Nobody Like You

Talented Little Ass

My eyes flicker. This is a question people always ask whenever I present my project, but Lia asks it much earlier than I expected.

"We're not," I snap. Lia flinches, and I lower my voice. "I tried, but... no." And that is all the explanation I am willing to give.

"There are a lot of things you can do with an inhibitor," I continue, "not just testing it in animals and then pushing it into the market as a drug. I mean, that's the most profitable way of doing things, but whatever. I'm not working for a company and Victoria doesn't care for profits. Instead, I'm trying to grow resistant mutants. Bacteria evolve and mutate and develop resistance over time. But we can beat their natural evolution in a lab and then figure out how to overcome the resistance before it happens in real life."

Lia chews on her lips and tilts her head. "But your inhibitor is not meant to kill bacteria, right? I don't know enough, but... do bacteria develop resistance towards things that don't kill them?"

My mouth drops. How the fuck is she asking all the toughest questions from my committee members?

I peel my gaze away from her bright, curious eyes. "They might. Not as quickly, of course, but if it gives them a slight fitness advantage to do so, they might."

She nods, but she still looks skeptical. I don't blame her. After we found out that the mice experiments would not happen, Victoria asked me to find an alternative, and I came up with this in a pinch. It's not the best idea, and Lia seems to know that too. She's way smarter than I realized.

And now I want to crawl into a hole and die.

"Can I... ask another question?" Lia probes with her shy, singsong voice.

So far, all her questions pierced dead center through the cracks of my project. I gulp down my fear and say, "Shoot."

"Why do you have to do these 'next steps'? Why can't you publish this already? You have the inhibitor, and it works in bacteria."

Once again, her question slaps me right where it hurts the most. I feel my body slinking down my seat. I am so ashamed of myself. Of all the cracks within my project. Of my incompetence and not achieving anything today. Of my attitude towards Lia.

"You're right," I mutter. "This can be published. But Victoria has... standards. She only wants to publish in the top-tier journals, and those typically want to see a further application of your research. Have your research be applied to a greater scale. Have more relevance to humans. Help the greater society or whatnot. So... I have to do more."

Lia nods again. Her eyes dart all over my slides as she frowns and bites her lips. She must do that a lot when she thinks. And even when she is deep in thought, her posture is as elegant as ever.

What did Victoria say she was again? A sophomore? She's only a sophomore in college and she's asking so many good questions already. Victoria was right. Lia is talented.

Guilt crawls back up as I remember what I said to her.

"Talented my ass."

I shudder. God, I'm the ass.

Our discussions shift into the nitty-gritty details of the experiments we will have to do. After realizing the amount of work that is waiting to be done, Lia insists we remake the agar plates today. This time, we use the autoclave correctly. I teach her how to pour the agar plates after that, and how to grow bacteria on them. By the time we are done, it is dinner time.

As we clean up and prepare to leave, Lia is glowing. Her eyes are no longer red, and her cheeks are flushed with excitement. She is... happy. Happy to be doing this. The sun has set, most people have left the lab, and Darren has left the office too. Yet, she is still this radiant.