[ water on mars; ]

"A woman scorned or just extreme feminist?"

[ Reed hesitated ] My eternal love and gratitude?

"Splicing… splicing… so, the removal of interfering introns and combining of exons, usually occurs in the formation of mRNA once pre-mRNA is formed in transcription. Yeah, that is probably it." Noah explained, rubbing his tired eyes. "Can we take a small break? Sleep deprivation isn’t exactly working in my favour right now."

"I'll buy the coffee if you lend me ten pounds." Marlene teased, glad to have a break from the studying.

I really don’t care.

What a co-incidence. Neither do I.

I’m standing… is there a problem?

You're in my way.

"I’m reading… why?"

You looked like you were in pain.

That’s grand. Um, yeah… thank you for the heads up. I appreciate it.

What did you do to piss them off? Scary ex-girlfriend or something?

"That he does." Nat looked back at the girl. "Want me to go and punch him in the nuts?"

Holding back a laugh, Marlene shook her head. "Girls got a bite."

Drinking coffee? Oh, God — what is wrong with this coffee?

The barista spit in it.

"B-But…" the truth was that his money wasn’t a security to him now that the theatre needed some fixing and a new layout at the entrance. And an entrance is important for a theatre’s external aspect which attracts audiences to visit in the first place, and that was more important than his car. "I’ll… I’ll just walk to places and exercise more. I’ll fix it later, but… Thanks for the suggestion….".

"Fair enough," Marlene shrugged, not giving it much thought. "Maybe you could get a bicycle. There are always heaps of people with bikes riding through London and if worse comes to worse there's always the Tube."

Oh, really? [ Nat looked over her shoulder deliberately ] Which one?

"That one," she pointed to the rat-like boy over Natasha's shoulder, "he looks creepy as hell."

Who did?