Tiyana felt an overwhelmingly pleasant sense of familiarity. She enjoyed hiking, exploring, and wild-goose chases with Hunter. On this chase, however, they had apparently found exactly what they were looking for even though it was not what they expected. Still, she always felt comforted to return to her natural element, the laboratory. She had a new and exciting project. This project was far more interesting than the synthetic food work that she had done back in the old days. This project could change the course of science. The chemical analysis that Tiyana would soon perform had, as far as Tiyana knew, never been done before. The experiments that she was about to do would make her a pioneer. The sense of pending achievement gave her a rush. Tiyana had not only a rock made of a new element, but also a cryptic white powder and a hunch that it was more than just pale dirt.

Tiyana started with the powder since she had already had time with the stone. She bombarded the powder with X-rays and mapped out the arrangement of the molecules. She smiled as she mapped. She got a funny feeling that the molecular structure would turn out to be unique for whatever element or alloy comprised the powder. Next, she used a spectrometer on the powder. She ran test after test. She worked all day. The cool air conditioning and the sterile, quiet environment soothed her. By the end of the day, she felt well-rested. The mystery of the unknown and the Himalayan trip took a lot of energy out of her, but the cool science of the laboratory where the math always came out right and the experiments always yielded reproducible and predictable results restored her spirit.

Tiyana worked through lunch. Around 4:00 p.m. she still had not eaten and had not noticed that she had not eaten. She was too wrapped up in the strange properties of the powder to take a break or think about her bodily needs. The powder exhibited strange electromagnetic tendencies when it came into close proximity with the lapis stone. The stone seemed to activate a resonance within the powder. When they came close, the molecular structure of the powder would shift and oscillate. Under heat, the tiny crystals making up the powder seemed to grow.

A couple hours after midnight, Tiyana stumbled half-asleep back to the digsite. She had not eaten a thing since breakfast. She found Hunter still up. He was intently studying the patterns of characters on a golden goblet from the labyrinth.

He smiled when he saw her, “Heyyyy, there you are. Come here, I haven’t seen you all day.”

She walked exhaustedly over and sat on Hunter’s lap. Then she embraced him and let her head collapse onto his shoulder.

“I had such a big day. Huge breakthrough.” She mouthed the words into his shirt.

“I think you are exhausted.” Hunter said as she trailed off at the end of her sentence.

“Let’s get you into bed.” With that, Hunter picked her up gently and laid her down in their plush bed in their cutting-edge, military-grade tent. He took off her belt, shoes, and watch. Then, he tucked her in, brushed his teeth, and went to bed himself.

• • •

That night Tiyana dreamed about her studies at the National Australian University. She relived one of her undergraduate chemistry classes.

Dr. Fiona Cresswell taught Introductory and Advanced Chemistry and, on the side, performed radiocarbon dating via accelerated mass spectrometry. As an accomplished geochronologist, she also did substantial research. She had an enviable publication record in rigorously peer-reviewed academic journals. She also became Tiyana’s first real mentor and role model.

As class came to an end, the low murmur of books slamming shut and papers rustling in anxious fingertips filled the room. It was Friday and the pent-up excitement about the approaching social-event addled weekend created a vibrant stir in the air. The stir briskly followed the students out of the room, leaving a distinct stillness behind. In this stillness, Tiyana approached her mentor.

“Good day Dr. Cresswell. I’ve got your receipts here. I found a promising bristlecone specimen from the USDA Forest Service. Where do you think it comes from?” Tiyana asked as she smiled wide.

“From… I’m sorry, I haven’t the foggiest… It’s a bristlecone, eh… Is it another one from the Spring Mountains?” Dr. Cresswell pondered good-naturedly.

“No, I’ll just spill it. It’s from the White Mountains. It even has a name, Aeon.” Tiyana dramatically enunciated the word Aeon, emphasizing its unique sequence of vowels and the mysterious sound that they produced.

Tiyana continued, “Chronos was already taken by one of the River Oaks. Aeon is just as good though, it’s a common substitute for Chronos, the god of time.”

“Aeon, old Father Time. That’s quite the pretentious name. So how old is this tree anyways?” Dr. Creswell’s curiosity visibly perked up.

Tiyana got right to the point, “Well, that’s for us to verify of course, but they are saying at least four thousand years, maybe more.”

Dr. Creswell sincerely praised Tiyana, “Tiyana, that’s fantastic and the timing is so perfect! We just got the new liquid scintillation counter set up. I’d love to get it calibrated for the first time with a truly old specimen.”

Tiyana loved the praise and she deserved it. She worked like a machine to impress Dr. Creswell, the only woman she had ever met who she could look up to and who shared her sharp intellect and consistent determination. Tiyana had not slept more than a few hours the last two nights as she slavishly tried to get this one last order in for Dr. Creswell. She desperately did not want them to part ways on disappointing terms. The respect and adoration she had for Dr. Creswell made the next bit of news that she had to share extremely painful.

Tiyana’s voice cracked as she said, “Don’t thank me just yet. You haven’t seen the bill. The department is not going to like this.”

Dr. Creswell’s wide smile and appreciative demeanor faded to a look of concern, “The department can complain all they want and it won’t make this tree any less essential to our work here. Look, Tiyana, is something wrong?”

Tiyana spoke softly, but deliberately, “I’m not finishing the semester. Something came up… and, well, I, I, I, I can’t continue here at this school. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you, and I hope your research turns out.”

Dr. Creswell stammered, “Not finishing the semester?” “You hope my work turns out?” “Tiyana, you’re a bright and exceptionally diligent young woman, why ever would you say something like this?”

Tiyana, whose iron demeanor rarely gave way to show her emotions, broke down into tears. It started with a small whimper, but the whimper snowballed as she quickly lost control, “I, I just…”

Dr. Creswell, a career academic with below-average social skill, awkwardly stretched out her hands and patted Tiyana on the shoulder.

She spoke, “Tiyana, there there, there there, why don’t you go ahead and sit down, over here, now sit down.”

Dr. Creswell gently guided Tiyana to a nearby chair and kept her arms around Tiyana’s shoulders in an awkward semi-hug. Tiyana bawled and bawled and had very little control over her atypical emotional outpouring.

Tiyana hated sharing personal details of her life with anyone, particularly anyone whom she respected so deeply. Dr. Creswell was the last person in the world that she felt like opening up to, but her state of desperation eventually allowed her emotions to get the better of her pride. She told Dr. Creswell the whole story. She told how her mother was in jail. Her mother was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving. It was her third offense. She was facing years of jail time.

Tiyana recounted to Dr. Creswell her mother’s desperate phone call begging Tiyana for help. Despite Tiyana’s lack of respect for her mother’s drinking problem, Tiyana loved her mother unfailingly. Tiyana could not help but to try to soothe her mother’s fear and pain, despite knowing that her mother got herself into trouble; despite the fact that Tiyana did not have extra time or money to be helping anyone. Tiyana was a poor college student living off of student loans. Outside of doing research for Dr. Creswell, Tiyana had not had a job since she started college.

Tiyana went to NAU on a tennis and rifle scholarship. She split her time between science and sports. In high school, Tiyana waited tables at The Canberra Crabhouse as she helped raise her little sister. Tiyana broke down and cried in front of her mentor because earlier that morning she had given her scholarship money for the next semester to a bail bondsman. Her mother would get out of jail, but after the bondsman’s fees, the court’s fees, the lawyer’s fees, and the penalties for her mother’s offense, the money would run out. If Tiyana ever got her bail money back, there would not be much left. Tiyana’s tuition was covered by loans and scholarships, but without two cents to rub together, Tiyana would have no money for an apartment, food, or a dorm room. She had been taking the maximum amount of student loans out every semester and, with no room to borrow more money, she would have to drop out.

Dr. Creswell was stunned.

Three days later, after Tiyana had moved back in with her mother, Tiyana received a phone call, “Tiyana? Is that you? I got your number from the university directory. This is Dr. Creswell.”

“Dr. Creswell, Hello.” Tiyana responded in an inflectionless tone.

“Listen, I’ve thought about your dilemma, and well, I’d like you to move in with me. We’ve got a casita in the back where my folks stay when they visit and, well, it’s yours for the time being.”

From there on out, Tiyana had a mentor and sponsor.

Later, Dr. Creswell would set Tiyana up with an internship at Teaneck, the international flavor company. After her studies, Tiyana would to move to Dortmund, Germany where she would become a member of the cloak-and-dagger Guild of Flavor Chemists. A small group of tight-lipped artificial flavorists around the world would isolate, mix, and design ways to mass produce condensed artificial flavors and scents. The clandestine confidentiality agreements that they would sign with the numerous food, beverage, and perfume companies that they contracted with would forever keep their lips shut about their work. They would heat foods up to create a Maillard reaction where amino acids reacted with sugars to produce substances full of essential flavors. They would then isolate those flavors and mix and match them to specifications for whatever project they were working on. They would mix up the five basic flavors, sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and savory with an almost infinite number of smells. To the essential flavors of a cola they would add or modify a smell and, voila, the cola tasted like cherries. It was a highly exclusive, highly paid, shrewd career move.

Tiyana hated it.

She had a passion for adventure despite her careful, hardworking, pragmatic nature. She just could not fulfill her need to explore new horizons where her career demanded the development of a lifelong obsession to a single field of work. Also, due to her high level of intelligence, she got into the career at a very young age. Despite her difficult upbringing, she still had a small yet unbreakable sense of naiveté and zest for the unknown.

In the course of time, Tiyana found herself at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences doing radiocarbon dating like she used to do with her mentor. There, while dating archaeological finds, she met the man who changed her life.

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