Nadia

The floor is cold under your back, and the ceiling tiles above you are blurred and buzzing. Someone's fingers are pressed against your wrist, steady and counting. "Pulse is fine," Cass says from somewhere to your left, a penlight flicking across your eyes. "Your judgment, we'll discuss once you can stand."

"Don't let her talk you into anything," Odette calls from the bench, where she is standing on a stool to see over the wreckage. "I have already written the first paragraph of the paper, and you're in it. Mostly as a dramatic pause, but still."

Nadia kneels at your side, her silver braid over one shoulder, a scorch mark on her sleeve, and the new definition in her arms hard to miss. "Forty-one seconds you were out. I timed it." She does not look away from your face. "You're going to want to sit up slowly. Or not. Your call. Everybody in this room keeps saying that, so I figure it must matter."

The bench behind them is split down the middle. The formula's flask is a blackened ring on the tile, and the whiteboard in the corner has a new column written across the top in Odette's handwriting. It reads: Who was first?

Two weeks later, the lab has been scrubbed, the bench replaced, and the scoreboard on the whiteboard has grown three columns longer. The fluorescent lights hum over an empty room after hours, and the corrected formula sits on the steel counter in a single labeled flask.

Cass leans against the counter with her arms folded, her lab coat hanging open over the six-pack the formula has sharpened, watching the flask instead of you. "The corrected version is ready for sign-off. I've checked the ratios twice. Nobody else has checked them at all, which is interesting, but that's a separate problem." She taps the flask with one fingernail. "You'll want to be the one who signs it."

Her lab coat strains across her chest, the K-cup the formula has given her pulling the buttons tight, and she catches you looking. "Don't. I've already run the numbers, and I'd rather you think about the numbers." She shrugs, unbothered. "Tissue growth that size shouldn't come from a metabolic compound. So the compound is doing something we didn't model. My working hypothesis is that it could stimulate lactation. I haven't tested it, and not tonight. But you'll notice I didn't rule it out."

Odette is already seated on the lab stool with the notebook open across her knees, pen tapping a rhythm. "She means you'll want to be the one who gets to say it's hers. Which is cute. The paper says Odette Lindqvist, first author, if anyone's asking." She looks up, bright and certain. "Nobody's asking, but I'm practicing."

Nadia has not said anything yet. She stands near the door with her weight shifted onto one leg, and she is looking at the flask the way she looks at a barbell before a heavy lift. When she finally speaks, she is talking to you alone. "I'll take the first test dose. If it works, I want the credit for the number."

Cass snorts without looking up from the flask. "First dose. Sure. The last time Nadia said that, she logged four before the protocol allowed one."

"Three," Nadia says. "And I wrote every one of them down."

"In the margin, next to the word sample," Odette says. "Which is the most honest thing you've ever done. Everyone in this room has noticed how you lick your lips when the flask comes out."

Nadia's jaw tightens, but she does not deny it. "Taste is data. Somebody has to collect it."

Both of the others turn toward her at the same moment, and the whiteboard's scoreboard is suddenly the loudest thing in the room.

It is almost midnight, and the institute's east wing has gone quiet. Odette is alone in the lab with you, going over the grant budget at the end of the long bench. She has pushed her sleeves up, kicked her shoes under the stool, and her thighs strain against a pair of track pants. The whiteboard scoreboard still hangs in the corner, its columns smudged from weeks of erasing and rewriting.

"You've been staring at that number for a full minute," Odette says without looking up. "It's a budget, not a love letter. Though I suppose you could read it as one if you were desperate." She sets her pen down and turns on the stool to face you, one knee bent between you, close enough that you can smell her shampoo over the solvent. "Shall I walk you through the line items, or do you want to tell me what's actually bothering you?"

The lab door opens behind you with a hard click. Nadia's footsteps cross the tile fast and sure, and Cass follows at a slower pace, humming something that is not quite a tune. Odette's eyes flick past your shoulder and narrow.

"Oh, good," Odette says, her voice going bright and dangerous. "Company. Now we can start keeping score properly."

Nadia stops close to the bench, her bag still on one shoulder. Cass leans against the wall, pulls her glasses down, and smiles at Odette like they have an old argument waiting.

Three weeks after the corrected formula was signed off, the east wing is dark except for the lab. The air smells of sterilizer and something sweeter underneath. Three breast pumps hum on the steel counter, each hooked to a different woman, and the clear collection bottles are already filling.

Cass sits on the counter with her lab coat hanging open, her K-cup pump sealed snug as she watches the gauge. "Hypothesis confirmed. I wrote it up before I touched a pump, so nobody gets to say I didn't predict it." She taps the bottle with a pen cap. "The sensitivity is the part I didn't model. Every cycle goes straight down my spine. I've stopped pretending I'm taking notes during it."

Nadia is on the bench with her shirt pushed up and her arms braced, the new definition in her biceps flexing as she adjusts her suction without looking. "Forty-one minutes, six ounces, and the left side leaks if anyone breathes near it. I logged it." Her voice is low and flat, like she's reading a split time. "Being touched there is worse than the pump. Worse in a good way. Odette has been running tests all week, if you want the data."

"A rigorous and deeply unprofessional study," Odette says from the stool, her thighs stretched out under the track pants, one hand cupped beneath her breast. "Fingers, mouth, the back of a pen. Nadia flinches at the pen. Cass bites her lip and pretends she isn't listening." She tilts her bottle toward you. "And before you ask, yes, Cass has been letting Nadia use her mouth, and I have been very interested in the results."

"Taste is data," Nadia says, without a trace of apology.

The three of them turn toward you at once, each holding a full bottle. On the whiteboard, a new column has been added in Odette's loopy handwriting: Lactation (pending your ruling).

The east wing is dark again, but the lab lights are on and the blinds are down. Three steel stools have been pulled into a loose triangle near the bench, and the whiteboard has a fresh line across the top in Odette's handwriting: Trial 1, libido, 11:40 p.m.

Nadia is first, sitting with her legs spread on the stool and one hand inside the waistband of her track pants, her other arm braced across her knee, the new definition in her biceps standing out. "Baseline is high. Pulse one-forty sitting still. That's not a metric, that's a problem." Her breath catches, and she keeps her voice level anyway. "I keep losing count. I'm not supposed to lose count."

Odette has one leg hooked over the edge of the lab bench, her shirt pushed up, one hand moving slowly as she tips her head back. "I'm narrating for the notebook, so forgive the prose. My skin feels like it's been rubbed with static, every breath goes straight down my thighs, and these track pants are a personal crime." She groans, low and theatrical. "Nadia, stop grunting. It's competing with my monologue."

Cass sits on the counter with her lab coat hanging open over the six-pack and her K-cup rising with each breath, two fingers working beneath the hem of her pants. Her voice stays dry, but it has thinned out. "Sensitivity is up everywhere. Nipples, clit, the back of my neck. That's not a normal response, and I'm writing it down anyway." She swallows. "The timing is the problem. Every time I get close, I start thinking about who should be in this room, and the numbers go sideways."

They talk over each other, comparing notes, and the conclusion arrives in pieces. Nadia: "Fingers are data. They're not enough. I'm soaked and still empty, and my wrist is cramping." Odette: "Agreed, and I'm calling it. The formula wants pressure. Something thick and heavy that doesn't fold when I push back. A big, hard cock that makes me lose my place in a sentence." Cass, flatly: "Conclusion: we need a big, strong cock. Hypothesis confirmed. I'm not going to pretend otherwise."

Nadia laughs once, breathless. "Forty-one reps and I still can't hold a thought. Big, strong, hard. Write it down."

"Already did," Odette says. "Under the heading Requirements."

Then the room goes quiet, their hands slowing. The lab door clicks open. Three heads turn toward it at the same moment, and the scoreboard's newest column waits for a name.

The east wing is nearly empty, and the lab lights are the only ones still on. The whiteboard has been wiped and redrawn as a grid: three rows, one per assistant, with time slots running down the side. Odette has titled it Schedule (rotation, breaks, mandatory), and almost every slot already has a name and a tally mark beside it.

Nadia sits on the steel counter in an open lab coat that hangs off her shoulders, nothing underneath. Her biceps stand out as she holds a beaker up to the light. "Batch is ready. I'm drinking the first measure myself, before anyone argues about who gets it." She tips the glass back, swallows, and runs her tongue over her lip. "Taste is still data. Odette, log it."

"Logged, with a note," Odette says from the stool across the room. Her coat hangs open to the waist, and a silicone toy sits snugly inside her, its small remote in the pocket of track pants she has not bothered to pull on. The vibration is low enough that she can talk over it. "Ninety minutes between rounds, or the readings go sideways. That's a lie, and I'm choosing to believe it."

Cass sits cross-legged on the bench, her coat open over her K-cup and the six-pack the formula has carved, a slim toy working inside her with a quiet hum she does not bother to hide. She holds a glass of cloudy liquid and makes no pretense about what it is. "Taste is not the point. Efficiency is. Nadia is two over quota, Odette is under, and I'd like that corrected before anyone's pride gets involved." She turns the glass toward you. "It's your supply, so you decide the order. I would prefer not to go last, but I won't beg."

Odette taps the whiteboard with her pen. "Every slot on this grid is a break to fuck the professor. Pick one, and the other two get to hate you on schedule."

The three of them look at you at once, each waiting for the next slot to be called.