The Game of Inyloct: Chapter One
An Existential Debate
My story began on a Thursday. The ironic fact that Thursday literally translated as ‘Thor’s Day’ in honor of the Old Norse god of lightning and thunder was not lost on me. Not to be out-deified, the Romans opted to name this day after its own god of lightning and thunder, Jupiter. Hence Thursday, in various Romance languages, was derived from the Latin phrase lovis dies, or Jupiter’s Day—jueves (Spanish), jeudi (French), and giovedi (Italian) are examples.
So, Thursday… that’s the day that commemorates powerful gods. While you might not yet appreciate the irony, keep reading.
• • • •
As per my usually Thor’s Day routine, I headed down the empty, dimly lit hallway in the basement of Ashton Hall, working my way along the gray, or perhaps beige (I was never quite sure), concrete, cinder block walls toward the lab at the end of the hall. The occasional flicker of the overhead, buzzing, fluorescent lighting, with every other bulb long since dead or soon to be, transformed the hallway from mere dreary academic basement to Medieval dungeon status.
Light emanating from the lab, actually an old storage room, was the only brightness of the drab (I’m doing to say) pale green hallway. The room was populated by a hodge-podge of aging, diverse computers, equipment and other assorted devices, cobbled together by one of my two graduate assistants. Caitlyn, at the tender age of 24, was an accomplished computer programmer and engineer, skills not attained through normal academic training. She not only configured the equipment, but acquired most of the components through methods I thought best left unexplored.
Our lab was the ‘redheaded step child’ of the university, working with almost no funding and few resources, ironic in that Caitlyn O’Brien was in fact a fair-skinned, hardcore, Irish-ancestry redhead. While we had almost no official funding, through the uncharacteristic benevolence of my department chairman, I was assigned two of the brightest graduate students in the department. Officially, I was their advisor and they were my teaching assistants. In reality they helped develop a rather sophisticated computer system. In their spare time, Caitlyn pursued a master’s degree, while her partner, Carlos Sanchez, was moving headlong toward a doctorate. Neither provided any actual teaching assistance.
Fortunately (if hard work, long hours, and innate talent can be termed fortunate), my little team had published a half-dozen peer reviewed academic papers over the past two years. While that did not lead to additional resources, it kept the vultures at bay. Even a dimly lit, basement storage dungeon was on someone’s annexation radar.
I paused at the water fountain shy of the lab door, hoping that none of the contaminants flowing through the spout was life threatening. As part of my morning routine, I enjoyed the debate that inevitably emanated from the lab. Over recent months, topics ranged from the designated hitter rule to UFOs.
Caitlyn and Carlos almost never agreed—on anything. I suspected that Caitlyn simply took whatever position was contrary to Carlos. Case in point, Carlos, an accomplished collegiate baseball player was against the designated hitter rule. So, of course, Caitlyn was for it. I also suspected that Carlos had a bit of a crush on freckle-faced Caitlyn, of which she was clearly aware and often used to her debating advantage. Carlos, always the gentleman, repressed whatever feelings he had for his lab partner, much as he did with other emotions.
I leaned against the (let’s go with) brownish-gray wall next to the water fountain, out of eyesight but not earshot. The fluorescent light overhead flickered once and went dark.
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