BATTLE LOST © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION. She rubbed her bloodshot eyes in exhaustion. Her eyeballs felt hard and sunken from staring at the computer screen all night without inspiration. She had been rereading the same code for hours, testing minor adjustments here and there only to change them back to the original, which worked better in the first place. Finally acknowledging a temporary defeat, she lifted herself from her weary hunch over the keyboard, the vertebrae in her upper back audibly realigning to their unaccustomed proper positioning. "Morgan definitely puts the curse in recursive." Lance complained in sympathy with Gwen's frustration. He also rubbed his monitor-strained eyes, absentmindedly writing on his forehead with a silver pen loosely held in his left hand. He took off his leather jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. Finals were over and this was their last assignment. It was definitely a bitch. "I've never had a professor as evil and heartless as Morgan. We're never gonna get this by tomorrow." She groaned. "Who ever said programming is supposed to be fun." The scribble on his forehead wrinkled as he raised his eyebrows in cool emphasis of the sarcasm. They were both interrupted from their self-pity by a loud snort at the next lab terminal. They looked over to see Art limply leaning back in his chair, his open mouth emitting noisome snores. A pair of shades rested on top of his monitor, giving the impression that his computer was watching him sleep. One smirking look between them revealed that they both had the same sinful thought. Gwen grabbed a handful of pencils from a dirty mug by the printer and handed half of them to Lance. The mug advertised the mathematician joke 'HO3' in red and green lettering. "Dude is dead to the world." Lance marveled when they had built the equivalent of a beaver dam on Art's defenseless face. "Wanna play pick up sticks?" Gwen laughed. "I want to play something else." Lance took her in his arms. The fluorescent lights in the lab flickered, ruining the reckless moment, and she pushed him away. "You know we can't." "I'm sorry." He stammered. "I can't even believe I suggested it." He scrubbed at his hair in embarrassment but as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye, the old desire had not entirely left him. "Especially with my best friend sitting right here." "It must be the pressure." She vaguely implied their unfinished assignment in an attempt to control her own impure thoughts. Her boyfriend did sit unconscious between them with a crown of their manufacture. "I'll go get us all something to drink from the coke machine down the hall." Lance stated boldly, resetting his mind on the simple quest. "You do that, I'm going to get back to work." Lance stepped out of the computer lab. At the sound of the door opening and closing, Art awoke. The unsettled pencils cascaded to the floor around him like a shower of splinters, leaving him sleepily regarding Gwen surrounded by a forest of dead wood. "I guess you and Lance were fooling around while I was out cold." He remarked with an expansive yawn. "What do you mean?" Gwen responded guiltily with a revealing blush that stopped him mid-stretch. "I had meant the log house you built on my head." He answered suspiciously. "What did you think I meant?" Gwen laughed nervously as she tried to cover up with a change of subject. "We haven't made much progress toward answering Morgan's challenge." He smiled tolerantly at his girlfriend, deliberately erasing the distrust from his mind. The problem at hand was much more pressing. He attempted to check the time on his terminal with no response. It appeared that the server was down. "C'mon Merlin." He begged the computer. "Don't freeze up on me now." "Mine's stuck too." Gwen panicked, slamming her mouse angrily. "And we don't have a recent back-up. I don't even know why I wanted to be a programmer in the first place. I should just go join a convent or something." Art raced around the token ring, checking all of the network connections for a flaw but could find none. "All is lost." He moaned melodramatically. "Maybe the other students..." She started to suggest, but he shook his head. "If one had been successful, we would have known." He sank weakly back into his chair. Lance returned and was stopped at the threshold by his friends' dejected postures. He stood dumbly with the three sodas in his hands. Was his disloyalty discovered? "I don't foresee Merlin coming back to life before we have to face Morgan." Art handed him their last printout. Lance sighed in partial relief as he noted the dead terminals. He set down the cans to dutifully take the stack of paper. "Turn it in. We'll get partial credit, and maybe another student will find it useful when it's posted next semester." Lance gripped Art's shoulder reassuringly and left to carry out the favor. He took his jacket with him, knowing that his friends would be gone before he returned. BATTLE LOST © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION.