Through a foggy haze, Joe looked up to see a man towering over him, his fists balled in front of him. He looked very much like a giant standing there from the vantage point of the ground. He wore a mask to cover his face, making it impossible to identify him.

Joe took all of that in while he was clearing the ringing in his ears. He'd hit the door on the side of his head and it took a moment to be able to force himself to move. As the man lowered a fist at him again, however, he rolled to one side and kicked out with a hand, in a move that would have made Frank jealous if he could see it. The reminder of Frank brought back an instant anger; not the blazing anger and rage that would have hampered his ability to fight, but an anger that made him want to take this man down. Joe growled up at his assailant as Joe leapt to his feet, his hands out. He dodged another attack, just in time as the man rounded on him again. Joe planted a fist in the big man's gut. The man grunted but remained standing.

The big man landed another blow on Joe's face, hard enough that Joe was dazed again. It took him a moment to be able to retaliate and by then, the man had landed another blow in Joe's stomach. Joe stumbled backward, falling back on his rear before his head cleared enough to allow him to dodge the third blow, a kick aimed right at his head.

"Hey, you!" another voice yelled out and Joe knew it was Connor, running to the rescue. "Get away from him!"

The man cursed under his breath, though the words were clear, if inconceivable, to Joe. Joe staggered up to his feet, one hand grasping his stomach, the other grasping the wall behind him as Connor, and Eric behind him, ran up beside Joe. Eric, small, wiry and strong as an ox, continued on past them, racing with the speed of a champion running back after the bad guy. Joe could only force himself to remember how to breathe for a minute. By the time he was standing on his own, Eric jogged back to him, shaking his head.

"Lost him, he disappeared around the corner and was gone," Eric said. "I didn't think someone that large could move so fast."

"He's strong too," Joe admitted ruefully. Joe continued to rub at his stomach. "I think he was the same guy that attacked Mandy. Or, at least, I hope there's not more than one person running around after us. What were you two doing up?"

"Waiting for you," Connor said, shortly. Joe knew he was too tired to be conversational. "Been watching for your car to pull up. When you didn't come in right away, I thought you might have been stopped. Eric insisted on coming too."

Joe nodded to his roommate and thanked him for the assist. Eric shrugged.

"Been after guy's like that most of my life. They always want to take on someone small and scrappy. I wish I had got him for you, Joe."

Joe shrugged and followed the other two back up to his and Eric's room. Connor had managed to find a cot somewhere; it was set-up in one corner of the room, beside the window. Joe was too tired to want to talk to either of his friends but, he remembered what Frank had managed to tell him.

"Connor," he said, finally. "Did Doctor Rich or you notice a smell to the powder?"

Connor, who was lying on his cot but not sleeping due to the adrenaline rush, looked over at him.

"A smell? Nooo... not that I noticed anyway."

"Frank said it smelled like mustard. He couldn't give me much more than that, we were talking by gestures and, well, he doesn't do it as well as Mandy does, but I got that much from him. He said the smell lingered, I assume that's from the residue left of the powder?"

"Mustard?" Connor looked confused. "It wasn't yellow powder, it was white. Why would it smell like mustard?"

"I don't know, that's just what Frank said. You might want to check that out tomorrow when you're talking to Doctor Rich."

Connor nodded, looking dubious. "All right."

Joe leaned back on his bed and, eventually, he went to sleep again.

Morning brought Joe moving very slowly, an ache in his stomach and a bruise in the shape of a fist. The back of his head ached and he sported a fresh bruise on one cheek. As he met Vanessa for breakfast the next morning, she exclaimed over the injury and he found himself telling her all about the night before. She continued to hug him, one hand running lightly along the bruise on his face but gently enough that it brought no extra discomfort.

"Joe," Vanessa said, softly. "Do you think it's wise for you and Mandy to stay? I know you never... you never run away from things but this is getting dangerous. Do your parents even know what's been happening?"

Joe shook his head and shrugged. "They have enough to worry about with Frank, 'Nessa. I don't really want to add to that. Dad's in the middle of that big conference and I... well, it's personal. I know Frank is his son, but he's my brother and I'm closer to him than anyone else in the family. I want to find out what happened to him. I don't want to leave it to anyone else."

"A matter of pride, is it?" Vanessa asked, softly, blue eyes twinkling.

"Er, well," Joe squirmed in place and shrugged again. "It might be, but, 'Nessa, it's true anyway. I want to find him. I'd be happier if Mandy would go home but I know I can't expect her to go if I don't go. She's almost as stubborn as I am."

"She's more stubborn," Vanessa said, smiling. "And since she's a girl, you always give her what she wants, eventually."

Joe cocked an eyebrow at his girlfriend. "You saying I'm a soft cause?"

Vanessa's smile turned into a grin. "If the shoe fits..."

Joe sighed and leaned forward to kiss her. That felt good so he did it again. Yep, this was how it was supposed to work.

Mustard smell? Mustard smell? Connor went over and over what Joe had told him. Frank said it had a mustard smell. The only thing Connor was fairly sure he smelled were the chemicals normally in the laboratory, especially the smell of ammonia. Maybe that was why he hadn't smelled the mustard smell of the powder. The other scents of the laboratory often killed his sense-of-smell for a couple of hours after and overrode other smells. It was probably why he never ate for a couple of hours after working in the lab.

Doctor Malachi Rich, a man who held a PhD in Molecular Biology, was about the best teacher Connor had ever had. The kindly man was about sixty, stocky, with graying black hair and deep blue eyes. Last year, the Doctor had become used to the odd requests that Connor made on behalf of his friends, the Hardys, and this year he seemed just as resigned.

"A mustard smell?" Doctor Rich said in his deep voice as he looked up at his student. "A mustard smell? I haven't... hmmm... well."

Doctor Rich brought Connor over to where he was keeping the powder he was running the tests from and he scooped up a very small bit onto a curved knife he kept on a table. He carried that back into his office and took a very careful sniff of it. Doctor Rich nearly fell backward after that sniff but Connor caught him and helped him sit back into his chair.

"The stuff is potent," Doctor Rich told Connor. "I still didn't really smell mustard but if your friend is right, it may only come after longer exposure to it. I don't think I'm willing to put my olfactory senses to the test, however, so we'll have to run off of the assumption that Frank is right."

"Is there anyway to track down who might have made that?" Connor asked. "Do you have enough information for it?"

Doctor Rich thought that over for a short while before he nodded slowly. "It's possible, at least I think it is. I'll do some research into that area this afternoon. Can you meet me back here at, say, seven pm?"

"No, but I can be here at seven-thirty," Connor promised. "Do you mind if I bring Joe with me?"

"Not at all, my boy, not at all. Now, get off to classes with you."

The morning, all in all, had been one of the most frustrating of Samantha Ellington's life. She had staked out the outside of Tauhausen Hall, speaking to everyone who walked by about the attack two days before and had received nothing in the way of help so far. Chet was currently staking out the south door of the Hall, catching anyone who went out that way and Samantha was wondering if they shouldn't just give up when she saw the campus pest, Jackson Maidlin walking by. Samantha sighed when she saw him, wishing he had, for once, gone out through the other door. She knew him mostly by association with Frank but his reputation preceded him throughout the campus.

"Hey, beautiful," Maidlin said when he saw her standing there, glowering at him. "What brings you to this neck of the woods? Isn't your little boyfriend in the hospital?"

I will not hit him, I will not hit him, I will not hit him, Samantha told herself quite firmly. She forced herself to smile, though it didn't reach her eyes in the least.

"I'm doing some research," Samantha admitted. That could sometimes be too much information where Maidlin was concerned. Maidlin looked like a made-to-order designer geek. He was only five foot ten or so, skinny as a rail with brown eyes and mousy brown hair with glasses. That he had lived through his freshman year at BU was a marvel to anyone who knew him at all.

"On the comings and goings of the braver sex?" Maidlin said, slyly.

"I'm trying to find out if anyone saw anything on the day that Frank was hurt," Samantha told him in a cold voice. "Not that I expect a blind plebe like you to have noticed anything."

Maidlin stepped back, hands in the air, in mock-surrender.

"And what if I did see something?" he wanted to know. "What would I get for telling you?"

Samantha stared at him for a moment, her eyes filled with a sort of dark look that made Maidlin flinch back a step.

"I promise not to tell Joe that you were the one who coated his car with shaving cream last year," Samantha said in a low tone. "Or the one who spray-painted 'Joe loves Chet' on the Field Hall."

Maidlin protested. "Hey, how...?"

"I have my ways, Maidlin," she said. "If you saw something, which I seriously doubt, you'd better pony up now. If you didn't see something and you make something up, I am going to be seriously bent out of shape. Now, tell me, how much longer do you want to live, Jackson Maidlin?"

Maidlin swallowed, hard, and ran a hand through his shocky hair so that it stood to points on his head. Maidlin grimaced again as he looked Samantha over, then sighed and shrugged.

"I did see something," he said. "And I swear to you on Einstein's head that this is the truth. I was outside, talking to Piltzer and I saw this navy-colored station wagon pull into the parking lot. A man stood out of the sunroof on the top of his car and lobbed this round thing right into Frank and Connor's room. I saw it man, it was like artwork."

"What kind of station wagon was it?" Samantha asked.

"I don't know, one of those older kinds, maybe an Oldsmobile. The guy who lobbed the thing was huge. He had dark hair but I didn't see his face, he was wearing really dark glasses. That's all I know, man, that's all I saw. I swear."

Samantha regarded him for a moment then motioned for him to move along. She practically skipped to the other door to meet up with Chet and told him what Maidlin had said. All in all, it had been a good day for research.

"Here, 'Nessa," Mandy came up beside her brother's girlfriend when she saw Vanessa walking away from the computer lab in the PIT building of BU. Mandy, accompanied currently by Connor, smiled at her friend as she handed off the sketch that she'd made.

"Nice drawing," Vanessa said to Mandy as she put that in with the papers she was carrying. "Do you have class now?"

"Sure do," Mandy said, happily. "Graphic design. Connor's walking me, then going to get Joe. Do you want to come with us?"

"Yes," Vanessa agreed, looking pensive. "I have those lists from his father that he wanted. It's not very pretty but it should give him what he wants. It's not very long, either. And, you know, I had another idea."

"What's that?" Mandy asked curiously as she continued to walk with Connor, who was intent on looking both ruthless and unhappy, just to better discourage any would-be attackers. Mandy had a very hard time keeping in the giggles when she looked at her boyfriend. She normally thought of him as a cuddly, grumbly, teddy bear. He did not pull off 'mean, bad, tough boy' very well.

"Well," Vanessa said, slowly. "We've already determined, or at least Joe's already determined, that this guy has to know the campus. He knew where to find you, he knew where to find Joe's room and Frank's room. It's not like a perfect stranger can wander in here and in a few hours know his way around. Why don't we take out a yearbook, the current faculty book and compare your drawing with what we see. If we could match those to these lists, well, maybe we'll know who's after you."

Mandy grinned up at her, her face lighting up and she felt good inside. "That's actually a very good idea, Vanessa. My father would be proud of you. Uh, tell Joe when you see him so he can help you with it. Maybe make photocopies of likely suspects and we can start checking them all out!"

"That's a good idea too," Vanessa said. They turned a corner that led into the Victoria Art Center, across from the Science Center.

When they came around the corner they were easily able to make out several police cars, campus security and an ambulance waiting out in front of the Science Center. Mandy, Vanessa and Connor ran forward at the sight.

"What happened?" Connor asked another student standing nearby.

The student ignored him for a moment then looked over at him.

"I heard that someone broke into one of the professor's office and attacked him. He's unconscious and they're taking him into the hospital."

"Who was it?" Connor wanted to know.

The student looked up at him then and said, somewhat anxiously. "It was Doctor Rich!"