If you take out the automata, the alchemy, and the conspiracies for world domination, The Great Library is just higher education in modern America
Based on a conversation with @thegreatlibraryfangirl
The most evil teacher is just fucking exhausted because he can’t find a tenure-track position, has no time for the research he really wants to do because he’s stuck teaching 100-level classes, and doesn’t have adequate mental health insurance coverage to get his PTSD properly treated.
No one ever says it’s homophobia or racism, but somehow Wolfe always gets the shit classes, has the worst office location, and never gets research funding, while the straight white guys keep getting promotions and tenure and research funding. Wolfe was his department’s diversity hire, and his department chair will not forgive him for failing to be properly grateful for having a job at such a prestigious university at all. He was supposed to be the token gay brown professor, not to stand up for himself or angrily demand changes in curriculum meetings.
Santi, Wolfe’s more traditionally masculine cop partner, gets paid more than him, gets better benefits than him, gets more respect than him, but keeps getting asked to do things that are just a little unethical and feeling pressured to do them because he knows they’ll be homeless without his job (and they’ll lose his health insurance, which might not cover Wolfe’s PTSD adequately, but it’s a lot better than nothing).
Go break up that student protest, whatever it takes? Santi is hoping the students will disperse quietly because he really can’t say no to the boss.
“Nic, can you tell that boyfriend of yours to stop showing up at those protests? If he doesn’t settle down, we’re going to have to arrest him. And it’s making you look bad.” Santi is bristling at boyfriend and knows how unhappy Wolfe will be, but what can he do? They need his job to survive.
Then Wolfe is sitting there in his tiny basement office with an angry Jess, trying to say, “I really want to help get Morgan out of trouble, but if they catch me involving myself in this, they’re probably arresting me and firing my partner and then my PTSD is going to spiral out of control and kill me” without actually saying that.
What is Morgan in trouble for? Protesting the college’s handling of sexual harassment and assault cases on campus. Gregory, Dean of Something or Other, adored by upper administration because his filthy rich family gives very large donations to the university, tried to coerce her into sleeping with him. She reported it, only to have the case swept under the rug because “think of his career. He’s such an important member of the community. It must have been a misunderstanding.” She found out she’s not the only one. She will not be quiet about it.
Frustrated at being told there was no proof Gregory did anything wrong, Morgan hacked his emails and posted a file full of incriminating evidence to the campus Facebook group. She did it with a throwaway account, but the university suspects her and very much wants her caught and charged with felony hacking.
The university asks Wolfe to look into this, of course. Remembering how Gregory used to harass him back when he was a student, Wolfe quietly slips more of Gregory’s passwords to Morgan, while insisting to his bosses that he can’t find any evidence at all.
Santi’s boss wants him on the case, too. Santi doesn’t know how long he can stall before he’s forced to arrest Morgan. “Just grab her at one of those protests,” his boss says. “Bring her in for rioting, we’ll get her to confess to the rest.” He doubts they’re going to do that with legal tactics. He knows what happens to cops who report things like that, and keeps his mouth shut.
Thomas was the star student in the engineering department, until he turned in an assignment that got him flagged as “dangerous.” It didn’t occur to him that the robot he designed had military applications, but it was a very convenient excuse for his department chair to put him on a watch list. When he gets arrested at one of Morgan’s protests, the chair of the engineering department is happy to bail him out, if he’ll just do some work on a special project or two… or twenty…. Thomas practically lives in the engineering department offices now. He has no free time. But if he doesn’t do this, he’s looking at terrorism charges, with that robot he designed as evidence against him.
Khalila is an astrophysics major, easily the top student in the school. She’s going to graduate with honors, she already has offers for fully funded graduate positions at 3 universities, this one included, and job offers from NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin. She’s doing a research project on recent space shuttle designs when suddenly, suspiciously, every faculty member starts encouraging her to shift her project in a different direction. Why can’t anyone seem to find a copy of that paper on that shuttle design that NASA suddenly, mysteriously, scrapped? She just wanted to see what was wrong with it and apply that to newer designs.
She finds herself in Wolfe’s tiny basement office, asking him about a strange database error. “This is a waste of time,” Wolfe says. “Those other professors are right. You’re going to ruin your career digging into these kinds of failed projects,” he says, while wondering whether and how to slip her the evidence he’s just uncovered that Elon Musk bribed government officials to bury that perfectly good shuttle design in favor of a SpaceX one.
Glain is a criminal justice major, planning a police career. She understands why people keep telling her that she needs to stay away from Morgan’s protests, but she hates it. Protests are legal. The cops should be going after Gregory. She’s sick of hearing from the campus cops that she needs to be careful who she’s seen hanging out with.
Dario is a filthy rich exchange student from Spain. He was just here for a year of studying abroad, but he’s fallen in love with this gorgeous, genius astrophysics major, and now he’s wondering if he’s going to have to call in favors with his cousin at the embassy because he’s about to get arrested helping Khalila get her hands on some documents. He says he hates his roommate, Jess, but he just paid to bail Jess out of jail, and he’s on the phone with his cousin asking about lawyers.
2087
gummygunk
ellievsbear
andulkaphoto
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
