by Rick Wayne
“Why wasn’t that made explicit in the ME’s report?”
“I thought it had been. I explained all of this to Dr. Pratt.”
I clenched my jaw.
“The good news,” he said, “is that it’s not easy to culture the spores—at least, not safely. Not without getting everyone around them sick. And not just growing them but transporting them . . . I can tell you, whoever did this was an expert at handling biotoxins. They knew exactly what they were doing.”
“So, if they don’t stay viable for long in our climate, that suggests they were cultured locally. Who in the area has the facilities for that?”
“I wouldn’t know. But I do know that since the anthrax scare in the early 2000s, any lab with the infrastructure to weaponize biological agents is required to register with the CDC.”
I shut my eyes.
Of course.
“Thank you, Doctor.” I backed away, half in thought. “You’ve been very—”
“Wait, what about lunch?”
I walked back and slapped a twenty into his hand. “On me.”
Most labs, even private ones, are fairly open—not to the public necessarily, but if at a university, for example, there are students, faculty from other departments, and members of the administration coming and going. Growing this organism without at least potentially infecting any of those people would’ve required the kind of serious safety protocols that, if they sprung up in a dorm room or somewhere, would’ve certainly been noticed, which suggested the mushrooms had been grown somewhere private. It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for.
The laboratories of InSite Biomedical Supply occupied a cubelike building covered in charcoal-gray windows. The address wasn’t listed publicly, only the small corporate office downtown. There was no signage, other than the street number in silver letters over the double doors, and as I stepped from the taxi, I wasn’t certain I was even in the right place.
Five concrete stairs led to a small courtyard and two sets of double doors, which were impossible to see through, just like the rest of the place. The doors were locked. I caught a pair of cameras staring down at me from either side, like guardian statues. I lifted my ID toward one, then the other. There was the click of an intercom.
“Please wait inside,” a man’s voice told me.
At the buzz of the electric lock, I pulled the handle, but the door was heavy, and I had to shift my weight to get it open.
The interior was much as you might expect. The carpet was gray, a shade or two lighter than the windows. There was an empty reception desk near a windowless door, some potted plants, and three drab chairs facing a dark glass coffee table with nothing on it. Not even a magazine or brochure. Sitting in one of the chairs was a face I recognized. She looked at her watch the moment she saw me, like we’d had an appointment and I was late.
Milan. She wore little makeup but was just as beautiful as ever in dark slacks and a large silk scarf with a colorful, vaguely floral print wrapped around a white top. The oddly cut jewel still dangled from the long chain around her neck. She had a kind of poise that was instantly attractive. Call it a presence. It was effortless.
“You know,” I said, “impersonating a federal employee is a felony.”
“Is it?”
“Think so. Pretty sure.”
“I best not get caught then.”
She had a leather purse with her and lifted it from the seat. A fake ID badge was clipped to it.
“Where’s your boss?” I asked.
“He’s not my boss.”
I nodded to the badge. It said she was Dr. Rachel Simon. “What happened?” I looked at the single unmarked door near the unmanned reception desk. “They go call it in?”
She nodded.
I pulled out my federal ID. “What was it he said? There are places you can go that I cannot.”
“I believe that was the idea, yes.”
We walked to the door. We stood by it, but nothing happened.
“Are you sure they’ll let you in?” she asked. “This is private property.”
“They have to, actually. After Ebola showed up in Dallas all those years ago, public health officials like me got a serious security upgrade courtesy of Mr. Obama.”
“I see.”
“’Wartime powers’ we call it. Drove the conspiracy theorists crazy.”
We waited a few moments more. I examined the tips of my shoes for no reason. I looked up and she smiled patiently. We looked at the door. We looked at the handle. I think we realized then that neither of us tried it. We both reached at the same time.
“After you,” she said before I could offer the same.
I tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again. I knocked. I tried a third time and then walked around to the reception desk. There was a corded desk phone hiding on a lower shelf, but when I lifted it, all I got was a strange tone.
“Hello?” I clicked the receiver and punched several buttons. “Hello, hello?”
“I believe this is what’s called the brush-off,” she said.
“Then why let us in the front?”
I pulled out my phone and called the department. I barely had reception in the building and had to step near the front doors just to get a single bar. It took me several minutes to track down Ollie.
“Where the hell have you been?” he said first thing.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Don’t give me that. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for two days.”
I told him to forget about that for the time being, that I’d be back in the office in the morning, but that right then I needed his help.
“Fat chance,” he said.
“Ollie—”
“No. And I’m not protecting myself, I’m protecting you. You’re already in enough trouble as it is. I’m not going to help you dig your grave any deeper.”
“Ollie, just listen to me. I spoke with a mycologist at Columbia. The mushrooms have to—”
“Jesus, Alex.” He sighed loudly.
“Pratt didn’t want to stick his neck out. He—”
“You can’t let it go, can you?”
“I’m at this place, InSite Biomedical. You know it? I just need you to get us inside. That’s all. Call it an inspection.”
“No. We don’t get to use the wartime powers whenever we like. That’s not how it works and you know it. Goodbye.”
“Ollie—”
“Goodbye, Alex.”
Call ended.
I looked at the screen. I looked at Milan. We both turned to the door. She lifted the cut jewel around her neck and peered through it like a spyglass.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Just checking.” She let the jewel drop.
“See something?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“What does that mean?”
She scowled as she studied the barrier. “I’m not sure.”
She glanced back to the reception desk. She walked over and removed the plastic battery cover from the bottom of the phone. Then she walked to the electric card reader by the door.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us inside,” she said softly as she used the corner of the plastic plate as a screwdriver.
I looked around for cameras.
She removed the top screws without too much difficulty, but the effort warped the plastic, and she had to keep switching to a new corner of the plate to remove the pair on the bottom. When it finally came free, the metal cover fell to the carpet. The interior of the cavity looked similar to an electric outlet. I could see a couple taut wires, but I didn’t know what to do with them. Milan reached in with two fingers.
“Where did you learn how to hotwire one of those things?”
The door buzzed and opened. I thought it was due to her efforts at first, but it wasn’t. She stood straight quickly and I did the same. A petite woman with glasses and unkempt hair looked at us from the doorway. I think
we surprised her. She had a clipboard in her hand.
“Hello,” Milan said, smiling.
“Um.” The woman saw the exposed card reader and the metal cover on the floor. “Dr. Alexander?” she asked me.
“Yes.” I handed her my identification.
She studied it, glancing once more at the damage we’d done. Then she marked something down on the papers attached to the clipboard. It seemed like whatever document she was completing was new to her because she made a couple mistakes, cursing softly under her breath while she crossed out what she had written and wrote it elsewhere on the page.
“I’m sorry for the wait,” she said as she returned my ID. “I’m afraid we don’t get many visitors. There’s only a small staff on site. The facility is mostly automated.”
“That’s understandable. Nothing to worry about. Just a routine inspection. We do them from time to time. And you are?” I held out my hand.
“Oh, right. Of course.” She shifted the clipboard and extended a hand, but it was the wrong one. She was lefthanded. “Oh, shoot.”
“It’s okay.” I switched.
“Dr. Brierly,” she said as we finally connected.
“This is my colleague, Dr.—” I paused slightly, having already forgotten the name on the false ID card.
Milan jumped in so smoothly with so little hesitation that one could believe nothing was amiss.
“Dr. Simon,” she said.
“I see. He’s an epidemiologist.” She pointed to me. “What’s your specialty?”
“Psychopathology,” Milan said.
“We’ve been waiting quite some time,” I interrupted. “We have three more places to visit today, so if you don’t mind . . .”
“Yes. Of course.”
I held the door for the ladies. “Dr. Brierly, if you don’t mind me asking, why all the secrecy here?”
“Well, that would be because of what we do,” she said as the door closed behind us.
We walked down a nondescript linoleum-floored hall, like something you’d find in a university or hospital. Signs jutted out above the doors, but there were only numbers, no names, and long numbers at that: 11235, 11239, and so on.
“Worried about theft?” Milan asked.
“Well, yes. I suppose there’s plenty here that people would like to steal, if they could.”
“Drugs?”
“Some.” She nodded. “Some of what we stock is very expensive, both medication and equipment.” Dr. Brierly touched her glasses as she talked, as if she was afraid they’d fall at any moment, and she clutched her clip-board to her chest like she didn’t want anyone to see what it held. “I sup-pose if we made it easy, someone might try to steal it. But mostly I think it’s to avoid the attention. That’s what I was told, anyway. I’ve only been here a couple of years.”
“Attention?” Milan asked.
“Yes.” She stopped. She looked between us nervously, like she didn’t know how much she could say. “It’s easier if I just show you.”
We turned left at a T-junction and walked to a stairwell. It took me a moment to realize the halls were completely empty. It seemed like the three of us were the only ones in the building. I stopped and listened. Milan glanced at me. She had noticed it as well, probably before I did.
“Everything okay?” Dr. Brierly held open the door.
“Where is everyone?” I asked as we followed her up the stairs.
“Downtown, for the most part. That’s part of the reason you had to wait so long, I’m sorry. I had to verify your credentials and I’m afraid I’ve never done that before.” She blushed.
We exited onto a floor much like the one we had left.
“This facility used to be elsewhere,” she said. “I’m told it got very bad there for a while. Groups of people, young people mostly, used to camp out in the parking lot, chant slogans, wave signs, try to prevent employees from getting into the building. I heard a story that someone got drenched in fake blood, but I’m not sure I believe it.”
“What were they protesting?” Milan asked.
She ran a key card through a reader on a door identical to the one up front. “This.” She pulled it open.
Beyond was a sort of viewing room. There was a row of chairs on one side and heavy, floor-to-ceiling glass on the other which looked out over a large production floor, like a warehouse. From the size of it, it occupied the bulk of the building. Everything was white: the walls, the floor, the racks, the cages—hundreds, it looked like, if not thousands, stacked three or four high. Each cage held an animal—rabbits, birds, cats, dogs, several species of monkeys, each in a single cage. The guinea pigs were held in triplets. The mice, in batches of ten, separated by sex. Black arrows and QR codes painted on the floor directed robotic minions through the maze, which seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t see what was kept near the back wall, but the cages there looked considerably bigger.
Milan stepped forward slowly, her mouth open. Her eyes didn’t blink. “What are they for?”
But we all knew the answer.
Experiments. Testing.
“We’re one of the major suppliers on the eastern seaboard,” Dr. Brierly explained as the door shut behind us with a click.
As much as the floor below us was white, the interior of the observation room was black, which gave everything a kind of cinematic quality, like what we were watching wasn’t real, like we were in a theater. There were so many animals. But they were hardly moving, but not from boredom. It wasn’t a zoo. They looked defeated. Some looked terrified. I saw a capuchin monkey lying with his head against the bars of his cage. One of his arms dangled out. When a wheeled robot passed, he reached, as if asking for alms. But of course the machine did nothing but continue on its programmed task. Not a single human being walked the floor. Dr. Brierly was right. Everything was automated.
“I’m told,” she said softly, “that after the company relocated here, there was a real effort to keep everything secret.” It was quiet in the room, and her voice was barely above a whisper. “Most of the non-technical staff, anyone who doesn’t need to be on-site, moved into the corporate office downtown, which is in a big building with lots of other companies and lots of security people, which makes it less of an easy target. They can’t protest inside the building and they can’t exactly stop an entire office tower from going to work, so the demonstrations just kind of stopped.”
Most of the animals had given up and lay listless, staring out. A few tried to sleep. One dog was howling, but no sound made it through the heavy glass.
“Why would anyone do this?” Milan breathed. She looked like she was about to cry.
Dr. Brierly cleared her throat before answering and spoke with a false confidence. “People in the world are sick. Dying. New treatments are being developed all the time, but before they can be tested on those who are already not well, we need to know they won’t make things worse.” She clutched her clipboard to her chest with white knuckles. “Testing on tissues can only take us so far. Sometimes, organ systems are required. When you read in the paper about some new anti-tumor drug’s promising effect on mice, well, those mice have to come from somewhere.”
“There’s more than mice down there,” Milan said under her breath.
Our host didn’t answer.
All I could think about was something we’d studied in school, a research statistic called LD50. It’s a great acronym. Sounds so sterile. Innocuous. LD stands for lethal dose. LD50 is the dose at which 50% of test animals die. The rest, of course, are just horribly sick.
We watched a pair of robots move through the row of racks. One of them was transporting a cage. As it deposited it into an open slot, I realized the racks weren’t organized in even rows, as they would be if they were tended by humans. Robots didn’t need a simple layout in order to find anything. The space below was a labyrinth of efficiency.
“You people,” Milan said in a low voice, unable to take her eyes from the glass, which she touched lightly with two fingers. �
��It’s not even your cruelty. Men have always been cruel. It’s how clinical it is. A vengeful man at least feels his passion. Owns it. You won’t even touch them, poor creatures. Or let them touch each other.”
“Contact could bring contamination.”
Milan spun. “So introduce decontamination procedures.”
“That wouldn’t be foolproof. For medical tests to be—”
“Wouldn’t be cost effective is what you mean,” Milan accused. “What do you feel, Dr. Brierly, when you look in that room?”
“Hope,” she said, entirely too quickly.
It sounded ridiculous, the worst kind of corporate sales pitch, something she was trained to say, and Milan cursed it. Only not in English. I think it was Russian.
Dr. Brierly defended herself as Milan stepped away from the window. “Hope,” she said, “that all of this will do some good. Otherwise, what’s it for? I know the numbers. I looked them up. Twenty-five million animals are used every year—in this country alone. I have to believe some good comes out of that.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re very good with numbers.”
Dr. Brierly turned to me. “Dr. Uchewe, I’m not sure what you’re looking for, but there’s nothing sinister here. It’s quite a boring job, actually.”
She blushed again, like she was embarrassed to admit that to someone. I understood. It’s a lot of work getting a PhD. For most of us, it eats up eight years of our life. It requires sacrifice. When we’re in it, we build mansions out of our dreams. Dr. Brierly’s hadn’t panned out.
“Perhaps you would like to see the rest of the facility,” she urged gently.
“Yeah.” I looked to Milan, to see if she wanted to join us, but she only stormed out the door. A moment later, I heard her footsteps on the stairs.
It didn’t take long to figure out we were in the wrong place. By the time Dr. Brierly and I met the rest of the on-site staff and walked the U-shaped corridor that surrounded the basement facilities, I was fighting a yawn. I excused myself to the bathroom, and when I came back, suggested politely that we had everything we needed. Dr. Brierly seemed relieved.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said as we walked to the front.
