Thanks to social anxiety, it wasn’t like me to be late. Multiple alarms were always set, backups to backups so there would be no chances that I wouldn’t wake up or leave on time. While my progress with meeting new people and putting myself out there deserved applause, some other aspects of said anxiety still needed work.

  So when the first of three “time to leave” alarms finally woke me at seven thirty in the morning, my heart stopped beating for several seconds before the flood of adrenaline kickstarted it into hyperdrive.

  I got ready in record time, throwing on the outfit I’d laid out the night before, shoving the blouse into the pants as I stepped into my shoes, almost tipping over in the process. I skipped most of the jewelry I had picked out, shoving only one pair of earrings through my lobes and calling it good enough. As I stalked to my bedroom door, I took out my braid and shook out the loose waves. I’d do my makeup on the train, mascara and a mauve lip color already in my bag. Up until today, I wore whatever I wanted to work because I changed into the jumpsuit for all the tests. Instead of more of the same, the team for my app was finally ready to start today, and I wanted to make a good impression.

  Out of everyone on the team, I was the least experienced. The vision was mine, but they were going to be the ones to make it happen. I’d be sharing my ideas and making suggestions while everyone else did the heavy lifting. From previous doctors appointments, I learned that if I looked more professional, I tended to be taken more seriously. I hoped the same ridiculous standard would apply today.

  Exiting my room, I nearly ran straight into Leo. He reacted faster than I did, reaching his hands out to simultaneously stop and steady me when I fumbled my bag in surprise.

  “Woah, there.”

  “Sorry,” I apologized. “Woke up late.”

  He frowned. “Everything okay?”

  “I somehow forget to set my alarms.”

  “All thirty-five of them?”

  There was no way I could joke around right now, not when my second alarm to leave had gone off five minutes ago. “Can you please move out of my way so I’m not late today?”

  He stepped aside, and I beelined for the kitchen. I would find whatever was grabbable and—

  “If you’re looking for something to eat, there’s no need,” Leo called out to me. “We’ve catered breakfast today for the first meeting.”

  “Oh, thank fuck,” I muttered with a sigh, my shoulders dropping. Louder, I asked, “Will there be coffee?”

  “Of course. We’re not heathens. Come on, I’ll drive.”

  I gave myself five seconds to think of a good reason to decline. Nothing beat that agreeing would guarantee I made it on time. If I missed the next train, I could either walk the two-ish miles, which would take me about a half hour if I hustled, or would have to wait another seven minutes for the next one.

  I’m moving out soon, I reminded myself. A ten-minute drive won’t kill me.

  “Okay,” I said after the noticeable delay. “Thanks.”

  It was an awkward ride, neither of us saying a word for the first five minutes. I busied myself with my mascara and lip stain, using the latter to add a little color to my cheeks. Leo broke the palpable tension between us first.

  “Why are you avoiding me?”

  My stomach dropped. I didn’t want to deal with this right now.

  “I’m not,” I tried.

  “We both know that’s a lie, Callie.”

  I pursed my lips and stared out the window at the buildings we passed.

  “Is now really the best time—”

  “I can’t seem to find any other time,” he interjected. “I thought…” He clenched his hand on the steering wheel before loosening his grip for the car to make the next turn under his guidance. “I thought you were mad and gave you space. Three weeks of minimal contact with each other outside of work isn’t mad anymore. You’re… polite. This isn’t the Callie that I knew a month ago.”

  I crossed my arms and slumped down in the seat. “I really don’t want to talk about this, Leo.”

  “But we need to,” he insisted. He wasn’t going to drop this. Perfect.

  “Fine,” I snapped, the single-word response enough of a red flag to Leo that he glanced my way. “You want to know why I won’t talk to you? Why I’ve been avoiding you? Because you betrayed me, Leo. You sold me out for something I didn’t even fucking do. They tried to scan my screen, it didn’t work, and you increased your security. Which, really, you probably should have done that earlier with all of the bio-screens out there. It’s shortsighted of you for not anticipating someone would try it. It just had to be me who it happened to. And then, to add insult to injury, you used that to manipulate me into meeting with your father.”

  I took a breath, closing my eyes and counting to five to make sure my emotions didn’t get the best of me. Who knew where I might end up if I accidentally teleported myself—or the car—out of anger.

  “Before you go saying anything about how it was the right move in the end, you should have done it differently. Because how do I know that you won’t try to blackmail me into something else? Whenever I’m around you, I’m looking for the next way you’ll force me to do something I don’t want. And I’m wondering what you’re not telling me. If I’m not given the full picture, I can’t make the right decisions. But you don’t trust me, that’s fine, because now I don’t trust you.”

  The car pulled into the underground lot, and Leo quickly parked and turned off the vehicle. He made no move to get out, and neither did I.

  So quietly I had to strain to hear him, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  I waited for an elaboration, but after another ten seconds of silence I’d had enough. His apology was severely lackluster with no sort of introspection that made me believe he wouldn’t do it again.

  I jumped out of the car and slammed the door behind me. Leo didn’t get the message, because he quickly followed me to the elevator, which took its sweet time getting down to our level. Once inside, Leo opened his mouth, but I silenced him with a hand.

  “Just don’t, Leo. Your apology sucked ass, and I really can’t be thinking about it anymore.”

  He nodded once. “Later?” he suggested.

  “Probably not; I have plans.”

  The doors slid open, and I followed Leo out onto a floor filled with spacious cubicles. As we walked among them, I got a sense of the people who occupied them from their personal touches, or lack thereof. A handful had colorful shades blocking out the harsh overhead lights, the space instead illuminated by soft yellow desk lamps or twinkling lights. Most were still unoccupied, the word day not starting for another ten minutes.

  Leo led me around a final turn, coming face to face with a large conference room with two walls made entirely of windows; one facing the office at our backs, the other facing the city.

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  The two women and one man looked up as we entered, their conversation stopping. The small buffet of bagels, yogurt, fruit, and most importantly coffee near the door caught my attention.

  “Good morning,” Leo greeted them as he went for the food table. He gestured back to me. “This is Callie. Callie, meet Gloria, Kennedy, and Malcolm.”

  Gloria nodded at her name, Kennedy gave me a little wave, and Malcolm ignored me.

  “Nice to meet you all,” I greeted before following Leo to the food. To him, I whispered, “This is a smaller team than I was expecting.”

  “I thought we weren’t talking,” he whispered back. I rolled my eyes and picked up a cinnamon raisin bagel and banana.

  “We are talking,” I countered. “Just not about that other stuff. Not at work.”

  “Sure,” he answered, tone clipped. He turned, his own plate only holding a yogurt and fruit, and sat at the table.

  I balanced my plate in one hand and grabbed coffee in the other before joining the others at the oversized glass conference table. I set everything down before sitting, trying not to touch the table more than necessary. I hadn’t been using my ability much over the weekend, and I’d noticed it became a little more wild when I didn’t let it out to play regularly. Facing another glass table like Leo’s old one that I’d shattered made me antsy, especially when I was already nervous.

  Glancing down as subtly as I could, I checked my bio-screen to see where things were at. It was a part of my morning routine but obviously hadn’t had the time to spare to inspect my stats yet.

  I picked at my banana, breaking off pieces before popping them in my mouth and chewing thoughtfully. How did someone improve Constitution? It wasn’t like I could exactly train my internal organs. Unless… Damn. Probably cardio. Which sucked, because I hated running. Strength was easier for me; lifting weights or doing resistance training was repetitive and boring, but I’d take it over running any day.

  And Intelligence? Forget about it. My ability could train that one.

  While the other four made small talk, I slipped my phone out of my bag and asked the internet other ways to do cardio that were not running, and saved the page for later. It was the lowest priority, but I couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t important.

  After tucking my phone away, I turned to the conversation and immediately felt out of place.

  Malcolm was arguing with Gloria. “I’m telling you, an SQL is going to be the better option here,” he told her.

  Gloria shook her head, her tight coils barely moving. “And I’m telling you that Firebase is better because its flexibility will give us creative freedom elsewhere.”

  “Okay,” Kennedy interjected. “Before we even get to that, we need to decide what backend we’re going with, then we can see what’s most compatible and figure out how to connect them.”

  “Callie,” Leo said, directing their attention to me. I blinked and tried not to look as confused as I felt. “This is your project. Why don’t you start with your vision? The game plan isn’t to make those other decisions yet, but to get the general idea out in the open.”

  Leo stood and walked over to one of the two opaque walls. He hit something on a control panel, making the windows facing the cubicles turn opaque and granting us some privacy. He hit another button, and a matching glass door slid out from the wall. It was… a lot of glass.

  “This isn’t technically under-wraps, but we don’t need to encourage it getting out there yet.” He took his seat at the head of the table and gestured to me. “Why don’t you start us off?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, taking Leo’s lead on this. For now. “With LaShoul’s, attacks can happen without warning; service dogs haven’t even been able to predict them. And for people who are isolated, by choice or not, it can be a death sentence. The app will help connect people with LaShoul’s, and even other illnesses, to a safe community while also being an alert system. If someone has a sudden attack and can’t contact anyone, the app is meant to notice and reach out on their behalf to make sure they get help. It can be based on either, like, a prompt that the user has to select every so many hours or whatever, of it can be based on phone activity, like if someone doesn’t use their phone at all for a few hours. The app could either reach out to family or friends, or maybe contact emergency services, though I’m not sure what legalities there might be there.

  “And for people without a bio-screen, which is most people, there needs to be a symptom log for tracking things. People should be able to add their own symptom if they want to, like, I don’t know, craving salty food or something. Not to mention some kind of forums or community spaces for people to feel seen and share stories and not be so alone. Because having chronic or terminal illnesses is so… isolating. Overall, I guess it’s a medical alert system, online community, and symptom tracker combined.”

  The room was silent for several heartbeats before it suddenly became a living argument. Ideas started flying across the table faster than I could process them, overlapping questions and answers that no four people should be able to follow. I watched in fascination as Gloria began taking notes on her tablet, which then appeared on the wall above the food.

  “Are we looking just to start here, or do we want to make it global?”

  “What type of main interface do we want? Something medical, because of the target audience?”

  “Here, to start. With the ability to expand.”

  I tried to chime in to answer Malcolm’s question. “Not exactly a medical one, that’ll only—”

  “We should have a summary on the home screen, give an overview of everything all at once.”

  “Should the settings and account tabs be top or bottom? Or maybe even a swipe from the side?”

  “How many main categories are we looking at?”

  They were forgetting parts, and I attempted to add, “There needs to be one for the alerts, and—”

  “Main targets are to check stats from some wearable device. We’ll also want to include that section for people to input their own symptoms.”

  “Won’t that defeat the purpose of encouraging them to get a device?”

  I tried again. “This should be accessible to anyone, so both would—”

  Leo interrupted as if I wasn’t there, standing up and walking over to the wall of brainstorming. “We want them to see how useful the app is. Of course, it will be limited to what they input as their own symptoms. It’ll be significantly better if they have a device, and that’s what we want them to realize.”

  The conversation continued, if it could even be called that. It felt more like a free for all, yet decisions were being made, and I could see their vision start to take shape up on the wall.

  Except it wasn’t my vision.

  I tuned out the lively debate as best I could and focused on what was appearing on the wall. The main focus was on wearable tech, like the bio-screens—still in clinical trial and not even available to the public—or others, like watches or rings, that Farley Tech did have available for anyone with enough money.

  That was great and all, and I even saw a little empty section titled Community, but nothing about the alert system.

  Which was important, seeing as it was a driving factor for the app idea in the first place.

  I sat back in my chair and started picking at my bagel, contemplating how to get everyone to focus on more than just the tracker. No one had thought of all the interconnected parts like I had. But I also hadn’t presented the most comprehensive and concise summary of what I wanted, either. Because while symptom logging was important, which they had up there already, there needed to also be daily activity logs: if someone logged shortness of breath without also being able to add running on a treadmill, that data was useless.

  Glancing up again at the brainstorming wall, I decided there was probably no harm in temporarily keeping my mouth shut and letting them do their thing. They were so focused on the symptom log that I doubt they’d give any other part a second thought until it was out of their systems. At least they seemed passionate about making that part good, even if their goal was to make money.

  After finishing my bagel and taking two long sips of coffee, I pulled my tablet out of my bag. I opened my favorite note-taking app and got started making a vision board that would show them all exactly what this app needed to be.