Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            I call him while walking to work, the humid morning air instantly pasting a sticky layer on my skin. His first words are: “Bee, where are you with BLINK?”

            Oh, I’m just peachy, thank you. What about you? “About to start week two.”

            “But where’s the project at?” He bristles. “Are the suits ready?”

            “Helmets. They’re helmets.” Seems like that would be an easy detail to remember, since we study the brain.

            “Whatever,” he says impatiently. “Are they ready?”

            I miss him so little. I can’t wait till BLINK makes my CV awesome and I can move to a position that doesn’t require acknowledging his existence. “They’re not. The projected timeline is three months. We haven’t even started.”

            A pause. “What do you mean, you haven’t started?”

            “I currently have no equipment. No EEG. No TMS. No computers, not even access to my office. Everything I asked for in my application, weeks ago, has yet to be delivered.”

            “What?”

            “There are mysterious authorizations that need to be collected. But it’s impossible to figure out whose authorizations.”

            “Are you serious?”

            My heart beats faster at the indignation in his voice. Trevor sounds mad—do I have an ally? A horrible ally, but a useful one. If he exerts some pressure at higher levels, they’ll intervene and Levi won’t be able to drag his feet anymore.

            Oh my God. Why didn’t I just call Trevor on day one? “I know—it’s stupid, a waste of time, and unprofessional. I’m not sure who can help us fix this situation, but—”

            “Then you better figure it the hell out. What have you been doing there for a week, visiting the space museum? Bee, you’re not on vacation.”

            “I—”

            “It’s your responsibility to get BLINK going. What do you think you were hired for?”

            Right. This is why I didn’t call Trevor. “I have no power or connections here. My liaison is Levi, and whatever I do is—”

            “Clearly, whatever you do is not enough.” He takes a deep breath. “Listen carefully, Bee. George Kramer called me last night.” Kramer is the head of our NIH institute—so far removed from my lowly postdoc position that it takes me a moment to place the name. “On Friday, he talked with the director of NIH and with two members of Congress. The general consensus is that BLINK is the kind of project that taxpayers eat up. It mixes astronauts and brains, which market-test well among average Americans. They’re sexy topics.” I recoil. I can never hear Trevor and his smelly breath use the word “sexy” again. “Plus, it’s the joint collaboration of two already beloved government agencies. It’ll make the current administration look good, and they need to look good.”

            I frown. He has been talking for over a minute and hasn’t mentioned science once. “I don’t see what this means?”

            “It means that as of right now there’s a lot of scrutiny over BLINK. Over your performance. Kramer wants weekly updates, starting today.”

            “He wants an update today?”

            “And every week from today.”

            Well, this is going to be a problem. What the hell am I supposed to tell him? That I have no progress to report—but will he accept an R-rated list of elaborately intricate murder fantasies I have spun regarding Dr. Levi Ward? I am toying with the idea of turning them into a graphic novel.

            “And, Bee,” Trevor is saying, “Kramer doesn’t care about attempts. He wants results.”

            “Wait a minute. I can give Kramer however many updates he wants. But this is science, not PR. I want results as much as he does, but we’re talking about building a piece of equipment that will alter astronauts’ brain activity. I’m not going to rush through experiments and make a possibly fatal mistake—”

            “Then you’re off this project.”

            My jaw drops. I stop in the middle of the crosswalk—until a Nissan honks and startles me into running to the sidewalk. “What—what did you just say?”