Labwork

You decide to head into the lab to get some work done. You’re excited to start on the tasks you’ve been assigned this week and to chat up the fine ladies who work with you. Michelle’s a fine looking gal, and as for Professor Styles, what more needs to be said?

That’s why you’re disappointed to walk into the lab space and find it completely empty, the lights off. Even the grad students that are usually around have disappeared. Those poor souls seem to live in this place. Where has everyone gone?

You shrug and turn on the lights, sitting at a workstation. You scroll through the assignment and look through the code that Michelle and company have been working on. It’s quite a bit, so you hunker down and start to read slowly, trying to understand what’s going on. It’s tough going. The code’s abstract enough that you feel yourself getting lost in the theory. There must be a better way to go about this. You turn to the output of the code. The figures produced are still preliminary, but helpful to match to the code as you try to wrap your head around this complicated mess of things. Eventually, after messing around for a bit, you make sense of what you’ve missed out on, and begin working on the task that you’ve been assigned.

With nobody else around, you plug in your earbuds and turn up a setlist from a DJ who’s great at spotlighting new artists. Now that music’s pounding in your ears, you get right into the zone, beginning to spit out lines of code like it’s nobody’s business. Your focus narrows down to the screen of your computer, the theory and equations in your head condensing into something concrete. The model that you’re trying to implement has a dozen moving parts to it, and it’s difficult to keep track of everything at once, so all of your concentration is sucked into making sure that every little thing is done correctly. Even a small bug could cause cascading errors that throw off the results of the entire thing. You run a partial simulation, crossing your fingers as your machine crunches the computation. You read the output off your screen and pump your fist. Success! Sweet, sweet success!

“Having a good time?” you hear a voice cutting through the music blasting in your ears.

You almost jump out of your seat, scrambling to take your earbuds out and pause your music.

“Oh, hi Professor, didn’t expect to see you here, and… and hi Michelle too,” you say, waving to them, feeling like you’ve been caught doing something wrong, but clearly, you’re guilty of nothing.

The ladies are looking good today. Michelle’s wearing a dark blouse with a blazer on top, the buttons undone, while your prof’s got a gray turtleneck and jacket that hugs her figure tightly, the slacks showing off her nice lil’ ass. Both of them have bemused expressions on their faces as they regard you.

“Hey Alex,” Professor Styles replies, the barest hint of a giggle under her voice. “Michelle and I were getting coffee and discussing how the project’s been going. {if StyleLabCount > 0} We’re quite pleased with the progress you’ve been making. {else} It’s going well, but we’d really like to see more of you around the lab. {endif} At any rate, good to see you so focused just now!”

“Thanks,” you say, as Michelle takes her customary seat next to you.

“Thanks for the coffee,” Michelle says, waving to your professor as she returns to her office.

“Of course!” Professor Styles replies. “I just need to get a thing or two done, and then I need to head out.”

As you turn back to your computer, you ponder in your head. Is there something that you wanted to bring up with the professor before she leaves? Or do you want to focus your attention on Michelle?

Michelle +2
Styles +2