“Huh,” Anvi said, looking at her laptop. “This is weird, right?”
I looked over her shoulder at the screen. It was the report on one of the assays. The crossmatch was positive, meaning the subject’s cells were showing an immune response to the Omega ones.
“We need to run this one again. There may have been contamination,” I said. It wouldn’t help anything if I panicked.
“What’s wrong?” Bridget asked.
“Positive crossmatch on sample A3 with subject six,” I said, meeting her eyes. Hers widened.
“Let’s run it again,” she agreed.
In the end, we ran that sample against blood samples from all the subjects, and every time the tests showed immune responses.
“Are we sure these are even Omega cells?” Anvi asked, biting her nails. Bridget saw her doing it and pulled her hand gently away from her mouth.
“Yes. I just checked and they have the correct markers,” Bridget responded. There were a few key differences in Omega cells, including differences in their mitochondria, and they were impossible to miss.
“It’s just this one sample, though. So, that’s okay, right?”
“No,” I said. “We built the study on the assumption that all Omega cells have mutable HLAs. If they’re no longer responding as we expect, that throws everything into question.”
“What do we do, then?” Anvi asked.
“Where the hell is Lisbeth? We’re doing all this, and she’s never fucking here!” It was the first time I’d heard Bridget curse. It was oddly exhilarating to hear her say what we were all thinking. “Sorry. I’m just… this is a huge problem. And sorry for saying sorry,” she said, throwing a dagger of a look my way. Even amid the panic budding in my chest, my heart tripped over itself a little.
I called Lisbeth, but she didn’t answer. As I was typing out a frantic email with the results attached, she arrived.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said as she waved through the glass of the prep lab before disappearing down the hallway.
“No, we’ll talk to her,” Bridget corrected, looking fierce. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I want to be a part of the conversation. If that’s okay.”
Misplaced pride flared in my chest. “Of course. Anvi, would you like to join, too?”
“Hell no,” Anvi said. “This is all above my pay grade, which is zero, by the way. I’ll gladly do some cleaning.”
“Sorry I didn’t answer. I was almost here anyway,” Lisbeth said when Bridget and I entered her office. She frowned when she saw our expressions. “Please don’t tell me you ruined the new samples.”
We explained the situation. I expected Lisbeth to rage at us again, but she was surprisingly calm. She shrugged and opened her laptop. “It’s only one sample. Just don’t use that one. It’s a nonissue.”
Bridget scoffed quietly next to me. I didn’t trust myself to look at her.
Lisbeth narrowed her eyes. “If you have something to say, speak up.”
Bridget quailed for a moment under her scrutiny, but then straightened her shoulders. “Respectfully, it’s a huge issue. If the foundational assumption of the study is incorrect, we can’t keep going. We need to pull back and reassess things.”
“I see. For some misguided reason, you think you know how to run this study better than me?” Lisbeth’s voice was low and dangerous.
“No, of course not,” Bridget said. “I just—”
“I’m glad we agree I am best-suited to make the decisions regarding the operation of this lab. Now, I believe you have work to do?”
Bridget’s posture crumpled as she left the room. I tried to follow her, but Lisbeth stopped me.
“Shut the door,” she ordered. “I don’t think I need to explain to you thatsheis on very thin ice already. Her little stunt at the gala didn’t go unnoticed. I agreed for her to be part of this because it looks good to have an Omega on the team. Avoiding internal biases, ‘girl power,’ and all that nonsense. But if shecontinues to undermine me and the progress of this study, I will take action.”
“She’s talented and an asset to the lab.” Internally I was raging, but somehow my voice stayed calm.
“She’s competent, but we both know she’s just wasting time until she gets snapped up by a pack and starts popping out kids. I was content to let her do so, but not if she’s going to be insubordinate.”
