The assistant''s thoughts were all over the ce, leaving him a bit dazed. He''d only chatted with Alex, the Vice President, once, and from that call, he could tell Alex was pretty young, probably in his twenties. A senior pharmacist in his twenties? Now that''s some serious talent. If the rest of the pharmacists in the association got wind of how brilliant the new Vice President was, it would surely cause a buzz. No wonder the President kept mum about the Honorary Vice President''s prowess.
With a soft sigh, the assistant grabbed the medicine bottle and left the office. He made a beeline for the archive room to store the medicine safely. Just as he was stepping out, he ran into the Vice President. Noticing his spaced-out look, the Vice President asked, "You seem out of it. Did David give you a hard time?"
Snapping back to reality, the assistant smiled and shook his head, "Nah, nothing like that."
The Vice President gave him a knowing look and casually asked, "So, what''s David brewed up this time?"
The assistant hesitated but then shook his head, "No new concoctions. The President just wanted me to inventory the archives."
"Oh, okay." The Vice President didn''t pry further.
He was about to head to the archive room himself when his phone buzzed. Checking the caller ID, he waved at Grant and hurried off, answering the call as he left. Watching him go, the assistant pondered for a moment before slipping back into the archive room to stash the medicine in a drawer.
Come Wednesday at the school, Mirabe was waist-deep in an Artificial Intelligence research project. That afternoon, the team was gearing up for the first phase of testing, involving a simtion of human gic sequences being integrated into an intelligent system. It was a digital dance of data, processed on fourputers and sent to the mainframe for testing.
The final touches were being made. Jessie had just finished uploading the data and turned to see Mirabe rubbing her temples, looking a bit pale. She nced over at Ben, working away at the mainframe nearby, then wheeled her chair closer to Mirabe and gently tapped her arm, pulling out two peppermints from her pocket. "Peppermints, to perk you up,” she whispered.
Mirabe looked at the candies in Jessie''s hand, paused, then took them with a grateful smile, "Thanks, Jessie."
"You look like you''re having a rough time. If you need to, step outside for some air," Jessie said with a hint of concern. It was odd how Mirabe always seemed to react to Ben''s cologne, even though Jessie hadn''t noticed anything bothering her from it. She figured maybe Mirabe had some sort of allergy to the scent.
"I''m okay." Mirabe assured her, unwrapping a mint and popping it into her mouth. It really did help.
"Don''t overdo it," Jessie advised, giving Mirabe''s shoulder a reassuring pat before scooting back to her station.
Mirabe nodded, her eyes drifting to the remaining candy in her palm before tucking it into her pocket. Soon enough, the test kicked off.
Linden, Kason, and Jessie were all keyed up,ser-focused on their screens, terrified of making a mistake with the data. This was the department''s first big research project in ages, and they couldn''t afford to mess it up. Mirabe, having already gone over their data models, wasn''t worried in the slightest, knowing everything was solid.