In the elevator up he’s tapping his foot nervously, one hand pulling down his shirtsleeve to cover the writing on his forearm. But Kierk ends up wandering lost through multiple intersections of corridors. The room numbers aren’t in the right order, and he grows more and more nervous until he catches a group of people entering a glass-walled room.

Kierk is mildly late to the orientation. There is a man standing behind a small podium preparing to speak to an almost full room. Separated at the front sit a handful of people whom Kierk assumes are the other seven Crick Scholars. He grabs a seat among them as his eyes slide over, drawn to one of them, a young woman who turns in her chair to look at him, who is brushing the strands of blonde hair from her face, who has strong, flashing teeth when she smiles briefly at Kierk, like a ping of sound in the middle of a quick searching glance of curiosity that flits away on contact—all this in an instant before she turns back away and he sits, adjusting, nearly knocked into his seat. A young Indian man, tall and steady of movement, bends his mane of black hair slightly in greeting to Kierk.

The man behind the podium begins to speak. Kierk recognizes the voice from over the phone.