Working with Duke kinda feels like dating.

It's quite interesting to observe his behavior scientifically. He brings me flowers. He wears super expensive suits. And he takes me out.

I hate to go out, but he's so happy introducing all the posh places he knows and loves to me that I don't object. The venues offer exciting new themes to research, too. Not exactly fitting my usual fields of interest, but they are refreshing enough to spend time with. For example, there are all those women, staring at me. No matter where we go, no matter what we do, a surprising number of ladies feel the urge to send death glares in my direction.

They are a very heterogeneous group of human specimens. 64% blondes, 32% brunettes, and 4% redheads, which doesn't correlate with the usual distribution of the population, and, if I add my observation about their leg length to the data collection process, the results are even more intriguingly unbalanced.

I can't believe Duke fucked them all. When did he sleep? Or work? Or eat? It doesn't add up. He probably ran through more than one at a time. I want to ask him so badly about it, to make progress with my statistics, but he doesn't react well to questions like this. He freezes and starts to explain about totally dull and unrelated issues like those women don't matter.

No one asked that. There's no such column in my chart table. Duh.

For the same reason, I don't dare to ask him about Nicole. The last time I asked him if he finished the mission or not, he freaked out and called me cynical.

The same thing happened when I told one of his staring ladies, Celia, the truth. The poor girl seemed to be extremely uncomfortable with the sight of me walking by Duke's side, and Duke was extremely uncomfortable with her staring at me all night, and I wanted them to feel better, how is that cynical, anyway? It's quite the contrary. It's the purest empathy. I wanted to relieve her shock caused by the reversed beauty and the beast scene we presented, so I told her the truth. That Duke might look like a half-god, but he's never had a life, and that's why his feelings for his old colleague are the closest he's ever felt to love, so it's not her fault. And Celia liked it. I almost made a new friend when Duke grabbed my hand and dragged me away. Thank God we practiced with Nicole how to hold hands. It was embarrassing enough as it was without me having an attack.

Duke apologized later, and he also breathed out with me at least thirty times, standing in the middle of the restaurant, but refused to let go of my hand. We left the place holding hands. That's progress. Nicole has such cute, gentle hands, and Duke... not so much. So it's progress. I'm getting better at ignoring the urge to pull away all the time, and also at refusing to think about my hand being trapped by something disgusting, like a dead octopus or a rotten apple pie. I still can't kick the habit of repeating in my head that it's an enjoyable part of normal life, and no, it wouldn't be better to simply die instead, but I'm trying.

We've been walking hand in hand all the time, ever since. Duke has the expression of someone who climbed K2. I have the expression of someone who's repeating the line mentioned above. We're okay.

Our base of operation is Duke's flat.

He's been serious about staying away from the Agency, and I still couldn't find out the reason. It must be something shady if Duke decided to keep it a secret from me. And, if Mr. Toe allowed him to stay away from defending the vaccine against Mint and his client, it must be something related to the case.

I could break Duke's resolve by pushing his buttons, but I refuse to do it. Not because it's amoral; I just trust my calculations. And my calculations tell me that whatever he's keeping from me, it's not as important as he thinks it is.

I also could try to decipher Mr. Toe's motives, but I don't have enough data for that. I've never been able to map his intentions. Or hers. We've been communicating in written form only, and he's never provided me with enough information to decide even if it's a man or a woman. He's good. And elusive. And, judging from the mission outlines he's been sending to me, he could have made a good tactical controller. By neurotypical standards, that is.

By the way, Duke's flat is a nice place. It has a huge bed in the middle of the biggest room. Not suggestive at all. But it also has a table, and that's where we sit, analyzing the events of the world.

The virus is spreading fast. In most countries, measures were taken to slow down the sudden increase in the number of infections. Too late for that, I know. The different governments are doing different things, but none of them is doing what I'd do. Social distancing. Closing down venues. Improvement of the hygienic level. There are useful elements here and there, but not in the most effective combination.

"We don't have much time," I tell Duke. "How are the tests going?"

"Almost finished," he says. "They're running the last phase of the human tests at the moment. My doctor...um... a doctor at the lab said that they'd be finished in a week."

Duke has a very piercing and intelligent look. And while I know that he's not calculating odds in the background, he understands most of the things I tell him. With this performance, he surpasses 95.6% of the world's adult population.

So when he kisses me, between two diagrams, I let him.

It's not a normal kiss, anyway, just a chaste peck on my mouth.

Then we tap our foreheads three times, and we breathe out.