Unity (Part Two)

His college experience turned out to be a total dichotomy. It was nothing like his expectations, or misconceptions, but at the same time, lived up to all of them in a very bizarre way. Like most new students, he found some classes very tedious and struggled to stay interested. Others pushed him in directions he never thought to go. Jim had always been the top achiever since middle school. If there was ever a time he was not, it was when he came in second to Nathan Connors. They always seemed to be jockeying with one another to share the spotlight.

Jim’s social life was a different story. He had been the observer in high school, never comfortable in the social spotlight. Always the geek, he was forever analyzing and predicting what was and would be happening, never actively participating. His first roommate, Robert, blew that cocoon of safety apart with the force of an F-5 twister. Robert came from a small private school in California and introduced Jim to the world of advanced physics and the antics of Richard Feynman, one of its founding fathers.

It wasn’t that Jim had skipped physics during high school, it was just Artificial Intelligence had captured his imagination and never ceased to dominant his thoughts and drive. During the first month of school, Robert had been the mastermind behind numerous pranks and always talked Jim into joining him by posing the pranks as experiments in human patterns. It was during one of their more daring pranks on one of the girl’s floor that Jim ran into Cally McDuncan, literally. Jim and Robert were in the process of absconding with the door to the floor warden’s room after curfew when Cally walked out of the elevator and collided with Jim.

"Hey!” she exclaimed.

"Jim, bring her with now!” said Robert. "I’ve got the door."

"Uh, where? How?"

"I don’t care. Just hurry."

"What’s going on here?" Cally asked.

"No time to explain. Just follow me." Jim said as he grabbed her arm.

"Why should I?"

"I don’t know. To get your answers?"

Jim’s honesty and the implied intrigue piqued Cally’s interest. She gamely followed the two into the freight elevator and down to the basement. Robert quickly outlined what they were doing with the door. The guys found their prankster group doubling in size as Cally told them about how she and her friend, Darcy, were the other ones responsible for the pranks in the dorm goading Robert and Jim into more outrageous pranks, which, in turn, goaded the girls into trying to outdo them. The four of them quickly became known as the Fearsome Foursome, the feared, but oft admired, pranksters of campus.