Fated

Chapter 1

"University of New Mexico this is Dr. Fronsen's office, head of the Astrophysics department, Micah Drake speaking how can I help you?" Micah balanced the phone between her ear and shoulder will she shook a pack of sugar into her cup of hot chai.

She always liked her drinks extra sweet and right now she was so tired any amount of energy was needed.

"Hi Dr. Foster, yeah Dr. Frosen is out of the office."

Micah distractedly jotted down a message for her supervisor on a post-it note.

"Yes, I'll give him your number. Yes, yes I'll make sure he gets it today. His last class ends at 4:30."

Micah glanced at the clock in the corner of her computer screen.

2:23 pm.

This day felt entirely too long.

All she wanted was to get to the lab so she could work more on her dissertation project. She was close to the final touches and it needed to be submitted as soon as possible.

"Okay, thank you."

Micah hung the phone up and took a sip of her tea.

She hissed as the too-hot drink burned her tongue.

"Drink much?"

Arjun laughed from the adjacent desk.

"Use comebacks from 30 years ago much?" Micah rolled her at her own cringe-worthy snapback.

"Just because we are scientists doesn't mean we need to fall into the stereotypes," Maarouf chimed in from her desk in the corner of the office. "Open Facebook once in a while, I beg of you."

"Maarouf, you know our poor little Arjun is still stuck using MySpace," Micah laughed. "He's painfully stunted in his growth."

A wadded-up piece of paper hit her on the back of the shoulder and she just shook her head smiling.

"Who was that who called," Maarouf asked.

"A Dr. Foster," Micah glanced at the post-it note. "She needed to see if the university had a spectroheliograph. She is doing a research study in Puente Antiguo and her's is malfunctioning."

"Where is Puente Antiguo," Arjun asked from behind his stack of books and notes.

A quick Google search showed it was about two hours from Albuquerque.

"Dr. Foster?"

Micah grunted a "uh huh" as she finished the rest of her chai.

"Isn't she an East Coast Doctor?" Maarouf asked.

"Yeah," Arjun replied. "I applied to Culver and I actually interviewed with her for the department."

Micah scrolled through the university's webpage and spotted a profile of Dr. Foster. She was a lot younger than Micah imagined and ever more decorated. The acronyms after her name made Micah intrigued.

Women in astrophysics of course were a rarity but one so accomplished piqued her interest, especially with her last semester quickly approaching. The East Coast was tempting. She could finally leave behind New Mexico. Besides, Culver is where her cousin studied and she liked the idea of following his academic footsteps. Now that her entire family structure finally crumbled no one was here except her mom. She'd turned into a hermit. A total agoraphobe and Micah understood why it was hard to have such a distant mother just around the corner.

Susan Banner just liked to keep to herself. Micah was the product of her one night of "trying something new" and look where it ended her. A middle-aged single mom to a baby. She was diagnosable to be sure.