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“I want you to believe…to believe in things that you cannot”—Bram Stoker, Dracula

George

The late afternoon light cast a golden glow over the rolling green hillside behind the NASA laboratory campus, and the sweet smell of jasmine drifted in the mild breeze from a nearby trellis The riot of s at a computer screen all day Not that I minded I loved my job

My boss…not so much

“George, I believe you forgot so”

Newton’s chest heaved with exertion as though he’d just run a ed to strike a pose on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the orbitalhis hand on the save hi onat the cloudless blue sky

I counted backward froht?”

Newton straightened abruptly, hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his hopelessly wrinkled khakis and narrowing his gaze to as probablystare The cracked lens on his crooked glasses, his Einstein-esque unruly brown hair, and his oversized short-sleeved oxford shirt ruined the effect Newton enius, but he was no badass

However, I’d been told it was in poor for a ridiculous blowhard I’d done it once and had almost lost my paid internship at the lab for insubordination or whatever true he’d wanted to pin on me

I’d apologized for offending Newton and mentally prepared myself to be dismissed or written up for the first time in my life Both options were beyond my comprehension, but I had probably deserved it I’d held my breath and awaitedand a fifteen- an orbital radius…as if I hadn’t known that It was so ele

However, I hadn’t been in a position to argue I’d been new to the tea a respected colleague—even if he was an ass I’d been appropriately contrite, reed to adhere to his stricter-than-other-departments dress code