Dr. Roberto Martinez didn't have many friends. Well, if only humans were being counted, he actually didn't have *any* friends. He'd always been young for where he was in life, and over the years he'd gotten used to being lonely.
As he packed up his last crate of lab equipment, his heart felt heavy. He had gotten so far in the last year. He had his own research- his nanotech- and it had been going great. Everything had gone perfectly in the testing trials on machinery, which had been a pretty cool unexpected perk, but in order to prove the research valid, he had needed to prove that the nanomachines could bond with human tissue.
Of course no one was willing to volunteer for such a trial- god only knew what would happen if it didn't work- but he kept hoping that somehow he would find a way to prove his research. He knew it could help somebody.
That evening he had been proven wrong. A break-in had occurred at his lab. The intruder had gotten away with a sample of the probes and development information and had smashed the holding tank as well. Two N-Tek agents had gotten caught up in the pool of nanotech solution that had been spilled when the container broke. While Dr. Martinez had felt a ray of hope upon reading this in the report- maybe he had test subjects after all- the next sentence dashed these hopes. Both agents had been dead before the medical team had even gotten to them. His research had been deemed no longer worth the funding, and Berto had been transferred to another department to study the effects of gamma radiation.
He could have argued- could have explained to his boss Jefferson Smith that it was possible that the two agents just weren't compatible- they just had to find the right subject. He was positive it was just dependent on the right DNA sequencing. But there was no use. After such a failure, his boss Jefferson Smith wouldn't even allow animal testing, much less another human trial.
He sighed as he looked back at his empty lab one last time before turning off the lights. He had been so sure his research could help someone. He would be given a desk in the corner of the gamma lab. It was something, he supposed- Jefferson smith could have just fired him.
His shoulders slumped as he walked down the hall. There would be tons of paperwork to file for his new job- gamma radiation was dangerous to work with and N-Tek wanted to make sure scientists knew what they were getting into before they started work. It was a sector he'd promised his mother he'd never work in after she had seen that special on the news about cancer rates, but he knew he needed to make a living somehow.