Professor Layton and the Study Session

Clive looked at the professor. The professor looked at Clive. They looked at each other in an endless lookingness until neither one could stand to look any longer.

"Would you two stop staring at each other and help me?" Luke moaned. "I have a semiotics midterm in two days!"

"Right, yes. Apologies, my boy, we were trapped in a rather heated mental debate," Layton replied, tipping his top hat. "I'm afraid it got away from me."

"I don't care about that," Luke snapped. "I just want to pass this test!"

"Well, Clive. You worked in journalism for a while. Surely you can teach our Luke here about signs and symbols, hm? I'm afraid it's rather out of my field of study," Layton said, smiling placidly at the ex-con sitting across the table from him.

Clive's mouth twitched. "Oh really? You can't be a very good archaeologist, then. I would think a good percentage of what you do revolves around the signs and symbols of people past."

"Well done, Clive! Every puzzle has an answer!" Layton congratulated. Secretly, he had been hoping he could get out of teaching his little protégé something so complicated. Why was Luke taking such a course, anyway? Elementary schools were getting more advanced by the day, it seemed.

"Professor," Luke groaned. "Please."

"Have you been reading your textbooks, my boy?" Layton asked, frowning slightly.

"O-of course I have!" Luke replied. "I'm hurt you'd even ask!" He hadn't. He hadn't read a single page. He was going to fail.

"Well, then, brat. Let's start with an easy one. What's a medium?" Clive smirked. He was fully aware that Luke hadn't touched his books in weeks, though he couldn't be sure Layton knew the same.

"T-that's simple!" Luke said, bluffing. "A medium is—is—it's, um…"

"Really, Luke? Stumped already?" Layton raised his eyebrows. "I'm a little disappointed, my boy…"

"Give me time!" Luke exclaimed. "It's coming to me!"

"Oh, yes. I can hear the gears positively churning away in there." Clive reached over and gave Luke a smart rap on the head. Luke snarled something that sounded suspiciously like a curse.

"Luke! A true gentleman doesn't use foul language," Layton scolded. "He doesn't need to."

"Sorry, professor. I know this one! I do! It's, um…" Luke paused. "I've got it! It's a pictograph!"

"Wrong," said Clive.

"I wasn't finished!" Luke snapped. "I meant to say that a pictograph is an example of a medium! It's really any physical thing some sort of sign can be shown with."

"Vague," said Clive.

"Don't be so hard on the boy," Layton said. "Very good, Luke. Can you give me another example?"

"Well, um, anything, really. The newspapers and books count, right? And the print that's on them, those are the signs," Luke replied.

"Excellent! I see you've grasped the concept well," Layton said.

Clive was nowhere near as impressed. "What's a representation, then?"

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, thinking back to class. "It's…using signs to portray meaning, right? Like using the printed words to make the reader understand whatever the writer is saying. The representation is a signifier and the meaning is the signified."

"What's interpretation?" Clive continued, unmoved.

"The analysis of a sign or symbol!" Luke replied, feeling more and more confident. Maybe he hadn't slept through all of his classes!

…Just most of them.

Layton had been giving little nods here and there but had decided to stop and drink tea instead. Drinking tea was plenty encouraging, he reasoned. Though, that may only apply to the tea drinker. To be honest, he was currently suffering a severe caffeine high and the buzzing in his mind made it hard to focus on anything for more than a few seconds. No, that wasn't it. He was too fast to have to think for more than a few seconds. Yes, that was it. He was just too fast. He was the fastest man alive.

"Are you alright, professor?" Luke asked hesitantly. "You're sort of just…vibrating there."

"I am perfectly alright, my boy," Layton said intensely. "Perfectly. Alright."

"If—if you say so, professor," Luke said.

"But I do say so, Luke," Layton replied. "I do."

"I can't believe I left prison for this," Clive said.

"Shut up, Clive," said Layton, who was now vibrating so quickly the table shook.

"Yeah, shut up—wait, professor, I thought you said gentlemen didn't curse?" Luke said.

"Yes. Gentlemen don't. But I'm not a gentleman," Layton said.

"You…what? Of course you are! You're a true gentlemen!" Luke exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief. "What are you saying?"

"I'm not a gentleman," Layton repeated. "I'm a god."

"You—what?" Luke squeaked.

"I'm a GOD!" Layton replied, and then he vibrated his particles so quickly that he vanished from his current plane of existence. The word "god" echoed in the room several times, though there were a definite number of reasons why that shouldn't happen.

"What just happened?" Luke shrieked. "And you—you're just sitting there! Say something, damn you!"

Clive paused, pursing his lips slightly. "He tears a hole in the fabric of space/time simply because he drank too much spiced tea, and I'm the one that gets arrested? How is that fair?"

"You filthy—" Luke began, but at that moment, Layton pinged back into existence (or rather, existence as we know it).

He sat in his chair for several minutes, soulless eyes wide, hat slightly askew. "Well, then."

"Is that all you can say?" Luke hissed.

"That was…quite the puzzle," Layton said. "Quite the puzzle indeed."

Luke slammed his textbook shut and stood in a huff. "Oh, go back to the forty-second dimension. See if I care." He stormed from the room, leaving Layton to stare glassily at the wall and Clive to stir his own cup of tea placidly.

That was enough studying for one day.