Kaitlyn learned a few things over the course of their study session. The first was that, as bad as her own Genetics class had been, she certainly didn't have the worst professor available. The second was that she'd internalized the material a lot better than expected.

Wollywocks are a triploid organism that reproduce sexually to produce triploid offspring. Offspring inherit two copies of each allele from one parent and one copy from the other. They have two dimorphic genes: R controls scale color, where R is red and r is green, while T controls tail length, where T is long and t is short. A red-scaled Wollywock male with a short tail mates with a green-scaled Wollywock female with a long tail. The resulting offspring show four different phenotypic combinations.

A) What are the possible genotypes of the Wollywock parents?

B) You count the Wollywock offspring described above and discover the following totals:

10 red-scaled and long-tailed

4 red-scaled and short-tailed

21 green-scaled and long-tailed

11 green-scaled and short-tailed

What are the actual genotypes of the parents?

This is the practice midterm?!

Kaitlyn sucked in a breath through her teeth as she read the question again. This is… this is crazy. It's not just challenging. It's downright mean. Esme's right to be worried…

She glanced across the table. The dark-haired girl was sitting straight-backed and proper as ever, but with an uncharacteristically furrowed brow. Her fingers drummed restlessly on the table as she flipped through her notes.

She looks pretty lost on this one, and I don't blame her. At all.

Esme eventually opened her mouth. "Ok… I get that triploid means we have three copies of each allele. So that's already weird. But then… how do we even use that?"

Kaitlyn looked up at the whiteboard hanging above their table. "It's… not as complicated as it might seem. But it is a massive pain."

Esme's fingers stopped drumming. "Really? How so?"

"Because there's a lot of work involved. You can use a punnett square, even – it'll be less efficient, but easier to visualize. Here, lemme show you…"

Standing up, she uncapped a marker and began drawing out a diagram of the problem. At this point, she'd gotten enough tutoring practice that she was pretty comfortable explaining concepts to others. The thought of getting something wrong on accident still tingled at the base of her neck, prompting her to recheck her work over and over. But Genetics was practically her specialty.

It's not an impossible problem, Kaitlyn admitted. It's just a MASSIVELY tedious one. I understand how you're supposed to do it, which is why I can say that it's downright rude to ask a question like this.

"So let's start with all of the possible genotypes," she began. "We know that the parents are triploid and what their phenotypes are, which means we can knock out a few options…"

Esme's frown deepened, then lessened as Kaitlyn began writing out genotypes and crossing them out. She explained each step as they took it, checking in with the girl to answer questions or expand on things before she got too lost. Elliot sat to the side, his arms crossed behind his head as he leaned back in his chair.

"...So then we have to go through and make punnett squares for all of these options," Katilyn circled the four possible genotype combinations for the parent pairs in red. "Problem is, it's worse than that."

"How?"

"Because we have to do it for both cases – because we don't know which parent is giving one allele versus two." She rubbed a tired hand over her face. "So in reality, we have to look at crosses like this…"

After a minute of writing the complicated solution out, she heard Elliot chime in from behind. "You don't have to do it like that. You can knock some of those out, you know."

She blinked and turned around. "Huh?"

He stood and stretched. "Look. This one and this one obviously can't be donating two alleles – you'd get all dominant offspring then for one trait or another. So you only have to look at these."

As he pointed, Kaitlyn tilted her head and thought. "...You're right. Huh. That's a good point."

He chuckled as he sat back down. "You can also make it easier by removing the constant alleles from your square, if you want to do it that way."

Esme frowned. "What do you mean. Elli?"

"I think he means…" Kaitlyn hesitated, then began writing. "There is a different way to do this. A better one."

The trio continued working through the problem, coming up with a solid answer in less time than Kaitlyn had feared. Then they moved on to the next one and the next. Esme spoke up whenever she didn't understand something. Elliot provided occasional feedback and shortcuts that simplified the problem. But Kaitlyn took the reins with explaining and trying to turn Elliot's notes into actionable advice and teachable lessons.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As they went back and forth, Kaitlyn learned a third thing – Elliot was pretty darn good at this. Even though his interjections were infrequent, they were pretty much always right on target. It revealed a depth of knowledge that she hadn't really expected from the guy.

It's not that I thought he was dumb or anything. He was so quiet this whole time, I just thought he wasn't paying attention. But I guess it makes sense that he's good at this, given his background?

They made it all the way through the first practice midterm before Kaitlyn's stomach began to growl loudly. Esme gave a tinkling laugh at the sound, her eyes crinkling in amusement. "I suppose we've made good progress today. Perhaps we should go eat for now?"

"Sure," Elliot shrugged, rolling his shoulders. "I could use some food, too. Studying's hard work."

Kaitlyn gave him an incredulous look. "Really? You're studying? The way you're talking, it sounds like you wrote the test!"

"What can I say?" He gave a small smile. "Professor Adams is a good teacher."

"She doesn't even teach this stuff – not like this!"

"That just means she's even better, doesn't it?"

Esme patted Kaitlyn on the shoulder. "Don't let him get you flustered. He enjoys doing that at times. I'm certainly grateful." She looked between them. "Thank you both for your help. I'm far more prepared for this midterm now!"

Kaitlyn smiled. "Of course. If you want to study more, just say so! I don't mind at all."

As they packed up and headed toward Cappy's, Kaitlyn thought about the study session. Specifically, about Elliot's insight. She'd heard Esme call him an overachiever before, but she hadn't really had any context for why. Now, it seemed like there might be more to it than his early start on joining a research lab.

Huh. If he's this good at Genetics, then I wonder how he does in other classes?

***

"Wow, it's packed."

"I know, right? And we got here early, too."

Kaitlyn and Ian walked through the career fair, scanning the booths on either side of the aisles. The ever-shifting mass of students streamed around them, hurrying along from one line to the next with bags full of free goodies.

Here we are again.

This was the first time she'd gone to the event intentionally with Ian as opposed to running into him by coincidence. He was dressed in slightly more formal attire than usual, as was fitting for the occasion – a dark blue sweater and grey pants. Due to the lack of his usual hoodie, Ian had instead opted to shove his hands into his pants pockets for the moment. Though he stood pretty straight, he still seemed a bit nervous.

Kaitlyn didn't particularly need to look at the various booths. She'd been here enough times that she had the layout practically memorized. Even more than that though, she'd come in with a plan.

"Do you have anyone you want to talk to, Kay?"

She nodded. "Yup! I've got a list of places to check out, actually. You?"

"Just one, really." Ian ducked his head sheepishly. "I want to look at Gigaware, but other than that… I'm kinda just here to browse."

That's just fine. I planned ahead for that, too.

Her list of booths to visit wasn't just for her. It also contained a few companies that she thought Ian could find useful. Based on her previous conversations with them and her studying with the chestnut-haired guy, she had a pretty good grasp on which places had the best overlap with his skills and specialties. There was no guarantee he'd really click with any of them, but at least she could give him the options.

Maybe it'll help him get more motivated for classes, she reasoned. He's been doing better in Intro to Programming, but I don't know about the others.

At least he was doing the assignments now. The fact that he was so darn efficient at them suggested that he really did just need a bit of help focusing or a good reason to do them. So far, Kaitlyn's presence and insistence had played that role pretty well, but it could never hurt to give him more reasons to try.

She shook her head. It's a good thing I don't have too much pressing stuff on my plate. I've already had to cut back in a few places – we spend way more time studying and practicing than I ever thought we would. Seems like it's really been paying off, though. Both in his grades and our Bash Bros. skills. And speaking of studying…

"Are you ready for midterms?"

Ian glanced over and gave her an uncertain shrug. "Maybe? I'm really not sure. I guess we'll find out soon. I'm not too confident on Intro Calc, but…"

She lit up. Maybe this was an opportunity. "Intro Calc? I can help with that! If you want help, of course!"

"Oh, right. You're in Calc, aren't you?"

"I am! It's not exactly the same, but if you want a study partner…"

Ian gave her a small smile. "Thanks. What about you? Are you worried?"

"Me? Nah." Kaitlyn watched a tall student in an ill-fitting suit approach one of the web design booths. "I don't really get nervous about these things."

Not anymore.

"Yeah, you don't seem like it." He chuckled. "I mean, you probably don't even need to study…"

She just rolled her eyes. "I told you, don't worry about it. I like studying with you. It's not like you're holding me back or anything, really!"

"...I guess…" Ian still didn't look convinced at her words. He never did, as many times as they had the conversation. Rather than keep arguing though, his eyes lingered on a nearby booth. "Oh, that's the Gigaware one. The line is pretty long, though…"

Kaitlyn followed his gaze. "Yup. I've got a good feeling it'll get shorter later, though. Let's leave that one alone for now. Want to check on a few others first?"

"Er, sure? If you say so."

"Ok! Oh, let's check out Convergence! They're on my list."

They stepped out of the main thoroughfare to join a short line. "What's Convergence?"

"It's a data streaming company. They're working on some pretty cool stuff."

"A data streaming company?" He straightened, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Aren't you a bio major? Why are you looking at all this CS stuff, anyway?"

"For the same reason I'm taking Intro to Programming," she explained as they shifted forward a few steps at a time. "It's interesting, and it's got all sorts of possibilities. I want to see what I can do with it."

It was mostly the truth. In reality, she wanted to use her newly-earned knowledge to experiment and maybe even explore the game's boundaries a little bit more.

I know it doesn't like me abusing the time loop to get money directly. But it seems fine with me working for money, even if that means using skills I picked up in the loop. And CS pays really well. So maybe, just maybe, if I can pick up a well-paying programming job during the loop…

Ian shook his head. "You really are ambitious, Kay. How do you have your life so… together? It's like you've got this all planned out."

Internally, she winced. I wish. If I had my life together, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't feel like I'm swimming through a sea of faceless NPC's day after day, month after month, year after year. I wouldn't be trying to force down the fear that all of these skills are just meaningless in the end, consolation prizes to distract myself from the idea that I'll never get out. I wouldn't be already bracing myself for the end of this particular loop, either.

But instead of saying all that, she gave him a bright grin. "Thanks! I certainly try."