Desperation brought her here.
Noelle never compromised her morals for money, but she needed the cash. Badly. And the old lady living in the Victorian house across from her parked car was willing to pay seven hundred dollars a week for her services. No job offered her that much. She could pay for her room and board this sophomore year along with all the books and supplies. The laptop that she had since ninth grade would finally be replaced and she could get some new clothes.
And most importantly, she could help pay some bills at home. With her father gone, her mom juggled two jobs while taking care of her twin brothers, two eight-year-old monsters that drove their mom crazy. Noelle sometimes felt guilty for attending a university out of state, but it was the only one that gave her a free ride and to give it up would have been more than stupid.
The job also included a major perk. Working for a Nobel Prize winning geneticist would easily get her into the biology PhD program of her choice. Like John Hopkins. Or Harvard. Noelle smiled. Dr. Noelle Ranciere, scientist from Harvard University. That sounded nice.
Yeah, but don’t forget the costs. She squeezed the wheel, her heart racing. The payment and extra bonus were great, but they came with a price. Noelle was disgusted with Dr. Lenora Cain’s work.
Dr. Cain was a staunch engineer and advocate of sub-species human research, called sub-hue research for short. The woman had directed a pivotal project that successfully intertwined human and bacteria DNA to breed a line of sub-hues whose blood created reverse disease serums. The whole world lauded the work that led to the severe reduction of bacteria causing diseases.
If a new strain of bacteria posed a health threat, create a sub-hue using that bacteria’s DNA and the problem would be solved. Dr. Cain won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and her work exploded into other sub-hue research. Animal, plant, fungus, virus…any living thing with DNA or RNA that could be interposed or reverse-transcribed to fit with human DNA created new populations of sub-hues.
These miserable looking creatures had no brains, no souls as the saying goes. Instead, they had a mass of tissue similar to the brain that coordinated their systems. Many did not look like humans; the very few that did have human features should have never been born.
Noelle stared at the house seated behind sprawling crooked claws of tree branches. The shaded windows with their dark gray shutters glared at her, malice lacing their gaze. Wind rustled the fallen autumn leaves. She imagined the sound was a secret warning telling her to leave while she still had her dignity.
There had to be an alternative to sub-hues. And she would find it. But first, she needed to exploit the devil’s infamous name to become a good scientist. Dr. Cain had chosen her, along with three others, out of the 300 applicants. And the job was only for two semesters.
Excuses, excuses, her conscious taunted. Noelle sighed and stepped out of her old Ford sedan. She locked the doors and walked up the stone path leading to the scientist’s house. At the front door, she cracked her knuckles and, after a deep breath, she rang the doorbell. Several minutes passed with no response. Noelle wanted to look inside for signs of movement, but shades covered all the windows. At the moment she was about to ring a second time, the clacks of locks being opened made her step back. The large oak door swung open and a middle aged woman in a pale blue housekeeper uniform appeared behind the screen. Her long face had deep wrinkles in the middle of her forehead.
“Are you one of the students that Dr. Cain’s expecting?” she asked abruptly.
“Um, yeah,” Noelle replied. Feeling uncomfortable under the woman’s steely glare, she moved her hands into her jacket’s pockets.
“I’m Teresa. Come in and have a seat. You’re the first to arrive.” The housekeeper led Noelle to a living room with green leather furniture, a Middle Eastern rug on the hardwood floor, and a long glass table in the center of the room. She sat down and looked around. A mahogany bookcase surrounded the room, leaving space on the wall for only the tall windows that possessed heavy jungle green drapes. The air smelled of disinfectants. Noelle wrinkled her nose. A home shouldn’t smell like this.
The doorbell rang and Teresa opened the door. Noelle gaped when Jason, her lab partner from her research class, stepped into the living room. He was a gangly light blue-eyed genius with black hair cut short to his scalp. Noelle disliked how her heart sprinted the second she saw his handsome face.
“You never told me she accepted you,” she said.
Jason smiled, sitting beside her. “But you never told me you were accepted.”
Noelle shrugged. “I didn’t want to seem like I was bragging or anything.”
“Me neither,” he said with teasing eyes that reminded her of a blue ice.
“Yeah, right,” Noelle muttered.
Jason chuckled.
A few minutes later, the Teresa opened the door to let in the remaining assistants. Noelle was surprised to discover that the two girls were also from her class. Four different schools sent applications to Dr. Cain, but the scientist chose assistants from the same class. Either Dr. Cain considered them the best minds or she had something for Noelle’s professor. Noelle hoped it was the former.
“Now that you’re all here, I’ll go inform Dr. Cain. Just stay here and don’t touch anything,” the housekeeper ordered.
“What does she think we are? First graders?” Lana said with a scoff once Teresa left. She had violent red hair that fell in curls below her shoulders.
Emily looked around while adjusting her glasses on her dark brown face. “I’d be cranky too if I had to take care of such a large house.”
“Whatever.” Lana rolled her eyes, snapping the gum in her mouth. She turned her eyes to Noelle. “So why are you here, Noelle? Don’t you hate sub-hue research or something? You and Prof Levin always battle it out in class about it.”
“Dr. Cain’s a Nobel Prize winning scientist,” Noelle said, keeping her voice level. “It’s not every day you encounter one who’s willing to take in undergrads as assistants.”
“Bullshit. You’re in it for the money. You’re looking like a real hypocrite right now, you know that?”
“Can you stop talking? You’re voice is annoying,” Jason said.
Lana turned her eyes up at him. “Excuse me? Shouldn’t you be even more upset than I am? Isn’t Dr. Cain your biggest hero? You couldn’t stop talking about her the other day and how excited that she picked you. Blah blah blah.”
Noelle blinked. What?
“Really, does your bitchiness have an off button, Lana?” Jason countered.
“Stop it, you two. This isn’t the place to be fighting,” Emily told them.
They quieted down, but Noelle’s head rang loudly with questions. Did Jason really consider a woman with no respect for human life his biggest hero? She bit her lip, almost regretting that she had come here. Maybe Lana was right. Maybe she was a hypocrite. Noelle straightened up. No, she came here with a mission; she couldn’t forget that. Lana was just angry that Dr. Cain picked her.
“Hello everyone, I’m so happy that you could make it here today.”
Noelle turned to the direction of the kind voice. Dr. Cain was a thin woman sitting in a wheelchair. Her brown hair was set in a stylish twenties bob and had white streaks in the front. She wore a lab coat over a white blouse and a long skirt that covered her feet. Noelle did not know the scientist was handicapped and that jarred her perspective of her a little. She had expected the woman to stand firm and appear mean. However, the lady smiling warmly at them proved her suspicions wrong.
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I appreciate all help. Thanks in advance! Suzu
