In a lab at the University of Colorado Medical Center, Cat Talavera tried to come to terms with the many ways her world had changed. One minute she’d been locked away as a crazy woman. The next she was stealing a helicopter, then looting private businesses and brewing a potentially lethal nerve agent. That, in turn, led her to raid a mansion—from which she then escaped in a firefight. And now—but a few days later—she gets handed the keys to a state-of-the-art microbiology lab.
“Go figure,” she whispered as she focused on the stained slide and positioned it in the microscope. Dialing in the focus, she studied the image. The familiar structure of one of the Cyanobacteria phyla were outlined in light purple. She used the controls to measure and record, then copied the image to the reference computer. Following a hunch based on foggy memory, she typed in the genus Oscillatoria, checked the box for comparison, and hit enter.
The photo she’d taken remained in the left-hand screen. The right filled with comparative images, and one by one she scrolled down, comparing the forty-two different species of Oscillatoria with her specimen. Physiologically, she was able to throw out most of them, but for the remaining handful she couldn’t make a distinction.
“Okay.” She pushed back from the screen and considered her micrograph. “Now why would Fluvium fill a jar with red Oscillatoria cyanobacteria, and then have it placed inside his sarcophagus with him? A, he had no other hobbies, so he collected pond scum? B, he suffered from a psychological disorder that turned pond scum into a sexual fetish? Or C, he knew something about this stuff that the rest of us don’t.”
“Dios mio, I love research!” She flicked her micrograph image with an index finger. “Okay, my little friend, let’s find out what you are. You might look like the others, but your DNA is going to give you away.”
First, she needed to process her sample and isolate the strand of DNA before she could amplify it in the polymerase chain reaction machine. Once the PCR had produced a sufficient sample, she’d precipitate it, run a Southern blot, and have a concrete signature that would tie her bacterium to the correct Oscillatoria species.
Meanwhile, there was something nagging at her subconscious.
Oscillatoria grew in fresh water, and when enough bloomed, could turn the water bloodred. It was often used for dye.
She typed in uses on the computer.
Oscillatoria was commercially grown to produce butylated hydroxytoluene, commonly called BHT, which was used for an antioxidant food supplement.
“Fluvium, old buddy, surely you weren’t worried about your chromosomes shortening.”
No this was something else.
Time to go to work.