Strange Light

Cosmo

Cosmo had once tried to regulate Ishcate's use of social media. It had been an admirable attempt made feeble by the fact that Cosmo did not have the know-how to regulate anything on a smart phone. It took a fourteen-year-old Ishcate about twenty-four hours to figure out how to hide apps on her phone. She would dutifully turn the phone over to Cosmo in the evening and watch in coy delight as he fumbled around with it. He would hand it back over, satisfied, and she would go to bed with unlimited access to the internet.

The only thing Ishcate would not risk was communication with Mustafa. Everything else was fair game. If anyone discovered it, so be it. It was all for fun, anyway.

Ishcate was sitting in her lab staring at a DM from Ava when she heard the far door open and Cosmo's familiar footsteps. Careless in her anger towards him, she kept the message on her screen until he was dangerously close, then closed her phone and turned to him on the spinning stool. 

Cosmo regarded her coolly. The fight in the conference room was fresh.

"Very quiet in here," he said.

Ishcate did not break eye contact with him, but hit play on the remote at her elbow. Music, the kind Cosmo despised, filled the space.

Cosmo closed his eyes.

"I was thinking about a different sound," he said more loudly.

"What's that?"

"Science." He spread his hands to indicate the very still lab. "I don't hear any science."

Ishcate glanced at the PCR machine on the end of her workbench. The poor thing was run ragged any given day. Now it looked strangely still.

"It's a rest day," she said.

"A rest- can you please turn down that noise?"

Ishcate tuned the music down just enough to hold a conversation.

Cosmo rubbed his temples.

"You seem to be in a mood," he said.

"What a thing to say to a woman."

"I was just coming down to tell you that Anna March has been moved out of isolation. We didn't detect the virus in her blood."

It wasn't as good of news as it should have been. And judging by the grim expression on Cosmo's face, he was aware.

"She's still having symptoms," Ishcate said.

"Yes."

"It's in her DNA. Where's her genetic sequence?"

"In process."

"Is that all?"

Cosmo paused. He seemed to be trying to get a read on her. Ishcate suddenly wondered if Norman had finally broken a promise and told Cosmo about their conversation, about the German lab. She felt a hint of dread.

"There's no rest days on your schedule," Cosmo said. "And that's not me being overbearing, it's just fact. You're supposed to be getting new primers in today. You have ten plates of cells in the incubator."

"That's not overbearing at all," Ishcate said mockingly.

"Are you busy with something else?"

Shit. Damn you Norman.

"Like what?" she asked.

He stared at her. Then he did something very unexpected. He pulled out one of the stools and sat across from her. He looked tired, all of a sudden. Ishcate watched in wonder as he rubbed his eyes. This was not the Cosmo she knew, who would be gearing up for a fight at this point with the way she was talking. This was a worn out man.