“There’s nothing wrong with getting help, Minerva.”
She was right, of course, but I hated having this argument with my mom every week. She wanted me to stand up for myselfmore and assert myself at the office. I wanted her to understand that I was meeker and more introverted than she was — more like my father than either of my sisters, who favored both mom’s height, blue eye-color, and her temperament.
“Call after work and let me know how it goes,” she said finally.
“I will,” I promised.
“Love you, sweetheart. Have a great day.”
“Love you, mom. You too.”
I stuffed my phone into my purse and finished my coffee, re-reading my report from the night before. Work at the lab couldn’t have been more tedious these days. I loathed missing summer fun just to be stuck in that basement.
John, my ride to work, met me outside my apartment right on time. He was one of the few guys I knew in the city with a car and a part of me thought he liked flaunting his 2020 Mazda.
With what we made, he could have afforded a more expensive ride, but he refused to spend the money.
“You’re Asian, so you get being cheap, right?”
I rolled my eyes when he told me that one. Most Asians would be the first to remind me that I was onlyhalf-Asian anyway. Despite John’s cluelessness, I liked him well enough. He was tall, dark haired with green eyes, and I suspected he had a crush on me even if he waswaytoo old for me. And way too nerdy. He reminded me of my dad, not the kind of guy you fantasize about.
At work, John and I swiped our cards and entered the elevator to the basement lab, sauntering past the armed guards. At first, the guards freaked me out with their bulletproof vests and automatic weapons but soon they disappeared into the background.
In government work, you had to be extra careful. That was the law of the land out here, especially with rising fears of terrorism and all that jazz.
John and I split up when we got to the basement. He walked into the microbiology lab and I went down into the computer room to check on my protein analysis from the night before. I flicked the light on, thinking that I was going to be alone, and put on my headphones.
Most people would be surprised at what I listened to at the office — Young Thug’s trap music. I have no explanation. His songs just put me in the zone for protein analysis and mad science.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and I whipped around, letting out a loud scream.
“Jesus!”
“Hello, Minerva,” Dr. Trout, my boss, greeted me with a smirk on his face.
“Oh! Dr. Trout. I’m so sorry.”
I took my earbuds out, embarrassed by the loud music that blared from them. Dr. Trout sniggered as I shuffled to shut them off.
“How does the data look?”
“Good. It would help if we knew what we were studying. Some of the numbers look unusual.”
“What do you mean unusual?”
Dr. Trout stepped closer to me and I tensed up automatically. Most science guys can be weird about social cues and boundaries, and at first, I thought Dr. Trout was one of those hapless professor types. The way he leered at me through his coke-bottle glasses and breathed slow and heavy as he stared at data over my shoulders soon taught me different.
“Um,” I muttered, my mouth suddenly drying, “I mean, if these are human samples and not reptilian or something, I haveno idea what any of it means. The blood samples are something like two-hundred years old and the white blood cell count is through the roof. All of this should be impossible.”
“Hm. I see.”
Dr. Trout’s eyes wandered from the paper to my chest. My cheeks went hot. I’d purposefully worn a modest dress to avoid his constantly roving eyes and the licking of his lips that soon followed. There it was. I could feel his breath on my neck.
“Well, Minerva, we’ll discuss your results later. First, I wanted to ask you something of a more, personal nature…”
I dreaded the question that would come out of his mouth next. Before I could say a word, John thrust the door open and Dr. Trout took a long step back.
“Interrupting anything?”
