The sound of tiny feet scurrying around in boxes filled June's ears. She pulled back the purple latex glove and pinched the last grey mouse by the skin of its neck. She was pulling hard enough to make sure that the mouse couldn't move its head around to bite her. The rest of her hand clasped the body of the mouse, squeezing as the little guy squirmed for freedom. She lifted him out of the box and looked at its tail for its identification number.
June used her other hand to pick up a needle and slowly injected ketamine into its #462's gut. Jealous as he stopped moving, slipping into a different realm. June pulled a styrofoam box toward the hood glass. And placed #462 facedown on the board. She picked up four sewing pins and skewered them through his skin, pinning him in an X shape on the styrofoam board. June brought the board over to a metal platform. He opened the mouth to place a piece of wood between his teeth. Tightened the two metal blocks on either side of his head to stabilize him. June lined up his brain under the needle.
June took a sharp knife and cut a T shape across the top of the skull. She peeled back the hairy skin to expose the brain. She took a cotton swab to dab away the blood. The brain was naturally divided into four quadrants. June aligned the needle to the middle of the mouse's brain and then put in the coordinates. The machine moved the calibrated needle (-1.25mm, -0.75mm) to hover right above the injection site. She pushed down and waited until the needle was 0.15 mm deep. Before injecting a dosage of Alzheimer stem cells near the hippocampus. She performed a surgeon's stitch to seal the brain flap. Applied a jelly antibiotic and place the mouse back in the box with his other sleeping friends.
In a few weeks, some of the mice would get sick, their brain cells dying. Some she'd treat to observe them if they could slow down the degeneration of the beta-amyloid protein.
June cleaned up, wiping off the traces of mouse blood and poop. Turned off the hood, closed it shut, and turned on the UV lights that would sanitize the rest of it. She stacked the cages on a cart and wheeled them into the mice storage room.
Thousands of mice were in the room. Each box is labeled for different experiments to "help" humanity. Each mouse line manipulated, lineage after lineage. June wondered if they were an accurate model for human disease. The mice had been manipulated their whole life, and their parents' life before that, it seemed like eventually, they wouldn't be accurate. Yet, the entire pharmaceutical therapeutics enterprise started from these experiments. The whole floor had a horrible repugnant smell that you couldn't run from. June tossed out her booties and gown and went up the back elevator to the 8th floor.
June walked past rows of lab benches strewn with beakers and microscopes. Incubators were shaking vials, fridges filled with chemicals, out of date dell computers next to protein quantification machines. June turned into her aisle and saw her nervous undergraduate intern looking defeated at her latest western blot. On top of her project, June was required to teach the interns. She had instructed her to make the mixtures from scratch, her own solutions, her own gels. The whole process had taken her all day, and it was an important technique she had to learn.
“Rerun it, please.” June looked down at her intern with kind eyes. Helen looked back at her with a look of defeat. "Can I leave and then come back next week to try again?" Helen asked.
"No, if you start now, you'll be able to finish it again," June said, looking at the clock.
"But that's three hours from now." Helen moaned. She saw the look on June's face and threw away her results, and started over again.
Real research wasn’t as easy as pre-made gels—the ones they give to you in undergrad. Graduate school was meticulous, and you spent countless days rerunning tests. Re-analyzing old data. Looking for any way to make the months of work seem significant enough to publish. It was hard to be objective about the project. Since your entire livelihood depended on you proving it. June felt like the rest of the people in the lab, and they were all temporary. All the Post Docs were from India, China, or Korea here on a temporary visa. Their visa was dependent on if they were useful to the head of the lab or not.
The lab didn't have a single US citizen that was a post-doc. Most wouldn't put up with the gruesome slave labor. If you could, you went on to work for private biotech or pharmaceutical company where the result was a little more humane than academia.
"You're supposed to make her want to be here. Make it seem like a fun potential career path." Advik said as Helen walked into the chemicals room. Advik was a grey-haired post-doc that shared the isle with June.
"I'm just showing her what it's really like," June said. She didn't make eye contact with Advik.
"We need more volunteers. She'd be a good addition to the lab. She's moldable. Like you were." Advik added.
June didn't add the fact that Helen was pretty and young. June was one of the few women in the lab that weren't married. Some Asian women were here with their husbands, and both did the work for a green card.
Helen came back out of the chemical room. She wore her usual tight black leggings and a crop top sweater. Her makeup was done underneath her lab goggles and coat.
When June first started the program, she dressed up and did her makeup. Then she thought she should be careful, so she now wore baggy sweatpants and sweatshirts. Her hair tucked in a bun with a baseball cap. She was trying to disguise her figure. You didn't want to use your looks as a beacon to attract unwanted attention in a male-dominated career. Unless that was precisely what you wanted.
"Helen, why don't you ask to work for me? I'm working on a lot of different projects that need help. I can teach you things other than a basic western blot. If you work hard enough, you can be a co-author on one of my papers." Advik joked.
"Haha, uh, thanks! I like working with June. She's a good teacher." Helen blushed then looked at June.
"June, do you have a container I can use to soak the membranes in?" Helen asked June.
"Let me look. I'll come to help you out when I find it." June said. Helen left to go finish making solutions.
June had been there long enough to watch Advik interact with the volunteers in the lab. When June first joined the lab, Advik would offer June tea and cookies in the lunchroom—trying to get her to talk about her personal life. Then he'd offer out mentorship projects to June so they could spend more time together. June watched the process repeat as different volunteers came in and out.
"I think she put your container with my stuff," Advik said. Nodding to the stack of lab equipment in the opening just underneath the counter he was working on.
June crouched down and reached into the space, moving beakers and glass tubs off to the side. When June moved to get up, she met resistance. She felt Advik's hand on the back of her skull. He pushed down, holding her head there very close to his waistline.
June bolted up, feeling violated. Advik put his hands up laughing, "Whoa relax, It's just a joke. Come on." Advik said as he saw June's face.
"Don't touch me like that." June spat in his direction.
June bolted to the women's bathroom. She sat on the floor, her back against the stall. June put her head between her legs, her chest getting tight.
There were waves of panic and dread that oozed out like venom and then transformed into violent thoughts.
"You're such an idiot. Why are you like this? Why did you react that way?" June thought to herself. She dug her fingers into her thighs. She was drilling harder.
"What a lonely piece of crap. I hate men. " June thought. Yet, June knew that wasn't it though the root of her anger.
"No, you're mad at yourself." June pounded her head against the concrete wall behind her. June had thought she learned not to give the wrong impression. Not to seem available, not to engage with him when he flirted with her. It didn't seem to matter.
June tried to calm herself down. "It's in your head. You've been through worse. You need to get through this a week. Then two. Then a month. Then two months. Before you know it, it'll all come easy." June repeated these words to herself because she had said them many times before.