Class Project
Janice Dreamer
1. Chapter
"Okay, everyone pair up into teams. Use the remaining time to talk among
yourselves and start deciding what your project will be. Remember, you have
until Monday to get back to me with your project's title but I need you to
sign the sheet as you leave today so I have a list of all the teams."
Professor Krawlaski brandished a sign-up sheet at his Anthropology 361
class. His last comment was partially drowned out by the buzz of
conversation as the dozen students began sorting themselves out into pairs.
Cathy cursed under her breath when the Professor mentioned a "team"
project. It was only the first day of the semester and she didn't know any
of her classmates yet. But it didn't take a genius to see that she was
obviously the only Anthro major in the class, all the others had most
likely signed up to satisfy their prurient interest in the course title: A
Comparison of Sexual roles in Myth, Legend and Religious Tradition. She
knew she'd probably have to do the work of two people for this project. But
it couldn't be helped -- the project was 60% of the grade for the class and
she'd be damned if she'd ruin her perfect 4.0 GPA because some lame partner
would rather party than put in work on their "joint" project. So she held
back, trying to size up by looks alone who'd be a good partner.
Predictably, the guy she vaguely recognized as some jock on the football
team approached the pretty little thing with the big tits; yeah they'd be
researching sexual roles all right. And the frat boy seemed instinctively
drawn to the sorority queen; Beemer and Mercedes -- what a natural pair --
their project would involve little more than rewriting and editing some
paper dredged out of fraternity archives. The remaining choices of
prospective partners seemed just as dismal so she merely watched with a
feeling of resignation as the rest of the class sorted themselves out,
until finally her decision was made by default.
One guy remained unpaired. He was very big and awkward looking, visibly
nervous, sweating, eyes downcast, his brown hair plastered to his forehead
in damp strings. Occasionally he cast a furtive glance around the room to
see if anyone might be showing the slightest interest in teaming up with
him. Cathy sighed, well it could be worse -- he looked like a real dweeb,
totally into academics, so maybe he'd be some help with the research on the
project.
Bob looked around the room uncomfortably. He always hated when they did
this -- made everyone pick partners. It brought back memories of childhood
games when he'd been the last picked, enduring the embarrassment of
listening to arguments over who'd get `stuck' with him. He'd turned inward
to books and ideas and food. Already overweight and clumsy, he spent more
and more time locked in his room with a book and a bag of chips or a box of
cookies. It only got worse in high school when everyone else started
dating. That only emphasized his isolation. He got great grades but he had
almost no sense of how to interact socially. The few painful times he'd
managed to get up enough courage to ask a girl out had ended in rejection.
Now, here he was in college and nothing had changed --- totally paralyzed
by fear of rejection over asking someone to be his partner for a stupid
term paper.
"Hi, I'm Cathy Anderson. Looks like we're a team."
Bob looked up, slightly startled to see a woman standing in front of him
with her hand extended in greeting. She was tall for a woman, about 5'10".
Her face was rather plain and she seemed to project a total disregard for
femininity, coarse black hair cut severely short, bushy untended eyebrows,
a total lack of jewelry, and baggy dark colored clothing. Her expression
seemed detached, coolly superior, as if she were indulgently watching the
rest of the world make fools of themselves. Her demeanor reminded him of
Morticia Addams --- an impression she seemed to cultivate.
Bob awkwardly rose from his seat and smiled at her nervously. He wiped his
palm on the thigh of his jeans and took her hand. "Uh... hi. I'm Bob...
uh...Wilson. I... um... guess we're partners?"
Standing, Cathy realized how big he was. At least 6'4" tall, and over 300
lbs. But he carried himself hunched over as though trying to avoid notice.
His face wasn't bad looking --- if he lost some weight he'd be very
attractive, in a Conan the barbarian kind of way. But he looked like he
needed self confidence even more than a diet. His attitude just screamed
"I'm not wortheeee!"
The bell signaling the end of class rang just then and everyone started the
mad rush for the door.
"So. I got a class. When can we meet?" she slung her backpack over her
shoulder and looked at him expectantly.
"Um how about one?"
"Works for me. At the Mickey-D's on the corner." She turned and walked out
the door.
He pulled out a crumpled bandanna and wiped the sweat from his brow as he
watched her leave.
*****
Cathy glanced around the crowded McDonald's, feeling ashamed of herself for
being relieved that none of her friends were here to see her with Bob. She
stared in horrified fascination at the sheer mass of food he'd ordered and
found she'd lost her appetite. Her chicken nuggets remained untouched as
she watched Bob methodically devour his burgers, all the while humming
unconsciously to himself.
Finally she tore her attention away from Bob's feeding frenzy, and said
"Okay, let's get started. What ideas do you have for a topic?"
"I haven't got a clue. I've never taken any Anthropology courses before."
"So why exactly did you sign up for this course?" Cathy asked, irritated.
He slowly swallowed a bite from his third quarterpounder before answering.
When he finally spoke he sounded defensive. "I'm a computer sciences major.
The department requires us to take a certain number of non-technical
electives --- probably they think we won't be geeks if we take a few
credits of humanities."
Cathy felt guilty for being so judgmental and was sorry she'd snapped at
him. He was the stereotypical social outcast. So down on himself and
anxious to be accepted. She had underestimated just how painfully shy he
was; it wasn't her intention to hurt his feelings with her flippant remark.
He paused for a moment, watching Cathy's reaction. When she didn't laugh,
but actually appeared to sympathize, he seemed to reach a decision.
Blushing crimson, he blurted out in a rush, "I guess I uh also sort of
hoped an Anthropology course or two might help me figure out how to get
along with people better you know, to not be such a total geek."
She grinned at his attempt to lighten things up. "But then shouldn't you
have signed up for one of the survey courses, something on social
interaction? Instead of an advanced course on religious beliefs in
primitive society?"
"No, that stuff is so trite. Pop psycho-babble I've heard before. But I'm
interested in lots of things besides computers. I remember reading
Bulfinch's Mythology and thinking how cool all those stories were. Gods and
Goddesses and Demons and Angels. I guess I wanted to find out more about
all that."
"Well, anyway, what topic do you think we should we should do?" Bob asked.
"Well, Anthropology is my major, but my real area of interest is the
occult. There's just too many claims of supernatural occurrences throughout
history. Are all those reports and myths and legends false? Science doesn't
explain everything in the universe --- at least not yet. It's my theory
that at least some of the legends of the occult are based on fact, and by
applying the scientific method to research on primitive belief systems we
can discover things we never dreamed possible."
"Then why don't we do our project on something like that? Maybe on
demonology? You know, summoning demons and stuff like that? It sounds like
a cool topic." Bob suggested.
"Okay, sounds like an original project. I've got some old references on
sorcery and alchemy, that sort of thing. We could do an analysis of the
methodology for summoning demons. I can drop some reference material off
for you to get familiar with over the weekend and we can get together
Sunday to write up an outline," Cathy said.
*****
Bob muzzily stared at the page and tried to read it for the eighth time. It
was no use. He just couldn't get into this mumbo-jumbo pseudo-theological
stuff with all the cautions and dire warnings. He had enjoyed reading the
myths of the Greek gods as fiction but this stuff Cathy'd given him to read
made it all seem so serious, except there was no logic to it. The diagrams
were interesting enough with their mathematical precision, exacting
placements of lodestones and iron and copper tracings to form geometric
shapes; but the `spells' just seemed like so many nonsense syllables. Why
would the guy who originally wrote this be so exact about one thing and
then go off into gobbledygook? He tried pronouncing the incantation aloud.
The author had painstakingly detailed a phonetic rendering of the words, so
their exact pronunciation must have been important to him.
He felt silly as he was attempting to speak the meaningless sounds but he
noticed a distinct pattern and rhythm to the words. The sounds didn't seem
like a language, but the singsong rhythm reminded him of a hypnotist he'd
once seen at a stage show. Suddenly he had an inspiration. What if the
"spell" was intended more to induce a certain mental state, like a hypnotic
trance or a Buddhist monk's meditation chant, rather than actually convey
meaning? Then the logic of the instructions for precise phonetic
pronunciation made sense to him. Why, he could even mathematically model
the sound pattern and input it into the language recognition/cryptography
program he was working on as part of his senior thesis. Then he and Cathy
could do a high-tech reenactment of a demon summoning, complete with video
recording to show the Professor. That would certainly be a new slant on
demonology. At the very least it would make a unique class project. And it
sounded like a lot of fun.
*****
"So look, it's worth a try isn't it?" Bob was explaining his idea to Cathy
over a cup of coffee Sunday afternoon.
"How typical of a computer science major. You want to take an ancient and
solemn ritual and digitize it. Turn it into some kind of computer game!"
she said, unconvinced.
"Isn't that what the course is all about? Scientific analysis of primitive
belief systems? If we do a halfway decent write up we're sure to ace the
project," Bob dangled the one lure he knew would entice the grade greedy
girl.
"Well a video recording of a summoning ceremony would impress Krawlaski, I
guess. And it would be valuable to see if modern science can make sense of
a ritual like the one in the Grimoire. Okay, let's do it."
"Okay! Now let's work out the details. We can do it at my place -- I've got
a big living room --- and my roommates spend all their free time over at
the University computer center. You supply the expertise on all the rituals
and I'll supply the computer and technical expertise."
They talked for over an hour until both were satisfied with the idea and
their various parts in it. Then they wrote up their outline for submission
in class on Monday.
*****
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving Cathy and Bob spent all day setting up.
Bob's roommates had already left for the extended holiday and they had the
apartment to themselves for the next five days. It was ten minutes before
the stroke of midnight and they had just finished making a final check of
all their preparations. Bob's living room was a mess with all the furniture
pushed back to form a clear area in the center with wires and cables strewn
everywhere. Wires were laid out on the hardwood floor and stapled down to
form three precisely measured pentagrams arranged in an equilateral
triangle. Each pentagram had little LED lights at each of the five points
of the star design. All the wires ran to an improvised junction box which
was in turn connected to a serial computer cable plugged into the com port
of Bob's computer. The computer itself sat inside one pentagram. On the
monitor was a graphic of a digital clock, ticking down the seconds to
midnight.
"Well, it's all set. The program'll start automatically at midnight, all we
have to do is wait. Let's get a beer before we have to get into position,
Cathy. You look tense and it might relax you." Bob said casually. He'd
grown comfortable around her over the past weeks as they worked closely
together on the project. She was one of the very few women he'd known who
he wasn't afraid of, and considered a friend.
"This may sound weird, but I think we should be very careful here," Cathy
said almost in a whisper. "You know all the old stories about how demons
will try to trick you just for spite."
"Oh come on, Cathy!" Bob sighed in exasperation. He still wondered why an
otherwise intelligent girl took all that mumbo-jumbo so seriously. "This is
an experiment, nothing more. At most we might see some interesting natural
phenomenon brought on by the magnetic fields in the pentagram patterns and
maybe enhanced by a meditation trance from listening to the `spell'.
Everything will be under control of the program. We know a lot more than
the people who wrote that `spell'. We know how the laws of physics work and
we know how to control them, so there's no reason to worry about demons and
all that."
"Well, it can't hurt to be careful anyway. So I think I'll pass on the
beer." As if he's going to listen anyway, but at least I tried to warn him.
God when he goes off on his scientist trip he sure can be pigheaded, Cathy
thought. Damn shame he couldn't be that confident in the rest of his life.
She had grown to like him and wished she could get him to open up more and
maybe others would see him as more than a big dweeb.
"Suit yourself." Bob wandered over to the kitchen alcove and got himself a
beer from the fridge. He flopped down in a chair and sipped it moodily as
the countdown crawled by. Finally the screen's graphic changed to a red
flashing pattern and the speakers chimed.
"Thirty seconds until program initiation, please assume your positions" the
computer's artificial voice said.
Bob and Cathy got up and stood in the center of the two unoccupied
pentagrams. They fidgeted nervously then stood still, staring at the
monitor in anticipation as the final seconds ticked off.
Just as the timer hit 11:59:59 all fifteen of the LED's at the points of
the three pentagrams lit up. Then the screen went blank. From the
computer's speaker came rhythmic sounds which rose and fell, becoming
guttural one moment then changing to a hauntingly melodic pattern. The
sounds were being created by a fractal generating routine which used the
demon summoning incantation as its kernel. There was no recognizable
language but the sounds had a strangely hypnotic effect and both Bob and
Cathy felt themselves drifting along while the computer generated "spell"
echoed in their minds. Meanwhile the screen had come to life in a
constantly changing pattern of swirling colors which added to the sense of
detachment they were feeling as a result of the incantation --- an
embellishment Bob had made on the original instructions for the spell
caster to picture a repetitive series of geometric shapes in his mind.
Bob and Cathy were both swaying slightly in time to the rhythm of the
"spell". Their eyes were riveted to the computer screen as the patterns
flashed and faded and metamorphosed constantly. Slowly the tempo increased
and the sounds seemed to assume an air of supplication, almost pleading.
Imperceptibly the lights in the apartment seemed to dim, until only the
light from the computer and the small LED's at the starpoints of the
pentagrams remained. With a tiny remaining rational portion of his mind Bob
noticed the fading light and dismissed it as most likely a result of his
concentration on the computer program.
After an indeterminate time, the chanting from the computer built to a
fever pitch and died abruptly with a final crescendo of sound. At the same
time the screen went black and the room was bathed in near total darkness
with just the tiny red light from the LED's creating a weird shadowy
universe of indistinct menacing shapes.
"Wow. Too weird." Bob felt a cold draft run up his spine and he shook
himself as if waking from a dream. "Must have blown a fuse. I'll check the
circuit breakers."
"Stop!!" Cathy nearly screamed before he could take a step. She continued
in a voice trembling with both terror and unbelieving awe, "Don't move a
muscle or you're doomed."
"Huh? What're you talking about?"
"Look where the computer was! And whatever you do, don't leave your
pentagram!"
Bob turned back to peer through the gloom at the center of the other
pentagram. His eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness and he made out a
swirling red tinged figure where his computer had been only seconds before.
It was in constant flux like a swirling gas, yet appeared to be solid. It
had the general outline of a person, but there was nothing human about it.
"What the hell is that?" Bob blurted.
"You should know, human, you summoned me here." said a voice dripping with
disdain from the strange apparition.
"Holy shit! It worked! I don't believe it!" Bob felt his heart hammering in
his chest.
"Believe it. You called, I'm here." the weird creature said.
"Is it... Are you... really..." Bob was having trouble accepting what his
senses were telling him.
"Am I really... what? Humans are so predictable. They always ask. I am what
your ancestors called a demon. You've trapped me here with your little toys
and now you get a wishes fulfilled so I can go free."
"A wish? We can wish for anything?" Bob remembered Cathy's caution about
how demons were tricksters. "And what do we have to give up in exchange?"
"No you can't wish for anything you stupid creature. My powers are limited.
I can't affect anyone or anything except what has summoned me and fed me.
So I can't make you rich and I can't make another love you. But I can alter
your own physical bodies --- quite a lot, in fact. In the past there has
never been sufficient energy remaining from a summoning to do more than
restore youth and health to those who summoned me, but your mechanical
devices seem to have provided a surfeit of power. In other words I can give
you the body you have always desired. And to answer your other question,
you don't have to give anything in exchange. No souls, no damnation.
Nothing."
"But then why do you grant wishes, what's in it for you? And why should we
trust you?" Bob asked, immediately suspicious.
"Let's just say that my kind exists on the chaos generated by human
emotions, among other things. Most of the time you never realize we're
around. But the energy pattern you created tonight charged my being with
incredibly more energy than normal --- you might say I'm bloated. It raised
my energy level to the point where my `body' has manifested itself in a
state which you can perceive with your physical senses. But this high
energy level is awkward for me and is capable of being manipulated and
constrained by the same mental-electromagnetic field which raised me to
this current level of energy. To make an analogy --- you have force fed me
so much that my belly has swollen to an enormous size, and now I can't move
from your pentagram unless I digest this energy and excrete it. Fulfilling
a wish will require expending some of the energy I have consumed, and thus
free me to go about my life. And, before you ask, your free will acceptance
of the energy is the only way to trigger my release. Once I have
accomplished that, my balance is restored and the force holding me here is
nullified, and I can go back to grazing on your emotions. Think of me as a
kind of mental symbiont."
"You mean you can't leave until you fulfill a wish?" Cathy asked.
"No. Didn't you listen? I have all this excess energy anchoring me here.
The only way I can discharge it is through your voluntary acceptance of it.
A wish, two wishes in fact, since each of you must accept the discharge for
symmetry. Otherwise I'm stuck here until my energy level dwindles -- which
could take years -- or there is a disruption in the magnetic field holding
me, such as a power failure or someone crossing one of the lines in the
pattern."
"Bob, we've got to do this --- there's no way we can wait him out in these
pentagrams. But be very careful what you wish for." Cathy cautioned.
It made a weird kind of sense, Bob had to admit. "Okay. What do we have to
do to get this over with then?" he asked the demon.
"Just close your eyes and picture in your head the kind of body you've
always wanted and I'll take care of the rest. You'll have to concentrate to
get exactly what you wish for."
Bob still wasn't sure he should trust this creature but the thought of
being able to change his fat unattractive body into a babe magnet was
extremely tempting. So he slowly closed his eyes.
"Good. Now just let your mind go blank," he heard the demon saying. "You're
both doing fine..."
Suddenly, inside his head he saw the whirling pattern of dots before his
eyes coalesce into the indistinct shape of the demon. It looked both ways
in a weird pantomime of checking to make sure they were alone and leaned
upwards and spoke in a stage whisper, "Okay, Bob, this is just between you
and me. Before you start picturing your perfect body, how'd you like to get
the chance to redesign your partner, old tight-ass over there?"
The demon gestured and Bob saw an image of Cathy in his mind, standing in
the middle of her pentagram, just as he'd last seen her before the demon
appeared. "You can make her into your dream girl if you want, it's up to
you."
"Why are you offering me this? I thought the spell was constraining you?
And I thought you could only affect my body, not someone else's." Bob asked
suspiciously.
"I told you we live off the energies generated by emotions. Well, I figure
this way will generate more emotion than if she gets her wish and becomes
some lesbian superwoman. As I said, I can't affect anyone except those who
summoned me --- but she is one of those who summoned me, her mind is
interwoven in the energy field. But your mind is very strong and your
mental image of what you want her to look like might be able to supersede
hers. I'll simply replace her mental image of her wish with your mental
image of your dream girl when I initiate the change."
"But what if my mental energy isn't strong enough?"
"Then no harm done, she gets the body she wished for and nobody's the
wiser. But if it works, you get your very own dream girl -- a total nympho
sex slave all your own!"
"Sex slave? You also said you couldn't make another love me." Bob
protested, still suspicious.
"I can't make her love you, idiot," the demon seemed to be getting
exasperated. "But I can give her new body a very high sex drive, extremely
sensitive to arousal. With you in your own Greek god incarnation, all
you'll have to do is whistle and she'll be eating out of her hands."
The offer was extremely tempting. Wouldn't it be great to have the girl of
his dreams and a great physique? Plus the demon had hit upon Bob's main
vanity --- that his mental abilities were better than any woman's. It was
every dateless dweeb's conviction that he was smarter than all those
attractive people having fun and partying. "Okay. I'll try it. What do I
have to do?"
"Just imagine the perfect woman. Let her take shape in your mind. I'll help
you hold the image once you picture it, then we'll fill in the details..."
Bob thought about all the Centerfolds he'd ever admired and all the pretty
women he'd seen. He saw a woman's shape take form in his mind and he began
picturing all the things he found sexy about a woman. Firm breasts, their
shape...yes, just like that... A small pert nose... Sexy creamy smooth
skin... Very long silky blonde hair... Long tapering fingers... Full
sensuous lips Shapely slender legs leading up to a round, firm ass The
image seemed to hold its form in his mind with no conscious effort on his
part, leaving him free to fantasize and edit each tiny detail without
trying to hold the entire picture in his head. Finally he seemed satisfied
with his fantasy woman and could think of no way to further improve her.
"That is what you want, Bob?" the demon asked, breaking into his fantasy.
"Yes, that's exactly what I want." Bob said lustfully, aroused by his own
mental imagery.
"Done!" said the demon in a booming voice.
Bob's eyes flew open just in time to be blinded as the demon's `body'
disappeared in a brilliant flash of light. He felt suddenly very dizzy then
everything went black.
