"The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy."-Yves Saint-Laurent

My hand rummaged through the drawer, but still I couldn't find what I needed. Finally I passed over a sharp object. Yanking it open some more, I grabbed them by the handle. Using the scissors, I glided them though the tape sealing my mysterious package. With my hands I pulled the rest of it away.

It was just a normal Tuesday at work until I got a call from Tony in my ear piece. "Why didn't you just use the phone like everyone else?" I whispered. The sudden loud noise in my ear made me jump at my desk, causing Judy to look at me suspiciously.

"Excuse me." I told her, standing up and heading towards the bathroom. After locking the door behind me, I waited for Tony to explain. "It's not safe." He replied. "Not safe?" I asked. Why wouldn't it be safe? "What is this about?" There was some shuffling in the background. "Do you know a Mr. Galigur?"

The name instantly brought me back to my college days. Prof. Galigur was my wacky chemistry teacher that I had for most of my chemistry classes. Okay, I was probably one of his favorite students too, so I really enjoyed his classes. The two of us had kept in good contact when I graduated, and he was always sending me interesting articles or new discoveries that he thought would intrigue me.

"Yeah, he was my chemistry professor at CalTech. Just leave the email alone, its probably just something he thought I would be interested in." I was about to say goodbye when Tony spoke up. "Oh, okay teacher's pet," I rolled my eyes. "He sent you a package."

"Oh, that's nice of him." I replied. "Well…" Tony's voice faded on the other line. "Well, what?" I asked, curios to why he was being so weird about it. "A refrigerated truck pulled up in front of the house and made me sign for this box. It has the biohazard mark stamped a few times across it."

The biohazard mark? Why would he be sending me something hazardous? I was tempted to leave work and open it up now, but I didn't. "Uh…okay. I have no clue what it could be. Clear out a space in the fridge near the bottom. Wrap the box in saran wrap and then stick a few freezer bags over it if you can. Don't open it." Tony snorted on the other line. "Because I totally want to open a hazardous box sent to you by some mad scientist." I could just see his eyes rolling. "Okay, well, keep it safe. I have to go."

I could hear a door close, and I assumed it was the fridge. "Alright. Leave it on, remember?" Tony nagged. Right, I had left my ear piece on all the time now, ever since the Expo. "See yah darlin'." I smiled. "Okay, bye Tony."

Tony pulled it out of the fridge for me and carried it downstairs when I came home. I pulled a few more strands of the tape that I didn't cut though well enough. "Now," I said, pulling a pair of gloves on. "There will be a box inside of this one, so I will have to open that up as well." Tony gave a nod, pulling the mask over his face. I had on a lab coat with my hair tied back. "Now duct tape my gloves to my coat."

Tugging at the tape roll with his gloves on, he finally got it started. Placing the strip of tape on my glove and my sleeve, he wound it around a few times. "That will do the trick." Taking the large tape roll, I repeated the same process with him.

"Okay, when your working with me," I began, pulling my face mask over my face, "Do as I say, even if it sounds odd, okay? You're not a trained lab assistant, so just obey, alright?" Tony just laughed. "I may not be a trained lab tech, but I know I would be better than that anyways."

I elbowed him in the arm. "Whatever, Dr. Jekyll." I retorted. Tony laughed again. "Oh come on, I'm not going to screw up that much!" Becoming more serious, I pulled the flaps of the box open, revealing the smaller box below it. "Scissors, doctor." Tony said, placing them in my hand.

Pulling the two blades apart, I slid one of them along the top and sides of the package, cutting though the thick tape. "You may not want to put these back in the kitchen." I joked, handing them back to Tony. "Place them in the sanitation machine, sir." Jarvis asked. Tony opened up the lid to the vital machine and placed them inside.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have called FEMA? Shouldn't we have HazMat suits on or something?" I laughed at his sudden concern. "No, he wouldn't have gotten away with mailing any of that stuff!" Maybe the HazMat suits would be nice, but I know the professor wouldn't send me anything too dangerous.

Tony and I both peered inside the box. "I can't see worth a darn with these goggles on." Tony complained. "Don't you dare take them off." I warned. Reaching my hand into the box, I felt something cold against my hand. A small test tube rolled around on the bottom of the box before I could get my gloved hand to grasp it.

Pulling it up out of the box, I held it up to the light. I knew he had sent me some sort of bacteria. "Okay, well this is a little bit less dramatic than I thought it was going to be." Tony commented. "What did you want? Some glowing radioactive green slime?"

"That would have been cool." I rolled my eyes. "This isn't a Si-fi movie." He shrugged. "Fine, but what is it then?" I shrugged. "Hold this." I shoved the tube into Tony's hands. Making sure he had a hold of it, I let go. Reaching back into the small box, I pulled out an envelope addressed to me. Tugging the opening of the envelope, I then pulled the letter from it and began to read.

"Dear Miss Carheart,
It has been a while since I have had time to make contact with you. For that I am very sorry! I hope you are in good health and that your new job is treating you well. I hoped the box got across the message to the sort of material that I have sent you. As part of my current project, I have traveled down to Mexico. CalTech was one of the universities that partnered with the CDC to help with the recent outbreak of H1N1. Or, what the media is telling you is H1N1."

I paused here and looked up at Tony. His brown eyes were wide and his eye brows raised. Moving his hand, he gestured for me to continue. "I, on the other hand, believe we are dealing with a much more serious disease. Something the world may have not seen before. Sure, the symptoms are identical to the flu, but the casualties are exponentially rising. The flu does not cause that much death that quickly. No, I believe this is a type of flu and chemical weapon hybrid. It makes sense. The flu is easy to contract and spread, whereas the chemical weapon part would account for the large amounts of death caused.

The CDC did not like my suspicion. When I approached them with the idea, I was immediately turned away. A week later, I was to be sent back to California. I am going to go ahead and assume that the government knows something that we all do not. Luckily I did not contract the disease whilst I was there, but I sent you my last sample of it. If I think anyone can figure this out, I would bet everything that it would be you. I did not have the equipment and clearance to run test on it with the CDC or at the labs here at CalTech. But you my lady, have a lot of access to such things. Run the test and once you are done, send the sample and the results back in the same two boxes (postage is inside). I will then approach the government with my findings, taking the blame for extracting the sample from Mexico. The sample will be incinerated. One word of caution, do not tell many about this. I do indeed suspect foul play. Good luck, Andrea.

Your good friend,
Dr. Donald Galigur

Tony and I stared at each other for a prolonged amount of time. The information that had reached our ears was astounding. I blinked a few times, still trying to comprehend what Dr. Galigur was telling us.

"Well then." I said at last. Tony gently set the vial down on the prepared space. "Your mission, if you choose to accept it." Tony said, injecting some humor into the situation. "We have no choice." I replied. Tony leaned up against the table. "So, a guy sends you a vial and then tells you the government is covering up a chemical warfare attack. Do you believe it?"

I could see where he was coming from. It was awfully strange to hear all of this, especially since we like to believe the government doesn't lie to us. Maybe this really was a cover up, and they were investigating it as we speak. Or maybe they were just as confused as was.

"Yes, I do." I eventually replied. "I trust this man. Plus," I added, picking the vial up. "I guess we really will find out what's going on with this in our possession." Tony was definitely not a rule follower, so I assumed he would agree with me. "Let's get down to it then!"

(Tony's point of view)

Hours later, the two of us were hungry and tired. The sample had been sent to us in what is called a long term packaging. Which was nice, because then we could hold on to it as long as we needed to. The sample is placed in 150µl of glycol solution. This acts as the preservation unit. Along with the freezing, of course. It could have been flash frozen in liquid nitrogen, but that was irrelevant at this point. Tony sat by me as I separated tiny samples into tiny containers using a micropipette. It was tedious work, putting an exact amount of the dangerous substance into a container then finding the correct machine and then the correct settings and then waiting for the results. Which, would take forever.

"This is going to be our favorite machine." Andrea said to me, pointing to the only one hooked up directly to a computer. It looked just like any other machine to me. "Okay…" I replied, unsure of what was so great by it. She exhaled loudly, clearly annoyed at me. "This is a Gas chromatography–mass spectrometer." Andrea replied with a dramatic voice.

"This little baby takes in any substance and incinerates it. Then, the gas that is created from it is analyzed by the spectrometer. Different substances will show up on the screen, and the one with the highest peak is its identity. Of course, that's just what the gas chromatography part. The mass spectrometer analyzes molecules and ions as well as the light produced by each."

Placing her hand on the box to the right, she opened it up to reveal a large steel contraption. "This is the oven. I inject the substance we are testing into the machine and it will burn inside of here. This," Reaching her hand to the box on the left, she opened it up to show me the inside. There was a large black container and a few wires, along with a fan. "This is where the reading of it takes place. Then the results show up on the computer."

Closing both of the doors, she then picked up the vial of well, whatever was really in it. "It's impossible to obtain accurate results with just the gas chromatography part of the machine. The mass spectrometer unit though, requires a pure sample, which we do not have since it has been mixed with glycol. But then, when we get the results we can easily exclude it."

Her eyes were alight as she explained to me how her little machine worked. I placed a hand over my mouth to hide my growing smile. She always talked with her hands, sometimes making ridiculous gestures without even realizing it. She wound even interrupt herself sometimes, making a correction or elaborating on whatever she was talking about. Occasionally her face would freeze up as she would forget what she was saying, but quickly remember. It was like her mind ran faster than her mouth did. It was quirky and dramatic, but cute. For some reason, I did indeed find it cute.

"Here is the injection site," She explained, pointing at the machine. Using the small container, she sucked the fluids up into a syringe. After flicking it a few times, she injected it into the machine. "So now we can run the test!" Her hand moved to the elaborate key pad before and started to press some buttons. "Wait, I don't have to program it! Jarvis!" She said excitedly. "Please run the GC-MS to break down and detect our unknown substance. Go ahead and throw out the glycol in the results, and keep in mind we may be looking for major compounds consistent with the flu." She commanded. "Right away, m'am." Jarvis replied.

Turning around, she leaned against the table, releasing a large sigh. We've been filling machines and running test for what seemed like forever, and the exhaustion was beginning to show on her face. "What?" She asked me. "What?" I questioned back. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I didn't realize the look I had on my face. It was a cross between admiration, desire, and amusement. "Like what?" I smirked. In an unsuccessful attempt to name my look, she tossed her hands up in the air. "That-that…that look!" Her eyes turned away from my face as I saw her smile.

"That look I give women who are extremely smart and are wonderful at what they do? The ones who somehow put up with me all the time? Not to mention the cooking!" Her eyes became shifty." And how beautiful you are."

Andrea turned her head away from me. She bit her bottom lip and tried not to show any emotions. "Are you flattered?" I asked, knowing that she was. "Because I can remember you saying that flattery didn't work on you." Still, she didn't look at me. "You say it doesn't, but your cheeks tell me it does." Her face was dusted in rouge from my comments.

"There just sweet nothings, Tony. You do it all the time." She replied. "But they're not nothings! They're something's!" I exclaimed, walking towards her. "I mean every word." Finally she faced me, a smile upon her lips. Slowly she shook her head, letting me win this one. "See, I knew it worked." I told her triumphantly. Reaching for her hands, I intertwined my fingers with hers.

Her happy expression changed to one of fear. Instantly I knew she was thinking of the sample, the flu, the many people dying. "Tony," She began. "What if…" I placed a finger on her lips to stop her from voicing her terrible thoughts. "Hey." I interrupted. I gave her that smile that I knew made her melt inside. "I love you."

Her smile became bigger and she let out a short laugh. "You know, most normal people don't have that many romantic moments in their garage." I laughed too, but because it was totally true. "If you haven't realized yet, Andrea, we aren't exactly normal people." She chuckled a little more. "You're a superhero, and I'm a super nerd."

I gave her hands a squeeze before replying. "You're also super beautiful. And I of course, am super good looking." Andrea rolled her eyes as I said that. "Guess that makes us a super sexy couple." I got another laugh out of her. "You know it!" She said with a wink.

"Now come on Tony, I am starving. We worked straight though dinner." Andrea stated, tugging me towards the stairs. "We need some pizza." Pizza did sound good. "We need a shower." I replied, stressing the we.

She stopped at the doorway and turned to face me. "Pizza." She contradicted, her face a blank slate. Her lips turned upwards and her eyes softened. "Then, we shower." I smiled back at her. "Eat quick then." I told her. Andrea's hands wrapped back around mine and I let her pull me up the stairs.