CHAPTER FOUR
Brooke Andalon rolled over and checked the clock. The time read eleven o’clock, but David’s side of the bed was empty. He had not come home and, although she knew that she shouldn’t worry, she felt more irritated than concerned. He had completely ignored their anniversary and was probably working late at the lab to shed his frustration with Dean Marshall. If he wouldn’t come home, she would go to him.
She threw off the covers and slipped into jogging pants. Minutes later she backed out of their driveway and headed to the university. A few miles into the drive she turned on a podcast. The host talked about Doomsday and Armageddon—topics too intense to deal with at the moment. She reached to change stations but paused when the man said, “Take Yellowstone, for instance.” She pulled back her hand and listened. Her family, all except her brother Jake, lived in Wyoming.
“The media’s too focused on what the president’s team puts out and ignores the real news,” the first man said.
“Oh, yeah?” the second man asked. “What about Yellowstone? Do we have to listen to that ‘super volcano’ crap again? That scenario’s lost its narrative. We’ve all suffered through too many low budget movies.”
“Just hear me out,” the host said. “Seismic events have increased twenty percent in the past five years but nobody’s reporting it. The data is essentially lost in the USGS. Probably on the desk of some low-level bureaucrat counting months to retirement.”
“Twenty percent?”
“Yes. Twenty percent. It won’t take much for this thing to blow.”
“I don’t believe they’re hiding anything,” the guest responded, “just this evening they reported this big one in Point Loma. I’d say they got that data out very quickly.”
“True, but have you seen the other activity that occurred tonight?” Without waiting for a response, the conspiracist continued, “Of course you didn’t. None of us did. There’d been a series of quakes all afternoon and evening, each moving up the San Andreas. It won’t take much for a quake to trigger the chain reaction under Wyoming…”
Brooke switched the radio off and sat in silence the remainder of the drive to Cambridge. The scenario was too disturbing to imagine, especially with her parents getting on in years. They were too stubborn to evacuate, even if there were advance warning. She would call them and Jake in the morning.
A few minutes later she pulled up to the Koch Biology Building. The motto above the doors proclaimed, Mens et Manus, or, Mind and Hand. She swiped her badge at the door and headed directly for the lab. A sign on the door read, Mendel Project. She flinched when she realized that someone added but not for long with a sharpie. They were even sophomoric enough to draw a laughing monkey using telepathy to fling its poop. She pushed the door open and went inside.
David hardly noticed her arrival. He grunted over his shoulder and continued working with the juvenile primate sitting in the chair.
“You should have her strapped in.” She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek. His breath smelled like liquor. She scanned the room and spied a bottle of vodka by the sink.
“I know,” he slurred, “I made the rule, remember?”
“So you’re ignoring your own rules now?” She knelt beside the rhesus monkey and buckled her down.
“Why not? They’re defunding us, so why should I show caution? Being careful is the reason we’re behind.”
Brooke picked a discarded syringe off the floor. Looking around she found a vial of liquid resting nearby. “Epinephrine?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing, David?”
“I gave Felicima a stimulant.” He didn’t even look at her when he answered. His eyes were glued on the chimp, waiting for a response.
“That’s not in keeping with project controls or mandates. What are you hoping to prove?”
“This gal’s the furthest along than the others. If I can elicit a response from her, then I can re-petition for funding.”
“But she’s from Batch Bravo. That’s the group set aside for destruction.”
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He replied with a sarcastic tone. “I figured that maybe Dean Marshall could sell the program to military backers.”
“Stop this,” she replied. “You can’t get gamma waves without a quiet mind. You taught me that!”
“I’m trying to tire the mind with epinephrine. When it wears off maybe she’ll relax.”
“That’s dangerous, David. We don’t know what’ll happen if the experiment works on a disposal batch.”
“Well, nothing’s manifested in an hour, so I’m about to put her away.”
“Honey,” Brooke pleaded. She hugged him tightly, but he didn’t respond. He sat with muscles tensed, staring at the monkey.
She had never seen this side of him, so far from his jovial self. He pulled away and moved to the other side of the room. Six more monkeys stared up from their cages. He leaned against the bars, eyes focused on the oldest named Oscar. The primate watched him with unblinking eyes. “Take these guys, for example. I gave each of them a dose three hours ago. If epinephrine doesn’t awaken their genes, then I don’t know what will.”
“Let’s go home,” she pleaded. “The project’s over.”
“I have two more months, remember?” He locked his eyes on hers.
“Unless you call my brother and ask him for funding.” She pleaded, “That’s always an option. I’m sure he’d find a way to keep it going. He’s a general!”
“It’s not an option, Brooke. Jake’s my best friend, but I won’t turn this experiment over to the military. Besides, these subjects belong to the university. I wouldn’t be able to transfer them to the Defense Department, much less to the Air Force.” He shook his head, suddenly agitated. “I’d have to start completely over from scratch, and that’s an additional ten years of research.” He began to pace. “Then what? An overzealous politician gets elected to a finance committee and cuts that funding, too? No, I’ve invested far too much.”
“Then call Michael.”
“What’s my old roommate going to do?”
“He’s a senator, David. Maybe he can divert funds as a rider on a bill or something. I don’t know.”
“Why are you so dead set on me asking my fraternity brothers for a bail out?” His agitation had grown to anger by now, and he paced as he talked. His voice continued to raise as he ranted. “It’s been twenty years since undergrad, and both of them have lived out their dreams while I pushed through a doctorate. With this project, so goes my hope for tenure! So what have I actually accomplished that compares to them, Brooke?”
The nearby monkeys howled with fear at his noise, drowning him out causing him to turn. His fist smashed down hard against the top of Oscar’s cage, then he picked up the empty vial of epinephrine and flung it across the room. Brooke flinched as it barely missed a pot of boiling water on the gas stove. Apparently, he had thought it a good idea to sanitize instruments while drinking.
“David, you’re drunk!” She didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory, but that phrase always does. She tried again, gentler,
“Please let me take you home. Call in sick tomorrow.”
“Why? So the entire department can laugh at me wallowing in my failure?”
The hooting of the animals had grown deafening as they screamed their displeasure with his tantrum. He turned and shouted. “Shut up!”
Suddenly, a blast of concussive air hit them both in the chest taking away their breath and slamming them hard against the opposite wall. Brooke struck her head upon a cabinet. First her vision swam and then it fell completely dark.
****
David rolled over, choking against the smoke in the air. Thankfully, he awoke lying on the cold floor, so the air was cleaner than the layer floating above. He reached around until he felt a leg and shook it. Brooke was unconscious. He moved his ear to her mouth and waited. She breathed.
He tried to scoop her into his arms but slipped and fell, landing hard on his wrist. All around, the primates screamed and howled as the inferno raged. All except one. He rolled over for a closer look, blinking against the sting from the smoke. Felicima had wriggled free of her straps and stood on two legs, working her hands like an orchestra conductor.
Her eyes had somehow turned golden against the flame, glowing like fiery embers. The orange and yellow heat swirled before her, working into a fiery tornado. David gasped as she hurled it in his direction. He ducked and it exploded against the cabinet behind him. The monkey seemed to laugh as he dodged.
Panicked, he pulled open a drawer and drew out a scalpel, holding it outstretched toward Felicima.
She scrambled toward the gas stove. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed what she did next. She stood atop the burner, unscathed and not burning, channeling heat directly into her body. It gathered around her as she pointed toward Batch Alpha. Then, with eyes closed, fire shot from her hand like a flame thrower. The subjects cooked within their metal prisons. All of his life’s work was destroyed in an instant.
He watched helplessly as the fire spread toward the chemical locker. Thinking fast, he lunged, plunging the scalpel deep into Felicima’s chest. With his left hand he grabbed her by the neck and pulled the blade free with his right. Again and again he stabbed until she fell limp in his grasp. David dropped the tiny corpse on the floor, marveling at the burns on his left hand —merely from touching her body. From the other side of the room he heard a groan.
David dropped the scalpel and rushed to Brooke’s side. He grabbed her ankles and dragged her furiously toward the door. Reaching out, he felt the hot steel of the handle with his blistered hand and fumbled to turn the mechanism. When he finally wrestled it open, the flames behind him leaped higher, no longer thirsty as the drank in the welcomed oxygen. With a grunt he pulled his wife into the hallway and out the front door. Safely on the lawn he collapsed beside her, wheezing and coughing. His lungs burned as he forced them to take in clean air. Suddenly, the flames found the gas lines and David covered his eyes. The building exploded into the night.