Chapter 31
Jay and I walked to NeuroWell together, and I learned that he was a naturally easy-going and somewhat chatty dude.
He told me that his father, Stephen Reynolds, was one of the original founders. He passed away in a car accident shortly after Jay had started as an intern. It had been all over the news, but I somehow hadn’t made the connection that Stephen was Jay’s dad.
“As I’m sure you know, he started this company with Luke Stevens twenty years ago. Sebastian—Luke’s son—heads up NeuroComms. You’ll likely meet him at some point, too.”
Sebastian was also a well-known name. Similar to Jay, no one outside of the company knew what he looked like, and I was equally surprised to learn he was around our age. He was a marketing genius, and his strategy had been a huge reason why Neurovance was as successful as it was.
I did my best not to freak out over the prospect of meeting yet another C-level employee so soon as we walked into the NeuroWell building.
It was much busier today, as it was officially Monday, the start of a brand new work week.
People smiled and greeted Jay as we walked through the gleaming main lobby, passing comfortable collaboration stations where groups of researchers were already huddling together with their laptops.
I received several curious glances from people as we passed, but no one seemed openly hostile like Melanie had been.
Jay led me to the elevators, and I learned why he didn’t have his key card on a lanyard around his neck like everyone else.
He held his forearm against the keypad, and it turned green, summoning an elevator to collect us.
I frowned, and he gave me a strange look.
“Once you reach a certain level, security gets a little more strict. They don’t want people snatching up C-level cards, so our passes are injected into our arms.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure how I would feel about having a device injected into my body like that.
He shrugged. “Comes with the territory.”
We exited the elevator, and I gaped in awe at the massive white space. It was filled with standing desks, coupled with walking pads, more comfortable collaboration stations, and several glass-walled rooms where people could go for peace and quiet if they needed it.
The space was peppered with fiddle leaf fig plants for a splash of greenery, and there was a self-serve kitchenette complete with a full-service espresso machine and tea bar.
Several people looked up from their work and waved as we entered. Jay smiled at them and waved back in that easy-going way of his that I envied.
“Hey, everyone, happy Monday!” he greeted, and the floor murmured cheerful greetings in response. “Everyone, I want you to meet Milo Murphy. He’s going to be assisting me on the Memory Manipulation project,” he said loudly, giving me a sly grin as my cheeks heated in humiliation.
Oh crud… now everyone was staring at me!
“Hi, Milo!” A chorus of friendly greetings erupted, and I waved awkwardly, doing my best not to hide timidly behind Jay as I shivered next to him.
“See? Nothing to worry your anxious little noodle about. Everyone’s excited you’re here.”
“My noodle?” I asked, feeling myself smile, despite the thrumming hum of social anxiety currently pumping through my veins.
Jay gave me a playful grin, tugging my arm to keep me close to him as he made his way to another set of elevators on the other side of the MRT floor.
“Yeah, as in your brain. You never heard that before?”
“I guess I have,” I said as Jay swiped his forearm over the keypad again. This time, the elevator went down, which felt counterproductive.
Why had we gone up just to go back down?
The elevator whooshed down much faster than the other one had, and when we stepped out, I realized we were underground.
Whereas the floor upstairs was bright and modern, this floor more resembled what I imagined the Batcave would be like.
There was a large, round, super high-tech desk in the center of the dark, polished concrete floor. On the far wall was a similar setup to the first room Jay had taken me to the day before, where he’d performed the memory extraction on me.
“Whoa…” I said, looking around at all the equipment.
“Yeah, pretty cool, right? I do most of my work down here. Not many people get to come to this floor. You’re the only person that’s seen it, actually, outside of Luke and Sebastian… and well, I guess my dad, of course.” His bright smile darkened slightly at the mention of his father.
My own mood dampened slightly at the brief look of sadness that flickered across his face, and I had the sudden urge to reach out and take his hand.
I stopped myself, remembering the rules in the employee handbook about touching other employees without explicit consent.
Jay ambled up to the surgical chair and gestured to a black version of the wand he’d used on me the day before.
“This is a prototype for the NeuroManipulator I was telling you about,” he said, handing me the device. As soon as my fingers wrapped around it, the tip lit up with that soft green light, and I smiled, geeking out over the fact that I was holding a freaking Neurovance prototype in my hands.
This was so stinking cool!
Jay was watching me examine the device with a gentle smile on his face.
“If you’re comfortable with it, I’d love to give it a test run on you and show you the parts that need work.”
“Is it safe?” I asked, and he nodded.
“Yeah, it’s not set to fire off any actions right now; it just scans and latches onto memories. I haven’t been able to figure out how to switch from extraction to manipulation. I’ll show you what I mean.” He gestured to the chair, and I eagerly climbed in.
Jay lowered the back down, so I was horizontal, and took up his station behind my head.
My heart started to hammer in my chest as he brushed his fingers through my hair just as he had the day before, gently exposing my forehead to him.
I shivered as my scalp tingled beneath his soft touch, and our eyes met for a brief moment. He had that strange look on his face again, and he gently stroked his thumb over my eyebrow, causing me to shudder.
“Just relax,” he murmured, and the air felt like it was sucked out of the room.
“You always get this little crease here when that noodle of yours goes into overdrive.” He chuckled, and I tried not to think too much about the fact that he was still stroking my eyebrow with the hand that wasn’t holding the device.
He pressed the NeuroManipulator to my temple, and the screens on the wall lit up.
The NeuroGlyphs manifested on one screen, but the screen next to it erupted into bright, fuzzy splotches of color.
“I’ve been working on advancing the memory processing tech as well,” he explained. “I’m hoping to get more of a movie-like translation in time. It’s proving to be a challenge because not all people think in full pictures. It looks like you do, though.”
I swallowed and nodded, feeling nervous that my thoughts and memories might be played out in full technicolor for him to see.
“Don’t be nervous, it’s just you and me,” he said, as if I should not be embarrassed about him being able to see the anxiety-ridden mess that was my brain.
“Can you feel the transmitter fields trying to latch onto your thoughts?” He asked.
I tried to focus on where he had the device pressed to my head, and then I felt it.
It was a tiny tug, as if my thoughts were rushing up to meet the device like a magnet.
“Yeah, whoa. That’s crazy…” I breathed.
Jay smiled. “Bring up a memory. Why don’t you try remembering the breakfast I brought you?”
“I thought you said we couldn’t work with recent memories.”
Jay’s head leaned over mine, and our eyes met, that playful smile of his curling on his lips.
“Yeah. I lied. I just didn’t want to erase your first memory of me.”
“Wh-what?”
“Sorry.” He grinned, though he was clearly not actually sorry.
I narrowed my eyes, despite the fact that I wasn’t really angry. My chest felt tight and warm, and butterflies were erupting in my stomach.
Was he… flirting with me?
I almost shook my head.
No.
What was wrong with me that I always thought guys this far out of my league were flirting with me? I was a glutton for punishment.
As my anxiety and self-deprecating thoughts kicked in, Jay looked at the screens. The NeuroGlyphs whirled around in a plain display of my emotional distress, and Jay’s brows furrowed.
“You’re always so hard on yourself, Milo,” he whispered, stroking his thumb gently over my temple.
I cleared my throat, my face so hot I was worried my skin would melt off.
“Maybe we should take a break. I feel weird that you can read my thoughts right now.” I mumbled.
He for sure knew I had a freaking crush on him. Dang it.
He continued to watch the glyphs, and his eyes flashed as the thought slashed across my mind.
I hastily sat up, pulling away from the device, and the screens went dark. I rambled—frantically trying to divert his attention from whatever it was he just saw on the screens.
“Uhm, yeah, I can feel where the device connects to my thoughts, but you’re right. It’s grabbing on too hard—it doesn’t feel flexible enough to manipulate. We need to figure out a way to massage the memory instead of pulling it…”
I glanced at Jay to find him fiddling with the prototype and chewing on his bottom lip.
“Milo—”
Horror exploded through my chest as I realized he wanted to talk about whatever he’d just seen on the screen.
I’m never letting him use that thing on me again! Oh my god!
“What about oscillating the signal?” I blurted out, desperate to distract him from whatever it was he wanted to say.
The last thing I wanted to do was talk about my extremely inappropriate crush on my boss. Especially not with said boss.
It was just a crush; I would get over it. I could still be professional.
Jay stared at me for another long moment, and then finally, he smiled. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized he was going to let it go.
“You’re such a whizz,” he beamed, and that warm feeling boomed in my chest again. It was rare that anyone ever paid me any compliments. They usually just called me names.
“I’ve been stuck on this for weeks; it never once occurred to me to mess with the transmitter.” He laughed softly, scratching the back of his neck. “I was going in circles trying to dial back the power.”
I gave him a tentative smile, shoving my glasses back up my nose.
“It’s just an idea. It might not work.”
“So if it doesn’t work, we try something else.” He shrugged. “It’s a good idea, Milo. Come over here. Let’s hook this thing up to the computer and see if we can experiment with the signal output…”