"Sure. That's fine."
"Okay then! Goodnight, Hutch. I'm glad we're okay."
"We're fine, Persephone. Goodnight." He punched end and silenced his phone, thinking that was perhaps the strangest phone call he'd ever gotten. His head hit the pillow, and he was asleep in seconds.
Sunday morning brought big surprises. Bob's first came when a simple test with a spectrophotometer told him that the PCR had worked; there was DNA in all of his samples. His second surprise came when he called Hutch to announce the good news, but got no answer. Hutch was always up early. Bob left a brief message and hung up. He thought about calling Aleksi, but realized he shouldn't disturb her rest.
He prepared the samples for sequencing, which meant a second PCR run with specialized nucleotide bases. When they were done, he picked one of the tooth samples and started it running. It wouldn't be finished for a few hours, so he put the other samples in storage, cleaned up the lab, and caught up on his logbook. He was only halfway through, however, when the sequencing computer chimed a warning.
"Here we go." He wheeled his chair over to the screen.
The sequencer was still running, but the result was muddled. There were two segments of amplified DNA in the sample instead of one. Both started with the same primer sequence, but a few bases after that the sequences diverged, and he had a double result for every base thereafter. He'd seen this before when there was DNA from more than one critter in a sample. It generally manifested as a few bases difference in the code, but these two were vastly different. He cross checked the primer sequence with the one on the kit documentation, and it was right. The primer was for a highly conserved bit of "nonsense" DNA common to most eukaryotic organisms.
"No such thing as negative data," he reminded himself, and let the sequencer run. He could separate the two sequences later by cloning them into bacteria and then excising and resequencing the cloned segments, but that would be time consuming. He would see what he could salvage from the other samples first.
He tried Hutch again, but still got no answer. He checked his watch, decided it was time for lunch and left the lab. Maybe he'd bring Aleksi another care package.
14
Aleksi woke to a wonderful smell and whispered voices from the kitchen. She tried to sit up but a startling weakness pervaded her aching limbs. But that smell had her mouth watering. She swallowed, cleared her throat and said, "You can stop whispering. I'm awake."
"Hey! It's alive!" Bob Tomlin poked his head around the corner and grinned at her. "I was just about ready to have you stuffed and put on display in the MCZ."
"If that glorious smell is what I think it is, I'll forgive that comment." She scrunched up against her pillow until she was almost sitting up.
"Burritos as big as your head!" He retrieved a bulging paper sack from the kitchen. "I would have brought coffee, too, but I didn't figure you needed caffeine."
"You're forgiven." She tried to smile but was afraid all she managed was a grimace. "I'm starving."
"See what I mean?" Julie followed Bob out of the kitchen with a plate and a big glass of water. "Weirdest flu I've ever seen. No cough and she's hungry, but she's got to have a fever."
"Add in aches, weakness, and some wicked fever dreams, and you've got it." Aleksi rubbed her eyes and accepted the brimming glass of water. Her hand trembled so badly that she spilled a bit before it reached her lips. She downed half without pausing for breath. "Thanks, Julie."
"Sounds more like an infection than the flu." Bob unwrapped one of the huge burritos, put it on the plate and handed it over. "Need a knife and fork?"
"No way." She lifted the huge thing, took a bite, and rolled her eyes. It was wonderful.
"I thought the flu was and infection." Julie looked at Bob and crossed her arms.
Aleksi knew Julie wasn't actively flirting, but she was one of those women who didn't have to. She was wearing an old Harvard Tee shirt and jeans, and was sexier than Aleksi ever could dream of being. She almost laughed at Bob's sudden blush.
"Uh, yeah, you're right. It's a viral infection, but this sounds more like Mono. No nausea, so it's not food poisoning." He looked back at Aleksi. "If we were in South America or even Florida, I'd say Dengue Fever, but the only living mosquito within a hundred miles is probably in the entomology lab. Think we should take you to the med center?"
"Not on your life. They'd stick me with needles, charge me a thousand dollars, and tell me to get rest and drink fluids." She took another bite and chewed. "This is the best medicine I've had all day."
"So, you're some kind of medical paleontology student?" Julie gave him a wry look.
"No." Bob blushed a little less this time. "Dad's a doctor, mom's a doctor, and you couldn't pay me enough. Working with sick people all day? Yuck!"
"Thanks." Aleksi took another bite and chewed.
"Sorry." Bob blushed again. "I didn't mean you."
"Never mind. You brought me food. You can say whatever you like." She drained her glass and sighed. "So, how goes the lab work?"
"Oh, cripes! I almost forgot!" He grinned. "We scored DNA, and not just a little."
"No way!" Aleksi nearly dropped her burrito.
"Yep. I ran six primers on one tooth and the stuff from inside the cast and they all came up positive. I've only sequenced one, but there are two strands, and they're way different."
"What was the primer?"
"A highly conserved junk region. I'll have to clone it to get both strands, then we can run a blast on Genbank and see what we've got."
"That's weird. Contamination, maybe?" Aleksi's mind was spinning. "Which piece of the specimen was it from?"
"The tooth that wasn't exposed. Hutch figured that if it was still intact, there might be something in it, and that it had the least chance of contamination. But PCR worked on the inside stuff, too."
"So it must not have been a very hot ash fall." She ate more Burrito, trying to think, but her mind was muddled with fever. "Did you look at the ash cast material?"
"Not yet. I'll have to use the mass spec for that, and scheduling's tight." He shrugged. "If the ash wasn't that hot, the thing might have suffocated, but…"
"But if it died of asphyxiation, why no bones?" she finished for him.
"Exactly. If I have to clone this to get a clean sequence, we won't have an answer for a week or so." He furrowed his brow. "You are taking a couple more days off, aren't you?"
"Well, I—"
"She's not leaving this apartment until her fever's gone." Julie glared at her. "Even if I have to take pictures and—"
"Post them on Facebook. That threat would have bigger teeth if I actually had any friends, you know." Aleksi took another bite of her dwindling burrito.
"Oh, but I've got thousands!" Julie flashed a predatory grin. "And they'd love to see pics of my sick roommate. I could even take a video of you snoring and drooling and put it on YouTube!"
"Fine." Aleksi ate and glared, then asked Bob, "What does Hutch think about the sample?"
"He doesn't know yet. I tried to call him but his phone's off."
"That's odd." Aleksi finished the last of her burrito.
"Well, it's Sunday. Maybe he's just taking a day off." Bob took the plate and glass, since Julie was showing no sign of wanting to touch anything that might be infected with whatever had laid Aleksi low. "I'll put the other burrito in the fridge for later. You want more water?"
"Please." She watched Julie follow him into the kitchen and had an unaccustomed pang of jealousy. She shook it off and suppressed a shiver.
"You canceled your labs for the week, right?" Bob returned with the full glass.
"Just Monday's Freshman Bio." She accepted the water and drank some without spilling this time. "I should be back on my feet by Wednesday for Comparative Zoology."
"Don't push yourself. If it is Mono, you could be down for more than a week."
"I'll be fine in a couple of days, I'm sure. Thanks for the food."
"No problem. Let me know i
f you need anything else. I mean it."
"Thanks."
"No thanks necessary. Just get well. The teamwork thing doesn't work if half the team is flat on her back with a fever." He smiled and retreated to the kitchen.
She listened to Bob and Julie whispering for a bit, but she couldn't concentrate enough to follow everything. She heard water running and imagined him doing the dishes for her. She snuggled down in her nest of blankets and felt another pang of jealousy. She knew Bob was just being nice. He was always nice. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift. Her last cognizant thoughts before sleep were how strange it was to have people who actually cared for her. She wondered why it should make her feel jealous.
Flying again, but this time the canyons and forest are the rooms and furniture of her apartment. She soars around the living room, perching high on this or that, scanning the vista for danger or prey. Iggy looks at her from his cage, and she smiles at him, her dear friend. She soars through the kitchen, down the hall and around her room, but there is no one else here.
Julie's door is closed, but sounds come from within. Aleksi knows those sounds, has heard them before from Julie's room, and she frowns. The doorknob turns in her hand.
She soars into the room and takes a high perch, peering down at them on the bed. Skin against skin, Julie and Bob moving in carnal synchrony, beautiful and fragile. She watches, confused at the feelings this evokes in her. She feels warm and tingly inside, but also angry.
Why angry?
A thrill of danger chases up her spine as they climax together and collapse in a tangle of sweaty arms and legs.
Hutch stomped the snow from his boots and stepped into the Daedalus Bar and Grille's sweltering, noisy, fragrant, and wonderful interior. Great food and a really fine selection of craft beers had made this place a local favorite for years. In summer, the roof would be as crowded as the downstairs, with brimming window boxes full of flowers and friendly wait staff. In winter, the theme shifted to one of warmth, noise, flavors, and shoulder to shoulder seating.
Not Persephone's kind of place.
That elicited suspicion. If she wanted to buy him lunch, why not one of her usual haunts with white linen and crystal? The answer was simple: she wanted something. He hoped it wasn't him.
"Hutch!"
The call over the murmur of conversation snapped his eye to the bar. Persephone waved him over with a beaming smile.
Once more into the breech… He loosened his coat and strode forth to do battle, his defenses up.
For the first time in recent memory, Persephone wasn't dressed to show off her money; a simple sweater, tights with boots, and sedate rings and earrings. She greeted him with a real hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Great to see you, Hutch." She waved him to a vacant barstool. "The place is jammed, so I thought we'd just hang at the bar if that's okay."
"Sure." That was another surprise. Persephone didn't 'hang' anywhere, and he'd never known her to eat a meal from a barstool. "You trying to turn over a middle-class leaf or something?"
"No. Just blending in." She waved the bartender over. "What's your poison?"
He glanced at the taps. "Harpoon IPA and a couple of menus."
The bartender handed over the menus and went to draw his draft.
Persephone raised her wine glass as his beer arrived. "So, formal apology time: I'm sorry about the other night, Hutch. I'm over the top sometimes, I know. I hope you can forgive me."
"I'm not mad about it, Persephone." She touched his glass to hers and sipped his beer.
"Yes, you are, and you have every right to be. I've got a big mouth."
He waited for the punchline, one of her lewd innuendos that he knew so well, but she didn't go there. He glanced up from his menu and found her looking at him with a strange expression he couldn't read. He knew her moods, and this was a new one.
"I was mad, but I'm not anymore, okay?"
"Okay." She looked at her menu, then back. "I've been…having some problems lately, and…well, it was just me being stupid."
That was new, too. Persephone never admitted to having problems. Problems were things that poor people had. "We're all stupid every once in a while."
The waiter returned and he ordered a Portobello burger. She ordered a chicken Caesar, and an uncomfortable silence descended. They both sipped their drinks, and he remembered why they'd gotten divorced. Initially it had been fun, she had been fun. Rich, generous, gregarious, and witty, it had been hard to say no to her, but he didn't like parties, and she accused him of being a workaholic. They had nothing in common but sex, and she got bored easily. He'd started coming home to an empty condo and messages on the phone that she was busy and would sleep at the house. When it boiled down to seeing each other only two or three nights a week, he'd finally asked for a divorce. She'd thrown a tantrum at first, of course, but then agreed and gave him more than he asked for in the split.
And now she's having problems…
"So, this project I'm funding is going well, you said?"
"Oh, well we just got started, but yes." He realized that there was one more thing they had in common; their mutual love of cryptozoology. "In fact, you'll get a kick out of this." He pulled his computer from his pack and fired it up.
"Tell me you found the Loch Ness Monster on a mountain in Kamchatka and I'll write you a blank check if I get to name it." She scooched her stool over so they could both look at the screen.
"Not quite, but we're not sure yet." He pulled up the CT image and waited for it to load. "The weirdest thing was the CT results. The sample is an ash cast like the ones in Pompeii. You know the ones I mean?"
"I've seen pictures." She cringed. "That one of the woman sheltering the child always makes me want to cry."
He glanced at her. Was that her problem? Was Persephone having biological clock issues? She'd never struck him as maternal, but people changed with age. "So, like those, the hot ash basically created a cocoon around our specimen, but the shocker came when we did a CT and found nothing inside."
"Nothing? What, like it vaporized?"
"Yes, but even the bones were nothing but dust. Only a few teeth and fragments were left, so our hopes of getting any DNA are pretty dismal. But look at the three-dee rendering of the scan." He tilted the screen to give her a better view.
"Oh, my!" Her eyes widened and she put down her wine glass too hard. "That's…Hutch, what is that?"
"No idea." He grinned at her fascination, admitting to himself that he'd missed her enthusiasm for these things.
"Are those wings?"
"They do look like some kind of elongated digits, maybe with a membranous webbing, like a bat, but the body shape's all wrong. The hind limbs are too long and the teeth really look like a big male primate's. Here." He pulled up the photos of the large canines under magnification.
"Wow!" Her eyes gleamed and she leaned in, one hand on his leg, but not a hint of a come-on. "You don't suppose I could have a copy of those, do you?"
"I can't, Persephone. I'm sorry, but if this ends up on some fringe crypto website next to pictures of Nessie and Sasquatch, I'd be in trouble."
"Come on, Hutch." She leaned back and cocked one plucked eyebrow. "I paid for this, you know."
There it was again, the spoiled child coming out. "I can't let the cat out of the bag before I know if it's a cat or a canary." He closed his computer as the bartender arrived with their meals.
"What if I offer to fund the entire project, soup to nuts?" She grinned and grabbed his wrist before he could put the computer back in his bag.
"You don't give up, do you?"
"No, but I'm offering to fund your project." She let go and turned to her meal. "You could name your own price, Hutch."
"We don't even know what this thing is yet."
"Well, when you find out, let me know and we'll work up a figure." She ate a bite of salad and chased it with a sip of wine.
"You're serious."
"Of course, I'm serious." She ate
another bite. "Get your DNA analysis done and call me with a plan. We'll negotiate. I get to unveil your Kamchatka mountain monster, and you get funding."
He laughed at her, surprised by her generosity. "Tell you what. I'll think about it, but it's Aleksi's project, not mine."
"Oh, I'd rather do business with you, Hutch." She cringed. "I don't think she likes me much."
"Why?" That was a warning bell; Persephone didn't think anyone didn't like her.
"I kind of embarrassed her the other night by accident, I think." She gave him a chagrined face.
"Persephone, what did you say to her?"
"Well, she's young and attractive, even if she doesn't know it, and I thought you two might be…" She waved a hand. "…you know. So I asked her."
"You didn't!"
"Well, she said you weren't, so no real harm done."
Hutch just stared at her.
"Oh, come on, Hutch. She's a big girl." She sipped wine and gave him a look. "What?"
"You astound me, that's all." He leaned in and lowered his voice. "You really think I'd sleep with one of my grad students?"
"Oh, come on, Hutch. You know me. I think everyone's sleeping with everyone." She laughed musically. "And more than half the time, I'm right!"
"Well I'm not."
"I know. That's what she said." She grinned at him. "Don't worry, Hutch. Even if you were, I wouldn't hold it against you. Hell, I wouldn't hold it against me!" She did a little shimmy on her barstool and sat up straight. "That girl can wear a sweater, let me tell you."
"Don't you dare seduce my student, Persephone." He knew she might do it just for fun or spite.
"Oh, I won't." She made a face. "She's so not my type."
"You have a type?" He couldn't resist.
"Now who's being petulant?" She laughed and returned to her meal. "So, when do you get DNA from this thing?"
"If we get DNA, we should…" That reminded him that he hadn't heard from Bob yet, and really should have. "In fact, we should know by now if we have any. Hang on." He fished his phone out of his pocket and saw that he had two missed calls. "Damn!"
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