Jill swiped her card, and the big steel doors at the entrance to the research and development wing clicked open.  It did not have far to go from there to her lab, but she hurried because she had been gone for a while.  When she opened the door, she saw Doctor Grimly dutifully working away.  She caught her breath and hoped he would not say anything.

“I got you a coke.”  She set the can down on the corner of the lab table.  Doctor Grimly looked up, but she ignored the look on his face.

“I think someone was checking up on her young man.”  Doctor Grimly grinned.  Jill hated it when he grinned like that.  He looked like a school kid teasing the girl with the pigtails in the front row.

“I just wanted to make sure everyone was all right.”  That was as much as she was going to admit.  “That dimensional jump was a bad one.”

“Not as bad as the first,” Doctor Grimly responded.  “Sadly, I have no idea how to correct the area of refraction.”

Jill found a clean sheet of paper and wrote a few quick equations.  “Here.  I think I have worked it out.  This needs to go into the field generator program.”

Doctor Grimly picked up the paper and studied it for a minute while Jill went back to ignoring him.

“I don’t see…”

“Just—.” Jill caught her tongue before she said something she didn’t mean.  “You wouldn’t understand the math.”

Doctor Grimly tilted his head toward the woman, like he might look over his glasses, and he put on his most serious stare.  It would have been a very effective stare if he wore glasses. “You are the only one I have ever known who could think Einstein under the table.  I am sure this Ethan fellow would like that.”

Jill imagined the same thing and turned away as she felt her cheeks turn red.  “Not a good idea.”

“No fraternization?”

“No.”  Jill pointed to the paper in Grimly’s hand.  “You just work those equations into the program while I work on the controller.  We have rattled the cage twice now.  I need to be gone.”

“Yes, your highness.”  Doctor Grimly returned to work.  Unfortunately, the grin also returned to the man’s face, and after a while, he added the word, “Chicken.”