The next morning Carmen woke up tired and when she made it to the room early as soon as the door unlocked right at 8 am she noticed that she wasn’t the only person that stressed all night about their guests for the day. There weren’t any new people in the room at 8 am so they were probably coming in with the teachers later. Oh, that was when it all clicked for Carmen. The researchers needed to don their lab coats before the theorists could enter that way, they didn’t know who was wearing whose lab coat. But why? Weren’t these just loaners or did they have some role to play in creating partners? Whatever it was Carmen knew that the theorists probably would know who was wearing their lab coat as soon as they get close enough to the researchers. 

The first thing Carmen needed to do Wednesday morning was select her isolated colony and start culturing for the blue-pen-large-lab-coat person’s experiment. While it was growing, she was going to write down the characteristics of the colonies on the plates from the day before and quickly review the results for the other experiments to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. While studying the colonies on her plates, everyone had stopped what they were doing to see that the door opened and see that the teachers were walking in with a group of theorists. 

“Hello, researchers. These are the theorists with whom you might partner up with. They will be walking around observing your work. They shouldn’t bother your work. They might talk to you and each other, but feel free to ask them to step away from you if they are a bother. Completing your experiments comes first, okay?”

“Yes,” the class said in unison. 

Carmen’s heart was beating so hard it felt like it was in her throat. Which she knew would make it hard for her to speak. She hoped none of them would talk to her. But she also couldn’t help but look at the group of new people. The other researchers were doing it too, so she looked for the lab coat's owner. Theorists were usually more than half male, so there were more than a few guys that were large enough to wear a large lab coat, assuming that no one chose it for a reason like Carmen had. There were two of them that were particularly tall, while the other guys were taller than Carmen but more buff. Thinking about finding this guy was starting to stress her out because she felt that her fears were coming true. She was scared of who the owner might be now. 

Hoping they would all just ignore her she decided to get back to work. She had a lot of other experiments in subjects she wasn’t as comfortable with to review during her downtime. After she finished commenting on the characteristics of the colonies on the plates, she decided to check on the growth of her culture. When she returned, she found one of the two tall guys loitering around her lab bench. She breathed deeply and exhaled slowly trying to prepare herself to ignore the guy. But of course, he had to talk to her. 

“So, I noticed you organized your notebook interestingly,” the tall guy said coldly.

“Is there a problem?” Carmen asked.

“No, I also noticed you started with experiments using biological materials.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No.”

“I’ll just say this, I’m sorry if your experiment happened to be one of the ones whose handwriting, I couldn’t read or doesn’t use biological materials.”

“Well mine does use biological materials and it was in your readable section. I can’t tell you which one it was, I can just tell you that you haven’t started working on it,” he said sounding offended. 

“I have. You must be the blue-pen-guy. I’m working on it right now.”

“Oh, well then, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks.”

‘Omg! I found blue pen guy,’ Carmen was screaming in her mind. ‘He’s surprisingly direct and cold, but not mean-looking,’ she thought. When he walked back past her, she knew that scent, the scent that gave her lab coat its smell, it was him. It was interesting that all the theorists dressed in business casual, while the researchers always wore casual clothes lest they get bleach on something expensive.