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  He'd texted her the next day, surprised at how nervous he felt trying to compose a witty, casual message. When she responded, they continued texting each other until he finally asked her out three days later.

  Things between them escalated rapidly after that. and it was a major factor in helping him regain his focus on work.

  If he asks her to move in, and she says yes, could it work with Snoots? She's not that into dogs. He drops this train of thought and focuses on the pleasant evening light, the familiar leafy neighborhood.

  Chapter Three

  Rob Valentine watches the cream-colored Mini Cooper come to a stop in front of Cory's house. He also watches its driver, a young woman with shoulder-length dark hair and glasses, get out of the car. She's slender in a black sweater and narrow black pants and she's carrying a shiny, bottle-shaped bag in one hand.

  As she walks up the driveway, Rob quickly descends the outside stairway of his apartment over Cory's small garage. His jaunty gait projects the easy grace of a well-built twenty-five-year-old athlete.

  "Looking for Cory?" he asks, giving her a friendly smile.

  She notices him now and the blue, gift-wrapped box he's carrying. "I'm Dawn. Cory and I were housemates in grad school."

  "I figured that was you."

  When she looks surprised he adds, "Don't worry, he's only told me good things."

  "I have to pay him hush money for that."

  He laughs. "I'm Rob. I moved in last month."

  Her intelligent blue eyes appraise him from behind her dark-framed glasses. He's dressed in jeans and a navy polo shirt, tall, clean-shaven, and his dark hair is neat, trimmed short. Definitely good-looking.

  "You're a biochemist, right?" he asks, wanting to initiate more conversation, finding her confidence, and her blue eyes, interesting.

  "Well, I fool around with molecules."

  "Making drugs, pharmaceuticals?"

  "That's the idea." She can't resist a wicked smile. "But, not in a basement or a garage."

  "Some of the guys in our house wished you had, though." Cory grins at her as he glides up on his bicycle.

  She turns toward him and laughs. "Hey, happy birthday!"

  Snoots bounds up to Rob and dances around, tail wagging, sniffing the package that Rob is holding. Rob ruffles the dog's fur behind his ears. "Hey boy!"

  Dawn crouches and Snoots rushes forward and licks her on the face. "Good boy!"

  Cory smiles at his dog. "He is that. I think Jo our office manager wants to kidnap him. So, you two have introduced yourselves?"

  Dawn nods. "Rob from upstairs."

  "He's the head mechanic at J. Hamilton Motorworks. You know, where the local billionaires take their Bugattis." Cory smiles knowingly. "He's also a killer pool player."

  "Did Cory make that a prerequisite for renting the apartment? So many nights a week of pool?"

  Rob laughs good-naturedly. "I haven't played much since college. Until now."

  Dawn continues with her mock sarcasm. "Just don't play poker with him. He knows way too many card tricks."

  "Naw, you just didn't like playing with Mike and Ben."

  She rolls her eyes, recalling their former housemates. "The designer drug duo? I think you and I were the only marginally sane people in that place. Actually, maybe only you." She offers Cory the shiny bottle bag. "The guy at Beltramo's said you'd like this."

  Cory lifts the bottle from the bag for a look. "Oh yeah! A late harvest zinfandel."

  She sighs. "I guess I can't boss you around now that we're the same age."

  As Cory opens the front door of his house, his iPhone chirps an upbeat tone. He pulls it out and answers. "Hey. Everyone just got here, what?"

  Dawn looks at him, registering his expression. He nods, his happy face gone. "So come over later. No, it's okay."

  He sticks the phone back in his pocket. "Becca can't make dinner. Work."

  "That stinks." Dawn doesn't conceal her annoyance, but immediately regrets it when she sees how crestfallen he has suddenly become.

  Rob clears his throat and hands Cory the blue box. "Happy birthday, man."

  Cory's Kitchen. Dawn swings back and forth slowly on a tall stool at the kitchen counter and watches Cory press coarsely-ground pepper into steaks. She selected music from his techno-electronic playlist and VNV Nation is playing on the stereo at the moment. It's created an upbeat atmosphere and his happy mood has returned and she's glad.

  "Going for a hunk of cow tonight, huh?" she smiles, swirling her glass of wine.

  "Yeah. I thought about making Vietnamese, but somehow French bistro sounded good."

  Dawn has kicked off her shoes and, with a bare foot, is petting Snoots, who is stretched out on the floor next to her stool. She takes a sip of her wine, swinging and petting. "So, we're starting preclinicals on Priapase. By the way, this is really good."

  Cory looks up from his steaks, interested. "That's your molecule, the one you're patenting?"

  She nods.

  Rob, leaning against the counter with a beer in his hand, looks at her with a faint smile on his lips. "So, what does that do? Priapase? Help guys who took too much Viagra?"

  Cory laughs out loud and Dawn, caught off guard for only nanoseconds, delivers her unabashed response. "Nope, it will definitely not alleviate priapism. Priapase is a small molecule, an inhibitor, to be more precise."

  She turns toward Rob as she continues to stroke Snoots with her foot. "It disrupts signals in the metabolic pathway of glycogen synthase kinase-three beta, a regulator of certain processes in pancreatic cancer cells. I'm hoping that it will also inhibit GSK-3 beta in real patients."

  She examines her wine glass. "So what is this, Cory?"

  "A cult syrah from Dry Creek. 2004."

  Rob puts down his beer, picks up the bottle of wine and reads aloud from the label. "Estate bottled, single vineyard from the Precise Winery. Made from small molecule grapes."

  Dawn observes that his hands are spotless. They are strong, shapely hands with neatly groomed fingernails. Cory said he is a mechanic. She wouldn't have guessed it. The only auto mechanics she's ever dealt with have had callused, oil-stained fingers and dirty nails

  "Let me see that." She eyes Rob playfully as she takes the bottle from him and inspects the label. "Precipice Winery."

  Rob shrugs and picks up his beer. Dawn fills an empty wine glass on the counter with the syrah and offers it to him. "Here. You ought to experience this astounding concoction of polyphenolic compounds for yourself."

  He sets the beer down and tries the wine. He arches a brow at her to indicate his approval. It is pretty good, judging from his limited exposure to wine. He sets the wine glass back down next to the box he brought for Cory, which is now unwrapped with its contents on display: two small, wheeled robots with remote controls and white plastic balls that can be launched as weapons. Rob picks up one of the robots and examines it, turning it over in his hands.

  Cory pulls a hot tray of gougères out of the oven and sets it on the counter. The scent of the parmesan cheese in these savory French pastry puffs wafts through the kitchen. Snoots gets up and looks hopefully at Dawn.

  Rob shakes his head at the dog. "I wouldn't beg from her, boy. She might splice some mean old cat genes into you."

  Dawn laughs. "Now that's a proposal I should write up and submit to Greg. Definitely worth a patent."

  "Yeah, but imagine if PETA found out," Cory warns in mock seriousness.

  Dawn mimes cutting her own throat. Snoots presses his head against her leg, staring into her eyes. She selects a gougère from the tray, gives the dog a piece and eats the rest. "God, I'd forgotten what a great cook you are!"

  The dog pursues his begging strategy and gets a whole gougère from her. Cory frowns. "Dawn, Snootsy's dinner is in his bowl. I made those for you guys."

  She hangs her head guiltily. "Sorry. But, can you imagine what these must smell like to him? With that nose?"

  Rob shifts his weight against the counter, appraisin
g the dog. "Snoots likes to stick his nose up the backside of that white cat across the street. I've seen him do it."

  Dawn gets off her stool and squats down to pet Snoots. She's aware that Rob is watching her. "Dogs' noses are wet, right? Molecules in the air get captured, dissolved, for further analysis."

  She has Rob's full attention as she continues. "Those molecules contact membranes inside his nose. A beautiful, long snout with about a hundred and seventy square centimeters of neural epithelium, in contrast to our puny little noses with a mere five square centimeters. Snootsy could have as many as two billion olfactory receptors, whereas my nose has maybe twelve million. And the nerve impulses that are generated by scents travel to his brain's smell center which is forty times larger than ours." She looks up at Rob. "He can probably distinguish more than half a million different smells. We humans? Maybe four thousand."

  Snoots touches his nose to her face as she continues. "Snootsy also has a vomeronasal organ on the roof of his mouth, so he can actually taste the smells."

  "So he knows which females are in heat?" Rob suggests.

  She nods. "Or, maybe, which suitcase has the bomb." She stands up again and sits back on her stool, looking earnestly at Rob. "Dogs are being trained to detect early-stage lung cancer. By the scent of the patient's breath."

  Rob offers his wine glass to Snoots. "Wonder what he thinks of this stuff." The dog sniffs it tentatively, but remains focused on the gougères.

  Dawn muses over Snoots' reaction. "That glass is loaded with data for him. Who's that famous wine critic, Cory?"

  "Leonard Pillar."

  "Yeah. Wonder what he'd give to have Snootsy's nose."

  Rob looks at her. "You think Snoots could really identify wines?"

  "In theory, I have no doubt. Why he'd want to is another question."

  Rob smiles at her. "To sniff where no dog has sniffed before."

  Cory whistles the Star Trek theme under his breath as he refills Dawn's glass.

  "Thanks." She takes a sip of the syrah, savoring it, staring into space. "God, I need a vacation."

  Cory begins slicing an avocado on top of tomatoes and red romaine in a salad bowl. He asks her, "Still seeing what's-his-name in L.A.? The neuropathologist?"

  She shakes her head dismissively.

  Rob glances at her, then picks up the remote control for the robot he inspected earlier. He activates the robot and it begins to move along the counter.

  Dawn watches Cory skillfully beat vinaigrette over the salad. She hands him a pair of wooden salad forks and elaborates. "He went to med school with my father and now they're both at UCLA. It could be awkward to run into daddy there with, Donald. I'm pretty sure he's met Donald's wife." Her smile is a little jaded, a little cynical.

  Cory tosses the salad in silence and Dawn decides to shift topics. "I can't believe you made your own cake. I would have picked one up at Draeger's for you."

  He smiles, pleased. "I happen to think this bittersweet dark chocolate cake is better than any I've had from a bakery. But thanks."

  "I thought John and Pradip were coming," Dawn says, as she takes another gougère.

  "John was, but Faye's parents are in town just tonight and they wanted to do dinner in the city at some place where the menus are only in Cantonese."

  Cory lights a burner on the stove and puts a large skillet on it. "And Pradip has his monthly programming reenactment tournament."

  "Programming reenactment tournament?" Rob asks, baffled.

  Cory laughs. "Deep geek shit. Actually started by a friend of mine at Stanford. He writes software simulations on a Unix server to emulate earlier computers, say from nineteen seventy-five. Hackers agree to write code to tackle some current problem, usually in AI, using only the computing power and storage capacity of the earlier technology. There's a time limit, too, I think it's six hours, and whoever writes the best program, wins. It's challenging, and, given the caliber of hackers who compete, the bragging rights of the winner are considerable."

  Rob laughs. "Doesn't sound like the ideal place to meet women on a Friday night."

  "You never know. They might be designing their virtual reality dream girls," Dawn adds a little contemptuously.

  Cory throws the steaks into the hot skillet. He opens a half-filled bottle of brandy. "Anyway, I'll see John and Pradip tomorrow. Richard invited everyone to go for a sail on his boat. Becca's coming, too."

  "What kind of boat?" Rob's interest is piqued.

  "A sailboat. French. Fifty-four feet I think he said."

  Rob whistles approvingly. "Nice. Probably a customized Beneteau. Or even an Amel."

  Dawn looks at him with curiosity. "You know about boats?"

  "I raced Lasers in college. For fun."

  "You told me you made nationals," Cory says with emphasis.

  Dawn raises her glass to Rob, who concentrates on his robot more intently. "I'm just a gearhead who messes around with rich guys' hot rods."

  Rob picks up the control for the second robot and puts it in Dawn's hand. She tries the buttons and her robot stutters forward. She looks at Cory. "So how are things at work?"

  "Frustrating." He sighs. "The technology is completely over Trish's head. She won't be able to pitch it convincingly. I don't know why Richard hired her."

  "Who's Trish?" Rob asks.

  "Cory's passive-aggressive marketing diva from Harvard business school," Dawn explains, as she gets her robot to move faster along the counter.

  Cory turns his full attention to his steaks and pours brandy into the pan. He tips the pan away from himself, slightly toward the gas flame, and the brandy ignites dramatically.

  Dawn has become engrossed with her robot which is now approaching Rob's on the kitchen counter. Hers lurches forward abruptly and the two robots collide head-on. Rob's backs up smoothly and circles around to re-engage.

  Cory removes the flambeed steaks onto a platter. He looks at his friends. "Guys, let's eat!"

  Rob launches one of the white plastic balls at Dawn's robot, spinning her little machine sideways. She reaches over and picks up his robot, laying it on its side.

  He is indignant. "Hey, that's not fair!"

  She taunts him with a jousting smile. "Everything is fair in...war."

  Their eyes meet for a moment. The openness in his expression makes her pulse quicken. She looks away quickly and picks up her wine glass and follows Cory to the dining table.

  Chapter Four

  Two hours later the robots are engaged in earnest combat on Cory's dining room table. The table is actually a pool table bought on the cheap from an East Palo Alto bar that went out of business. Cory built a plywood cover for it which fits protectively over the felt surface when the table is used to eat on. At the moment, the plywood is also covered in a pale blue tablecloth of Italian linen that Becca contributed from a recent excursion to an upscale housewares store in the Stanford Shopping Center.

  The chocolate cake, half-eaten, is on the table, along with two half-consumed bottles of wine. One of them is the late harvest zinfandel that was Dawn's birthday gift. Pieces of flatware and dessert plates are arranged across the middle of the table in a slalom-style obstacle course for the robots.

  Dawn and Cory are teamed up on one robot against Rob. Rob's moves skillfully around a fork to block the advance of theirs. Dawn is operating the remote control and wheels her robot to the left of Rob's and immediately charges straight into the chocolate cake. The three friends shout in amused dismay.

  "Whoa! Trying to pull off the old Trojan Cake trick?" Rob accuses them, smiling.

  Cory groans, "It took me three hours last night to make it."

  "Sorry." Dawn fiddles with her remote, trying to get the robot moving again.

  Cory touches her hand, "Hit reverse. No! Yeah -- that button!"

  The robot begins to back away, but its wheels have cake stuck to them and it stops moving. Rob picks it up and deftly clears the wheels of gooey crumbs. He orients it away from the cake, arching a brow at Da
wn. "What do I get for letting the prisoner go?"

  Snoots suddenly emits a series of barks as the front door swings open; Becca has finally arrived. She's wearing a short leather jacket over a pale blue halter top, and toothpick jeans that accentuate her long legs. The twenty-two-year-old exudes grace and confidence as she walks toward the table, giving the robots a slightly disgusted look. "Hi guys."

  "Want some wine?" Cory asks her, his eyes warm and welcoming.

  "Okay."

  He refills his own glass with some of the late harvest zinfandel and hands it to her. She sits down next to him and samples the wine. She pushes her hair back from her face and her perfume releases a hint of violets into the air. Her oval face is classically beautiful, Boticelli-like, framed by the cascading light brown hair that falls to her hips. Snoots extends his nose toward her, but she doesn't pet him.

  Rob and Dawn put down their robot controls. Dawn asks, a little flatly. "Working late?"

  "I joined a new company today."

  Cory looks at her, startled. "Wow. Where?"

  "iPhlox. In Sunnyvale." Becca looks into his eyes, sipping her wine indifferently. "It's a six-person startup and I'm basically the public relations department." She shrugs a shoulder. "I was feeling boxed in at Loud Planet. The timing is really good for me."

  Dawn's eyes narrow slightly. "iPhlox? God, who came up with that name. Sounds like some kind of pathogen."

  Rob looks down at the table to conceal his broad smile.

  Becca releases a small breath of disbelief. "They build social groups in real time. People can create spontaneous, collaborative blogs, or set up virtual bazaars to sell stuff. Like on their smart phones."

  She has been a quick study in absorbing her new company's mantra. Her brown eyes wide, she explains the iPhlox mission. "Imagine like a global village yard sale. Or block party. Then everyone just disbands. It's totally fluid."

  "Oh, I get it. Like flocks of birds. Only on the Internet." Dawn all but rolls her eyes.

  Becca directs a slightly venomous smile at her. "Derek Hammond, the founder, sold a startup in social media last year for twenty-eight million. He's twenty six." She sips her wine defiantly now, she has more. "They want me to travel. China, Singapore, India, Czech Republic, London. Buenos Aires maybe."