Batting an Eye

  ‘Some things you just don’t see coming!’ Carl Furlong, had repeated this line on so many occasions, Rowena, could barely look up from her tedious sample testing duties to greet his words.
After finishing top in her class in Environmental Pathology, she had been honoured to get a job working alongside the Prestigious Professor Carl Furlong. This honour was shortly outlived, after working with him for less than six months, she had found herself bitterly disappointed this man was not at all brilliant and empathy was as unknown to him as kindness was to a hungry lion.
Rowena, nodded in unwitting agreement as she slowly started her sampling again acknowledging Carl as little as possible.
What the good professor was really saying, was people in general won’t see it coming.
It was their job to analyse the material and keep it under wraps. Rowena was beginning to hate herself for it, as well as hate her supposed mentor. Rowena felt as though her pockets were filled with jagged rocks that were getting heavier daily, she needed to speak to someone fast.
 
 
The drinking water for the whole state was in jeopardy, but the nondisclosure clause in her contract had forbidden her to utter a single word.
Her friends and family were bathing and very likely to be drinking this toxic slurry. Anger was bubbling to the surface more and more each passing day.
Only a small article had been posted stating not to drink from the water supply until further notice, but nothing more in hopes of preventing widespread panic.
In a moment of clarity Rowena decided; people needed to know! They needed to see it coming! This virus was throughout the entire water system and multiplying rapidly due to climate change, it was impossible to get away from. So many people would be subject to this deadly virus, so many were going to die and she couldn't live with herself. As Rowena left for the evening, she hid the files she was supposed to destroy each day; including the toxicity charts exposing the truth about how climate change was effecting the water. She headed for the local news station, paying a man to drop the work of the report on a journalist's desk anonymously.

That night she hardly slept. She went to work the next day, unable to bring herself to look at the news. As she arrived, the police were already there. She braced herself as the plainclothes detective barrelled down the corridor towards her. She took a long, deep breath and held it, sweat beading on her forehead. But he nodded curtly, and passed.
The police escorted the prestigious professor out in handcuffs. Rowena watched this scene in astonished relief...without batting an eye.
Smiling, she thought: Somethings you really don't see coming!