Chapter 8

As usual, Laura woke up first. She had been thinking about Amanda for a while before she managed to fall asleep. At last she'd managed to make sense of her attitude, which bordered on servility sometimes: Amanda simply liked her. Her uncommon childhood aside, people had tried to seduce her, and not always males, either, so it was a surprise that it had taken her so long to work out what was going on. But of course, what Amanda was doing wasn't quite seduction. Laura was certain her roommate would be overjoyed to be her girlfriend, but she wasn't looking for a conquest: she was giving herself away as one. For Laura, who made independence her byword, it was hard to understand how much Amanda must want her. Nothing in the world could have made her behave that way.

Now she knew what Amanda was about, she still had to work out what to do about it. It was a lot easier when people tried to seduce her: she simply refused. Somehow, though, what Amanda was doing was different enough it was actually working. She felt protective of her, and didn't want to hurt her. So far, the things her roommate had done had just been pleasant. Delightful, even. She'd been truthful when she called her a friend the night before. It could even be convenient to have her around, so devoted and biddable. In the end, that's how she convinced herself. If it made Amanda happy, and it kept her docile, and it was pleasant, why not let her express her now obvious adoration by trying to please her? Whether she would in the end decide to take things further or not was entirely up to her, and how could she tell what she wanted otherwise? She just lacked the right experience. She felt a twinge of guilt for maybe giving Amanda false hopes, but she hadn't promised anything. She just didn't know.

About Amanda's other problem, she felt on considerably firmer ground, but she'd wait for her to wake up to discuss it. There was no sense in making plans without knowing how far her roommate would be willing to go. Really, Professor Robertson had overstepped, and she wouldn't let people push Amanda around, or make her cry. That's what she was for, if anyone had to do it.

Tired of waiting for Amanda to wake up on her own, she got out of bed and dressed herself, and shook her roommate's shoulder. "Wake up, little one", she said. "We have lots to discuss and I'll have to be at the lab in a couple of hours."

"But it is so early--I'm sleepy--"

"Come on, don't be lazy. A new and exciting day awaits you!" said Laura, in a cheery voice that put Amanda's teeth on edge.

"Ok, but you'll pay for this one day, you'll see", said Amanda, her attempt to sound sinister spoiled by a yawn. "Really, you'd think it's late or something."

Laura began to make breakfast as Amanda got out of bed, yawning and complaining all the way. Though most things were kept in the kitchen, their room had a small magnetic fridge. Quiet, compact, and extremely durable, fridges were a typical example of modern technological progress: they did the same task, with a minimum of waste, using new purpose-built materials and removing mobile parts, instead of old-fashioned brute force. This made them rather expensive, so Laura and Amanda had been pleased to have such a convenient access to one. Soon two bowls with milk and cereal stood ready.

"Any tea?" asked Laura.

"Yes, please. I'd like some of the Iberian oolong. It's up on that shelf", she pointed.

"Fancy", said Laura, getting the tea-maker ready. She filled it with tapwater, and placed two of Amanda's pods on the receptacle. "It's self-described as eighty-eight degrees for seven minutes, you happy with that?"

"Push it to eight mins. These guys tend to underestimate things a bit for my taste", she said, as she finished dressing.

Both girls went to the toilet as the machine whirred and gurgled. First it filtered the water, taking away any impurities that could harm the flavour. Then it raised its temperature to 101C, and pushed some radiating clusters of small filaments made of a highly heat-conductive material into the water to quickly cool it down to the desired setting. It opened up the pods, removing them for disposal, and steeping the loose leaves for the required time. Not long before it beeped and poured out two cups, Amanda and Laura were back.

"Hmm, a good oolong is worth the wait", said Amanda. Both were sitting together, cradling their cups. "It makes you think sometimes. Fifty years ago nothing much grew in Iberia, and a hundred years ago lots did, but not this tea. Entirely the wrong climate."

"So are you trying to say the Troubles were a good thing?" Laura looked pretty sceptical.

"No, of course not. I'm not sure what I mean, really. I just woke up! I guess ... that life goes on. Things change. Somehow, even when awful things happen, we try to move on and make the best of it; and, sometimes, if we're lucky, something like this tea comes out: a completely unforeseeable and delightful result. That's what I meant, if I meant anything."

Laura grew thoughtful. What Amanda said could be applied to her own life. Even if it perhaps hadn't been intended that way, it fit. She had been badly hurt; perhaps she had been warped by a twisted upbringing; but she had made herself the decision, if nothing else by omission, to close herself to joy. She knew achievement, competence, satisfaction, and, even, sometimes, awe at the world and the way equations could describe it better and more sharply than the most accurate narrative. All of this she knew, but joy? She had given up on it, thinking it was not for her. Perhaps it wasn't, and yet was it not worth trying?

"I made you think, or it is perhaps the tea", said Amanda. "It does invite reflection."

"It is what you said. There's more truth in that than you suspect. But let's not get sidetracked today, let us be businesslike. I have a plan to get you what you want. It's not free from ethical difficulties though, but it will almost certainly work. How willing are you to bend the rules?"

"You know my usual answer would be very little, or not at all. I'll make an exception though. If you have a plan, I'd like to at least hear it before rejecting it. I haven't been able to come up with anything better than showing my design to anyone with co-signing rights and hope someone takes pity."

"That's planning on weakness. My plan rests on strength. As it happens, it rests on my strength. I'm sorry, but I couldn't work out a way you could do it by yourself. I'll do what's needed though, if you agree. But it will be your decision."

"Well, I'm intrigued. If you wanted to make me curious you've succeeded. Tell me of this plan which rests on your strength then."

Laura explained her plan. It wasn't entirely to Amanda's liking, since it depended on blackmail, but she didn't have many options. Without a chance to prototype her work, she couldn't advance further, and would have to choose another project, assuming they'd let her. Not without regret, she decided her necessity outweighed her scruples just this time, and gave Laura the go-ahead. They'd do it that very day.

While Amanda put together all the necessary documentation and made sure everything was in order an up-to-date for the fabbing request, Laura went back to the lab. She had another scheduled session, and it couldn't be postponed, but it wasn't a long one. Just an hour. She hadn't managed much progress, and she decided to use the image databases she had found and see if she got any good correlations.

Her subject that day was a young student called Lina, in her early 20s. She wore comfortable clothing which didn't call attention to itself. Her only remarkable feature was her long hair, reaching her lower back. It was blonde, and it was obviously well taken care of. Laura set up her equipment, and explained the process.

"In this protocol," she said, "you'll be presented with a series of images. The majority of them will be human faces, but there will also be some other bodyparts. Your task consists of giving them an aesthetic rating, from one to five. The scale goes 'detest', 'dislike', 'indifferent', 'like', 'love'. There are some bodyparts you may not have an aesthetic appreciation for at all, I think. If that happens, for example let's say you have no aesthetic impression on earlobes, then I'd like you to choose zero. If you choose 'indifferent' it will be fine, but it would be more helpful if you can make this distinction. Any questions?"

"All these data are anonymous, right? And what is this for?" asked Lina. "I'm just ... I don't want it to be used for something dodgy."

"Dodgy?" asked Laura, puzzled. "I've no idea how you could use this in an improper way. At least I can't come up with anything feasible right now. I'm afraid I can't tell you the exact purpose of the experiment, though. It's just a part of the protocol that you can't be told."

"Why is that? Are you trying to trick me somehow?"

"Well, there are some protocols where we're collecting data for a non-obvious use. For example, imagine that I was studying gender preference in sexual attraction", said Laura, amused at the example her own mind brought up. "One of the things we could try is see whether you recognise men or women faster, as human figures. So Maybe I'd set up a protocol where you're supposed to indicate when you see a human, but if I tell you the purpose, it may bias the way you react. You see what I mean?"

"Right, but if you're not tricking me, why can't you just say?"

"It's quite simple", replied Laura. "Imagine you're rather sophisticated about these experiments. I don't know if you're aware, but many of our subjects have participated in many tests before, so they grow a sense for what protocols are like. It's inevitable. Anyway: if you're experienced about such things, you'd have probably participated in a protocol which wasn't quite what it seemed, and it may have made you a bit resentful. No-one likes being fooled. So of course next time you ask about the purpose of the data, right? What happens then?"

"Well, if it's not an obvious thing then of course you wouldn't want to tell, but if it's just as you're saying?"

"Ah, but then there are two different possible answers. I can answer 'the data is for so and so', or I can answer 'I can't tell you what it's for', and in this latter case--"

"Oh, I see. You're already giving something away."

"Precisely. Now I see from your records this is the first experiment you participate in, so if you have any other questions it's perfectly fine to ask. If it makes you feel better I'll point out we all get an ethical review before we're allowed access to humans, so someone at least thinks it's not dodgy."

"Oh, it's fine. Sorry to be such a bother."

Laura started the test, and made sure the equipment was functioning correctly and that her subject was behaving, which she was. It was all automated, and there wasn't much point in her looking at the realtime data. She'd have enough time to try to make sense of it all later. Effectively free, she sent a quick note to set up a meeting with her own supervisor, Professor Hyde, and copied it to Amanda. She hoped they could meet that same day, but otherwise the next day should be possible. In the meantime, she kept an eye on the incoming data from her experiment, but she didn't notice anything unexpected. Her subject seemed to be going about her task quite systematically, taking a few seconds to make up her mind, and paying enough attention for her purposes. It was a pleasure working with her, even if she was getting a slight headache. Adrian, in contrast, was annoying, but she didn't have a choice but to use him.

A few minutes later she received confirmation from Professor Hyde. They would meet that afternoon, and sort things out. Until then, she had several more subjects to deal with, and she'd somehow make time for a small lunch. Violating a cardinal rule of experimental work, Laura began to run statistical tests on the incomplete data she had from Lina. There seemed to be something odd with the correlations that she might be able to probe. She was aware that running tests before all the data had been gathered was risky, and tended to lead to cherrypicking and other assorted statistical sins, but she was convinced she'd be able to inhibit her own biases. Of course, she thought, I'm sure others who did it believed so too. Nonetheless, she wanted to make progress, and there was some pattern she should be able to extract. Some subsets of the data seemed to correlate nearly perfectly, and some were almost random in comparison.

The results were odd. Filtering by correlation yielded classes that corresponded to the different body parts shown. She kept running different tests, and before she realised it Lina was done for the day. She thanked her and tagged her as a subject of interest, so she could continue working with her, and soon she was going through the protocol with another new subject she'd never met. The morning became routine, and she didn't notice hunger until she was done.

Amanda had just had some of the most stressful, strange and disturbing twenty-four hours of her life. From elation had come disappointment, followed by the time she spent with Lenka and Astrid. Cuddles may have been normal, but the way it all came out wasn't the way Amanda typically behaved. She didn't use to get intimate with people she didn't know well, and Astrid was still a recent acquaintance. Then, telling her roommate all about her troubles, her initial unfavourable reaction, and Amanda's own shameful response. It had worked in convincing Laura of her good intentions, but it had been intensely embarrassing, and she'd felt completely out of control. Confessing to Laura how she felt had been very risky, and she was glad that Laura didn't seem to mind at all. She had fallen asleep as soon as she laid her head on the pillow, and her roommate had woken her up when she still needed rest. Breakfast had been nice and quiet, and Laura had a plan. She felt confused and battered by it all, and hardly dared trust it would work, but she couldn't see any flaws in it, and was relieved when she realised Laura hadn't changed her mind overnight.

While Laura worked at the lab, Amanda ketp remembering the previous day. Against her own intentions, reliving her cuddle with her friends and the way things had gone with Laura later was making her excited. She'd felt so confused and awkward, so incompetent to communicate her own feelings or to even understand them herself, that she had thrown herself at Laura's feet, hoping her tears would speak for her. She'd normally not behave that way, it must have been all the stress she'd been under. Having abased herself and given up all pretence of adult self-restraint, she had kissed Amanda's toes as gratitude bloomed in her heart, incapable of anything but a childlike and slavish devotion she didn't know she had in her at all, and which Laura seemed to have treated rather casually. At least she hadn't offended her, with her gestures of supplication and worship.

On her own, living it in her mind over and over again, there was no room for pretence. She wasn't sure she loved Laura, not the way love had grown bit by bit out of friendship with her previous girlfriends, but she knew, without any room for doubt, that she worshiped her. That she'd give up anything, her own sense of self, for the sake of pleasing her. And she suspected Laura would only think it her due, or would perhaps refuse it without understanding what was offered. It was disturbing, and an awful mess, and it made her yearn and want to melt, and her body responded to it all turning soft and wet.

Before she knew what she was doing, her hand was playing, moving in circles around her pubic area, approaching her cunt, now longing to be touched. She couldn't forget the feel of Amanda's feet rubbing her hair, and the memory of her sock against her forehead, forcing her head up, made her shudder and turned her breath ragged. What was she doing? She shouldn't masturbate thinking about such things. What would Laura think if she knew? In the end, it was only the imaginary embarrassment of sending her roommate a note to tell her what was going on, as she had agreed to, that made her stop and realise how far she had gone. Sighing, she arranged her clothes and her hair, and wondered if what had happened last night would have any long-term consequences. She had as much as told Laura she was interested in her, and Laura hadn't pushed her away. She had to get a handle on her own feelings though: they were too intense for her peace of mind, and Laura might have difficulties dealing with a clingy and needy partner. And that was what she was becoming, like it or not: clingy, needy, weak, and prone to silliness and sighing. Nothing like herself, except apparently that's how she was when she really cared.

She tried to do some work, but she found it too difficult to concentrate. She was still nervous about her chances to get her fabbing time, and doing more related work kept reminding her of the obstacles. She briefly considered giving up, and apologising to Professor Robertson, but now she'd got her roommate involved she didn't feel there was a graceful way of doing it. Explaining to Laura that she had decided to comply with her professor would be the kind of thing Laura would find hard to understand, and it would confirm her suspicion that Amanda was too soft and yielding for a startup. Since Amanda had been hoping to partner with Laura, her opinion mattered, but she couldn't deceive herself: it didn't matter just because of that. How Laura thought of her had become something important, a way to measure her own worth.

Instead of working, she changed into loose clothes and did some exercise. The rhythmic music and the discipline of controlling her body grounded her properly at last, and she began to find her own confidence and calm again. It wasn't like her to become overwrought: she thought of herself as easy-going, flexible and serene. She went from dancing to martial arts routines; from seemingly simple but taxing glides and twirls, to power moves. She practiced strikes with hands and feet, and by the time she finished, she felt tired and slightly sweaty, but poised and in balance. She showered and got into something more suitable for a meeting, if still casual, checked the time, and made her way towards the department building. On her way, she got something for Laura. She wasn't sure Laura would like it, but it felt the least she could do, and it was traditional enough, in its way.

Laura was pleased to see Amanda had dressed nicely. She'd take any possible advantage, even if she wouldn't have done the same herself. She preferred clothing which helped her keep more in the background. Amanda looked like someone going to an important meeting, though, claiming all attention to herself, and that was, after all, what she was about. They met at the department's admin area, where students used to wait for appointments with the faculty or with each other. It was a fairly large room, with some halfway comfortable seats, and quiet enough for people to be using their comms as workspaces.

"You look nice", said Laura. She stood up as Amanda approached her seat and squeezed Amanda's hand. "I'm sure it will all turn out well. Just trust me and follow my lead. It will work out."

Amanda smiled. She was touched at the way Laura was trying to settle her down, but in truth she didn't need it anymore. She was ready for whatever came. They walked together through the windy corridors of the department, which often despised the straight line, until they got to Professor Orla Hyde's office. They decided to look at each other at the same time, and it made them laugh. A few seconds later, when they'd managed to turn their faces serious again, Laura knocked on the door.

"Come in", said Professor Hyde. They both went in, and the professor couldn't hide her surprise. "Oh, it's two of you? Why didn't you say anything, Laura?" She stood up and rearranged her chairs, placing the two students opposite her. "I've seen you around the department, but I can't say I know you", she said, addressing Amanda. "I'm Professor Orla Hyde, and Laura's supervisor."

"Pleased to meet you", said Amanda, shaking her hand. "I'm Amanda. Thanks for receiving us." She waited for Laura to choose a seat, and sat to her left. "I'm sorry if it comes as a surprise", she said, looking at Laura.

"Well, my friend Amanda has a ... proposal for you", said Laura. "We're roommates, so we discuss each other's work, and hers is quite impressive. I'd like you to give her fifteen minutes to present what she's doing, and then we can discuss it, perhaps. She has some small administrative hurdles to overcome, and it came to me you were just the right person to help her out. I'm sure it will turn out for the best for everyone concerned."

"You're very free with my time, Laura. This isn't the way things are done--"

"I'm aware that, ordinarily, I shouldn't bring you work from other students. However, the situation is a bit special. I'm just asking you to give it an unbiased look and we'll discuss it. I'd be much obliged if you could." Laura looked confident, and Orla looked pensive. She had been caught by surprised and didn't know how to react, but she knew she didn't want to end up giving in more and more to her student. That was the problem with yielding to blackmail: it could easily grow from something minor to a total loss of control.