Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

PARAHIPPOCAMPAL GYRUS: SUSPICION



MY SECOND DAY on BLINK is almost as good as my first.

            “What do you mean, we can’t get inside our office?”

            “I told you. Someone dug a moat around it and filled it with alligators. And bears. And carnivorous moths.” I stare silently at Rocío and she sighs, swiping her ID through the reader by the door. It blinks red and makes a flat noise. “Our badges don’t work.”

            I roll my eyes. “I’ll go find Kaylee. She can probably fix this.”

            “No!”

            She sounds so uncharacteristically panicked, I lift an eyebrow. “No?”

            “Don’t call Kaylee. Let’s just . . . knock the door down. Count of three? One, two—”

            “Why shouldn’t I call Kaylee?”

            “Because.” Her throat bobs. “I don’t like her. She’s a witch. She might curse our families. All our firstborns shall have ingrown toenails, for centuries to come.”

            “I thought you didn’t want kids?”

            “I don’t. I’m worried about you, boss.”

            I tilt my head. “Ro, is this heat stroke? Should I buy you a hat? Houston’s much warmer than Baltimore—”

            “Maybe we should just go home. It’s not like our equipment is here. What are we even going to do?”

            She’s being so weird. Though, to be fair, she’s always weird. “Well, I brought my laptop, so we can— Oh, Guy!”

            “Hey. Do you have time to answer a couple of questions for me?”

            “Of course. Could you let us into our office? Our badges aren’t working.”

            He opens the door and immediately asks me about brain stimulation and spatial cognition, and over an hour goes by. “It might be tricky to get to deep structures, but we can find a work-around,” I tell him toward the end. There’s a piece of paper full of diagrams and stylized brains between us. “As soon as the equipment arrives, I can show you.” I bite the inside of my cheek, hesitant. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

            “A date?”

            “No, I—”

            “Good, because I prefer figs.”

            I smile. Guy reminds me a bit of my British cousin—total charmer, adorable smile. “Same. I . . . Is there a reason the neuro equipment isn’t here yet?”

            I know Levi is supposed to be my point of contact, but he’s currently sitting on three unanswered emails. I’m not sure how to get him to reply. Use Comic Sans? Write in primary colors?

            “Mmm.” Guy bites his lip and looks around. Rocío is coding away on her laptop with AirPods in her ears. “I heard Kaylee say that it’s an authorization problem.”

            “Authorization?”

            “For the funds to be disbursed and new equipment to be brought in, several people need to sign off.”

            I frown. “Who needs to sign off?”

            “Well, Boris. His superiors. Levi, of course. Whatever the holdup is, I’m sure he’ll fix it soon.”

            Levi is as likely to be the holdup as I am to make a mistake while filing my taxes (i.e., very), but I don’t point that out. “Have you known him long? Levi, I mean.”

            “Years. He was very close to Peter. I think that’s why Levi threw his name in the hat for BLINK.” I want to ask who Peter is, but Guy seems to assume I already know. Is he someone I met yesterday? I’m so bad with names. “He’s a fantastic engineer and a great team leader. He was at the Jet Propulsion Lab when I was on my first space mission. I know they were sad to see him transfer.”

            I frown. This morning I walked past him chatting with the engineers, and they were all laughing at something sportsball he’d just said. I choose to believe that they were just sucking up to him. Okay, he’s good at his job, but he can’t possibly be a beloved boss, can he? Not Dr. Wardness of the intractable disposition and wintery personality. And since we’re talking, why the hell did they decide to transfer someone from the JPL instead of having Guy lead?