Vox(66)

“Group One,” he says quietly.

He doesn’t need to say anything. The cage labeled ONE is a circus of frisky rodents, chattering and squeaking, milling about their little mouse community as if they’re at a church social. The second cage holds a dozen lifeless creatures, their furry bodies already stiffening with rigor.

I hate myself for giving them names.

Mice don’t have the capacity for language, but we didn’t need them to, not for this final test. Because of Lin’s previous work—thankfully—I didn’t have to take part in the ape experiments of two years ago; we already isolated the neurolinguistic components of our serum. The mice today serve a single purpose: to test the two neuroproteins Lorenzo developed. None of us wants to inject a human subject with a toxin.

But, of course, this is exactly what will happen.

I sit next to Lorenzo and slide one of the blank lab reports from his pile toward me. In small letters, I write one word in the top corner of the sheet, covering it over with my other hand:

Bioweapon.

As soon as he’s read it, I crumple the page and take it through the internal door to the biochem lab. Lorenzo follows, and together we watch the paper turn yellow, then black, as it disintegrates in the blue flame of a Bunsen burner.

“You’re sure?” he says, twisting the sink tap open and staring at the ashes.

“No, but it makes sense.” I tell him about my conversation with Morgan upstairs. “Think about it, Enzo. Project Anti-Wernicke, Project Wernicke, and Project Water Solubility. Injections take time—rounding people up, training the medical techs. That would give them a chance to escape. Spike a city’s water supply, though, and you might as well drop a neutron bomb.” I snap my fingers. “Bang. But without the sound.”

“That’s insane,” Lorenzo says.

“So is Reverend Carl. And by the way,” I say, wiping down the epoxy resin counter, getting rid of all traces of burned paper before we call Morgan downstairs, “our fearless leader wants the trials scheduled for tomorrow.”

“They’re moving fast.”

“Yes. They are.”

I let Lorenzo call Morgan on the intercom so I don’t have to talk to the son of a bitch any more than absolutely necessary. Meanwhile, I prep vials of the first neuroprotein serum and fill out the day’s report. The mice—the dead ones—I lock inside a freezer so Lin can work her postmortem magic on them when she gets here.

If Lin ever gets here.

“She didn’t say anything to you yesterday, did she?” I ask when Lorenzo is off the intercom.

He shakes his head. “Only that she was going to meet a friend for dinner.”

“Which friend?”

“You remember Isabel?”

“How could I forget?” I say.

Isabel Gerber used to hang about our department when she wasn’t teaching advanced Spanish conversation. Argentine, but of Swiss descent, she stood a foot taller than Lin, wore her hair in a blond waterfall down her back, and spoke with a slight and charming lisp. The two women were poster girls for polar opposites, but they clicked in every way a couple can click.

Until last year, when they cut it off, canceled their engagement, and did what every gay man and woman had to do to avoid being shipped off to a camp: they never spoke to each other again. Not that there was a hell of a lot to talk about once Lin’s and Isabel’s wrist counters went on.

“I hope they’re being careful,” I say. The thought of Lin, big brained and small bodied, working off her sins of the flesh with her bare hands, makes me cringe. Jackie could deal with that shit. But Lin’s not Jackie. And then another, more sinister, thought weasels its way in: what if we’re all being followed?

I shake the question from my head—there’s no room for any more thoughts, not one single neuron left to spare—and wash dead mouse off my hands while we wait for Morgan.

“So. Monday,” Lorenzo says. He’s not talking about work.

“Monday. Afternoon.”

The clock on the lab wall says five. I have less than forty-eight hours to make what I know will be an irreversible decision.

My parents, this baby the size of an orange inside me, and Lorenzo balance on one side of the scale. Patrick and the kids, on the other. Two seemingly inevitable but different fates hang over each choice like storm clouds. Stay and wait for Reverend Carl to ratchet up his terrible game, or go and watch Europe crumble to its knees, close-up, front row, best seats in the house.

Next to me, Lorenzo inches closer, enough so that our hands touch. It’s a solid feeling, those fingers of his brushing mine.

But it’s not enough.





FIFTY-SIX




It’s nearly seven o’clock by the time I pull my Honda into the driveway. The sky is still light enough that I can’t imagine winter or the darkness it brings. At this time of year, I always fool myself into thinking winter won’t come.

But it will. It always does.

Patrick has told Sonia and the twins a white lie, although I’m not sure how white it is, which explains why they’re in the middle of three simultaneous board games instead of moping about Steven’s absence. Sonia breaks away from her brothers to hug me. “I’m winning!” she says. “Again!”

I raise an eyebrow at Patrick.