Fame

The streets were quiet and snow-covered in the pale morning light. The effect was beautiful and Julie took it all in as she made her way to the loading dock. This entrance was the fastest way to the lab.

She unlocked the door, stomped her feet to knock off the snow and jogged up the stairs. The hall was empty, not surprising since it was only 7:30 am. Most of the professors and students showed up around 9:00, but Julie liked to get in early. She'd always been a morning person and knew she was more productive when there were fewer people around to distract her. She put down her backpack and steered clear of the computer. Checking her email would definitely slow her down, way down.

She wanted to finish her morning tasks quickly so she could get back to reading. Her project was moving along pretty well, but she was sure that she had missed something. She went to the walk-in refrigerator, took out some samples, put them on the lab bench so they could warm up and headed to the incubator.

“This experiment is such a waste of time,” she thought. She was so sure she knew what would happen that it seemed pointless to even do it. Oh, well, it was important to be thorough, but it wasn’t very exciting.

As she rounded the corner, her mentor, Dr. Peter Saxon, came out of his office.

“What are you doing here so early?” she asked.

“Grant due Monday. Been writing at home and needed to catch up on some administrative nonsense,” he said. “No time to talk.”

She turned and started walking when he stopped her.

“Hey, Julie. Quick question. I just got a strange email. Any idea why Steve Barton would want my old mutants?” he asked.

“Steve Barton? Who’s he?”

"You’re kidding, right? The guy’s famous. He works on the CTD. He’s at MIT.”

“Sorry, Pete,” she said. “No idea.”

They turned and walked in opposite directions: Pete off to deal with nonsense; Julie plodding through routine lab work. As soon as Julie had checked the incubator, she sat down at her computer.

“What did he say that guy’s name was? Steve Barlow?” she mumbled. She opened the search engine, typed ‘Steve Barlow CTD’ and clicked search.

“Nothin’, darn it. Maybe it was Barton,” she thought as she typed.

There it was. She opened a recent research paper and started to read. Half-way through the first page, she gasped.

“Oh my God,” she said and jumped up from her chair. She rushed out of the office and raced down the hall. Pete was just coming around the corner.

“Pete,” she yelled. “ I know why they want your mutants. The CTD is a target! I’d bet money on it. It has all of the right characteristics!”

He walked toward her shaking his head and motioning with his hand for her to quiet down. “Pipe down,” he said. “You’re making a scene.”

She looked around and realized that there were people walking down the hall giving her sideways glances. Oh, so what. Let them stare. This was just SO exciting!

“Steve Barton,” she said taking a deep breath. “He wants to see if our protein binds the CTD. It looks just like the other binding sites we’ve identified.”

“Doubtful,” Pete said. “The binding site isn’t that well-defined. Even if you’re right, we can’t compete with Steve Barton. He has a huge lab. He’s probably got 50 people working for him and all I’ve got is you and a technician.”

“I don’t care,” she argued. “You have to look at the CTD sequence. You’ll believe me once you see it.”

“I know what it looks like,” he said. “I actually did a couple of experiments with it as a grad student. The solutions are probably still in the freezer.” He crossed his arms and looked over her shoulder. She waited, holding her breath.

“OK, look. It’s a bit of a fishing expedition,” he said, “but since I already have the solutions, it would probably only take you three or four days to set up the experiment and get the results."

Three days later she was running down the hall, waving bright blue plates, shouting, “We’re gonna be famous!”