Much of U.C.O. had been built using what they used to call the "peace dividend." The U.C. Regents had acquired most of the land for the campus at little or no cost when the Pentagon, lacking the Cold War as an excuse for its existence and hungry for some good P.R., had graciously offered the use of what had been the Camp Pendleton marine base. Most of the base had been demolished to make room for classrooms, libraries and office buildings, but a few of the original buildings were still standing, including some of the old barracks. They were used mostly for storage.
Jim paid off the cabby. It was the same East Indian who had driven him back to the hotel; this was, after all, Southern California, a land with few cabs, a land where the only people without their own cars were the rows of quiet Mexican workers who filled up the natural gas-powered busses.
There was no one around the barracks. It was dusk; classes were over and the students were heading home to get drunk. Besides, there really wasn't any reason for anyone to come to this remote part of the campus.
Well, usually there wasn't.
It took Jim a few minutes to locate Barracks Number 12; all of the old military buildings looked pretty much the same to him. When he did find it, he found himself uncertain as to how to proceed. Should he just knock on the front door and announce himself? "Hi, I'm here for my girlfriend; I think you have her tied up in the basement?" The whole thing would be ludicrous if it weren't so terrifying.
But as Bill Baxter was always saying, problems have a way of solving themselves if you just leave them alone. And so Jim wasn't too surprised when the door to the barracks opened on its own.
He quickly made up for that lack of surprise, though. When he saw who was standing in the doorway, he nearly fell to the ground. He felt like someone had just punched him in the stomach; he was having trouble breathing, like the wind had just been knocked out of him.
"Hello, Jim," Bill Baxter said cheerfully. "Glad you could make it. Welcome to the secret anarchist cabal."