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"Is this really necessary?" Clay asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
The sunglasses were comically large, with bright red plastic frames and dark brown lenses. Cheap and mass-produced, they cut against the bump of Clay's deviated septum, their bulk impressing a red indentation against his skin. Squashing the puff of his hair, for which the dry atmosphere had done him little favours, a broad brim hat dangled corks on strings. They swayed precariously before him at the slightest twitch of his head, threatening to knock the sunglasses clean from his face. Perhaps he should have let them, it would have been a favour.
Beside him on the metal bench, Kinga nodded.
It hadn't gone unnoticed by Clay that the 'disguises' they had picked up when they had stopped for a charger were suitable only in making them stand out more. Not only that, but Kinga had somehow found the only flattering items in the gas station. A thin slim pair of sunglasses, not unlike the ones Neo from the Matrix sported, a cap with a classic Americana logo. She'd balled most of her hair beneath, leaving only two strands of jet black hair to frame her face. She sucked pensively on the cherry red jewel of a lollypop, twisting it against her tongue.
They were seated in the underpass beneath the shade of a maze of blocky concrete corridors. An inner-city college, though it was nothing like Clay had imagined such a building to look like. Maybe he'd watched a few too many movies where the characters attended where the architecture was decidedly traditional — towering brick facades, preening hedges, libraries the size of cathedrals.
The campus they had wandered onto was post-modern, slate grey and sharp edged. The front boasted a dirty fountain where triangular lines wrapped around one another like an optical illusion, a low bubble of yellow water trickling at the base. Though the college had to have been built within more recent times, its upkeep was to be desired. Litter roamed the walkways in front of them with more frequency than the student body, dust collecting in the nooks and crannies, of which there were many.
Clay hadn't been expecting to step foot on a campus with Kinga, but then again, he knew it was better to predict the future by her side. When he'd asked why they were here, she'd only replied in short.
