No Trace Left

Part 1: Scientist

The Rosalind Franklin research centre, was quiet on this 3 am morning. 1st few support staff will come by 7am, but the senior researchers had no fixed hours. Often spending days without breaks. The facility was small and self contained, situated in the centre of London in the United Kingdom. 

At normal working hours of the day, several thousand people work there, mostly academics, students, professors, scientists and support staff.

Our lab was in one of the small sections in the basement that resembles a cube, its concrete walls had been filled with electronics, metal and strong plastic that provided the state of the art security, although no natural light. The Rosalind Franklin was slap bang in the middle of the concrete jungle we call London.

Each of the key researchers worked in private labs separate from the rest of the inhabitants. The primary lab was used by Jim a senior researcher and commercial partner to the facility. The one near his was used by Dan Williams the second in command and longtime friend.

Within the lab included 2 extra long gleaming white tables, there brilliants punctuated by only by cutting edge equipment, microscopes, spectrophotometer, thermal cycles, DNA sequences, Immunospot readers, plate readers, Incubators centrifuges and evaporators. The genius light source of the lab bathed the lab with bright almost natural light. One wall of the lab contained shelves of research material, of the collective research finds and volumes. 

The centre of the lab contained a bank of LED Screens, used to magnify microscopic material, alternatively the screen can be used for video conferencing. 

Jim had not left the premises the previous night, and there had been many such nights in recent months. Jim often joked had he and Gary had not been so much in love. Gary would have expected he was having an affair. 

Luckily Gary understood the importance of what Jim was trying to achieve. After all Gary was the one who suggested the current research project. He even Christened it. 

Jim looked over his research notes, and peered through the eye pieces of the microscope at the microscopic samples. The eye pieces were personalised to his optical near vision ground to the lenses, gifted to him by Gary.

The cells under his gaze proved that this particular concentration was working better than expected. The challenge now lay, whether they could deliver the drug packaged nicely for human consumption. 

Jim pushed himself back tiredly from the table and gently massaged his eye's. There was something immensely pleasing with his personality.    

His dense sandy hair turned salt and pepper, only along his side burns. His sea blue/green eyes together with his aquiline features and intellectual forehead, gave him a regal bearing. 

But there was a softness about him that accentuated by the gentle smile, often played on his lips.  He picked up his warwik glasses that laid on the table, and placed them back on the bridge of his nose. 

He got up from the stool, stretch his back, sitting hunched over a microscope for hours was painful. 

He looked at his watch "too early for a conference call? "

His concern was only short lived. As although it was early in the morning here, it was just about 11 am in Tokyo and the day was just about about to start in India Chennai. 

So usually anytime was fine for him.  The project was proceeding fast, having a team communicating around the world of different time zones. It was as if the members were located just across the street. 

Jim pressed a shortcut sequence on his keyboard, which got the screens to come to life. 

They popped open, within a few seconds soon all members of the project were online. On the video conference, including Dan who looked groggy eyed.