Judith Reimer, her thesis advisor, held the door open and smiled wanly at her. Reimer’s eyes were red, and she wiped at them with one hand.
“Sorry. I’m having a bad morning. Come on in.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Karen, and then remembered. “Is it about Doctor Bauer? I was so sorry to hear about him. So tragic.”
Reimer closed the door behind them. “More tragic than you might think, but don’t mind me. I’m just being dramatic.”
She wiped her eyes again and ran her hands over short-cropped grey hair that made some people think she was on the physical education faculty or even a coach. Karen had quickly learned that behind that hard face with thin lips was a genius who could model molecules hooking together in her sleep.
“There are rumors flying about how he died, and his research assistant is missing. Could he be responsible?”
“So much for military intelligence. That would be an easy answer,” said Reimer. “They’re interviewing all of us who have classified projects. Months to get us our security clearances, and now we’re murder suspects. Brilliant. I don’t even know what Bauer was working on.”
“I didn’t know you had a classified project,” said Karen.
“Well now you know. It doesn’t involve your thesis research, so don’t worry about that. Nobody will be telling us you can’t publish your work. That has been a problem on this campus, a problem doctor Bauer championed in the faculty senate.”
Reimer paused, pressed her lips together angrily. “Maybe he was too loud about it, and pissed off the wrong people.” Her eyes darted around, and she put a fist to her mouth.
“Sorry. I’m talking silly. This has nothing to do with you. A friend has died, and I’m a little scared about being interviewed by the feds. I don’t trust those people to get anything right. Back to work, now. How are the assemblers doing?”
“The chain lengths were up to ninety when I checked last night.”
“Not so hot. Should have been a lot longer by then. Change the temperature, the PH, or try another polymer with fewer side chains. The mites have to work much faster than what you’re getting, and we’re not going to spend time playing with their structure right now. We want to get your thesis finished and you graduated to do great things in the world.”
Reimer put a hand on Karen’s shoulder and squeezed. She was her old self again, quick and decisive. “I’ll be in my office all morning,” she said.
Karen spent the morning and early afternoon running one electrophoresis test after another and the results were all the same. Her chain links had only gone to two-hundred-thirty units overnight, a fifth of what she had hoped for. She set up six new experiments with varying PH and temperature and was ready to leave for the day to meet Jack. The door to Reimer’s office was ajar when Karen went to see if there was anything else she should do.
Reimer was talking to someone on the telephone, and she was crying again. Karen listened briefly, and quickly left the laboratory before Reimer could know when she’d gone. And the last words she’d heard troubled her the rest of the day.
“I’m scared, baby,” said Reimer to someone. “I could be next, and I don’t know who to be afraid of. Please come over tonight. I need a lot more than a hug from you.”
* * * * *
“Hey, spacewoman!” Jack said loudly, and other people in the library looked up from their books. “I’ve just had a major career breakthrough, and you don’t seem to be interested in it.”
Karen blinked her eyes and looked surprised, then hurt. “I have been listening to you, Jack. What do you want me to say? I knew you’d get it, so it isn’t big news to me. I’m happy for you. It’s what you wanted.”
“You seem kind of down.”
“No, I’m thinking about something else. After you left the union I went back to the lab to feed my animals and do some work. Doctor Reimer was there crying.”
“Who’s Doctor Reimer?”
“My thesis advisor; you’ve heard me mention Judith Reimer. She’s a physical chemist: polymer chemistry, nano-tech, that sort of thing. Anyway, she was crying, and I was so embarrassed for her.
Karen quickly told Jack what had happened in the laboratory.
“Hey, hey,” said Jack. “Sounds like she has a boyfriend.”
“Listen to me. She believes it was murder, and said so. I can’t forget that crazy, frightened look in her eyes when she first started talking to me. Then the wall went up, and we only talked about my work after that. She feels threatened by something. I’m sure of it.
“It’s none of your business. You can’t help her unless she asks for it.”
“I’ve never seen her vulnerable like that.”
“We’re all vulnerable.”
“Even you?”
“Vulnerable to your charms. Let’s get out of here, and go for a walk.”
They walked outside, where a cold wind came down from the hills. The campus was brightly lit; they walked arm in arm past silent, granite buildings and around the quad to a winding path lined with brick leading up into the hills. Every fifty yards a small wooden bench was placed looking down on campus, and after a winding climb of four hundred feet there was a covered overlook with tables and cooking grates. They leaned on the four-foot stone wall encircling the overlook, watched the lights from the campus town and a fire tower on a neighboring hill in the north woods. It seemed even the birds were asleep, and then Jack turned Karen to face him, taking her in his arms, and they kissed softly, without haste or force. He leaned her back slightly over the wall, pressing against her until she felt his hardness, and reaching with her hand she pushed down gently, but firmly.
“Ouch,” he said.
“Ouch is right. I can think of better positions.”
“Just a healthy, American boy,” he quipped, but his breathing was deep and he held her hand where it had pressed him.
“I do love you, Jack,” she murmured.
“You’re my woman,” he growled theatrically.
“No, tell me you love me, macho man.”
“I love you,” he whispered.
“That’s more like it. You’ll say it easier with practice.”
At that instant, there was a footstep on the dark path behind them, a tiny stone grinding under a shoe.
“Shit,” said Jack.
They held each other closely, waiting in silence for someone to appear, feeling uneasy until there was a scuffling sound further down the trail.
“Someone watching us?” asked Karen.
“Sounds like whoever it was is headed down now.”
“Kinky.”
