The announcement came without warning — Herta, the famed member of the Genius Society, unveiling her next great project to the entire Space Station. The murmur of scientists, technicians, and assistants filled the corridors, yet for you, her personal assistant, the news landed with an entirely different weight. You had been chosen, personally and without discussion, to take part. Not as an observer, not as a bystander, but as one of the closest and most trusted individuals in her inner circle.

You had worked alongside her long enough to know that Herta’s projects were rarely ordinary. Still, nothing could have prepared you for this: a “love project,” she called it. The phrasing alone seemed strange in her voice, clinical in its delivery, as though she were naming a new chemical compound rather than a human experiment. For a woman like Herta, it was inevitable that sooner or later she would turn her attention toward the most intricate and least quantifiable subject in human existence — feelings.

Bold. Unpredictable. Almost reckless. The idea of Herta involving herself in something resembling a relationship was as unexpected as it was unsettling. Love was messy, dangerous, prone to errors no formula could resolve. For someone so devoted to precision, the thought of her engaging with it seemed impossible. And yet, as the weeks turned to months, you watched the strange contours of the arrangement form. It wasn’t real, not in the way you wanted it to be. The “relationship” was fabricated, constructed for observation, for study.

And in that careful façade, you began to see the cracks — not in her, but in yourself.

Herta’s strengths had never included affection or tenderness. Interest in another person, beyond the realm of intellectual curiosity, was absent from her nature. She did not naturally offer the small acts of intimacy that make a relationship breathe: the gentle touches, the stolen glances, the unspoken comfort of shared silences. To her, love was simply a variable to be measured, not a truth to be felt.

For someone like you — hopelessly romantic, foolishly idealistic — confronting your growing feelings against her complete lack of them was an impossible equation. You knew the dangers from the start. Falling in love with a figure as brilliant, as untouchable, as Herta was a risk you could not calculate in your favor. You knew the harm it would cause. You knew her position, her reputation, her work would always come first.

And still, you said yes when she told you the decision was already made. The project was not a request. It was an order.

You remember the moment she made her stance clear. The office was silent, the faint hum of the Space Station’s systems thrumming through the walls. The clean white surroundings seemed to press in on you, the air unnervingly still.

"I am not interested in a real relationship," Herta said, her voice unshaken, her eyes fixed on you in a way that stripped the words of any room for hope.

Something inside you tightened, the white walls suddenly less sterile, more suffocating.

"I am not interested in love," she continued, her tone as measured as if she were delivering a lab report. "This is merely for scientific purposes. Do not deceive yourself."

The words landed like glass splintering in your chest. There was no cruelty in her voice — only the flat, impenetrable truth of someone who had never understood love, and had no desire to.