CONVEX

3: The Coffee Shop

"What's he doing here?"

"Notta clue. Looks like he's new around here, Mrs. Price."

"Well, tell him to leave!"

"I can't do that ma'am. It's a free country, and you haven't tipped me for that white chocolate mocha you ordered."

"Well, I never!"

Jeremy pays the hostility no mind. Instead, he runs his fingers along a magazine citing his contributions to a research study in Sleiman. His fingers run along a high-resolution image of deoxyribonucleic acid, a molecule carrying the blueprints of a living organism, printed on the edge of the page. The biochemist stares at the four synthetic nucleotides on the abnormally long, eight-piece molecule and breaks into a large grin. His small contribution to the research of Hachimoji Deoxyribonucleic Acid, a synthetic nucleic acid compound, gives him a little bit of hope, and no amount of hostility in Redwood's small coffee shop will take that away right now.

For a brief second, Jeremy imagines running his gloved fingers along the side of a petri dish again. It's only been a couple of days, and he already misses the sterile scent of a well-disinfected biology lab.

"Mister?" a little boy interrupts. He fidgets with his overalls as a propeller cap when he walks up to Jeremy. The cap itself contains an assortment of yellows, reds, oranges, greens, and blues, which continuously falls over the little boy's eyes. Chubby hands struggle to push the brim of the hat up, and the six-year-old stands on his tippy toes to look at the magazine in Jeremy's hands.

"Are you reading stories, mister?" the child asks curiously.

Before Jeremy opens his mouth to explain the beautiful piece of biochemical engineering in front of him, a stringent blond woman grabs the little boy by the wrist. The biochemist watches in fascination as an older woman crouches down to his level and spins the propeller on the cap, making the boy giggle.

"Honey," the woman says sternly, "You shouldn't go bothering this nice man. He isn't from around here."

"It's no trouble," Jeremy answers. He hands the magazine to the little boy and advises, "If you look in the back of this issue, it's very special. It has an introduction to DNA for kids! Do you know what DNA is?"

The boy tilts his head a little to the right and asks, "What's that?" He takes the magazine from the biochemist's hand and fumbles with it until the older woman, presumably his mother, decides to snatch the magazine out of his hands.

"It's science, sweetie," the mother says coldly, "Tell the nice man why you're giving it back to him." The woman places the magazine back in the little boys hands, and the child seems to wither under the weight of her stare.

The little boy's shoulders practically sag, and he stares sadly at the paper in front of him when his mother lets go. He opens his mouth. It looks like he wants to say, 'But there's a kid's section, mommy!', but the little boy restrains himself. Instead, the little boy pushes the magazine back on Jeremy's table and recites a dull, monotonous chant, "Mommy says science is being very mean to God. If we play with God's creations, we can get in big trouble. I don't want to lose God in my life. He's very important to me and mommy."

The little boy's entire speech sounds like a mantra.

The mother smiles in approval and promptly steers her child away from Jeremy's table. As she walks away, Dr. Miles feels the boy's eyes on the magazine. After weighing his options, Jeremy decides to step in.

Instead of confronting the blond woman directly, Jeremy considers approaching this situation more subtly. He makes sure the child's eyes remain on him when he brings the magazine to the store clerk, picking another one up on "God's Light" along the way.

"Excuse me," Jeremy asks the barista, "Can I buy these?"

"Oh, yeah," the barista, a brown-haired man in his mid-twenties, responds. Over his heart, a nameplate reads the words "Tyler Simmons" with the title of "Owner" underneath the nameplate. The label on his chest seems to be a showpiece, especially in a small town like this. In a community like Redwood, everyone knows everybody.