The sounds of disappointed scribbling onto a notepad were joined by an equally let-down sigh as Jennifer closed the hatch. "Test Strain 3185 has failed to produce results," she muttered into the recorder sticking out of the pocket of her lab coat, the words almost coming reflexively at this point.
She didn't even bother to record any sort of sign-off this time. Just wasting storage space, really - and with how poorly her work had been going thus far, she couldn't afford to waste a single resource, literally. Instead the recording was simply stopped, the rectangular device set on a table, and her rear end plopped onto a stool. It was getting harder every time to remind herself of how every success required a thousand failures first. Especially when she was up to several thousand failures by now.
That she'd been able to fail that much without losing funding was a testament to how much weight her name carried. Doctor Jennifer Xiao, world-famous geneticist... well, daughter of a world-famous geneticist. When your father is a pioneer in his field, it's expected that you'll at least do something vaguely impressive. Certainly Jennifer's current project had been ambitious - the problem was that ambition had smacked hard into reality.
Dragging both hands down her face, she peeked up at the wall of little glass enclosures behind which her test subjects buzzed. Thousands of bees, every variety one could conceivably get their hands on, all gathered together for one purpose: fixing their population decline. As much as she could fix it, anyway. One lone woman couldn't stop all habitat loss that had affected the world's most important pollinators, but it had been her hope to improve their resistance to other issues. Diseases, parasites, insecticides - she was convinced that with the appropriate retrovirus, their ability to survive such population-killers could be greatly enhanced.
Thus far, though... well, suffice to say the past three years had not been fruitful. The university had been patient, oh so very patient, but after an ungodly amount of time and money dumped into this project, all she'd come up with was a few hundred mutant insects with only marginal-at-best resistance to the weakest pesticides. She'd scaled back her ambitions to simply surviving commercially-used chemicals, and even that had gone nowhere. And with increasing pressure to either produce results or vacate the space to more worthwhile projects...
Another sigh passed her lips as she stood up, wandering past the rows of observation boxes. "I'm sorry, little guys," she said quietly, her eyes trailing over all the tiny yellow and black creatures that buzzed about. The walk finally brought her over to a window where she could gaze out into the desolate evening parking lot, chin plopped into her hands. So much for living up to her father's legacy - it was looking more and more likely that she'd be begging her father to bail her out when she lost her funding.
Admittedly, in the increasing depression of the last two weeks, her attentiveness to certain tasks had dropped. Perhaps not a crippling problem in a vacuum, but with the nature of her work, the final nail in the coffin. That same inattentiveness had been the reason behind why one of the hatches was left ever so slightly open - and one inquisitive bee had taken the opportunity to explore outside its habitant. Curiousity drove it to buzz around the lab, right behind Jennifer's back, before its attention was finally drawn to the young woman.
The buzzing sound met her ears and instantly triggered a surprised response. She was used to the noise, but from behind the protection of plexiglass and beekeeping outfits, not unmuffled by the open air. There was a gasp and spinning, her whole short, slender body whirling around and creating just as much surprise in the bee. So much surprise that fight or flight instincts kicked in: the insect dove straight for what it interpeted as a threat, driving its stinger directly into the exposed skin on the young woman's hand.
It was funny - three years of doing this, and she'd never actually been stung before. The corpse floated away, leaving behind a pinprick of pain that had Jennifer yelping further and rushing to grab her wallet - it was the closest thing in reach from which she could pull something to help remove the stinger. A credit card, used to slide the stinger out without squeezing more venom into her body. Still painful, and a bit tricky, but the best way to minimize potential allergic reactions.
...was she allergic to bee stings? Not once had she ever actually thought to find out. This was not the time or circumstance under which she wanted to, either, but for better or worse she was about to get an answer.
Anxious as she was about the possibility, she was still a scientist, and a dutiful one at that. She was quick to scoop up the stinger and the bee itself off the floor, setting them aside for further examination, and checking every other hatch to prevent further such incidents. All the while she kept checking her hand; it continued to feel slightly warm, but there were no visible side effects to be concerned about. No swelling or discoloration - not even any pain, after a surprisingly short time. Just an odd sort of warmth.
She made a mental, and literal note, of that fact, but for the moment, there wasn't a great deal she could do. Given how late it was, she would be best served by heading home anyway. With one final sigh and rubbing of her stung hand, she was out the door and heading to the parking lot, fully expecting to drag herself home, sleep far too little, and wake up to yet another fruitless day of failed experiments and work that went nowhere.