Resilient Creatures

History

The atmosphere was electric. Normally, the San Diego Zoo was already a bustling place full of families, couples, and anyone else who fancied spending a day watching animals. 

Today, however, was on a completely different level. It had been a couple days since the news interview went out, and the Habitat had insisted on doing a grand opening for the public to celebrate the installation of the MindLink. 

Although Kelly was flattered that they went through all the effort to make a big deal about it, she also knew that it was a unique public relations opportunity for the zoo to attract even more patrons and more importantly, donors. She didn't mind it though. Today, was special to her in a more personal way.

Harry had flown in from Seattle for the weekend, and she was about to give him the personal tour of the MindLink and the Habitat. It had been a busy but productive few weeks in San Diego during the entire installation and setup period. She had told him not to visit until things settled down a bit because she would be really distracted. But she had missed him terribly and had been counting down the days to his visit.

However, it seemed like today, it was Harry who was distracted. She counted at least five times during the last 10 minutes that he checked his phone. She tried to ignore it, thinking that if it was something he wanted her to know about, he would tell her. It wasn't like him to hide things from her, was it?

"Babe, so this is one of the biggest enclosures here at the Habitat," said Kelly, pointing to a large room with concrete walls, although one of the walls was slid open to reveal and open green space. "This room is probably about 100 feet by 50 feet, and they're reserving it for some of the bigger Phase 2 patients out there."

There he was, checking his phone again before putting it in his pocket. "Big? What do some of these patients change into?"

"Well, there's one person who transformed into a giraffe, and there are two instances of a rhino. But I think they're trying to save this for this man in Idaho who transformed into an elephant, tusks and all."

"Jeez, that must have been a rough transformation," Harry replied. 

As they continued walking around the enclosures, Kelly once again saw Harry check his phone. This time, she didn't even bother pretending. 

"Okay, that's it," she snapped. "What is it that's so important that you have to keep checking your phone so often?"

"Oh jeez," Harry said, suddenly realizing what he had been doing. "I'm so sorry. I've just been waiting for someone to contact me."

"Who is it?" Kelly's eyes narrowed with suspicion. So he is hiding something, she thought. She had to get to the bottom of it before they did anything else. Otherwise it was just going to bug her all day.

"It's, uh, someone that, uh..." Harry faltered and stumbled, scratching his head looking for a reasonable answer.

"You're a terrible liar, Harry, so you might as well say it."

Harry's face looked annoyed, probably because he knew he had screwed it up. "I, okay. It was actually a surprise, but there's someone that's been wanting to meet you."

"Meet me?" Kelly was genuinely surprised at this answer. Who could possibly want to meet her? Though, to be fair, she figured she had probably gotten some attention from the recent news interview she did. But even then, most of the people had reached out directly to her. Who would be reaching out to Harry? Now it was really starting to bug her.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well, what?" Harry's blank expression annoyed her even more.

"Well, who is it?" 

"Ah, okay, just...give me...oh!" Harry reached into his phone. Someone was calling him. "Hello! Are you here? Yes, we're here too, just inside the enclosures building. It's the yellow building near the education center. Yes, that's the one! We'll be right there!" Harry was breathless when he ended the call, and then he saw Kelly's bewildered look.

"Babe, okay, it'll make more sense in a second. Just follow me."

He led her back out the building, around the corner towards the main pathway. Kelly hated being clueless, but she had no choice and really just wanted to know who she was meeting.

"There she is!" Harry waved to someone in the distance. Kelly looked across and saw a woman wave back. As they got closer, Kelly saw that the woman had close cropped gray hair, and sported dark rimmed square glasses.

"Hello! It's so good to finally meet you," Harry offered his hand out. The woman grabbed his hand. Kelly noticed the firm grip of the woman, but more uniquely, her very distinct blue eyes. 

"Harry, right?" the woman asked. "And you must be Kelly! I've been following your story very closely. I'm just amazed at your accomplishments."

"Thank you," Kelly replied, trying her best to be polite. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh my god," Harry interjected. "I'm so sorry, I've been keeping this as a surprise so she doesn't actually know yet."

"Haha, that's not a problem," the woman replied. "That's kind of sweet actually. Well my name is Farah, and I work for the Lighthouse Ventures. We're an investment company."

"Not just any investment company," Harry added. "They are one of the investors of Neurality."

Kelly suddenly felt a tightness in her chest. Nerves? Happiness? Even more annoyance at Harry for keeping this a secret from her and not giving her a chance to prepare herself? Probably yes to all of it. "OH, wow, I'm so honored to meet you, Farah. I'm shocked that you're here."

"Yes, well, I am too!" Farah continued. "Someone had sent me a video of your news interview, and I was floored that you actually had this project completed. I don't know if you know, but we had invested in Neurality solely because of what Dr. Ahmed had been doing. We actually met up with him and Carlos in New York a while ago."

Kelly felt the gears in her head turning. Farah had met Dr. Ahmed? She was an investor in Neurality? Now she's here?

"So anyway, I had completely lost track of the project when I saw your interview. And then I looked up your company and sent a message to the contact email address."

Kelly looked at Harry and shot him a look that tried to say, "We have a website??" To her amusement, Harry understood it exactly and shrugged sheepishly.

Farah continued and said, "So I got in touch with Harry, we talked for a bit about what you've done, and he helped arrange for us to meet in person!" 

"I don't know what to say," Kelly said, truly at a loss for words. "I'm really glad to meet you in person too. Did you want a tour of the enclosure?"

Farah smiled. "That would be amazing, really. But since it looks like all of this is a surprise to you, I'll just cut right to the chase. I want to personally invest in MindLink."

"Invest? What do you mean?" 

"She wants to help MindLink grow as a company," Harry explained. 

"Okay..." Kelly's gears were still turning but it felt like her mind was as empty as a cloudless day. 

"Well," Farah explained, "I want to help fulfill my original promise to Dr. Ahmed, and what he had pitched to me back then. So, my pitch to you is that with my investment and experience growing business, I believe that together we can put a MindLink in every Habitat, and possibly every home that needs it. Kelly, we can actually make history here."