Lycanthropy and Me: The First Semester(mlm)

Day 33. Friday, Waning Crescent

It was noon. Hunter stood outside the office, feeling nervous. What if the other Dean was back? What if their deal was already over?

He stepped inside. Sandra Nunez was present, spraying the potted plants around the room with a water bottle. "You came." Her  painted lips parted for a smile.

"Uh, yeah." He looked around. A pile of paper in the corner had disappeared to reveal a small desk and chair. "We talked about it before but uh...what should I do first?"

She gestured to the desk. "Have a seat."

He did as he was told, resting his crutches against the wall. Sandra reached under her desk and turned on a small radio. Easy listening wafted through the room. It gave the space a nice, calm atmosphere.

Sandra dropped a large stack of files on his desk. "You can start by sorting these." She placed an old laptop on the desk as well. "By using this." She opened it to show a login screen. "The password is Redwood26, not hard to remember." She tapped it and gently hit enter as she stood over him. The desktop only had 4 icons: 'Internet', 'Argus', 'Osiris', and 'Koto'.

"Click the Argus icon."

Hunter did as he was told.

"Argus is a program we use to send us messages en masse whether it's for meetings, dinners, bulletins, et cetera. It holds a complete list of Faculty, Students, Alumni, and Honorary Members of the Redwood family."

"So...Everybody?" Hunter blinked.

"Everybody." Sandra cracked another smile. "The levels of access vary of course. For today, I'll let you use it to sort these files between the active, retired, and adjunct teachers. Click the address book icon."

He clicked.

When you roll over a name you can see their affiliation, department, and status. Right now the address and contact information is locked. If you finish filing these before the day is over, I'll have you use Argus to do a few email blasts."

"Sure." Hunter nodded, staring at the address book. This might be better than I thought.

Hunter listened closely as Sandra doled out instructions. Through middle school and high school Hunter had worked part-time at his local public library. Originally intended as a way for his mother to get him out of the house, it had improved his organizational skills greatly. It was not long before Hunter had filed away a third of the room's paperwork and unearthed a large mass of grey fluff that he realized was an old cat.

"Did you know there was a cat in here?" Hunter asked.

Sandra glanced back at him. "Oh, right. I believe he had made that place his nest."

"Is he yours?"

"Heavens no. He's a stray the Dean brought in ten years ago and forgot to find a home for. He wanders the building."

The grey feline blinked up at him, stretched, crawled behind another pile of papers, and went back to sleep.

After an hour or so Sandra announced she was going to lunch, but not before going over Argus's inner workings. She entered the second password. "I'll have you do an e-mail blast for the department. Here." She brought down a drop-down menu. "We have headers and messages already in there for you to use." She demonstrated creating one. "Now you try."

"Okay." He glanced from her to the screen. "I'll just put in a random name like...."

The phone on Sandra's desk rang, and she crossed the room.