Vox(37)

We leave Jack’s cubicle, and Morgan ushers us into a small conference room in the security complex. It’s set up not in conference style, but with the table pushed off to one side, two chairs behind it, and three chairs lined up like school desks, facing the table. Morgan takes a seat at the head of the class and holds out a hand, motioning for the three of us to sit in the chairs facing him.

I exchange a look with Lorenzo, but he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly.

And we wait.

After ten minutes of listening to the wall clock tick, a sullen man with a scar on his right cheek and with all the charm of a Special Forces veteran enters through the open door to the conference room. “Morning, Morgan,” he says. “Morning, team,” he says to the rest of us. He doesn’t sit, but stands behind the table, looking down at his audience.

A man of his size should have made at least some noise in the hallway, but this one crept up on us. It takes me exactly five seconds to realize I don’t like him. By the sour look on Lin’s face, she’s spent even less time contemplating his likability.

“I’ll keep this short and to the point, because you all have work to do,” he says. “I’m Mr. Poe, and I’m in charge of project security.” His lips barely move as he speaks; his heavy chest doesn’t seem to rise and fall. I don’t think he’s blinked once since he entered the room. “You have one job to do here. The operative words are ‘one’ and ‘here.’ That means you do your work, you leave, and you come back the next day. I don’t want any discussion of the work with the rest of the lab, or any socializing among you outside office hours. Clear?”

“As crystal,” Lorenzo says, examining one of his own fingernails.

Poe glares at him. “You don’t talk about the project with anyone outside these walls. You don’t bring work home. If you need to work more than eight hours a day, you do it here. Lunch is in the cafeteria on the third floor.” He checks a printed schedule. “You three have the one p.m. slot to yourselves.”

Lin shifts in her chair, uncrosses her legs, then crosses them again. Her foot brushes mine, and I push back on it. Yes, that sounds weird.

I speak first. “Excuse me, Mr. Poe, but what about the lab assistants? We need to set up experiments, and we—”

Poe cuts me off. “Any instructions to the lab staff go through Morgan. Also, you won’t be taking your laptops home. One of my men will set up appointments with you for this afternoon to secure your electronics and set up the intranet for your part of the team.”

“I thought we were the team,” Lorenzo says, a bit drily.

“That’s what Mr. Poe means,” Morgan says. His eyes dart toward the big man standing next to him. “Right, Mr. Poe?”

“Exactly. Any other questions?” He doesn’t wait. “You’ll each go through a security checkpoint when you enter the building and when you leave. The building is staffed around the clock.” Poe nods once to Morgan before turning his back on us and leaving the way he came in. Quietly.

“Okay.” Morgan claps his hands together once, as if he’s calling an unruly class to order. “Let’s get to work. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you around the lab.”

We file out of the conference room, past fat Jack, who is slurping down a Coke, and back through the windowless main door. Morgan opens this with his key card, which, unlike mine and Lorenzo’s and Lin’s, is blue. Ours are white.

Lin pulls me back as we walk down the hall toward the elevator bank. “That Poe. Silent-but-deadly type,” she says.

“Very,” I say. “What’s with the segregation and the deadline?”

“Don’t know. But if we’re on our own at lunch, we’ll have a chance to talk. Lorenzo seems like he knows something.”

“Come on, ladies,” Morgan calls from the elevator he’s holding open.

We pick up the pace and arrive at the open doors. Morgan walks in first, Lorenzo last. When we’re inside, he reaches behind and squeezes my hand.

“Very exciting day,” Morgan says.

Yes. It is.





TWENTY-NINE




The first thing I hear as we walk the ten feet from the elevator to the lab complex is the squeak of mice. The animals are a necessity, but I still get squeamish about injecting the tiny beasts with untested sera. They’re so helpless, like babies. I can’t stand holding them and looking into their oil-drop eyes and squeezing whatever my latest potion is into their innocent veins. Lin has no problem with it; maybe her medical background makes her immune. I’ve always let her administer the injections.

“They’re mice, Jean,” she would say, back in our Georgetown lab. “You’d set traps for them if they invaded your pantry, wouldn’t you?”

Well. She had me there. But the traps were passive devices. I could deal with them better than I could deal with needles full of chemicals. I’ve always been a textbook kind of a girl when it comes to anything brain related. Let the MDs fiddle with the practical stuff.

Morgan is poised with his key card at the door, then reconsiders. “Might as well try one of yours, to make sure it works. Dr. McClellan? How about you do the honors?”

Lorenzo chuckles. “Come on, Gianna. You won’t know what’s inside until you open it.”