Yes, I bet you're surprised too. Piper Black, a science geek? Never in a million years, right?
Well, it happened, and it wasn't some miracle teacher or revelation that did it either. Just Piper for once deigning to crack open her science textbooks a few years back and realizing that actually, this stuff wasn't too hard to understand. In fact, it was kind of interesting. By the end of that same month, Piper found herself glued to the pages of her science books and even started to dig up the old textbooks she neglected to return. Before long, Harper started coming home to Piper passed out with her face on a mathematical proof of gravity, and Parker was shocked when her little sister came down stairs because she was trying to study. Piper Black, studying! And she only ever did that to cram for a test to avoid a failing grade!
Yet study she did, and soon that cramming became unnecessary. Piper's teachers started to give her glowing praise on her report cards as her hard work paid off. Piper was still the same old street-smart slacker at times, but now she had the book smarts to back it up too. Even Parker was impressed by her little sister, even if a little jealous, and Harper was beside herself when colleges even started sending her pamphlets begging Piper to sign up with them.
College was expensive though, and even with a big scholarship it'd be next to impossible for the Blacks to send their youngest off to higher education. Luckily, the Blacks were the kind of family the Yeng Corporation had an interest in exploiting helping, offering Piper Black a fancy new job, even fronting the bill for her online classes. And while they would have probably stuck Piper in a testing room to feed a nutritional supplement until she rolled out of the building, they saw potential in this brilliant little mind and what she could bring to the table. And so...
"I'm a research assistant!" Piper announced proudly, only to falter slightly as she realized how silly she probably looked.
"Research assist...ah, here we are!" the secretary said, reaching into her desk and holding out a placard , emblazoned with Piper's name and the stern looking photo she took a week ago. "Head down to Dr. Rhodes in Lab 51, he'll be expecting you."
"Thank you," Piper said politely, taking the placard and turning on her heel and doing her best not to skip down the hallway as she clipped it to her shirt. The hallways were sterile and severe looking as well, with stenciled numbers down the row of doors. Occasionally, the sound of glassware or an animal cry echoed from behind the doors, but for the most part the walk to the big door labeled "51" was quiet and uneventful. Piper reached for the handle but stopped short at the scanner bolting the door closed, with a big scanner the size of her hand. Cautiously, she placed her hand flatly on the scanner, and after a few seconds it let out a happy sounding "Ding!" and the door suddenly slid open without warning.
Piper had tried to calm her hype for the last week by reminding herself that it was just a regular lab, it wasn't going to be some amazing spectacle of science straight out of a flashy TV show. She let out a little squeak of delight anyway.
It was another sterile room as before, but it was anything but boring and quiet. It was like a modern day Frankenstein's secret lab; Test tubes and beakers lined the walls, heating over small fires or bubbling ominously as scientists ran their experiments on the concoctions. Hushed conversations were drowned out by the sound of chemical mixers and the occasional violent reaction; Piper nearly jumped when a nearby beaker suddenly popped and spewed a cloud of multicolored smoke.
"Someone get a lid on that thing before it cooks off again!" a thin-faced gray-haired lab technician called out as he headed for the door, his eyes obscured behind thick black goggles. He jabbed a gloved finger in Piper's direction. "You, you're the Piper Black girl, yes?"
"Y-yes sir?" Piper said, taken somewhat aback, reading the name "R. Rhodes" on the scientist's name-tag.
"Excellent, I've heard good things about you," Dr. Rhodes said, evidently far too busy to introduce himself. "We've gotten a whole shipment of metabolic samples from Europe that need analyzing and chemical dissection that needs to be done today." Striding over to the nearby closet, he tossed it open before striding right back again. "Lab coat, get one on and get busy. Trial by fire and what have you."
Piper had already rushed over and tossed on a large labcoat by the time Rhodes finished his order. Under any other circumstances, Piper would have been pissed at a situation like this, rudely thrown into a busy workday without so much as a friendly hello, but this? Holding out her arms as she looked at herself in the brand new lab coat, Piper could almost cry.
---
Every bit of Piper ached as she stood up from her chair at 5 PM. She was bone tired and starving for a big dinner, but damn if she didn't feel like she was on top of the world right now.
If today had been her initiation, she had passed with flying colors. A few of the older techs were even surprised to learn she was a research assistant, with even the stoic Dr. Rhodes offering a few faint words of praise after a good day's work.
"I can't believe we managed to get that European order finished on time," one of Piper's co-workers, a tall twenty-something blonde named Catherine, said as she walked out the door in front of Piper, rubbing the back of her neck.
"You're telling me," Piper replied. "I was worried when the last batch was labeled wrong too. Thank god the electronic records were still available."
"Hey I'm just happy that I'm not going to miss the bus again," another coworker, a dark-skinned guy closer to Piper's age with his hair clipped short named Ray. "My fiance's already steamed at me for the last few times I had her pick me up."
The three of them laughed as Piper reached casually into her pocket, only to find it suspiciously empty, Stopping in her tracks, she patted down her pockets frantically.
"Lose something?" Ray asked curiously.
"My bus pass, I think I left it in the lab," Piper realized with horror.
"You can still get it, we have 24 hour access in case we're on a time frame," Caroline said. "I'm heading back here at 11 to get the Heyman solution out of the centrifuge."
Piper breathed a sigh of relief. "I better grab it before the bus arrives then. See you two tomorrow!"
With a wave at her two new acquaintences, Piper doubled back to the lab, opening the door again and scanning the room, the lights dimmed as the sun rested lower in the sky. Heading back to the research station she spent the better part of six hours around, Piper spotted her pass lying underneath a clipboard and grabbed it.
The crowd of researchers leaving for the day was gone by the time Piper got back, leaving the area quiet and sterile again. Checking the time on her phone again, Piper dashed down the hallway before something caught her eye.
An open door.
Why Lab 9's door was wide open, Piper didn't know. She figured it was best not to go snooping and tried to move past it, but the thought of whatever was behind that door was...tempting. In the way only someone with a science-focused mind could be tempted. Poking her head around the door frame, Piper's jaw dropped as she saw...
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