“Since the computers will be here tomorrow, there’s no point in staying.”

“But we can still—”

She’s gone before I can remind her that I’m her boss—I will learn to exert authority, but today’s not the day. I don’t mind too much anyway. Because when the door closes behind her, I spring out of my chair again and jump up and down a little bit more.

8

PRECENTRAL GYRUS: MOVEMENT

FUN FACT: DR. Curie’s BFF was an engineer.

Seems unlikely, huh? I sit across from the best and brightest of Levi’s team—total Cockcluster™, naturally— and think: Who would voluntarily spend time with the engineering ilk? And yet it’s true, like turkey-flavored candy corn, pimple-popping videos, and many other unlikely things.

It’s painful even to think about it, but here goes my least favorite Marie fact: after Pierre died, she started seeing a strapping young physicist named Paul Langevin. Honestly, it’s what she deserved. My girl was a young widow who spent most of her time stomping on uranium ore like it was wine grapes. We can all agree that if she wanted to get laid, the only adequate response should have been: “Where would you like your mattress placed, Madame Curie?” Right?

Wrong.

The press got ahold of the gossip and crucified her for it. They treated her like she’d boarded a train to Sarajevo and assassinated Franz Ferdinand herself. They whined about the lamest things: Madame Curie is a home-wrecker (Paul had separated from his wife ages before); Madame Curie is tarnishing Pierre’s good name (Pierre was probably highfiving her from

physics heaven, which is full of atheist scientists and apple trees for Newton and his buddies to sit under); Madame Curie is five years older than almost-fortyyear-old Paul (gasp!) and therefore a cradle-robber (doublegasp!!). If there is one thing men hate more than a smart woman, it’s a smart woman who makes her own choices when it comes to her own sex life. It was a whole thing: lots of sexist, antiSemitic crap was written, pistol duels were held, the words “Polish scum” were used, and Dr. Curie plunged into a deep depression.

But that’s where the engineer BFF comes in.

Her name was Hertha Ayrton and she was a bit of a polymath. Think of your high school friend who always got straight A’s but was also the captain of the soccer team, did lights for the drama club, and moonlighted as a suffragette leader. Hertha’s famous for studying electric arcs— lightning, but way cooler. I like to fantasize about her using her scientific knowledge to burn Marie’s enemies to a crisp, Zeus-style, but the truth is that their mutual love and support mostly translated into vacationing together to escape the French press.

Sometimes friendship is made of quiet little moments and doesn’t involve lethal lightning bolts. Disappointing, I know. Then again, other times friendship is made of betrayal, and heartache, and spending two years trying to forget that you blocked the number of someone whose take-out orders you used to have memorized.

Anyway. The moral of this particular story is, I believe, that engineers are not all bad. But the ones I’m attempting to collaborate with are often stabable. Like now, for example. I have Mark, the materials guy on BLINK, looking me in the eye and telling me for the third time in two minutes:

“Impossible.”

Okay. Let’s try again. “If we don’t move the output channels farther apart—”

“Impossible.”

Four. Four times in . . . Welp. Still two minutes.

I take a deep breath, remembering a technique my old therapist used. I saw her for a short time after Tim and I broke up, when my self-confidence was six feet under, partying it up with disgruntled grubs and Mesozoic fossils. She taught me the importance of letting go of what I cannot control (others) and focusing on what I can (my reactions). She’d often do this crafty little thing: reframe my own statements to help me achieve self-realization.

Time to therapize Mark the Material Engineer.

“I understand that I’m asking you to do something that is currently impossible, given the inner shell of the helmet.” I smile encouragingly. “But maybe, if I explain what needs to be done from a neuroscience perspective, we can find a way to achieve a middle ground—”

“Impossible.”

I don’t head-desk, but only because Levi happens to enter the room right at that moment, nodding his good morning in our general direction and rolling up the sleeves of his Henley. His forearms are strong and insanely attractive—and why the hell am I even noticing them? Aargh. Kaylee let us know he’d be late because of something at Penny’s school. Which, I guess, is the name of his daughter. Because Levi has a daughter. I promise I’ll stop repeating this fact as soon as it becomes less shocking to me (i.e., never).

Everyone greets him, and I feel a jolt to my stomach. We’ve been emailing, but we haven’t talked in person since yesterday, when I gave him official permission to abhor me —as long as he’s professional about it. I’m curious to see how he’ll play. In deference to his tender sensibilities I’m wearing my tiniest septum ring and the single Ann Taylor dress I own. It’s an olive branch; he damn better appreciate it.

“I see what you’re saying,” I tell Mark. “There are physical impossibilities inherent to the materials, but we might be able to—”

He repeats the only word he knows. “Impossible.”

“—find a solution that—”

“No.”

I’m about to praise the sudden variety in his vocabulary when Levi interjects. “Let her finish, Mark.” He takes a seat next to me. “What were you saying, Bee?”

Huh? What’s happening? “The . . . um, the issue is the outputs placement. They need to be positioned differently if we want to stimulate the intended region.”

Levi nods. “Like the angular gyrus?”

I flush. Come on, I apologized for that! I glare at him for shading me in front of his team, but I notice an odd gleam in his eyes, as though he . . .

Wait. It’s not possible. He’s not teasing me, is he?

“Y-yes,” I stammer, lost. “Like the angular gyrus. And other brain regions, too.”

“And what I told her,” Mark says with all the petulance of a six-year-old who’s too short for the roller coaster, “is that given the property of the Kevlar blend we’re using for the inner shell, the distance between outputs needs to stay the way it is.”

Actually, what he told me was “Impossible.” I’m about to point that out when Levi says, “Then we change the Kevlar blend.” It seems to me like a perfectly reasonable avenue to explore, but the other five people at the table seem to think it’s as controversial as the concept of gluten in the twentyfirst century. Murmurs rise. Tongues cluck. A guy whose name might be Fred gasps.

“That would be a significant change,” Mark whines.

“It’s unavoidable. We need to do proper neurostimulation with the helmets.”

“But that’s not what the Sullivan prototype calls for.”

This is the second time I’ve heard the Sullivan prototype mentioned, and the second time a dense silence ensues when it’s brought up. The difference today is that I’m in the room, and I can see how everyone looks to Levi uneasily. Is he the main author of the prototype? Can’t be, since he’s new to BLINK. Sullivan is the name of the Discovery Institute, so maybe that’s

where it’s from? I want to ask Guy, but he’s off setting up equipment with Rocío and Kaylee this morning.

“We’ll be as faithful as possible to the Sullivan prototype, but it was always meant to be a vehicle for the neuroscience,” Levi says, firm and final as usual, with that competent, big-dick calm of his, and everyone nods somberly, more so than one would expect from a bunch of dudes who throttle one another over donuts and come into work in their pajamas.

There’s clearly something I don’t know. What is this place, Twin Peaks?

Why’s everyone so full of secrets?

We hammer out details for a couple more hours, deciding that for the next weeks I’ll focus on mapping the individual brains of the first batch of astronauts while engineering refines the shell. With Levi present, his team tends to agree to my suggestions more quickly—a phenomenon known as Sausage Referencing™. Well, to Annie and me, at least. In Cockcluster™ or WurstFest™ situations, having a man vouch for you will help you be taken seriously—the better-regarded the man, the higher his Sausage Referencing™ power.

Notable example: Dr. Curie was not originally included in the Nobel Prize nomination for the radioactivity theory she

had come up with, until Gösta Mittag-Leffler, a Swedish mathematician dude, interceded for her with the all-male award committee. Less notable example: halfway through my meeting with the engineers, when I point out that we won’t be able to stimulate deep into the temporal lobe, Maybe Fred tells me, “Actually, we can. I took a neuroscience class in undergrad.” Oh, boy. That was probably two weeks ago. “I’m pretty sure they stimulated the medial temporal lobe.”

I sigh. On the inside. “Who?”