“You’re joking. This is a joke. Or a bad fucking dream,” Royce says flatly when I get to the lab.
“I wish.” I pace the room, tugging on the hair I didn’t have time to curl this morning. “We have to do the presentation at one this afternoon.”
“We can’t,” Adam replies.
“We have to pull together,” I tell Adam. “You might not like Sawyer much right now”—he flinches at the familiarity—“but he helped set us up to do this right. If we can just pull together on this, I’ll do whatever you guys want after next week.”
“But we’re not ready,” Madison points out. “And we don’t have any visuals.”
The presentation was supposed to include a demo of the bot.
I need Sawyer. He’s the one who got us into this. He could get us out.
I dial his number, each ring making my stomach flip.
Come on, come on, come on.
No answer.
I force my brain to function, feel the synapses firing as I pace the room.
The photos on the walls aren’t of machinery but of the moon landing, a smiling child in a hospital.
That’s when it clicks.
“We don’t need the robot. This is about what’s possible, right? We can talk to them about our vision.” I pull out my phone and dial my roommates. “Jules, Kat, I need you guys.”
We go to Lancaster’s with a truck, and I use the key under the back door mat to get us in.
“We need to be fast,” I emphasize. “The tank has a backup power supply, but the fish can’t go without the pump to circulate the water for long.”
We have to take the tank off the power supply for the drive over, and I’m counting the minutes until we can get it hooked back up on campus.
If these fish die, I can’t handle it.
I don’t breathe until the pump starts up when we plug it in at the design lab, sending bubbles that rise to the surface. The black ghost knife fish peeks out from between seaweed near the back of the tank.
My fingers itch to dial Sawyer’s number, but Madison interrupts my thoughts.
“We have to do this. Now.”
The presentation is set up in the lab with Betty’s help, three judges’ video feeds spread across the huge screen pulled down from the ceiling.
The dean watches on from the corner, arms folded. I go over our presentation in my mind.
I squeeze my necklace in my fist before launching into my comments.
“Most engineering is about conquering the world around us. From the advent of the wheel, and fire, and tools used for hunting right up to the microchip, we’ve tried to become better than nature. It’s the easier way—it’s profitable, even if we don’t question it.
“But we can’t stop death, we can’t lift everyone out of poverty. We’re still human,” I emphasize. “So what do we miss while we’re trying to conquer the world? We miss the chance to understand it. To exist as part of it, alongside it.”
I step to the side of the tank.
“Oceans cover seventy percent of the earth’s surface. They’re full of life, more species than on land, and the most incredible diversity. Take fish. There’s research showing they have memories. That they’re social. They even recognize music. If we don’t learn about the world around us, we’re going to change it profoundly and lose all that information forever.
“I understand that most of the projects are about commercially viable technologies. But technology isn’t about conquering, it’s about learning. Working with the systems around us, not crushing them. That’s what we want to build. A robot that helps these ecosystems, not hurts them.”
We finish our presentation and the judges grill us.
It’s not perfect, but I feel alive and free.
After, I cut a look toward the door as if expecting to see Sawyer there because I can’t remember feeling that way without him.
But he’s not there.
“You crushed it,” Kat informs me, wrapping an arm around my neck as I trip up the walk to the Omega house that night.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“She did,” Madison says, coming up next to us. “They can’t possibly turn us down after that.”
“So what happens now?”
“We get feedback from the judges. If they approve it, we get extra funding to help with building our project.”
“Which we’ll need for the tank,” I add. “And to make the robot float.”
We head inside, the party already in full swing.
“What is it?” I prod Madison as she grimaces.
“The last time we were here, I played that video.”
“Yeah, that was pretty shitty.”
She sighs. “You fucked our professor. We’re even.”
I make my way toward the kitchen, where frat brothers are pouring from a keg into cups. “Except I never wanted to hurt anyone or screw anything up. You were trying to do exactly that.”
I take a cup and pass it to her.
“It wasn’t my idea,” she says as she takes it.
A second cup is pressed into my hand, but my attention is on Madison. “Whose was it?”
She looks over the room where Adam’s with a group of guys.
I freeze, cup bending in my grip. “No.”
“How do you think I got the video? One of his friends took it.”
He wanted to break me down, to make me weak and vulnerable.
What I’m doing with Sawyer was wrong, but this kind of backstabbing is acceptable?
I weave through the crowd to my ex and grab his phone out of his pocket.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
The passcode is the same one he’s always had—the day, month, and year the Knicks last won the NBA championship, and well before either of us was born.
Scrolling through his photos, there are a lot that turn my stomach. But I find the video I’m looking for, dated the night from Velvet.
“You took this video.” My voice shakes with accusation.
“It’s not like that. One of the guys did.”
“And he sent it to you. And you gave it to Madison to post.”
His jaw flexes. “Liv, come on. I thought if people gave you a hard time, it might make you realize it was better when we were together.”
“It was better when I was with someone who lied to me and cheated on me?” He lunges for the phone, still hampered by the sling, and I hold the device away. “You’re unbelievable. I can’t believe I felt badly for you.”
I shove through the crowd toward the door.
I always appreciated that Adam understood our families and the pressures to fit in, and admired how the scheming and manipulation seemed to roll right off him.
But evidently he was taking notes the whole time.
When I’m making my way out to the porch, my phone jumps in my pocket.
The name on the call display has my heart leaping. “Hi,” I answer, breathless, as I crane my neck to make sure Adam’s not behind me. “Where are you?”
“On my way back into town.”
His voice is so familiar, I ache.
There’s unresolved stuff between us, but I want to see him, want to crawl into his arms and feel his hair tickle my forehead when he leans over me.