Biology Experiments

“Yeah, sorry if it seemed I wasn't properly paying attention in class. I was trying to find a way to word this to you but I thought it best to just… well ask.” you say with a nervous grin “ I was hoping you could help with a project I’ve been working on”

“Oh well, depending on what it is, I’ll be happy to help as long as you promise to pay more attention in my class next time” she jokingly replied.

You both moved from the door and moved towards her desk where you both sat down before spending the next few minutes going through your ‘project’. You knew Rebecca had no class after this so it gave you a little bit more time before you yourself had to rush off.

“So if I’ve got this right, you’re hoping to start a research paper on how people's heart rate change when affected by different emotions?” she asked.

“That's pretty much the gist of it” you replied “It's early going for now but I wanted to have something that made me stand out if I ever have to do college interviews.” you lied.

Although this was a good idea to have something special to make you different from the other applicants, you decided that this would end up being too simple if the KDK was fake and too intimate if it was real. For the time being you just went over what Rebecca’s role would be for now.

“Considering I'm still in the planning stages at the moment, I wanted to get a few control tests just to get a look at the ranges of people's pulses. For now, I’ve only got some rough readings from my family but I was planning to get a few others as well,” you explained, Rebecca seemed to be nodding along so you carried on.

“So for now I was hoping to just quickly measure your pulse for about 30 seconds. I might need to have a few more tests from you but I'm kinda cutting it close with next period” you grinned.

After a bit of back and forth, you finally managed to convince her to help.

“Alright fine, but you better update me with your progress. I normally have students asking for less work so it's actually a nice surprise to see someone doing extra for a change” she laughed.

With both of you still sitting down. You reached into your bag and took out a notepad and your phone. Considering you hadn't had much time to plan for this, you didn’t have any proper equipment so you just opened your phone's default timer app and set it to 30 seconds. The one thing you had prepared was changing the KDK options, now that you had access to make some changes, you had decreased the intensity of the shock from 5 to 1.

“You ready?” you asked, just in case she had any last-minute grievances.

“Yep, start whenever you want” she replied while holding out her arm for you to hold her wrist.

You gently held her wrist and how it felt so much more delicate than you would have imagined. Taking a couple of seconds to find her pulse, you finally started the countdown and measured her heart rate. The shock from the registration was hardly noticeable but the revelation that the KDK had succeeded and the chime it produced, nearly broke your concentration. You had plenty of time later to contemplate what this meant so for now you continued to hold her wrist until the 30 seconds were up.

Although the silence could be seen as awkward from an outside view, Rebecca held back filling it to avoid breaking your concentration, and decided to just relax and enjoy a rare moment of peace that was normally hard to come by.

Your alarm broke the silence and you placed her arm smoothly onto the table before quickly turning off the alarm and jotting down the results you had found.

“So I counted about 27 so that would be a resting heart rate of 54bpm” you explained as you carried on writing notes.

“I know it's not the best test considering its short notice but that's lower than I was expecting. From what I’ve heard the range is usually 60 to 100 for the average person but it tends to get lower the more athletic you are.”

“Oh you were expecting me to be more unhealthy were you?” she said with a small smirk raising the corner of her lips.

“No no no. It's just that... '' you rushed while trying to backtrack.

“Relax, I'm just teasing you” she quickly interjected. “I’ll fill you in when we have more time but for now it can wait”

She was right, looking at your phone quickly to check the time showed that you only had a couple of minutes left before your next lesson. You shoved your notebook into your bag and rushed out the door.

“Thanks again! “You quickly added.

“No...problem” Rebecca replied, barely within earshot.