Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows
... and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all
– Isaiah 53:4–6
Monday had been a bad day for Bradley Pettier. Although he’d been in early, at 8:30, and – unusually – without a hangover, this hadn’t been nearly early enough to avoid Little Miss Lady Cop and her unladylike temper. Not to mention her language.
She’d been pissed that the local cops had been snooping around in her investigation, and wanted to know what he, Brad, had said to get them involved. No amount of denial seemed to satisfy her. The look of (genuine) confusion hadn’t helped – probably only served to strengthen her opinion of him as just another dumb ex-colonial.
The fuss had even, eventually, coaxed the boss out of his lair, leading to an increasingly awkward series of questions, culminating in “Are you ever going to write that paper?” and “Why the fuck do I even pay you?”.
The rest of the week could only get better, he’d thought. But here he was, 9 on a Tuesday morning, wondering why there was a 25 kg tub of ammonium nitrate on his lab bench.
He peered at the lid again. There was a handwritten label, the ink smudged but definitely ‘De Kooij’ and not ‘Pettier’. That jerk in Stores must be illiterate as well as thick, Brad decided.
“Bradley.” A voice from the corridor outside the lab. “I think you have my order. It is a mistake.”
“You’re telling me. What would I want with the free world’s supply of ammonium nitrate?”
Michel stepped cautiously into Brad’s lab.
“Nitrate? Ammonium nitrate?”
“Yeah. Fertilizer. You taking up industrial-scale gardening or what? Maybe a sideline in GMOs?”
“Verdomme. I wanted sulphate. For salting out. They got it wrong again. How stupid are these people?”
Brad shook his head, too tired even for low-level ragging of this crazy Dutchman.
“Just take it, man. Get it off my bench.”
Michel nodded.
“Thank you. We should talk science some time.” Then he lifted the tub without a sound and left the lab, leaving Brad to wonder if he’d just been made a fool of, and whether this was after all an improvement on the previous day.
**********
When Michel got back to his own lab, Felicity the graduate student was loading a gel, while Sabine and Slater were sitting side-by-side, taking turns looking down a microscope. Sabine looked up, smiled.
“Michel! I wondered where you were.”
“I was chasing a lost order. It is an old Dutch sport.”
Slater snorted, without looking up from the microscope.
“You’ve been working on your sense of humour, Mike. I approve. I also approve of these latest crystal trays. We’ll be able to book a synchrotron trip soon.”
“Good. Perhaps you can take Sabine and Felicity. It would be good training.”
Slater straightened, turned round.
“Really, Mike? You’re usually so protective of your crystals. You like to see projects to completion.”
Michel shrugged, putting the heavy tub of chemical down by his own bench.
“I have enough to be getting on with. Sabine, Felicity… they need papers too.”
Sabine looked from Michel to Slater and back again.
“Really, Michel? You would do that?”
“Sure. It is no big thing.”
Sabine bent her head.
“I am not sure how I can thank you,” she said. “Maybe I can buy you that drink sometime.”
Slater wagged his finger in mock seriousness.
“Now stop it, you two. We have work to do. And you, Mike, need to shift that icing sugar off my desk.”
Sabine’s smile turned into a puzzled frown.
“Icing sugar? Why are you bringing icing sugar into the lab?”
“I am making a cake.”
“That’s a shedload of icing for one cake, Mike,” Slater said.
“It was a bulk buy discount. And I think we should celebrate Felicity’s PhD upgrade.”
“Very true. Just get it off my desk, all right?”
“In good time, Tom. In good time. But now I have to feed my cells.”
Michel picked up a notebook and walked down the corridor towards the tissue culture lab. Sabine turned to Slater, and said,
“Icing sugar? Does Michel normally make cakes?”
“He hasn’t before, but he’s a man of many talents. And he keeps surprising me. So it’s not impossible.”
She laughed. “Maybe he is making a bomb!”
Slater fiddled with the focus on the microscope.
“I have worked with Mike for many years, Sabine, and one of the things I have learned is that you don’t question what he’s doing. It all works out fine in the end – usually with a Nature paper.”
**********
The sky outside the lab was darkening, pink tinged with a sombre grey, when Slater emerged from his office.
“Right you two. Ready? Felicity’s gone ahead – I said we’d catch her up.”
Sabine was already at the lab sink, peeling away the hated latex gloves and dropping them elegantly into the biohaz bin.
“Are you ready, Michel?”
Slater chimed in: “You joining us? It’s nearly 8, you should take a break at least.”
Michel looked up at the clock above the door. The minute hand ticked onto the 10.
“You guys go. I’ll just set up this tray and follow you later.” He reached for his pipettor, and turned to Sabine. A genuine smile spread across his face.
Sabine caught her breath, and smiled back as she walked out the door with Slater.
“Tot ziens, schatje.”
**********
The rest of Brad Pettier’s day had not improved. Truth be told it had got worse, culminating in a letter that he still hadn’t read, having not been able to get past the ‘Formal Warning’ header.
On his way out for a final cigarette before calling it a night, he stood against the corridor wall to let four or five giggling girls go past. One of them he recognized – a grad student from the Slater lab, apparently having passed her upgrade to PhD status.
Well good luck lassie, he thought, welcome to hell.
He took a detour by the pigeon holes – dammit, bad news loves company, he thought – and was more than slightly surprised to find a large brown envelope in the ‘P’s, his own name handwritten in a Gothic script. He hesitated momentarily, before sliding the envelope under his arm and heading out to the carpark.
Outside, he leaned against the wall of the loading bay, and reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. But then he changed his mind, and slit open the envelope. As he withdrew a sheaf of stapled, laser-printed A4, a loose piece of paper fluttered out. He caught it, and scanned the note quickly, eyes widening. He looked back at the stapled sheaf and quickly flipped the pages with a mounting sense of incredulity. Why would he do this? And why put himself middle, not first? (Or even last? God knew the mental bastard deserved that).
“You crazy Dutch son-of-a – “
“What’s that you’ve got, Dr Pettier? Looks like a manuscript. Are congratulations in order?”
Startled, Brad looked up to see Sabine and Slater. The older man had a strange smile on his face.
“Uh, good evening, Professor Slater. Your postdoc seems to have given it to me.” Almost guiltily, he slipped the sheaf back into the envelope. “I haven’t read it, but he’s written this note, I’m not sure why – “
Suddenly Slater took him by the arm and pushed him firmly but not roughly into the shadow of the loading bay. Sabine followed. Slater held up a finger and nodded towards the Micro building.
Brad looked in that direction as a white car approached. It stopped under the security camera, and Brad had a sudden flash of insight that this was a deliberate manoeuvre.
A man and a woman got out and headed towards the building. Brad turned to Slater, his mouth open, but Slater shook his head. Sabine also remained silent, but her brow was furrowed.
When the newcomers were safely inside the building, Slater said,
“Did you know this is the only place in the goods yard there’s no light? And that,” pointing out the white Ford, “is apparently a security camera dead zone.”
Brad shook his head.
“Never thought about it. I just come out here to smoke.” He felt for his cigarettes again, thumbed one out, and on an impulse offered the packet to Slater and Sabine. Sabine shook her head, but Slater said,
“Don’t mind if I do, that’s most generous of you, Dr Pettier.”
Brad mumbled, his cheeks flushing pink, “Call me Brad.” He held out his Zippo.
Slater drew on the cigarette, a little too deeply for comfort, and coughed, his eyes watering.
“It’s been a while. But you don’t forget, do you?”
Brad shook his head.
“I guess not. I should quit, I guess. Say, what are you guys doing out here anyway?” Being so nice to me an’ all left unsaid.
“Tying up some loose ends,” Slater said. “Maybe you can tell us about your manuscript. Michel should be joining us soon.” He looked up to the window of his own lab. Brad and Sabine followed his gaze, and the main light went out, replaced by a smaller glow. “Oh, look. They’re in my office.”
The glow in the lab window appears to shrink, but is replaced by a strangely blue light, moving faster than thought, expanding into the twilight sky, pushing the glass of the windows before it. The noise follows, crushing their eardrums, collapsing into the patter of glass shards cluster-bombing the tarmac. Orange flames start to lick around the empty window frame.
Brad recovers first.
“Mike – Michel? Christ, was he in there?”
He slaps the envelope with the manuscript against Slater’s chest and runs back towards the Institute.
Sabine sobs, “Michel!”, and starts to follow him. But Slater catches her arm, shaking his head, and she stops. He takes the manuscript out, dropping the envelope on the concrete path, where splots of rain smudge the ink as effectively as they hide the tears on his face.
Over the sound of the building’s fire alarm, a siren wails in the distance.
