“You can work it out with Bridget,” Lisbeth said. “She’ll be supervising you, along with Nathan.”
Anvi hopped out of the chair, looking contrite, but I waved my hand at her. “Please take whichever desk you want. I don’t mind at all.”
Lisbeth disappeared into her office, then returned with a stack of papers. “I’ll need signatures from you all. Standard stuff: non-competes, nondisclosures, HIPAA authorization, and protocol acknowledgment. Feel free to make a coffee while you read through everything.”
“Is there hot water? For tea?” Nathan asked.
“I’m not sure. But if you need anything, make a list and we’ll get it,” Lisbeth said distractedly, already looking at her phone as she walked back to her office.
“Do you not drink coffee?” Anvi asked him, sounding mystified. She started pressing buttons on the machine, which whirred and gurgled. “I think I’m addicted to it.”
“I do. But Ms. Crawford… Bridget…” Nathan trailed off, frowning more than ever.
Great. Somehow my hot drink preference must have made it around the lab, and now Nathan thought I was a diva who needed special treatment.
“It’s fine,” I said dismissively. I hated coffee, but I hated being known as “difficult” more. “I can make it work.”
“We’ll get an electric kettle,” Nathan said with finality.
“I don’t need one,” I snapped, surprising myself. I took a steadying breath. If he was already getting under my skin in the first hour, I was in trouble. “Please don’t make a fuss. I don’t want Dr. Nielsen thinking I’m unhappy.”
Nathan studied me. His expression had softened slightly. “We’ll get an electric kettle,” he repeated, and one corner of his mouth creased. “And I’ll say it’s for my own personal use if you’d like.”
Was he joking with me? “Well. Thank you.”
Anvi was watching us. “Do you guys, like, know each other?”
“Barely,” I answered before Nathan could respond, and turned back to the cubicles to start my paperwork.
I read without comprehending anything. Nathan’s behavior was weirding me out. He’d never sought direct conversation with me, as far as I could remember. He’d just been a malevolent force in the lab; the scary postdoc who critiqued our work without mercy.
I remembered one email I sent him with piercing clarity, one of the first before I understood what a stuck-up jerk he was. I’d been unsure about a certain sequence. It looked like a mismatch, but it could also have been noise in the signal. “I think I see a mismatch at HLA-B, but it looks messy, so I’m not totally sure if it’s a sequencing error or a real mismatch. Screenshots attached for reference,” I’d written.
His reply had come within minutes. “Don’t say, ‘I think.’ It makes your work look sloppy. If you want to be taken seriously, you have to be confident in your findings,” he’d said. “Run the sequence again if you’re unsure.”
Well, fuck me then, I typed, then deleted it. I ran the sequence again, and itwasa mismatch. I sent along the new results with a simple “Thank you for your feedback.” From then on, I made sure every single piece of data I sent him was pristine, and he’d never have a chance to demean my work again. It worked, but it also meant I spent twice as long confirming results as anyone else in the lab.
This led to a lot of late nights, drinking copious amounts of tea, while my peers led normal social lives. Not to be outdone, Nathan always stayed later than me, like he was proving he’d always be the best workaholic. My workstation had a gap in the storage shelves that let me see into his office, and sometimes I’d find myself zoning out, staring at his silhouette through the window, and imagining creative ways to poison him.
In hindsight, those late nights did lead to the discovery that Omega stem cells didn’t just have higher than normal rates of HLA compatibility; their HLA proteins were actually mutable, able to adapt to the recipient’s HLA type. Omegas were not just universal blood donors; they were universal stem cell donors, and their stem cells might lead to biomedical advances in every conceivable discipline.
I’d never forget the night I ran those fateful assays, the ones using one Omega donor’s mesenchymal stem cells against three different donors, who I’d already confirmed had different HLA types. When the crossmatches came back negative for the fourth time, I’d actually whooped in celebration.
The only other person in the lab was Nathan, but I was so ecstatic I had to share it withsomeone. I scurried out of my little nook and skidded to a halt outside his office door, panting with excitement.
“I was right,” I said, my face burning from my wide smile.
Nathan looked up, startled, from his computer screen. He looked tired, and in that unguarded moment he also looked sad. But when he saw it was me, his brow furrowed. “You were right about what?”
“HLA mutability in Omegas.” I slapped the assay results down on his desk. I’d printed them out specifically for the drama. “Those are three negative crossmatches, with a sample fromonedonor.”
Nathan picked up the papers. He read through them, then looked up at me again. “Are you certain? There was no cross-contamination?”
“I’m absolutely sure,” I said confidently. “I ran the assays four times.”
“Let’s run them again.” He gestured back to the lab area. We worked in silence, Nathan watching me as I ran the assays yet again. I would have been seething if I weren’t enjoying proving him wrong about me being “sloppy.” When the results were confirmed again, Nathan sank onto a stool, looking dazed. It was the longest we’d spent in the same room, and the closest I’d ever been to him. I could feel the warmth from his body in the small space, and thought I could smell a faint hint of his scent. Something citrusy?
“This is a huge breakthrough,” he said.
