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Ethan walked out of the mall carrying two bags and silently cursing J.A.R.V.I.S. for the financial damage.
A single suit. Twelve thousand marks.
Are you kidding me. Have I done something to offend you, J.A.R.V.I.S.?
The numbers had not, however, swayed J.A.R.V.I.S.'s recommendation. The A.I. had spent ninety seconds explaining the cost-benefit analysis, citing material grade, tailoring quality, and projected social return on investment, before delivering its closing argument: Sir, you are about to address an audience of the most influential young minds in the Republic. They will form opinions about you in the first ten seconds of seeing you. Spending twelve thousand marks now is significantly cheaper than spending the next three decades trying to overcome a poor first impression.
Ethan, internally bleeding marks, had paid.
For my future happiness, he reminded himself, gritting his teeth as the receipt cleared. For my future happiness.
He grabbed a shared bike from the rack outside the mall and pedaled to the barber's shop J.A.R.V.I.S. had selected.
-----
Forty minutes later, he stepped out of the barbershop, glanced at his reflection in the front window, and stopped walking.
J.A.R.V.I.S. had simulated the cut for him in advance. He'd seen the holographic projection on his watch. He had thought, looking at it, that the simulation was probably idealized. The fact that it had been generated by an A.I. with a vested interest in making Ethan look as good as possible meant the result had to be flattering by definition.
Apparently not.
The cut was sharper than he'd expected. Cleaner. The barber had taken the natural texture of his hair and turned it into something deliberate, with structure on the sides and just enough length on top to look intentional rather than messy. The combination with the suit J.A.R.V.I.S. had chosen — charcoal blazer, ivory shirt, graphite trousers — produced an effect that Ethan had not, in his entire life, seen himself produce.
He looked… good.
Not handsome in the way movie stars were handsome. He didn't have the bone structure for that. But he looked put together. Sharp without being severe. Mature without being old. The serum-enhanced lines of his shoulders showed through the cut of the blazer in a way that suggested athletic competence without crossing into overt physicality.
He turned slightly. Adjusted his angle. Examined his reflection from a different vantage.
Inside the shop, three barbers and the receptionist had gathered at the front window to watch. The customer who had arrived on a shared bike, paid them in crisp bills from a wallet with embossed leather, gotten a cut, and was now performing a slow, half-conscious modeling routine on the sidewalk in front of their establishment.
"Should we… should we say something?"
"Don't bother him. He's having a moment."
"Should we be worried about a moment of this duration?"
"Let's give him another minute. If he starts taking selfies, we'll intervene."
Ethan, oblivious to the audience, eventually shook himself, glanced at his watch, and realized that he had spent four minutes admiring his own reflection on a public sidewalk.
He cleared his throat, straightened his blazer, and walked away with as much dignity as he could muster.
-----
A glance at his watch told him there wasn't much time left for sightseeing.
He flagged down a taxi and gave the driver Hartwell University's address.
Bumblebee, regrettably, had been left behind at Hargrove's residence. The yellow Transformer was a magnet for attention everywhere he went, and the last thing Ethan needed before a lecture was for a thousand students to mob the lecture hall because they'd heard Bumblebee was on campus. Bumblebee had pleaded, sulked, flashed his headlights in protest, and finally accepted the order with the wounded dignity of a partner who'd been told he wasn't invited to the work party.
The taxi reached Hartwell University's main gate at quarter past one in the afternoon.
Ethan had a little under an hour before the lecture. He decided to use it the way he used most spare time: he found food.
The university district had a row of small restaurants catering to the student crowd. Ethan walked along the strip until he found a place advertising what J.A.R.V.I.S. flagged as a regional capital specialty — a slow-stewed pork and bread dish that the locals apparently took very seriously. The last time he'd been in the capital, he'd been too rushed to try it. Today, with time to kill, he was going to make up for the oversight.
He pushed open the door, slid into a corner booth, and signaled the owner.
"Five large portions, please. Extra bread on each."
The owner, a stout man in his fifties with the calm dignity of someone who'd cooked the same dish for thirty years, paused.
He raised one eyebrow.
He glanced at Ethan's frame, which did not, by any visible standard, suggest the appetite of a five-portion order.
He decided not to comment.
"Coming right up."
-----
The lunch rush was over. The restaurant was nearly empty. Besides Ethan's booth, the only other occupied table held three university students.
The students were, by all appearances, on a tight clock. The female student closest to Ethan had her legs crossed under the table and was eating with the specific aggressive efficiency of a woman who knew she had to be back at a lecture hall in fifteen minutes. The other female student, slightly taller and more refined in her movements, had her brow furrowed in genuine irritation. The male student — the kind of clean-cut, slightly overdressed undergraduate who carried himself like he was constantly being evaluated — was doing what young men do when seated at a table with two attractive women: trying to be helpful and failing to read the room.
Ethan kept his head down, focused on his food, and did his best to be invisible.
It didn't last.
Snippets of their conversation drifted across the small room.
"Eat fast, Daria. We have to be back for that class in fifteen minutes."
"This is ridiculous. They added an entire mandatory class with twenty-four hours' notice. Who does that?"
"Apparently the department had to pull serious strings to get this guy."
"Strings, plural? Who is this guy?"
"From what I've heard, the dean of the physics faculty called in favors from people. Multiple people. Including some of our honorary professors."
"Wait, the honorary professors? Those are all academicians. Top-tier physicists. The dean had academicians personally call this guy?"
"That's the rumor."
"Is he some kind of foreign laureate? Why does he need that level of entreaty?"
"That's the part I don't get. From what I heard, even with all that pressure, he only agreed to lecture once or twice a year."
The taller female student set her chopsticks down with a sharp click.
"Once or twice?"
"That's what they're saying."
"What is even the point of inviting someone like that? What can a person teach you in two lectures a year? It's not pedagogy, it's vanity."
She lifted her arms — slim, pale, elegant in the way that art-school students draw idealized figures — and gestured emphatically toward the ceiling.
"Hartwell University does not need to grovel before some self-important guest lecturer. We have produced generations of physicists who have shaped this country's scientific landscape. The Earth will continue to rotate without this man's contribution. The fact that we're prostrating ourselves to schedule one of his rare appearances is embarrassing."
The male student stared at her with an expression of barely-contained admiration. She was angry. Her cheeks were flushed. Her arms were waving in the kitchen sunlight. He was, evidently, having the kind of formative romantic moment that men spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture.
Ethan, four tables away, was having a different kind of moment.
He had stopped chewing.
He set his fork down very carefully on the rim of the bowl.
He performed a quick mental review of recent events. A guest lecturer that Hartwell had moved heaven and earth to acquire. Personal calls from honorary professors. Only willing to lecture once or twice a year. Massive ego.
Oh.
Oh no.
They're talking about me.
His mind raced. He could see, with sudden hideous clarity, exactly how Hargrove had pitched this to the Hartwell administration. The brilliant young inventor we want to bring in is too busy for a regular schedule, but we've prevailed upon him to deliver one or two guest lectures per year. We're truly fortunate to have him. Hargrove's framing would have, to the dean and the faculty, sounded entirely reasonable.
To the students it had been sprung on with a day's notice, however, it had sounded like I am too important for you.
Ethan had not, in his mental rehearsal of this lecture, accounted for the possibility that he was walking into a hostile audience.
He sped up his eating.
-----
He was midway through his fourth bowl when the female student closest to him — the one who had been eating with the leg-crossed efficiency — turned in her chair and addressed him directly.
"Hi. Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt."
Ethan looked up. Tried very hard not to look like a man who had just been overhearing.
"Hi."
"Are you a Hartwell student?"
She had a warm voice. Open expression. The kind of approach that suggested she was the friendly one in her group, the social glue, the person who started conversations because the silence bothered her.
Ethan opened his mouth to say no, I'm visiting, then remembered, with a sinking sensation, that he was about to be appointed visiting faculty at the Hartwell School of Physics in approximately forty-five minutes.
Technically, he was affiliated with Hartwell now.
"…kind of?" he managed. "Yeah."
"Oh, great! We were just talking about how empty the cafeteria has been today. We're physics students."
The other two students at the table glanced over. The taller young woman gave Ethan a brief, evaluative look, registered him as not particularly threatening to the social ecosystem of her table, and went back to her food. The male student, who had been monitoring his goddess's reaction, relaxed visibly when he confirmed she had no interest in this stranger.
"Are you in physics too?" the friendly one continued. "Sorry, you look familiar but I can't quite place you."
"I'm… visiting the department today."
"Oh! For the guest lecture?"
"Yeah."
The friendly student brightened. "Great, then we're going to the same place. We can walk over together if you want."
"That'd be… nice. Yeah."
The male student, sensing an opportunity to perform generosity in front of the woman he liked, stood up briskly.
"I'll get this. Don't worry about the bill. Save your money for textbooks. Hartwell takes enough of our money already."
Ethan, who had been mentally calculating how to extract himself from this conversation as gracefully as possible, suddenly saw a perfect, free exit ramp.
"That's incredibly generous of you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I should run, I have to be early for the lecture, but I'll see you all there."
He stood up, gathered his bags, gave the friendly student a polite nod, and walked out of the restaurant at the brisk pace of a man who was not running but was definitely traveling at the upper end of normal walking speeds.
The bell above the door jingled.
The door closed.
-----
The friendly student, whose name was Daria, turned to her companions with a small, conspiratorial smile.
"He seemed nice."
The taller young woman, whose name was Helena, gave Daria a long, slow look.
"Daria."
"What?"
"Did you just decide you have a crush on a stranger in a noodle restaurant?"
"I did not. I just thought he seemed nice. He had a kind face."
The male student, whose name was Lucas, was at the counter, reaching for his wallet. He felt warm and benevolent. He had been gallant in front of his goddess. He had subtly demonstrated that he was the kind of man who took care of people, who paid for strangers, who handled situations smoothly.
He was already imagining, in a small mental side-room, the way Helena might recall this moment later. You remember that day at the noodle place, when Lucas paid for that stranger? That was so generous. That's the kind of person he is.
He pulled out his card.
"Combined tab, please. Including the gentleman who just left."
The owner consulted his pad.
"Six hundred and ten marks."
Lucas's smile froze.
"…I'm sorry. How much?"
"Six hundred and ten."
"That's not possible. There were three of us at our table. Plus that man. Four people total. At your prices, that should be at most two hundred marks."
"Three of you, yes." The owner looked unimpressed. "And the gentleman."
"Yes. Four meals."
"He had five."
"Excuse me?"
"Five large portions. With extra bread on each."
The owner gestured, very deliberately, toward the booth where Ethan had been sitting.
Lucas turned his head.
The booth was empty. But the table was not.
Five empty bowls were stacked neatly in the center of the booth's table, each one wiped so clean that it looked as if it had just come out of a dishwasher rather than off a diner's plate.
Five.
Five large portions of stewed pork. With extra bread on each.
Lucas stared at the bowls.
Helena, who had walked over to the counter to see what was taking so long, also stared at the bowls.
Daria stared at the bowls.
Then all three of them turned, in unison, toward the door of the restaurant.
Outside the door, on the sidewalk, the cold afternoon wind blew past. A piece of paper tumbled across the pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a delivery scooter beeped.
Lucas felt the entire afternoon begin to detach from his body.
Two hundred marks of mark-up that he had not anticipated. In front of the woman he was trying to impress. To pay for the meal of a stranger who had eaten five portions of stewed pork at a single sitting and then walked out without breaking a sweat.
He had been generous.
He had been gallant.
He had been very, very expensive.
Inside the restaurant, the owner waited patiently, holding out the card reader.
"Card or cash, sir?"
Lucas, in a small, defeated voice, handed over his card.
Daria put her hand over her mouth and tried not to laugh.
Helena, for the first time all afternoon, smiled.