Ava should have been her perfect date. She smiled, she flirted, she talked about travel and sunlit beaches and failed yoga retreats in Mykonos. She even kissed her at the door, with a softness that should have made Kathleen’s heart skip.
It hadn’t. It had made her feel like an object. A polite, stiff statue.
She stood slowly, easing the kinks out of her neck as she wandered barefoot into the bathroom. The floor was cold against her feet, and she welcomed it. She turned the tap on and splashed her face without looking in the mirror. She knew what she’d see—lips pinched, skin tired, mascara like black blotches around her eyes. Her mouth tasted of sour wine and regret.
The problem wasn’t Ava. It was Veronica. Kathleen couldn’t get the woman out of her head. She tried not to dwell on her, because if she did, she’d have to acknowledge the strange ache in her chest that hadn't faded since that kiss. Something shecouldn’t dismiss easily. She’d have to admit she wanted to see her again.
Not as an escort, as herself.
She arrived at the lab after nine, still slightly damp from the drizzle, her bag slung over one shoulder and her thermos, filled with coffee, gripped tightly in her right hand. The elevator had been crowded, and she’d spent the ride staring at the metal doors, trying to ignore the press of bodies.
Ted was already at his bench, hunched over a pile of readouts, typing something in his notebook. His usual assortment of mismatched pens stuck out of the breast pocket of his lab coat, and his hair looked like he’d dried it in a rush and forgotten to brush it.
“Morning,” he said, glancing up with a smile.
Kathleen nodded to him and crossed to her workstation. Her thermos hit the bench with a dull thud.
Ted hesitated, then said more carefully, “The conductivity readings from Tank Three were a little erratic overnight. I reran the sweep but thought you might want to take a look.”
She reached for the nearest terminal and pulled up the log. “What time?”
“Between two and three. It’d stabilised before I came in, but it’s a slight deviation from the baseline.”
Kathleen reviewed the curve without comment. A flicker, nothing more. Something she would normally file away as a routine anomaly, today she found herself staring at the data without really absorbing it.
“You don’t think it’s a sensor lag?” he prompted.
“It could be,” she said. “Or a transient microcurrent in the nutrient line. But no, it’s not serious, but still, thank you for flagging it.”
Ted seemed to sense she wasn’t feeling herself today and stepped back, fiddling with his pen as he returned to his seat.
Kathleen keyed in a fresh diagnostic and watched the soft blue pulses begin to sweep through the display. The plants drifted in their tank, slow and luminous, their fronds undisturbed by the world around them. Perfect specimens.
She envied them.
After a long pause, she asked without looking up, “How was the film?”
Ted perked up immediately. “Awesome. Like, gloriously awful. The Blob was oozing over diners and teenagers were shrieking with vintage overacting. The soundtrack was so dated it was genius. I think someone used a synthesiser made from a toaster.”
Kathleen smiled. “Sounds like a valuable cultural experience.”
“Absolutely,” he said, dead serious. “It wasn’t horror...it was a Jell-O metaphor. An essay on Cold War paranoia told through poorly lit ooze.”
She blinked at him. Sometimes, he was such a smart nerd.
He grinned. “Also... I met someone.”
That got her attention. She glanced over. “At the cinema?”
“She sat behind Simon and me and accidentally dumped Coke on my head.”
Kathleen blinked. “Really?”
“She apologised profusely and we started talking. Anyway, her name’s Cass and we ended up swopping clever, snide comments with her throughout the movie. Afterwards, we went in the Irish pub over the road. She’s—” He stopped, scratched the back of his neck. “She’s funny. Like, sharp-funny. Knowsscience fiction, edits technical papers for work, and didn’t think I was weird for quoting Star Trek.”
Kathleen felt a twinge of envy. “That’s...great,” she said.
Ted nodded, bubbling with enthusiasm. “We talked about everything—Dune, environmental systems, Isaac Asimov’s lesser-known essays. Cass even knew your name. Said she read one of your old papers on self-organising root networks and thought it was interesting.”
