“This is your lab. I’ll draw up experiments for you to conduct here. I work from 9 to 5, so if that works for you, we can keep that time.”

“Yeah, that works for me. Do you have all the samples you need here, or do we need to get some?”

“There are some basic strains here. But I’m still working out what I want to do.”

“Okay, that’s fine with me,” Carmen said finally relaxing from the embarrassment she felt from lunch. “It isn’t 5 yet, so I’ll put some stuff from my backpack away in my desk and familiarize myself with the lab.”

“Sure.”

Carmen put her notebook and writing utensils in her empty desk. She happened to find a key seemingly to the room in the narrow desk drawer. Then after placing her backpack on the seat she walked around the lab opening drawers and cabinets to see what was in them, if she had a sticky note pad, she would label them with their contents. The refrigerators, freezers, and ultra-cold freezers were all mostly empty. The ultra-cold freezer had ice buildup that needed to be cleaned off and one box with strains in it. There were some things she was going to have to order for herself in the lab like gloves that fit her hands since there were only larges that she assumed were for Ethan. 

Walking back into Ethan’s office, Carmen noticed that it didn’t have any personal effects. 

“How long have you been here in this office?” Carmen asked.

“For a year. Why?” Ethan replied.

“It just doesn’t have any personality, you left it the way it was when you first arrived. Anyways I need to order some things for the lab, do I need to do it through you?”

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“I need medium-sized gloves.”

“Right, I’ll order those. Anything else?”

“Do you have sticky notes and sharpies?”

“Yeah, they are in this area.”

“Okay, great, that’s it for now, till I get an experiment from you.”

“It’s almost five so you can leave when you want.”

“Um, if it’s no bother, could you take me with you when you leave the building? I am not sure about how to get out of here or even where we are,” Carmen asked shyly. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Ethan sighed. 

Carmen grabbed her backpack from the other room and turned off the lights in the lab before following Ethan out of his office. He brought them to the nearest elevator, and they took it to the ground floor, and when they stepped off the elevator, Ethan pointed towards the two exits people can take, one was the front that Carmen was used to taking and the other was the back of the building. Carmen thanked Ethan for showing her the way out and proceeded to walk to the front of the building. She went home and tried to destress as much as possible before bed, but instead, she had burned today’s events into her head. Ethan on the other hand happened to not register any concern, good, interesting, or bad about Carmen knowing his smell. He was all caught up in his own problems, including over-analyzing his actions to prevent doing something that would chase his new partner away. 

The next morning, Carmen and Ethan both arrived at about the same time at Ethan’s office door. She wanted to offer him a friendly greeting, but the situation was awkward she ended up not saying anything. Ethan unlocked it and held it open to let Carmen in. She quickly walked in and set her things down at her desk, before standing in the doorway between the office and the lab. 

“Ethan, what do you want me to do today?”

“Well I still haven’t figured out a good starting point yet, so if you could make yourself busy, maybe explore the building, find the imaging rooms or other departments that would be good.”

“Okay, sure. Um, can I have your cellphone number?”

“Yeah, text me your information.”

“Okay, I sent it, thank you. See you later.”

Carmen spent the morning finding her way around the building, she noticed that each floor of the building was huge and had one central room that held all the big bad instruments anyone could want. There were more simple rooms scattered about with backup ultra-cold freezers, ice machines, autoclaves, and ultrapure water units. More importantly, she found vending machines. She could grab her lunch from there and hide out somewhere and avoid eating in public places. But if Ethan asked her to join him for food, she knew she should probably do that instead.