break in.

I took my time. This was my moment to bask in everyone’s attention, Katie’s attention and boy was I going to make a big deal about it. “I’ll go in with Gre-.. Callan” I announce proudly to the group.


“shhhhhhhhhhhhh” Katie whispered nervously looking around.

“Alright” says Greedo “As long as that’s the last time tonight that you yell out your plans to the whole of the campus. I mean we are literally 2 feet away, you baboon. ”


I look over at Clark expecting to exchange looks of bewilderment but I could see his genuine amusement. “If anyone comes into the building, we will text you right away capt’n” he whispers loudly, firing off a quick salute. As Greedo was hoisting me away, I saw Katie nudge him in the ribs. His wince told me that it must have hurt.


Once Greedo got us into the building, using his afterhours lab access, he threw one of his large salami arms over my shoulders and I could feel the dampness of his armpit on my shoulder. “Welcome to my kingdom” he chortles “We must climb the magic tower, to the top of the world and there you must go through the portal and open the gate for me, so that we can change history. “


I shove him off, enough was enough. “Look mate, I’m happy to work with you on this but you need to tone down the WOW element here, or I’m bailing. Either start talking sense or just lead the way. ”


Greedo malevolently grins and continues walking into the darkness and I am able to walk along quite happily, a few meters behind. More importantly I am able to escape some of his stench. His wheezing grows louder as I realise that we have come to a staircase, where we climb up four flights of stairs. With never before seen grace he opens a small window at the top of the staircase and manoeuvres his hand around the outside to open the door to the roof.


“Genius” I exclaim, probably extending my sentence to two more weeks of friendship.

“You see, Steven, OHS requirements state that all doors that access a roof must be able to be opened from the outside. It’s like they are begging us to break in or to be more precise out!”


Greedo walks out onto the roof, scoffing to himself, and quickening his pace. I follow along on the thin metal pathways over the roof, grasping onto a metal railings either side of me. The cool night air is freezing with the sweat on my face, which I hadn’t even noticed it until this point. The wheezing stopping ahead, informs me that we must have reached the restricted area of the building.


I look around and we are nicely sheltered from the pathways below. On one side, the roof ramps down to us and on the other side there are some glass panes. Peering through them I can only make out some dark rooms, with only a few shapes.


All I hear is my breathing and the heavy breathing of my companion. I feel like I should be able to hear some cars still leaving the university, the bustle of a tram or even a bat screeching. For the first time the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I turn to Greedo to voice my fears, but find his face centimetres from my own.


“Here‘s where you earn those sleep-ins that you desire, Steven. I need you to climb up through these windows.”

“No problem and I do hate to correct you, but these are solid panes. They weren’t made to open and even more shockingly don’t open” I answered, tapping the window.

“Steven, you are correct! Attention to detail like that is what must have brought you to this situation. I think you will find that you can climb up through that” he says pointing up above our heads. I follow his finger to the small window which is about half a meter above my head.


The window was only open a gap of about 50 centimetres and climbing through that would be quite a challenge. Is this the only reason why Greedo brought me along? Come to think of it I had spied Greedo and Wesley the weasel, hanging out a lot at university last semester. I never had thought of them as being friends at school because, lets face it, Greedo ‘homo’ Homes had no friends. Did he just use Wesley to climb in this window for grades? Had Wesley got cold feet and needed to be ‘taken care of’? Or even worse was I just a Weasel back up?


Again I had a choice ahead of me, either I bail now before I get in too deep or I keep going and climb through the window. Before I could decide, I began hurtling towards the window. Greedo had grabbed me firmly beneath the knees and thrust me upwards. My arms brace my upwards momentum against the window frame, stopping my head from crashing into it.


“Easy you tub of lard” I snap at Greedo below, as I regain my balance.

“Hurry up; you are not as light as you used to be in gym. Looks like those toasties aren’t as kind to your figure as they are to Katie’s.”


At school, I always thought that Greedo was the worst. However, seeing him tonight with this purpose and confidence, I am convinced that now he is the worst.


After about 30 seconds of wriggling I am finally able to squeeze my shoulders through the narrow opening. It is only once I squeeze my torso through the frame that I realise the desk below is still one meter below me. This dilemma is quickly solved by Greedo pushing me through with one last shove. I tumble forwards, sending a tower of papers and books crashing to the floor.


“Go round to the other side of the room and open the door, I’ll meet you there” Greedo instructs.


I reach into my pocket and thankfully my torch is still intact, I pull it out and start to stumble across through the cloud of newly disturbed dust and the piles of archaic artefacts which build up in your typical university storeroom. I flick the lock on the inside of the door and open it, just as Greedo lumbers up to it.


I turn around get my first look around the room; it has shelves of old books covering one half off the room. Every surface is covered by boxes filled with essays and lab reports that the university wanted to keep for their records. The carpet in our half of the room had been torn up and on the concrete floor was a dark red stain that looked like a small pool of blood.


“Don’t worry, it’s dry.” Greedo says following my gaze. He waddles over to the final corner of the room which contains a clean desk, with a brand new computer and a noticeboard above it.


“This is where we change history,” Greedo boasts, as he types in “NewtonBeta” as the username and then the password. The familiar sound of Bill Gates making millions rings across the room second later.

“What’s the magic word then?” I ask.

“Password!”

“Really? How many guesses did that take?”

Greedo answers by taping a sticky note above his head on the noticeboard. Sure enough there on the note it says “username: NewtonBeta, password: password.”

“I had the department head as a lecturer for ‘cognitive rational thinking: how to think like a pro’ last semester. For some reason he would always do his contact hours in here and that’s when I noticed sticky note. “He explains. “This shouldn’t take me too long, make yourself at home.”


I look through the nearest set of boxes to see if I can score any lecture notes that the university usually makes you fork out for.


“100% for you and me.”


I spy an old dilapidated box which looks like it has been there longer than I have been alive. The tests inside are handwritten and photocopied, but something about them is familiar.


“100% for the ravishing Miss Katie”


Then it hits me the questions are the same as the multiple choice test that I did a few weeks ago, unchanged since the 80’s. I look further into the box and there are essay and short answer questions. Even one titled “Research assignment for the extra 15%”. The class never changes.


“100% for the rubber man”


“It’s all here!” I exclaim to Greedo. “Everything we need to cruise through this unit, we won’t even need to come back again if we take these with us. I’ll gather all we need and see if I can dig up any other units, you finish up over there. Errr…actually maybe change Clark’s score to 90%, we don’t want to make it too obvious.”


Looking through the boxes in perfect order are all our subjects one after the other, like they had been waiting for us. I just found the last one of Kate’s subjects when Greedo walks over to me with his pudgy hand outstretched. I hand over a handful of the subjects, keeping mine held tightly in my hand.


Then a creaking sound starts from the dark corner of the room, hidden by shelves of books. A look of fear comes over Greedo’s face, like one of a first year wandering into the union building on student election week. He hurtles through a book case or two and into the dark corner, sending a pile of old microscopes flying.


Thud.


I raise my torch, looking into the corner and see Greedo pushing with all his force against the door. Even with all his weight, the door was still ajar; whoever was on the other side must have been strong to hold against him. Greedo turns his head and gestures for me to barricade the door with the largest bookcase.


“Who's in my room?”


It is the unmistakeably familiar sound of my lecturer from just this morning. If he sees me I am done for.


Do you barricade the door with Greedo or do you leave him, going back the way you came?