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Susan walked into Greg’s office and asked, “Have you seen Paulette lately?”
Greg looked up from his computer. “She’s probably in the project room.
“Is she still trying to get things working?” Susan asked.
“Something like that. She’s been taking things in stages. I can’t say anything to her about taking so long. She was riding my butt to get the thing built, but now she has spent over a year running tests. She hasn’t even tried it out yet,” he said with amusement in his voice.
“I guess she wants to make sure it all works perfectly first.”
“Makes sense. I know I’d be pretty upset if it didn’t operate as expected after all my hard work. With all the hassles she gave me when I was building the thing, though, you’d think she’d move a little faster. But maybe it’s a good thing she takes her time.”
“Who knows? Thanks for letting me know where she is. I need to talk to her.”
“You’re welcome.”
Susan walked out of his office and to the project room. She only got a few steps inside when she stopped. She found Paulette slumped down over the keyboard sound asleep. Her head and arms were causing the letter t to scroll across the screen without stopping. Susan walked up behind Paulette and carefully shook her shoulder. “Hey, you need to wake up. You’re scrolling the letter t everywhere on the screen.”
With a jerk, Paulette lifted her head. Using her hands to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, she looked at Susan. “What time is it? How long have I been asleep? Oh crap, how long has this been going on?”
“Slow down. It’s four in the afternoon, and I don’t know how long you’ve been asleep. You’ve been in here for so long I had to ask where you’d gone.”
“Oh sorry. I came in here to get some more programming done. I must have fallen asleep.” She glanced up at Susan. “So, what did you need?”
“I came to find you because I made a breakthrough in our search for a better synthetic muscle.”
Paulette’s eyelids drooped and fluttered back open several times before she replied, “What? Wait, you had a breakthrough? How exciting! What kind of breakthrough?”
Susan pulled up a chair and sat down before explaining. “As you know, I’ve been working for over a year to find a better material for our synthetic muscles. Last night, I made a breakthrough with a new technique for cellular growth. Basically, I can grow a portion of muscle that can be interwoven with our current synthetic muscle, giving it more flexibility and mobility.”
A stunned look washed over Paulette’s face. “You’re a genius. I’m glad we can continue to improve upon our product. Before you know it, we might have live muscles for our customers.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. It takes a long time to grow, and we have to use DNA from the recipient to grow the small portions we’d use in our new products. This means the customer would have to wait longer to get his or her limb put on,” she said.
“Oh, okay. Well, at least they’ll have the option to have more real muscle than synthetic in the future. Excellent job, Susan.”
“Thanks.”
Susan left Paulette sitting in her chair and went back to her office.
Paulette turned her chair back around to face the mess she had made on the computer. You really need to get some rest, she mused as she proceeded to find the first t, and then delete them all. Now that she had fixed her mess, she could get back to completing the programing.
Without thinking, she bent down and gave Danni a scratch on the head. “You’re such a loyal dog. I don’t know how I’d cope without you.” Danni picked up her head and looked at her for a moment before gently laying it back down on the floor. She always liked sleeping under the desk when Paulette was working.
Refocusing her attention on the computer, she typed in the lines of code that would complete the program. With one final keystroke, she hit the enter key and sighed, sitting back in her chair to relax for a moment. I think I’m finished and can begin the testing phase. However, I do need to rest. Rolling her chair back, she stood up and walked to the door. Danni got up and walked alongside her. Paulette opened the door and they both headed back to her office to gather her things.
