The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 303

Chapter 303: 303 | The Instructor With The Unreadable Gauge

I watched Sloane disappear up the hill toward 1-A’s Prometheus House, her ponytail swinging with each step, and the bond between us settled into a low hum of nervous excitement that wasn’t mine. She was already thinking about Radiant. Already running simulations in her head about what she’d say, how she’d stand, whether her Detonation output would impress the man who’d reshaped her entire concept of what a person could be.

I stood at the fork for maybe ten seconds longer than was reasonable, then turned and walked toward Building C.

My afternoon class was Hero Agencies and Bureaucratic Studies with Vera Castillo. The course title alone sounded like it had been designed by committee to make first-year students question their life choices, which, knowing Halloran’s curriculum designers, was probably the point. The institution that produced Radiant and housed the world’s most dangerous teenagers apparently also believed that proper documentation was a cornerstone of heroic development.

Percy materialized at my shoulder somewhere between the cafeteria and the academic quad, his navy blue hair catching the sun as he fell into step beside me. His notebook was already open to a fresh page.

"You have approximately fourteen minutes before class begins. The route from here to Room 316 in the Athena Wing takes seven minutes using the covered walkway, nine if we encounter vending machine congestion near the 1-A corridor."

"Percy."

"Yes?"

"Has anyone ever told you that leading with time calculations makes you sound like a GPS with anxiety?"

"Rina told me the exact same thing at breakfast." Percy didn’t look up from his notebook, pen moving in quick strokes across the page. "She said I was like a very helpful train schedule someone hung in a nice frame."

I shot him a look. His expression carried that particular quality of someone turning over a compliment in their head, trying to figure out if it actually qualified as one. The pen had stopped moving. His brain was still running calculations.

"That’s weirdly sweet, actually."

"I documented it as positive social interaction number fourteen." A beat. "Rina’s responsible for six of those fourteen since Monday."

We crossed through the Athena Wing’s south entrance. The corridor opened up with polished floors and lighting that reminded me more of a corporate office than anything resembling a school. Room 316 sat at the far end on the third floor, past a row of administrative offices and a glass-walled conference room where two faculty members were hunched over a tablet. The nameplate beside the door was simple, elegant serif font that didn’t waste space on decoration. HERO AGENCIES AND BUREAUCRATIC STUDIES. Below that, smaller. V. CASTILLO, INSTRUCTOR.

I pushed through the door and found myself in a room that looked nothing like the amphitheater layouts I’d been sitting in all day. The space was configured like a corporate boardroom. A long oval table dominated the center, polished dark wood with leather swivel chairs arranged around it, each place setting marked with a thin folder and a Halloran-branded pen. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran along the east wall, flooding the room with afternoon light that turned the wood surface into amber. A smart board occupied the north wall, currently displaying the course syllabus in clean white text against a navy background.

No tiered seating. No podium. No distance between instructor and student.

Vera Castillo wanted us close.

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