This just isn't working for me. It's not just difficult, but really annoying to have someone looking at you while you're trying to concentrate. I didn't know how well I worked in seclusion until now. I've never had anyone looking over my shoulder or asking so many questions like Dr. Gav does. And I've never had a lab assistant, well, assist me in fetching things so prudently as Troy. That's the primary annoyance! Working by myself, I know exactly where everything is. When Dr. Lite-brite is right behind me and repeats every other step I take, he taps it in his little electronic tablet and changes a verb or two so it sounds more exciting in the book he's writing. He says 'hmm' a lot and when I ask him to elaborate he says "Nothing. P-please g-gone on." And one time he even reaches over me to make my markings clearer on the floating screen. All in all, I don't trust anyone else 'cooking in my kitchen'. Also, if everything I am doing and saying is being recorded, why oh why, do you have to stand there and write it all down? Step away! I'm working with enormously huge and microscopically small numbers!

Troy clears his throat for the one-trillionth time.

"Dr. Gavnikov, I can't do this." I say as I pinch my eyes and walk away from the Laboratable.

The doctors come at either sides of me and I almost jump. "What's wrong?" They say in chorus.

I step back and take a breath. "I haven't asked for anything from you, besides my freedom, which you refuse, and a decent cup of coffee… which I appreciate. But if you desire any reputable results I need to make my requests known and have them met."

They blink at me and then Dr. Gavnikov steps forward hugging her data-pad to her chest. She smiles and looks at me from over her glasses. I swallow.

"What is it that you need, Donnie?" She says.

My temperature checked. "I need a closed workspace."

She looks around at the quiet, sterile, secure lab and then back at me. "Would you mind being more specific?"

"I work best… by myself, with no help or questions. I've never had an assistant and, although it's appreciated, I find having someone at my elbows a distraction. I do not mind being recorded or monitored, but there is a method to how I work and only the right work environment will get us results… and the more efficient I work, the more likely I can create this impossible vaccine… and the sooner I can leave."

Her brows wrinkle and she looks down for a brief moment. "I see." She taps her clenched data-pad to her chest a few times. "Dr. Albright and I will take a break. You can rearrange the space however you see fit. We will then keep ourselves in the observation room over there. If you need us, we can hear you and come to your aid. If I have any questions or requests… I will do so infrequently or we can meet together after each session to digress. Does that work for you?"

"That would be a big help. Thank you."

"Alright." She smiles half-heartedly, and then looks down at her S-Wrist. "Dr. Albright, could you map out a diagram that Donnie can follow for the digital test subjects in process and meet me in the observation room in ten minutes. Donnie, the lab is yours today until you need to rest. Whenever you are done, no matter what time it is, I want a debriefing of your progress."

I nod and she turns to leave. Carder's face goes a bit grim but follows Troy and the doctor out of the room. I see him standing out in the hall as the door goes down.

Ah, I can finally breathe.

Less than three minutes later Troy sends me a list of the information ordered to Lamar, the lab's Screen Time on the wall and I roll up my sleeves and get down to business.

Repetition, in the case of lab work, is a silent melody in which I willingly become entranced. I move about, measuring, logging, recording my steps. I go back to the Laboratable and begin to write out the formula. At the end of the day I save my progress of the unfinished equation and go to the observation room to debrief with the doctors.

…

Three weeks later I find myself in the lab again, immersed in my work. I follow the same schedule; Wake up, work out, get breakfast, work in the lab, have a lunch lesson every other day with Anya, and spend the rest of the say back in the lab. After which, I go into the observation room to debrief with Dr. Gav. I hit the bed, wake up and around I go again.

I've lost track of time today; been at this for hours. I think I missed dinner again… and it feels good. I glance over at the small observation room and notice it empty. I have no idea when the doctors left. I'm lost in the numbers and molecules and powers and negatives. Then it happens. The pit in my stomach makes itself known as I sense I am coming to the answer. I'm now at the equation just a two lines before Umen's missing juncture. It was so easy before, to get to this point. It was flawlessly flowing like water, from my mind to the screen. And now, I'm getting nervous. I'm solving for…

'X- Delta 5 to the square root of G minus 265E… 265E… divided by .009678 Pi cubed, cubed…

Damn…

I go back three lines… five lines… twelve lines… and at twenty-six lines back I see I solved for 3m -998654 in stead of 3m-998653…

And I added too many atoms of sodium.

No one is perfect. But I was sooo close!

I erase eighty-six lines of my coding, save my session to the lab's portable data-pad and decide to turn in for the night… or morning. It is five am according to the Screen Time on the wall. I rub my stinging eyes and shuffle out of the lab to see, not Carder on guard but a humming Gleiv, listening to an MP3 player. He looks over at me and smiles. He hands me a hot mug. I sigh at the smell of fresh coffee.

"Mornin' Gov, setting that midnight oil ablaze I wager?"

"You know it." I sip the steamy goodness. "I hope this is decaf, Gleiv. I'm mentally drained."

"Definitely, Gov. Just came by to relieve Carder. Caught 'im snoozin'. Don't tell the doc!" He says.

"About the doctor… she said that I should report my findings to her as soon as I was done for the night, but should I wait?"

"Not at all, she's a night owl as well. Got her own projects she busies herself with. Come on then." Gleiv leads me down the long hallway to another unseen door. He puts up his hand and says. "Sir, I've got Dr. Hamato here to see you."

I force the coffee down my throat, too hot and too hard. "Dr. Hamato?" I ask.

"It's what she calls you when you're not around." He mimics her tone and accent quite well. "Make sure Dr. Hamato has this. Make sure Dr. Hamato has that. Make sure you give Dr. Hamato his space. Dr. Hamato only likes his coffee black. Oh, Dr. Hamato is so smart!"

I laugh a warning. "You know she can hear everything you're saying if she wanted to."

"Ah but it's not like it's not obvious." He jabs.

"What's not obvious?"

He stares back at me as I hear the door 'ping'.v

An elevator?

"Gov, maybe the doctor's giving you too much credit." He places a hand on my shoulder and the door opens and someone rushes out and almost knocks Gleiv and I over.

"Troy." I say surprised. And that's all I feel comfortable saying. He's not wearing his white coat, just a normal black polo and tan pants. He's holding his cheek. It seems a bit red.

"Good m-morning Gleiv… doctor." Sounds like that 'doctor' had a bullet in it and he just shot me in the face. The Brit and I watch Troy jog around a corner before we look back at each other and smirk.

"No nightcap for him, eh 'doctor'?" Gleiv slaps me on the shell and pushes me into the elevator. "Go on up, just push the T button. I'll be down here waiting for you… or would you like me to go and just meet up with you later." His mouth curls.

"No, I may need you close by incase the doctor decides to throw me out as well."

The door closes between me and the chuckling guard. I see three buttons, B, L and T… funny. I press the B button and it doesn't even light up. Figures… I press the T button, it lights and I feel the slight gravitational change of being propelled upward. I cup my hand over my mouth and check for freshness.

What the hell am I doing?

I roll my eyes. All I smell is coffee anyway. I swing my hand down swiftly when the door opens.

It's amazing. It looks like an old English home, updated to the twenty-first century; dark wood paneling, a roasting chrome fireplace, wingback chairs in microfiber, floating bookshelves along the walls, paintings, vintage Moroccan rugs and the faintest sound of violins playing. The largest Screen Time (I'm pretty sure), about nine felt long, graces the far wall displaying a very crisp and very deceivingly realistic, digital view of earth as seen from the surface of the moon. In the corner I see a wide spiral staircase going up into the tray ceiling. To the right of the stairs is a doorway with the light from within shining into the dimness where I stand.

"I'm in here!" The doctor calls.

I walk over and stand in the door way. This must be her personal lab, clean lines, stark white, wires align a super computer with enormous display, and desk and shelf area full of gadgets and gizmos, an MRI machine… perfect tech heaven. I see her at her work station; a black mask covers her face and she's welding with a needle nose device shooting a thin cloud of smoke in the air. She's seated on a tall stool. She's wearing a loose grey T-shirt and a short pair of green satin shorts. Her one leg is folded under her showing off a silver slipper. I don't know where her white lab coat is either, and I really don't care right now.

She kills the welder and takes off her mask. She props her glasses rightly on her nose and smiles at me. Her eyes look puffy and red, probably from working all night. Then I see a few crumpled napkins on the edge of her desk, so I could be wrong. She waves out her gloved hand to display her room. "Well, what do you think?"

I look around once more to make sure I give her a fair answer. "I'm insanely jealous. I think it was the MRI that sent me over." I return her smile. I walk over to her and she turns off her lamp and removes her gloves.

"What're you working on? Looks…intricate." I say.

"It is." She places a sheet over her table and turns toward me. I immediately ignore her secrecy as she sits upright, leans her elbows on her covered desk and crosses her bare legs. The smell of burning wire has never been so arousing to me. "It's just a little something I've been working on, a present for Anya."

"Anya. Is she..?"

"Upstairs, asleep, shouldn't be up and about until seven." She smoothes out the wrinkles in the fabric and suddenly looks very sad.

"Is something going on between you and Troy?" I ask.

"What?" She says a bit shocked.

"I mean, I don't want to get into your personal affairs but I couldn't help notice how quickly he was leaving as I was coming…"

She opens her mouth and then snaps it shut again.

"You don't have to divulge. Just making sure you're ok."

"Dr. Albright… Troy, he was confused about some things he thought I was confused about… which I'm not… and we had a little disagreement."

"It doesn't look like it was resolved just yet by the way he almost bowled me over… Is there any way I can help?"

Is there any reason why I care?

She looks like she was genuinely thinking about it. "No. We just need things to run their course. He can't change my mind so…" She looks at me and shrugs. She switches subjects quickly. "What have you got for me, Donnie?"

"Don't you mean Dr. Hamato?" I question as I take out the tablet from my coat pocket.

She physically fumbles. "I… I only address you as such to my subordinates. It's a sign of respect. Besides, I think the title of 'doctor' is fitting."

"I've never gone to school."

"You would have excelled at any institution." She says quietly.

Awe, she's complimenting me. "Thank you, doctor."

"Please, call me Sasha." She looks up at me and holds out her hand in greeting.

What a strange bird she is. "Ok, Sasha."

I take her small hand in mine. It's very cold. I find myself wanting to keep her hand until it warms up. But I just give a light shake and lets go. I let my arm fall at my side and ball my fist. I still feel her there.

"It's fine, Donnie, as long as we are in casual conversation."

"We have time for casual conversation? The way I've been on the grind the past few weeks I'd say we're on some sort of deadline." I tease.

I notice her smile fades a bit as she shrugs again. "No, no deadline to report, Donnie." She gets up and walks over to a smaller version of the Laboratable from the lab. This one has wheels freshly welded to them. She takes my tablet and waves it over the surface. Then Diagram 90 emerges as a 3D model over the table. I go to stand next to her.

"Ok, now I'm really jealous."

"Don't be. Honestly Donnie, when will I ever stop amazing you?"

"Hopefully never." I purse my lips.

I give a look of shock and she giggles. "I didn't mean to sound haughty. I just know once you get these machines home, you'll see how sloppy my work really is and make them even better."

"You'd really let me leave with some of these wonderful things?"

"It was never a question of if I would allow you to leave this place empty-handed. It would be how much you could carry with you."

"I can always make more than one trip… and I do have brothers to help me."

She smiles and we turn our attention to the floating screen. She scrolls through the entire script and then switches views to inspect the molecular model and digital drawing.

"The way you structure your formula is very precise. The molecule sequence is very streamline… but this is not based on Mutagen or Antigen. How will this help you cure CJD?

I step up and change the scale of the diagram. "To know the solution we have to know the disease. The strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease we are currently studying is hereditary since you've mentioned that your mother, grandmother and great-grandmother have had it. Right?" She nods. "Sasha, this is a digital protein of the brain sample you've givenme to work with. A healthy brain would have the protein gene PrP(c). A classic case of CJD would have the mutated protein, PrP(sc)."

"You were able to program the Laboratable to code molecules into genes?"

"I just solved for the algorithm and requested to your already sophisticated system to set my 'gene' view request as a default."

"Amazing."

"Thank you. But what I'm trying to say is that the digital brain sample you've given me shows a mutated protein sFI… it's an extremely rare subset of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, called Fatal Familial Insomnia. It causes absolute sleep depravity, hallucinations… and once the symptoms start… the victim can't survive more than eighteen months without sleep."

I watch her from the corner of my eye. She looks at the screen, wringing her hands. Something doesn't feel right to me. "Where did you get this sample?" I ask.

"I've had it for a very long time… it is from my mother." She says. "This isn't a problem is it? Will it be harder for you to work, now that you are sure it's not classic CJD?"

"Considering the circumstances, Fatal Familial Insomnia, or FFI could be much easier; easier to recognize and understand… the more I study the healthy protein sample I should be able to find a way to deconstruct the sFI protein and replace it with the normal PrP(c) protien"

"How easy is that?" She asks.

"It'll be like… solving a rubic's cube in the dark, behind my back."

"Sounds very impossible when you say it like that." She half laughs.

"Well, then it's a good thing I've actually done it before." I can grin devilishly too.

"You… You're a big geek." She says with awe. I turn and look at her quickly and her eyes widen as she sucks in a breath through her teeth. I think we're both surprised that she just blurted that out. "I mean that in the best way possible, Donnie. I mean, look at me."

Oh, I'm looking at you.

I move in, very close to her, practically hovering. I look down on her and she looks up at me with those hazel eyes, her thin black frames swinging on her statuesque nose and her face even redder than before. I've never wanted to play the intimidating part to prove my point. I'd usually leave that role to another brother of mine. But her wit matches my own, sometimes surpasses. If I'm a geek, and I am, then she is Dr. Geek, Queen Geek, ruler of Geek-topia. I smile smugly, thoroughly enjoying this rare stint of dominance, knowing, all the while, that she is giving me a very big compliment. "You're lucky I like puzzles, Sasha."

"Then you can call me Jigsaw." She says in a deep, sultry voice.

Sultry… is she… no… She's trying to get into my shell…wait no, no… she's trying to ruffle my proverbial feathers. She's trying to get the upper hand… again. I'm not going to let her. I can play this game too. I lean down and whisper in her ear. "You may make a pretty picture, but I like a challenge. It wouldn't take me long to put your pieces… in the right place.

She gasps and it kind of drives me wild. I keep my cool. I think I got her! I go to stand up straight and smoothly hightail it out of there but she grabs the top edge of my plastron through my v-neck shirt and pulls me closer. My nose is being battered with the cool fresh scent of soap in her hair and her freakin' lips brush the skin near my ear canal.

"You could just turn me over and do me in the dark. Would that make it harder?"

Check-fucking-mate.

Now what are you supposed to do genius; scurry away with your tail between your legs or throw her on the Laboratable and go to town? Go to town! Listen to you! Oh, you sound like a real expert now! Do something!

But I take too long to rebut. I guess I loose. I step away from her, preparing myself to see her victorious grin… instead she has a hand over her mouth and she is completely flushed.

"I… I'm sorry." She looks away. "I don't know what to say. That was completely out of line. I took that joke way too far."

I'm surprised how hurt I feel when she says it was a joke.

"Heh, it's ok. No harm done. Remind me to never play poker with you." I brush it off. That hurts as well.

She side-steps around me and shuts down her machine. She hands me the tablet. "I think I should get some rest before Anya wakes up. I do appreciate you bringing me this new information. I'll go over it meticulously and meet you and Dr. Albright in the lab, say ten am?"

I'm more than a little taken back. I shake my head, wanting to assure her that I'm ok with the playful banter, wanting to tell her that I don't want to be so stoic, that if I'm forced to stay here, I'd like to enjoy spending time with the one's around me. "Sasha…"

She cuts me off. "Good night, Dr. Hamato." She gives me a sharp smile. She walks to the door and I follow silently. I go to the elevator and push the button. Once it 'pings' I go inside, turn around, and I see her legs as they vanish up the spiral staircase.

A/N: Nerds talking dirty to each other… Spicy! Am I explaining the technical clearly? Is there too much, too little? I wonder what Troy and Sasha were fighting about. I wonder if things are gonna get weird… Wait, I'd better know what's going on, I'm writing this!

Thank you for reading and all the reviews so far! Anymore comments?