After another bout of explaining to the guard on duty outside the lab that you are, in fact, a scientist and not a wife of one, you were allowed in.

Work and life was kept completely separate; everything you did was classified...not that you had enough friends outside of work to be able to accidentally spill information, anyway. Men with your level of education and ability never took you seriously, and women found you unapproachable or cold. Your only friend at the nuclear development site in the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona, that doesn't work in the lab all day with strung-up, neurotic male scientists, is Adeline Miller, who works at the commissary, and saves you the extra vegetables when the restock comes in every month.

As soon as you unlocked the door to the lab, you were greeted by the familiar smell of burning tobacco from Zhao, scratching chalk noises from Van der Heyden, the heavy footsteps of Taylor, the woody cologne from Adams, Klein's cheerful humming, and the sound of papers rustling from behind the closed door of Kavinsky, the site's leader. Sounds—beeps, rings, scratching on paper and chalkboards filled your head, disorienting you for a moment.