The red panda primarily eats bamboo, supplemented with occasional insects and small vertebrates. Active during dawn and dusk, they spend much of their time foraging for food, using their sharp claws and agility to climb trees. Solitary by nature, they seek refuge in trees or dense foliage during the day, curling up with their bushy tails for warmth and protection. They take short naps throughout—

The calming words of National Geographic: Almanac 12th Ver. abruptly exited Celine Myers's mind as she slammed the book shut, sighing loudly and feeling the headache that had been brewing in her mind since last Tuesday only accelerate in its visceral pounding against her skull.

Of course, Celine had nothing against red pandas. At the moment, however, she did have a bone to pick with the lab research department at Pym Technologies, and the stationary red mammals on the book pages were unfortunately just taking the brunt of her frustration.

"Nine days," Celine muttered to herself, shoving the National Geographic book back into a crevice on the bookshelf behind her before leaning back on her office chair and subconsciously twisting the leather strap of her wristwatch, her dark hair pooling across her shoulders. "Insane."

Nine days she'd been waiting for a follow-up from lab research regarding the department's monthly financial report. She'd emailed the head director about needing the data an entire month ago, only to get forwarded to his assistant, who'd then forwarded Celine to the lab operations supervisor, who'd then taken a good week to email her back just to ask which month's numbers she wanted him to send (her email subject line had been March 2025 Lab Finances).

By the time Celine had sent back a polite and notably-blunt response, she'd only had nine more days until her quarterly report presentation to her manager, for which she needed said numbers by.

That had been last Tuesday. It was 1:03pm on Thursday now, and Celine's inbox was still void of an email from the lab operations supervisor with some data that she very desperately needed, which meant that Celine had exactly 57 minutes before her presentation, which meant that she only had 57 minutes to somehow obtain the report she needed, crunch the numbers, analyze them, add her analysis to the slide deck she'd been preparing all quarter, do a quick run-through of the final slides, and then make her way up to Conference Room 1342 for the presentation that very well could determine whether she secured a full-time job offer from Pym Technologies or not.

As a part-time financial analyst intern at Pym Technologies, one of the largest corporations in the global world of science, half of Celine's week was spent in a small office on the 9th floor of Pym Technologies Headquarters, while the other half was spent commuting back downtown to attend classes at the University of San Francisco.

It really was a hustle-and-bustle lifestyle, and although Celine's LinkedIn profile described her as "an enthusiastic fourth-year student majoring in finance who is eager to utilize her passion for data analysis, mathematical reasoning, and quantitative modeling to explore the intersection between business and technology," it was really all just fancy word vomit that in actuality probably should say something like "monetarily-suffering 22-year-old with dead parents and barely any financial support of her own who is desperate to secure a well-paying job post-graduation so that she can pay off her debts, get rid of her student loans, and stop thrifting second-hand for basically everything she owns."

Celine's dad passed away from a surprise heart attack when Celine was three years old. The resulting loss of income meant that her mom worked at least two jobs everyday for twenty years—until she was struck dead by a tow truck two Decembers ago while working to deliver pizzas by foot in the middle of the night, leaving a grief-stricken Celine with a mountain of medical bills and a determination to never suffer to put food on the table like she witnessed her mom do.

That was that—and, in all honesty, Celine felt pretty proud about where she was headed. An internship at Pym Technologies wasn't an easy snab, and when she'd received the job offer four months ago, after months of late nights and internship applications and food stamps and studying, it had finally sparked a needed flame of hope within her: maybe her hard work was paying off after all.

Of course, it'd all be for nothing if Celine bombed her quarterly presentation—which currently seemed very likely, seeing as her Lab Research Finances presentation slide was still completely blank.

She glanced down at her wristwatch, which—like almost everything else on her—was bought second-hand from a shabby consignment store a two-minute walk away from her college dorm. The leather strap was scruffy and worn down, and the slightly-cracked glass of the face displayed that the time was now 1:06pm.

Wonderful.

Celine pinched the bridge of her nose, staring at the empty mug at the corner of her desk in a mixture of frustration and despair. She'd barely eaten today, too busy perfecting her final slides and running through them, and now the thirst was catching up with her too—but even now she couldn't even bring herself to take the elevator all the way downstairs just to go get water lest she accidentally missed the lab operations supervisor's email notification and lost precious time in working with the numbers he sent.

For the nth time, Celine wished that the 9th floor of Pym Technologies Headquarters had . . . more.

Not only did she have to take the elevator down to the 8th floor every single time she needed to refill her mug or to use the bathroom, but she apparently was the only one. From what Celine had observed from the few times she'd actively tried exploring, there were apparently no other people who worked regularly on the 9th floor with her. The rows of offices leading up to her own were always dark and locked up whenever she passed them, and although she'd see a janitor or two every once in a while, the other rooms on the floor always remained empty.

Everything just felt—for a lack of a better word—abandoned, which was unexpected considering the scope of Pym Technologies's reach and influence. Celine, at least, had expected more from a multinational corporation's headquarters than an entire building level that reminded her less of a corporate space and more so of a desolate, liminal limbo—like the building hallways with flickering lights and eerie music floating through them that were always used in horror movie trailers.

Okay, maybe she was exaggerating just a little bit. It wasn't that terrible, and seeing that the actual headquarters itself had over 30 floors, Celine supposed that Pym Technologies probably just overlooked this one accidently.

Plus, at least she got an office—Celine knew some of her classmates who were stuck working in tiny cubicles in large, stuffy rooms full of other employees, which she was very grateful was not her current predicament. She was just happy with where she was and what she had.

Despite the surrounding environment, Celine's office was her mini, metaphorical haven. It wasn't very big, but Celine had tried to make it as comfortable as possible; after all, the comfortability of her environment was something she placed relatively-high priority on:

Past the sign that read "Celine Myers — Financial Analyst Intern" on the glass wall by the entrance (not that anyone ever read it other than Celine herself, but it still made her heart swell slightly every time she did) was a small, rectangular room with hardwood floors and tan walls. Two large windows in the back overlooked the rippling waters of San Francisco Bay, which Celine liked to peer out of whenever she wasn't concentrating on her work. Tall, mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, stuffed full with random novels and tomes of all shapes and genres that all—based on their shabby conditions and the yellowing of their pages—had probably been there collecting dust for years.

Celine's desk—propped up with her accompanying office chair in the very center of the office—almost constantly displayed her laptop, her mug, a stack of papers of some sort, a calculator, and a package of gummy worms. In the corner was always a flower vase too; it currently housed pink tulips, but Celine liked to keep the variety in rotation. Flowers were one of the few things that she was willing to dish out a few dollars a week from her paycheck for—something about having them in her view always inexplicably brightened her mood.

Being in the office in general cheered Celine up. While she did occasionally have stressful days full of the classic work and numbers and calculations and deadlines (today was one of these days), just physically being in the space was a reminder to Celine of what she was working for—how far she'd gotten. Even if she hadn't really met anyone here (the other financial analyst interns were scattered all throughout the building), Celine didn't mind. She liked what she did.

In all honesty, Celine had never been too fond of the math, which was still merely tolerable to her, but she liked the analyzing and thinking part of finance. It wasn't about the numbers themselves, but more about what Celine could do with the numbers. The space for creativity to apply different approaches and thinking to manage reports and data was what made Celine genuinely enjoy what she did—as clinical as that sounded—even if she, like many others, was initially attracted to the field of finance solely because of the promise of money.

A amalgamation of personal experience and internal wiring meant that Celine had very resolute determination programmed into her mindset. She'd accepted a long time ago that to navigate with relative ease in the world, she needed to rely on hard work. Luck was unreliable. Luck was unpredictable. Luck was what killed her dad, what wrapped itself around her mom and suffocated her into working herself into the ground to provide for her and her child, who was then left alone to shoulder the debts and bills and struggles of harsh reality on her own.

No, Celine couldn't depend on luck. Celine could only depend on herself.

So she worked hard. It was what drove her to wake up at 7:00am everyday to either attend classes until the evening or commute an hour past the bay to work her internship. And then she'd sleep, and she'd wake up, and she'd do it all over again. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It was rewarding, but it was exhausting. And while Celine championed her tireless determination and diligent resolve internally, on extremely stressful days, her brain sometimes crashed off autopilot, and the piled-up exhaustion would hit her like a tidal wave.

Right now, Celine felt like she was drowning underneath said wave.

She twisted uncomfortably in her chair, staring down at the cars on the streets below her windows as she tried to let the noise of the traffic overcome the silence in her office, which had become deafening now, like a choir descending upon her and whispering in her ear: Time's running out, Celine! While her stress levels had been rising steadily since the morning (well, since last week, honestly) they were really peaking now, with every passing second of silence indicating another second closer to 2:00pm.

Celine looked down at her knee, which was bouncing uncontrollably. When did that start?

It was probably safe to say that the panic of failing to adequately present her quarterly report had finally caught up with her. If Celine's performance and work for this presentation were deemed poor by her manager—which they obviously will be if the entire part of her report on the lab department finances was missing—then she might as well just kiss her office goodbye and walk out of Pym Technologies Headquarters right now.

Ping!

Celine practically upended her chair as she shot out of it, sending a stack of papers on her desk into a flurry in her rush to get to her laptop. She paid them no mind, heart racing as she opened her email in anticipation.

She stared at the email notification for the new 20% off sale at Urban Outfitters for one long, drawn-out second.

"Okay," Celine muttered, closing her laptop and repressing the urge to chuck it out the window and disrupt the flow of traffic that she'd been trying to peacefully observe earlier. "That's it."

She stood up, grabbing her mug from her desk on her way out the door. She'd get her water, and she was going to get those damn numbers too.

Celine got in the elevator. 1:08pm.

Celine got off at the 8th floor and filled her mug at a water fountain. She took a long-awaited chug. 1:10pm.

Celine got into the elevator again. She took another sip of water and checked her wristwatch. 1:12pm.

When the elevator doors opened to reveal the 23rd floor, Celine looked down again as she stepped out. 1:13pm.

When she turned the corner and approached a set of heavy metal doors flanked by security card readers on either side and "RESTRICTION: EMPLOYEE ACCESS LIMITED BEYOND THIS POINT TO APPROVED LAB PERSONNEL" in bold red letters on a sign above the doors, it was 1:15pm.

She waited behind an adjacent wall, eyes alert and scanning her surroundings, until an old man in a white lab coat approached from a side hallway and swiped his authorized employee I.D. through one of the card readers, causing the doors to automatically open. He stepped through—and before she could second-guess her next plan of action, Celine quickly followed behind him and slipped through the entrance after him. 1:18pm.

The doors automatically shut with a loud CLANG! behind her, but Celine's mind was already on what she'd just walked into. She stood still for a moment in amazement, blinking and taking in the vast laboratory facility before her.

It was a setting beyond Albert Einstein's wildest dreams. Rows and rows of white workstations were lined up underneath the tall, raised ceiling above, from which clinically-bright panel lights shone down upon the numerous lab workers below. Equipment of all different shapes and sizes was scattered across the lab, with most of the specialized instruments currently occupied. Fume hoods, fire extinguishers, emergency showers, and eyewash stations ran across the walls of the lab, and there were probably more beakers and vials in sight than Celine had ever seen in one room together.

Most of all—everywhere she looked, people in sweeping white lab coats and safety goggles were moving about the room, rushing past each other, beakers in hand, or bent over the workstations and interacting with the scientific equipment, mixing mysterious liquids together and pouring concoctions out of glass tubes.

"Sorry!" one such lab worker exclaimed as he brushed past Celine and accidentally bumped against her shoulder, a vial of bubbling fluid in his hand and thick safety goggles strapped around his head. Celine barely had time to reply before he was already rushing away.

She shook herself out of her daze. Celine knew she stuck out like a sore thumb, a dark blazer and slacks in the sea of white lab coats around her. If she didn't start moving her limbs again, she was probably going to get called out soon for sneaking into a restricted area that she clearly didn't have access to, so she gave herself a final three seconds to take in her surroundings before she zeroed back in onto her current goal, quickly approaching an inconspicuous nearby table and using the hand that wasn't holding her mug to softly tap the shoulder of a redheaded woman in a lab coat who was wiping down an empty beaker.

"Um—excuse me? I'm so sorry to disturb you, but do you know where I can speak to the lab operations supervisor?"

The redheaded woman stared at Celine, setting her beaker down cautiously. "Uh, I think Mr. Rosenberg's by the main equipment area. I can go get him if you'd like."

"That'd be great, thank you."

Celine loitered by the table, waiting as the woman disappeared from view and feeling a little awkward as she felt curious eyes nearby staring at her. She hadn't really been thinking too much about the implications of just barging in here without permission, having solely acted while on the high of stress and frustration, but now that it was done, she was beginning to wonder if it had been the right move. Maybe this was what would get her kicked out of Pym Technologies—not for a failed quarterly report presentation, but for sneaking into the company's restricted lab.

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long—no later than what felt like five seconds after the redheaded woman rushed away, she reappeared in the distance, this time with a bald, pudgy man in tow behind her. He was short and sweaty, with a thick mustache above his mouth, and Celine knew right away that he was Mr. Rosenberg just from the mixture of recognition and distaste he was eyeing her with as he approached, no doubt categorizing her as the bothersome intern who'd changed from interrupting his day's work with emails to now doing so with an in-person visit.

"Ms. Myers!" he cried in a very high-pitched, pedantic voice when he reached her, barely giving Celine any chance to even open her mouth. He shook a thick finger in her face, though it was hard to take the action seriously seeing as the man reached her shoulder at most (and Celine's height was already on the slightly-short side of average). "I understand that you need that financial report, but that gives you no right to force yourself into this restricted facility without proper authorization!"

It took every ounce of Celine's willpower to keep her exasperation from seeping into her voice. "Mr. Rosenberg, sir, I understand, but it's been nine days, and—"

"You must recognize that that does not give you authority to enter into the laboratory here!"

"Yes, I know that, but—"

"It's dangerous here, Ms. Myers! We work with dangerous chemicals in this lab to procure concoctions for Hank Pym himself! Right here in this lab is where we deal with Pym Particles and Unstable Molecules! You do not have the adequate protective equipment to even be standing in this space right now!"

Celine's voice softened slightly. "I understand, sir, don't worry. I'll be out of here in no time—I just really need those numbers sent to me. My presentation is in half an hour."

Mr. Rosenberg huffed, the hairs of his mustache bristling. He glared at her for a moment before twisting his tie and giving a gruff sigh. "I—very well. I will head to my office right now and have those sent to you in the next five minutes."

The pure relief Celine felt at those words should be studied. She wanted to cry with joy. "Thank you, sir!"

The stout man was already waddling away. He waved his hand at her, scowling. "Please, just leave. Rosa, please see her out."

The redheaded woman—Rosa—guided Celine out of the lab, and she arrived back at her little office on the 9th floor at exactly 1:26pm in determined spirits, mug full and a new email from Mr. Rosenberg in her inbox. After shutting the door and sitting down at her desk, Celine smoothed the front of her blazer down smartly, tied her long hair up, and took a sip of water before opening her laptop, ready to crunch some numbers and absolutely demolish her quarterly report presentation.

She never made it to the presentation. At 1:27pm on April 3, 2025, Celine Myers vanished from her office on the 9th floor of Pym Technologies Headquarters, and all that was left behind were the few loose pieces of paper on her desk, fluttering slightly from some unknown source of wind.