An Intangible Pattern

It's your choice

The following day Alex stood in the office and stared blankly at the stacks of boxes looming in the corner of the room. She was beginning to think she had bitten off far more than she could chew. 

This is going to take months, not weeks. 

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

 It will have to wait. I don't think I can even lift any of them at the moment. 

She ignored them and turned her attention to the recent records. So far, she had not found anything suspicious but there was still a lot to go through.

Her phone buzzed for the umpteenth time that morning, she gave an exasperated sigh and switched it off. 

It was nice that people cared about her, but from the moment Cat sent a message to let everyone know Alex had been in an accident, she had been bombarded with messages and phone calls checking she was ok. She couldn't keep up with them and she couldn't focus on the work in front of her.

She was checking the receipts against the accounts when her sister tapped on the door and popped her head in.

“Hey, Arthur and I are going to go for a walk. Will you be alright here on your own?”

“I’ll be fine, enjoy your walk.”

“Alright see you in a bit.”

“See you.”

She listened as Arthur and Cat, bantering and giggling, dressed to leave the house. When she heard the front door close and their voices fade into the distance, she took a deep breath and opened the video call software, hesitating over Noah's name. She hit call. 

He answered barely before the first ring ended.

“Hello.”

“It's me, I wanted to talk to you.”

“... Did you find something?” He asked urgently.

“No, not yet.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward pause as neither of them knew what to say.

Alex inhaled and said, “I just got the sense you wanted to tell me something but couldn't while Arthur and Cat were here. Maybe I misread that.”

“No you didn't. It's just… I don't know how to put it.”

“I see.”

“It's about our problem.”

“Have you figured it out?” She asked hopefully.

“No, well actually I can share my screen with you.”

She heard his mouse clicking and eventually an image of a spreadsheet appeared on her screen. She scanned the headings along the top row.

“These are our scent profiles?” She asked, blushing at the embarrassing memory of losing her temper and throwing her underwear at Noah.

“Yes, these here are common to all humans. These are what we have in common and these are the ones we don't share. I’ve been trying to find out if I react to something specific”

“There’s thousands!”

“Yes… you see the problem?”

She sighed and rubbed her aching neck. He scrolled down cell after cell of chemical formulas and numbers.

“I tried narrowing it down by fractionating the VOCs by molecular weight but it doesn't seem to work like that.”

“What?”