Angry city

Chapter 4: Quit the game

Charles thought he understood what Alex meant yesterday.

He stood in the corridor in front of the science room, looking down at the yard, where a girl with lavender hair was walking and talking with two other girls, perhaps about buying something. Jenny was always the type of person to give her all. Once she had her heart set on anything, she would spend every moment. In addition to managing the team’s media channels, applying for grants, and being in charge of selling apps on Scistore*, she was the one to attract more members to join the research team. There were times Charles saw her hanging out with the thugs-looking seniors in the university. It sounded a bit funny, but he thought she was like the brokers in Genright Harbor, where merchants gathered to trade in the old days. Genright was known as a happy and generous city because of its diversity of markets and diverse cultures. Immigrants were always welcomed, and they had many job opportunities for economic development.

Anyways, Professor Keylor was very pleased with her enthusiasm. In the early days, the old man with tortoiseshell glasses once asked Charles the same question as Jenny, “Did you ever think you would come out of this lab to build social relationships?”

It was not that Charles didn’t know Jenny had feelings for him. Although he was a madman who always locked himself in the science room and only loved this city, he was not so stupid that he didn’t know anything about women’s feelings. The moment he met the look in Emma’s eyes, he knew what those girls had for him was not mere admiration. It was the same as the way Jenny usually looked at him when he was talking to others and smiled when he looked back. He didn’t deny that he liked that feeling. He wanted everyone on the team always to watch and support him like that. It’s okay to say he was delusional and loved himself too much.

But returning their feelings or not was another matter.

All of a sudden, Alex walked over to Jenny and the two of them went up the stairs leading into the building. Charles stopped looking. He turned back to the laptop on the table. He needed to list compelling reasons for the report and submit it to Professor Keylor. Then he would transfer it to the higher-ups for approval or something.

“Still thinking about the censorship time thing?” Julia suddenly asked him. She was sitting in front of her computer, looking at the draft Alex had sent her. Perhaps she saw that Charles is thoughtful.

“Yeah. I hate the slow process the most. They obviously can speed things up,” he replied somewhat bored.

“You should ask Jenny to try. She is very good at persuading people,” Julia said. She was one of those people who believed in Jenny’s abilities so much, although she often made comments in a slightly rude way. People in the scientific team were usually not very good at ingratiation.

Charles was thinking about all kinds of things when Jenny and Alex entered the room.

“Where did you hide yesterday? There’s a rumor in the room that you two are dating,” Julia teased Jenny.

“What?” Jenny asked, slightly annoyed. “Dating what? We went to plan for Alex’s new project. I told you guys.”

“Yeah,” Alex drank from his cup as he nodded, leaning slightly on the table to look at Charles’s laptop screen.

“You told whom? I didn’t know anything,” Julia continued the joke by saying carefreely. “Anyway, hey, you came at the right time. Charles and I have something to discuss with you.”

Hearing that, Charles was about to turn the laptop around, partly because Jenny was carrying a rather bulky pile of papers, and it was not convenient to come here. But she suddenly said, “Don’t ask now. Make a list of questions at once because I will leave the team soon.”

What the hell?

Jenny didn’t look at him, stroked her hair while smiling, then said, “I’ll be busy soon, so I don’t have time. But I’ll hand everything over to you. Rest assured.”

There was something in her voice that made Charles feel very uncomfortable. Her attitude was not right at all. What happened to her?

Charles turned to look at Alex, about to ask why but found Alex looking at him.

Why did he have that look? Is it Charles’s fault? He wanted to ask but stopped.

Then he watched Jenny walk to the door with her pile of papers.

“I’m looking for Professor Keylor,” she said, before closing the door.

***

“What do you think?” Charles said, tapping his fingers on the table with no attempt to hide his impatience while Professor Keylor was pretending to be concentrating on reading his rough draft of the new drug. He’d known the professor long enough to know that he didn’t understand anything about their research. It was just that the professor had the right to bring it to the advisory board or the authorities if he wanted the project to go further, so he had to rely on him. Sometimes watching the professor sit and look at the studies and pretend he understand and even try to persuade people later, Charles tried very hard not to laugh. It was not that he looked down on the professor. It was just waiting for so long that made him bored, so he entertained himself with crazy thoughts. Maybe Jenny was right. The people of this Genright City had much more fun than usual.

It took a moment for the old man to push up the tortoiseshell glasses with long bony fingers. “I always believe in you. You know that,” Professor Keylor said. His voice was slow. His eyes were straining like he was serious. “But this project is not like the others. It will take a lot of time. I could ask them to speed it up, but it still takes years.”

“I will have graduated and worked as a cleaner in the lab by then,” Charles said sarcastically.

He shouldn't have expected this old man to do anything.

“But hey,” he was about to turn away when he heard Professor Keylor ask. “Why are you still here thinking about the solution to this research?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“That Jenny. She’s about to leave the team. Don’t you have anything to say to her?”

Damn it.

“Sir, this is the scientific team, not the psychological counseling,” Charles said. That kind of talk he learned from Julia. It was filled with sarcasm, too.

The moment he walked out of Professor Keylor’s office, his mind flashed Emma’s eyes yesterday afternoon. Would he have to take that research home to do?

Damn.

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Note:

*The name of the science app store, where science apps are bought and sold. This is a fictional store based on App Store in real life.