[i]Blah...[/i]  Derrick trudged along the sidewalk toward his morning class,
struggling to stay awake.  The light-gray background of a sky wasn't  helping that
endeavor.  He kicked a stray pebble.  The skittering cut through the morning's
silence, but the effects were minimal.  "Never taking an 8 o' clock class again..."
he mumbled to himself.  Thinking of the time, the student glanced at his wrist.  
[i]Three minutes 'til.  Maybe I'll even be early.[/i]

	Professor Down was infamous for her tardiness policy, and Derrick had seen  
firsthand that the rumors were not exaggerated.  She had apparently been inspired by
a Japanese disciplinary method, so at least one student usually stood by the door  
with a full bucket of water in each hand after class began.  A security camera  
ensured the students held them for the entirety of the sentence.  He frowned and  
rubbed his arms, the muscles still sore from the last class.  He didn't even want to
think about the penalty for skipping class.  [i]Maybe I should hurry up a little[/i] 
passed through his sleep-addled brain.

	As Derrick ruminated, he suddenly caught several gray blurs at the top of
his vision.  [i]Aww...  Well, so much for being on time,[/i] he thought, pausing with
a sigh.  The four blurs landed smoothly, and assumed recognizable shapes: people,  
garbed in identical, seamless gray costumes, shredded in random patches across the  
surface.  The equally drab faces, with the wide, round indentations where the eyes  
and mouth should be, seemed to bear a perpetually surprised expression.  If they  
didn't resemble the stock troops of most generic kid show villains -- and the student
hadn't encountered them at least sixty times -- Derrick might have found them a 
little creepy-looking.

	As they were, he merely waited for them to surround him as they usually did,
weaving in and out of each other's spaces while making slightly ridiculous gurgling  
and hooting noises.  His foot tapped impatiently.  "Any day now would be great..." he
told them.  Finally, they stopped moving and began swaying in place, assuming  
fighting poses any novice martial artist would find laughable.  Once this happened,  
Derrick noticed the pebble that he'd kicked earlier.  As if for its failure to wake  
him up, he kicked the stone again, this time getting a little vertical distance in. 
It tore through the shin of the gray individual before him, which gave one last  
squealing gurgle as it threw up its hands and dissolved into the air.

	The one behind him announced its attack with a hoot and began running  
forward.  Without bothering to look, Derrick casually held his left fist behind him.
The ashen warrior gibbered in surprise as it fluidly impaled itself on the limb, and
then joined its brother wherever laughably weak, dissolving, gray things go after  
death.  The final two, one on each side, gave angry, muffled squeals before charging
at their intended victim.  Seeing this coming a mile away, the student took a step  
back, and allowed the two aggressors to collide and destroy themselves.  Yawning,  
Derrick looked at his watch.  [b]That[/b] woke him up.  [i]Crap!  7:59![/i]  And off
the college student went.



	"What do you know about the function after taking its partial derivative with
respect to x at the point--"  The small, prim woman's gaze and finger shot toward the
opening door and the tardy Derrick beginning to slip through.  This much relieved the
girl under interrogation.  Without pausing in her transition, Professor Down said,  
"Turner, you are 1 minute and 23 seconds late.  What is your excuse?"
	"The Shadows, again."  Her steely eyes seemed to stare into his soul for a
moment before she gave a subtle nod.  Without moving her eyes, her finger shot to an
empty desk.  "Take your seat."  As he complied in relief, she returned to the girl
who had held her attention before.  "-- 3, 7, 1?"
	"Huh?" she replied, instantly panicking again.  "I will not repeat myself,"
Down answered.



	Ever since they began appearing before small groups about six months before,
'the Shadows' had become an acceptable excuse for tardiness to class -- the only
excuse, in the case of Professor Down's -- lunch dates, and business meetings.  The
first people encountered were sent to the nearest loony bins soon after they
described their encounters, but they were released immediately once it became clear
that the entities appeared before everyone in the country.  A person's first
encounter was a little surprising, but ended quickly.  There had not been a single
hospitalization from the 'attacks,' if they could so be called, which were easily
thwarted by small children and the elderly alike.  They had come to be regarded as
little more than mosquitoes without the itching or potential disease afterwards.

	They had raised a bit of a stir at first, but there was really nothing to be
done.  Scientists couldn't dissect the Shadows because they would vanish the instant
the scalpel cut into them.  That was the theory, anyway; the things were so fragile
and erratic, they would twitch into all grab attempts with enough force to destroy  
themselves.  And no chance of dissection or any other examination was a pity.  Since
they didn't seem to breathe -- a can of tear gas would only affect them if the can  
itself made forceful contact -- there were quite a few questions about their  
physiology.

	The initial fears of an alien invasion, while mostly put to rest, still  
lingered in the minds of some.  These people believed the Shadows were meant to lure
humanity into a false sense of security and thus trained themselves to treat every
single shadow appearance as a full-scale emergency.  "Sure," they say, "Your
four-year-old daughter can beat them [i]now[/i], but what are you gonna do when one
shows up that can take out the armed forces single-handedly?"  Incidentally, none of
them have offered an acceptable answer to this question.



	"So, did any of that make sense to you?" Will asked as he joined Derrick
outside the room.  "Err...  Well, I remember it making sense when I was copying it
down..."
	"Heh.  I'm surprised you can keep up.  She goes over things so fast, I always
get left in the dust.  And if you ask for it again..."  Will performed his best robot
imitation, "I WILL NOT REPEAT MYSELF."
	"Yeah.  How are you acing the class again?"
	"Office hours.  She's got no problem repeating herself there."
	"Ah.  Must be nice to only have one hard class."
	"What can I say?  History makes for easy common curic courses when none of
your professors ask for dates."
	"Lack of romance [i]would[/i] make success easier."
	"...  Uh-huh..."
	"Sorry.  Dumb joke."  Derrick rubbed his eyes a little.  "I think I need a
nap."
	"Hope it helps.  See you later."
	"Right.  See ya."

	As Will hurried off to catch his next class, Derrick decided he'd snag an
early morning snack at the dining hall before heading back to the dorm.  As expected,
it was fairly empty, with only a few freshly awakened students stumbling around, and
a few caffeinated others zipping around.  Never one for coffee, he decided a banana
sounded good.