Lance Alexander

Lance Alexander is a student at Calman High School and a treasurer of its carpentry club.

## Personality

Lance seems to be a responsible person, who takes his role as a treasurer seriously.

## Relationships

### Hector Goffe

Lance presumably blamed Hector for Katrina’s and Jamal’s expulsion, since he ignored him until Hector quit along with other club members. However, he seems to have changed his opinion on Hector when the latter admitted to losing the welding mask instead of taking the opportunity to push the blame on Lance.

## History

Lance unsuccessfully tried to stop Hector from taking the welding mask out of carpentry club, and got detention from Ms. Trent when she didn’t believe that Hector took it. However, Hector admitting it got him off the hook. Following that, Lance stopped ignoring Hector and even started a collaborative afterschool armor-building project together with him.

Lance had survived Calman High Massacre.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 He was hoping he could get into the carpentry room before any of the club members arrived, but he ended up waiting for its last class to empty. He took to the corner, trying to be invisible, which was surprisingly easy with so many students, and when he spotted the welding mask that someone had yet to return to the storage rack, he gathered himself and reached out. He grabbed it, but so did someone else.

“Hey, what the--? Let go--Hector?”

 Hector cringed, realizing it was Lance Alexander, treasurer of the carpentry club and one of the people he’d been trying to avoid.

“What are you doing here, Hector? Don’t tell me you want to rejoin the club.”

“No,” he said, pulling the mask away from Lance. “I just... need to borrow this for a while.”

“No one’s allowed to take the equipment out of the classroom.”

“I’ll bring it back.”

“That’s not the problem.” Lance was bigger than Hector, bigger than most people, and no small measure of intimidating, but at that moment, Hector had every reason in the world to not give a damn about what he had to say.

“Report me, then.” He fled without waiting for Lance’s response.

Hector knew Lance wasn’t a bad guy. He knew Lance was just following the rules, and he knew that this would probably earn him detention for a week or two, but he didn’t see a way around it. - Excerpt from page 30
2. ↑ ‘*I, uh... I saw them having sex in the clubroom.*’

Garovel stared at him a moment. ‘*Uh. Huh.*’

‘*Yeah... I mean, I just walked in on them and... yeah...*’

‘*What did you do?*’

‘*I ran away. Which... probably wasn’t the right thing to do. They’d seen me. So... maybe I shoulda just talked to them, but... I... that... there was just no way...*’

‘*I can imagine.*’

Hector proceeded outside through the front of the school. ‘*But, um... anyhow, to make a long story short, uh... I mean, I wasn’t going to tell anyone about what I saw... but I kinda... ended up telling Ms. Trent.*’

‘*Ah. Damn, Hector.*’

‘*Yeah... I-I tried not to tell her, but... uh... Ms. Trent already had her suspicions, I guess... and... she sorta cornered me... and I just... I don’t know. I couldn’t lie about it. And I should have...*’ He shook his head. ‘*I really fucking should have...*’

Garovel gave a sympathetic shrug. ‘*You just told the truth. Why does everyone in the club hold that against you?*’

‘*Because... Katrina and Jamal were both expelled, and now they have to repeat a year.*

‘*Oh. Yikes.*’

‘*I hadn’t, uh... I hadn’t actually done anything wrong, so... they couldn’t kick me out of the club, but...*’

‘*They ignored you until you just left on your own.*’

‘*Pretty much...*’

‘*Is that when you decided to kill yourself?*’

Hector sighed. ‘*When you put it like that... it sounds even more pathetic...*’ - Excerpt from pages 222 and 223
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 He entered the workroom to the sight of a dozen familiar faces and a handful of new ones. He heard the chatter dull as a few people noticed him. Lance Alexander approached him straight away.

“Please tell me you came to return the mask.”

“Sorry,” Hector said. “I lost it.”

“Geez. Well, could you at least tell that to Ms. Trent? She didn’t believe me when I told her you took it. She gave me detention.”

Hector nodded. “I’ll tell her.”

Lance eyed him. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I go with you.”

“Just... show me where she is.”

Lance led him into the back room where the club instructor sat at her desk, marking quiz papers. She looked up as they entered. “Hector?” she said. “What brings you here?”

“It’s like I told you,” said Lance. “He’s the one who took the mask. Then he went and lost it.”

“Is this true?”

He gave another nod. “Yeah.”

Ms. Trent glared at Lance. “Did you bully Hector into saying this?”

“Of course not!”

“You’d better tell me the truth now. If I find out later, I swear to goddess I will have you suspended.”

“I didn’t bully anyone!”

“He’s telling the truth,” said Hector. “He, uh... he tried to stop me, actually.” ‘*Why does everyone think I’m being bullied?*’

‘*You do look very bulliable.*’

“Alright,” said Ms. Trent. “Lance, you’re off the hook. Hector, you have three days’ detention, and you’ll have to pay a fine to replace the mask.”

Lance took a relieved breath and left. - Excerpt from pages 58 and 59
4. ↑ Four or five students sat around each of the black tables, absorbed in various group projects, with a few extra people hovering around the machinery at the back of the room.

He approached the nearest group, but as soon as he got close, three people left. Only Lance and a guy he didn’t recognize stayed, but after a moment of apparent confusion, the stranger followed the others.

“Popular as ever,” said Lance.

“You’re... not going with them?” said Hector.

Lance looked at him for a long moment. “You could’ve really screwed me over, you know.”

Hector didn’t say anything.

“Let me know if you need help with something,” said Lance, and then he left as well. - Excerpt from page 60
5. ↑ “What do you think about making a full suit of armor?” said Lance, and Hector blinked. “It’d be a pretty big project for just one person, but between the two of us, I think it’d be manageable. Maybe enter it into a competition or something.”

“Uh... that, uh...”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I was just thinking of making some greaves next and got to wondering.”

“Ah, no... I mean, uh, sure. That sounds... pretty cool.”

“Yeah? Awesome. I was thinking we’d make various parts independently and then piece them together later.”

“Hmm.” Hector scratched his forehead. “But, uh... well, that could be a problem if we don’t, um... correlate our measurements or whatever.”

“Ah, you’re right. Maybe we should make the breastplate together, then. Once that is done, we can take proper measurements and then split up to make the smaller stuff like the gorget and pauldrons and such.”

“Gorget is for the neck, right? What’re pauldrons for?”

“Shoulders. There are lots of other parts to choose from, too. Vambraces for the forearms. Couters for the elbows. And tons of others. We could probably spend the rest of the school year making all the different things.”

“I see.” Hector eyed the gauntlets again as a quiet thought struck him.

“We can get started tomorrow, if you like. Just come over to my uncle’s place after school. He’s got lots of scrap metal we can melt down and use.”

“Ah, o-okay...” - Excerpt from page 221
6. ↑ He was suddenly reminded of his afterschool armor-building project with Lance Alexander. It was only a few months ago, but it seemed like a different life. What was Lance doing now, he wondered? He recalled finding a small measure of relief when he saw the list of victims of the Calman High Massacre and realized that Lance’s name was not on it. - Excerpt from page 825