Satisfied that the water sample hadn’t degraded in transport, she poured some into a glass beaker. Holding it over her head, she could see some of the larger diatoms in the glare cast by the banks of fluorescent lights. Susan was so focused on her work she didn’t hear the door to the lab open, and since it was so late she didn’t expect anyone to be disturbing her.

“What have you got there?” The voice startled her and she nearly dropped the beaker.

“Oh, Dr. Merrick. I didn’t know you were here.”

“I’ve told you, like I tell everyone in the company, to please call me Geoff.”

Susan frowned slightly. Geoffrey Merrick wasn’t a bad sort, really, but she disliked his affability, as if his billions shouldn’t affect the way people treated him, especially staffers at Merrick/Singer who were still working toward their doctorates. He was a year over fifty, but kept himself in shape by skiing nearly year-round, chasing the snows to South America when summer came to the Swiss Alps. He was also a bit vain about his appearance, and his skin remained too tight following a face-lift. Though a doctor in chemistry himself, Merrick had long since given up lab work and instead spent his time overseeing the research company that bore his and his ex-partner’s names.

“Is this that flocculent project your supervisor ran past me a few months ago?” Merrick asked, taking the beaker from Susan and studying it himself.

Unable to lie to get him out of her lab Susan said, “Yes, Doctor, I mean, Geoff.”

“It was an interesting idea when it was presented, though I have absolutely no idea what it could be used for,” Merrick commented, handing back the beaker. “But I guess that’s what we do here. We chase down our whims and see where they take us. How’s the project coming?”

“I think okay,” Susan said, anxious because no matter how nice he was, Merrick intimidated her. Though, if she were truthful with herself, most people intimidated her, from her boss down to the older women she rented her apartment from and the counterman at the café where she bought her morning coffee. “I was about to try an unscientific experiment.”

“Good, we’ll watch it together. Please proceed.”

Susan’s hands were beginning to tremble so she placed the beaker on a stand. She retrieved the first slide, the one containing her engineered phytoplankton, and sucked up the sample with a fresh dropper. She then carefully injected its contents into the beaker.

“I forget the particulars of what you’re doing,” Merrick said, standing over her shoulder. “What should we be seeing here?”

Susan shifted to hide the fact his proximity made her uncomfortable. “As you know, diatoms like this phytoplankton have a cell wall made of silica. What I’ve done is, well, what I’m trying to do, is find a way to melt that wall and ramp up the density of the cell sap within the vacuole. My engineered specimens should attack the unaltered diatoms in the water and go into a frenzy of replication and if things work out right…” Her voice trailed off as she reached for the beaker once again. She slid a hand into an insulated glove so she could touch the glass container. She tilted it onto its side but rather than spilling quickly, the water sloshed up the side with the viscosity of cooking oil. She righted the beaker before any dripped onto the lab table.