Anthem's Fall

Chapter Twenty Three

“I was,” Kristen said, gratification in her tone. Her gaze moved across the table with a satisfied expression. “Steve hadn’t joined us yet.”

Cara regarded Kristen’s youthful features with confusion. “Were you an undergraduate assistant?”

Steve chuckled, nearly spitting his beer. Nonplussed, Cara looked from him to Kristen. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to say something insulting. What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Kristen lifted a hand from the table and waved off Steve’s amusement. “It’s fine. I get that reaction a lot. No, I was on the actual research team when we invented the Vatruvian cell. I wasn’t an undergrad. I was head geneticist.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean offense. You just seem a little young, you know, to be halfway to your PhD.” Cara spoke with genuine surprise. “And I totally mean that as a compliment.”

Kristen blushed. She’d heard it all before, but this reaction to her age still made her uncomfortable.

“Kristen Jordan here is the resident teenager of the research team.” Steve spoke into his glass, taking some pleasure in Kristen’s embarrassment.

“Yeah, I’m really a teenager.” Kristen shook her drink, indicating the empty vodka tonic. “And I was overseeing the genetic sequencing for the Vatruvian cell while you were struggling to get accepted into graduate school and cheering your nerd friends through World of Warcraft.”

“Wow, that’s unbelievable. I had no idea you were that young,” Cara said.

Kristen cast a wan smile at the hardened glass rings engrained into the wood of the table. “I’m twenty-one.”

“If you hadn’t already noticed it about her, Kristen’s a genius who missed out on a childhood. It’s a shame really—overambitious mindset, overbearing parents, closet insecurities, the works.”

“And you have it all figured out, huh?” Kristen threw an ice cube at Steve, which missed its mark and fell to their feet under the table. She would not admit it, but her somewhat intoxicated coworker was not far from the mark.

Kristen was a biologist by degree, though she was well learned in several academic fields. Now in her third year of a doctorate program at Columbia, she had become the renowned Professor Vatruvia’s right-hand colleague, more of an associate than a student. Technically speaking she was the youngest researcher on the team, though at the same time Kristen was also a leader within the team’s ranks. She had been involved since the very beginning of the groundbreaking Columbia Vatruvian cell research project. No one could deny that—aside from Professor Vatruvia himself—Kristen knew more about the inner workings and nuances of the Vatruvian cell than anyone else on the research team, and therefore in the world.

Kristen’s looks were a common source of discussion among the male portion of the laboratory teams. She never wore any makeup, not seeing the use in such vanities. Yet try as she did to avoid accentuating her looks, her discreet beauty penetrated through. Even though they were usually concealed behind her glasses and dark bags from late nights spent looking over DNA codes, she had enthralling green eyes and graceful features. Her dirty blonde hair was often pulled back, revealing her exquisite cheekbones and the soft skin of her neck. With the slightest bit of effort, Kristen could have been called stunning. Most of her acquaintances would have classified her as gorgeous regardless—her lack of cosmetic efforts only providing an air of refinement to her often-overworked countenance.