Evan tried not to gasp. You couldn’t properly walk in Sarah’s office. Rather, it attacked your ankles, like a poorly-trained dachshund. Legitimate lab equipment wrestled with boxes of graded and ungraded papers, yesterday’s lunch, a black-screen computer, and back issues of Time for counter space. Wires and cords sniffed at the baseboards, hoping to nose out what lie on the other side of the wall. Bookshelves jammed with torn journals, out-of-date phone books, rough drafts, and raw data were tucked into any unlikely corner. Gear from last weeks’ soil collection was still moldering on a chair that just predated the computer.

Evan had spent his undergraduate career making fun of hydrologists, but this was too easy.