This is probably not the work crisis I should have tagged along to witness.
“So how does this work?” I say.Please don’t make me test it. Please don’t make me test it.I’m the only person in the room and he needs someone to take it for a test drive.
“Well, maybe you can help me test out this thing…”
What did I tell you.
He sets me down in a chair in the center of the room and puts the wearable brain scanner on me. I’d rather be putting on some lingerie to get his attention instead of a twenty-pound metal helmet.
“You should be able to move freely while you’re in the helmet,” he says.
“Maybe if you’re a linebacker. You should make this thing smaller.”
“Next version.”
When I put the helmet on, inspiration hits. “Max, are you testing this thing? Is it on?”
“Let me just ask you a few questions to make sure it’s working right, and then we’ll try to trigger the bugs Chan identified.”
He looks down at a sheet of paper and then up at me. “None of my test questions are going to work on you.”
Duh. I don’t know my address and I still have to look up my birthday on Facebook.
“I’ll just freestyle,” I say. “My name is Mia Wallace and I don’t remember my life before last Tuesday. I own a business and have a boyfriend who I’ve met once on the way home from the airport.” It sounds even more pathetic when I say it out loud in a laboratory while wearing a brain scanner.
“Looks good,” he says.
I frown. “What’s good about that?”
“I just mean that’s all coming up as truthful. Keep going.”
“Well, you accused me of being a liar.”
He looks up, his expression worried. He knows I’m going to take this somewhere he doesn’t want it to go.
“That’s true,” I confirm. “I lied to you.”
“Mia, stop. It’s okay.”
“Number one: I found out at the bank that I’m broke. I spent money I don’t have and am in serious debt. Number two: I’m wanted for check fraud. I was too embarrassed to tell you. I probably told a thousand little lies to back up those bigger ones, but those are the main lies.”
“Mia, you don’t need to do this.”
Oh, but I do. “I’m not a habitual liar, though. I really like you and I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
I stop and look up. “How did that come out? Does it look true?”
He nods, which is amazing. I was 70 percent sure it would fail.
“I know, Mia. You’re not a bad person, but I don’t think I can trust you.”
“Max, maybe I feel this way for messed-up psychological reasons, but whatever—I can’t worry about where my feelings come from. I just experience them.”
From the look on his face, he’s preparing for a crash.
I step on the accelerator. If we’re going to crash, so be it. “I love you,” I say, loud and clear.
He looks at the brain scanner results and says, “Um, no you don’t.”
