Page 113 of Talk Data To Me


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“Should I expect a delay on your weekly status report for the quantum gravity project?”

“Uh—no.”

“Good. Preparations for my transition will occupy my time until I leave for CERN on Thursday. We’ll review your work this afternoon.” Dr. Kramer retrieved his coffee and left.

Silence.

Then:

“He wants our status update today?” Erin’s smile had vanished with Dr. Kramer’s appearance. Now, disbelief slackened her mouth. “Today?What does he think we’ll have to report? We’ve only had two days—three, if you count today—at the lab since you submitted our project charter for review.”

“Yes—but we… we’ve also had Saturday and Sunday.” Ethan nodded at Tomasz Szymanski entering the kitchenette, requesting confirmation from his colleague, “Five days. That’s a research week.”

Szymanski returned his nod.

“By whose standards?”

Neither of them answered her.

“Fine. I was planning to meet with Human Resources to discuss an increase to our interns’ summer stipend, but if the report needs to be finished today?” Coffee sloshed up her mug as she shrugged. “We don’t have space booked for a work session, though.”

Their hours in the Sidewinder conference room were scheduled for Wednesday.

“Um.” Ethan didn’t look at Szymanski when he said, “My office at one o’clock?”

“Five after one.”

He barricaded himself at his desk through the length of the morning and scrutinized row after row of reference data. Despite Erin’s surprise over the timeline for their status report, theyhadbeen on their federal research assignment for over a week—if their time spent crafting its charter was included in the total; Dr. Kramer would expect results. Friday’s consultation with the engineers in the West Experimental Hall had gotten… derailed… before they could finalize the structural updates needed in the Matter in Extreme Conditions hutch for their black hole model and before they could run even a preliminary atomic experiment, so that left them with Tuinstra’s data, Ethan’s holometer results, and Erin’s LIGO outputs as pertinent reference material to include in the report. Tuinstra’s data was a simple copy-and-paste from her paper. He knew his own numbers inside out, and Erin had reviewed them yesterday. But he hadn’t gone spelunking into the interferometer’s latest yields, yet.

His fingers inched toward his phone.

No.

He opened their SVLAC communications channel.

Dr. Ethan Meyer

Do you have your last six months of LIGO data available?

Dr. Erin Monaghan

Yes. I’ll even share it with you, if you’re sure you want to touch it. (Warning: it might contaminate your own data by proximity.)

Dr. Ethan Meyer

I apologized for that comment, remember? And yes, I do want it.

Dr. Erin Monaghan

Let the record show that I provided a hazard alert. Sending it now. Just give the file a minute to reach your inbox. It’s enormous.

Dr. Ethan Meyer

Supermassive data.

He tilted back his headphones to catch her snicker from the bullpen.

Dr. Erin Monaghan