"I don't believe this," Orion said, his grey eyes large as he peered through the microscope. His lab assistant peered up from his work and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Sir-?"
"Jonathon, tell me, what was the serial number on that box that just arrived?"
Jonathon looked confused as he sputtered out, "I don't know sir-"
"Well go find it and tell me!" Orion turned on his heel and demanded, nearly knocking over a few tubes of bacteria in the process. "I need that information in less than five minutes or else you'll be fired, got it?"
Jonathon gulped and began running towards the door. "Yes sir, Mr. Black!"
"And bring me some coffee while you're at it!"
"Yes sir!" the brown haired man was out the door and into the hallway in less time than it took Orion to blink. The scientist sighed and peered back into his microscope, watching the small microorganisms squirm around the Petra dish and attack one another for nutrients. "I hope that idiotic boy gets that number soon," he muttered, wiping his pale hand across his sweaty forehead. "It's dire that it gets here in five minutes time or else the organisms will have eaten each other and all my work will be lost."
Meanwhile, Jonathon wasn't having an easier time then Orion was. "Where's the box that was delivered to Doctor Black?" he demanded to the manager in charge of receiving and sorting mail at the hospital complex. "I need it, right now in fact, or else something bad will happen."
The old man raised an eyebrow but didn't set down his phone. "Look kid, I'm just the assistant here-"
"Get me that box or you'll be fired! I need it right this instant- it's for the cancer department and if I don't have it in less than two minutes then both of our jobs and the departments research will be gone, got it?"
The old man gulped but nodded. "R-Right away then."
He quickly got up off of his chair and began searching through the many old boxes that were stored in the closet.
"Is it this one?"
A loud bang came from inside the room, making Jonathon wince.
"Ah, no, not that one. This?"
Jonathon twisted his lab coat's arms worriedly as he glanced at the clock on the wall. Three minutes had passed.
"Ah-ha!" The old man came out and looked victorious as he shoved the box in the assistants arms. "There you've got it, date's from yesterday, only box that's for your department this week. Get out of my office."
Jonathon barely stopped to thank the old man as he was running out of the grey office/closet and into the busy hallways of the hospital.
"Coming through!" he demanded to the family members waiting outside the 'Heart' office. "Important box coming through for Cancer! Please get out of my way!"
It took longer then Jonathon would have liked to make the large crowds of people in the hallways move away, but it wasn't that far from the Cancer department, thankfully.
"Ah, Jonathon, how wonderful it is to see you." Madame Lenox, an unfortunate regular at the hospital, said in greeting as she noticed the young male elbowing his way through. The grey haired woman was sitting in her complimentary wheelchair outside of the ER, making Jonathon silently wonder whether it was her that was going in there or someone else. "How is everything?"
"Everything is doing well, Mrs. Lenox," Jonathon said briskly, despite being friendly with the woman he did have 43.69 seconds to get into the cancer department's laboratory and hand the box to Doctor Black. "Now, if you might excuse me-"
"How is your wife and kids? How old are they now, seven and five?"
"Yes Mrs. Lenox, but I really must get going,"
"Oh, could you just let an old woman ask another question, darling?"
Jonathon couldn't deny her that, and turned around briefly to look at the smiling woman. "Yes ma'am?"
"When will Doctor Orion complete his research on cancer?"
"I-I don't know ma'am, I'll ask him next time I see him."
Madame Lenox nodded sagely and made a shooing motion with her hands. "Thank you, sweetheart, you do that. Goodbye Jonathon!"
"Good day, Mrs. Lenox."
Jonathon took another look at his watch and nearly fainted on the spot.
Less than ten seconds.
Doctor Black was going to have his head.
With the door at the other end of the hall, he made a quick dash towards it, jumping over patients and nurses, carts and chair, and nearly collided with the door if not for quickly reaching out and turning the knob, throwing the old wooden door against the wall.
"Sir! Sir!" Jonathon panted, out of breath and still gripping the awkwardly-shaped box tightly in his arms. "I've got, I've got- I've got the box that you wanted, the serial number's printed on the outside."
Orion smiled, one of the only emotions Jonathon had ever seen the senior Doctor do. "Ah, thank you so much Jonathon, I appreciate it. Go get yourself a glass of water and sit down, you look as if you're going to faint."
Doing quite literally as the doctor ordered, Jonathon quickly gulped down a glass of water and relaxed on the only chair in the laboratory, curiously watching as Doctor Black studied the serial number before typing in the numbers on a small handheld device.
"Hello? Yes, I would like to order a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese and mushrooms, a medium sized cheese pizza with nothing on it, and two large coca-colas, if that's alright."
Jonathon's mouth dropped open as he gapped like a fish at the pleasantly talking man called the- Pizza Parlor?
"Great, the address is-"
He couldn't wrap his head around it. He was sent on a mission to retrieve a box that was supposed to help the cancer department but instead he brought back the phone number for the pizza place!?
"Yes, that will be all, thank you."
Orion hung up and turned to look at his assistant. "Thank you for that, Jonathon, I appreciate it. I was getting quite hungry and couldn't leave these bacteria alone to go order it myself, you see."
Jonathon's mouth couldn't help but move up and down inaudibly, staring wide-eyed at the man in front of him.
"It's essential to research that you never work on an empty stomach. Now close your mouth, you'll catch flies."
The exhaustion of everything that happened in the past five minutes finally caught up to Jonathon, and the man fainted on the spot, leaving Orion staring pityingly at the man lying uncomfortably on the floor.
"It must have been run that did it," he tutted.
QL
I don't own HP