The Scientist

Sam did her best to pay attention to Dr. Bosun as he talked to her. It was a difficult thing, though. His hair was playfully unkempt, and his eyes had a way of shining when he talked of things that interested him. He was incredibly attractive, true, but she'd always tried to keep romantics from the office.

“So what do you think, Ms. Warburn? Should we test the four-part barium mixture or the four-part liquid titanium mixture first?”

Sam swallowed involuntarily. She hadn't been paying attention. “Uhm, the barium mixture?”

“Just what I was thinking! It's too difficult to get the right temperature for liquid titanium anyhow.”

It was all she could do to keep from blushing. That was the last reaction she had expected.
They were walking through the gardens at the research division of Chemtech. It was really a beautiful area for such a small plot of land. The Doc had asked her to accompany her on a walk, as she had been assigned to assist him in whatever procedures he was currently working on for the company.

Chemtech was devoted to designing newer and better drugs, specifically painkillers and antibiotics. It considered itself the “shining white night” of medical companies, whether it was or not, which afflicted much of the staff with a sort of prideful bluster.

Not Doctor Bosun. Sam was little more than an assistant, but he had still treated her with a great deal of attention and interest. While it was true they'd be working together on many different projects over the next few months, it was still incredibly rare for a doctor to honestly take into account the opinions of another, especially one as unqualified as her.

The walk continued about the Chemtech grounds for about another thirty minutes. Eventually, though, Dr. Bosun's pager buzzed in his pocket, and he said goodbye, disappearing back into the main building.

It was all Sam could do to keep from skipping into the building after her. But for one thing, her work day was done, and for another, she didn't recall skipping anywhere in her entire life. What was wrong with her? She was acting like she was in high school all over again.

Gradually, she calmed down. The day was done, the weekend was coming up, and she could relax without thinking about any handsome doctors. He was probably married, anyhow.

The weekend wasn't really that eventful. Only out of college a few years, she was still blinded enough by the freedom that the loneliness of solitude had yet to come into full view, and as such she could entertain herself with much of anything. Still, though, she found herself almost subconsciously waiting for it to be over. Eventually, though, she caught herself wishing, and chuckled. It appeared she had a crush on this one doctor who she knew next to nothing about. What could go wrong?

Monday came around quite quickly, thankfully for her, and she came into work moderately early, something incredibly unique for a woman who almost prided herself in being slightly late to everything. Others gave her strange looks as she wandered about the office, either not expecting to see her so early or not knowing who she was at all. She still had only been working at the office a couple months, and had only been assisting the doctors since earlier that week. The offices were effectively the “boring” part of the Chemtech facility, in essence. The labs were on the lower stories of the building, but Sam was used to working in the offices and as such wouldn't know where to go in the labs when she was supposed to. Instead, she simply waited for Dr. Bosun to arrive.

Surprisingly, it was almost another two hours before he did show up in the offices. Sam was surprised to see that he looked absolutely exhausted. It appeared that he hadn't shaved that morning or at all during the weekend, as a distinct shadow of scruff covered his face. There were also distinct bags under both his eyes.

When he saw Sam, however, he attempted to put a grin on. “Hello there, Ms. Warburn. How was your weekend?”

“It was... f-fine, thanks,” Sam responded, doing her best to keep from stuttering. Even in the completely exhausted form he was in, Bosun was still extremely handsome.

“I apologize for my lateness, I was working on something back home,” Dr. Bosun said, attempting an apologetic smile. He succeeded, for the most part, but something about him still seemed a little... off.

The two of them went down to the labs a few minutes later, Dr. Bosun picking up a small coffee on the way there and shedding a tiny bit of his appearance of exhaustion. Still, it was plain to see that something wasn't right.

“Alright, Ms. Warburn. Can you begin the experiment on your own, please? I need to take a quick trip to the restroom.”

“Um, I guess I can set everything up for you, Doctor, but I don't think I know enough about the experiment to do much of it myself...”

Dr. Bosun actually sighed in an uncharacteristic display of impatience. “Listen, all you need to do is set the barium mixture up to a boil. Leave it for about ten minutes, then add some of the .05 hydrochloride solution. I can do the rest.”

Bosun left the room before Sam could even respond. Peeking her head out into the hall after him, she noticed that he didn't seem to be walking towards the bathroom. Perhaps he preferred a different bathroom.


“Really, don't worry about it, lady. We get called over here all the time.”

Sam's face had yet to return to its normal color. “I really am sorry, again.”

The fireman chuckled. “The last time someone blew something up he yelled at us when we put out the fire. Said we 'ruined his experiment' with our fire extinguishers. Don't worry about it.”

Sam watched the fire truck as it rolled out of the parking lot and down the road. It was one of the most embarrassing things she had ever had happen to her. She hadn't been hired for long, and already she had blown something up. The second she poured the hydrochloride solution into the barium mixture, it began to smoke. Scarcely a minute passed before it caught fire.

Thankfully, Sam had had the presence of mind to get out of the room before this. The automated sprinklers in the ceiling had managed to put the fire out before the table had caught, but the fire department was still called regardless.

As she re-entered the building, trying to avoid the amused glances of other Chemtech workers, anger flickered within her.

“Excuse me,” she asked another employee who was walking into the building with her, “but have you seen Dr. Bosun around here?”

The man gave her a look of irritation. He had been working on a portion of an experiment that required intense concentration, and didn't appreciate the sudden blaring of fire alarms in the middle of it “Dr. Bosun went home half an hour ago. Stopped by my lab and told me there was something he needed to take care of.”

Sam set her jaw. Maybe he preferred the bathroom at home. “Did he say when he was coming back?”

He shrugged. “No, he didn't say anything else. Sorry.”

Unsure as to what to do, Sam decided to get lunch. Her annoyance with Dr. Bosun's spontaneous disappearance could be reflected on over a sandwich.

And about twenty minutes later, while eating a salad (the Chemtech food court was out of sandwiches), Sam thought on the Doctor.

What had that been about? If he had needed to leave, he could have at least told her the truth rather than saying he needed to visit the bathroom. And even disregarding that, the experiment itself was a bust. Dr. Bosun had somehow forget to mention the fact that the hydrochloride solution did not agree with the barium mixture for one reason or another. For the first day on the job, it seemed like almost blowing up one's helper was poor form. Then again, there was a possibility that it was some sort of prank pulled on new workers. Such a thing didn't seem like something the Doctor would do. But Sam had only known him a little while; perhaps he was actually a complete scumbag.

She left work a little early that day, as the only other scientist who needed any help was the irritable one she had talked to earlier about Doctor Bosun. It took about five minutes for him to become irritated with her with something or other, at which point she excused herself from the lab. She had already worked her minimum amount of hours for the day, and she didn't feel the need to stick around any more than she had to on that day.

Dr. Bosun was gone from work for the next three days, piquing concern in a few of the staff. Bosun hadn't missed a day of work in almost two years, and most had become used to seeing him about the office. Still, it could be understood; perhaps he was sick or had to miss work for a marriage or funeral. Sam began to believe these thoughts, as they could explain his sudden disappearance. If someone close to him had died, his sudden disappearance could be excused.

Dr. Bosun reappeared that Friday, however, much to everyone's surprise. Furthering such surprise was his actual appearance. It looked like he hadn't shaved, slept, or showered at any point during the last three days. Whereas his hair was normally straight, that day it was a scraggly, curly mop that pointed in directions it shouldn't have. His eyes were bloodshot and had bags under them. Facial hair was existent in some places and gone in others; it looked like he had started shaving and promptly decided to stop before he was done. The buttons on his shirt were all threaded through one below where they should have been. His posture, normally straight as a line, was slumped in what looked like defeat.

Sam was the first to see him, sitting in the lobby on her break as she was. She didn't look directly at him, expecting him to be some stray who had wandered in from the street. As she looked at him sidelong, however, she began to recognize him.

“Doctor... Doctor Bosun?”

Dr. Bosun looked around in a confused terror for a few moments before he saw her. “Oh, hello, Ms. Warburn. How are you doing?”

Sam's mind worked feverishly, trying to decide between browbeating him for almost blowing her up or worriedly asking him if he was ok. Clumsily she tried to find a middle ground but didn't fully succeed. “Y-you left early on Monday...”

Bosun nodded. “I'm quite sorry about that. I really didn't intend to leave you, but I learned of something … happening at home. It didn't end up being what I thought it was, unfortunately. How did the experiment go without me?”

Sam was flabbergasted, but had recovered enough not to show it. “It exploded.”

Dr. Bosun swore explosively, making Sam jump a little. She hadn't expected that he had that kind of vocabulary at all. He'd always appeared too gentlemanly for cursing. “I'm sorry about that, Sam. I should have tried to stay long enough to work that mix myself. Any number of things could have caused it to become volatile without warning. Next time, I promise I won't leave, alright?”

Sam nodded, too taken in by his dejected, tired appearance to complain at him. As he walked off to the offices, however, she realized she hadn't asked him what he had been doing the past three days. But as he walked away in his dejected, tired stupor, she almost didn't want to know what had happened. Perhaps she could distract him from his funk later.
Much to her surprise, Sam didn't see Bosun for the rest of that work day. She was assigned to another doctor, helping to boil some mixtures or pour this into that. It was all busy work, in honesty; she didn't even have to think at all. She didn't like it. Dr. Bosun had treated her like she actually meant something, that she actually had some form of merit in the lab.

Again, she felt herself leaving a little earlier than usual after spending her minimum amount of time. Irritation stirred in her again, as much as she tried to stave it off. Bosun had blown her off, disappearing without another word to her since the morning. She knew she had been preemptive about her feelings for him. What a fool.

As she walked to her car, though, she was surprised to see Dr. Bosun standing lying against a car in the parking lot.

“Hello, Dr. Bosun,” she said, simply.

“I think you should call me Henry, Sam, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be working here.”

“W-why's that, D... Henry?”

His eyes lit up, frightening her further. “I've been working on something freelance. Something the Chemtech associates wouldn't allow me to use their labs for.”
Sam took an involuntary step back. “You're not making drugs, are you?”
Henry Bosun scoffed. “Come on, Sam, give me some credit at least. Do you really think I'd go off on my own simply to sell things? This job is -was- rather lucrative.”

“Then why?”

“I,” Henry said, “am on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough. I have almost perfected the first anti-virus.”

Sam couldn't suppress a joke. “Henry, they've already invented those. There are plenty of programs for that on the internet.”

The intensity in Henry's expression caused her grin to immediately flee her face. “No, no. They've invented antibiotics, but they could never perfect anti-viruses. But I think I have. You may have thought I was a mere chemist, but I actually double-majored, picking up cellular biology along the way. The two meshed together perfectly, and I believe I've designed something that will eradicate viruses without taking the host's other cells along with it.”

“How?”

“Scientists have been trying for years to create a cell that would destroy viruses. There was always a worry that, however, the attempts to eradicate viruses would inadvertently create a strain of virus that would wipe out life as we knew it. But I believe I have circumvented both problems.”

Sam stared blankly at him, doing her best to keep along. The man spoke with so much excitement that it was difficult to understand what she was saying.

“You see, all across time, doctors have  been trying to destroy viruses after they realized that certain ones could only be protected against before. That is, essentially, what I have done, but once I have perfected my solution no viruses will be able to replicate. Essentially, I hollowed the DNA out of virus sheaths, replacing it with a new DNA sequence that would, in essence, tell the punctured cells to immediately ignore all other punctures by all other phages. The message would then be passed along from cell to cell, effectively immunizing the body against anything. There are, of course, caveats, such as for people who need certain substances regularly into their cells, but my formula can be modified for them.”

Understanding somewhat, Sam simply said, “I... I see. I don't mean to be rude, but why are you telling me this?”

“Simple. I've seen the others, and I've seen you. You... there's something different about you, Sam. The others at the labs, they always look on me as if there's nothing unique about me at all. They don't understand that there's more to me than appears. But you, Sam... you're different.”

Trying to keep from blushing at the somewhat-flattering and somewhat-narcissistic comment, Sam did her best to respond gracefully. “W-why thank you...”

“That is why I need your help on this, Sam. I've realized I need an assistant."

“An assistant?”

“An assistant. Someone to work with me on this project. The problem there is that I know you work hard here, and that I'd basically have to ask you to give up your job. I see your expression,” Henry said to her new expression of incredulity, “and can promise you an even better pay scale than you are now. You would have to work slightly longer, but it will be for the benefit of science!”

Sam stuttered. “I-I don't... I don't know. When do you need your answer by?”

“Now. There's no time to lose!”

The man's intensity both drew her in and alarmed her. But something in her gut told her, for whatever reason, that the man intended exactly what he said. And the extra money certainly wouldn't hurt...

“I.... I suppose I could...”

Henry grinned. “That's the spirit. I'll email you the details, first day of work is tomorrow.”

“But tomorrow's a Saturday.”

“I know. It'll all be explained in the email,” the ex-doctor said, entering his car with these words and driving off.

Sam watched him go, amazed at the sudden turn of events in her life. She had basically agreed to work for a man she barely knew instead of at her steady job. What was she thinking?

The sheer strangeness of Henry's conditions should have constituted a no from Sam's part. But perhaps she could work for Henry and work at Chemtech, despite what he had said.
When she got home, however, Sam saw that her plan would be downright impossible with Bosun's perquisites. She'd basically have to work with him every hour of every day that she would have off of work. The work was actually a bit different than she had initially anticipated; it did appear that she would be doing some food preparation as well. Rather than being offended, she was just amused by this. Hopefully, Henry liked cereal and microwaved burritos. But as she read the email, she began to realize just how little it told her. True, it did mention some food-preparation as mentioned as well as some typical lab-aid activities, but after this he basically said the remainder of her responsibilities “would be explained to her on site.” So in the end, she learned very little about her exact responsibilities. Only the time and address were of any immediate importance to her.

So the next day she did, against her better judgment, show up at the address. Much to her surprise, it was, indeed, at a small house; for one reason or another, it hadn't occurred to her that the amazing Henry Bosun's scientific developments were all occurring in a small town house.

Much to her surprise, she found her heart still fluttering as she knocked on the door. It was due to nervousness, yes, but there was more than she expected. Perhaps her feelings for Henry had been deeper than she had originally anticipated...

The sounds of swearing and things being knocked over within the house helped to deter her thoughts from remaining on this path for too long. Eventually, the door swung open, revealing a still exhausted, but a much less dejected, Henry Bosun.

“Hello there, Sam. Ready to get started?”

“Not quite,” Sam said, doing her best to keep from being deterred by the doctor's charm. “I still don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing for you.”

The ex-doctor nodded. “Of course. You'll be doing what you did typically in labs, but I also need someone to bounce ideas off of. And to take care of the animals, of course.”

Sam flinched. The two didn't seem to be related. “I appreciate that you trust me enough to talk about your ideas, but I don't remember you discussing anything about animals.”

“You are correct, but it's a relatively simple explanation there. I simply need something to test my experiments on. And don't give me that look, it's certainly preferable to testing it on people. This is for the benefit of science.”

Sam shook her head. “I guess it's not my place not to condone that. Why have me to bounce ideas off of, though? I'm scarcely a scientist.”

“Anyone to talk to helps. And if I've read your personality correctly, you don't appear to be the type to immediately discount my ideas as insane. Not to mention the fact that you have a lot of work ethic- I've seen you coming to work even earlier than you're supposed to, although you do leave a little early. But I'm an early riser and don't much enjoy staying around any longer than I have to myself, so I can appreciate you.”

Trying to keep her incredulity at Henry's absurd explanation down, she simply nodded.

“Come on inside, I'd like to show you my work station.”

Sam followed Henry inside, and almost immediately tripped and fell on a fallen coat rack.

“Sorry about that, knocked over a few things when I went to the door.”

A few didn't exactly begin to describe it. It looked like something had exploded within, scattering random junk all over the place. There were discarded articles of clothing, dirty plates, broken bottles... it was a disaster.

“I don't work in here, of course. My lab is downstairs.”

Sam made a mental note to clean up here, whether it was in her job or not. It was simply too messy for her taste.

The lab was a floor down, in the basement (“As any good lab must be,” Henry said with a grin). Sam was surprised to find it both much cleaner and much smaller than the floor above. The room was sparsely furnished, with a bed lying against the wall along with a small table with various beakers and test tubes sitting atop it. There was also a door to another part of the basement where small noises emanated from.

“It isn't much, but it suffices. The animal cages are in the other room.”

Sam followed him into this other room. It was... frightening. Some forty mice were held within some ten cages, all stacked up on one other. This wasn't what frightened her, though. What scared her was what the cages contained.

Some of the cages had perfectly normal mice in them, yes, but others.... others contained creatures that didn't even look like mice. One was green and bumpy, another looked thin, too thin, and wasn't moving.

“Henry... what did you do to these poor mice?”

Henry shrugged. “They're what I use to test my formulas on. They're all infected with different viruses. These,” he said, pointing to the cage with the two sickly mice, “are some of the failures.”

Sam winced. She had expected that something like this was the case, but actually seeing it was something... different. She'd have no choice but to take care of them, despite their doom. Sure, she wasn't extremely for or against animal testing, but this felt unnecessarily cruel.

Other than this, Henry dictated nothing all that new from what she had been doing. The first day was one of the strangest, with Henry keeping in the basement and Sam keeping in the house itself, doing her best to cleanse it of filth. After a time, lunch rolled around, and Sam assumed she'd have to make food, but was surprised when Bosun declined.

“Here, have some tea,” he said, instead.

“You sure you don't want me to make anything?”

“Not today. It's my treat.”

Sam shrugged, and took him up on the offer. He seemed to be watching her oddly as she drank, but when she looked down again he was reading something he had written earlier.
Given Sunday off (for whatever reason), it took Sam all of Monday and Tuesday to finish this activity. But after this, she felt her worth far less than she had before. Henry kept very solely to himself when he wasn't seeing her for lunch or having her help him with projects.

It was strange, really; she never saw him exit the house any time she was there, and he had a habit of sending her out to get things instead. As she worked with the ex-doc, however, things began to slowly change.

Slowly she'd see even less of him than she would normally, with his constant work. She didn't see him often as it was, so the new changes became even more noticeable. At first, she simply collected her paycheck, leaving when her hours were up every day. But her feelings for Henry resurfaced rather quickly despite her best efforts, and she found herself looking after him more and more. When he didn't come up to eat, she brought it down to him. She nagged him to clean himself and take breaks from his work, and while he didn't always listen, it certainly seemed to have some effect on his isolation. It helped her to think that a large part of her purpose was to keep him from getting lonely, too, although she could never quite place why. And that likely was the reason for her hiring, as her actual work could have been done by a part-time maid. Henry didn't really seem to like her messing around with his work.

Days continued along, passing without a lot of interest, although she did begin to notice some pains around her body. She assumed she was imagining them, as she had been suffering sleep deprivation from staying up with Henry. But as these days passed, Sam found herself seeing less and less of Henry despite her nagging. One day in particular, she decided it was the time to change that.

It was about two in the morning, and Henry had been working all day nonstop. He hadn't come out of the basement for any meal the previous day, and only grumbled excuses at her when she besieged him to eat or wash.

“Henry?” she called. “Henry, come take a break. You've been working for days straight.”

“Can't stop. I'm too close. No rest.”

Sam sighed. “Henry, what's the rush? Why can't you just take a tiny rest to eat and talk with me? All this time by yourself might be why you've had so much difficulty perfecting-”
Henry slammed his fist down on the table, twitching with stress. “You don't understand.”

“Oh come on, Henry. You have to admit-”

“I don't have anything to admit, Sam. This is important scientific work.”

“Even people doing important scientific work need their rest. Otherwise you can't think as well as you could normally.”
Rather than cooling him down, this somehow managed to send his tired mind into an anger.

“I just told you you don't understand. I can't stop. I'm running out of time.”

“That doesn't make any sense. I understand you want to make your accomplishments, but that doesn't mean you should kill yourself doing it.”

Henry chuckled without humor. “You're wrong. I am running out of time. And it's... it's because of you.”

Sam blinked. It felt like, while he was speaking, his voice had started to quiet. “Wh-what?”
For a moment, Henry looked at her. Then he spoke. “I think I'll wait for you to regain consciousness first.”

“Wha...”

Shadows suddenly flickered on the edges of Sam's vision. She was aware of a sudden forward motion, followed by two arms preventing her from crashing on the floor. Then the shadows took over.


She slept for a long time, with a misty consciousness occasionally taking over. It could barely be described as consciousness, considering the fact that all she was aware of was the feeling of a wet rag on her forehead and the occasional stroking of her hand.

Eventually, though, she did wake, feeling much, much worse than she had before her nap. Placing a palm to her forehead, Sam found it covered in a hot sweat. What was wrong with her? She certainly hadn't been sick earlier... whenever earlier was. There was nothing around her that could tell her the time.

She did still appear to be in Henry's basement, lying on the mattress next to the wall. Henry, however, was no where to be seen. Her fevered brain fixated with surprise on the fact that Henry wasn't working with the innumerable test tubes on the table nearby. Perhaps he'd perfected his formula after all.

For a time, Sam slept again, but was swiftly woken again by movement. Opening her eyes a tiny fraction, she found that Henry had returned.

“Hey, you're awake,” Henry murmured, placing a new wet rag on her forehead.

“Henry? What... happened?”

Henry sighed. “You passed out a couple days ago. I've been taking care of you.”

“I passed out? Why didn't you take me to the hospital?”

The question was ignored by the other party. “You asked me why I was in such a rush to finish my research the other day. Well, I have an answer for you.”

“But-”

“You see, on your first day here, I offered you a cup of tea. What I didn't tell you about the cup was that I had slipped a strain of an immune-system degenerating virus into it.”

“Why... why would you do that?”

“I needed something to drive me to finish my work. In the previous days I kept leaving experiments for too long, not working with the drive I required. For a long time, I wallowed in the misery of my mediocrity, hoping to be more despite how close I was. And then you came along, giving me the will to work on despite my thoughts of failure. Initially, I wasn't anywhere near I told you I was with my research, but now I am. Almost.”

“You're a madman.”

“I'm a scientist. But calm down, Sam. My research will be done soon.”

She attempted to sit up in her fury, but became woozy and went down again. “What made you pick me?”

“I suspected you wouldn't say no. You did seem to think differently of me than anyone else.”

Sam cursed. Stupid heart.


Days passed without Bosun making any progress, although Sam couldn't know that in her diseased state. There was a flaw in his research that he couldn't place as much as he would try. It was a shame, actually; bouncing ideas off of someone really would have helped. But it couldn't be helped.

It took almost an entire month before his research was finally finished. He intended to test it on the mice, but with no one to take care of them for an entire month (feeding Sam was more than a challenge as it was) they all gradually starved to death. So the entire formula had to be injected directly into Sam.

For about three minutes, he watched her, hoping for some reaction. There was none.
Checking her pulse, he found that Sam's heart was no longer beating. She shouldn't have cursed it.

“What a shame,” he sighed.

He picked up Sam's body and carried it to the animal cages, where he placed it on the floor. He then flicked a switch.

The cages swiveled forward, revealing a pneumatic door and a rack atop which a gas mask sat. Bosun put the gas mask on and put in a password to open the door.
Within were several other bodies, the other helpers who had been “different.” Boson dragged Sam's in and threw it atop them.

With this, he shut the door to the chamber and took off the gas mask before walking forward and flicking the switch he had earlier again, shutting off access to the door.

After this, he walked back to the table had left the syringe on and sighed.

“Back to the drawing board,” he said, crushing it in his hand.