“Doctor Xi, do you require any additional sugars or dairy products for your teas this morning?”

Biting her lip as she fiddled with the microscope, Yingxue sighed and rubbed her eyes. God, was it morning already? That stupid cow, eating that stupid oily grass. She'd spent all night examining a thin section of its tissue to scan for genetic anomalies, just to make sure it was ONLY due to the oil, and now it had been rougly 24 hours since she'd last slept. "[color=977D9E]I keep telling you, Holiday, adding anything to tea is a downright heretical crime against reality.[/color]" Finally turning off and leaving the large electron microscope, she slouched her way over to her corner, collapsing into her memory-gel beanbag chair with a long, protracted groan. She carelessly batted her hand to the side, turning her electric kettle on to the green tea setting, largely because she didn't really have the wherewithal to change it at the moment. She'd have Dragonwell this morning. She needed the caffeine.

A few minutes later, she took her delicate mug of steaming green tea--her favorite mug back home had the Caltech logo and her name on it, but apparently that wasn't regulation here--resettled her lab coat on her shoulders, and left the laboratory for the first time in twelve hours, drawn inexorably to the kitchen by the missed meals. She sipped slowly as she paced deliberately along, intent on fixing herself some eggs and toast or something. Just something substantial and hot to quell the rumbling in her gut and, along with her tea, chase away the cold sterility of the biochem lab.

Of course, going to the kitchen to eat in the morning meant that she'd have to interact with her...wonderful colleagues. She heaved a long sigh and realized belatedly that she'd been so occupied she hadn't applied her makeup today, so for once she looked at tired as she felt. As she fetched a pair of eggs from the fridge and cracked them into a pan to fry, the terminally chipper Arthur strode in and pottered around, asking a question of no-one in particular. She took a loooong drink of her tea. There wasn't enough caffeine on this moon to stop her from feeling shitty, but she was at least starting to feeel [i]something.[/i] Enough to do an interaction with a person, at least.

Contrary to the somewhat lively tone she'd taken with Holiday, when she replied to his query, her voice was dull and flat. "[color=977D9E]I don't know much about it, but the cow is fine.[/color]" No further answer was forthcoming; she knew that she probably [i]should[/i] have something else to say, but damn if she knew what it was. No toast today; just eggs, which she plonked down in front of her at one end of the long metal table. The beat of silence felt like it stretched an actual lifetime, and she was finally overpowered by the urge to fill it with [i]something.[/i]

"[color=977D9E]Genetically, I mean. It's still sick.[/color]"