Love Burned, She Rose Unscathed

"Roseanne! Do you have any idea how many times I've called you? Not one answer, not a single one! It's been ages, Roseanne. Were you planning on ghosting me for life if I didn't reach out?" Leda Reynolds was fuming, her words a mix of irritation and disbelief.

Roseanne quickly scrolled through her missed calls and, sure enough, there was a string of attempts from Leda.

She had meant to call back a few times but had been swept up in her busy schedule and completely forgot.

Feeling guilty, she hurried to apologize, "I'm so sorry, Leda. I've been swamped these past few days, and then one thing led to another, and...ahem! I promise, I'll try my best to prevent this from happening again... No, I'll make sure it doesn't happen again!" In truth, Leda was aware of Roseanne joining the lab from day two.

Her relationship with Owen was lukewarm at best. They got along as kids, but after Owen went abroad for his studies and became a celebrated "genius physicist," they drifted apart.

Their encounters as adults could be counted on one hand.

Leda only knew that Owen was always buried in his work at the lab, clueless about what he was actually doing.

Now, seeing Roseanne's state, she got the picture-

than being a corporate drone; disappearing for a week was short for them,

it," Leda softened her tone. "But you absolutely can't

her call was to remind

could I forget our Leda's big day? I've already picked out your gift. Just you wait

Leda was satisfied and looking

hanging up, Roseanne grabbed her stuff and headed back to

approached the experimentation area,

wrong? I've checked these numbers eight times and

After days of

but Sammy's calculations were all over the map and made no sense at all. He

turned to Stoddard for help. "Mr. Stoddard, you're faster with numbers

adjusted his glasses,

data a once-over, and carefully compared it to the original samples "Could it be an issue at the third node? The data there is messy easy to mess up. Here,

eight times already! What if I end