Page 12 of Talk Data To Me
We apologize for the glitch, and trust that the situation has not caused you inconvenience.
Erin Monaghan had received his revise-and-resubmit form forNature Physicsfrom Human Resources, and she’d signed it. Maybe she hadn’t actively intended to obstruct his work at that point, but she also clearly hadn’t read the document’s contents, evidence of a sloppy process from the beginning—and now?
The mix-uphadcaused him inconvenience.
It still was.
Because the p.m.-to-a.m. calendar switch-up might’ve seen the situation conclude on frosty but final terms, except that Erin had discovered and retaliated to his sabotage in kind. A few weeks later, she’d mistakenly received his holometer data from the West Experimental Hall, due to that unfortunate similarity in their initial-based SVLAC emails. Rather than just forwarding the information to him, she’d run a binary program on a single file to switch its zeros and ones before she’d passed on the full set of spreadsheets. He’d identified her vandalism and resolved it prior to the data erasure that occurred monthly in SVLAC’s outdated digital storage system to accommodate all new exported files, but then he’d spent several days checking his other spreadsheets for damage… which turned out to be nonexistent. She’d made him waste his time. And that had led to an ever-escalating war over the past three years. Lab time, funding, visibility with SVLAC’s directors—they jockeyed for everything, all means fair and all tactics employed—
“Any colleague but Dr. Monaghan,” Szymanski repeated, recalling him from his unpleasant retrospection. He retrieved his coffee and left Ethan to his frown. “Good morning, Dr. Meyer.”
It hadn’t been a good morning before—except for when he’d set Erin back on the wrong foot and seen her choke on her espresso—and it certainly wasn’t now. Ethan stalked off to his office. Instead of talking with Szymanski, he should’ve been starting an application for the annual Eischer-Langhoff Grant in Physics—prestigious, competitive, lucrative, notoriously difficult—to fund his and Dr. Kramer’s next year of research. Volatile markets and an economic downturn had vaporized several sources of SVLAC’s anticipated funding, and the lab’s operational funds from the Department of Energy were stingy at best, not enough to fund fixes for the out-of-order control rooms and lab hutches, let alone his experimental work.
Working for a National Lab offered a high degree of research freedom, but not as much funding as he would’ve had in private industry, as his parents never failed to remind him.
A noisy typingclack,clack,clacksounded from the bullpen while he unlocked his office.
“Sole-author Erin” was likely applying for the Eischer-Langhoff grant right now, too.
He swung his door closed and bypassed his ordinary morning rounds of sudoku and sketching, locating the link to the grant application in his email instead, bending to follow the message as his standing desk spasmed into an unprompted descent. He grabbed his roller chair without looking, slung his fleece vest over the back, and took his seat while the desk locked in its new height. Then he reached for his noise-canceling headphones. He’d start on the grant today and have a working copy by the end of the week.
Before he could tune his hearing to white noise or begin entering justifications into the grant’s “Need Statement” field, however, a new message appeared in his inbox:Your Submission to Galactica Magazine.
Dear Bannister,
We are delighted to inform you that your pen and ink illustration, “Hunger,” has been accepted for publication. You will receive a complimentary copy of the next issue ofGalactica Magazine, where your work will be printed. Our editors enjoyed your art and hope that you will consider participating inGalactica’s anniversary artist–writer collaboration later this year.
A smile broke through his frown—until he sobered at the chatter of his rival loudly, emphatically, tauntingly discussing her research paper’s acceptance with Nadine Fong, debating the possible leverage that it gave her funding pitch in the Eischer-Langhoff application. She seemed to be speaking directly outside his office, in defiance of his closed door.
But at least Erin Monaghan couldn’t ruin this for him.
2
“How’s your work on the grant coming, now that you can cite your pending paper as evidence for the funding req—ugh, she’s kicking.” Nadine eased down into a chair, one hand splayed against her spine and the other cupping the swell of her belly. She grimaced at Erin across her desk. “Sorry. Staying until the end of the quarter’s funding cycle seemed like a solid choice when I was still early in this pregnancy, but now…”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No. Just take my congratulations on your paper, then update me on our latest binary pulsar data and your grant progress before I have to run for the bathroom.”
“I’ll make it quick.” Erin enlarged a summary table and turned her laptop toward her supervisor. “Our current group research is on two compact neutron stars orbiting each other in a star system. One of them is a pulsar, which emits a tight beam of radio waves. Here’s the exciting part: our newest batch of data shows that we can replicate the exact frequency of the pulsar’s waves in the lab. Instead of needing to locate and measure other neutron stars in the wild, we can model different levels of gravitational force coming off them and test our theories about their radio waves functioning as an interstellar energy source—all in-house.”
“That’s excellent news. Good work.”
“The credit goes to the department. I made these tables, but since I’ve been busy with LIGO, it was Dr. Rossi and Dr. O’Connor-Young who ran the labs. You’ve attracted top talent, Nadine.”
“I headhunted you.Sole author,” with a nod. “That’s made all the difference. I promise you’ll have support on LIGO soon, too. When there’s funding for more staff, anyway. But the existing group will be in good hands while I’m out.”
Thank GodEthan wasn’t under Nadine’s departmental jurisdiction. He never would’ve submitted to Erin’s leadership, however temporary. Those snide comments about her research history, his easy dismissal of her paper’s acceptance by a publication that he considered too esoteric to be a threat, his laughter when she’d taken her gulp of espresso shots—
Opening her work on the Eischer-Langhoff grant, she jammed a finger against the laptop’s trackpad. Her knuckle cracked. “Now, the grant.”
“How’s the application this year? Horrible like always?”
“No, it’s fine. Or it will be, since I can cite the experimental methods in my paper to justify my funding needs.”
If only she could be so certain of besting her rival.
She reviewed her progress—the form wasn’t due for more than a month, and she was ahead of schedule—and noted the areas where she’d reference her own work on methods and cost breakdowns, then waved Nadine off to the bathroom. Rubbing her finger, she returned to her desk and ran through a data collection plan for her obnoxious Tuesday lab time with the interferometer. At least Martina was scheduled to be the operating technician for her shift. And given the hour, maybe there wouldn’t be as much signal interference from the Bay Area’s ubiquitous traffic to scrub from her exports.
