“Then we have Group C with an even higher dose of virus. These guys breathed a lot of virus and they should all be dead or on the verge of dying. But again, only about 50% of the mice die. The other 50% are fine and dandy. It just doesn’t make sense. The effects of the viruses should be dose dependent. The more you get, the worse off you are.”
John looked at her gravely, his eyebrows scrunched together, knife poised in mid-air over the carrots as he listened intently to her explanation. “Have you tried looking at other factors? Maybe they were fed differently, or maybe one group was inadvertently exposed to a vitamin?”
Sarah closed her eyes for a moment. Now that she was finally sitting down, in her own apartment, the exhaustion that she felt washed over her again. “We checked all of that too. Nothing,” she said, her voice heavy and falling to a whisper, as if the words were too heavy for her throat. She sat quietly for a few minutes, watching as John expertly chopped the rest of the vegetables, lettuce, tomato and cucumber, for the salad. Then he got out a chunk of feta cheese, carefully cut off a portion of it, and crumbled it over the lettuce.
“The only difference we have seen is that Kevin said that the two groups were housed in different rooms in the vivarium. Rooms C12 and C8. But I went and took another look at both of those rooms and they are totally identical.”
John shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I’ve been down there too. All of the rooms are the same, I’m fairly certain, so that shouldn’t make a difference, should it? And can you tell which mice came from which room?” asked John as he turned to stir the mushrooms which he was sautéing in some olive oil and garlic. The aroma made Sarah’s stomach growl lustily.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t think it matters. We know that some of them came from one room, and some from the other, but I don’t think we have a record of which ones came from which…” said Sarah, stopping in mid-sentence. A thought had occurred to her and she sat up straighter. “Wait a minute! Why didn’t I think of that before? We can check to see which mice came from which room. I’m not sure if that’s important, but I’ll text Kevin right now and ask him to compile a report in the morning. You’re brilliant, honey!”
“And I thought you married me for my body,” he said, chuckling and raising his arm to show a pretend muscle bulge.
“Oh, definitely that too,” she said, winking and blowing him a kiss. Then she typed out her note to Kevin. Everyone had assumed that since the mice were from the same control group, they could not be traced, but the new ear tags had codes which did allow for tracking individuals, and by plugging the barcodes into the computer, they would be able to tell which room each mouse had come from. It wasn’t much, most likely just another blind alley, but it made her feel slightly better to at least have one new idea to look at tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER 17
Sarah looked at her watch impatiently. It was almost 11:00 am, and she was sitting at her desk trying to focus on a report that she was writing for Rhonda. Normally Sarah would have trudged upstairs to deliver the bad news in person, but Rhonda was away for a few days at a conference in Atlanta. It was convenient timing, thought Sarah, with a sigh of relief.
“Call me as soon as anything comes up,” Rhonda had said. But Sarah had decided that the best way to present the disappointing news would be in the form of a well redacted statement. However, she wasn’t making much progress. If she was honest with herself, she still held out hope that Kevin would uncover something interesting about the rooms the mice came from, or that Tally or Drew or Emile would figure out something, anything, which would help them salvage some dignity. Then she would not have to say that some of the mice from each group had died and some were perfectly fine and that they had no understanding of how or why this had happened, and that furthermore, there had been some sort of contamination which she also did not understand and had no clue as to whether it was related to the mice surviving or not surviving the Laptev virus infection.
She glanced again at her watch. Only one minute had passed since the last time she had looked, but surely there would be some answers by now. She had heard nothing all morning.
She rose, walked to her door, and looking out into the hallway she saw Kevin quickly approaching her office. Walking next to him was a young woman. She was dressed in jeans, a cotton T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Her brown hair was pulled up in a casual ponytail, from which a few wisps had escaped.
As Sarah looked at Kevin, she could tell that something was amiss. It took her a moment longer to realize that for once, he did not have his phone in his hand.
“Dr. Spallanzani,” he said, increasing his pace to a jog. “I think we might have something.”
Sarah felt her heart skip at the news. She motioned Kevin and the young woman, whom she now recognized as Molly Greenburg, one of the vivarium technicians, into her office and sat back down at her desk. She had hoped for answers but had not expected them to come running to her in the form of Kevin.
“Dr. Spallanzani,” repeated Kevin, catching his breath. “I think I found something important.”
Sarah nodded, “Go on.”
“Molly here, she works in the vivarium, C12,” he said, now looking at Molly, who blushed and looked down at her lap.
“Yes, we’ve met before. How are you, Molly?” said Sarah.
When Molly didn’t reply, Kevin prodded her. “Molly, you gotta tell her what you told me.”
“I’m…I’m really sorry,” she said, not meeting Sarah’s eyes, “I never meant to do anything wrong, I promise! It’s just that poor little Opus was going to be sacrificed and nothing at all was wrong with him so I felt sorry for him,” her voice croaking, as if she were about to start crying.
“Shh, it’s okay, Molly. What are you talking about? Who’s Opus?” asked Sarah, confused. It was evident that the girl was upset but Sarah couldn’t make heads or tails about what she was saying.
“Opus is the mouse that I took home,” said Molly, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.
Sarah’s eyes widened at the admission and her heart was suddenly beating boisterously in her chest. Keeping her voice steady and even, she said, “So you took a mouse home, which I’m pretty sure is against animal handling policies, but we won’t go there just yet. Please tell me that it was a healthy mouse.”
Kevin looked encouragingly at Molly. After a moment Molly nodded and began to speak again.
“Yes, he was healthy. Nothing was wrong with him at all. I kept him as my pet. My kid brother loves him. And Opus seemed to be pretty happy but then I got the idea that he might be missing his friends, you know, since mice are social,” said Molly, her voice lowering further as she continued with her story. “So then one day I brought him back for a visit.”
Sarah gasped. “You brought him back to the vivarium?”
Molly nodded.
“And…” prompted Kevin.
“And then, quite by accident, I promise, he… well, he got mixed-up with another mouse and spent the night at the vivarium. Dr. Spallanzani, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think it would matter, just one night, and none of the mice have any tumors or anything, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“And when you brought him back and he got a sleep-over, did he have direct contact with all of the other mice in the room?”
Molly stared at her hands, folded in her lap. Her nose had gone quite pink and she was no longer making eye contact with anyone.