Page 24 of Love, Theoretically
“We don’t—”
“Plus, you morons are training the machines to become our robotic overlords.” She pats my head. “Have you told Dr. L. about this?”
I groan, once again sapped of my will to live. “I sent him an email. He wants to see me in his office tomorrow morning.”
“Beforeyour teaching demo? Can’t you just have a call?”
“He doesn’t like phones.”
“Hmm. High maintenance.”
He’s not. Dr. L. only wants the best for me, and given everything he’s done, waking up one hour early is the least I can do. Ortwohours, accounting for traffic.
The first thing I do once I’m in my jammies and my “Physics: why shit does stuff” Snuggie is contact Greg. I already tried fromthe Uber, after spending dinner debasing myself by using my hard-earned physics Ph.D. to make up puns for Volkov—my serial killer origin story. I wonder if Jack tried to call his brother, too, and I snort at the idea. Clearly he’s decided that I’m after the Smith trust funds, like some skank from theDynastyreboot. He probably just called his nosy mom and Uncle Paul the Perv, and they’re all about to descend on Greg like a horde of goblin sharks.
But Greg is unreachable. I send him a text he won’t see. I set the iTwat aside, wondering if Jack’s phone is cracked, too. Probably not. Next time I see him, I should smash it into the sidewalk and correct the situation.
What a plan.
With a sigh, I pull out my 2013 MacBook Pro. (Decrepit, Cece calls it. I prefervintage. Still, the number of high-performance computing simulations I’ve been able to run in the past year is zero.) In love and war everything’s fair, and this is bloodshed. So I allow myself something not quite kosher: I look up the competition.
The physics community is weirdly sized: not so small that we’re all bosom friends, not so large that we can overlook someone’s existence. Especially someone good enough to make the final round of an MIT interview. Take me: my claim to fame, what got me on Monica’s radar, is my dissertation—a bunch of mathematical formulas that predict the behavior of two-dimensional liquid crystals. They are special, multitudes-containing materials, with properties of both liquids and solids, of mobility and stasis, of chaos and organization. Like me, basically. And my favorite part about them is that the very multitudes they contain may have led them to play a key role in the origins of life, by helping build the first biomolecules on Earth.
Riveting, I know. Just wait for the movie adaptation.
But it did get some buzz, because what Monica said is also true: the possible applications of my research are nearly infinite. For my work, I got one of thoseForbesSTEM awards that only peoplenotin STEM care about, and I was interviewed on a couple of podcasts downloaded by more than just the host’s extended family. One of myNature Physicsarticles was even featured on the cover. The research groups at Northeastern started giving me covetous glances and stopped asking me to make coffee—only fair, since I don’t even drink it. Cece got me a “Great women of science” T-shirt with my portrait sandwiched between Alice Ball’s and Ada Lovelace’s. My parents... Well, my family didn’t react to any of it, because they were busy dealing with a tax audit or something. But Dr. L., who’s family in any way that counts, patted me on the back, told me that I was the most promising theorist of my generation, and assured me that I’d have my pick of tenure-track positions out of grad school.
And any other time, it might have even been true. But these times are unprecedented—hiring freezes, systematic defunding of higher education, adjunctification. And a few weeks ago, when theForbesjournalist contacted me to do a “where are they now” follow-up story, I had to tell her that no, it wasn’t a mistake: I hadn’t published in months, my research had stalled, and I hadnotbeen able to get a cool job at a top institution. In fact, I was lucky to findanyjob. Even one whose description isacademia’s little bitch.
George the Chosen Experimentalist, though... I have no idea whathisclaim to fame is, and he doesn’t ring any bells. So I google the devil I know: Jack. He has a Wikipedia entry—I refuse to give it hits on principle—and a Google Scholar page—which Imustclick on, but do so while gagging. I try not to notice how much I have to scroll down to get to the bottom of his publication list, mutter “Show-off,” then start combing through his coauthors.
I find a Gabriel. Gayle. Giovanni. Gunner (really?). Georgina Sepulveda, a physics superstar whose work I’ve been stanning for years (I choose to think she collaborated with Jack under duress and donated all proceedings to the local animal shelter). After a minute, I come across the elusive George—George Green. He’s on two low-impact articles—both recent, both with Jack. There’s next to no online trace of him, but he just finished his postdoc at Harvard and posts on physics subreddits under his real name.
“Seriously?” This guy’s being interviewed? Whatever strings Jack had to pull, I’m going to cut them one by one with my poultry shears. His mediocre love child doesn’t stand a chance—
My phone rings. I jolt and immediately pick up—Greg.Finally.
“Hey! I—”
“I need your help.”
I swallow a groan. “Hi, Mom.” I’ve made a lethal mistake.
“The situation isdire. You need to rein in your brothers.”
After two and a half decades of APE, I can safely state that the Elsie my mom wants is a droid. She’s powerful, mobile, financially soluble. She successfully quenched her earthly needs and lives in a state of perennial prosperity. Her main purpose is to score prestige points when Aunt Minnie brags about her son who almost finished law school. Her secondary purpose? To intervene when two idiots decide to embark on months-long feuds over stuff that, historically, has included:
who gets the front seat in the car
who deserves the piece of cake with the frosting bootie at Cousin Jenna’s baby shower