Kendra made a perfect landing in her lab. Why couldn’t Healy have been around for that one? Maybe the unpleasantness with her boss would change in this version the day. She squinted at the date and time on her computer, but it was so far away she needed to take several steps toward it before she saw that it was indeed 5 p.m. Friday once again. Her lab was bigger. Her oscilloscope was brand new! Kendra threw her shoulders back proudly, and hurried to the door. She stepped into the hall, turned toward the fire door, and stopped, shocked. Hers was the lab closest to the door. Yes! The youngest PhD candidate was not only the best, but also at last the most well-funded.
Back in her lab with the door shut, Kendra wondered if Healy would show up again. She reflexively checked her wrist as if it would tell her when exactly he’d shown up last time. She laughed. She hadn’t worn a watch for over a year. Her research made time meaningless, hence her triple alarm system. Speaking of which--
She found her keyboard, and entered a digital reminder to talk with the department secretary Monday morning, in case Healy didn’t show up in this Friday. She needed to get a feel for whether she was in his good graces or not. Next Kendra wound the old alarm clock, then quickly reset the steps in her mechanical alarm. She tore the bottom from some form--a bank statement with an impressive total, nice!--scrawled a note, and stuck it on a blunt fishhook before she cranked the old fish pole back into place--the last step in her Rube Goldberg alarm. Finally, she added the third shield against missed appointments and forgotten tasks: she set Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to play Monday morning on her old MP3 player. It might be time for a more triumphant theme song, she thought, but then remembered her snarky colleagues and thought better of it.
Reminders in place, Kendra put Healy and department politics out of mind, and buried herself in her research. If she could figure out why her latest landing had been perfect while others sprawled her across the floor, then she should have a clue how better to tweak the “where” of her travel.
An hour later a knock on her door jerked Kendra out of the complex middle of her very long equation.
“What?!” she snapped toward the door
“Ms. Tanagawa? It’s Professor Healy. May I come in?”
“Damn.” So Healy had shown up again, just when she’d been making progress. Kendra swore again, scribbled what she remembered on a print out of her equation, and stashed her work under a pile of books and papers--some things hadn’t changed in her new lab. She slid off her stool (neither her Japanese father nor her Estonian mother had any of the genes for height) to answer the door.
“Oh,” she said, unsure whether or not she should mask her annoyance. Healy had with him a woman Kendra didn’t recognize. “Who’s this?” She forced her frozen face into some semblance of a smile.
“This is Doctor Xenopoulos,” said Healy. “She works with our biggest supporter. She read the paper you published last month on the relationship between matter and light…?” Professor Healy’s voice rose, and Kendra was sure that he hadn’t read her article, nothing more than a summary of some of her early work--how had she known that? She’d been unpublished in the previous time line.
Dr. Xenopoulos glanced at Healy with her eyebrows raised, as if she, too, realized that the department chair had not read his best candidate’s latest work. Even better, the visitor did not approve of that lapse. Kendra felt herself warm to the stranger, who smiled and extended her hand.
Kendra tried not to stare. The woman looked just like Kendra’s vision of herself in front of the TED crowd, except that Xenopoulos was taller, and hair was wavy and a shade lighter in color. She wore it in one of those lose buns that lingered as if with postcoital neglect. Kendra had tried to twist, wind, or lump her hair into such a bun, but hers were either tight enough to make her look like a prison matron, or they fell down immediately. There was nothing sexy about anything she did with her hair.
“I don’t want to interrupt you long,” Xenopoulos glanced unhurriedly around Kendra’s lab, “but I do want to encourage you to apply in our new grant cycle. It opens next week.” She smiled at Kendra again.
“Next week?” Kendra blurted. “I thought--” she glanced at Professor Healy, but he just looked nervous. About what? Kendra turned her attention back to Xenopoulos. “Sorry, but you are from American Missile, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you accepted grant applications only in January.”
“The board voted for a second cycle this year.” The strange, elegant woman shrugged, and then spotted the Kendra’s computer. She looked intently into Kendra’s eyes. “Any chance one might peek at your current work?”
Kendra frowned. Xenopoulos had emphasized “current” as if she knew that Kendra was holding back.
The corner of Xenopoulos’ mouth quirked up, as if she knew what Kendra was thinking. Her gaze dropped to Kendra’s chest.
Kendra drew in a deep breath, eyes fixed on Xenopoulos as she stepped sideways until she stood between the imposing woman and her bench. Had Xenopoulos just flirted with her? The woman suddenly seemed exponentially more dangerous. Kendra knew she couldn’t risk any more time near Xenopoulos without a lot more data and a very good plan. She didn’t bother to look at Healy. He seemed more a part of the danger than any step toward a solution.
“Um, no, I’m afraid not,” Kendra answered Xenopoulos’ question. “My work is at a very delicate stage. In fact,” she felt bolstered by righteous indignation, “I must ask you to excuse me. I really need to get back to it.”
“Of course,” Xenopoulos smiled, but her eyes looked disturbingly hungry, and as she turned for the door they swept Kendra’s body and her lab once more.
Healy took a deep breath, as if coming out of a trance, and looked around, momentarily confused until he spotted Xenopoulos’ curvaceous backside already at the door. “Well,” he put his hands together and looked at Kendra, “that’s that, I guess. Thank you, Ms. Tanagawa.” The department chairman hurried after his guest with the lusty eagerness of a teenaged boy. Maybe he was just a patsy in whatever was going on.
As Kendra locked the door of her lab behind her unwanted visitors, it was to Xenopoulos that her thoughts turned. What did the strange and dangerous woman really do for American Missile? Spy sprang to mind.
Kendra hadn’t anticipated that her research might prove dangerous to her, at least not in the way that attracted spies. She felt a frisson of fear as she hopped onto her lab stool, but as her mind returned to her work, real world concerns about industrial spies faded. After a quick glance around her lab, she forgot them entirely.
