A Beautiful Woman of Science and Other Absurdities | ✔️ [COMPLETED]

Chapter 1 - Nothing to be afraid of

            Viviane Fox, twenty-four and blindingly beautiful, faced an inside wall of her small apartment which wasn't a wall at all, but a giant touch screen eight feet tall and twelve feet wide. She tapped on the calendar icon which opened up a large view of the current month with its thirty days. She selected a Friday two weeks from today and added a note: "Soyeux Photoshoot – Do not miss!"

"Hey! You can't go on a photoshoot that Friday," said Moyenne, Viviane's roommate. Moyenne had been watching videos about a celebrity with pink and green streaked hair on another part of the wall until she decided that snooping on Viviane was more interesting.

"And why not?" asked Viviane, annoyed with her nosy roommate. "Acel Yu, a famous fashion photographer, has been hired by Soyeux to shoot next season's collection for their catalog. All the models who can be there will be there. He's photographed a lot of unknown models like me and, with the right pictures, they've gone on to work in high fashion. It's a real chance for me to be noticed and maybe have a real career as a model."

Indeed, Viviane looked every bit like the stereotypical model. She was tall, probably half a foot taller than the average looking five-foot four-inch Moyenne. And Viviane's body was fit and athletic. She had a trim waist, slightly muscular arms and curvacously sculpted legs. On top of it all, she had the most beautiful, wavy, orange-sienna colored hair that cascaded down her back. Moyenne, who didn't look much like a model, wasn't interested in Viviane's modeling career. Moyenne was worried about not having a lab partner to help her that Friday.

"You can't go because I've booked time for us that Friday on the laboratory's Transportal so we can run our lab experiments together, remember?" said Moyenne, crossing her arms. "Don't you care about passing Quantum Mechanics III?"

"Of course, I care!" said Viviane. "But something like this photoshoot may not come around again for another year. You can do it without me, can't you Moyenne?"

"I don't know. You say you want your Ph.D. in physics, but it looks like you're more interested in pretty clothes if you ask me."

"No, I'm not! Look, the analysis is easy for me. Just go and collect the data for us and I'll write the lab report, OK?"

"Deal!" Moyenne's eyes sparkled as she leapt on the offer. She knew Viviane's math abilities were better than hers and crunching the numbers would be harder than gathering the data in the lab.

"Oh, thank you! You're such a great friend," said Viviane. "I've got two weeks to make a good impression at the shoot. I'll have to work out a bit more than usual."

"Sure, whatever you have to do." Moyenne waved off Viviane. Moyenne had already moved back to her corner of the wall where she sat in a sofa with a thin plastic frame to watch funny cat videos.

Viviane pulled up another screen on the wall with an ad for a newly opened gym named Hyperextension. It was a place for extreme sports and they offered extreme kickboxing.

Maybe I should try a new class. My normal boxing class hardly makes me sweat. Maybe this place will be more intense, thought Viviane and she tapped on the telephone icon of the ad to inquire about signing up for a Hyperextension membership.

The giant background photo on the wall changed to a picture of a building designed in modern architecture. Its exterior walls swooped with curves of stainless steel and white frosted glass. A digital clock displayed the current time above the building and a footnote below the building read: Live picture of the Glorious Hall of the People, Capital City, Utopian Earth Nation.