Five: Fanboying

His mother had taken one look at the portal's control panel and had decided that it couldn't be fixed.

“Ma, I've got to try. I have to present it tomorrow and hopefully not put a group of people in mortal danger of being eaten by a hungry pride of lions before the convention’s lunchtime.” Nika begged.

His mother sat down on the floor next to him and started dismantling the control panel trying to find the problem. After half an hour, she stopped the unscrewing and pulling apart and looked at him with pride shining in her eyes.

“Nika, I'm so proud of you. You built such a complex, beautiful machine.” she said, beaming at him.

He shot her a small smile. “But you didn't get to see the portal, it's at the convention centre.” he said, confused. Had his mother assumed that the control panel was his invention?

“I know. I saw you lugging it out of the attic early in the morning. I didn't realise that you'd hidden it in the attic until I saw you causing havoc trying to carry it down.” she explained, winking at him. 

He raised his eyebrows, amazed at his mother's ability to be so caring after basically ignoring him for the past 7 years.

“Where were you all this time?” he demanded, suddenly feeling bitter. “Where were you when I needed you to be a mother? What happened to you?” he questioned her. He believed that he deserved an answer. He deserved at least an explanation for her behavior.

“I'm sorry, Nika. I'm sorry for everything I did before. When I realised you wanted to get away from me for real, it hit me that I was about to lose the most precious thing in my life. I'm sorry for what I have done.” she pleaded, her voice thick with tears.

His eyes had welled up and rogue tears were escaping, cascading down his cheek with nothing to stop them. He suppressed a sob and turned to fully face his mother.

Her face contorted visibly with pain on seeing him cry. “I cannot forgive you. It's too late. I don't have it in me to forgive you until you explain why you treated me so badly. Why you hated me. I don't want an apology. I want an explanation.” he pressed, hoping that she'd somehow fix everything.

“I can't right now. I'm trying to change. I can't do anything more than apologize. I need some time to figure things out.” she said.

And all Nika could hear was ‘I need time to fabricate a story to convince you. I need time to make up a good enough lie.’ 

“It's not enough. Why can't you just be truthful for once?” he begged her. She stood up, suddenly cold and closed off. “I am not lying to you. I'm telling you the truth.” she whispered back, before walking out on him, yet again.

‘She lied.’ The thought pricked his heart, making it bleed all over again for the same woman. 

He gave in to the tears and eventually fell asleep cuddling his tool box.

The girl had been staring at him for a minute straight and it was starting to annoy him. She'd walked past him a couple of times, looking him up with interest.

She was a few inches shorter than him. She wore an expensive looking coat and heeled shoes, which didn't seem like they belonged in a science convention, her mobile device looked like it was a unique model. Something someone had created, not something you bought off the market.

He wondered if she was a participant, but dismissed the thought quickly when he saw her flanked by two men in tuxedos with one of them carrying a camera, walking past him again.

She couldn't be a participant, he decided, she was too prim and proper to be one. She didn't look like her delicate hands could handle anything heavier than her mobile device or a make-up mirror.

Nika had done his best trying to fix the control panel in the last few days and now he wasn't confident about how well it was going to work. He just hoped nobody would be hurt.

Nils had accompanied Nika for the presentation. The basic idea was to have him stay in the prep room and then use the teleporter to get him on stage, to try and show how the portal worked. Nils was confident that it would work but Nika wasn't so sure since the poodle from a few days back was missing.

And he had no way to find out where it had ended up. He hoped that it'd at least teleported itself back to its home and not into a jungle somewhere in South America. Unless that's where it belonged in the first place.

An hour later, without realising how fast the time had passed, he was walking up the stage with his portal being wheeled along by volunteers.

The whole presentation was a blur and everything started to go downhill once he switched on the portal.

It'd turned on alright, not showering the audience with unbidden sparks or setting anyone on fire. But it went completely haywire and coughed up the creepy girl instead of Nils.

She'd probably been in the middle of a video conference because she turned up holding a stylus and some notes. But she took one look at him and the audience and acted as his saving grace by going along with it. The audience burst into applause and he took a bow, grateful that everything had gone more smoothly than he'd thought.

He only realised how wrong he was a few seconds later when the portal turned on him and coughed up a bunch of baboons and viverrine. After that Nika’s whole memory was a blur. 

He remembered the screaming and running and the girl pulling him to safety inside a janitor’s closet.

She'd saved him and at the moment was grinning at him in the dark closet.

“Hi! I'm Maven Veblen! Nice to meet you.” she said, introducing herself. She tried to offer him her hand to shake but ended up hitting it against something and squealing with pain. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her.

“I'm Nikita Belikov. Thanks for saving me.” He answered. 

They were too close for his comfort. He could feel her warm breath down his neck and cursed himself for not putting on a turtleneck instead of the flimsy t-shirt he was wearing.

“Nikita? Isn't that like a girl's name?” she asked giggling at him. He stiffened and tried to back away, but hit the other wall instead. 

“Your name is weird too. I've heard of Ravens? But why Maven?” he shot back, gritting his teeth.

Saying her name out loud fired up his neurons that'd been busy trying to equip him, trying to make him less awkward and self aware. He'd heard the name somewhere. Somewhere in a science gossip magazine that was very popular in the garage where he worked.

“You're a Veblen? Oh god! You are the Veblen! You are the new addition to that multinational tech company! Oh my gosh, you created the smart bots everyone's been talking about.” He fanboy-ed, completely losing his composure. It had been his dream to be able to meet this girl and talk science to her.

And she was standing right in front of him,suddenly looking uncomfortable. She shot him a modest smile making him realize how rude he'd been to her a few minutes ago and completely regretting his actions. 

“I'm so sorry for being a knucklehead! I put you in danger too. Please accept my apology. I didn't mean to do it.” he begged. She shook away his apology and smiled.

“I want you to work for us. You've got potential Mr. Belikov. I believe we could do a lot of good if you could join us. Here's my card and you'll find the application form at the front desk. Give me a definitive answer in three days.” she said. Handing him her card, she opened the closet door and left. Leaving behind the lingering smell of expensive perfume.

He couldn't believe he'd just met the heir of the scientific world’s mogul. The girl who was making news every other day for her brilliant inventions. She was way different than he'd thought.

He'd imagined a well spoken and expensively dressed person, but not someone who had an expensive manicure or wore heels. It just seemed a bit impractical as a scientist. But he dismissed the thought by stating to himself that he was prejudiced.

Maybe rich nerd girls had managed to create heels with futuristic traction. After all, her inventions were selling like hotcakes all over the world which showed that she was capable of anything. 

Maybe even creating scientific heels.

A/N: I can't believe I was against girls who could pull off heels without breaking their ankles. I was so jealous, lol. The world didn't ask for this but the world doesn't care. So eveything is dandy. Peace out.