The Perils of Abbreviation, Gender-Neutral Variety

Artie Marshall was considering the article in her hand, trying to decide whether to file it under "Cat Viruses, General" or "Feline Endemics, Global" when a knock at the door postponed the decision. To someone compelled to excessive subdivision, filing was always painful.

"Hi," Artie said, looking up at the man — or boy, more accurately — who hesitated, one foot in the corridor and one in the disaster area that was one day destined to become her office. "Can I help you?"

The student, a blond twenty-something with a perpetually throttled look, was attired in pressed trousers and a white shirt: a dead giveaway in this place. He frowned at the sheaf of papers in his hand, frowned at the room number, and frowned at Artie before alighting on something obviously more encouraging over her left shoulder.

"Dr. Marshall?" His eyes bulged with asphyxiated relief.

Artie heard the screech of Mark's chair and reminded herself for the fourth time that day to bring in a can of WD40.

"Not me," Mark said, sounding amused. "Her. And it's Professor Marshall."

Artie offered the student a smile and an outstretched hand, and he nearly recoiled.

"You must be Ryan," she said, trying to decide whether she would file him under "Rabbit, Scared" or "Loser, Clueless".

"But I was expecting ..."

"A man?" Artie said. "Common mistake. 'Artie' is short for Artemis." When he didn't respond, she added, "My parents had a thing for Greek mythology."

"I'm sorry?"

Mark coughed over his laughter before explaining, "Artemis, as in the virgin hunter goddess."

"Daughter of Leto, born after she and Zeus got it on behind Hera's back," Artie said.

"Didn't Zeus give birth to her himself, sprung fully formed from his forehead?" Mark asked.

"You're thinking of Athena."

"Ah, so I am."

"There might have been a mistake," the student said, looking optimistically at his papers again.

"PhD studentship?" Artie said. "The Department of Molecular Virology? Feline leukemia?"

At his miserable nod, she said, "Take a seat, Ryan, I'm perfectly harmless."

"Extra chairs haven't arrived yet," Mark said, as the student looked around in confusion. "Pull up one of those crates."

After about five minutes of interview it was clear that he was never going to work out. Artie struggled to extend the conversation to thirty as a formality before allowing him to slither away.

She sighed and met Mark's eye. Mark shrugged.

"Are they removing part of the frontal lobe as a university graduation requirement these days?" she asked.

"I doubt we've been seeing the top students."

"What's scaring them off?" She studied the face of her first ever post-doctoral fellow — a post-doc she had been very lucky to secure, she was starting to realize.

"Maybe we should tone down the whole mythology angle."

"I'm serious, Mark. My age? The lab's outmoded research topic? Heatherfields as a whole?"

The Institute had been founded by Rupert Heatherfields, a prominent entomologist, when he'd gathered together the first utopian cluster of interdisciplinary scientists in 1883. The organization, more like a think-tank than a private research facility, was still going strong in the original building. Its aura of sleepy, old-world charm was enhanced by its location, hidden away in the leafy north-London suburb of Mill Hill, worlds away from the hard-core labs jostling within internationally renowned campuses in the center. As such, it was not much rated among modern biologists, with their medical bent and their twenty-first century pragmatic cynicism.

Mark leaned back in his chair and gave her his habitual grin, the one that started as a twitch at the corner of his mouth before gradually taking over the surrounding territory. It still disconcerted Artie that he was older, and she was supposed to be the boss.

"All three," he said. "And if they're not deterred by that, seeing the state of this office pretty much caps it."

Artie's high spirits experienced a rare dip. "You had no idea what you were getting into, did you? Ever have second thoughts?"

"Not a chance," he said. "I came here because I wanted to work with the top feline leukemia specialist. You're it, Art."

"I almost wish I'd persuaded you not to come. For your sake, I mean."

But her tone wasn't convincing, and he obliterated the argument with a sweep of his hand. "If you can flourish in a passé field, so can I," he said. "I reckon there's room enough for two rebels in the system."

For the hundredth time, Artie silently blessed the day that Mark's email had arrived. Mark Reynolds, who had sprung fully funded from a modest but hardworking avian virus lab in Bristol, already had eight years of post-doctoral experience when he got restless and developed an interest in an even more obscure topic.

"Why the shift?" she'd asked him at the interview back in April, which had taken place over too many pints down at the Victoria Arms.

"Honestly? I'm tired of chickens."

"No, really. Give me some legitimate reasons ... and make them good, or I might not hire you."

They had both known she wasn't serious. After only an hour in his presence, Artie was convinced that he was the one to get her lab off the ground. His CV demonstrated an impressive breadth as well as depth, and despite his lighthearted delivery, she could sense the intense intellect underneath. Although Artie berated herself for being so unscientific, he also inspired confidence with his tall, sturdy build and tree-felling arms, with that bearish dark-brown hair curling around his head and over most of his exposed surfaces. In fact, she had the peculiar conviction he was somehow the older brother she'd never had.

"Right." He held up a finger. "Your papers are insightful and take a stab at serious evolutionary questions. Not like everyone else's, pretending their arcane little treatise is going to cure human disease. You seem to want to understand the deeper implications of the biology for its own sake."

"Hmmm ... you obviously haven't read the shameless pandering in my latest grant application to Cancer Research UK."

"Second," he said, ignoring her embarrassment. "I know this place is a backwater, but I'm well into the eccentric, intellectual vibe."

Artie make a noncommittal noise. Eccentric was certainly one way to describe Heatherfields, which ran rampant with interdisciplinary oddballs who had never produced important medical cures, lucrative patents or Nobel prize-winning research.

"And third," he said. "Can I be frank? You've been appointed here at a very young age — that must mean something. You're obviously someone worth learning things from."

"If Phil hadn't retired, I assume you would've gone to Edinburgh instead?"

He just smiled. "He may be brilliant, and he may have transmitted only a fraction of his knowledge to you, but I prefer your style. Fourth ... I'm interested in AIDS, and it was becoming increasingly clear that studying it in birds was a waste of my time."

She shifted in her seat. "Mark, I hate to break it to you, but feline leukemia virus went out of fashion as an AIDS model decades ago. And even the feline immunodeficiency virus model's not ideal — you should really be looking at monkeys."

"Not interested," he said. "I don't want to study animals in cages. I want to study a natural virus in its...