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  George casually walked in front of her desk and said loudly, “It seems I’ve been permanently replaced by Galene here at Mr Raptis office.”

  Gal froze and looked up. She gave him her finest glare.

  “That’s understandable, of course,” the demagogue said, “because I don’t have breasts.”

  “It wasn’t just that, I raised his department’s performance,” Gal said, frowning.

  “Yeah, right! It wasn’t the only thing that you raised!” He turned back at his posse and they all laughed along.

  “Malaka,” she whispered under her breath.

  Chapter 22: Galene @ 1.1x nhs

  “Oh my god, Gal, you can’t tell people they’re slow,” Greg said in his best female impersonation.

  “Sure I can. Seriously, next time, I’ll tell him. I really am. I practically wrote an algorithm in my mind that would optimise his speech patterns in the time it took him to make a point,” Gal whined. She had taken her favourite pose, cross-legged on the couch, laptop on, well, her lap.

  “No, that was a Mean Girls quote. I’m surprised you didn’t catch that.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, googling it simultaneously.

  “It’s a classic movie. It’s so funny.”

  “I haven’t seen it. Ugh! It’s pink and girly. Why?” she said disgusted.

  “How the fuck can you not have seen Mean Girls?”

  “Cause I don’t watch chick-flicks?” Gal mocked.

  “It’s not a chick-flick! It’s a meta-commentary on chick-flicks and society in general, and it’s a very clever film. Brilliant, actually.”

  “Let me guess. We’re watching it tonight.”

  “Watch out please! New meat coming through!”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.” He pulled a monitor close and loaded the movie file.

  “None of that swifty crap. Play it at normal speed, like a normal person would.”

  “Okay. But honestly, let me put the playback at 1.10x. Bear with me for a minute. It’s like when you’re watching a musical, at first it’s funny how everyone breaks into song but after a while you get used to it and just go along.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I’m making pop corn,” he bolted to the kitchen.

  Galene smiled to herself. Movie night, so soon in the relationship. What was this, by Natalie’s count? Date number two-point-five? She felt comfy, safe. She didn’t wanna go back home after work, and she just showed up at his door. It was stupid and needy and spontaneous, but he seemed genuinely happy to see her. She checked out the movie they were about to see.

  “2004? This is so old, how come they didn’t do a remake?” she yelled to be heard in the next room.

  Greg didn’t reply for a while. He appeared at the door with a big bucket of popcorn, wincing. “Seriously, every time I speak with you I feel a little bit older.”

  The movie ended. They watched it at 1.10x and he was right, Gal couldn’t tell the difference.

  She turned to him, wide eyed. “That was the best movie ever made! I finally know where half the internet memes come from.”

  “Oh, Gal. Wait till you watch Office Space.”

  “Haven’t seen that one. Does it have memes?”

  “Does Office Space have memes, she asked. Ha. Ha. Hey! I was told there would be popcorn.” He snatched the empty bucket from her hands, and she smiled back innocently.

  Chapter 23: Natalie @ 1.0x nhs

  “So, let me get this straight. You netflixed and chilled, but you actually netflixed and chilled. No making out, nothing?” Nat asked, incredulous.

  Gal shrugged. “I leaned into his arms. We… caressed.”

  “Caressed? What are you, 80?” Nat said, giving up.

  Gal positioned herself in front of her friend and she said seriously. “Natalie, don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die. Don’t have sex in missionary position, don’t have sex standing up, just don’t do it, okay, promise?”

  Nat mouthed a few replies and then stopped. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “We’re watching Mean Girls. You and me, right now.” She fired up her laptop.

  “No, come on, I’m not in the mood for a movie, how about a YouTube clip, something no longer than three minutes or so,” Nat complained, trying to wiggle away.

  Gal pulled her by the arm. “Boo, you whore!”

  “What did you just call me? Are you having a stroke or something?”

  “On Wednesdays, we wear pink.”

  “What. The fu-”

  “Sit your butt down.”

  Hours later, Gal was alone. Nat had gone home. She claimed she didn’t really like the movie but Gal could see her chuckling all the time.

  She played with her lips for a while, then decided to dust the place. After 20 minutes of light cleaning, she placed the printout of her thesis in front of her, and stared at it.

  It stared back.

  “This is so stupid,” she said to herself. “Okay, here it goes: It is by will alone I set my mind in motion, it is by… something something, Sapho something. What were the stupid words again?”

  She looked it up.

  “It is by will alone, I set my mind in motion. It is by will alone, I set my mind in motion.”

  She recited the mantra a few times. It was dark, getting late. She had a clear mind, and it was quiet outside.

  “It is by will alone, I set my mind in motion.”

  She picked up the thesis, and found a part that needed editing, noted in red ink. She read it for a while.

  Had she really written that? The words were familiar, but it seemed distant. It was as if someone else had written the thesis and she had half-heard it somewhere.

  Fourteen months. That was how long that thing was sitting there, gathering dust, getting dusted, gathering dust again.

  She pulled her laptop close and started writing.

  A couple of pages.

  Success!

  Progress, even if it was pathetic. She had inched towards completion, far more than she had done for months now. She congratulated herself with a chocolate bar, then she watered the cactus, then she went to her balcony. Simba was nowhere in sight, probably chasing some bird or something. She poured fresh water in his bowl and went to bed.

  She felt good, productive.

  She loaded the code she had written on her veil and watched as the incorporeal letters shone in light blue on her ceiling. It was the app for underlined speed reading. Couple of ideas came to her. A bug here, a quicker fix there. An idea about the code automatically distinguishing between a screen and a paper. Screens had fixed aspect ratios, 4:3, 16:9, whereas papers were usually A4 or book dimensions, it was easy enough for an algo to spot that.

  She fell asleep, smiling, dreaming in code.

  Chapter 24: Gregoris @ 2.8x nhs

  He got a text from Gal, that said, ‘Mt me @ elev,’ alligator emoji, ‘wr,’ pants emoji. Then, arrow emoji, capital L, man and woman emoji, bag emoji.

  “What the fuck does this mean,” Greg asked, pointing the phone at Mel.

  “The encryption level is beyond me,” she shrugged.

  “You have no idea.”

  “I have no idea,” she said, her face reverting to her mask-like features.

  Greg scratched his head. That girl was gonna be the death of him. He was smitten, that much was clear. He didn’t even need to ask anyone for confirmation. All he could think about when not working was the time he had already spent with her, precious little that may be, and when he was going to meet her again.

  He got dressed and went to his reception area.

  “Get in, loser, we’re going shopping,” Galene announced, while leaning out from the elevator.

  He obliged. “Where?”

  “Where it’s free! At our company’s very own warehouse, floor 11,” she nodded.

  “Nice,” he smiled at her.

  He was dressed in what a rich person would call casual, but still fit like a glove. Gal r
esisted the urge to hug him. Everything was monitored inside the building. The penthouse was monitored too, but that feed was only going into an AI so it was a black box. She couldn’t show affection openly, no matter how much she wanted to.

  The elevator whirred downwards.

  “I got a little work done on my thesis last night,” she said.

  “Excellent! I’m so happy for you.”

  “I also worked on the code some more.”

  “That’s great.”

  She hesitated. “Greg?”

  “Hm?”

  “I want you to teach me. This, the overclocking thing.”

  “No, sorry.”

  “What? Why the he-” She composed herself. “Why not?”

  “You’re still 22 years old. Your mind is still underdeveloped, it’s not safe doing that before the age of 25,” he explained.

  “Did you just call me underdeveloped?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “No, I said your brain is still developing, really. It’s a medical fact, look it up.”

  She stood there, fuming in silence.

  The elevator glinged, and they got off.

  He could see that her mood had soured, but he didn’t know her long enough to know if it would last.

  “I thought about your locality thing,” she said, swiping her keycard. She was talking professionally at him, not a whiff of the earlier pep and tease.

  “Okay.”

  “You do things in different physical places so that you can help your mind shift gears. So we can get some secondary computers and experiment with speed reading techniques in different locations.” She waved at the guy at the door and they got into a tech warehouse. It was pretty much a nerd’s heaven. Stacks of computers, high-end graphics cards, drives, monitors, peripherals, network hardware, it was a supermarket of tech gear.

  She started looking around, opening boxes, stacking stuff on the middle. Some stuff was pretty high up and he offered to help her reach them, but she refused and climbed a ladder thing they had around for just this purpose. Greg decided not to push her and he just sat at the corner.

  “We can make a dedicated Rapid Serial Visual Representation Device, which parses the text into a single point and it flashes the words at whatever speed you choose. And there’s some sound-proofing material here, so we can make you a quieter workspace. I’m not a sound engineer, but my old group of friends back in Patra constantly worked with audio and I picked up some stuff.”

  He nodded. “Sounds good, let’s try it.”

  She finished stacking the stuff. “I’m gonna check these out, they’ll carry them for you upstairs. I’ll work on it after my shift, is that all right with you?” she asked coldly.

  “5 o'clock? It’s alright.” He decided to give her some space.

  “I have to work now. Goodbye.”

  He bit his lips. “Goodbye.”

  And she left him alone with a stack of hardware.

  Chapter 25: Galene @ 1.2x nhs

  Gal asked herself, What Would Natalie Do? She’d suck his dick, that’s what she’d do. Obviously.

  She was off the clock and had gone up to Greg’s penthouse once more. At first, she considered just barging in, but she knew he was prioritising his time constantly and she didn’t really want to mess up his schedule. Divas did that, temperamental crazy girlfriends did that. Galene respected his work, she couldn’t do that to him. So she sent him a passive-aggressive text that she was coming over after work and left it at that. He could draw his own conclusions.

  He had invited her in, totally walking on eggshells. She let him boil in his own skin for a bit and then brought up the topic once more.

  He had denied her request for tutoring.

  Again.

  “Take off your pants,” she said.

  “Do what now?” He was surprised.

  “Take ‘em off!” She kept pulling his pants down and he unbuckled his belt. They slid off to his calves, and she touched his dick. It was in a good semi-erection, that became a full one as soon as she stroked it a couple of times. Good. She had a nagging fear that his equipment would need help getting up, but the response time was that of a teenager.

  “Oh…” he moaned and relaxed back on the couch.

  Galene loaded the app in her veil. It was her secret weapon, the last resort if he refused to teach her again. The app showed instructions in her field of view as Augmented Reality, with graphics of hand gestures telling you to speed up or slow down or switch strokes. Mode options were: Sloppy and Messy, Morning Wood, Lick and Tease, Prostate Massage and Deep Throat.

  The first one sounded like too much work, the last two - well, she didn’t even wanna go there. So she chose Lick and Tease, with the suboption of All Hands on Deck.

  She cupped his balls and licked the tip of his cock, as the guide instructed. She felt him shivering to her touch and she loved it. She placed her lips on it and sucked softly.

  Giving oral was a really sore point for Galene. She knew she wasn’t very good at it, and guys all seemed to enjoy it and then always told you were doing it great. But her ex, Babis, after she found out he was cheating on her with one of his slutty actresses, told her she was terrible at blow jobs and that that was the reason why he preferred to be with the other girl.

  It was meant as an insult, but he had proven that he didn’t know Galene well despite their three years of being a couple. After the initial burst of anger, she calmly assessed it for the feedback it was. Simple facts, data. Men like blow jobs. Give good head, your partner is pleased. Disappoint in that matter, and a blonde slut with breast and lip implants will happily do the job for you.

  Facts. So, class, how can we prevent this?

  She licked across the length of his dick, as the app instructed.

  Telling someone upon breaking up that she had a horrible technique, was unlike telling her that she was ugly, or short, or flat-chested. Even though those were things that other people happily fixed or at least attempted to fix with plastic surgery, Gal always considered them narcissistic and vain. No, giving bad head was something she could fix. Simple as that.

  She went down to the balls, trimmed and manly. She kissed them softly for a while as Greg melted in her hands.

  Not that it was her fault that her ex was shallow, but Gal believed that if you could improve on something, you should do so. It wasn’t like she didn’t enjoy giving blow jobs to her boyfriend, it did get her wet and ready for more action. But she sucked. At sucking.

  Thankfully, there’s an app for that.

  She followed the instructions and placed her tongue on the frenulum, the base of the hooded pink thingie. The app told her to lick there for maximum pleasure. On cue, Greg breathed hard and held her head, pushing it close to him.

  Good app! Gal made a mental note to review it with five stars afterwards. “Do you like this?” she whispered. She kissed the same spot noisily and Greg moaned in acknowledgement.

  Other women, or men of course, would be insulted after getting feedback like that. Gal was not. Oh, sure, she was angry at the malaka she used to date, but not for that. If someone tasted your cooking and as an insult told you that it was horrible, you should take it as the honest feedback it was and try to improve your cooking skill.

  The app instructed her to suck it. So she did. Greg’s dick pulsed in her mouth and she loved it. She sucked it harder now and he held her head tight and pushed her towards him in a steady rhythm.

  See? It wasn’t so hard.

  The app scolded her cause she had forgotten the balls. Alright, jeez! It wasn’t easy paying attention to everything, you know. Breathing, rhythm, touching, saliva, teeth, it was all a bit much to process. She fondled his balls again and kept on sucking as deep as she could handle.

  Then it told her to switch techniques. She grabbed the base of his dick and jerked him off while sucking the tip shallow. It took her a while to manage it but she found the rhythm it needed, sucking and stroking in unison.

  Greg was at her m
ercy now, breathing hard and moaning. He touched her neck and her cheeks.

  ‘Look him in the eyes,’ the app wrote in front of her. What? Another thing to do? She did so, and they locked eyes. She sucked him hard for a while and she had his full attention.

  She kept on jerking him off and simply touched her lips on his tip. “If you teach me how to overclock, we can do this every day,” she said softly, with a touch of innocence.

  Greg moaned.

  She sucked his cock for a second, then stopped. “Well?”

  “Okay, alright!” he said, exasperated.

  She sucked it again, then stopped with a loud mouth sound. “Promise?” she said with her naughtiest voice.

  “Yes, promise! Fuck!”

  “Excellent,” she said and switched to Deep Throat mode. She admitted to herself that she had been curious since last night on whether or not she could handle it, and she already had a perfectly good cock in her mouth after all.

  She didn’t think Greg would mind if she tried it out.

  Chapter 26: Galene @ 0.9x nhs

  “Well, that was a complete and utter failure,” Galene snarled while pulling wires.

  “It’s okay, it was worth trying out. It’s just not working for me, don’t be discouraged,” Greg tried to calm her down.

  Her idea of making a dedicated reading computer for RSVP, the blinking text thingie, was a bust. Greg had tried it out for hours, changing the text speed, trying to find a sweet spot. In the end, it just wasn’t meant for him.

  Galene sat down and pouted just like a baby would, her lower lip quivering up front.

  Greg brought her a cookie.

  “I don’t want a cookie,” she pouted and pushed it away.

  “What do you want?” he asked softly.

  “I wanna go to Epidayros and watch ancient theatre.”

  “That was… awfully specific. When?”

  “Tonight,” she slapped her palm on the floor.

  “Let’s go then,” Greg said and went to his room. “I’ll be ready in six minutes.”