The Ocean On Their Shoulders

Chapter 13

It could have been the full night's sleep, or the fact that her experiment was going incredibly well that had her on cloud nine this morning. Nothing could possibly ruin these combined feelings that had her excited and ready to take her experiment to the next level.

Nothing but an incident regarding a rouge Big Daddy that threatened to decimate everything in its path. That combined with a sudden urge to finally write the letter Lamb had tasked her with. Both proved to be too much by the end of the day and leaving the one person she never thought could comfort her to calm the accumulating storm.

~*~

She hated to admit it, but it's been quite some time since she's walked into the labs with her spine tall, and head not pounding from only getting three to four hours of sleep. It was a tad later than when she was used to arriving at the Futuristics, taking to riding with Fontaine in his bathysphere instead of scrambling to make it to the Express. She figured he'd forgive her though since he didn't even wake her that morning, not even when it was two hours past when her alarm usually goes off.

The slightest smile quirked her lip as she unlocked the door to her lab realizing that yeah - he didn't even wake her the later it got. He probably would have let her sleep the entire day if she needed it. And while the whole ordeal from last night was still buzzing around in her mind, making her question everything, she couldn't help but feel the pink burning her cheeks at his consideration.

Her train of thought immediately derailed once she saw the sample dishes awaiting with an ominous blood-red glow emanating from them. Tossing her things on her desk and struggling to shrug on her lab coat, the excitement started bubbling from her chest, almost forgetting gloves for a second. Grabbing for her clipboard, she didn't hesitate to grab for the dish that appeared to have the most red patching on the bottom. The seaweed, of course, the few plant cells she had scrapped the day before appeared to have multiplied into a larger blob and Jane took no time to get it under a microscope.

It was amazing, not only had the ADAM done what she was hoping it would do in duplicating the plant cells, but it was still actively duplicating. Watching the cells divide from one another, from a fully mature seaweed sample, stole her breath for a second. She lifted her head from the microscope lens then to take some quick notes with the largest grin.

Jane quickly started swapping out the sample dishes, scrapping smaller samples onto plates to view, only to find the seaweed wasn't the only plant cells duplicating. They all were growing in number, from the flower petals to the grass from the surface and kelp. But, it was rather obvious that the plant cells native to the ocean had divided themselves the most, and were still rapidly duplicating - like they were trying to grow a whole new plant.

"Brigid!" Jane called, hearing her excitement echo around her. "Brigid!" She called again, jogging away from the microscope to the other scientist's lab next door.

She must have heard her though, and as soon as Jane opened the door to her lab, Brigid was standing on the other side with her hand raised like she was about to knock.

"Brigid, you have to see this!" Jane grabbed for her wrist, pulling her in before the other scientist could even utter a word.

Jane tugged her to the microscope, "I honestly didn't think much of anything would happen, but look!" She gave some room for Brigid to take a look, and after a few seconds, relished in the huff of disbelief to puff under her breath.

"And that's just the seaweed sample!" Jane couldn't help the chuckle in excitement. "I looked at a few other samples, the plants native to the ocean - Brigid - " She had to calm herself for a second, "They're still duplicating! Even with the small amount of ADAM we gave them last night. Imagine what a larger dose could do?"