"This is BULLSHIT!" Mandy fumed, furiously shouting into her phone.
"You can't pull our funding now! We're weeks, maybe even days, from a major breakthrough!"
"I'm sorry, Amanda. But this institution simply cannot afford to fund your frivolous projects anymore." A voice replied through the phone, clearly tired of having this conversation.
"Please have your things cleared out of the laboratory and return your keys to the security office by the end of the week."
There was an abrupt click. No goodbye, no chance to further argue her case. All Mandy heard was silence as the phone call ended and she was left with nothing. The young scientist sighed a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her glorious golden hair. Her entire academic carreer had been devoted to this project, her one singular passion, her only goal was the pursuit of scientific excellence and now it seemed as though that pursuit had been cut short.
For a few years, Mandy had been operating with a grant from the university to experiment in the field of biochemistry, working on a proposed new "panacea" that could metamorphose the human form into a form beyond human. Mandy believed in her cause, but even she knew that she was years away from achieving the goal she had set for herself. She'd been falsifying her progress reports to keep the grant money coming, but now it seemed her ruse had come to an end. With nothing to show for it but a few prototype serums, Mandy walked the laboratory for what felt like the last time, weighing her options. The beautiful academic felt a sense of sadness over the opportunity she had lost, but as she dwelled on the feeling, sadness turned to anger and soon, anger turned to delusions of grandeur.
"How dare those pompous hacks question my research. Don't they know that I'm trying to save this stupid planet from itself?" Mandy shouted to the empty laboratory, flinging university-owned equipment and scientific instruments onto floor. The young scientist picked up beakers and flasks, angrily throwing them at the walls as she trashed the space she was being evicted from. If they were kicking her out, the university would get nothing, not a single shred of her hard work would fall into the hands of narrow-minded, pig-headed, ignorant fools that would stand in the way of REAL science.
Trashing her lab felt strangely cathartic to Mandy, as though she was being released from some invisible shackles, free to pursue her passion in her own way. Mandy continued to destroy when she came to a small briefcase, she paused at its sight. Inside the unassuming aluminum case were 3 vials of a glowing purple fluid. The only existing prototypes of her panacea, the physical embodiment of her work. She stared at the case with contempt, feeling a sense of failure when she looked upon her work. But within the case, she also saw opportunity, a chance to continue her work.
Mandy reached for the case and...
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