"It's okay, it was just the base set. I have a lot of them." She directs Ruth towards gloves and other items - this really is a very small lab tour.

The kidney membranes themselves are delicate, almost transparent when they're applied to their supports. It's really the model kidney that's interesting, more like a small laboratory reactor than a solid organ. There's clear tubing where (probably synthetic) blood can be directed through different paths to pass through specific samples or shunted to the the analysis instruments on either side. There's a hand-drawn diagram pinned above it, but Ruth will be able to follow easily enough without it.

Betty holds out a membrane in a sealed glass plate for Ruth to take. She feels terribly shy about it, like showing someone a first draft of poetry. "You're either going to love or hate this one. She has the best success rate for picking out ion-damaged leukocytes so far, but she needs an atomic-level kick to really be effective." At least this sort of thing, she can talk about. "I think you'll be on that with me. Along with a bunch of other stuff."