AN: The song for this chapter is Revolution by Diplo, which I think could be, like, Cosima's personal anthem.
Cosima shut the computer. Her hands felt numb, barely registering the laptop's warmth. With a sigh, she pushed her chair out from the desk and turned to survey her student housing bedroom. Sticky air drifted in through the window. Stacks of books and boxes dominated the floor, illuminated by her desk lamp and the streetlight that never turned off - even in Gainesville's blistering daytime. The cop's face floated over the scene like a bright object she'd looked at for too long. During their brief Skype conversation, Cosima's focus had flitted between Detective Child's serious visage and her own miniature inset. Beth's face was her face but also not her face. They could be identical twins.
Metal rubbed painfully against her knuckle. She looked down and realized she had rearranged all the jewelry on her hands, the tell-tale ring still pinched in thumb and forefinger. Placing it on the desk, Cosima stood and began to pace the room.
At first, she was sure this was an elaborate farewell joke played by her cohort buddies. Any hope for that died when Beth appeared on her screen. Maria could straight-face a ridiculous clone story over the phone, Davy could photoshop dopplegangers into foreign IDs, but nobody in her program had the skills - let alone the time - to simulate a Canadian cop "Cosima" on live videochat. She stopped and leaned on a tower of boxes still smelling of packing tape. Her fingers worried an edge of the box's lid; cardboard that should have contained the possessions of a normal scientist leading an exciting but still fairly predictable life. Okay, in immodest moments, evidence could suggest that she was a bit more brilliant than average... but all of her experiences sat roomily inside the bell curve. What Beth suggested? The standard deviations required didn't even exist. She started toward the window.
The photo IDs! Cosima pivoted, narrowly avoiding a stack of textbooks and journal reprints. A beat later, dreadlocks smarted her cheek but she didn't bother to sweep them aside or even to sit down again as she opened the laptop. Muscle memory operated fingers over the keys, an alternate hypothesis forming like a slippery lifeline.
She hadn't looked closely at the Canadian driver's licenses nor the German passport, other than to appreciate what she took to be Davy's handiwork with the hairstyles. "Two Canadians?" she had texted him this afternoon, "Now that's just lazy." (He'd texted back, "?" and then, "Miss ya already bro".) Something niggled at her: an important detail still submerged in the subconscious. She skipped over Beth's terse and oddly formal message to really look at 'Allison' and 'Katja.' Were they identical, too?
"Holy uncanny valley," she muttered. Quadruplets were rare, a quick search revealed they occurred in 0.0078% of births. She sat down and scanned the Wikipedia entry further: there were only about 70 sets of identical quadruplets worldwide. Cosima glanced at Katja's passport. We're certainly worldwide, she thought. Page scrolling continued but she wasn't really reading. Obviously, human multiple births have become more common with IVF and other modern fertility treatments. But why would parents pay thousands of dollars for kids just to set them all up for adoption? What were the chances of that happening? Improbable. Absurd. Still infinitely more likely than Beth's explanation.
When Cosima reached the bibliography, she sighed and leaned back, clasping hands over her head. There was actually no way she was adopted. Her mom had been so proud of her only successful pregnancy. And the all subtle ways her parents had favored her over her adoptive brother... it just didn't fit a lifetime of data. Frowning, she pushed past the absurd to the wholly inconceivable: did her parents put up the other three? They'd pursued a family in the desperate way only infertile couples can and with the force from a fortune that could send septuplets to private colleges. Also, why the international adoptions? So much extra red tape. She could strain spaghetti with this hypothesis it had so many holes.
A group of undergrads walked by on the street below, their overeager laughter carried in on the breeze. A stack of scholarly papers rustled until the topmost pages fanned out from their staple and shuddered like photocopied gills of a stranded fish. Cosima plucked the ring off the desk and pushed it back and forth over a raw knuckle. Katja's biographical stats stared back with a perfect poker face, giving away only surface details: 5'4'', brown eyes, birthplace, birthdate...
Her birthdate. The scientist did a double take. 24 März — almost two weeks after her own. She scanned for Alison's and Beth's birth dates: also different days in spring, 1984. We don't share a birthmother. Cosima let out a short laugh and breathed, "Jee-sus, this is for real." There were no other options but to meet Beth at the bleeding edge: a massive longitudinal human cloning experiment. The concept was incredible. The research possibilities... What sort of scientific fringe group had the resources for this?
Did her parents know? For the first time in years, Cosima considered calling them — it was still evening on the west coast. She surprised herself by picking up the phone, thumb hovering over "Parental Units" in her contacts. Mom would be on a second brimming glass of Merlot and reading The New Yorker as Dad fell asleep to Late Night. The line rang twice before Cosima recalled her mother's voice explaining why they would no longer fund her undergraduate education. She couldn't stand their bullshit.
She shut the phone off, tapped it twice on the desk and flicked it away. Adjusting her glasses, Cosima looked at the photo IDs with renewed interest. We're all so different. A thousand questions competed for her attention as she scoured the faces for any asymmetries, a product of stochastic events during development. The image quality and watermarks stymied these efforts. God, what this could do for epigenetics research! We have such a limited understanding of how genes and the environment interact — were we all right handed? Did any of us have asthma or allergies? Were they also queer? Cosima decided Katja looked pretty frickin' queer. Alison... not so much.
The PhD student tried to recall what Beth had actually said to her. Cosima had been so stunned to see a plausible "genetic identical" that words had washed over her like all the term papers she'd graded this week. Beth seemed so matter-of-fact. She was such a stranger. The eerie resemblance compounded by how she used Cosima's voice but not her tone; employed her body but not her posture. This avenue of inquiry became uncomfortable. How much of my personality is unique? She knew little about Beth but figured a scientist is not so different from a cop: evidence, analysis, solving mysteries. Beth seemed smart, thorough, and dedicated — traits Cosima admired in herself. Kinda depressing though, studying death instead of life. Would I be a homicide detective, too, if had I been born in... East York, Canada? Obviously, yes. I have the most compelling evidence possible for that.
Images from the University's animal facility crowded her vision and Cosima's throat tightened. She felt like one of the many white squeaking rodents bred for a life in one of the many stacked plastic cages in one of the many sterile stinking basement rooms. A life predetermined by a pair of blue-clad hands punching numbers into murine ears like living braille. Whether they contracted the disease or not, received the treatment or the placebo; it didn't matter. After 5, 10, 50, 100, maybe even 365 days, they would all end up limp and fetal in the CO 2 chamber. Cosima fought back sobs as she imagined her skin sloughed off one layer at a time, organs harvested and filleted, divvied up among collaborators. Her ragged breaths heightened the sensation of being pinned to a slide, drowning in saline solution, leered at through layers of glass and glycerol by some faceless scientist reducing her to the mechanics of her existence.
The laptop slammed shut and the desk lamp switched off with two angry motions. The young woman slid to the floor and slumped against the desk, hands covering eyes from the glare of the streetlight. Cheap composite wood dug into her shoulder but she sat there, shaking, for a long time.
When she heard her roommate enter the apartment, she scrabbled for her glasses and tried to pull herself together but Lauren stumbled past Cosima's closed door and made for her own room. Fingertips brushed over something small and plastic as Cosima's other hand located her glasses. She peered at the dual ID / lab access card with "University of Florida" in blocky typeface. The year-old photo depicted her with hair drawn in a utilitarian ponytail — her industry look. The day it had been taken, she'd realized that her grad student status afforded her the freedom to present however she wanted. That same day she caught the bus to the most alternative salon in a 20 mile radius and asked for dreadlocks. Then she got the nose ring. Then after, the nautilus tattoo. Everything had hurt: her scalp, her face, her wrist, her feet from practically running from one place to the next. And she had been so happy, every reflective surface reminding her that she'd made it. No more a lab drone paying down student loans! She was finally becoming the academic she'd always intended to be. Anger made room for an upswell of pride; her parents and the universe had conspired against her and she'd followed through anyway. I have agency. This life was always my choice. I am more than the conditions of my environment.
Finally, Cosima stood and made two solemn promises to herself: 1) she would do everything in her power to control her biological destiny and 2) should she die, no one would dump her fine ass in an orange biohazard bin. Then, with the practiced air of a good San Franciscan, she rolled a massive joint and let the head high take her as far away from her body as possible.
To: Dr. Aldous Leekie
From: Dr. Kathryn Herter
Subject: Re: Your new lab
Date: April 14th 2012
Aldous,
I was quite surprised when Prof. Young informed me of the anonymous gift. I'm not sure how to thank you properly! The equipment has certainly made the transition to the lab here much easier. Do let me know if there's anything I can do to reciprocate.
With regards to your personnel question, three of my UF grad students have decided to follow me: Shawn is finishing his last chapter and will defend next Spring; Elise who just passed her quals; and one of my first years, Cosima Niehaus, will arrive after finishing her UF courses and TA duties. I just hired a new lab manager, Ronny Klein, who also sends you thanks - his face when they unloaded the microCT scanner was priceless.
Now that you're revealed, I'm sending over a bottle of port. Enjoy!
My thanks,
Kate
Dr. Kathryn Herter, PhD.
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences
University of Minnesota
Protracted AN: Hey there, fine reader! I'm a queer evo devo biologist who is writing this - and making associated infographics back on the Science in the Black tumblr - to elaborate the scientific backstory of canon OB. Since this is going to involve a certain amount of science-y headcanon, it seems fair to include a list of sources so you can explore more if it suits your fancy! I'll include scientific papers as well as secondary sources. You can, of course, also use tertiary sources like Wikipedia, which generally do nice introductions to topics like this.
As always, suggestions and comments are very welcome! Especially if you have a question, want a specific science plot point explained, or caught any accuracy missteps I might have made re: science or canon details.
Chapter 1 Sources
First, I want to acknowledge that I'm writing in the universe of Orphan Black, a copyrighted creative work by Graeme Manson and John Fawcett, produced by BBC America.
## In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) and multiple births
"Facts and Figures." One At A Time. . , n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. A good source for quick facts.
Wikipedia contributors. "Multiple birth." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Nov. 2014. Web. 14 Nov. 2014. The article Cosima looked up.
## Fluctuating asymmetry (what Cosima started looking for in the faces of Alison, Beth, and Katja)
Kellner JR, Alford RA (2003) The ontogeny of fluctuating asymmetry. American Naturalist 161: 931-947.