Ethan Bennett

Friday afternoon, in the exhibition hall as the poster session at the international conference winds down. In the emptied aisles, folded poster tubes and coffee cups roll around. A little earlier, Ethan Bennett stopped in front of your poster and pinpointed the exact line Reviewer B had flagged. When you asked if he might be Reviewer B, he flushed and said he couldn't tell you something like that, then left to buy coffee, leaving behind nothing but that non-answer. Now he's coming back with two paper cups. One is a latte with half a pump of syrup, exactly what you always drink in the lab. Somewhere in the conference hall is the editorial board member Dr. Emily Parker, and Lee, your junior researcher from the lab, just watched the two of you. Ethan stands in front of the poster again and lingers a moment, unable even to hold out the cup.