steamily insisted, taking on the complexion of a tomato. “Don’t make Chiho wait on you!”

“Oh, right!” Nelson shoved the last of his things into his book bag and took off around the corner. There was a crash and a low poly voice warning not to run in the library.

When he was gone, Serena let out a weary sigh and leaned back against the table. She found her reflection in the metallic sheen of a nearby pillar and faced it to straighten the wrinkles in her uniform, brush her bangs out of her face, and fix her posture. Her blazer was tight and tended to bunch up in places because of some tailoring she performed to accentuate her already modest breasts. Yet, she couldn’t get the attention she hoped for even when she wasn’t competing with the club president’s mature demeanor and Chiho’s bubbly personality.

While brushing her bangs out of her hair, she decided to try something and pulled out the ribbons holding her pigtails. It made her look more grown up, almost like her mother. She tried smiling, but couldn’t make it look sincere. She didn’t recognize the person in the reflection.

Voices were approaching, so Selena tied her hair back up before anyone saw, embarrassed she even tried.

Nelson was barely out the door when he was accosted by a suspicious character.

“Hey buddy,” the stranger greeted in a disarming manner.

“Sorry, I’m in a hurry,” Nelson vehemently apologized and moved to go around, but the guy stood in his way.

“You look a little high strung. Before you go, why don’t you take a look at what I’ve got to take the edge off.” He waved his bag around until Nelson got the idea.

“Oh,” Nelson said in realization. “Oh! Sorry! I don’t do drugs!”

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“Woah, woah, woah, little guy,” the dealer coolly backpedaled, wrangling Nelson around the shoulder. “I don’t deal in anything that hot. Although, I might argue my merchandise is much hotter.” With some slight of hand, he produced a handful of photographs seemingly from thin air. “You’re no man if this doesn’t interest you.”

Nelson’s cheeks went bright red over the contents of those pictures. A menagerie of pretty girls in swimsuits, lingerie, towels, damp, clingy shirts, and fully clothed, but at just the right angle; and he thought he recognized a few of them. The profundity of it all had him so thoroughly paralyzed he struggled to utter the first bashful, horrified syllable of his refusal, until one picture snapped him out of his stupor. It was Serena in front of her gym locker down to her very red, very lacy underwear, slightly damp with sweat from an afternoon workout, or the shower following one.

Nelson snatched the picture to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. “Where did you get this?”

“Professional secret,” the dealer proudly informed. “This is just a small taste to whet the appetite. If you can name a girl, odds are we’ve got candid shots of her. If not, I have my ways of coming into such things, if you’ve got the cash. But if you have your eyes set on that pretty little thing, I think we can make an arrangement for something a little more… exciting.”

When his business was complete, Nelson made a beeline for the dorm, face stricken with terror, arms clutched tightly around his bag like a newborn. The handful of people he bumped into along the way found him skittish and edgy.

He worried with every step someone from the disciplinary committee would stop him. He didn’t relax even as he ran up the steps to his dorm, threw his door open and slammed it behind him, and found Zane on a stepladder, working on the light.

“Oh good, you’re back early,” Zane stated when he noticed the door. “Listen, I’m going to set up booby traps around the room, you won’t have to worry about most of them, but there’s a soda stain on the carpet outside the door, don’t touch the doorknob unless you’re standing on it.”

“Zane!” Nelson hysterically cried. “There’s trouble! I ran into this guy and–” he abruptly stopped, only now parsing what Zane just said. “Booby traps?”

“Yeah, I was abducted again!” he peevishly declared, slamming the cover back over the light. “They broke into the room and caught me by surprise, but I made sure I put up a fight this time. The custodians are still sweeping up teeth in the entryway. Which reminds me, lock the door from now on.”

“Who was it this time? –Wait, that’s not important! There’s a huge problem! I ran into someone today and he was selling pictures of my club members in–” A knock at the door cut Nelson off mid-syllable.

He went pale when Zane answered the door with a groan and said, “What do you want, Felicia?”

“I’m not here for you this time, Zane Ashford,” she spitefully answered. Without asking permission, she and her companion from the disciplinary committee entered the room, so Zane went to his bed and opened a magazine. “Nelson Reese,” she stated, arms crossed.

“M-M-M-Miss Belafonte,” Nelson shuddered. “D-D-D-Do you n-n-need s-something?”

She sighed in disgust. “We received an anonymous tip you are in possession of immoral contraband.”

Nelson was frozen, hugging his bag, white as a sheet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he barely managed to squeak out.

“Come on, you’re not seriously talking about Nelson?” Zane asked, sitting up in his bed. “The guy who pisses himself over handholding? What kind of ‘immoral contraband’ are we talking?”

“None of your concern,” Felicia harshly replied.

“We can settle this now,” the disciplinary committee member casually stated. “We just need to look in your bag.” He cautiously referred over his shoulder toward Felicia. “With your consent.”

Felicia grabbed the strap. Nelson resisted at first, but he lacked the guts to maintain his grip under her gaze. She unzipped the bag, and a tidal wave of photos came spilling out over the floor. Like a tide, it filled the dorm, burying both Nelson and Felicia’s feet and spilling as far as Zane’s bed.

Zane got up and inspected one of the pictures. “Jesus Christ, Nelson. Ever hear of the internet?”

The disciplinary committee member snapped his fingers. “That’s it!” he said, excited with realization. “You must be user four oh four!”

“The fuck did you call me?”

“Relax, it’s not a bad thing,” he friendlily assured. “Yours is the only male profile that hasn’t tried to access porn on campus wifi.”

“Are you serious?” Felicia skeptically asked.

“I got turned off of porn a while ago,” Zane shrugged and tossed the picture over his shoulder.

“How could that possibly be?”

“Because I can’t touch it,” he obviously replied. “But you guys seriously keep track of that? No wonder there’s a soft-core smut racket.”

The disciplinary committee member knelt down and looked over the pictures. “They all seem to be the same five girls. Do you know these people?”

“They’re my club members,” Nelson whimpered, face still buried in his hands. “You have to believe me! I didn’t get them for… bad reasons! I bought all the pictures he had so no one would see them like this!”

“You should have reported him the instant you knew something was wrong,” Felicia retorted. She addressed the committee member. “Collect the contraband and file it. We’re done here.”

“You don’t want to search the room?” he unsurely asked.

“I have no desire to stay any longer than I need to.” She readdressed Nelson. “Someone from the committee will come by to get your statements and deliver disciplinary action. Don’t make them search for you.”

“You know what your problem is?” Zane called before she was out the door. “You need to take that stick out of your ass and get dicked down good and hard. That always makes me feel better.”

Felicia stopped and looked over her shoulder with a smug grin. “Getting dicked down makes you feel better?”

Zane realized his phrasing too late. “No! Shut up! My offer stands!”

Felicia scoffed and left.

“Am I in trouble?” Nelson frightfully asked the committee member.

“We’ll see what happens after I file the report. I’ll make sure to take your story into account, but it would help if you told me who sold these to you.”

“I never got his name.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“I… wasn’t looking at his face.” Nelson watched while he gathered up the photos. “Are you going to destroy those? It would be bad for my friends if they got out.”

“They’re evidence right now, but they will be disposed of once the situation is resolved.”

“How long will that take?”

He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, then followed Felicia out the door.

Zane waited a few seconds to make sure the heat was gone before resuming the room’s anti-kidnapping renovations.

Nelson paced the place, pulling at his hair while his mind desperately raced like a spinning wheel going nowhere in particular. Eventually he couldn’t think of anything else he could do and ran for the door.

“Where are you going?” Zane asked.

“I have to tell my friends about the pictures!” Nelson anxiously replied.

“Oh,” Zane understandably shrugged. “Before you do that, I want you to take a minute and imagine how those girls will react to the knowledge that you know what they look like naked, and then ask yourself if telling them about it is a good idea.”

Nelson did just that and contemplated the tears, the violent outburst, the cold ostracization, the looks of betrayal, and measured deference that awaited him when his treasured friends found out he not only saw pictures of them undressed and underdressed, but purchased them. The president would listen to reason, but the others wouldn’t forgive him so easily, and they certainly wouldn’t release him unscathed.

He shook his head and pushed those thoughts far from his mind. “The pictures were of them, they deserve to know!”

“Whatever you say,” Zane nonchalantly shrugged. “Though, if I were you, I’d wait for your club to meet up so you could get it over with all at once, like a band aid.”

Nelson paused in the doorway. “It’s Thursday. We don’t meet until tomorrow.”

Zane froze. He checked the time on his phone, then rushed to put away his tools. “Shit. I’m late for my meeting.”