Chris was able to calm down after professor’s refusal a lot later, when the light yellow autumn sun has already sank into the sea, and the twilight hit the ground. Only being honest with himself, he did realize that this was to be expected. Well, he was prepared to sweat a lot but push Erzketau to make things his way. Too much was at stake, and he has already wound up. All that he needed was to come up with an effective plan. Or a few.

While he was searching for some serious idea, he simply took the habit of approaching the m-estrogen program coordinator and voicing the request. When zirka’s mood was clearly not the best, Chris didn’t talk to him, but after the transplantology period was over, he linked his tab to the classroom projection board and draw formulas, hypotheses, or something different, based on Shirokawa’s material – all that he had learned way ahead of the current program of his subject. A couple of times before the lesson, the lecturer was greeted with the inscription ‘Please’ on the board written in Chris’s hand in nine generally accepted languages, including Sirka. Interestingly, Erzketau did not show any negative emotions to such tricks. He reacted calmly and did not try to run away from the audience until the young man finished the next attempt to show his effort and dedication to the idea of being accepted. He studied carefully the information on the board without expressing any particular emotion, and only then rewarded Chris with a confident refusal before leaving.

On the way to the sports complex, Chris continued to sort out the options for how to persuade or appease, or force greenie to give in. Showing off his brainy abilities was not enough. He tried following him everywhere like a tail, ambushing in the corridors, classrooms, dining room, but with no result. All he did was entertained the scientific coordinator and that’s it. Spamming with e-mails was also not an option – physically he did not have enough time to write letters as frequently to the extent that they could shake zirka. As for those that Chris had sent, Erzketau even bothered to answer: correctly, unambiguously, and in a single line manner. Like that, with boiling brains that clearly required a reboot, Chris was on his way to relieve stress. Behind all these worries with his thesis and an impregnable alien, he merely paid attention to physical activity, somehow justifying himself by the morning five minutes at home. Well, today is a good chance to hang on rings or bars.

The atmosphere inside the gym was livelier than usual. The sounds of group trainings and inventory rattling came from different corners. Chris changed clothes, grabbed a clean towel. On the way to the training room, Chris carefully looked away from the martial arts sparring hall - he was emotionally depressed and completely depleted; he did not want to face the zirka after his systematic failures. On the other hand, why not! Chris froze as a sudden idea formed in his brain. A crazy idea, which required immediate execution. Having paced two steps back, he nevertheless peaked into the tatami hall, but saw only students practicing there.

He rushed into the locker room, jumped into uniform, grabbed a bag, and rushed back to the study buildings. He paused in the entrance hall, looking around and wondering where Erzketau-kri might be right now. He went to the reception bot, introduced himself, and requested the supervisor’s schedule, but was denied this information due to lack of access rights. The search with his subject brought him the schedule for seniors, but today all the transplantology classes have already ended.

“Where can you be?”

There was no end to answers, starting from any laboratory, and there were more than two hundred of labs in the research center; finishing with the medical building and the seventh building. He went up to the administrative floor in the hope that, as a teacher, greenie could be there, but didn’t have any luck with this idea. Shirokawa had his own office as the headmaster of Biosphere II, but for all the years of study, Chris once never required to know whether is the office of the head and descendant of the founder of the M-estrogen program. He had to do his head-stuff somewhere, hadn’t ne?

“Maybe he has gone for dinner?” Chris asked himself aloud.

“Who?” Someone inquired from behind.

“Josh? What are you doing here?” Chris asked, surprised.

“I was at Shirokawa’s, talked about the graduation dissertation,” a friend explained. “And you?”

Chris sighed mournfully and said in a deadly tone:

“Looking for the lizard.”

“Any luck?” friend asked him, aware of the classmate’s dilemma.

“Nope. But have some thoughts,” Chris told vigorously. “And I need to find him. Do you know where his office is?”

“Now you surprised me a lot. How did it happen that you don’t know?”

“Well... I just managed solving all issues while in classroom. For today, his periods are over and he’s not in the gym – I checked already.”

“You know, I think no one will die if you text him in a group chat or just wait for the next class, which we have in two days,” Josh spoke his opinion. “And while we are going to party thrown by Ivan and his neighbors in the block, I will show you where his office is.”

“So you know!? Lead now!” Chris protested.

“But you will not approach him now!” Josh said with pressure. “You’ll go and hang out with your classmates, whom you have already forgotten. We’ll eat and drink, you will tell me what plan you’ve come up with and take your time to sort your thoughts out. Otherwise, if you will show up in front of him in such an excited state, he will decide that you came to slaughter him.”

“Grrr,” Chris was not entirely satisfied, but agreed with Tumbling’s reasoning for the most part, so he simply obeyed.