Legacy

Future glory

Nathan

Romain Bonnaire is one hell of a strange man. Sidestepping a drunken and a bit too honest conversation with the guy, the man was freaking me out a bit. Like he was nice one moment, but there was always that stern look lurking. It was that double-sided behavior that got my curiosity running. Of course, at first, I had no time to look into it, since the whole class had been given a new task to do. Study the fungus brought in a couple of weeks ago. Still, it bugged me a bit too much, which was terrible because it was becoming a distraction one I tried to justify by claiming it to be relevant to my goal. I needed to publish something big, or my years spent in the ministry would be a waste. It was bad enough that I got that letter yesterday from my father. He wanted me to pull the plug on this whole venture and get a proper job instead, like my older brothers.

There was no way I was going to do that; at that point, I might as well give up being a person. So yeah, I needed to turn this around, and I hoped Romain would help with that. Those files I had borrowed were huge government cover-ups to hide the existence of a dangerous fungus that infects people, causing them to become hyper-sensitive and like a hive mind. If I had not borrowed the file from our professor, I might have mistaken it for some far-out conspiracy. These files were my golden ticket if I could research this topic and be the first to get published, then the whole scientific community would know my name. There was no way I would not be able to gain fame and prestige with such an important finding. The key was to be the one to get it out there first, but before I could do that, I would need more proof to back up my findings. That was where my new friend came in. His mysterious symptoms were very similar to what I had read about in the report. I had to follow up on this lead. It seemed too big to ignore. What did it matter if this was not the decided tutoring day? This lead was groundbreaking, and surely Romain would agree with that. And that was how we ended up at a quaint cafe close to the heart of the city. I shared my discoveries with the man, and well, he seemed pretty tight-lipped about his thoughts on the matter. An uneasy silence settled over both of us as we both waited for the other person to say something. The standstill was broken by the waitress arriving with the tea for both of us. I had ordered something for Romain though honestly, I had no idea what kind of tea he liked. I had gotten him something bitter, but that was because he did not seem like a sweet person.

"Thank you for the tea miss," he said.

It was the first and only thing he said before he left.

The meeting had been a disaster, but not without merit. My new tutor's behavior was too suspicious to ignore. He had to know something about this whole cover-up, but I was going to need a different method to get him to open up about it. Hopefully, I had not scared him away completely. It would be challenging trying to track him down somewhere in France if he decided to go home.

"Mister Collingwood, if you find this lecture so boring, perhaps you should just leave?" the question was emphasized by a loud smack on the table.

Startled, I straightened up, giving an apologetic smile to my teacher. Mister Francis was a no-fun ancient man with only a few years left as a teacher. His lectors were dry and repetitive, but the man mistakenly seemed to think himself the most exciting carrier of information on the whole campus.

"If you are incapable of paying attention, Collingwood, then I rather not have you work with any of the discoveries. Those require keen attention to the rules and regulations to not have anyone get harmed."

I forced myself to give a polite nod. It would not do being pulled off the team looking into the new fungus due to something as silly as mister Francis declaring me too unattentive. As the lesson finally came to an end, I patiently packed my things. The other students were either leaving quickly or standing around in groups talking. I took my stuff to the cantine where I went to work. There was plenty of homework to keep busy with I slowly made my way through it, trying to ignore the other students. It only stung a tiny bit today, seeing my classmates socialize and have fun with each other. I did my best to ignore my feelings as I saw two of them holding hands and laughing. There were more pressing matters to attend to than frivolous chatting anyway, and what did concern me was that my classmates were over there having fun while I was sitting here mopping with homework, not at all was the answer.

My research was going to dwarf theirs, and my hard work was going to leave them in the dust soon enough. When that happened, I would have it all fame, recognition, and acceptance of those who mattered. Quite frankly, it was the other students who were wasting their time right now chatting instead of trying to achieve something worthwhile. I tightened my grip on my pen. I just needed to get Romain to confess what he knew, and then I would be able to show them all. Tomorrow I would try again. With a renewed resolve, I got back to work grinning as I ignored the looks I was drawing from a few other people in the cantine. What did they know anyway? Nothing, and it would stay that way.