The Ocean On Their Shoulders

Chapter 5

It all seemed like a distant dream at first, even after coming down to a supposed utopia, luck just didn't seem to be on her side. Now, after almost a week at her new job and everything in her life starting to come together, of course, not without another wrench being thrown into the mix.

~*~

For the first time in a long time, it felt like she could just breathe.

For the last few months, hell, for the last few years, it seemed as if she was throwing caution to the wind. Leaving life to chance and moving with the punches. It was exhausting, honestly, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. And yet, while she had a routine of sorts even when she was working at the Fishbowl, there was still so much uncertainty about what her future held. Especially when she'd fight with herself every day on how her degree, framed and in a suitcase somewhere, was doing just that - being stored away without use. Jane left the surface with the intention of finding something down in Rapture for herself. Opportunities, freedom, possibilities, hope. And now, finally, it felt like luck was on her side. The exhaustion of waiting for something to happen was now gone, at least for the time being.

Nothing felt more satisfying than entering the ADAM research labs, shoes clicking against the tile flooring as she took the familiar route back to her lab. Her lab. The same space that seemed to evolve day by day with tanks of the ADAM sea slugs taking up more space, new equipment being found in every corner as Tenenbaum requested them for her. Whatever she needed, she had at her disposal, and it all almost felt too good to be true.

So did these ADAM slugs.

The pen scratching against the thin paper on her clipboard was fading into the background as the rushing of the tank's filtering system started back up again. Having messed with the overall system, she was curious to know if these slugs were filter feeders that preferred fast-moving currents. If this was true, they might be able to find these slugs closer to the surface around reefs, if not, they would need to stay deeper around the barrier of the city if they hoped to find more of them. So far, the slugs were rather dormant, the four currently in the tank she was observing laying completely still.

Jane lifted the end of the pen up to her bottom lip, tapping it a few times before humming to herself.

"I wonder -"

Having watched Brigid mess with another tank the first day she was at the lab, she remembers the other scientist turning off the light above the tank - seeing a bit of movement then. A hand reached up to the light above this tank and did just that, turned it off. Almost immediately they started moving, nothing coordinated, the movement rather slow and mindless. But, it gave her the conclusion that they were indeed nocturnal, making another note as she moved in closer to the tank.

Nothing from her classes on the surface could have prepared her for something like this. And while she tried her best at least to identify the basics about these slugs, curiosity couldn't help but pick at her brain at the possibilities.

What if these slugs could do more than provide humans with essentially a genetic miracle? Regenerating dead, dying, or wounded cells, allowing the blind to see, and the crippled to walk. What if - what if it could save a dying species? Help to control the populations of endangered marine species? Revive extinct species? Of course, enable to even imagine a feat like that, they would need ADAM by the boatload to start. Regardless, she quickly scribbled these thoughts onto the bottom blank page in the stack secured to the clipboard. Notes to return to in the future once she understood these slugs more and ADAM's overall potential.

She actually didn't realize how long she had been working, going back and forward between the slugs in the tank and her basics notes, before she heard Brigid call to her from her lab's door.