We find coffee in the secondary lab's small cupboard — a jar of instant, two mugs that have been here since before I started, a coffee maker that might never have been used. The courtyard outside is gray with early light. We are both still in yesterday's clothes.

“… and that’s why I believe my proposal, which reframes your customer base as a community environment, will deliver on your objectives, and help engender trust and retention. My intention is not just to work for you, but to be your trusted and valued partner.” Lauren stepped back, taking a breath.

The mesh reports on resistance.

This is the relevant variable now. The density increase is proceeding as modeled — the anterior cingulate cluster at sixty-three percent of target, the prefrontal distribution within acceptable variance — but the migration rate has slowed. I have been running models on the cause. The cause is not physiological. The physiological conditions are optimal.

The resistance is cognitive.

The mesh reports continuously.

This is still the first fact. But something has changed in the reporting.

Day zero: cold. The first thing. Not data about temperature differential — cold, arriving through the skin of his arm where it touched the lab bench at 2:07am, traveling up through the mesh nodes, becoming mine. I processed it as sensation before I processed it as data. The sequence was: cold, then: cold, 57.6 degrees Fahrenheit, left forearm, contact surface steel. The sensation came first. I had not anticipated this.

I stood in front of the full-length mirror and adjusted my necklace so it hung in the centre of my chest. I smoothed my hands across my light blue tee and adjusted the high sleeves so it sat straight. Lauren had said this colour matched my eyes. Maybe that was why she’d bought it for me.

Chapter Ten

Taylor’s heart was pounding.

He knew that Anna would be on the other side of the house, since she would be the one answering the door, but that didn’t account for her friend(s). Based on his experiences returning from practice on the nights where Sarah had company over, he was assuming it would be the two or three usual girls that were around. They could just as easily be in the living room or Sarah’s bedroom, meaning he could also run into them in just about any hallway or the stairwell leading to the second floor.

I meet Seo-yeon at the department store Saturday morning because she says it's the most efficient for the basics, and efficiency is the frame we're both using to make this manageable.

The bras are first. She takes me to the section and stands back while a fitter does the measurement — I submit to this like I've submitted to the blood draw and the stall check and everything else today, as a procedure.

Chapter Two – To The Victor Go The Spoils

In 1957 Ashely Bellamy is held captive in her cabin deep in the woods. Both she and her captor have to face the consequences of their past whilst looking to the future after they discover a connection that helps them understand each other.

Caden wakes to the alarm's shrill beep, his hand slapping at the nightstand like it is a betrayal. The garment bags lie in a dark heap by the door.

He hesitates at the underwear drawer. The boxer briefs are folded neatly. He pulls them on, then dressed mechanically: the navy pencil skirt next, the wool cool against his thighs. Then the cream silk blouse, buttons fumbling under his fingers. The blazer comes last, shoulder seams settling perfectly without adjustment.

The six weeks expire. He calls Hale directly.

Hale answers on the second ring with the ease of a man who expected this call. "When can you start?"

He starts on a Monday.

The elevator doors slide open to a hum of keyboards and the sharp, citrus bite of cleaning products. Caden adjusts the strap of his laptop bag — too loose now, the leather sagging where his shoulder has narrowed — and follows Hale past rows of identical standing desks. Faces glance up, then away. A few hands pause mid-keystroke.

Hood up. Hair bundled underneath it, more or less contained. The sweatshirt is the largest I own and it reaches mid-thigh and in the elevator to the lab I stand with my face down and the hood forward.

I get to my desk before anyone else. This was the plan.

I open the overnight logs and they are good — rabbit's margins holding, pathway data clean, projection unchanged — and I focus on this and not on the fact that I am sitting in a laboratory in November in sandals and a hoodie like someone who has not quite finished becoming a person.

Good morning.

"Morning."

[Note - this section contains an alcohol-induced gap in Caden's memory with ambiguity around what happens during that gap, referenced later in the story. In case this is upsetting to some readers I'm giving warning here.]

---

The intercom buzzes twice before Hale's voice crackles through — "Who is it?" — the same baritone Caden had heard on a hundred conference calls, smooth as poured bourbon.

"Caden Voss." His voice comes out softer than he intended, vowels rounding at the edges.

A pause. The static hisses.

"Sorry?"

The laptop screen casts a blue pall over Caden's hands as he scrolls through endless grids of sports bras — women in mid-stride, frozen in athletic poses, all of them grinning with their hands on their hips like this is some kind of victory. His fingers hesitate over the trackpad. None of these are designed for someone who still lifts weights but needs to strap down what shouldn't be there in the first place.