Vox(87)

“Shoot this man,” Morgan says.

Petroski draws his service pistol. The gun is close enough to my ear that I can feel small perturbations in the air beside me, see the shimmer of Petroski’s hand as it tries to steady itself.

“Safety off?” I say.

The click is like a shot, automatic and deafening.

“Now, Jackie.”

She’s on him. Petroski’s hand slackens. Later, I’ll never know whether he cooperated or whether he was taken by surprise, but I make the move I planned, close my fingers around the grip, and aim a few inches below the blue pin glinting on Morgan’s collar.

And I squeeze.





SEVENTY-FOUR




Morgan falls, and I fall with him, my ears screaming a note in the coloratura style as Jackie tries to catch me under the arms before I hit the ground. She’s strong, or she was once, but gravity wins this game. I hit the floor with a thud I can feel but can’t hear, and realize I’m holding something.

Lorenzo is at my side, his breath hot in my face. I see his mouth moving as he pries apart my fingers, disentangling the bulky steel from my grip.

“Relax,” he says. The word comes out like he’s talking underwater, but I can see the individual sounds. He reengages Petroski’s pistol with the flick of his thumb, uses his shirt to wipe the grip and trigger, and hands it back to the soldier, who is leaning over Morgan and watching the blood bloom from his chest. A sickly scarlet puddle stains the white tile floor.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” I say to Lorenzo. It sounds like Wa ya la ta da tha?

“Two years in the Italian army.” Then, more seriously: “Can you hear me?”

I nod. “A little.”

“You’ll have some ringing in your ears for a while. Maybe an hour. It’ll get better, trust me.”

“I hurt him, didn’t I?”

Lorenzo checks over his shoulder to where Morgan lies. “Yeah. You could say that.” The words are still muffled but slightly more intelligible.

“We need to move him,” I say.

Jackie’s already thought of this. She’s standing in the doorway with Lin, Isabel, and an armful of suit jackets and lab coats—anything left by the men when they evacuated. She touches my arm, then gestures to the floor where Morgan is lying, points to herself, and makes circling motions with a finger. It’s less elegant than the structured sign language Lin and Lorenzo use, but I get the point. Jackie will take care of the bloody thing in the corner.

Petroski, slightly recovered from the shock—although I wonder if he’ll ever truly recover—helps Lin and Isabel roll Morgan and swaddle him in cloth while Jackie starts working on wiping down the room. It’s a scene from a slasher movie, blood on the floor and ugly Rorschach-like splatter on the wall behind where Morgan stood, holding Lorenzo at needle point. Lorenzo sees the look on my face and explains.

“Forty-five caliber, Gianna. You blew a hole in him the size of Virginia.”

“I killed him, didn’t I?” It’s not really a question, more of a processing aid. I killed him. I killed a human being.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “And we need to go. All of us.”

Lorenzo and Petroski drag the lifeless body of Morgan LeBron onto the gurney and wheel him out. I watch as the doors of Room 1 slide open, then closed. A minute later they’re back in the main lab, minus one rolling stretcher. The six of us work in silence with bleach and rags, erasing the gore on the walls and floor of the room, tossing one blood-and-bleach-soaked rag after another into a thick plastic bag Lin procured from a storage cabinet. From time to time, she and Isabel sign to each other. I can’t understand it, but what they say looks comforting, hopeful.

When nothing remains save the stinging odor of chlorine, we file out and scrub what’s left of Morgan from our skin. Lin disappears and comes back with six clean lab coats, which she hands out. It doesn’t take more than a glance down at my own clothes to realize why I need to cover up. Everyone else looks much the same.

I turn to Petroski. “Can you get us out of here and past security?”

None of the six pairs of ears has heard the intruder, the giant of a man who now stands between us and the exit.

Oh shit, I think. Maybe I say it out loud, maybe I don’t, but I hear it, clear as a klaxon.

The man who has silently come into the lab is the last person I want to see, and the one I’ve kept seeing all this week, always when I don’t expect to, as if his sole task is to watch us.

Poe.

Now I realize maybe that was his task all along.

“Leave everything and come with me,” he says.

Petroski’s hand goes to the .45 on his hip, and I follow Lorenzo’s eyes as he tracks the motion.

“Don’t be stupid, Dr. Rossi,” Poe says.

I open my mouth to speak. Nothing comes out.

Poe looks over the soldier standing between him and the rest of us. It seems as if one eye stays trained on the gun while the other surveys our little cadre of rebels. He steps forward, slides the .45 from its holster, and racks the slide. “Better if I have this for now.” Nodding to Petroski, he says, “You first. Then Dr. Rossi. Ladies, single file, just like in school. And don’t say a word.”

We line up, and Poe takes the rear, following us through the chimp room. At the doors, he instructs Petroski to open them, and we walk the short distance from the lab to the nearby service elevator.