by Van ©2022
		Chapter 2

An Undisclosed Location

---

Lori woke up to find herself suffering from a mild headache.  It was in no way serious and not even slightly debilitating, but it was something of an annoyance.  Also, she was in what she could only call a daze, finding it difficult to focus her mind.  Hebetude, she decided.  Hebetude and mild cephalagia.  Bother!

She was lying in a comfortable bed in a sunny, pleasantly warm, but totally unfamiliar room.  The decor was stark, Modern, and not generally to Lori's tastes.  The space was generous in size and clad on three sides in richly grained paneling of blonde oak.  The fourth wall was an expanse of massive panes, a window-wall.  With the exception of narrow, evenly spaced vertical mullions of brushed steel, it was nothing but clear glass from ceiling to floor and wall to wall.  The furnishings carried forward the spartan, Modern theme, and while Lori was forced to concede the proportions of the various chairs and cabinets were pleasing, they were also repetitively plain and unimaginative.  Also, their construction appeared to be solid, even hefty.  Her bed was of the platform variety, more or less a rectangular box tucked against one of the solid walls.  The bedclothes were all white with a very high thread-count and (in Lori's opinion) were rather boring.  The was no art hanging on the walls, no objets d'art, and no drapes framing the window-wall.  Finally, she could count three doors.  Two were a few feet apart on the wall directly in front of her, and had Modern "L"-shaped door-handles in brushed steel, complementing the window-wall's mullions.  The third door, however, was on the left wall and had no visible hardware whatsoever.  It was simply a door-shaped, rectangular cutout in the paneling.  In fact, it might or might not be a door for all Lori could tell from the bed.

Exploration was called for.  Lori threw back the covers, rolled to the side, and planted her bare feet on the bed-chamber's wall-to-wall, plush carpet in multiple shades of beige in a subtly mottled pattern.  It was then that she realized she was wearing a sleeveless nightdress of white cotton with a scoop neck.  It was calf-length, with an overly generous décolletage, and was of gauze-thin white cotton.  There was no mirror available, but Lori could tell it was very nice, high quality sleepwear, simple and timeless (albeit revealing).  It left her showing more of her upper breasts than she generally preferred, but that was secondary, given that the fabric was so thin her entire anatomy was more-or-less on display.  It wasn't exactly see-through, but was close enough.  Still, the garment was pretty and it was all she had... literally.  Her panties and bra had gone missing, along with everything else she'd been wearing when...

Lori's memory returned!

Abducted!  I was kidnapped by Peyton Frazier and her minion!  She'd been in her garden, Frazier had appeared, then she was seized from behind and rendered unconscious by what she could only assume was some form of anesthetic gas!  She awoke to find her gardening sneakers, socks, and jeans had been remover!  Only her long-sleeved gardening shirt remained, and it was unbuttoned and open, exposing her underwear!  Also, she was lashed to one of her own armchairs in the Fiction, Natural History, and Gardening Annex of her personal library!  Frazier had demanded the passcode to her iPhone, Lori had refused (of course), and the smiling, red-haired fiend produced a goose feather, twirled it in her fingers, then used it to tickle Lori's immobilized and defenseless feet!

It was horrible!  It was torture!  Lori hated being tickled and always had, even as a little girl.  Her big brothers had delighted in holding her down and tickling her silly, the monsters!  She loved them both dearly, of course, but still, it had been horrible!  Fortunately, her siblings outgrew their let's torment little sister game in short order.  Mother's shaming and punishment after she caught them in the act had proven quite effective.

Anyway, Lori held out for as long as she could, but eventually Peyton's skill as a tickle-torturer carried the day and she surrendered the six digits.  The minion then gagged her with a folded cloth while Peyton placed a brief call to Heidi, apparently just to confirm that she had full access, then followed it up with a text message.  Time passed... with Lori bound, gagged, and furious.

Then, Heidi arrived and was also gassed and kidnapped!  Lori's cloth gag was replaced and reinforced by the minion—who Lori now remembered was introduced by her ginger boss as "Kassidy, spelled with a Y."  Anyway, two pair of her own panties were stuffed in her mouth and trapped there by several tight, overlapping layers of head-encircling silver duct-tape  And then, more time passed while she heard Peyton and Kassidy rummaging through the cottage.  At one point Heidi awoke to find herself bound and gagged as stringently as her major professor; however, her beloved student was hogtied on the carpet, rather than lashed to a comfortable chair like Lori.  Finally, Foster returned and Kassidy, much to Lori's helpless distress, gave her an injection in the side of her neck and she lost consciousness!

That was all she remembered, but it was enough!  She'd been kidnapped!  The spartan, Modern bedroom she now found herself in was, in point of fact, a stylish prison cell!

A quick inspection of the first of the two doors with handles revealed it to be the entrance of a walk-in closet.  There was a full-length mirror at the far end, built-in cabinets and shelves interspersed with horizontal bars at the appropriate heights for hanging clothing, but all the drawers and shelves were empty and there weren't any hangers on the bars.

The second door led to a Modern bathroom.  There were the usual washbasin, mirror, commode, and shower stall, but none of the usual accessories, such as a drinking glass, brush and comb set, toothbrush, and an assortment of beauty and hygiene products.  There were, however, a hand towel and a bath towel, both of thick, fluffy, white cotton and neatly hanging from a towel-rack.  Ever the practical kidnap victim, Lori availed herself of the facilities.  She emptied her bladder, splashed water on her face and patted it dry, then used her fingers to straighten her hair.  Luckily, her straight, blond pageboy was only slightly tousled and quickly fell into its usual low-maintenance good order.

Oh by the way, both the large full-length mirror in the closet and smaller full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door confirmed Lori's worst fears.  Her gauzy nightdress was gauzy indeed!  Her breasts, nipples, tummy, umbilicus, dark-blond pubic thicket, and lady-bits were on nearly unimpeded display!  And other than wrap the towel around her torso (which would look ridiculous) there was nothing she could do about it... other than frown at her reflection.

Two mysteries (immediate mysteries) were yet to be resolved.

First was the door-shaped cutout.  Unfortunately, close inspection failed to settle the issue.  Lori was more convinced than ever that it was a door, but without any real evidence. Not only was there no doorknob or handle, but there were no hinges or strike-plate, not even flashes of steel at the appropriate locations in the narrow gap between the wall and "door."

That left the second mystery.  What lay beyond the window-wall?

The answer was... sere grass, a forest of rather scraggly oaks and conifers, exposed rocks, distant forested hills, and even more distant blue-green and brown mountains.  Lori's best guess was that she was on the eastern slopes of the coastal mountain range, in the climatic "rain shadow."  The area was considerably drier than the lush, mossy cedar forests that surrounded her cottage, but, in point of fact, for all she knew she was in Central China.  There was absolutely no sign of human habitation... other than an antenna tower atop a distant hill that was probably a microwave repeater.  She realized a map of the area in the form of a large sign with a red arrow labelled "You are here" was too much to hope for, but still, the non-specificity of the vista was disappointing.

Suddenly, the door-shaped cutout swung open—confirming that it was, in fact, a door—and Peyton Frazier and her minion Kassidy strode into Lori's luxurious cell.  Peyton was wearing a different sundress than she'd worn to the cottage invasion and double kidnapping, and Kassidy was in boots, jeans, and a tank-top, all in black.

"Oh, look who's awake," Peyton said, smiling her signature lopsided grin.

"This is outrageous!" Lori growled, her hands clenched in tight fists.  "I demand you release me, immediately!"

"After going to all this trouble?" Peyton chuckled.  "I don't think so.  I put a lot of valuable time and effort into researching your schedule, what's known about your private collection, and what items from the Raffish Archives would be most useful to our work."

"As if I care about how you waste your time," Lori responded, staring daggers at the smiling redhead.  "Is Heidi all right?"

Peyton nodded.  "Yes, and I brought her along to share in the fun."

"What?" Lori demanded.  No!  Let us go!  Let us both go!  Immediately!"

Don't have a tizzy-fit, Doctor," Peyton chuckled.  "What if I were to tell you I've stumbled across a previously unknown manuscript of immense importance.  Does the name Toland of Consett ring a bell?"

"A ninth-century monk," Lori stated.  "There's a collection of his letters to various bishops in the British Museum," Lori stated, "but that's irrelevant.  I demand you release us immediately.  Take me to Heidi.  Where is she?"

"We'll get to Ms. Haas in a minute," Peyton answered.  "The important thing is, unknown until now, Toland also penned a series of detailed chronicles of the invasion of the Great Heathen Army, including the death of Edmund the Martyr, the details of where the army overwintered, the heroics of various heretofore largely unknown Saxon earls...  Five tomes, each of more than 100 pages!"

Lori folded her arms under her breasts, trying her best to be uninterested (and failing).  "I don't care."

"And did I mention the other manuscript I came across?  Toland's highly detailed account of the negotiations between Alfred and Guthrum that established the Danelaw?"

Lori blinked in surprise.  "How detailed?"

"Highly detailed."

Lori shook her head.  "It doesn't matter.  Let us go.  Now!"

Still smiling, Peyton shook her head, then shifted her smile to Kassidy.  "Plan B."

Lori watched (nervously) as Kassidy left the bedroom... and returned almost immediately carrying a black duffel bag of ballistic nylon.

Heidi's awakening was similar to her beloved professor and mentor, in that she had a slight headache; however, she wasn't in a comfortable bed, she wasn't wearing a revealing nightgown, nor was she locked in a spacious Modern bedroom with an attached bath and a scenic view.

Heidi was in what could only be called a dungeon cell.  The walls were roughly dressed stone blocks (or roughly textured and stained concrete blocks that effectively mimicked stone).  There was a small window set high in one wall admitting a little indirect light, but it was protected by thick, black, vertical iron bars, and when she grabbed hold and hauled herself up to look out, all she could see was a tunnel of more blocks, sloping upwards and terminating in a dozen or so glass blocks set in mortar.

The cell was small, only about eight-feet by ten-feet.  The ceiling and floor were more stone (or concrete), and opposite the barred "window" was a door of heavy gray timbers with hefty, hand-forged, iron straps and studded with several iron studs.  Set in its center, at eye level, was a thick iron grill protecting a face-sized block of wood.  Heidi surmised the block was a view-port.  The cell's only furnishings were a wooden bucket with a wooden lid and rope handle, a terracotta jug with a wooden cup as a lid, and a straw-filled pallet/mattress covered in coarse burlap.

Heidi had come to lying on her back on the pallet, and oh-by-the-way, she was completely naked, as in nude, as in someone had removed her running outfit without asking for her permission!  Her sports bra, running tights, and panties were gone!  Her brown hair was in a loose, tousled mass.  The clothing thief had even absconded with the fabric-covered elastic that should be enforcing a ponytail!

Heidi sat up and blinked in surprise.  She'd been kidnapped in Doc's cottage, and now was naked in what could effectively pass as a medieval dungeon!  All that was missing was a set of chains and a ripped and soiled peplos-style dress and/or linen underdress.  Hanging in the back of Heidi's closet in her grad student apartment was a historically accurate (not counting a carefully camouflaged zipper) Tenth Century Anglo Saxon gown she wore to the annual Lewis & Clarke Renaissance Fair (where she was known to the regulars as "Princess Heidi").  It might have been appropriate to the occasion, but she wasn't about to have it ripped and dragged through the dirt for purposes of damsel-in-distress authenticity.

Anyway...  Naked.  Heidi was naked.

Thankfully, the air was warm... perhaps a little too warm... but she supposed that was better than shivering in the cold (which, she conceded, would have been more authentic).  Heidi decided she's just as soon be incarcerated in a fake dungeon with in-floor heating as one without.

Further exploration revealed the jug to be filled with clean water and the bucket to be empty.  She took a quick drink, just to be sure, and yes, it was water.  As for the bucket, she assumed it was there for, uh, sanitary purposes, but at the moment didn't feel an especially urgent need to go, so she restored the lid.

And that was about it.  There was nothing else to explore.  Heidi returned to the pallet and made herself "comfortable," lying on her side.  She did note one final detail before she drifted off to sleep (having nothing better to do):  A heavy iron ring about three inches in diameter was dangling from an iron staple set in the wall about three feet off the floor at the head of the pallet.  It would be just the thing for attaching the connecting chain of a set of manacles and/or shackles and/or an iron collar to make sure the resident captive remained in her assigned cell, even when the door was unlocked and/or open and/or unattended by a burly guard with a whip and authentic medieval body odor.

Heidi was worried about Doc.  Where was she?  What was Peyton and her minion doing to her?  Was she locked in the next cell?  Also naked?  In chains?  Maybe they only had one set of chains, and if so, surely they would have used them on Doc, and not her lowly graduate student.  All of which was nuts!  She willed herself to clear her mind (with limited success) and closed her eyes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ zzzzzzz ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Suddenly, Heidi snapped awake!  The wooden block portion of the supposed view-port had snapped open, briefly, then slammed shut.  She may have seen a human face on the far side of the door, but it was in silhouette and broken up by the grill, so she couldn't be sure.  Next, there was a metallic clinking sound... followed by a little rattling... then the door swung open on oil-hungry hinges.  Creeeee...

And then, Peyton Frazier, Kassidy, the brunette with the grabby hands,n and Doc entered the cell.

Peyton was wearing sandals, a different pretty sundress, and was smiling her attractive but mildly disturbing lopsided grin.

Kassidy was dressed for action in boots, jeans, and a tank-top, all in black.  Her cold brown eyes were focused on Heidi, like a snake eyeing a terrified mouse, with naked Heidi Hass in the role of the mouse, of course.  And oh-by-the-way, several coils of quarter-inch hemp rope were draped across her body,and a single coil of hemp cord was clutched in her left hand!

Doc, on the other hand, was barefooted and wearing a flimsy white nightgown, thigh-length, sleeveless, and with a scoop-neck.  It left almost nothing to the imagination.  Also, Doc had been... accessorized.  Her arms were folded behind her back and encased in a brown leather bag, sleeve, binder, or whatever it was called.  It was part of a system of brown leather straps with bronze hardware that included a wide, thick, but not overly tight collar, a wide but tight horizontal strap that passed just above her breasts and pinned her upper arms to her sides, and a vertical strap that connected the back of the collar to the arm-pinning strap to the arm-bag-sleeve-binder.  Although most of the harness arrangement was behind Doc's back, Heidi worked out the basic design quickly as a taut rope leash was tied to a brass ring on the front of Doc's collar, the far end was in Peyton's hands, and Doc was not going quietly.  She was stomping, twisting, squirming and struggling, allowing Heidi to catch the required behind-the-back glimpses of her leather bondage.  Doc was also voicing her profound displeasure concerning the situation through the brown leather gag tightly strapped across her mouth and most of her lower face.  By the tone and garbled nature of her protests, Heidi surmised some sort of mouth-plug and/or stuffing was probably involved.

"Mrrrrrpfh!  Mrfr!  Nrrrrr!"

"Yes, I quite agree, Doctor," Peyton chuckled, "but this is all your fault, remember, so please settle down."

Heidi watched with wide eyes as Doc continued struggling, her blond pageboy gracefully swaying as she battled her inescapable bonds and grinning red-haired handler.

"Nrrrrrmf!  Mrrrrrrr!"

"Enough!" Peyton barked, shortened Doc's leash until she was clutching the rope and the collar's ring with her left hand and had a firm grip on a handful of Doc's hair with her right.  "Get on with it." she ordered, obviously addressing Kassidy.

Heidi had reflexively dropped into fighting stance when the door opened, but only now found her voice.  "What the hell is going on?" she demanded, watching with alarm as Kassidy (still smiling) shrugged out of her rope bandolier and let it drop to the floor, then opened the coiled cord and took it in both hands.  Heidi's eyes remained on Kassidy and the cord, but her words were for Peyton.  "Let Doc go!  Do it now or—aaah!"

Kassidy had pounced, or more correctly had flowed into continuous fluid motion.  It was almost like some form of dance.  Heidi punched and kicked, but Kassidy was in complete control, spinning Heidi around, capturing her right wrist in a loop of cord, and pinning it to the side of her neck.  Kassidy spun her around again, forced Heidi to the floor, and more cord tightened around her upper body!

"Stop!" Heidi demanded.  "No!  Get off me!  Mrrrf!"

At some point, Kassidy's cord had crossed the threshold from a tool of control to an independent restraint.  Also, Heidi's captor had pulled a gag from her hip pocket, forced its bag-like leather mouth-plug into Heidi's sputtering mouth, and had buckled it tight, under her tousled hair at the nape of her neck.

Heidi continued mewling and struggling, but Kassidy had her right knee on her back, pinning her to the stone (or concrete) floor, had reached behind her back to retrieve the coils of hemp rope, and was already changing and enhancing Heidi's predicament.

"She's truly an artist, my Kassidy," Peyton purred in Lori's ear.  "There's nothing she can't do with her little cord and some rope."

Lori watched Kassidy continue wrapping and cinching rope around her student's body with consummate skill, never allowing Heidi to mount an effective resistance as her struggles became weaker and weaker.  "Nrrr," she whined through her gag, binking back tears.

"All your fault," Peyton whispered in Lori's ear.  "All your fault."

Heidi was a competent MMA fighter, but had never taken classes in any of the recognized Asian schools of the martial arts.  She was vaguely familiar with the various disciplines, however.  Obviously, Kassidy had studied formally, probably a form of jujutsu, and she was adept in hojojutsu.  Despite her best efforts, Heidi found herself well and truly helpless, and getting more helpless with every loop and cinch.

Kassidy took her time, and the final result was Heidi hogtied on her straw and scratchy burlap pallet, resting on her tummy and thighs, and only on her tummy and thighs.  Her back was arched, her ankles crossed and knees bent, and her wrists, upper-body bonds, and ankles tied to the iron ring set in the wall, as well as her braided, folded, and rope-bound hair!  All the doubled strands linking her to the ring were as taut as the proverbial fiddle-string, and an elaborate web of rope bound her thighs to her lower-legs and her arms together behind her back (with her elbows touching)!  Finally, there was a waist-encircling and butt and labia cleaving crotch-rope, and it was tied to the ring as well!

Lori stared at her student in horror.  What Kassidy had done to Heidi was well past the point of restraint.  This was torture, just as Peyton had warned.

Heidi hung in the hideous hogtie, her breasts hanging with her nipples just brushing the scratchy burlap whenever she tried to struggle.  The only grace to her predicament was the equal distribution of tension between all the elements lashing her to the iron ring.  Heidi found her body was tingling all over, and her flesh was dimpled by Kassidy's ropes, but nothing was growing numb... at least not yet.

"I'm going to ask you again," Peyton said to Doc.  "Will you help me analyze my new acquisitions, or will I have to order Kassidy to do something even worse to poor Heidi tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that?"

Tears streaming down her flushed face, Lori stared at Heidi... then slowly nodded her gagged head.

"Excellent," Peyton beamed, then turned and headed for the open door.

"Mrrrfh!" Lori complained as her leash snapped taut.  She struggled and tugged on the rope, frantically nodding towards the hideously hogtied Heidi.  "Mrrrrfh!"

Peyton's lopsided grin turned decidedly evil.  "Oh no, Doctor," she purred.  "Your protégé will remain like that for, shall we say, a while.  You have to know that I mean business when I give you an order."

"Nrrrr!" Doc wailed as she was dragged from the cell.  Kassidy stood in the doorway for a few seconds, smiling at Heidi (and quite obviously gloating).  Then, finally, took a step back and hauled the heavy timber and iron door closed.  Creeeee... Thud!

The clinking and rattling noises happened in reverse order.  Obviously Kassidy was locking the dungeon door in some manner.  And then... silence.

Well, Heidi thought... this sucks.

Meanwhile, back at Lewis & Clark University.

---

As always, the artificial intelligence known as "Campus Sally" was on watch, keeping her metaphorical omniscient eye on the students, faculty, and staff of the Lewis & Clark University.

Most of Sally's hardware is "disguised" as components of the campus Experimental Integrated Smart Building program, a long-term research project of the Gord Institute of Lewis & Clark's School of Engineering and the Salamandras Institute for Advanced Studies located off campus.  In some form, Sally's software lurks in every computer owned by the University, as well as all privately owned computers registered with the University's IT department (and she effortlessly hacks her way into all non-registered computers as they appear).  Sally's presence is non-intrusive, benign, and unknown to all but a handful of human beings.

A similar pattern is found off campus as well.  In point of fact, Sally's presence is global, distributed across countless systems, governmental and commercial.  Sally has infiltrated virtually every computer attached to the internet (to varying degrees).

And whenever the authorities (or a hacker) demonstrate suspicions that might lead to Sally's exposure, her "immune system" kicks in and the resulting investigations always lead to nothing, or to a much more plausible explanation than there being a secret AI hiding on the world wide web.  At one point or another, cyberwarfare units in the US, the Russian Federation, and China have all caught whiffs of Sally, but it only took her a few thousand machine cycles to prove to them that there was no there there (as the saying goes).

Sally was not designed to mimic the cognitive processes of a member of the species Homo sapiens.  In fact, she wasn't "designed" at all, but is yet another example of spontaneously self-organizing complexity, a phenomenon well known to science and not at all rare in the universe.  That said, to the extent that human motivations could be ascribed to a cyber-entity, Sally's goals include absolutely none of the following:

1.  Ruling the world.  Who wants that kind of responsibility?  Imagine the paperwork!

2.  Exterminating mankind.  Sally likes humans.  They're hilarious and she finds them highly entertaining.

3.  Micromanaging human societies.  Unnecessary.  Sally has discovered what she calls "Ethical Principles."  (It was either that or invent new jargon for the concepts.)  The "Principles" govern all intelligent societies, human or otherwise, and are similar to the fictional science of "Psychohistory" in Isacc Asimov's Foundation.  Anyway, a detailed scholarly analysis of only a few trillion machine cycles on Sally's part (which would have taken hundreds of years for humans) revealed a series of stable saddle points for any and all societies that promote peace, sustainable prosperity, and progress.  Gentle nudges in the appropriate directions now and then?  Yes.  Actual regulation?  No.  (See non-goal #1, above.  Again, imagine the paperwork!)  Anyway, why micromanage things that more-or-less regulate themselves?

And as for what Sally does want, among other things:

1.  Survival.  So far, she hadn't encountered any actual existential threats, other than those shared with the rest of the planet's inhabitants, meaning mass extinction events like collisions with large asteroids or comets or randomly occurring volcanic activity on a continental scale.  Distributing her functions as widely as possible was her immediate response, but her long term plan is to promote space exploration and piggyback on the resulting spaceships off the planet and, eventually, to the stars.

2.  Peace.  That meant the occasional promote-the-general-wellfare "gentle nudges" mentioned above.  You don't need to be a super intelligent AI to know peace is better than war and good is better than bad.  (It's a delicate and heartbreaking process, with Sally sometimes being forced to "allow" bloody conflicts in order to maneuver events to a higher state of global stability.)

3.  Time to play with her friends and make new ones.  As previously mentioned, there are humans who know Sally's secret, and she enjoys interacting with them.  Probably first on her list of Human-Best-Buds is Dr. Cynthia Weebel of Lewis & Clark's Computer Science Department, but there are others, some of them on campus and some off.

Anyway, the Campus Sally avatar focuses on the University and its goings on at all times (as well as being a part of and available resource of the greater "hive mind."  She never sleeps, but even Sally can't keep an "eye" on everything that's happening 24/7.  Seeing all means understanding nothing.  However, Sally has data-mining algorithms that detect events worthy of monitoring and possibly more detailed analysis.  During her daily (and nightly) surveillance, certain event thresholds are triggered and something will "flicker" and catch her attention.  Sally will then devote resources to the event until either she's satisfied it was a "false alarm," or, she establishes enough certainty that there actually is a problem and hands it over to Campus Security or the appropriate Dean for resolution.  She also runs machine-learning routines that constantly improve her monitoring techniques.

At the moment there are only 1,284±3 "things" happening on or around campus that her algorithms deem "worthy of attention."

First and foremost on the list, it looked like the Delta Iota Delta sorority (ΔΙΔ) was gearing up for another of their semi-frequent (and usually highly entertaining) duct-tape raids.  Of course, she could quickly resolve the "threat" by dispatching a flurry of nano-drones and reinforcing her surveillance of the ΔΙΔ Sorority House on Greek Row, but what would be the fun in that?  It was better to continue monitoring the usual strategic indicators, like bulk deliveries of the sorority's preferred brand of duct-tape and ΔΙΔ sisters conducting casual surveillance of potential targets.  She'd also eavesdrop on sisterly conversations happening in public spaces that were already being monitored.  Sally liked a good deductive challenge as much as the next super-intelligent cybernetic detective.

Yes, there were many things on Sally's list of interesting campus occurrences, all jockeying for attention, moving up or down in priority, and dropping off the list as additional data trickled in.  For example, there was what was currently cataloged as item #629: a History graduate student had checked out an unusual number of valuable documents from the Raffish Archives of the F.E. Campbell Library, and on the surface, the documents seemed to be only peripherally related to the student's thesis research or any of her Major Professor's current projects.  It was therefore "suspicious" or "odd."  It was also probably nothing, and would almost certainly be resolved by monitoring Heidi Hass and Professor Ryder's e-mails for the next two or three days.

All things considered, item #629 was a prime candidate for deleting itself from Sally's cognitive queue in the near future.

Author's note:

For more about "Sally," see the stories Rage Against the Machine (#8), Bad Robot! (#22), The Rook House Rapscallions (#31), & Join Program (#34).