Round Robin October 2020

5 October 2020

Four years ago....or how Emilia got her lab:

Emilia heard that the waitlist for getting her own lab was ... long. She sighed but kept planning the experiments she wanted to run, one day, in the future.

Her best friend Greg and his girlfriend, Samantha Nun, joined Emilia's booth at the diner near the college. Samantha was always envious of the deep friendship that Greg and Emilia had and flat out told Greg that he was not allowed to meet with Emilia without her. The longtime friends just looked at each other, shrugged, and put up with her jealousy.

"Hey Em, did you hear?" Greg asked, settling himself in the pink-colored booth.

"No, what?" She asked, distracted with a new experiment.

"A lab opened up in the Physics labs!"

Emilia dropped her pencil in shock. "Wh-wha? How? Why?" She peppered him with questions. She leaned over the table close to Greg and hissed, "Whose lab?"

Greg gulped but calmly answered the questions. "I don't know what or how. The why and the lab answer the same question. Dr. Lenox was running an experiment. I heard someone needed to push a button on the control board. Dr. Lenox is hospitalized with four lab assistants. Lab gossip is that he refuses to step into that lab ever again."

"Who's Dr. Lenox? Why is getting a free lab so important?" Samantha asked, cutting into the conversation.

Greg took his girlfriend's hand and looked into her eyes. "A lab is important because then scientists can run experiments to prove any hypotheses they have. Labs are assigned to particular teams. Dr. Lenox has been in his lab for six years-the longest time someone has been in that lab ever. Everyone else has been in the labs for less than two years. The waiting list is always full and Em has been waiting for a lab for three years?" He glanced at Emilia at the end of the questions.

Emilia nodded and gestured for him to continue his explanation. The less she spoke to Samantha the better.

"Basically, Em now can get her own lab since she is on the top of the waiting list and conduct the experiments she has been wanting to conduct for at least a decade. She also wants to fully prove several hypotheses she has."

"Oh, I get it." Samantha paused, "But why don't you want your own lab?"

Greg laughed. "I'm a biologist. I don't need a whole lab to myself. I'm not a greedy physicist," he replied, looking at Emilia with laughter in his eyes.

"At least I don't have to deal with contaminants accidentally following me home!" Emilia exclaimed, continuing the longtime argument.

"Ew! Do you really bring things home Greggy?" Samantha asked, horror dripping from every syllable.

"No, Samantha. Em's just making a joke."

"Yeah, just joking here. Greggy-" Emilia gagged on the nickname. "doesn't bring anything on his clothes. There is a lot of safety in the labs. I wonder how the accident happened in Lenox's lab."

End Flashback

Gregory woke with a start. He wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but he did not enjoy dreaming about his ex - and he was really glad Em never called him 'Greggy.' Looking back, he wasn't sure how he put up with that nickname for so long...

At any rate, the nightmare of a dream did at least have some important information in it - not that he needed to dream about it to remember.