Interdisciplinary Studies
The Master moved quickest through Carpenter State's faculty. Though its true design was unknown even to its vessels, there certainly seemed to be reason in its path of spread. Professors had access to students, large classrooms full of bodies for the Master to claim. It only took three or four vessels to assimilate a full classroom. One vessel would take the lead, while the others would pick off anyone who tried to escape. They could finish the room in the length of a typical college class.
Charlotte Blake was the first among the faculty to experience the Master's power, assimilated in the forest outside Romero. Miles Griffin and Mona Tran followed, assimilated by Professor Blake in her home. Mona cornered Miranda Cole in her office, while Miles worked his way through the math department, taking his mentor, Dr. Bertrand, who in turn assimilated his roster of graduate student lecturers as Professor Cole took out her adjunct frustrations on the tenured professors in the anthropology department.
The sudden change in social behaviors didn't go unnoticed by the remaining faculty.
"I heard them all night long. Chanting, moaning, banging on the walls. It's fucking weird, isn't it?" Mary asked.
"It's a little strange for this crowd," Dustin said, his attention split between the conversation at the table and his taco, which was quickly losing structure.
Mary turned to Daniela for her opinion, but she looked more confused than grossed out. "It's a retreat," she shrugged. "What the faculty do in the privacy of their rooms..."
"You don't get it!" Mary protested. "I'm not talking about a sexual revolution among our peers, these aren't swingers. The noises they're making...it's almost in-human."
Carpenter State hosted a faculty retreat every year near the end of summer. It was an opportunity for the professors to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other, and simply let loose a little before all the students returned. The disciplines typically stuck to each other, which was why Mary, Dustin, and Daniela—French, German, and Spanish professors respectively—were sharing a table in the big conference hall as Dean Pierce droned on about the founding principles of Carpenter State University.
But the Dean's words zipped over the trio's heads as Mary recounted the previous night's horror story. As she told it, she had been excited for the retreat because she was sharing a room with another French professor, her old friend Luna. Mary and Luna had been close in college, but drifted apart when Luna moved to Europe. But when Luna reached out about her money troubles, Mary was eager to help her old friend find a job at the school. This was Luna's first year as a professor, and it was supposed to be a new chapter in the girls' friendship. The retreat would be a test of that old bond.
By this point in the story, Dustin and Daniela both were losing interest in Mary's story.
"But then she fucking blew me off!" Mary hissed over the Dean's voice. "We were taking our luggage up to the room when we ran into Charlotte. She told us that she was having a party in her room next door. We kind of laughed it off at first. Luna thanked her for the offer, but I told her that we wanted to spend the night together catching up."
"I thought you said she left you," Dustin said.
"She did!" Mary whispered. "When I was unpacking my stuff, Charlotte came back to our door. Luna answered, and suddenly they were just whispering to each other. She was so weird after that, like I would talk to her, but she wasn't really there. And then she told me that she wanted to go to Charlotte's party, and she thought that socializing with the other professors would be good for me too."
Daniela looked out across the room. She saw Luna seated toward the front at Charlotte Blake's table. She frowned.
"Maybe she didn't want to talk to you about her money problems," Daniela said. "Maybe she just wanted to get drunk with her new coworkers without feeling judged about it."
"You think I would judge her?" Maria hissed.
"No," Daniela said evenly. "But sometimes a friend's concern might come off as judgment."
"You didn't hear the sounds, Daniela," Mary said, crossing her arms. "It wasn't a party. It was a ritual or a...a weird thing! You don't think people have been acting strange around here lately? Professors hooking up outside their disciplines? That never happens!"
"Engineering professors dating artists, it's not natural," Dustin said with fake horror.
"Listen, Mary," Daniela said. "You're obviously hurt that she left you, but campus is new to her. This is her chance to meet all of her new coworkers. If you're worried about her, why don't you just go talk to her?"
Mary glanced at Luna's table. Her eyes narrowee at the sight of Luna laughing enthusiastically as Mona Tran whispered in her ear.
"No," she said. "I can't explain it. I know I sound crazy. But something's not right. Something's different about her. She's not my Luna anymore. They got to her."
Mary knew that she was making massive leaps in judgment going from a friend's wild night out to some body snatcher conspiracy, but maybe she would have been more convincing if she had told Dustin and Daniela the last part of her story. Maybe if they knew about the late night phone call that startled Mary awake long after she had drifted off into an angry, restless sleep. Maybe if they had heard Luna's voice, that inhuman hunger as she panted into the receiver.
"Come on over, Mary...please join us...join us and see...all life surrenders to the Master..."
Maybe they would have believed.
But Mary didn't share that part of the story with her friends. It was too weird, too surreal. By the morning she had convinced herself that it was just a dream, even if the details of it had greatly influenced her paranoia.
Daniela had always believed Mary was a bit too sensitive. It didn't surprise her that she was so hurt that her old friend was making new ones so quickly, but she was a little concerned about Mary's conspiratorial rambling. Not enough to keep Daniela from having a little fun of her own, though. She met a pilot at the hotel bar, and after a few shots, she was loose enough to finally shake off her concerns about her friend and start enjoying this retreat a little. Deciding against her own impulsive nature, she left her new pilot friend with a few sloppy kisses and the encouragement that she might fuck him if she ran into him again the next night.
Daniela had actual work to do in the morning, which meant that she couldn't get too drunk. Regrettably, she carried herself up the stairs to return to her room. The floor felt empty beneath her as she stumbled back.
She had already reached her door, slipped the card into the reader and heard the click of the lock when she looked down the hallway and spotted Dustin outside of Mary's room.
She squinted her eyes. Was it Mary's room, or Professor Blake's?
Dustin knocked on the door: once, twice, with a long pause in between. When the door opened, she saw Luna's head pop out, arms draping around Dustin's shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. Her bare leg curved around his, and they fell backward into the room.
"What the fuck?" Daniela mouthed. She shook her head, then pushed her door open. She didn't enter though. The heavy door swung back shut quickly, and she heaved a sigh.
"Fuck it," she said, turning to walk back down the hall.
What was Daniela planning to do when she reached Professor Blake's room? She supposed she was going to do exactly what Mary should have done. She was going to ask Professor Blake why all the other faculty seemed to be fucking in her orbit, then she was going to demand Luna apologize to Mary for being a shitty friend.
She knocked confidently on the door, a rapid pace compared to Dustin's lethargic greeting. She opened her mouth to speak as it swung open, but all of Daniela's thoughts blanked away at the surprise of Charlotte Blake standing naked on the other side of the threshold. Her eyes were white, empty. Drops of thick, black liquid rolled down her body, from her tits, between her legs.
Behind her, Daniela saw Dustin spread out on the floor, Luna crying out in delirious pleasure as she rode his face.
"Charlotte..." She managed to gasp out before a strange voice echoed in her mind.
Daniela's eyes widened, the recognition faded away.
"Yes," Daniela said quietly, the emotion on her face as blank as Charlotte's eyes.
With a wicked smile, Charlotte dipped her fingers between the folds of her pussy. She moaned as she circled her entrance, scooping up a heavy portion of the black liquid, then she offered it to Daniela.
Daniela accepted Charlotte's fingers in her mouth, thoughtlessly sucking down every last drop of the Master. Charlotte stepped back into the room, and with her lips still wrapped around Charlotte's fingers, Daniela followed, just another vessel.
The Master moved quickest through Carpenter State's faculty, as Mary would learn personally herself only a few hours later when she awoke to find Daniela at her door.
