Chapter 2 Emery
In the car, I wonder whether it’s possible to drown in my own self-loathing. I forgot my own fucking anniversary. Who does that?
Yes, today is an epic day for my career, and yes, deadlines and unforeseen disasters have left me more distracted than usual, but it’s right there in the calendar!
The one on the wall that Luca updates meticulously with family members’ birthdays and doctors’ appointments and Sunny Sundays at the beach.
Who still uses a paper calendar, you ask?
My adorable husband does, insisting he likes the tactile experience and visual accessibility.
All true, but he also hangs it next to the coffee maker, knowing it’s the one place I’m most likely to see it.
Unfortunately, I’m usually half asleep while I wait for my coffee to brew.
And even if I wasn’t, that paper calendar on the wall isn’t the one I remember to check.
That calendar, the one that holds every critical deadline and meeting and to-do item in my work life, lives on the phone I’m contractually obligated to keep out of sight.
The calendar and the phone and the small safe that Luca doesn’t even know about.
That almost no one knows about, not even the busybody neighbor who seems to know everything, and whom I can feel watching from her window as I pull out of the driveway and turn down the street.
Hell, she probably remembered my anniversary before I did.
There’s an adage that a lie told often enough becomes truth, and I’ve carefully built my life around it. My job isn’t one I can discuss with anyone, not even the person closest to me.
The key to deception is to lead with the lie you want the world to see.
With that in mind, from the moment I leave my lab every day to head home, I mentally reconstruct the fictionalized version of myself: Dr. Emery Martín, a project lead whose team develops novel optical resonators for surgical laser devices…
the details of which are still so wah-wah and overtly boring, no one stays focused long enough to ask many questions.
But some days it’s exhausting to be so compartmentalized. With Luca, I’m an affectionate—if work-obsessed—wife. On Sunny Sundays together, I love the beach and eating his cooking, or spending the entire day naked in bed. At work, I am a driven, inspired scientist with a gift for innovation.
But lying doesn’t just increase mental load and create stress, it rewires the brain.
I once read a study where researchers found that the part of the brain that processes emotions—the amygdala—is very active the first time a subject tells a lie, but the more times it’s told, the more this activation diminishes.
Simply put, the more I lie, the more my brain becomes wired to say, “Eh. No big.” Every morning and every night, I shed each side of myself so easily, I sometimes wonder if I’m slowly and deliberately creating a split personality.
I went into my marriage knowing it had to be that way. I was hopeful and in love… and possibly a little self-important—but the lying is getting harder. I know I’ll have to tell Luca eventually; I just have to get through this presentation first.
So, as I pull into the parking lot and steer into the spot with my name—DR. EMERY MARTíN—I compartmentalize like the pro that I am and shed the public-facing side of myself, transforming back into the one that very few people ever see.
I climb out of my car. My back straightens, my strides become longer and more confident.
My gaze turns sharp. Two assistants rush toward me, Tom Halliday taking my bag, Claire Morgan handing me another coffee—Claire is my favorite—both updating me in overlapping words.
“Wei, Johns, Dunn, and Zimmerman logged on early,” Tom says.
“A/V is up and ready for you,” Claire adds. “Your slides are loaded, and I confirmed they’re the most recent ones that you sent this morning.” Her pause carries unspoken judgment. “At 3:36 a.m.”
I wince in apology. “I couldn’t stop tinkering.”
“Behold my shock,” she says with a single raised brow.
Claire is my favorite for more than just feeding my caffeine addiction; she’s also an active member of the Friends of Tony Bennett fan club (I support fangirl enthusiasm at any age), and the most dependable yet no-nonsense assistant I’ve ever had.
I used to attribute this to the twenty years she spent working around politicians, but I think raising six sons might have had something to do with it as well.
She is not here for shenanigans. Mine included.
And while she’ll always point out my crack-of-dawn timestamps, she’ll also admit that none of us have what you’d call a “normal” work-life balance.
It’s the price we pay for what we do, and we all knew that going in.
Signed a large stack of papers agreeing to it, in fact. “Has anyone checked in on Honey?”
“Subject 10142 is stable as of 0545 this morning,” Tom reports robotically.
If Claire is the most dependable assistant I’ve ever had, Tom is the most detail-obsessed.
He’s twenty-eight but looks fourteen and can often be found double-checking compound batch codes on his lunch break because he finds it soothing.
When he used the words onboarding, pharmacovigilance, and gravimetrically during his first interview, I knew he was my guy.
I take a folder from him, leafing through it. “CRP and platelets?”
“Both look great.”
“Awesome. That’s the cherry on top.” Feeling a rush of excitement, I pass the folder back as we walk through the marble lobby of the glossy steel-and-glass building with the gigantic SURGOPTIX sign visible to anyone driving past on the nearby 805 freeway.
We wave to the security guard behind the desk, who waves back at the three employees his computer screen tells him work in the Laser Optimization department on the tenth floor.
The elevator call buttons look ordinary enough but are fitted with undetectable biometric scanners.
As Claire casually presses the one indicating UP, the fingerprint of her right index finger is read and the doors to the second elevator on the left automatically open.
Once we’re inside, another scanner verifies our identities, and a hidden panel on the back wall slides open, revealing a short hallway.
When the elevator is called again, the car will be empty, even though it never left the ground floor.
We continue through a door requiring simultaneous retinal scan and handprint clearance, down two flights of metal stairs, to a desk manned by another security guard, through a solid steel door, along a lengthy, concrete tunnel, and into an open, clean, centralized workspace surrounded by a series of modern rooms and laboratories.
Goodbye, SurgOptix. Hello, BioNEX: the actual place where I spend most of my waking hours.
A robotic British voice floats through overhead speakers just inside the entrance: “Good morning, Dr. Martín.”
“Morning, Rob,” I call back. Security within the BioNEX headquarters is in the form of an AI scanner with a posh accent I call Robert Pattinson.
The executives boringly named him AISS, which stands for “artificial intelligence security system,” which they pronounce as “Ace” but I find it impossible to believe anyone looks at that acronym and doesn’t see ASS.
As Tom and Claire peel away to return to their cubicles, my best friend and collaborator, Dr. Annabella Rodriguez, waits outside the conference room. She gives me a quick, tight hug. “How are you feeling?” she asks quietly.
I take a restorative gulp of my fresh coffee and smile at her like we aren’t about to blow health science wide open. “Eh, you know, pretty good.”
“Ready to share the most exciting medical technology ever known to humankind, you mean.”
I laugh through another sip. “You always accuse me of being hyperbolic. I was trying to keep it low-key.”
“Low-key is good.” She bends a little to meet my gaze, serious now. Annie is a steel-coated marshmallow—all bark and (usually) no bite—but can be truly terrifying when she wants to be. “Because you know we can’t talk about Compound Y.”
I swallow, quickly shaking my head. Today we’re discussing the project that is ready for scrutiny and staying far, far away from the one that isn’t. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Don’t let Leonard bait you into discussing it.”
I scoff. My boss, the head of Research and Development, Leonard Montrell, gets even more worked up than I do about this stuff. But we both know we must stick to the plan today. “Let him try. I am a brick wall. A concrete tomb.”
“He saw Honey’s data,” she admits with a wince. “He’s chomping at the bit.”
This throws me. “How? When?”
“Last night. I didn’t want to stress you out before today’s meeting, but I couldn’t not tell you, either. I was finishing the post hoc analyses when he floated into my office like a fucking ghost and saw the P value.”
I groan. “Fuck.”
“It’s great data. Compound Y works. You’ve done it, Em. This isn’t a bad thing… we just need to keep Leonard from bringing it up today.”
“Right. It’s too early. Besides, we have plenty to talk about without it.”
She nods, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m so proud of you, Em. I can’t even tell you.”
“I’m so proud of both of us.” I give her a quick, tight hug and then step back, adjusting my blazer.
“Think we’ll make Vince’s butthole pucker into an angry pinhole today?
” Vince is Dr. Vincent Barker, scientist colleague, and—not to be dramatic—my nemesis.
I don’t say that kind of thing lightly, but this is a man who habitually undermines subordinates, steals credit for every smart idea, and intentionally holds back information to make others look dumb in meetings.
Ruining his day would absolutely make mine.
Annie’s belly laugh fills the sterile hallway. “Oh, without question.”
To the outside world, Annie is a celebrated veterinarian who oversees two very successful clinics.
To the few people who know the truth, she’s sold her vet practice and now works in a secret office far beneath the SurgOptix building.
She’s been my ride-or-die since we met almost ten years ago, and has been the right hand to my lefty throughout the final development of my life’s work: the BioVIVE.
We turn to walk together, and by the time I’m standing at the head of the conference table, my nerves have fallen away and the lingering guilt over my forgotten anniversary has been conveniently shoved to the back of my mind, replaced entirely by excitement about the life-changing presentation I’m about to give.
“Good morning, everyone,” I say to the people gathered around the conference table.
“Or good afternoon and good evening,” I add for the participants from the other sides of the world joining us from the video wall.
Readying myself, I look at each person in turn, my gaze lingering for a moment on that of my sharp-eyed curly-haired best friend and colleague now sitting near the end of the long table.
It’s really happening, our eyes silently communicate.
Finally, I give a bright smile. “Who’s ready to talk about miracles?”