by Kathryn Hoff
It was a musty old classroom filled with boxes of supplies, all stenciled Property of ECA. Chubb led us past dusty boxes of diapers, toilet paper, latex gloves, syringes, surgical gowns, and who-knows-what, to a window where the paint had partially peeled off.
We took turns peeping out and holding the babies so the others could look. Spotlights showed the protestors—no more than five, I thought—at the gate, shouting and pushing, while the soldiers steadfastly defended us from invasion. Among the squad, I picked out big Jerry and little Mary Koh.
The demonstrators’ shouts were garbled with Stonehouse’s orders and radio crackle, but one phrase came through loud and clear: Strain seven.
It sent a shiver straight to my gut.
Chubb turned, his face grim. “Looks like the secret’s out. Strain seven’s coming.”
While Chubb and Reyna carried the babies to the nursery, I knocked on the door to Paula’s room. I had a wild, desperate hope that I’d find her packing up the boxes again and getting ready to leave.
She greeted me with a hug. “You doing all right, honey?”
The food sucked, the interns weren’t friendly, and I wished we were home.
“Fine,” I said.
“Good.” She turned back to folding her clothes and putting them away on a shelf. “They’ve made tremendous progress since I was here before,” she said. “It’s very promising.”
Crap, she liked it there.
Suck it up, Jackie. I tried to smile. “That’s good.”
Paula knew me—she sat on the bed with a sigh. “I know this isn’t what either of us wanted, but the work is important. Let’s just make the best of it.”
“Paula, why do they have babies here?”
“The babies? They’re important to Avery’s work. He’s a geneticist—he’s identified these children as having genes that make them resistant to Eclipse.”
“I just don’t want Quinn to treat them the same way he treats Molly.” The thought made supper churn in my stomach.
Paula patted my shoulder. “Focus on Molly. We’re placing a great deal of trust in you, you know. Molly is just as important to the work here as the two babies.”
I scrunched my nose at that. “As far as Quinn’s concerned, she’s just a big, smelly guinea pig to test his cures on.”
“You’re wrong,” Paula said. “Molly’s unique. You see, the phages we’re working on aren’t something we’re creating in the lab. They came from Molly. By exposing Molly to Eclipse, her normal microbes are evolving to respond.”
“I thought you and Quinn were making the phages?”
“We’re identifying the specific phages we need, out of the millions of microbes that exist in Molly’s body. She’s already created phages that feed on all of the first six strains of Eclipse, as those strains occur in chimps. Our great hope is that when she’s exposed to strain seven, her body will respond by modifying those phages to fight strain seven. If we can achieve that quickly enough, and then adapt that phage to humans, we’ll finally be a step ahead of Eclipse.”
“A step ahead? You mean a cure?”
“Better—prevention. Up to now, people have been trying to fight the Eclipse bacteria with antibiotics—but every time we find an effective antibiotic, it’s led to the evolution of another, more antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria. If we can come up with a phage cocktail that devours all seven strains of Eclipse that humans have been exposed to—before an eighth strain evolves—we’ll finally have something to stop this terrible cycle of more and more deadly forms of the bacteria evolving from the last.”
That made me grin. “Then Molly is a hero!”
Paula laughed. “I suppose she is. If you can give her more attention and refresh her training, it will make things easier for us and for her.”
“Give me enough biscuits, and I can get her to stand on her head.”
“No need for that, but there’s something specific she needs to be trained for.” She nodded toward the front gate. “Obviously, people are beginning to hear about strain seven. That will just increase the pressure to finish our work here. We expect to move Molly into the isolation unit soon, at the end of December or the first of January.”
“Into the red zone? So soon?” So much for my career in animal care.
“I’m afraid so. Strain seven will spread much wider in the spring when the weather gets warmer—we need to use this time, before that happens, to develop the phage therapy Avery is working on.”
“Will I have to go in there, too? To feed Molly and clean her cage?” Just thinking about the isolation unit made my skin crawl.
Paula shook her head. “I’ll do it, and Dr. Westerly.”
“No! Then you’d get sick too.”
“We’ll wear protective gear to go into the red zone. That’s what you need to help Molly with. She’s been in the isolation unit before and seen people wearing hazmat suits. I’m sure she’d developed a fear of them. If you show her the suits are nothing to be afraid of and desensitize her to blood draw procedures, it will make the transition easier for her.”
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. Paula in a white suit. Molly the hero, sick and all alone in an isolation unit, infected with strain seven so humans could have a better chance of surviving.
I’d been hauled into a red zone when I was ten years old. The white suits had terrified me, touching me and poking needles into me, hooking me up to IVs and machines that buzzed and beeped. I’d panicked every time they came near, even though their robot voices had told me: Stay still. It won’t hurt. You need this to get better. I’d fought them, yelling and kicking and trying to rip out the tubes to get away until they’d strapped my arms and ankles to the guardrails. For days, they’d kept me strapped down, whimpering and crying and coughing, my fever-dreams filled with robot monsters who tortured me.
“She’ll be so scared,” I whispered. “Molly won’t understand why we’re doing all these things to her.”
“No, she won’t. But we can make it easier for her. You can make it easier, by getting her used to the medical procedures. It would help her a lot.”
“And after? If all the phages work out and Mendez gets the Nobel Prize, doesn’t Molly deserve a reward too? Couldn’t you arrange for her to go to a sanctuary or something?”
Paula’s smile was thin. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Planning for the future is…difficult.”
Sure. We might all be dead before anybody got a Nobel Prize. “What about me? Molly’s my job. If I don’t have her to take care of, what will I do?”
“We’ll figure something out. I’m sure Chubb and Reyna could use some help with the babies.”
Assistant babysitter? Great.
I wanted Molly to have a future, but I wanted a future too. I needed a Plan B.
CHAPTER 10
Crap
Reyna and Chubb invited me to watch an old movie in the nursery with them, but I said I still had to unpack.
Chubb made a face. “Ooo, she has to unpack. All her stuff.” I ignored him.
As I turned down the hall to my room, I almost bumped into the thin woman I’d seen in the cafeteria—Bert’s wife, Tilly. She had piercing eyes under bushy brows, and puffy bags under her eyes.
“Shits,” she said, with a face like stone.
“Excuse me?”
“Shits. I have your shits.” She handed me a set of course, worn sheets.
“Oh. Sheets. Thank you.”
She leaned forward and whispered, “Be careful. Girls like you end up pregnant.” Then she turned and walked away.
Okaaay. Just what I needed, a spooky old lady worried about my morals.
I carried the sheets to my empty warehouse of a room. It made me feel just as empty inside.
Suck it up, Jackie.
After making the bed, I pulled it over to the window and dragged the shelves around to make a little cubby. With my clothes and books and stuffed orangutan on the shelves, I could almost make myself believe I was home.
<
br /> Almost.
Of everyone I’d met that day, the only one I felt comfortable with was Molly, and soon I wouldn’t have her either.
Just a few days ago, I’d been so content at the zoo and sharing a home with Paula. Now, the zoo was out of my life, this empty room was my home, and Molly would be mine to tend for only a few weeks before she went into isolation.
I flipped through my thesaurus. Isolated: separated, segregated, quarantined, banished.
And when I didn’t have Molly to care for, what then? Babysitting? Emptying trashcans and mopping floors? Just two years and I’d be eighteen and have to support myself.
Plan B. I was living in a lab—surely I could make myself useful to Paula or Westerly or even Quinn. Science and math had always come easy to me—it was history and literature that put me to sleep. If I could prove that I knew how to follow procedures, maybe I could do what Rico had done, get some lab experience and turn it into a real job.
Breakfast next morning was a choice of cold cereal or cold toast. Only Paula and Mendez sat at the scientists’ table—Paula dawdling over coffee, probably only there to keep Mendez company. No soldiers were in the cafeteria, but Sergeant Stonehouse’s voice wafted in, giving orders to his squad somewhere outside the painted-over windows.
I sat across from where Reyna spooned mushy cereal into Deedee’s maw. “They do drills in the morning or something?”
“Not usually,” Reyna said. “Something’s going on.”
The news feed in the corner was turned to mute, but the headlines flashed Strain 7 confirmed in Florida. The screen showed bungalows burning in Miami and the grim faces of officials begging people to stay calm. It almost took away my appetite.
Chubb plopped Gabe into his highchair. Gabe already had a piece of peanut-butter-smeared toast in each fist and red jelly on his face.
“Somebody painted graffiti on the side of the building last night.” Chubb’s face was grim. “Westerly’s furious, says Stonehouse isn’t doing his job. Stonehouse swears nobody breached the perimeter.”
“What kind of graffiti?” I asked.
“End-Timer stuff. Prepare for the end, repent now, that sort of crap.”
“Westerly’s right,” Reyna said. “The soldiers are supposed to do more than keep us in—they’re supposed to keep outsiders out. And now that everyone knows about strain seven, the crazies will be running around more than ever.”
Rico yelled from across the room, “Hey, Kennedy! Come on. It’s shit time. Time to get your pretty little hands dirty.” He tossed an orange up and caught it.
Chubb snickered. Like he and Reyna didn’t do a lot of butt-wiping too.
Rico led the way to the primate lab, where I used my new badge to open the door. Alone in her cage, Molly shrieked and jumped up and down, doing her best to look threatening despite the graying chin and patchy fur. She was alone—Bert must have taken Barney to the dog run.
Rico yelled over the noise. “You need to lay clean paper under the shift cage, move Molly, clean her main cage, move her back after she’s left some scat, then collect the sample. You read the procedures, didn’t you?”
“Sure. They’re simple compared to the zoo.”
“Simple, huh? Go ahead, then. Just keep in mind, she’s not just some old zoo monkey. Molly’s important to Quinn’s research. She hates him, but he cares more about her health than he cares about himself. Don’t screw up.”
While I worked, or tried to, Rico hovered at my shoulder. “The paper’s over there. Watch your step, she’s already been throwing. Bad Molly. Bad girl.” He sidestepped a lump of poop on the floor.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“What?”
“Call her bad. She doesn’t understand and it confuses her.” Molly screeched louder as we neared her digs.
“Well, the stupid monkey should learn,” he said.
Mean spirited and limited vocabulary—and I didn’t mean the chimp.
“She won’t learn by yelling at her.” I put on latex gloves, wiped up the scat and sprayed disinfectant. I wanted to show Rico I wasn’t a witless kid, but an experienced professional. Molly calmed down as I kept my back or side to her and crooned, “Easy, Molly. That’s a good old girl.”
Rico tossed me the orange. “Leave this for her—it’ll help make sure she craps.”
Before lining the tray in the shift cage, I checked the locks. The main cage door was firmly padlocked, but Bert had left the shift cage outer door unlocked and left the lock on the hatch lever dangling open, with the key still in it. Poor procedure.
I said nothing, just locked the shift cage’s outer door, double checking to be sure the padlock was engaged.
At the lever that opened the hatch between cages, I said, “Time to shift, Molly.”
A fistful of chimp poop plopped against my chest. The smell was unmistakable.
Rico roared with laughter. “Oh, man! She got you good.”
Which was exactly the wrong thing to do. Molly jumped up and down and hooted, delighted to have gotten a reaction. Me, I stood still. I knew all about ape behavior and misbehavior.
I went to the sink to clean the smear from my jumpsuit.
“Aren’t you gonna punish her?” Rico demanded.
“No. She wouldn’t understand it. She’ll calm down in a minute, if we don’t fuss.” What I really wanted to do was yell at Rico, but that would do even less good. Basic keeper training: ignore bad behavior.
“What’s the rest of the routine?” I asked.
“Bert brings Barney back at lunchtime. Twice a week, Dr. Quinn wants a blood sample. We dart her, wait for her to sleep, take the sample, then leave her with Barney to recover.”
By then, Molly was sniffing at the hatch door, butt in the air, trying to lift it to get to the orange. Other than the patchy fur and low muscle mass, she seemed in good condition, moving without stiffness.
When I opened the hatch, Molly shot through and made a beeline for the orange. I locked the hatch behind her, tugging on the padlock to be sure it was fully engaged before unlocking the main cage to clean it. No way I was going into Molly’s cage unless I knew for sure she couldn’t find a way to get through the hatch.
Rico folded his arms and watched sullenly as I worked. In the shift cage, Molly had nearly the same expression, leaning on her knuckles, arms and legs stiff, black fur bristling, glowering from under her jutting brow at the strange human messing around in her home. When I sprayed disinfectant, she squealed, ah ah ah oo oo oo, her mouth open wide enough to show all her teeth. A warning to me she wasn’t a harmless pet.
It didn’t take long to pull the main cage trays, dump the chimp and dog crap into a covered bin for the janitor to take to the incinerator. Then I washed the tray, cage, and grate down with disinfectant and re-lined the tray. When I was done, I re-locked the main cage and double checked to be sure it was secure.
I did my best to impress Rico with my efficiency—if I was going to make a transition to lab assistant, I wanted him on my side.
“She’s left you a sample,” Rico said. A fresh lump of dung was on the paper below the shift cage grate.
When I unlocked the hatch, Molly shifted into the main cage without complaining, running to sniff out any places my cleaning might have missed.
Rico showed me where the sample vials were, and how to use a little wooden paddle to collect the feces, and what to write on the label.
Molly settled on her bench and picked at her curled, black toes. The fur had worn off a spot on her shoulder where she leaned against the bars, showing it was her favorite position. Poor old thing. I wished she had a big enclosure with ropes and nesting material and lots of toys, like the apes at the zoo. Instead, she had a little cell. I was glad she didn’t know another round of Eclipse was in store for her.
“That’s it,” Rico said, as I repeated the cleaning process in the shift cage. “Unless Quinn needs a blood sample, you’re done until it’s time to walk Barney and feed them. I’ll take the stool sa
mple to Dr. Quinn. And,” he sniffed, “don’t forget to change before you go to lunch.” He laughed and left.
When he was gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he’d be friendlier once he realized I actually knew what I was doing. About chimps, anyway. Life for me had gone drastically downhill in the last few days, but Molly was going to something far worse. At least I could help her a little.
“Now for the fun stuff.” I broke four monkey biscuits into a plastic cup. I rattled the cup as I picked up the training target—a red ball the size of a tennis ball mounted onto a sturdy stick.
I pulled a chair over to the cage. Molly stayed at the other end, scratching and eyeing me suspiciously.
“You’re going to love me,” I said, rattling the cup. “I have treats.”
CHAPTER 11
Temper tantrums
Molly was smart. Maybe nobody had bothered lately to keep up with her training routine, but she already knew what the “target” command meant. I made her work for her biscuits, holding the target down low or up high so she’d have to crouch or climb to touch her nose to the red ball. Each time she earned her treat, she screeched and slapped at the bars to celebrate, like a football player spiking the ball after a touchdown.
At lunchtime, Bert the lab tech brought the dog back from the dog run. A middle-aged man with glasses, wearing a white lab coat over his gray jumpsuit, Bert scowled at me from the back door. “Here, take the dog. I don’t want to go anywhere near that monkey.” He had to shout over Molly’s screeches.
Barney waggled and fawned over me, delighted with the smell of ape-poo his sensitive nose detected on my jumpsuit.
At least Molly had her companion back. She welcomed Barney with a thorough sniff-session. I left her happily grooming his fur for fleas.
I showered and changed to a clean jumpsuit before heading to the cafeteria. I was looking forward to sitting with Paula and telling her about my training session with Molly, but lunch seemed to consist of everyone picking up something to take to their desks.
I was due to watch the nursery for an hour after lunch, but I didn’t feel like showing up early and letting Reyna and Chubb stick me with feeding the babies. Instead, I sat in a stairwell, all alone, and all my good mood from being with Molly vanished along with the egg salad on wheat.
