4/13/26, 7:45pm
It’s dark outside, but the fluorescent lights shine bright inside the lab. The lab is made up of four separate bays, each containing two adjacent benches. At the beginning of each bench, next to the window, is a desk, with a computer or laptop sitting on top. There’s a short chair in front of each desk and a tall chair in front of each bench. There are a few large pieces of equipment. A large white slide scanner on the bench against the far wall, and a large black HPLC on the righthand bench in the second bay of the lab when you enter the door. But mostly, the benches and the shelves above them are just full of bottles and boxes of pipette tips and various reagents. It’s a messy scene, but not because things are dirty or out of place. This is clearly a lab that is in heavy use.
There’s only one lab member present at the moment. Navya. She’s sitting on the tall chair, in the second to last bay, hovering over the bench. She’s wearing a turquoise hoodie, pipette in hand.
Navya’s benchtop is littered with bottles full of clear liquids, colorful tube racks lined with small and large tubes, two open cardboard kit boxes with reagents scattered about, a small beaker half full of discarded pipette tips, and lots more.
Navya has large black headphones on and doesn’t notice as Mike walks into the lab. Mike is wearing a dress shirt, untucked from his dark jeans. Coffee mug in hand. A lab no-no, but it’s late, and Mike doesn’t want to be too far away from his coffee.
Mike approaches Navya’s bench slowly.
“Navi,” he says softly. No response.
He waves a hand in the air. Still no response.
“Navi,” he says louder. No response.
Suddenly, Navya sees Mike in her peripheral vision and jerks up, nearly falling off of her chair.
“Shit. You scared me.”
“I know,” Mike replies. “Sorry, I tried to…”
“I thought you’d left,” Navya says, as she lowers her headphones onto her neck.
“Just to grab some food. Grant’s due tomorrow. It’s gonna be a late night.”
“Ugh. That sucks. I’m almost done. I’m meeting a friend at…” Navya glances at her watch. “Shit!”
Navya abruptly stands up from the chair and starts scrambling. She discards her pipette tip and closes the open tubes. She packs up the kits, runs them over to the fridge, and shoves them in. She throws her tube rack full of small tubes into a small incubator on the adjacent bench. All while Mike is standing there, coffee mug still in hand.
“Bad time?” asks Mike.
“Sorry. It’s a new friend. I don’t want to be late. Well, I mean I don’t want to be too late.”
“No problem,” Mike responds.
“Was it something important?”
“No,” Mike says, half to himself. “Well, maybe. But it can wait.”
“Ok, sorry.”
Navya grabs her coat from her desk, throws her laptop in her backpack, and hurries past Mike.
“We’ll be alright,” Mike says quietly. “I have a good feeling about this one.”
“Great!” Navya responds, running out of the lab. “See you tomorrow!”
“Yes, see you tomorrow,” Mike says, his voice trailing off. He takes one last sip from his coffee mug and walks out of the now empty lab.