if i think i can figure things out, is that curiosity or arrogance?

"Dude, Aleida, it's only twenty microliters of the ethidium bromide for this variant on the gels," Topher called as he walked briskly through his lab, pausing only to flick the lab assistant in the arm. "Are you trying to sabotage my whole life and authorship and future livelihood? You're better than that."

"Sorry, Topher," she squeaked, but Topher was already halfway across the room on the way to the food and beverage fridge, which was stocked with dubious bagged sandwiches and 10-liter bottles of Mountain Dew Code Red. He seized one of the bottles and tossed the cap at the nearest trash can (it landed in the sink), fully intending to finish the bottle before neeeding to re-refrigerate became an issue.

"Brandon, are you working next Thursday?" he called to another asisstant after his first long swig from the bottle, which he was holding with one hand while he scanned his calendar in his phone with the other. "There's a prospie walkthrough at three and I gotta get out of here for an interview downtown by then. You're in charge. Just say you're the undergrad lab founder/director and do your best smartass-motherfucker-with-a-nasal-condition impression, no one's gonna care. Wear my lab coat, the monogrammed one you got dry-cleaned for me last month. My resume's in the Google Drive if you wanna brush up. Everyone else play along." He gave some long, meaningful looks to students who had proven ill-suited for the task of lying in the past.

"Where's your interview?" piped up one of the girls, perched on a stool at a microscope station. Topher wasn't sure of her name. Mia? Tasha? It could be almost anything.

Topher scrunched up his face as if in thought. "You know, not sure," he answered. "Didn't put the full info in my phone. I'll figure it out before I get there, probably."

There were snickers from the work-studies. Topher so enjoyed a captive audience. Although judging by the skeptical looks on some of the students' faces, not all of them believed him; he was pretty sure at least a few thought he was acting casual to seem cool and arrogant. While they weren't wrong, he actually didn't know who he was interviewing with today; all he had been told was that the organization had serious security and no public face and he'd know in due time. It sounded a lot like a sketchy Craigslist connection, but Topher was too curious (and desperate for a fantastically cool job) to pass up the interview. Assuming that it was an interview and not a hit on his life -- anything was possible when you were a senior on the valedictorian track at Stanford and already had most of the credits for a Master's. (Not to brag. But then, Topher loved to brag.)

"Anything I need to know right now? No-- okay, I'm peacing out," he said, tossing back the last of the Mountain Dew and then aiming the bottle at the nearest trash can. He missed, but didn't pick it up. "Text me if you need me. And don't play this Spotify playlist again. It's depressing in here."

[[nfb! open for calls and stuff, sure.]]

There was one thing that no one had warned Topher about before he left for his college interview on the mainland, and that was the matter of what to wear. So out of a desire to avoid being judged childish by the alumni interviewer, he had gone all out and put on a suit. After lint-rolling away the glitter still lingering on the shoulders from the last school dance, of course.

Other than the awkward moment when the interviewer asked why he was so dressed up ("Uh... church," Topher replied after a long enough pause to make the lie obvious), the interview had gone well, he thought. Sure, he could have made the answer to the question about his biggest weakness sound less obviously rehearsed, but he got in the right amount of self-promoting and even got a grin or two out of the interviewer when he answered a question about his inspirations with a Space Battles quote.

So he was feeling pretty good about it when he got back to his dorm room and tossed his suit jacket to the floor before flopping on his bed. Now there were only two more weeks to go before he found out Stanford's decision, and then he could stop feeling all twitchy and nervous and start feeling twitchy and excited instead.

[[door and post open!]]