GeneSix by Brad Dennison

night before, but enough to make the hangover fade away. Within seconds it was gone.
    He had to confess, though only to himself, he had allowed a little powering-up the night before, also, which kept the both of them busy well into the early morning hours and left Mandy falling asleep from exhaustion. Not that he heard any complaints, though.
    “So, did you enjoy your evening?” he asked.
    She gave him a grin. “You know what they say – once you go superhero, you never go back.”
    Despite himself, he found he had to return the grin. “I suppose the same could be said about investigative reporters.”
    He got up, pulled on his  jeans, and walked over to the table. He planted a nibbling kiss on the side of her neck, which she responded to by stretching her neck to one side to give him more to work with.
    “Hey,” she said. “I’ve gotta finish this editorial. Then we can play.”
    “Actually, I’ve gotta call the lab, anyway. Make sure Scott got home okay.”
    “The lab? Doesn’t Egg-head Boy have an apartment?”
    “Technically. Or at least, the government pays for one, but he usually sleeps on a cot in the lab.”
    As he fished his cell phone from his jeans, his gaze fell on the laptop’s monitor. Black text filled it, double spaced. He said, “Do you ever have the fear you’ll mess up your pen names, and send the wrong one to the wrong paper?”
    She raised her brows. “Believe me, that’s something I double check all the time.”
    Jake dialed the number, and the phone was answered by April, the lab assistant. It was Sunday, but Jake was not surprised to hear her answer. For Scott, Saturday was just another day at the office. April’s voice was bright and chirpy. She was student assisting Scott in some of the experiments he was conducting. Of course, that really meant she washed a lot of test tubes, swept floors and answered phones.
    “Doctor Tempest’s office,” she said.
    “April, this is Jake. Did Doctor Tempest get home safely last night?”
    “Oh, yes. He’s right here, involved in some work.”
    Jake could hear him in the background. “April, give me the phone.”
    Then, “Jake. Where are you?”
    “Well, you remember Mandy, who I left the bar with?”
    He could hear Scott’s smile in the way he formed his words. “You old dog.”
    “I’m surprised you’re even out of bed, considering how much you were drinking last night.”
    “Yeah, I put down a few. My head was pounding when I  woke up, but I activated a pain-nullifier field so I could get some work done. I’ve been working on computations all day.”
    “Man, you sure know how to have fun.”
    “Hey, take your time getting home. I’m going to be right here all day. Probably all night. This is going to be a long project. I can’t talk about it over the phone, of course.”
    “Well, you shouldn’t have mentioned the pain-nullifier field, either.” This was one device the government wanted kept classified at the highest level. Its very existence could cause the pharmaceutical industry hundreds of millions, and possibly a lot of jobs.
    “Yeah, but what the frig, you know?”
    It was sometimes hard to believe Scott’s intelligence level was as high was it was.
    “Well, I’ll be back in a while. Catch you later. Stay out of trouble.”
    Jake snapped his phone shut, and stuffed it back into his jeans. “I’m going to grab a shower, if you don’t mind.”
    She clicked the save icon, closed the laptop, and jumped up from her chair. “I think I’ll join you.”
     
    The shower led to a third bottle of wine she had in her fridge, and they spent the afternoon in bed. She threw his clothes in with hers in the community laundry room in the basement, and they made love for the length of the wash cycle, and then after a quick run to the basement in her robe, she returned and let the robe drop to the floor and they went one more time for the length of the dry cycle.
    Afterward, it was a trip to the corner grocery store for a