6:34 a.m.
Cosima Niehaus typically didn't wake up to a mouthful of dirty cotton, but she would soon learn that the day would be anything but normal. She let out a muffled groan as her robo-clock blared out its usual morning greeting:
"The time is 6:35. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Lazy girl. Please wake up. Please wake up."
Wincing as she cracked open bleary eyes, Cosima dropped a heavy hand on the snooze button atop the robot's rectangular head and pulled the offending material out of her mouth: a used sock. One-half of her double-helix pair, to be exact. Which she had been wearing yesterday.
"What the...?"
She poked her feet out from beneath her tangled blanket. Sure enough, her blurry right foot was bare. Sarah. Cosima just knew her roommate was somehow to blame. She attempted to sit up, but then immediately flopped back down, pain piercing straight through her skull. Just perfect, she thought. Hungover on a Monday morning.
"Lazy girl. Lazy girl. Wake up! Wake up!"
The clock her dad had built for her in elementary school—modeled after Johnny 5 from the Short Circuit movies she had loved as a kid—started up again. But this time, its commands were followed by a shrill alarm as it careened off her nightstand and crashed onto the floor with a crack. A pounding sounded against the wall above Cosima's head, followed by Sarah's muffled shout.
"Cos! Shut that thing up before I do it for you!"
Cosima managed to roll herself off the bed with a grunt, reaching down to deactivate the little robot before its mini tank treads ran over her toes. Rubbing her throbbing temples, she fumbled a hand blindly around the nightstand for her glasses. Once she found the black frames, she settled them on her nose and headed to the bathroom, stripping off her day-old jeans and tank top as she went.
Two pills of ibuprofen and one shower later, Cosima felt almost human again. She pulled her dreadlocks into her usual ponytail and put on an outfit for work: purple cords, gray cami, red lace sweater, and a pair of black ankle boots. She heard commotion in the kitchen and made her way over, ready to let Sarah have it. But when she rounded the corner, she stopped short at the unfamiliar sight in front of her: a lanky guy with scraggly brown hair and a full beard, naked save for his boxer shorts and knee-high gray socks. Nope. Definitely not Sarah.
"Um, I'm sorry," Cosima tilted her head in curiosity, "but who the hell are you?"
"Mind your manners, Cos." Sarah came up from behind and brushed past her, wearing only a black pair of bikini panties and her favorite The Clash t-shirt. London Calling. She stood on her toes to give Beardy McBearderson a quick peck on the cheek.
"Mind my manners?" Cosima asked. "When you've yet to learn how to put on some clothes?"
"Like you mind the view," Sarah said with a wink.
Cosima rolled her eyes and placed some whole wheat bread in the toaster. "Don't flatter yourself. And thanks for the sock by the way."
"You were snoring like a motorboat." Sarah shrugged and sat on one of the stools lining their kitchen counter. "What was I supposed to do?"
Cosima shook her head. "Don't think I won't get you back. Sometime when you least expect it."
"Yeah, shakin' in my knickers here," Sarah deadpanned, running her fingers through her tangled chestnut mane.
Before Cosima could respond, Beardy spoke up.
"I'm sorry for intruding on your morning, Cosima," he said with an apologetic smile. "I'm Cal. We actually met last night at Bobby's."
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Cosima's memories of the previous night were hazy at best. "Right. Sorry, Cal. I probably just didn't recognize you without Sarah's tongue down your throat."
"Don't mind her," Sarah said, dismissively waving a hand. "She's just sour because she's in love with some chick at work who'll probably never give her the time of day."
Cosima flipped her the bird. Never again, she vowed. Never again would she get high or drunk with Sarah. Cosima got too loose-lipped, and Sarah apparently was the worst at keeping secrets.
"Where do you work?" Cal asked, shaking his head slightly at Sarah.
Cosima briefly entertained the idea of telling him to mind his own damn business, when Sarah answered for her: "The DYAD Institute."
"That's pretty awesome," Cal said, pulling out a frying pan and making himself quite at home, to Cosima's mild annoyance.
"Actually, I'm just a fellow," Cosima clarified. "Not an employee. I'm about a month into the program."
"Still really awesome," he said and Cosima couldn't help but feel a teensy bit flattered. "I was gonna make some eggs. You want some?"
She shook her head and patted her stomach. "I don't think I can hold down more than toast right now."
Nodding, Cal started up the burner and poured some olive oil into the pan. "Hey, didn't the government just order DYAD to shut down one of its projects?"
"Yeah, the super accelerator." Her heart started speeding up when she thought of a certain blonde physicist on that particular project.
"From what I read on darknet, it sounded pretty freaky to me." Cal cracked eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork.
"Darknet?" Cosima asked, mildly impressed. "You're a hacker?"
"I wouldn't say that exactly." Cal gave her a small smile that indicated he was just being modest before he turned to the stove and poured the eggs into the pan.
"So what's so freaky about this accelerator whosie-whatsit?" Sarah asked, grabbing at Cosima's toast as soon they popped up.
"Hey!" Cosima protested. She made a half-hearted attempt at reclaiming her breakfast, but gave up when Sarah licked the bread. "Bitch," she muttered, placing two fresh slices into the toaster.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Cosima," Cal said, "but wasn't DYAD trying to accelerate a subatomic particle faster than the speed of light and then, um, harness the power that's released?"
"That's right." Despite herself, Cosima was pleasantly surprised by Cal's knowledge. Maybe he'd be different from the usual riff raff Sarah brought home.
"And that's a problem because?" Sarah asked.
"Well, what if something went wrong?" Cal said, stirring the sizzling eggs.
"Like what?"
"Good question," Cosima responded. "We've never generated that type of energy, so there's really no precedent for the potential consequences." Her second set of toast popped up and she whipped them out before Sarah could steal them for Cal. "Of course, people have their theories. But honestly, I don't know a whole lot about it since I'm in microbiology and all. And the physicists are a little weird. They tend to keep to themselves."
"They must be really bizarre if you're calling them weird, Cos," Sarah said.
"Ha, ha." Although her stomach roiled in protest, Cosima forced herself to take a few bites of the hot, dry bread and padded over to the living room to grab her moped helmet.
"So, basically, you're saying big brother pulled the plug even though no one knows shit," Sarah said.
"Pretty much," Cosima acceded.
"And you're okay with that, Mr. Anti-Government?" Sarah asked, glancing sideways at Cal.
"I'm not anti-government, Sarah," Cal explained, sliding the scrambled eggs onto a serving plate. "I'm anti-unchecked power, whether it's the government or huge multi-nationals. And, yeah, I'm all for stopping an experiment that could blow us all up for all we know."
"I don't know if it'd blow us up," Cosima pointed out.
"Well whatever," Sarah said. "As fascinating as all this is, I'm gonna hit the shower. Stay away from my OJ, Cos."
When Sarah disappeared, Cosima hustled back to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. If she wasn't so damn queasy, she would just drink the rest of Sarah's last bottle of orange juice to spite her. Instead, she dumped it out into the sink, taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in watching it swirl and gurgle down the drain. That'll teach her, Cosima thought with a satisfied nod. She glanced at Cal, who merely shrugged with a smile that she immediately returned. Maybe Cal was an okay guy after all. Kinda cute too.
"Nice meeting you, again, Cal." Cosima tossed the empty bottle into their recycling bin. "And sorry for being so bitchy earlier. We should talk more about darknet sometime. Gotta run."
"Okay. Have a good one!"
"You too."
Grabbing her knapsack, she was out the door by 7:30.
8:30 a.m.
It usually took Cosima about 20 minutes to ride her moped from her apartment to DYAD's headquarters in downtown Toronto. But that day, the commute lasted nearly 1 hour, thanks to some asshat who was probably too busy checking his phone instead of paying attention to the road.
After parking, Cosima rushed from the garage toward the biology wing, dreadlocks whipping to and fro, the rubber soles of her boots squeaking along the freshly waxed floor. Dr. William Nealon, the head of DYAD's biology fellowship program, would have her head for being late. And she didn't want to get on his bad side any more than she already had.
She ducked past one of the familiar security guards who was carrying a tray with a teapot and several cups.
"Hey Martin," she greeted breathlessly.
"Good morning, Ms. Niehaus."
A few steps later, Cosima heard a loud yelp and a crash behind her. Slowing down, she turned her head around and saw both Martin and a plump man sprawled on the floor, the tea now a large brown puddle amid fragments of white ceramic. She shook her head and kept going. On another day, she would have stopped to help. But not today. Not if she wanted to remain a DYAD fellow.
She quickly dropped off her bag and helmet at her locker and slipped into her white lab coat, finally entering Nealon's laboratory to the knowing smirks of the other doctoral candidates. It always felt 10 degrees too cold in the lab, which the warmth-loving Cosima particularly despised. Fitting for Nealon, though, she mentally noted. Dante did write that the center of hell was encased in ice. Thankfully, the devil himself was nowhere in sight. For now at least. And Cosima sighed in relief.
As soon as she sat down at her workstation, Scott rolled his chair over. Despite the early hour, he already had coffee staining his lapel. "Where've you been?" he asked. "Nealon's on the rampage."
Cosima shrugged, unfazed as she focused on slowing her breathing. "When is he not crapping his pants over something?"
Samir, a thin and wiry Ph.D fellow, wheeled over to them. "Scuttlebutt says someone didn't mind one of the stem cell lines," he said in a low voice. "And the culture went to shit."
"What?" Cosima asked. "Which one?"
"615c33."
"615c… What the, that's one of mine!"
"Well, well, look who decided to grace us with her presence," a stern voice said behind Cosima, causing Samir and Scott to hastily retreat back to their own stations.
"Dr. Nealon," she swiveled her chair around and acknowledged the dour-faced scientist through gritted teeth. "I apologize for my tardiness. There was an accident this morning…"
"Ms. Niehaus," he interrupted. "We both know that if you wanted to show up on time, you would. And it seems your irresponsibility has expanded from your punctuality and cost you a stem cell line."
Cosima shook her head, anger flaring inside her. "Dr. Nealon, the cells were growing without differentiation on Friday after I re-plated. The new scaffolding or the medium must have been compromised."
"I'm not looking for excuses, Ms. Niehaus," Nealon said with a sniff, as arrogantly dismissive as ever. "But I am expecting you to fix your mistake and begin growing a new culture by the end of the day." He leaned toward her, voice low. "Your father may be the most brilliant robotics engineer on the planet, but here you are nothing more than a fellow in danger of losing her spot in this program." He straightened, a smug smirk on his face, and moved off to terrorize other candidates.
"That asshole," Cosima muttered. "He did something to the culture. I know it. I just don't know how to prove it...yet."
"Why would he do that?" Samir asked, rolling back. "Leekie would have his head."
"Payback?" Scott rejoined them. "Cosima did put that electric eel in Nealon's bioenergy hobby farm."
"That was never conclusively proven to be me," Cosima said, though she couldn't stop the corners of her lips from turning upward. "Stop spreading rumors, Scott."
"In any case, he's out for blood," Scott warned. "I'd lay low for a while."
He was right. She needed to stop pissing off Nealon. She just had to keep her head down, finish the fellowship, earn her doctorate, and then craft her master plan of destroying him.
"Guys, guys, guys, shhh," a fourth fellow sitting nearby, Feng, whispered. "There she is."
Four heads swiveled toward the lab's glass wall. On the other side, the infamous she was passing.
Dr. Delphine Cormier, the golden girl of DYAD.
In Cosima's mind, Delphine always seemed to move in slow motion and in sync to the smoky electric guitar riff of Jimi Hendrix's Foxy Lady. And as always, she looked like she just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine, all long limbs, fiery hazel-brown eyes, and flaxen hair that Cosima was sure shimmered just so in the light. That morning, Delphine had her blonde waves pinned up in a polished look that perfectly matched her black tapered pantst, knee-high boots, and white blouse buttoned up to her collar.
Cosima still remembered the first time she saw Dr. Cormier a few weeks ago. She had been squinting through the eyepiece of her microscope, glasses propped up on top of her head, when the physicist had walked past the microbiology lab. Cosima might not have looked up if not for the ardent responses from her colleagues. And so she had settled the lenses back onto her face with a scrunch of her nose, the blurry world turning crystal clear as her eyes had focused on Delphine Cormier. At that moment, she had forgotten how to breathe and had been smitten ever since.
Delphine currently stopped and was caught up in a rather intense looking discussion with an older man. Cosima recognized him as Dr. Henrik Johanssen, nicknamed the "cowboy" for his penchant for white stetsons and boots when not in the dark blue lab coat favored by the DYAD physicists. Despite the small frown creasing her brow, Delphine was still quite possibly the most perfect woman Cosima had ever seen. It really should be a crime for someone to be that freakin' attractive, she thought.
And much to her annoyance, her fellow doctoral students agreed, judging by the dreamy expressions on their faces.
"Hey, battle bitches, you might want to mop up your drool before you slip and fall in it," Cosima said, trying to mask the fact that she too was crushing just as hard on the lovely Dr. Cormier, who walked off with Johannsen.
"Guys, I'm gonna do it," Scott announced when the physicists were out of sight, combing his fingers through his side swept bangs. "I'm gonna ask her out."
"Get real, Scott." Samir rolled his eyes. "She is way out of your league."
"For real," Feng agreed. "PhD fellowship with CERN at 24, doctorate in particle physics at 25, smoking hot supermodel looks. You'd pass out within 10 feet of her. Plus, I hear she doesn't really hang out with anyone apart from the old geezers in her lab. Weird, huh?"
"Given the other options around here, I can't say I blame her," Cosima said dryly, crossing her arms and leaning back into her seat.
"Well, what if she's just waiting for someone to ask her out?" Scott said.
Feng nodded. "What you mean like, maybe the whole ice queen thing is just an act?"
"Hey now," Cosima said. "Just because she's not tripping over herself to hang out with people here, that doesn't make her an ice queen."
"Okay, okay," Scott said, holding his hands up in surrender. "I'm still gonna talk to her."
Irrational jealousy blazed within Cosima at the thought of Scott talking to Delphine first. It was completely unacceptable.
"I bet I'll talk to her before you," she challenged smoothly.
"Whoa-ho-ho," Samir grinned, gleefully rubbing his hands together. "How about we make this interesting? $100 bucks each to the man… or woman," he glanced at Cosima, "who talks to her first, gets her number, and invites her out by the end of the week."
"Deal," Scott agreed.
"You're on," Feng said.
"Cosima?" Scott asked. Three pairs of eyes regarded her with anticipation.
"Well, I already steal all your money in Runewars." Cosima placed her hands behind her head and laced her fingers together "What's a few more dollars?" She grinned at them, confident that she would win the bet hands down. She had all the time in the world.
A/N: Thank you to cementmixer and hellacophine on tumblr for the beta reads!