circumstances.
The reports stopped short of calling Doctor Brown a tramp, but they hinted at an eccentric way of life that meant where he’d got to was anyone’s guess.
Jenny Wilson scooped pot-noodles into her mouth, dripping beef and tomato sauce down her chin and not bothering to wipe it away. It wasn’t the perfect dessert to go with her Indian takeaway, but it felt good anyway.
The news was making her increasingly anxious about her chances of keeping whatever discoveries she was about to make to herself, which made her swallow her food pretty much without chewing.
In between gulps, she downed sips of strong coffee. Going to sleep was completely out of the question. She’d be able to sleep as much as she wanted once she’d analysed the thin sections of her rock and worked out where to go from there.
Her hands had the shakes, partly from being in an under-heated building and partly from being thrilled at the prospect of becoming a leading scientist overnight.
Top of her wish list was that she’d discover a new element that would be the key to cancer cures. She also fancied that she might be on the verge of solving the world’s energy problems.
Worst case scenario? The filling in of one of the many gaps in the evolution of the Earth theories. That should still get her the approval she’d always sought.
With the Pot Noodle carton empty and the caffeine making her feel queasy, she fell back in the chair and slapped her face to get the blood flowing again while the man on the TV went on about how Celtic would be champions by Christmas if none of the other teams found some form pretty soon.
The slides of the sections of stone that she’d had prepared seemed perfect.
She slipped one of them under the powerful microscope and saw a purply-blue haze when she took a look down the lenses.
A few tweaks with the focus and things became clear.
“ Stupid fool. How could I have trusted a technician to get it right?”
The truth was that by getting the technician to make the sections for her, she’d saved at least 2 hours of her own time. Without George, it would have been even later than it already was.
Even so, they’d clearly managed to contaminate the sample. No way would there be animal cells in a rock sample unless someone had cut themselves and not bothered to clean up the mess.
She snatched at the slide and it slipped from the base and from her fingers to crack into pieces on the floor.
Without bothering to clear up the mess, she pulled out another slide and put it into position.
There was the same bluish smudge and another fiddle with the controls until things came into focus.
Jenny Wilson slapped the table hard. Hard enough to snap the top of the badly-chewed nail of her right, index finger.
“ Ouch.”
The pain she felt didn’t make her feel any better, so she took her foot from her slipper and kicked hard at the desk leg nearest to her.
“ For crying out loud.” This time the pain was up to the job. It took her mind from the frustrations of watching the Nobel Prize disappearing from her.
She hopped around for a moment then looked down to see the blood on her big toe leaking out onto the floor.
She took a tissue from inside the sleeve of her lab-coat and wrapped it around her wound, then sat on the floor and went through her breathing exercises.
“ I am special,” she told herself. “I’m a very special girl with a very lucky life.” Even to her, the words sounded hollow.
How they could have messed up the samples like that was beyond reason. Schoolboy errors these were. A disgrace to the university.
Her breathing exercises had helped to slow her thinking.
She
The reports stopped short of calling Doctor Brown a tramp, but they hinted at an eccentric way of life that meant where he’d got to was anyone’s guess.
Jenny Wilson scooped pot-noodles into her mouth, dripping beef and tomato sauce down her chin and not bothering to wipe it away. It wasn’t the perfect dessert to go with her Indian takeaway, but it felt good anyway.
The news was making her increasingly anxious about her chances of keeping whatever discoveries she was about to make to herself, which made her swallow her food pretty much without chewing.
In between gulps, she downed sips of strong coffee. Going to sleep was completely out of the question. She’d be able to sleep as much as she wanted once she’d analysed the thin sections of her rock and worked out where to go from there.
Her hands had the shakes, partly from being in an under-heated building and partly from being thrilled at the prospect of becoming a leading scientist overnight.
Top of her wish list was that she’d discover a new element that would be the key to cancer cures. She also fancied that she might be on the verge of solving the world’s energy problems.
Worst case scenario? The filling in of one of the many gaps in the evolution of the Earth theories. That should still get her the approval she’d always sought.
With the Pot Noodle carton empty and the caffeine making her feel queasy, she fell back in the chair and slapped her face to get the blood flowing again while the man on the TV went on about how Celtic would be champions by Christmas if none of the other teams found some form pretty soon.
The slides of the sections of stone that she’d had prepared seemed perfect.
She slipped one of them under the powerful microscope and saw a purply-blue haze when she took a look down the lenses.
A few tweaks with the focus and things became clear.
“ Stupid fool. How could I have trusted a technician to get it right?”
The truth was that by getting the technician to make the sections for her, she’d saved at least 2 hours of her own time. Without George, it would have been even later than it already was.
Even so, they’d clearly managed to contaminate the sample. No way would there be animal cells in a rock sample unless someone had cut themselves and not bothered to clean up the mess.
She snatched at the slide and it slipped from the base and from her fingers to crack into pieces on the floor.
Without bothering to clear up the mess, she pulled out another slide and put it into position.
There was the same bluish smudge and another fiddle with the controls until things came into focus.
Jenny Wilson slapped the table hard. Hard enough to snap the top of the badly-chewed nail of her right, index finger.
“ Ouch.”
The pain she felt didn’t make her feel any better, so she took her foot from her slipper and kicked hard at the desk leg nearest to her.
“ For crying out loud.” This time the pain was up to the job. It took her mind from the frustrations of watching the Nobel Prize disappearing from her.
She hopped around for a moment then looked down to see the blood on her big toe leaking out onto the floor.
She took a tissue from inside the sleeve of her lab-coat and wrapped it around her wound, then sat on the floor and went through her breathing exercises.
“ I am special,” she told herself. “I’m a very special girl with a very lucky life.” Even to her, the words sounded hollow.
How they could have messed up the samples like that was beyond reason. Schoolboy errors these were. A disgrace to the university.
Her breathing exercises had helped to slow her thinking.
She
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