Page 3 of Ivory Obsession

There it was. A pattern emerged, distinct and undeniable. My heart kicked up a notch, thumping loud in the silence of the lab. “Ellie, look!” My finger jabbed toward the eyepiece, but she was already locked in, her gaze narrowing with concentration.

“Wait...is that—?” Her voice trailed off, anticipation hanging between us.

I couldn’t contain the grin that stretched across my face. “It is.” I straightened, my spine popping from hours hunched over. “Ellie, I think we’ve done it! This could change everything!”

“Well, if it is replicable,” she said softly. “The unique cell signaling pathway might not be reproducible…”

“Yes, thank you Dr. Spoilsport, I know how science works,” I said.

Ellie chuckled, her hazel eyes twinkling with amusement. “I know you do, Jade.” Her hand came to rest on my shoulder, a comforting pressure. “I’m just making sure we don’t lose ourselves in the excitement. We celebrate the milestone achieved, but remember we have plenty of work ahead.”

She was right, of course. My grin eased into a thoughtful smile. The discovery was monumental, but Ellie’s words grounded me in reality. There was still much more to do. “Well, I was happy.”

She gave me a teasing smile, her brown eyes glinting under the harsh lab lights. “I know. Someone has to keep you grounded, Jade,” she replied, her voice filled with camaraderie and just a touch of pride.

Our laughter filled the lab, a welcome interruption to the monotonous drone of the machines. It was these moments – shared success and shared jokes – that made the grueling process not just bearable but meaningful.

We reveled in the breakthrough for a moment, the weight of the discovery momentarily lifting from our shoulders. But the celebratory mood was short-lived. Ellie glanced at her watch, a flicker of frustration crossing her features.

We returned our gazes onto the slide, my heart still pounding with a primal kind of excitement, a mix of fear and anticipation at what this discovery could entail. The world beyond our microscope seemed suddenly insignificant, like the universe had folded in on itself until it was just us and our groundbreaking research in this compact slice of existence.

“We should test it over a larger sample,” Ellie said after a while, her tone serious once again as she switched from friend to scientist. She handed me another batch of slides we had prepared earlier. “And then we should go out and celebrate.”

I took the slides from her, relishing the sense of purpose they held within their thin glass layers. “Agreed,” I replied, the joy of discovery still simmering beneath my practiced professionalism. “Then we take the world by storm.”

Hours dissolved into more hours, as we tested slide after slide, our eyes glued to the microscope and hands moving with a practiced ease. The bubbling excitement had settled into a concentrated focus, suspended somewhere between hopeful anticipation and calculated reality.

“Actually, we can’t take the world by storm today,” Ellie said softly. “The gala.”

“Fuck, yes, the gala,” I muttered under my breath. “Why do we need to do that again?”

“Because we want to keep our jobs,” she replied simply.

I sighed, the frustration apparent in the huff of air that escaped my lips. The thought of suits and gowns and a room full of people who cared more about the bottom line than the scientific breakthrough seemed so distant from our world beneath the microscope. “Right,” I muttered, staring at the slide before me, “We need to keep our jobs.”

I could imagine Ellie’s soft smile behind me, an understanding nod at our shared distaste for the politics of it all. I felt her presence shift as she walked away from the microscope, her steps echoing lightly against the sterile lab floor. “Well, at least we can make it bearable,” she called over her shoulder. “Might even be fun if you decide to pull one of your infamous pranks.”

“You think I should prank a suit?” I asked.

“I think if you tried, no one would blame you,” she said.

I laughed, glancing over my shoulder to toss her a playful smirk. That was Ellie for you - always encouraging me in my mischief, even while keeping me grounded. Her comment sparked an idea in my mind, gears turning with the prospect of bringing some fun into the all-too-serious gala.

“Prank a suit, huh?” I mused aloud, my eyes wandering back to the slide beneath the microscope. “Now that’s a thought.”

Ellie chuckled from her perch by the lab counter, already organizing our findings into presentable reports. “Don’t get too carried away,” she cautioned, though there was a twinkle in her eye as she added, “Or at least make sure I’ve got a good view.”

“Didn’t you just say we needed to keep our jobs?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I meant something harmless. Untraceable.”

I snorted, the sound echoing around the otherwise silent lab. “Untraceable, you say? Now where’s the fun in that?”

Ellie simply shook her head, an indulgent smile playing on her lips. She flicked through our compiled research, her brow furrowing as she scanned it for errors. “I suppose I have only myself to blame for encouraging you.”

“Suppose so,” I agreed, turning my attention back to the microscope. The familiar shapes of cells swam into view, their structure almost comforting in its complexity. Yet beneath that conventional facade laid the potential for a revolution, a new world order within the medical field. Our discovery.

The enormity of it suddenly hit me, a wave of realization so profound it took my breath away. We were on the brink of something monumental and nobody knew it yet. Well, almost nobody.

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