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  “A notepad? Really? Who uses notepads anymore?”

  “I do. Trust me.” He gave her a fresh notepad and a pen.

  It was nice. She felt just like a journalist!

  He pulled up specs and the root access to his workstation. Gal bit her lip. From one techie to another, that gesture was like stripping naked and vulnerable.

  “Excuse me while I make some calls.” He walked to the balcony and started talking on the phone.

  Melpomene showed up. “Hello. I am pleased to hear that you’ll be helping out in our department,” she said softly.

  Gal couldn’t stop staring. Now that she realised it was an android, she kept looking for artificiality and errors, in her voice, in her movements, everywhere. But she was very well made.

  But why did they have to make her ugly like that?

  At least Gal could be sure he didn’t sleep with her. It wasn’t something openly discussed, but there were rumours that people who got Muses assigned to them did have sex with them sometimes. They came equipped with all the necessary parts.

  Mel waited patiently. She was pulling a cart with a computer on it.

  “Right, hi!” Galene giggled. “I think so too, but nothing comes to mind right now.”

  “Just keep chipping at it,” the Muse said, nodding slowly.

  It felt so nice and reassuring, having someone cheer you on like that! Gal was amazed, this felt good. Was it like that for Greg every day?

  “I’m filling up with facts,” Gal said, scrolling the screen.

  “It’s a major step,” the Muse reassured her. She started setting up the secondary workstation. Galene chuckled. Computers assembling computers. What was the world coming to? All the relevant sci-fi movies flashed in her mind.

  Greg finished his phone calls and sat on the secondary workstation. Gal knew that everything was on the server anyway, so he had access to the lot. He didn’t disturb her at all, it was like she was just a girl from IT coming over to fix his computer.

  She didn’t know how to feel about that. Should she feel respected by that, or should she be angry that he was ignoring her?

  Gal shook her head and focused on work. The system was really cool. The AI had instructions to trim and condense videos so he could watch them quickly at three times normal speed. A separate program ran with macro keyboard shortcuts, which he had set up to his liking. She noticed that the workstations weren’t interchangeable, one was running the videos, and the other was running the text digests. There was no real reason for that, a computer could do pretty much anything another computer could do, but the distinction was deliberate.

  Gal suspected why. She had begun to see how Greg thought. It was about locality, he separated the video to his left monitors. That way he gave a physical location to the digital information, allowing his mind to switch mental gears. Then he turned his head to the right ones, reading the text.

  She clicked on one digest, and the text scrolled past the screen in a rush.

  How could he possibly read that fast?

  She glanced at the man. He had made himself comfortable at the second desk, and he was reading news digests. He was holding a pen, running it swiftly across each line of text, focusing his eyes.

  He was mumbling something to himself. Wait. From the one article Galene remembered about speed reading, she distinctly noted one fact. You’re not supposed to sub-vocalise.

  She focused her hearing. No, Greg was mumbling something repeatedly.

  “Um, can I interrupt? Or are you working?” she hesitated.

  Greg raised a finger without turning his head. “Let me finish the page. There.” Then he turned towards her, his face transforming in a smile.

  She stood up and walked close to him. “What were you mumbling?”

  Greg scratched his head. “Um… Okay, I’ll tell you, but promise you won’t laugh.”

  “I won’t laugh. I promise.”

  “I’m saying the Mentat mantra.”

  “The what?”

  He took a slow breath. He recited, “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.”

  Gal covered her lips, biting down her smile.

  “You promised.”

  “From Dune? The freaky eyebrow guys?” she blurted out, laughing.

  “The human computers, yes. You know your classics, I’m impressed. It’s the mantra I use to get my mind into gear,” he explained, sitting low in his chair.

  She tried to reply, but simply chocked and giggled.

  “Laugh all you want, it works for me.”

  She froze.

  “What?”

  “I’m having a brain fart.” She shook her hands around. She needed something to write things down. The notepad!

  “A what now?”

  “I have an idea! A brain fart,” she said, excited.

  “So, a brainstorm, then.”

  “No, it felt more like a fart. A brain farting. Prrrt,” she mimicked while writing down furiously.

  “Thank you for that lovely imagery,” he shook his head.

  Chapter 19: Galene @ 1.2x nhs

  “Yup, it’s good,” Greg said, speed reading some digests.

  Galene had written an app that would activate only when he was inside this room, and that would underline the text he was focusing on. The line showed up only in his AR, not shared.

  “It needs some getting used to,” Greg appraised, shifting his reading to a printed page.

  His eyes darted across the page in a zig-zag pattern.

  How could he handle input like that? She had a headache from thinking too hard for an hour. She couldn’t imagine straining her mind all day.

  He kept reading the screen, the digests scrolling like a reverse waterfall.

  “Need a cookie?” he asked her.

  “A little pick-me-up would be nice.” She massaged her temples.

  “What, energy drinks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nah, I don’t like those. Make yourself a coffee, feel free to use the kitchen,” he said while still reading.

  “I would have guessed a guy like you would be chugging down energy drinks all day.” She got to the kitchen, looking around.

  “You’re projecting your hacker culture onto me. Nope, I prefer natural supplements and things like that.”

  “I’m not a hacker,” she said innocently, while making coffee. Everything was neatly grouped in close proximity, she noticed. You could make it without taking a step. Everything had a position annotated in AR, it had a name of mise en place. Galene looked it up and saw it was a French chef’s technique about leaving everything in the same place to maximise efficiency. She also noticed the inordinate amount of supplements and pill bottles. Blergh! Galene couldn’t imagine herself taking supplements every day.

  She munched on a ginseng tablet. It felt nice at first, popping in her mouth, but the aftertaste was weird, alkaline.

  “Sure you aren’t. That’s why at 22 you’re working for the biggest tech company in the world,” he said from the other room.

  “I’m just fixing computers at the basement,” she shrugged.

  “That was yesterday. Today you’re optimising an analyst’s tools at the penthouse.”

  She froze. Oh yeah. He was right. Galene took a selfie to mark the moment.

  “You did not just do that,” Greg rolled his eyes.

  She ignored him. “I’m ignoring you.” As soon as he looked away, she stuck her tongue out. “How do you like your coffee?”

  “Black, like my soul.”

  “So metal!”

  “That’s me. A complete rebel,” he deadpanned.

  Galene glanced at him. He was seriously using the time it took for her to make coffee to cram in more data. He never ignored her when they talked, she had his full attention, but as soon as he had a minute or two to spare he’d just overclock and pour data into his
brain.

  Weird.

  But she liked it.

  She sat down close to him and gave him his coffee. She knew not to interrupt him, and sure enough, as soon as he was done with his paragraph he turned his attention back to her. Gal felt it like a physical thing, a beamlight of focus that turned with his gaze. She could almost sense it brushing her skin.

  “What’s this? No coffee plate, no tray? Is this how I served you the other day?” he complained but his eyes were smiling.

  She squinted hard back at him and sipped coffee loudly.

  “So, why is such a charming and brilliant creature like you still down at the basement?”

  Her mood soured. She knew he meant well, but it was a bitter topic for her.

  “Oh, sorry. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t-”

  She brushed her hair to cover her face. “It’s okay. I haven’t gotten my degree yet. I still have my thesis to finish, plus a couple of final subjects. I should have been done with it by now. It’s been over a year since I got back from Patra.”

  “Why did you come back early?” he asked softly.

  She took a deep breath. “Basically, my parents couldn’t support me staying away any more. I had to get a job, and tech jobs are crap in the country, so I decided to come back to Athens. My father is bedridden, my mother needed help, I’m the only daughter, so…” She trailed off.

  “Understandable. And apart from lab work, you can come and go.”

  “Yeah… About that. I haven’t been back to uni since last year. I emailed my professor a couple of times, but that’s it. It’s been so hard, maintaining a job, doing chores, it takes up my entire day! I go home and I never have the time to do anything, or I’m wasted from work, angry from the commute, tired from walking this fucking skyscraper up and down all day, cramped from kneeling under desks, ready to burst from keeping my cool all day with these jerks…”

  He nodded. He seemed to understand.

  The dam had burst. She had been keeping it all inside and now she was spraying the poor guy with her silly problems. She couldn’t stop. “And I wanted to do so much stuff after getting back!” She felt a tear in her eye. “I wanted to finish my thesis, get a better paying job, I wanna learn Spanish, I want to finally read fucking Asimov with his fucking stack of books, I wanna have time to clean my house, feed my cat, cook a nice meal.”

  He smiled softly, listening.

  “I wanna fucking get a garden like the one on your balcony!” she blurted, crying.

  He didn’t say anything. He stood up and walked outside. She had her back turned and just wiped her tears, trying to compose herself. What was she doing? One date and one unofficial coffee date and she was crying like a needy girl? No wonder men didn’t stick around.

  He brought a small flower pot. It was a cactus, with a hint of a flower bud on top. He got on his knees in front of her and held her hands inside his own. He gave her the flower pot.

  “What?” she sniffed, wiping her face with her sleeve.

  “Start small,” he said softly. “A forest is but a collection of single trees, a garden is but a collection of single flowers. This is for the beginning of your garden.”

  “I’m probably gonna kill that too.”

  “It’s impossible,” he said casually. “It’s been genetically modified to grow even on Mars. Did you think I’d ever let you go near my roses?”

  She laughed.

  He laughed too and touched her cheek.

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

  “Ouch!” he exclaimed, falling back on his butt.

  The cactus had scratched his chest. “Oh gods, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” she said and rubbed the spines away.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m so, so-”

  “It’s okay,” he said louder. “I’m fine. Did you know, that experiences that are accompanied with pain form more intense memories?”

  She frowned. “What does that have to do-”

  “It means, that I will always remember our first kiss vividly,” he said and kissed her again.

  This time, she melted away.

  Chapter 20: Galene @ 0.7x nhs

  “Please tell me you fucked him.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Whyyy?” Nat pleaded.

  “Cause I’m not a slut,” Gal said matter-of-factly, turning her shoulder. She placed the cactus in the middle of her table, and thought about it.

  “Gal! The guy is super hot, he’s rich, he lives in a penthouse, he likes you, you kissed. Why - the fuck - are you stalling?”

  “Penthouses are overrated, you know. The wind carries your laundry away, there are helicopters landing on your roof all the time. It’s terrible,” she deadpanned. She moved the cactus to the coffee table.

  “Argh!” her friend moaned in anger.

  Gal ignored her.

  “I know why you’re stalling,” Nat said crossing her arms.

  “Don’t say-”

  “It’s because of Babis. Your ex. Babis. He-who-must-not-be-named. Babis, Babis, Babis,” Nat taunted.

  Gal scowled at her. “I’m gonna prickle you with tiny cactus spines!”

  Nat ran behind the couch. “At least I’m gonna get penetrated, unlike some other people in this room!”

  “Death by a thousand spines. I warn you.”

  “The only real threat you can make is killing that poor plant like all the others!”

  Gal sank on her couch. “It’s impossible. This bugger is immortal or something.” She brushed her fingers on the tiny spines.

  Nat sank next to her and hugged her. “So he gave you an unkillable cactus. Hmmm, I’m not sure there’s a Cosmopolitan article that can help us with that.”

  “It was after I cried my eyes out,” Gal mumbled. “It was very sweet at that particular moment,” she sobbed.

  “You didn’t! After only one and a half dates?”

  “I diiid,” Gal whined in a high pitch.

  “Wow. He must actually like you. Or he has a fetish about crying women. You never know these days, so many porn categories.”

  “You suck as a friend!” Gal whined like a child.

  “You suck too,” Nat said and hugged her tight. “Really, I have to squeeze the juicy details out of you every time.”

  “You’re squeezing me too tight,” Gal complained but didn’t push away.

  “That’s what you get for being short and puny,” Nat said in baby-talk and squeezed tighter.

  Chapter 21: Galene @ 1.5x nhs

  It was one of the quite rare, slow days at IT. Most of the crew was down at the basement, wasting time and chatting away in cliques. A couple of diligent workers were refurbishing hardware that would have otherwise gone to the recycling bin. But computer geeks can pick apart ten damaged computers and make a perfectly working one during their lunch break.

  Two nerds had a noisy dart-gun fight, and were trying to get the others to join in. Galene hated that part of working with boys the most. Even though the darts were deadly accurate, they’d always strike her by ‘accident.’

  George the jerk was telling some story and had a group of lackeys listening in.

  Galene ignored them all and read up on the AI specs she was given the day before. Naturally, she didn’t have time at home so she took advantage of the lull in the workplace to catch up. Plus, it was quite interesting stuff, cutting edge. It was what she actually wanted to work on, not replacing keyboards dunked in coffee or resetting passwords.

  Eugene’s desk was right next to Gal’s. The man was normal, a boring, closeted nerd like any other. If you squinted really really hard, you could actually say he was cute and sweet. But he had this… speech impediment. It wasn’t an actual speech problem, he’d just endlessly pad his sentences with filler words, and ums, and ahhs. It. Was. Maddening.

  She saw him coming a mile away, he wanted to chat her up. “Hey Galene, slow day, right? I mean… we do need to be needed but what I want to say is that it’s nice to
have some time, to, you know, be like this, you know, sitting around…”

  Just get to the point already! “Yeah, slow day,” she replied not turning. Perhaps he’d get the hint that she was busy and leave her alone.

  “Hey, I wanted to ask you, not to be too forward or anything, um, that, well I wanted to ask you… I was gonna ask you yesterday but you were gone all day and I didn’t get the chance…”

  “Yes, Eugene? Ask me what?” she said with patience.

  “Well, um, we got these new desk chairs with the guys. They’re, um, very nice for your back, you know? They’re what pro gamers use for all those hours of sitting and playing, you know? And it’s, um…”

  “I’m fine with the one I have, Eugene. But thanks anyway!” She turned to him and smiled, then resumed her reading.

  “Right. Uh… Then, the matter is settled. I should leave you to read, um…”

  Galene sighed softly. In her mind’s eye she was seeing the code needed to parse his speech pattern and remove all extraneous detail, the pauses, the ums, the repeated words. She could remember afternoons with her ex, He-who-must-not-be-named, she lounging on a videogame, him editing audio from some project and removing all those useless mannerisms of speech to streamline the video.

  “Well,” Eugene carried on.

  Trim.

  “I should probably note that you don’t want one of the new chairs, right…”

  Trim.

  “Um,”

  Trim.

  “Maybe one of the guys will want it. The order, you see…”

  Trim.

  “Is bundled, you know…”

  Trim. Sigh.

  “Yes, got it!” she nodded, cutting him off. “Ten chairs minimum or you pay the extra shipping, you guys have been talking about it for days.”

  “Right. Sorry. I’ll leave you to it then,” Eugene said and finally turned away.