I reach the door, hand on the knob, when she calls my name again and gestures toward the trio of romance novels still stacked on her desk.
“You’re leaving these behind?”
“I’m trusting you with them,” I say. “They’re instructional.”
She lifts one with skepticalfingers. “In what, exactly?”
I shoot her a smirk, already halfway out. “You were the one skimming the steamy STEM shelf, remember?”
She rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch.
“Any, ah, recommended chapters?”
I pause in the doorway, grin wide. “Sixteen. In the first one. Think of it as... supplemental reading.”
She shakes her head with a soft laugh, already slipping the first book into her top drawer.
The door clicks closed behind me, and just like that, I walk away knowing I’m no longer asking for permission.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The universe doesn’t always send warnings. It doesn’t tap you on the shoulder or hand you a neatly labeled hypothesis. Sometimes it just drops a new variable into your lap—unannounced, unsolvable—and says, “Good luck, nerd.”
Thankfully, I’ve become oddly skilled at receiving new variables with open hands and a half-decent smile—as if uncertainty and I made peace somewhere along the way. Because maybe uncertainty isn’t a problem to solve. Maybe it’s just the start of something. Not the lack of answers, but the possibility of better ones. Of new ones.
And hey—if the hypothesis changes mid-study, that’s not failure. That’s just science.
If it holds up, great. If it doesn’t? Congratulations, you’ve just entered the thrilling chaos of discovery. Which, coincidentally, is also how I’d describe both love and lab work: messy, a little volatile, driven by curiosity, and deeply dependent on trust in your method.
In both, you’re always testing boundaries. Redrawing conclusions. Learning when to challenge the variables—and when to let them surprise you. Because in the end, the work that changes you most isn’t always the one with clean results. Sometimes it’s the one that wrecks your original model and forces you to build something better.
I walk up and down the long stage at the Kennedy Theatre, usually reserved for plays and student performances, but today repurposed for a science talk.
“So, yes, the results suggest we’re looking at something we’ve never fully understood,” I say, then add with a grin, “until now.”
A ripple of murmurs moves through the audience—curious, skeptical. Fair. Most of the cephalopods in Dr. Kymbert’s study behaved exactly as expected. But two of them—just two—exhibited something strange. Something I’ve affectionately dubbed the Damon Switcharoo. And yes, the entire team calls it that now.
What happened is this: in those two subjects, we observed a sudden, purposeful shift in arm usage—arms typically used for one function, say locomotion, spontaneously taking over fine-motor tasks that had been trained into other arms. Not just mirroring the movement, but performing the action with precision. As if the octopus rerouted the behavior in real time.
Turns out, the oral intramuscular nerve cords—the INCs—connect not just adjacent arms, but ones located two arms away. That means these limbs aren’t acting in isolation. They’re part of a deeper, faster, more adaptive system than we previously imagined. Damon had shown me this months ago—switching out his LEGO arms for others like it was nothing. He was prepping me, in his own chaotic way, for a networked nervous system I didn’t yet know to look for.
I finish the talk half an hour later, the facts laid bare for everyone to pick at, with more than a few curious smiles in the crowd—and a desperate need for a new deodorant if my sweaty armpits are anything to go by. First professional talk jitters. Completely valid, I think.
As I step down the small staircase at stage left, the bright lights finally at my back, I’m greeted by Dr. Kymbert and a woman I don’t recognize—tall, with cropped silver curls and a posture that says,I know exactly who I am, and you’re about to as well.
“Miss Taylor, this is Dr. Amando,” my professor says, her tone warm and proud. “She’s a brilliant research scientist and might be joining us on site in the next few weeks, following some of our latest findings. Giselle, this is Coralie—she joined my team five weeks ago.”
I extend a hand and Dr. Amando takes it with both of hers. Her grip is soft, but confident—like her version of a hug.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I say.
“Likewise,” she replies. Her gaze flicks to the stage. “You were wonderful up there.”
I blush. Because yes, okay, Iwassolid—minus a few minor stumbles and the fact that I gesture like a flight attendant every time I speak. But hearing it from someone like her feels... unreal.
“I bet you had your fair share of mishaps working under this one,” Dr. Amando teases, nudging Dr. Kymbert with an elbow.
“Oh, definitely,” I say with a laugh. “Nothing humbles you faster than trying to impress a room full of marine biologists and misidentifying a sea star.”
