I stared at that sentence.
Adaptive learning systems.
Something about the diagrams beside his company logo bothered me.
Three circles overlapped.
Confidence.
Pattern.
Recovery.
I felt a strange cold sensation in my stomach.
But before I could think about it, someone spoke.
“Laura?”
I turned.
A woman in her sixties stood beside me.
Short silver hair.
Red glasses.
A familiar smile.
“Dr.
Park?”
Professor Miriam Park had supervised my doctoral research almost twenty years earlier.
She hugged me.
“What are you doing here?”
“My boys are competing.”
“Boys?”
“Twins.”
Her face lit up.
“The babies?”
I laughed.
“The babies are six feet tall.”
She asked their names.
When I told her, something peculiar happened.
Her smile faltered.
“Noah and Nathan Hartley?”