A Cyst of Doubt

March 20, 2026

Nearly a month has gone by. I have neither been able to rid myself of this thought, nor muster the courage to just ask Irina about it.

I know that I will be berated for believing something silly like the words of a stranger. But she knew just enough… that I’m left uncertain.

And I do feel very silly myself, believing it in the first place. Maybe that’s the real reason I’ve kept quiet: I’m simply loath to be wrong. Maybe it’s my researcher’s instinct; that drive to do what’s right, but more importantly, to do it right first, and most. Maybe that’s always been the aim of my work and my path.

Regardless, the last month has been grueling. But there has been progress. Irina set to building another machine that we can generate the phenomenon physically with. And, though Marcel and I gave it our best, she persisted, building it anyway. It was only on the day that I finished a simulation environment that had all the proverbial bells and whistles making the real thing valuable—and then some—that she finally relented.

Anecdotes like that exemplify perfectly the situation between us: it is either fervent, wrathful passion for the project, with little regard for herself and those around her; or manic ecstasy at the sight of a good result. She reminds me of a junkie in some ways. But I know her to be better than that.

There have been rare moments of tenderness, like that when we first met again, at the end of January. With every passing one, it seems like she warms back up to me again—bites her tongue one extra time.

But… ever since that day with the girl, who I still can’t properly place, I’ve distanced myself more and more. I feel… doubt. More so than ever in our relationship before—professional or intimate.

It is festering in my brain, a cyst of a thought that just grows and grows until it either kills me or I get it out.

I can’t help it. It isn’t as though I want to mistrust her. I want this to work. I need it to. In some ways, I’d already accepted it as a given that it certainly would. But now…

I need to ask her.

Ken put down his pen in the binding of his journal. It wobbled there, before settling in the middle. But as he closed it, the pen rolled from its place there, clattering onto the floor at the foot of his chair. With a sigh, he bent down to pick it up.

“Hi, Dad.”

His eyes snapped up in surprise, and he slammed his head on the desk’s edge above him.

It was Alice, in the doorway. She stood there very patiently, just at the threshold into his office, leaning her torso in to see him better.

“Hi, honey,” he replied, rubbing his aching head. “Do you need something?”

“Um, yeah…” She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Can we do… something together?”

“Well, sure, honey. I just finished work.”

She nodded, smiling a bit, but her face quickly became sullen. “I’m sleepy right now, though.”

“Oh. Right.” He glanced at the clock on his desk. It read 11:30 P.M.

“I was gonna ask before you left in the morning, but… you always leave before I wake up.”

He nodded, and he felt tears forming at the edges of his eyes against his will. There wasn’t much he could say in response to that, but he managed to restrain the tears, at least. “Sorry,” he managed to mumble.

“It’s okay.” Alice smiled at him. “So… can we?”

He slyly gave his eyes and nose a wipe, clearing the dampness from them. “Of course.”

“Can we go to the top of that really tall building?”

Ken couldn’t help but laugh, in spite of the sadness he still felt, imagining Alice’s perspective. “Definitely. That sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun.”

“Can May come?”

“Of course!” He chuckled, and then sighed, locking eyes with her. “Is she home?”

Alice nodded. “Mhm. She’s been in her room all day.”

“Do you… know what she’s doin’?”

She just shook her head. “It sounds hard, though. Sometimes, she’s talking to someone about it, and I don’t understand anything.”

Ken nodded. May was working hard. He assumed Alice meant that girl she’d started going to hang out with a few weeks prior. And although he’d approved it a couple months ago, now that he was more involved with their mother’s work… he started to regret letting her work on the problem in the first place.

I just don’t want her to hold it against me, he thought. Or worse: get hurt.

After seeing the destruction and power of the extirpations at Irina’s lab, he couldn’t help but wish she would step away from it. For better or worse, though, she took after her mother in a multitude of ways, her obsessive nature among them.

He took a deep breath. I’ll talk to her at some point. Right now, though… he was more worried about talking to Irina.

“I’m… not sure we’ll be able to do it tomorrow,” he said to Alice.

Alice’s mouth, about to continue, closed. “Mm.”

“I… need to talk to your mother about something, and I want to do it soon. Tomorrow. But… how about we plan to do it next week?”

“Mm.” Her mouth remained closed.

“But… I promise we’ll all go, okay? We’ll go Monday.”

“Mm.” She stood there, head hanging down for a moment. Then she turned on her heel, shuffling out of the room. He felt and heard her stomping footsteps up the staircase resounding through the walls.

He sighed. I’m doing it for them, he told himself. He’d had to remind himself more and more of that every day. It would all be worth it in the end. It had to be. Or what was he spending all this time away from his children for?

He shook his head. Thoughts like that wouldn’t get him anywhere. They would understand eventually.

For now, though, tomorrow… he would talk to Irina. He needed to ask her about the girl’s words.

He’d written them down verbatim, as he recalled them.