Not yet.
Not until she’d dealt with this.
With everything.
Instead, she opened STEMinist Online’s exposé post on the man who had to be Dr. John Kramer. Although the influx of new comments had slowed, the data was still rich. She’d get other data sets, too. A man with practices as slimy and depraved as his had almost certainly committed actionable scientific misconduct during the course of his career. It would be difficult to locate hard proof. He would’ve covered his tracks. He’d had plenty of practice. But she didn’t mind getting her hands dirty in the filth of cyberspace to find gold. Then she’d take him down.
Watch me.
She was in a dangerous mood—itching for action, she almost wished she’d find turkeys planning world domination in the parking lot—when she pedaled up to SVLAC’s security booth the next morning, so early that her breath fogged in the dawn air. A guard on the night shift even stepped out to question her.
“Dr. Monaghan?”
She raised her lanyard with its employee identification card in answer.
“You get a graveyard slot in the experimental halls again?”
“No. Just a busy day.”
He flicked a Warriors bobblehead in the window of his booth, which nodded her past. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
She’d need it.
She selected espresso at the Modern Physics coffee machine and a sudoku grid at her desk. Despite her adrenaline, she needed both the clarity of the puzzle and the caffeine. She’d slept for no more than a few minutes at a time last night, tossing, turning, wondering: should she tell Ethan about her plans to investigate Kramer? Unlike with the inputs for her sudoku cells, she only had two choices.
Tell him.
Don’t tell him.
(Not lie. Just… keep her mouth shut. For once.Again.)
If she told him, would he resist? Would he stonewall her efforts with habit and fear? He might. She wouldn’t know until she spoke. But then again, when had a research project ever begun with a certain answer?
Everything started with a question.
Do I tell him?
No, that wasn’t it.
Do I trust him?
Dr. Ethan Meyer, her academic crush and her adversary, her challenger, her colleague, her collaborator, her artist, her distraction, her grudging inspiration, her…
Yes.
So, after confirming her plans for a noontime call with Nadine Fong—new mother, perennial physicist—about their research budget, she ignored an email from theJournal of Supermassive Astronomy and Astrophysicsprompting her to submit an author photo for inclusion with her paper in the journal’s September issue, and pushed away her sudoku grid. She left her espresso and her overflowing inbox, pausing only to answer Leah Haddad’s request for fifteen minutes to discuss a deviant data point in the binary pulsar study.
Leah Haddad
Thanks, Erin. I also wanted to ask you about mentorship opportunities at SVLAC. I know you’re really busy, but do you ever take on interns?
She hadn’t. But if she did? She could support Leah as she entered the STEM field. She could guide other young women interested in physics, too—and not just guidance on copier functions. She could offer feedback and maybe some protection from men like Kramer, could smash glass ceilings and shelter others from the debris, could replicate all that Nadine had done to facilitate her own autonomy and success at the lab, be a role model, a counselor, an advocate, an ally—everything that she’d needed and been lucky to have.
She wanted this. She really did… but it just wasn’t a priority today.
It couldn’t be.
