by Mel Todd
She headed out of the lab not even bothering to hang up her coat or remove the hair net, instead going directly to her computer and pulling up her email. There it sat, bold subject mocking her as she read it.
Fallacies... flawed tests… irrelevant data…
The words jumped out at her and she had to close her eyes and concentrate on breathing to not scream.
How dare they? My testing methodology is perfect. I document everything, validate every result multiple times, and make sure nothing contaminated anything.
She kept reading, stewing as her blood pressure rose.
Okay, deep breath. You redo it. You can replicate your results. But why did he say three weeks?
Cass took another minute to breath and focus.
Deal with facts. You can work from facts, not your emotions.
Opening her eyes, she began to carefully read the entire thing. When she reached it, the sentence jumped out at her. "All evidence must be submitted by the mentioned date to be considered prior to construction activities scheduled for a new complex at this location. The review will be completed prior to an official start."
That date gave her three weeks, barely. And it had taken her two months to find out everything she had written up. Her stomach twisted and turned and the idea of going and throwing up sounded appealing. But instead she looked around the small space. No one else was there and she'd hear the door open if they came in.
Cass got up and began to pace, thinking about loud. "I know this has benefit and they haven't found these lichen any place else. I have new avenues as well." She walked to one end of the room, fifteen steps then back to the door. "I know what worked, what didn't. I can avoid any dead ends. I can get the tests in that time and resubmit. But it will take all the time I have. I can't afford to destroy my samples and I need to make them prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is worth protecting. Which means money, pharmaceuticals, and attention." Three weeks.
"Do it." She sat back down and began typing, reserving machine time, detailing out the experiments she would run, taking the time to create new ones, letting what she had learned guide her. The only reason she looked up was the ring of her phone, her sister.
Cass blinked at the display. "Oh wow, 8:30 already. Fudge." All time had disappeared as she tried to figure out how to save a plant that might save others.
"Hey, Helena." She said as she answered. Saving all her work and routing it for approvals and telling it to print all the experiments she'd laid out.
"Hey, you never called yesterday or today. You mad at me? You are coming over this weekend, right? Since you missed last weekend? Though thanks for the vid call. The kids enjoyed it, but I miss you."
The hurt tone in her sisters' voice pulled at her attention. "Give me one minute, okay?"
"Uh, sure?" If anything, her sister sounded more hurt and confused but Cass put her mute, grabbed the print outs, locked down her computer and headed to the locker area.
"One more second." she said into the phone as she took off her coat and hair net.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you talking to me?" Helena asked.
"Just give me one more minute."
Cass didn’t want to be in the building, she wanted to be headed home. Getting out and getting in her car, she connected the phone and waited for it to transfer over. Then started to talk as she started up the car heading home.
"Hey. Sorry I was still at work and needed to finish and get out of there. No, I'm not mad at you, but no I won't be coming over next weekend or the weekend after."
"Well if you aren't going to tell me what is wrong, I can't fix it." Her sister snapped and Cass could tell from the frazzled tone the kids had been driving her crazy today. She'd be so happy when they went back to school but since she wasn't in a year around district, she still had two months.
"Helena, nothing is wrong I swear. Listen. You know the lichen I've been so excited about? The ones I've been working with?"
Her sister heaved a sigh. "If you would get as excited about a man as you do about those plants, but yes."
"These are more interesting than any man. But..." she told the story about everything that had happened with Chuck and the denial and why she thought it was so important.
"They what? You don't make those sorts of mistakes. How dare they!" Her sister's outrage on her behalf made her feel much better. "What are you going to do?"
"Well, for me to make that deadline I'll be at the lab almost day and night for the next three weeks trying to replicate everything and prove this is valuable. And this time I'm going to fight nasty."
"Cassandra, what does that mean? I know you. When you get pissed, you're scary."
Cass preened a bit as she drove. "Yes, yes I am. Though I don't usually get pissed."
"I know. You never stand up for yourself, only for others. It is one of your many annoying habits. If you cared as much about yourself as you do about your plants." Helena sighed. "Then you wouldn't be you and I'd wonder who kidnapped you and replaced you with a pod person. Fine, go save the world but every Saturday I want fifteen minutes of video call time with the monsters. All they can talk about is how great Aunt Cass is. Makes me feel like chopped liver."
Cass laughed. "Now you know how I feel when Mom starts in on me. Helena is so happy. Don't you want to be happy like her? She has a husband and kids. Don't you want that, Cassandra? Are you gay, Cassandra? I'm okay with that, but you know you can adopt."
"You know I hate it when she says all that right? She just cares. She can't understand why you aren't happy and married."
"Because I'm not pretty, vivacious, and good at flirting like you are?"
Helena snorted. "Bullshit. You just don't like to take the time to do your hair, makeup, etcetera. You have the bad habit of wanting a guy who can actually talk to you instead of just buy things for you."
"Oh, the horrors." Cass deadpanned and Helena broke up.
"Yeah, I know. How dare you?" She heaved a sigh. "I was really looking forward to you coming over as an excuse to not be supermom for a while. Oswald likes you, so he tends to pick up the slack a bit when you come over."
"What?" Cass gasped in mock horror. "Your Norwegian prince isn't perfect."
"A. He's not a prince. B. He's Swedish, and C, he's a man. Of course he isn't perfect." The exasperation that came through made Cass snort.
"I stand corrected. Yes, I will call on Saturdays. But now I am almost home, I need food, and I have a long few weeks ahead of me."
"Go for it, I know you'll prove to them you don't make those mistakes. Let me know if you need anything. You're the best sister I have."
"I'm the only sister you have, so you're kinda stuck with me."
"Point. Think I can trade you in for a different one?"
"Doubt it. Besides mom would throw a fit. I might be single, but I am a 'doctor'."
Helena laughed. "True. Okay good luck. I'll talk to you later."
Cass finished the drive home and looked at her Wolverine notebook mournfully. "I won't have time to play with that at all for a while”. She put it next to her computer, made dinner, ate while reading her romance, then crashed. The next few weeks would be insanely busy. But with a smidge of luck, she'd have something to make them grant her the legal protection that she needed.
All or Nothing
All scientists live by deadlines. Deadlines for grant applications, deadlines for funding being cut off, deadlines for papers to be submitted, deadlines for specimen viability. In a reaction to this, many scientists do their best work under deadlines but the amount of mistakes rise quickly. With funding at a premium, experiments are rarely able to be repeated and the first set of data is assumed to be valid, no matter how rushed the experiments may have been. More and more published studies are being called into question as errors are found in the methodology or even the actual data gathered. This epidemic of error can have catastrophic results on any organization that may have acted on those results. ~ Science Advisory Board
The next morning set the tone for the next three weeks. Cass’s alarm went off at 4:30 AM and she made it to the lab by 5:30. The biggest constraint on her experiments was the lichen. She only had a limited amount, and it grew relatively slowly. It took a bit, but she set up multiple growth terrariums and tweaked everything to be the best environment possible for it. This is where the last four months of research paid off. She already knew the best environment for them, so she didn’t have to stress that, though she stilled needed to watch it carefully.
Lichen were odd things, in some ways so robust and in other ways extremely fragile. She needed them to grow as fast as they could, so she did everything she could, then turned back to her experiments. Each sample she took increased the chances she might kill it, but just as important she needed to make sure she could replicate the results and provide better evidence.
Again, the past helped as she already knew what had worked. But she recorded every step via extensive documentation both written and with photos. She uploaded it every night attaching it to the master files, then sent copies to herself. While she couldn’t make money from these discoveries, and any resultant patents, her name still would be associated with it and that mattered down the road.
Time went by in a blur and she barely spoke to anyone as she lost herself in long days trying to replicate four months worth of experiments in three weeks and not kill what might be the only lichen left and the basis of her research. Her world narrowed to the lab, her office computer late at night, and bed. As she worked she typed and organized the other aspects of her defense of her research.
Seventeen days later at four in the afternoon she sat at her computer and uploaded the last of the test results and filed the application again. She’d lost weight, not because she’d been shifting but because she hadn’t taken time to eat. Pushing herself each day to run all the possible variations she could, she hadn’t shifted for weeks. If the journal hadn't been mocking her with its presence, plus all the news stories, she might have thought she’d imagined it. Then she finished pushing send on the final email, the Hail Mary that might give this lichen a chance until they could find a better place to grow it. Occasionally she had dreams of creating a greenhouse for nothing but lichen.
With a smile she leaned back and stretched, feeling like a huge weight had been pulled off her body.
"I don’t know what you think you’ll accomplish besides putting yourself into the hospital." The words could have been supportive or even concerned. Instead, since Chuck said them, they came out as contemptuous.
Cass turned to face him, too tired to even take offense. "I’m hoping to do my job and maybe save a species that has even greater medical implications than I realized."
He rolled his eyes at her. "Don’t you get it? Someone has plans for that area, and one little researcher in a podunk lab isn’t going to change it. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the owners suddenly get pressure to ‘release’ you since your research wasn’t viable."
Cass stiffened then shrugged. "They can, but they might want to check the publications first."
Chuck straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the door and looked at her. "What does that mean?"
"I took all the results and formulated them into a paper and published it. It’s pending for three journals right now. Assuming it is accepted, and I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t, my findings will be in a few journals, so the scientific community will know. The patent application is filed in the company’s name with me as head researcher as usual. They trash it now, they will have a lot of people asking questions."
Rather than looking impressed or however she expected him to respond, he shook his head at her. "You’re an idiot. It’s going to be interesting watching what happens to you. The kind of pressure that is coming down on this doesn’t care about you or your research. It’s going to be fun watching you get burned. Always love watching the goody two shoes find out what reality is really like. Whatever, Borden. I warned you, so it’s on you now." He just snorted shaking his head at her and walked away.
Cass rubbed her face tiredly. There wasn’t much else she could do right now. She blinked at the clock on the bottom of the computer. Thursday. Huh. She’d been working weekends and time had blended together into a long stream of days. Shutting down, she headed to her car and called her sister as soon as she got in the car.
"So, you’ve crawled out of your research hole? You alive?"
Cass laughed. "Barely. Taking tomorrow off. Want some company?"
"God yesssss." her sister hissed out that last word. "I’ll have the bedroom ready for you. Please hurry, otherwise there might be dead children and a dead husband."
Helena worked from home so having the kids home would be driving her crazy. She did event planning, her natural elegance and taste making it a good fit, and the flexibility helped with having a family. But the summer was the busy season and the kids at their age required lots of activity.
"Will do. I’ll be there before noon tomorrow. That work?"
"Thank you! I’m not telling any family members, but swear I’ll have all the wine you want. I can’t thank you enough for rescuing me."
Cass laughed. "Honestly a few days with the uncomplicated emotions and actions of the kids will be good for me. I’ll see you in a bit."
The last few times they’d talked there hadn’t been any mention of shifters and she figured Helena had calmed down. Maybe they could talk about it, maybe. It still felt like her secret and honestly, she enjoyed keeping it to herself.
Heading home she grabbed Thai food to go, ate and collapsed. Exhaustion weighed at her and she enjoyed the peaceful sleep knowing she’d done everything she could do to pull this off. At this point it had moved out of her hands. Besides, she’d missed her sister.
Dreams
McKenna Largo is in the news again as the hunt for her and the missing children is still underway. A reward is being offered for any information leading to her or the children’s whereabouts. As you know one officer was killed during the kidnapping. The memorial for that officer is being held tomorrow and is closed to the public. The family is requesting donations in her name be made to the Police Assistance Fund. ~KWAK News
The lab gleamed around her, and she tried to focus on figuring out where she stood. This lab she didn't recognize. In fact, she didn’t recognize most of the equipment that surrounded her. It sparkled and shined in the way she’d only seen clean labs shine. The ones where humans never entered much less dust. Even as she tried to turn her head, the body moved. Cass squeaked, but the body made no sound, It didn't react at all and she couldn't hear her own squeak., she. Her body didn’t react and she didn’t hear anything.
What by all the sciences? Where am I? What the hell is going on?
Feeling like she’d fallen into the rabbit hole she choked as she saw a hand move in front of her vision, humanoid but with fur and claws.
Odd the fur is the same color as I think mine is, maybe.
She tried to turn her head, but her vision remained locked on the machine keyboard that she typed on.
Okay this is very surreal, a dream where I can’t control the dream? Huh.
Her analytical mind kicked in and she stopped trying to control anything, but instead paid attention. Her dream self, assuming this was a dream because assuming anything else at this point would make her panic, typed on the controls and Cass focused on the machine. It didn’t look like anything she’d seen before, words and symbols she didn’t recognize, but somehow understood. Numbers were listed on a keyboard with other symbols she recognized as letters, but they didn’t match up to the English ones she knew.
"Prepare two hundred hands of Kaylid for decanting." a voice said. Cass blinked when she processed the fact it wasn’t in English but she understood it anyhow. The body she was in seemed to sigh and her head dipped a bit.
"Acknowledged. Running viability checks now." More keys were pressed, and bodies eyes glanced at the screen looking at the informati
on scrolling across the large screen in black boxes on a light gray background. Each box held a thumbnail image, but it didn’t make sense to her eyes, then a bunch of other numbers and symbols. They moved slowly enough she could tap and acknowledge as they went past her.
Two with the same symbol were tapped and flipped to the right removing them from the list. Even as they moved, they started to make more and more sense though the odd color combination caught her off guard. Then a box scrolled by with the symbols in red grabbed her eye and she hit a key to pause the flow of words. Tension rippled through her body even as her hand touched the icon and flipped it down to the bottom of the screen. The flow of icons stopped, and she turned to what Cass now realized was a huge transparent wall that looked into a bay holding hundreds if not thousands of large tube-like canisters. A tube moved through the hundreds of other canisters though she couldn’t focus enough on it to see how it moved. It stopped directly in front of the window, a figure floated it in, hanging like a puppet with all the strings cut. She couldn’t make out the figure other than humanoid, arms and legs.
The body sighed, and she wished fiercely she could figure out what the body she rode thought.
When did I stop thinking this was a dream?
Information appeared on the transparent wall and the person tapped it, highlighted something then sighed. With a swipe to down again the canister moved all the way over to the right and it was released.
Wait, stop!
She didn’t know why she wanted to grab it to stop it from going where it went. The icon flashed red, then dissolved into pixels and the body went back to scrolling through the icons.
Cass awoke with a sob in her throat. She didn’t know how she knew or what that was, but she knew the being in that container had been killed. Though the impression that came through was ‘disposed of’ and not enough emotion to make it murder.
