Emily Lockard, Lab Technician

Your heart was beating out of your chest, reading the email. You'd been a part of Hideki Labs for four years now, first as a summer intern and then as a lab technician, but you'd mostly kept to yourself throughout your time here. While you were certainly friendly with a few other technicians, your work in the lab hadn't really turned a lot of heads. To be honest, that had sort of been a relief, as you didn't really want the stress of responsibility that some of the senior staff shouldered. You just wanted to process the samples that were delivered to you and write up your reports, and you did everything you could to just blend in, from how you styled your hair to how you dressed under the lab coat.

And now you were being called upstairs. What did you do wrong? Worse... what did you do right?

The trek upstairs was not as straightforward as you'd hoped. Colleagues, including other technicians and technologists who had worked triple the years you had were never invited upstairs, and so others stared daggers at you while security fetched you a new badge that had clearance to the upper levels, thinking you somehow had earned an undeserved promotion. With a new badge in hand, you had access to about half of the floors at Hideki Labs, more than anyone else at your level.

As you hurried to the elevator, you kept your head down, trying your best to not draw attention as you tapped the badge to the reader. When the elevator finally opened--with a ding that you swear was loud enough to be heard across the entire city--you slinked in and pushed the button to close the door as quickly as possible.

Once the elevators ascended, you finally took a deep breath, bracing yourself for whatever might happen that day. You checked your phone again, looking at the email to see which office you needed to head to.