“Fine, but that’s it. No biologicals. I want to inspect everything.”
Vergil calmly agreed. “What’s wrong now?” he asked.
“Frankly, I don’t know,” Rothwild said. “And I don’t care to know. I vouched for you. So did Thornton. You’re a great disappointment to us all.”
Vergil’s mind raced. He had never removed the lymphocytes; they had seemed safe enough disguised in the lab refrigerator, and he had never expected the boom to be lowered so quickly. “I’m out?”
“You’re out. And I’m afraid you’re going to find it hard getting employment in any other private lab. Harrison is furious.”
Hazel was already at work when they entered the lab. Vergil picked up the box in the neutral zone beneath the sink, covering the label with his hand. He hefted it and surreptitiously removed the tape, balling it up and dropping it into the trash basket. “One more thing,” he said. “I have some lab failures laced with tracer that should be disposed of. Properly. Radionucleides.”
“Oh, shit,” Hazel said. “Where?”
“In the fridge. Not to worry—just carbon 14. May I?” He looked at Rothwild. Rothwild gestured for the box to be put on a counter so he could inspect it. “May I?” Vergil repeated. “I don’t want to leave anything around that could be harmful.”
Rothwild nodded reluctantly. Vergil went to the Kelvinator, dropping his lab coat on the counter. His hand brushed over a box of hypodermics, palming one.
The lymphocyte pallet was on the bottom shelf. Vergil kneeled and removed a tube. He quickly inserted the syringe and drew up twenty cc’s of the serum. The syringe had never been used before and the cannule should therefore be reasonably sterile; he had no time for an alcohol swab, but he had to take that risk.
Before he inserted the needle under his skin, he wondered briefly what he was doing, and what he thought he could gain. There was very hide chance the lymphocytes would survive. It was possible that his tampering had changed them sufficiently for them to either die in his bloodstream, unable to adapt, or do something uncharacteristic and be destroyed by his own immune system.
Either way, the lifespan of an active lymphocyte in the human body was a matter of weeks. Life was hard for the body’s cops.
The needle went in. He felt a dull prick, a brief sting, and the cold fluid mixing with his blood. He withdrew the needle and lay the syringe in the bottom of the refrigerator. Pallet of tubes and spinner bottle in hand, he stood and shut the door. Rothwild watched nervously as Vergil put on rubber gloves and one by one poured the contents of the tubes into a beaker half-filled with ethanol. He then added the fluid in the spinner bottle. With a small grin, Vergil stoppered the beaker and sloshed its contents, then placed it into a protected waste box. He slid the box across the floor with his foot. “It’s all yours,” he said.
Rothwild had finished turning through the notebooks. “I’m not sure these shouldn’t remain in our possession,” he said. “You spent a lot of our time working on them.”
Vergil’s idiot grin didn’t change. “I’ll sue Genetron and spread dirt in every journal I can think of. Not good for your upcoming position in the market, no?”
Rothwild regarded him with half-lidded eyes, his neck and cheeks pinking slightly. “Get out of here,” he said. “We’ll send the rest of your stuff later.”
Vergil picked up the box. The cold feeling in his forearm had passed now. Rothwild escorted him down the stairs and across the sidewalk to the gate. Walter accepted the badge, his face rigid, and Rothwild followed Vergil to the parking lot.
“Remember your contract,” Rothwild said. “Just remember what you can and cannot say.”
“I am allowed to say one thing, I believe,” Vergil said, struggling to keep his words clear through his anger.
“What’s that?” Rothwild asked.
“Fuck you. All of you.”
Vergil drove by the Genetron sign and thought of all that had happened within those austere walls. He looked at the black cube beyond, barely visible through a copse of eucalyptus trees.
More than likely, the experiment was over. For a moment he felt ill with tension and disgust. And then he thought o the billions of lymphocytes he had just destroyed. His nausea increased and he had to swallow hard to keep the taste of acid out of his throat.
“Fuck you,” he murmured, “because everything I touch is fucked.”
4
Humans were a randy bunch, Vergil decided as he perched on a stool and watched the cattle call. Mellow space music powered the slow, graceful gyrations on the dance floor and flashing amber lights emphasized the pulse of packed bodies male and female. Over the bar, an amazing array of polished brass tubing hummed and spluttered delivering drinks– mostly vintage wines by the glass—and forty-seven different kinds of coffees. Coffee sales were up; the evening had blurred into early morning and soon Weary’s would be turning off and shutting down.
The last-ditch efforts of the cattle call were becoming more obvious. Moves were being made with more desperation, less finesse; beside Vergil, a short fellow in a rumpled blue suit was plighting his one-night troth to a willowy black-haired girl with Asiatic features. Vergil felt aloof from it all. He hadn’t made a move all evening, and he had been in Weary’s since seven. No one had made a move on him, either.
He was not prize material. He shambled a bit when he walked—not that he had left the stool for any purpose but to go to the crowded restroom. He had spent so much time in labs the past few years that his skin was the unpopular shade of Snow White. He didn’t look enthusiastic, and he wasn’t willing to expend any amount of bullshit to attract attention.
Mercifully, the air conditioning in Weary’s was good enough that his hay fever had subsided.
Mostly, he had spent the evening observing the incredible variety—and underlying sameness—of the tactics the male animal used on the female. He felt out of it, suspended in an objective and slightly lonely sphere he wasn’t inclined to reach beyond. So why, he asked himself, had he come to Weary’s in the first place? Why did he ever go there? He had never picked up a woman at Weary’s—or any other singles bar—in his life.
“Hello.”
Vergil jumped and turned, eyes wide.
“Excuse me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He shook his head. She was perhaps twenty-eight, golden-blonde, slender to the edge of skinny, with a pretty but not gorgeous face. Her eyes, large and clear and brown, were her best feature—except possibly for her legs, he amended, looking down on instinct.
“You don’t come in here often,” she said. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Or do you? I mean, I don’t either. Maybe I wouldn’t know.”
He shook his head. “Not often. No need. My success rate hasn’t been spectacular.”
She turned back with a smile. “I know more about you than you think,” she said. “I don’t even need to read your palm. You’re smart, first off.”
“Yeah?” he said, feeling awkward.
“You’re good with your hands.” She touched his thumb where it rested on his knee. “You have very pretty hands. You could do a lot with hands like that. But they’re not greasy, so you’re not a mechanic. And you try to dress well, but… “ She giggled a three-drink giggle and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. You do try.”
He looked down at his black and green checked cotton shirt and black pants. The clothes were new. What could she complain about? Maybe she didn’t like the Topsiders he was wearing. They were a little scuffed.
“You work… let’s see.” She paused, stroking her cheek. Her fingernails were masterpieces of the manicurist’s art, thick and long and shiny bronze. “You’re a techie.”