Originally Written: Sep 2007

Edited: Sep 11 2025

Kyle Patton sat stalk still, his internal barometer feeling the intense pressure building in the interrogation chamber. A grin spread across the face of one of his two captors as a bead of sweat crawled down his brow, his senses screaming at him to wipe it away. As he reached to end the miserable tickling sensation, he found himself drawn to a pair of blue eyes. A fatal mistake. Menacing, penetrating, cerulean spheres of judgment bored into his mind, his subconscious now the plaything of the beautiful and seductive woman before him. Her lackey snickered derisively in the corner of the room. He, like Kyle, knew the game was up. Soon the secret would be out, and the entire plan foiled.        

Then, defiance. Rage. From somewhere deep within him, a shout erupted. He remembered his training and regained his sanity. Rank, name, and serial number—that was all she would get from him. 

“Is there anything you wish to tell me?” asked the woman in heavily accented English. 

“Yes, actually. You can go to hell.” 

“Excuse me!” A shrill, girlish voice destroyed Kyle’s daydream. “What did you just say, Mr. Patton?” 

The interrogation room blurred into a slightly less intimidating image, and Kyle blushed as he remembered where he was. He chanced to take a sweeping glance across the room and saw his fourteen coworkers suffering much in the same way as himself. Some looked toward him with concern, others with glee. The solid white walls of the mock prison compressed the heat and odor of warm bodies, making breathing a laborious and repulsive chore. Kyle swallowed his embarrassment, lifting the corners of his mouth into a sheepish grin. 

“Sorry, Lucretia. I was, um... I was daydreaming. Really sorry. What were you saying again?”  

He cringed at the thought she might actually answer him, then grew disgusted he had asked in the first place. Lucretia’s thin, pale lips grew even more taut than usual. Daggers leapt from her eyes. The very likeness of Medusa approached, claws bared, ready to reach out and throttle him. Silence loomed for an hourlong minute. When Lucretia cleared her throat and returned her gaze to the papers spread out on the desk before her, Kyle heaved a sigh of relief. 

“Mr. Patton. Kyle. I’ve asked you to please call me Lukie. We’re all friends here. I’m only two years older than most of you. Now, as I was saying before the interruption…” She paused for effect, and the room sank into an unearthly level of silence. “As Resident Assistants, it is your obligation to allow incoming undergraduates the opportunity to feel at home in an unfamiliar and frightening environment. My duty as Residence Hall Director is to direct the affairs of the residence hall…” 

Oh, really? thought Kyle. Please stop talking. Please. 

Despite his wishes, Lucretia’s voice droned on. The hot, sleepy air made his head fuzzy. Struggle as he might, Kyle eventually succumbed to the overwhelming and seductive wiles of his own imagination. 

He was back in the interrogation room when— “Sorry, man.” 

Kyle’s brain remained stuck in neutral for a moment before he mumbled, “No problem.” 

A fellow RA named Stan had bumped into his knee while walking past, rousing him from semiconsciousness. The meeting’s end had saved him from the embarrassment of another, perhaps fatal, outburst. He rose from his seat and turned to file out with the rest, heart sinking when Lucretia called his name. Shoulders stooped, he approached her desk. 

“Did you need me for something, Lukie?” 

“Thank you for using my preferred name, Kyle. However, we must talk. I will not stand to be disrespected by anyone who reports to me, Mr. Patton.” Her thin frame shook as she spoke, black curled hair appearing more serpentine all the while. “One more incident like the one tonight, and I will have to find myself someone more capable of filling the Resident Assistant position. And from now on, I want things done my way or not at all. Have you anything to say on your own behalf?” 

Kyle wanted to ask how someone could be so inane and utterly autocratic, but he decided against it. He replied instead with an apology and an unspoken declaration of war. Once dismissed, he turned on his heel and strode away like a lion. Mind aglow with pent up hatred, he moved through the narrow hallways swiftly, coldly. Lucretia had crushed the career of more than one RA already. He needed to move clandestinely to crush his enemy first. 

Lucretia Morbury. His nemesis. The grudge between them had grown out of a single incident: the undoing of Amanda Livingston. Poor Mandy. A day of infamy. 

*** 

That night, Kyle had been hoping to stop by Amanda’s room. To buy himself time, he had already fudged marks next to the two remaining floors on his checklist. 

“I’ll check twice tomorrow night,” he reasoned. Using a less-trafficked stairwell, he descended one floor to the third. At the first hallway intersection, he turned right and almost yelped. 

Only twenty feet away, directly in front of Amanda’s room, stood terror itself. Lucretia, prowling the hallways for more victims. Plans derailed, he had chosen the next best course of action: he retreated. Rapidly. And stupidly. Instead of fleeing back to the stairwell, he had gone down a different hallway that curved away from Lucretia’s view. Raw animal instinct. Fight or flight. Seek concealment. He scolded himself. Coward. 

Thanking his good graces that Lucretia’s attention was directed at something other than him, he moved cautiously but quickly. A hanging dread caused him to constantly look back while he hurried down the grey-carpeted path. Turning just in time, he barely missed slamming into Amanda, who was carefully pinning colorful messages to a bulletin board. Her petite frame shook with laughter when she saw him nearly fall flat on the floor in his swerving attempt to avoid a crash. 

“Have a nice trip? Doesn’t the Army require dexterity or something?” she quipped, raising a questioning eyebrow. 

“You mean agility, right?” Kyle slid in close to her and examined a strand of auburn hair. “You sure you’re not blonde underneath here somewhere, Mandy?” 

She punched his arm. “Jerk. Not funny.” She laughed. “What are you up to?” 

“Everyone’s favorite Gorgon was down by your room, so I changed course and headed this way.” 

“You mean Lukie? Not very nice, Kyle. So, basically, you ran away.” 

“Lukie. So gross. No, I strategically withdrew.” 

“Sounds an awful lot like running away to me.” 

“Alright. You win this one. Just don’t get used to it. Won’t last. Anyhow… While I was pretending to be French and planning my resistance, you tried to tackle me.” Mandy sent two more quick jabs his way, and he half-heartedly dodged them. He pulled her in snugly. “You should be nicer to me, Mands.” 

She made no effort to get away. “Why?” 

“Because I’m such a nice guy.” 

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.” 

“Never told a lie in my life.” 

“Too bad, I really like liars.” 

“Did I ever tell you I’m compulsive?” 

Mandy giggled. “No, you didn’t. But I guess that means you win, doesn’t it?” 

“You’re admitting to me winning? That’s a first.” 

“Don’t think I didn’t let you. Besides, I know how to shut you up.” On tiptoes, she kissed him. 

A squeaky and forced cough shattered the moment. Lucretia’s normally taut lips crinkled into a rarely used, ugly smile and her eyes gleamed jealously. “Shirking your Resident Assistant obligations, I see. I most certainly do not approve of this kind of behavior.” 

Kyle spoke first. “Sorry, Lukie. It’s my fault. I was on rounds and I—“ 

She interrupted him. “I’m afraid it’s no use, Kyle. I have already uncovered another atrocious little secret in Amanda’s room.” She held up a bottle of Bailey’s Irish whiskey. 

Mandy turned scarlet. “What were you doing in my room?” 

Lucretia’s smile grew wider and even more nauseating. “I wished to converse with you about the new room key policy. When I knocked at your door and you didn’t answer, I took the liberty of trying the knob. Imagine my horror as I look into your room and instead of you, I find this. Such a shock! You were a wonderful Resident Assistant. A pity, really.” 

Kyle could only listen, his mind swarming with a million stinging utterances never meant to be let out. 

Mandy’s voice quivered. “That was a present from my grandma, Lucretia! She gave it to me when she was here a week ago, and I took it because it was a present. It’s not open. I left it on the shelf where she put it. If you can’t let me keep it, dump it out. But you can’t fire me for this!” 

“Ahem. I’m sorry, Amanda. As your friend, I expected more. If you were just another resident, I would consider that option viable. But unfortunately, you are a Resident Assistant. Examples must be set and rules upheld.”  

Lucretia’s voice emanated a frigid mirth. Her smile was gone. “If you had come to my little get together last weekend, your grandmother could have learned directly from me that her gift was inappropriate for a Resident Assistant to possess. I suggest you begin searching for a new place of work and residence. But I’m not heartless. I can give you one week, which is putting my neck on the line a little. See, I do want to help you.” And then she slithered away, her venomous bite delivered. 

Kyle could only stand stiffly, his eyes wide and heart racing. She couldn’t be serious! He watched as tears welled in Mandy’s eyes. 

“I need this job! What am I supposed to do, Kyle?” 

He could only wrap his arms around her and tell the truth. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

*** 

A sharp ding brought Kyle back to the present with a snap. Once off the elevator, he felt the tightness in his body fade slightly. The fifth floor of McAllen Hall represented at least some haven from the tyranny of Lucretia and her lackeys. Not that it was a great place to live. Not at all. His room sat almost directly across from the fifth-floor restroom. Ah, the aroma! Still, it was home. Better than the windowless sauna he had been sitting in only moments before. 

Outside the door, he was greeted by his friend and counsel, Charles “Charlie” Blake. Charlie stood leaning against the wall, swiping the arm of his ROTC uniform across his forehead. 

“Damn it’s hot in this place. Hey, Patty, what the hell you RAs need meetings for anyway? Is learning to babysit freshmen really that hard?” His loud voice carried through the entire wing. 

Made paranoid by the staff meeting, Kyle quickly silenced him. Swiftly opening his door, he beckoned his friend inside and slammed it. He simultaneously threw his backpack on the floor and himself into his recliner. 

He barely whispered. “Dude, keep it down in the hallways. Someone might be listening. I can’t afford to lose this job, Charlie.” 

His friend uttered as many sounds of disgust and expletives as he could manage in ten seconds, and then he started to laugh. “What the hell are you talking about, man? Listen to yourself for Christ’s sake. It’s damned ridiculous.” 

Kyle glared, flipping the bird to him. “Laugh all you want. Lucretia and her little stooge, Trevor Hinckley… They always find out about everything that happens in here, sooner or later. Plus, I’m on her bad side right now. She freaks me out. Especially since Mandy got axed. Dude, shut up.” 

Charlie had been laughing the entire time Kyle was speaking, only stopping now. He smacked his lips and lifted his eyebrows. 

“Well, I actually just came by to see if you wanted to play some Halo or watch a movie or something.” 

Kyle’s patience diminished just a little more. “Well, I could. If my Xbox hadn’t decided to die. Again.” 

“No games, no movies, too much homework, ROTC, and a bitchy boss. Sucks to be you. Want to have a smoke then?” 

“I can’t. I’m on call. Stuck in the building tonight,” muttered Kyle. 

 Charlie sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll head out then. See you later, Patton.” 

Kyle clenched his fists. He knew he should just let it go, but his frustration got the better of him. “Hold on. Take a look at this. See what you think.” He handed Charlie a sheet of paper and a key. “Oh, and Charlie… Room 106.” 

“Operation Perseus. You serious? I mean, I’m sorry about all that with Mandy. But it wasn’t your fault, Patton.” 

“Charlie, it has to be done. If you won’t help, I can always find someone else.” 

“Yeah, right.” 

“I could, but you’re the best. Besides, she has a thing for you.” 

“Don’t they all?” 

“If you say so. Are you in or out?” 

Charlie sighed. “I suppose. Your crazy ass is going to get my dumb ass in hot water. And you’ll just laugh.” 

“Yep, that’s about the sum of it. And Charlie...” 

“Yeah?” 

“Green is for ganja.” 

“Copy.” 

“Good luck, Charlie.” 

“Okay, we’ll see what I can do, General.” And he left the room. 

*** 

Charlie checked his watch. “What’s taking him so long? Oh no! Not now.” 

A fire drill—another hassle for the on-call RAs. Kyle thought of taking his homework with him but quickly decided it was a useless idea. He locked the door as he left his room, checked the hallways for stragglers, and then took the stairwell down with the rest of the students. 

Five other RAs, Lucretia, and Trevor Hinckley had gathered near the benches that sat in front of McAllen Hall. Kyle spotted Aaron Wainwright, a fellow RA and enemy of Lucretia. “Hey Aaron, any idea what’s going on?” The alarm had already stopped blaring. 

Aaron rolled his eyes. “Not really. It’s either an off-schedule drill or someone pulled it. Either way, someone is an idiot. I was on a Skype call with my fiancée. I’m annoyed.” 

Unnoticed, Lucretia and Trevor had slithered close. “Incorrect,” intoned Lucretia. “There are no such things as idiots, only idiotic actions.” 

“I agree with Lukie,” whined Trevor. “Stereotyping never does any good.” He flashed a toothy grin at Lucretia, who returned it by scrunching her nose. 

Kyle’s blood boiled. He felt cold waves of hatred emanate from Aaron, who had also lost friends from McAllen because of Trevor and Lucretia. Aaron’s tall, broad figure loomed over the toadies. Like the rumblings of a volcano before it belches flame and ash, he exhibited the signs of imminent catastrophe. 

Just then, Charlie arrived. He was beaming. His sudden appearance distracted everyone long enough that the tension on both sides dissolved. Enamored, Lucretia let her eyes linger on him. Aaron quickly distanced himself, muttering apologies laced with sarcasm and loathing. 

Charlie slung his arm around Kyle’s shoulder. “I need to borrow this guy for a minute, Lukie. I’ll give him right back.” Charlie flashed a charming smile and pulled Kyle out of earshot. A fire truck’s lights blinked in the distance as it approached, responding to the alarm. 

“So, buddy, about that little project you set me on,” he said in hushed tones, pulling Kyle out of earshot. “I got it all worked out. The Gun needs to be here in about an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. Don’t forget.” 

“You’re sure?” 

“Of course, brother man. I’ve got you. Watch me work.” 

“I owe you.” 

“Damn right.” Then, chuckling, he smoothly slipped between Lucretia and Trevor. “Wanna hang out, Lukie? Trevor can wrap things up with the fire department. Right, babe?” 

Lucretia, stunned at first, quickly regained her senses. As she walked away with Charlie back into McAllen Hall, she squeaked out instructions and never once looked back. “Everyone can go back inside! But not you, Trevor. Please talk with the fire department. They’re here, by the way. Thanks!” 

Trevor, who to Kyle seemed terribly lonely and shaken in his life’s purpose, gazed longingly after them as though considering whether to stalk Lucretia from the shadows like Gollum did Frodo and the One Ring. 

Smirking, Kyle flipped open his cell phone. “Hey, Linus. Remember the thing we talked about? Well, can you be at McAllen Hall in about an hour? Yeah? Thanks, man. See you. Bye.” With a click, he sealed the fate of hundreds. If he succeeded, sadly, most of them would never know. 

*** 

A week later, Kyle, Charlie and Linus “The Gun” Gunn sat together at their favorite drinking spot in quiet celebration. 

“V-day! The look on Miss Morbury’s face when she dragged her ass through McAllen’s front doors,” Charlie rejoiced. “Mission accomplished, General.” 

“For sure. But you have to tell me, Charlie. How did you get into her room?” prodded Linus. 

Charlie grinned. “Fire alarm. A bit of improvisation.” 

Linus grinned at Charlie. “The General didn’t know at all?” 

Charlie shook his head and whistled. “Nope. After that, it was divide and conquer. Got her away from Hinckley and convinced her I wanted to be more than friends. Desperation, Patton, sheer desperation. She would’ve done anything I asked. Never knew what hit her.” 

Kyle and Linus laughed. 

“Another successful mission. I’m glad I could help, Patton. I’m just sorry this didn’t happen before the whole Amanda thing,” said Linus. 

“Me too, Linus. Me too. Thank you, though. Couldn’t have pulled it off without that badge of yours.” 

“Yeah, well. Your dad got me into the academy. Anyway, I got to go. Until next time, Patton. Later, Chuckles. See you boys around.” His deep blue police uniform blended into the darkness as he strode toward his unmarked cruiser. 

“See you around, Gunn.” 

The momentary quiet was broken when Charlie slapped his knee. “Anyway. Back to my moment of glory, damn it! Green is for ganja. Ha! Tricky bastard, Patton. But you’ve got nothing on me. After I pulled the alarm, I snuck the container into her room.” Kyle rolled his eyes and smiled. He had listened to his friend’s retelling of events three times already. 

“While you were out here with Trevor, me and Spooky Lukie went to her room. A little conversation, a lot of charm. I hinted we could have some fun. Lighten the mood by lighting up some weed. It hit her hard. She was all giggles. Totally oblivious. Meanwhile, I’m over here puffing on tobacco when Gunn showed up. And the rest is history.” 

“Beautiful. Thank you, brother. Hmmm, maybe there’s something to this whole Don Juan thing after all.” 

“You know it. Apparently, her bosses didn’t like it much that one of their RHDs got busted smoking pot. I bet they were even more disappointed when they found out she kept her stash in her room.” 

“Probably so.” Kyle drew in a deep breath. “Ah, the smell of freedom!” 

“I guess The Gun let her off with just a report.” He made air quotes. “He’s so by the book. But at least she won’t bother you anymore.” 

“Yeah.” Kyle’s conscience, somewhat in spite of himself, was relieved by this last bit of news. His plan had been a complete success. Humiliating Lucretia further had no value to him. He would always miss his on-the-clock interludes with Mandy. But, after all, he could still see her every day. She had begged her way into being an RA in a different dorm. Vengeance, love, and glory. 

Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out a small metal object and tossed it to Charlie. 

“What the hell is that?” 

“The aluminum star. For being a dirty bastard above and beyond the call of duty.” Grinning, he handed Charlie a wooden pipe and a tobacco pouch. 

He shuffled slowly to gaze upon the moonlit lake. Standing silhouetted, arms behind his back, Kyle slipped into the boots of General George S. Patton. The sundered battlefield rested before him. The place where his men had fought and won—sacrificing for each other and for him, their commander. Sighing, he basked in the glory of his conquest then smoothly reentered reality. 

Liberty, he mused, is truly a lovely lady. 

He pursed his lips and smoke rings floated softly into the night air like gossamer. “Now for Mister Hinckley.”