Musings

by S. E. Sasaki

  Crazy scenarios flipped through Mallory’s mind. Fire? Explosions? Gas leaks? Chemical fumes? Was Harold unconscious? People had always whispered ‘freak’ and ‘weirdo’ around Harold, when they thought Mallory was not listening. It had always intensely angered her, but they had a point. Harold was different. He did not think like other people. He had always struck everyone as odd, standoffish, eccentric, disinterested. He preferred science to people. He was childlike and dependent in many ways and Mallory had always looked after him.

  ‘Why?’ she asked herself.

  If she was honest, she would have to say that Harold probably brought out the mothering instinct in her (and how twisted was that?). She wanted to look after him, take care of him, so that he could fulfill his goals. She was attracted to his genius. She had always found intelligent men very attractive. Mallory sincerely believed Harold would achieve wondrous things, and she would be there to help him make them happen.

  Now, as she quickly neared the biomedical labs, Mallory was relieved to see that there were no ambulances, no fire trucks, and no police cars out in front of the building. That was all good. She ran up the wide front steps, leaping two at a time, and raced to the locked metal doors that led to the individual research labs. She pulled out her access card and waved it before the entrance keypad. The door unlocked with a loud click and Mallory yanked it open.

  There was a security guard, seated at a large desk with multiple television screens, situated in front of a bank of elevators. He looked up from his crossword puzzle and smiled at

  her. He was a tall, broad, affable man with a mixed heritage, a buzz cut, and the deepest voice Mallory had ever heard.

  “Hey, Mallory. What’s the rush?” Gerald asked, in his deep, bass tone.

  “I don’t know. Harold texted me to come right away,” she answered, as she pushed the Down button on the elevator.

  “And you came running here all sweaty and everything? Girl, you need to give your head a shake. The man’s supposed to be doin’ that,” Gerald said, shaking his head, his eyebrows rising in question.

  Mallory laughed. “I guess you’re right,” sighed Mallory.

  “I know I’m right,” chuckled Gerald. He looked at the young, attractive brunette professor with sweat dripping down her temples and wet circles under her armpits.

  “Is that lucky man of yours expecting you?”

  “Expecting me? He ordered me here!” she exclaimed.

  “That Dr. Kaufmann, he has no idea what he got. Darn shame. You are wasting yourself with him, Dr. Campbell. You need a man who is going to treat you right,” Gerald said, his chuckle a deep rumble.

  “Only in your dreams, I’m afraid, Gerald”, Mallory quipped, as she strode into the open elevator and waved a ‘goodbye’ at Gerald as the doors closed.

  She had to swipe her access card before another keypad, inside the elevator, before she could press the button for the lowest floor of the biomedical building—five floors down—where Harold’s lab was situated. Technically, as an outsider to the biomedical laboratories, Mallory should not have had her own access card to the labs. But Harold could not be bothered interrupting his work to come up and meet her, whenever she dropped by with his lunch or dinner, so he had wrangled Mallory her own access card. Needless to say, Harold could be infuriatingly unrelenting if he wanted something; he had managed to wear down the administration head until she had given in, just to get rid of him. Mallory had had to go through a gauntlet of security checks, but she was grateful for the card. Harold could be a beast, if anything disrupted his work. She only had to swipe her card four more times, before she reached the outside door to his lab.

  Outside there, Mallory had to swipe her access card, place her left hand on a scanner, stare into a retinal identifier, punch an eight-digit password code into a keypad, and announce her name into a voice recognition unit, before she could enter. Pushing the ten inch thick, reinforced stainless steel door open, Mallory entered a vestibule made of clear shatterproof glass. Through the glass wall barricade, she could see into the actual lab.

  Harold was alone, dressed in his white coveralls, gloves, hair covering, face mask, and boots. He was actually in what he liked to call the ‘Inner Sanctum’, a sealed off space within his lab, where he kept his experimental animals. When he looked up at Mallory, his dark eyes widened and she was struck by the intensity of his stare. She could see excitement and—something else—she could not quite place within those dark, glowing eyes. She shivered as if chilled. At least he looked healthy and uninjured.

  Harold pressed a button which allowed Mallory to pass from the vestibule into the lab proper. Once inside, she sagged against the wall with a deep, relieved sigh.

  “Harold,” she mumbled, “sometimes, I could just strangle you.”

  “Mal!” she heard him yell over the intercom. “You’re here! That’s great! I’ll be right out!”

  Mallory watched as Harold placed a white rat into a cage and locked it. He then entered a connecting, glassed-in airlock and a beam passed down the length of his body. The light over the airlock doorway blinked green and the lock snapped opened. Harold hurried out from the decontamination airlock into the lab proper and ripped off his mask and hair net. Beneath it, he was grinning with excitement. He wrapped his arms around Mallory. Before she knew it, she was being swung around the crowded lab.

  “Harold!” Mallory squealed, her feet well off of the ground. “Watch it! You’re going to slam me into something! What has gotten into you?”

  “Oh, Mal, you won’t believe it,” he whispered into her ear.

  “Believe what?” she asked. Feeling Harold’s excitement, she whispered, “Show me.”

  “I plan to, but you will have to change into an outfit like mine, first,” he said.

  “Oh,” Mallory gasped, surprised. She had never been allowed into the ‘inner sanctum’ before. The security rules were so strict, it was a miracle she was allowed within the building at all. Mallory frowned at Harold.

  “Are you sure I am allowed back there?”

  “Well, why wouldn’t you be?” he asked, frowning at her. “It’s my lab. What I say, goes.”

  Harold stared deeply into Mallory’s eyes and she felt a jolt go through her. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and confusion. Harold rarely made such intense eye contact and certainly never in the lab. A tingling ran down her spine.

  “What have you done with Harold?” Mallory asked, with a bemused smile on her face.

  Harold stopped, his eyebrows falling and the look in his eyes confused and then suspicious.

  “What do you mean?” he asked quietly.

  Mallory jerked. She was surprised by Harold’s sudden mood change. “. . . I’m just kidding, Harold. It’s was a joke. It’s just, well . . . you’re acting really strange,” she stammered.

  “Oh,” he said, dispassionately. “Haha.”

  Harold turned away from Mallory and then spun back quickly, with an alcohol swab in his hand. Grasping her left elbow, Harold rubbed the swab up and down over the skin of her upper arm and immediately jabbed a syringe deep into the muscle of her arm, quickly depressing the plunger. Mallory jumped in shock and pain. She tried to pull her arm away, but Harold held on to it like a vice.

  “Ow! Jesus, Harold, what do you think you’re doing? What the hell was that?” Mallory screamed at him. “How dare you give me a needle!”

  Harold looked non-plussed.

  “You said, ‘Show me’. I need to immunize you against anything dangerous, if I’m going to show you,” he said, calmly. “Purely safety precautions, I assure you.”

  “What? Safety precautions? You know I’m allergic to several things!” Mallory snapped. “You should have asked me for permission. You should have asked me if I wanted it, or at least given me the choice. You could have, at the very least, warned me what it was before you injected me!” Mallory’s voice ended in a squeak.

  “I didn’t want to give you the chance to say ‘No’, to be honest,” Harold sa
id, still not making eye contact. “I know how you hate needles, Mal.”

  “Damn right,” Mallory grumbled, rubbing her sore arm.

  “Are you all right?” Harold asked, looking at least a little guilty.

  “So far. No thanks to you,” Mallory snapped. “What did you call me here in such a rush for?”

  “I’m sorry, Mal,” Harold said, looking away. “Sometimes, I get carried away. You know that.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Mallory snorted, her arm now feeling hot where the needle went in. Deciding what’s done was done, she asked, “Well? Are you going to answer my question?”

  “Are you sure you still want me to show you?” Harold asked.

  Mallory gaped at Harold.

  “You injected me with something, just so you could show me. You better show me, or I will be really annoyed,” laughed Mallory. She shook her head. Sometimes, she just wanted to shake Harold. But he seemed so excited today and she didn’t want to ruin his mood. She never really could stay mad at him for very long, no matter what he did. She sighed.

  Harold had his kicked puppy look on his face.

  “All right,” she conceded. “What do I do?”

  Harold’s face lit up immediately.

  “Here, put these on.”

  He handed her a set of white coveralls, booties, and hair net. Once she had donned the boots and coveralls, Harold helped her push all her long dark hair inside the hair net and put on a msak. Then he handed her a pair of polyethylene gloves. Harold reminded Mallory of a really excited little kid at Christmas time, as he looked down at her expectantly.

  “Ready?”

  Mallory couldn’t help but smile up at him, picking up on his excitement. “Yes, Dr. Kaufmann,” she nodded. “I am ready.”

  “Come.”

  Harold replaced his hair net, mask, and gloves, and took her gloved hand in his and led her into the air-lock. They stood cramped, face to face, as a beam slid down their bodies.

  “What is this beam for, Harold?”

  “To prevent contamination,” he replied.

  “What kind of contamination?” Mallory asked.

  Harold looked down into her eyes and stared intensely at her again, as if he wanted to see straight into her mind.

  ‘Whoa,’ she thought, trying to step back in the cramped little cubicle.

  “Harold?” Mallory asked. “What has got into you?”

  Harold cocked his head to the side and squinted at her.

  “What do you mean, Mal?”

  “I mean, you are acting very strange today, like you’re a totally different person. I’m a little disturbed by your behavior.”

  Harold threw back his head and laughed. Mallory’s eyes grew huge. She had never seen Harold do that before. Now she was truly weirded out.

  “It’s just me, Mal. Your old Harold. Nothing has changed,” Harold said, looking at her with a wide grin, which was also very uncharacteristic. “I’m just really excited about what I have to show you.”

  ‘Well, you certainly have me intrigued, Harold,’ Mallory said, hesitantly. She was beginning to wonder if Harold was going to show her a huge plant pod, like in the old movie about body snatchers. Harold was just being so ‘not Harold’ that it was creepy.

  “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing it, if it has you this excited,” Mallory said, forcing her face into a tentative smile, which he couldn’t see behind her mask anyway. She looked around the decontamination vestibule. How long did they have to stay in this little room?

  Harold grinned at her. “Good. I am really happy about this, Mal.”

  The green light was flashing, signaling they could leave the chamber and enter the inner sanctum. Harold grabbed her hand again. Mallory jumped.

  “Come,” he said, invitingly.

  She was drawn out of the decon airlock, Harold still holding her hand, as if he wanted to make sure she didn’t escape. Mallory threw him an odd look. Harold was acting so strangely, but she was sure it was him. Well, at least, it looked like him, sounded like him, even smelt like him. He was just behaving like someone else. She knew she was just being an idiot, but she still scowled at him.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mallory. Nothing is going to bite you,” Harold said. “Just sit right here.”

  Harold pulled out a stool, situated in front of a laptop computer. He even helped her up onto the seat. Mallory’s eyebrows climbed at that. Harold had never done anything like that before. This was very unsettling. She wanted to know what Harold did with her Harold?

  Harold turned towards the row of cages stacked up against one wall of the inner sanctum. There were about fifty metal cages in total. He unlocked one of the cages and pulled out a big, white rat, which he stroked gently along its back. He brought the rat over to Mallory. She leaned back away from it, instinctively.

  “Don’t be afraid, Mal. Prometheus won’t hurt you,” Harold said.

  “Prometheus?” repeated Mallory, in a tiny voice.

  “Yes,” Harold said. “Do you have a problem with the name?”

  “Prometheus as in the Titan who gave the gift of Fire to mankind?” Mallory asked.

  “Yes,” Harold said. “That is correct. I thought it very apropos and you will soon see why. Here, you can pet Prometheus, Mallory. He likes it.”

  Harold stared intensely at Mallory again, waiting, as if he were testing her.

  “Harold,” Mallory said, sternly, “you know I’m a little afraid of rats.”

  “No need to be,” Harold said, stroking the back of the rat rhythmically, as if he were whetting a knife. “They are more afraid of you, than you are of them. White lab rats are really quite docile.”

  He held Prometheus out to her and she hesitantly stroked the sleek white rat’s fur.

  “He likes you,” Harold said, happily.

  “Harold, don’t be ridiculous,” Mallory scoffed.

  “What?” Harold asked, looking confused. “Why am I being ridiculous?”

  “Well, how do you know this rat likes me, Harold?”

  “Prometheus. He likes to be called by his name, Mal. And I just know, Mal. I can tell that he likes you,” Harold said, in a petulant tone.

  Mallory glanced at Harold and wondered whether she was dreaming. As a scientist, she would never, ever, have expected Harold saying such an unprofessional thing.

  “Look, we can ask him,” Harold said. He placed the rat within a large cage which contained a small keyboard that looked like it was custom made for Prometheus’ little paws. It matched the keyboard sitting in front of Mallory.

  “Harold,” Mallory said, concerned. “ . . . Perhaps you have been working too hard. Maybe you haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. . .”

  “Yes, but it’s been paying off,” Harold said, excitedly. He pointed at the laptop in front of Mallory. “Watch the screen. This laptop is slaved to the little computer in Prometheus’ enclosure.” Harold pointed to the small computer before which the white rat was now seated.

  “Prometheus, do you like Mallory?” Harold asked the rat. The rat’s paws moved on the keys of its keyboard.

  The word ‘YES’ appeared on the laptop screen before Mallory.

  Mallory laughed. “Oh, Harold, this is too much! You are being ridiculous! How much time have you wasted on this stupid trick, instead of doing your real work?”

  Harold was staring at Mallory strangely and her laughter died on her lips.

  “What . . ?” Mallory asked, confused.

  “This isn’t a joke, Mal,” Harold said, seriously, shaking his head. “This is real.”

  Mallory frowned at Harold. Several seconds passed while she peered at him, waiting for the facade to crack and a smile to appear.

  “Nahhh . . .” she said, with an indulgent smile. “Enough’s enough, Harold.”

  “I mean it, Mal,” Harold insisted, starting to look annoyed. “This is no joke.”

  The rat’s paws slapped on its keys again. ‘NO JOKE!’ the laptop screen read.

 
“Did you do that?” Mallory asked Harold, with a frown.

  “No,” Harold said, quietly. “Did you see me type anything?”

  “This is no longer funny, Harold,” Mallory said, starting to get extremely annoyed. “In fact, it is getting stale, very fast. Are you deliberately trying to make a fool out of me, Harold?”

  Harold’s eyebrows shot up and he flushed.

  “Why do you say that?” he demanded.

  “You want me to believe that this rat understands what we are saying and can type answers back to us in English on his little keyboard?”

  “Yes,” Harold said, emphatically.

  Mallory shook her head, her face getting hot and her jaw muscles starting to clench.

  The rat’s little front paws began pressing more buttons on its keyboard.

  ‘YES!’ appeared on the laptop screen.

  Mallory threw her hands up in the air. “That’s it! This is insane! I don’t know how you are doing this, Harold Kaufmann, but it is no longer funny. Stop it!”

  ‘HAROLD IS NOT BEING FUNNY. I AM PROMETHEUS.’

  Mallory rolled her eyes. She seriously wanted to strangle the rat. Unbidden, tears of anger started to fill her eyes. Why did she always get so emotional when she got angry?

  “Stop it, Harold. Stop it right now, or I am leaving. . . Forever!”

  Harold sighed. “Please, listen to me, Mal. Don’t get angry. You know what I have been working on for a while now, don’t you?”

  “Yes. You said gene manipulation.”

  “Yes,” Harold said, grabbing her upper arms and forcing her to look at him. “I had already created a retrovirus to carry the genetic changes I wanted to make into the nuclei of neurons or nerve cells to change the chromosomal material. I just had to devise a vector that would carry the retrovirus in a protective package that could pass through the blood brain barrier and into the cerebrospinal fluid. I finally discovered a vector that works!”

  “You are trying to tell me that you have successfully manipulated the genes in the brain of this rat to make it . . . smarter?” Mallory asked.