ian fenton

MILLY

The gym locker room smelled strongly of lemons, now a nauseating reminder to Adam of the beginning of his workday, and the hallways of the server rooms, and nearly every surface found on the interior of any building. Surely, the odor was selected by Mother (“Mother-in-law,” MIL or Milly as his fellow architects jokingly referred to it), based upon some enormous compilation of user preferences, with lemon scoring the least offensive to the most people. Adam made a mental note to ask Priya if she knew, then immediately dismissed the thought. He stood up from the hard, blue plastic bench and the familiar but always irritating sensation of sudden soreness rolled through his legs. Generally, he opted for a simulated recreation of some of his memories of Priya or a VR lecture while the workout was going on, but the prices had skyrocketed as of late, so he had to choose blackout if he and Priya were to put together enough money for their honeymoon, an event delayed a full two years at this point.