Jenny and Chris on a day out

                                    

                                          
Chris
                          
It was almost like a date, the two of them going out for an excursion together, beginning with the same bus ride they had shared that first evening, only taken in reverse. Like time running backwards, Chris had boarded the bus alone, the pleasant afterglow of that first evening flipped on its head to become a mild anxiety at how Jenny and himself had last parted. To distract his mind from this unwelcome feeling, he spent these solitary minutes staring out the window, observing the city in harsh sunlight and taking in the lay of the land that the night's darkness had denied him. A piece of his trepidation fell away when he saw Jenny waiting at her own bus stop, as arranged.
                          
She greeted him with a broad-faced grin as she made her way down the aisle, holding up her phone, a GPS tracker app on its screen. "Look, here we are, side by side."
                          
Chris shuffled across to make room on his seat.
                          
Jenny took her place, stretched out her legs to the extent the bus seating allowed and slid the phone away into the pocket of her jeans. "So what do you know about these people we're going to see?"
                          
"Not even a name. Only that he, she, or they are academics, colleagues of Professor Singh, and on the brain map mailing list. In the absence of the man himself, they seem the obvious people to talk to."
                          
"And Graeme Williams set this up?"
                          
"Yeah. Him and Travis." Chris paused for thought. "When Travis and I went out for a beer the other day he let me in on a few more of their secrets. All about this Resistance of theirs. But then I suppose you know all about them already. You and your job?"
                          
"Honestly, I'd never heard of them until the Spurious Developments case came up. Back then they were protesting against the brain scanners. Now it seems they are in favor. They're not getting high marks for consistency."
                          
"Different factions, I think you'll find." Chris nodded a nod of superior wisdom. "Graeme Williams isn't the only one out there with plans to save the world, whether the world wants it or not."
                          
*
                          
Travis was waiting for them, alone, at the university bus stop.
                          
"Hi there," said Jenny. "Good to see you again. Chris here has just been telling me all about your plans to nuke us all?"
                          
Travis's characteristically blank expression quirked briefly – enough to indicate perplexity – followed a short time later by a twitch of his mouth: comprehension. "Oh, you mean the manifesto? It's all there on the website. If you want the unvarnished truth of it."
                          
"I'll bear that in mind if I need some bedtime reading."
                          
The neuroscience lab wasn't housed in the biochemistry building, with all its encumbering psychotemporal anomalies, but in a more recently constructed annex adjacent. Travis ushered them down shiny corridors, up a flight of stairs, and through a door labelled "Fenukity Laboratory". For all its bland modernity, Chris couldn't help but feel like he was back at high school. It was like arriving at an exotic new city only to find yourself in an airport terminal that looked exactly like all airport terminals everywhere.
                          
Professor Diane Fenukity was dressed in a white lab coat; a thin, angular woman with a face that gave the impression of having been constructed from an amalgam of geometric shapes, then softened by the skillful use of shading. In some ways a female version of Travis, albeit shorter. Her eyes shifted first to Jenny, then Chris, intense and appraising.
                          
"I don't normally do guided tours, but then some heavy hands tapped my shoulder, suggested that for you two I should make an exception." Her expression was a mix of curiosity and amusement – wary, but welcoming. "I'm told we share membership of a very exclusive mailing list. Indeed, I've heard great things about you. All except who you actually are and what you actually want."