The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Forty-Five

"There's a lot going on here," Six said, her eyes pressed against the eyepiece of her microscope.

Ekko had explained how the components of the tree sap and crystal powder mixture looked different under the microscope from the last time he looked at it, and how he was worried it was because someone had tampered with it.

Her worrisome thoughts from before dwindled in severity now that her mind was occupied by thoughts relating to science.

He paused his pacing behind her. "What does that mean exactly?"

"Well, the tree sap and crystal powder mixture would already show a bunch of stuff under a microscope, like cell fragments, sugars, minerals, and well, tiny pieces of crystals. But there's more going on here. I can see two types of plant cells."

She pulled away to look up at him "Your tree is a ginkgo tree, right?"

Ekko nodded. "You could tell?"

"The leaves are a dead giveaway, and the appearance of the cell fragments are confirmation."

He stared. "Do you have all that stuff memorized or something?"

"I have the cell structures for the herbs I work with memorized, like tugwart. But differentiating plant species by cell appearance alone is difficult. As for your tree, Ms. LeLock managed to get some ginkgo bark from an Ionian merchant who dropped by the shop. I got a chance to peek at it under the lens, and since it's hard to get, I sketched my observations, which is why I recognized it."

A smile tugged at Ekko's lips, and it looked different than any other grin she saw him wear. It was soft, and it matched the gentleness in his eyes.

She realized she was nerding out, which was probably why. She quickly looked away and dipped her head, hiding her mouth and nose beneath her scarf, which in turn hid her burning cheeks from view.

"There's an abundance of intact cells in this sample too, which is rare in tree sap, meaning it's not just your tree sap that's been mixed with the crystal powder, there's something else too," she explained, her voice muffled by her scarf. "How do you collect the sap from your tree?"

"A spile."

"Near the bottom of the tree?"

"Yeah, why?"

She felt something stroke her ankles, and she looked down to see cheese making figure eights around her feet while whining for attention. She bent over and picked him up, allowing him to sit on her lap.

"Thought so. That means I was right, there is a different source of plant matter in the mixture."

A look of confusion appeared on his face. "I don't get it. Why'd you need to know how I get the sap?"

Six ran her fingers through Cheese's fur after he shifted into an angle that allowed her to scratch his belly (his favourite place to be scratched).

"If you collected it close enough to the leaves from a naturally formed opening, there's a slim chance that some leaf fragments might've contaminated the sap, which would explain where the other cells came from. But given your collection method, it's near impossible for that to happen naturally."

He gaped down at the top of her head. How'd she even think of that detail?

"Can you tell what it is?" he asked, shaking himself from his stunned state. He moved towards her bed and sat on the edge.

"Not completely. I can tell it's from green tissue because they have chloroplasts, but I won't be able to tell the exact species unless I conduct some chemical tests." She frowned and stood, carrying Cheese in her arms. "Since it's a mixture, it would have to be DNA sequencing... which I don't have the needed equipment to do."