Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            “We’re at least Inspector Columbo.”

            “Gadget outranks Columbo,” I point out. “Don’t get me wrong, I see the value of keeping tabs on the competition, but wouldn’t it be better to send someone else?”

            “No one else is as familiar with BLINK as we are, and you’re the only person who knows the neuroscience.”

            “Fred did take that class in undergrad.”

            Levi smiles. “At least it’s over the weekend. We won’t miss workdays.”

            I lift one eyebrow. We’ve both worked every single weekend. “Why are you taking this so well?”

            He shrugs. “I pick my battles with Boris carefully.”

            “Isn’t this worth fighting for? We’re talking about two days in close quarters with the person you most despise in history.”

            “Elon Musk is coming, too?”

            “No—me.”

            He sighs heavily, rubbing his forehead. “We’ve been over this, Bee. Besides, the team keeps screwing up basic stuff like file backup,” he adds wryly. “I wouldn’t trust them with . . . espionage.” He smiles when he says the last word, and my heart jumps. I’m inexplicably getting Cute Guy™ vibes from him—maybe because when he’s amused he looks damn cute.

            “I still think it’s not human error,” I say, trying not to think about things like cuteness.

            “Either way, I’ll call a meeting with the engineers and scare them into being more careful.”

            “Wait.” I stop under my building. “You can’t do that if you’re not sure that it’s someone on the team.”

            “I’m sure.”

            “But you have no proof.” He looks at me with a puzzled expression. “You don’t want to accuse them of something they might not have even done, do you?”

            “They did.”

            I huff, frustrated. “What if it’s a weird fluke?”

            “It’s not.”

            “But you—” I press my lips together. “Listen, we’re co-leaders. We should make disciplinary decisions together, which means that you can’t accuse anyone of anything until I’m on board, too. And that’s not going to happen until I see actual proof that someone on the team is doing this.” He’s looking down at me with a soft, amused expression, as if he finds my irritation particularly endearing. What a sadist. “Okay?” I prompt him.

            He nods. “Okay.” He unlocks his helmet and ties it under his chin. I most definitely do not notice the flex of his biceps. “And, Bee?”

            “Yeah?”

            He mounts the bike and starts riding away. “I’ll let you know which 5K I settle on.”

            He’s giving me his back, but I flip him off anyway.





12





VENTRAL STRIATUM: YEARNING



SHMAC: That GRE tweet is becoming a bit of a thing, huh?



            It sure is.

            If by “bit” he means “a lot.” And if by “thing” he means “shitstorm.”

            I have no idea how it even happened. The day I sent the tweet I went to bed after reading comments of people talking about their negative experiences with the test. When I woke up, there was a hashtag (#FairGraduateAdmissions), and dozens of associations of women and minorities in STEM had announced a GRE strike, encouraging students to turn in their grad school applications without the GRE.


@OliviaWeiBio If everyone does it, grad programs will have no choice but to evaluate us based on our experiences, CV, previous efforts, and skills. Basically, what they should already be doing.



            Have I mentioned how much I love women in STEM? Because I loooove women in STEM.

            Two hours later, a journalist from The Atlantic messaged me, asking for an interview. Then CNN. Then Chronicle of Higher Ed. Then Fox News (as if!). I paired up with Shmac to reach an even wider audience, and together we issued a thousand-word essay summarizing the lack of scientific evidence supporting the use of the GRE as an admission tool. I encouraged news outlets to interview the women who started the hashtag (except for Fox News, which I left on read). Several people came forward and talked to the media about the number of minimum-wage hours necessary to afford the test, about their frustration when wealthier classmates with access to private tutoring performed better, about the crushing disappointment of being rejected by dream institutions despite perfect GPAs and research experience because their scores didn’t meet some arbitrary cutoff by a few percentage points. They’re still doing the rounds, with more people opening up.