Morning all and happy Monday. I feel like I spent the entire weekend in motion. It is actually kind of nice to sit down for a bit. And since I am sitting, let’s go ahead and start the morning prompt. Timers at the ready and we are off.
I like this, It kind of leads me into sci-fi crazy science land where I haven’t gone in a while. Fun.
Monday, November 10th: Vials were missing.
Vials were missing. Gail blinked. She recounted. She lifted the clipboard up and read through the list. She counted the ones on the page, letting her finger run down the page as though touching the names on the list would magically make them reappear in the refrigerated cabinet.
They didn’t.
‘Maybe someone took them and hadn’t updated the master list yet,’ she thought.
She turned to the list taped to the wall beside the refrigerated cabinet. It was not pretty and there were always those who complained about it. But occasionally someone forgot to check off the main registry. Here they at least checked things out as they took them even if the pen on a string next to the taped list was considered aesthetically unappealing.
She checked the list. Again she ran her finger down looking for any check marks in the columns of the stock. There were no unaccounted for check marks. Out of desperation, she checked the pen, thinking it had perhaps run out of ink and someone planned to record but hadn’t ben able.
She swirled the pen and created a dark blue spiral in the margin. Then pen was working fine.
‘Not good.’
She went back to the case and took the Lucite stand holding the vials in place out of the refrigeration unit. It was cool in the lab today and the vials would only be out a short while, not long enough to do them harm. She placed the container on the counter and closed the door behind her. The labels were all turned to face her and were clearly marked. No one tampered with the labels, just took items without marking them.
Slowly she went down the line. This was not a simple head count. If vials were missing then she needed to know which ones.
‘Please don’t let it be…” She shut down that line of thought and clamped her teeth down inside her mouth as though that would keep the thought chained up. ‘Just check the labels.’
Gaile went through the vials in the container. She was wearing gloves and oly touched one small section of the containers. She didn’t know if anyone might have stolen anything but if anyone needed to look for prints then she hadn’t smudged anything.
‘Although anyone stealing from this lab would have put on gloves.’ She thought. There were boxes of them all around the lab. They never lasted long given the various substances they were working with and their efforts to avoid cross-contamination.
‘At least, they shouldn’t have gone without gloves.’ She thought. Not using gloves pointed to an outsider. Someone who hadn’t had the habit of gloves first drilled into them. It too was something she didn’t want to contemplate.
She made it through the list, double checking all the labels. Her heart sank. It was as bad as she feared. She placed the rack of vials back into the cabinet, returning them to their temperature controlled environment. She made certain the door was closed and then walked over to Austin. He was in charge of the program and would know best how to proceed.
As Gail moved across the lab she tried to keep her pace steady, even, to not create panic. When she reached Austin, he looked up from his clipboard. He had a smile on his face and his eyes were sparkling with humor, ready to share a joke. He saw her face and his humor died, the spark extinguished.
“Tell me,” he said.
Gail explained how she went to get her formula and saw the rack looked emptier than it should. “So I checked,” she said. She handed him the clipboard and pointed to her notations, not wanting to say the words aloud.
Ten til Midnight 