Part 23 (2/2)
”Yes, maybe. But this little man Benatti,” Prajuk nodded. ”He is quite a f.u.c.ker.”
”He doesn't know anything,” Shane a.s.sured him, forcing his best sales confidence up through his eyes.
”He saw me with the centrifuge. He may have run inventory. I told you, if I had even a suspicion of this, I would stop immediately.”
Shane felt a surge of panic.
”Healy is sufficient for you from this point.”
”No, he's not.”
They finished the drive in silence. Half an hour later he pulled into the Helixia lot.
”Hey, Shane,” a woman's voice called.
He glanced quickly behind him and saw Stacey waving to him from the lobby doors, where she was opening an umbrella. He felt as if he were caught in the middle of some parking lot drug deal. Which in a way, he supposed, he was.
It was true, their absences were starting to be noticed. Their minds were elsewhere. People might be able to sense that there was something between them worth looking closer into. He patted Prajuk's skinny shoulder, and the smell of nicotine encircled him like a child's affection.
Above them rain began to fall. Funny, Shane thought, glancing up. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky.
The mouse's blood came back positive for alpha-one ant.i.trypsin deficiency.
Shane was elated. This was terrific news, it meant that they had a living creature on which to test Prajuk's drug. Shane read the e-mail from Prajuk on his phone and virtually danced in circles in the elevator.
They met at Greenway Plaza after work. Healy brought a paper bag containing three forty-ounce bottles of his favorite malt liquor. They were opened; ceremonial foam bubbled forth.
”To Thailand,” Shane toasted.
”Are you guys going on vacation?” asked Healy.
He pointed at the mouse. ”Thailand!”
”You named the mouse?”
”Definitely,” Prajuk grinned.
”We don't name the mice, man. That's not right. Seriously. You don't want to bond with the thing.”
Shane laughed, taking a great pull of the liquor.
Healy frowned. He lifted his bottle, then hesitated. ”Why Thailand?”
”In honor of Doctor Acharn.”
”Mot kiao,” Prajuk toasted.
Shane raised his bottle, watching the scientist. The news of the mouse had proven strong enough to overcome his desire to stop. But gray half-moons had formed under his eyes. The smell of his hard-inhaled Parliaments preceded him into the lab. Shane thought a week in p.h.u.ket would do him wonders. Before he could suggest it, Prajuk gestured to Healy.
”You want to do it?”
The stout and ripped postdoc shook his acne-marked head no. ”You go for it.”
With a grimace, Prajuk opened the small cage, lifted Thailand by the tail, and handed him to Healy. Then he removed a syringe from a metal drawer. He took up a vial of opaque liquid and inserted it into the top.
”What's that?” asked Shane, feeling he was missing something of vital importance.
”This is your drug,” Healy told him.
”Holy s.h.i.+t. For real?”
Healy nodded. Prajuk held the syringe up to the fluorescent light. His small eyes focused intensely as he tapped it. The wheezing mouse, seeming to sense something coming, thrust wildly in Healy's hand. Prajuk injected its flank with the fluid containing his isolated protein, which, mixed with media and transplanted into a bacterial E. coli cell, altered the instructions in his DNA.
Shane stood slack-jawed. He half expected the mouse to convulse and die right then. Healy placed Thailand back into his cage, and swept out some pellets of s.h.i.+t while he was at it. He went to the double sink, washed his hands, and refreshed the water bottle from which Thailand could drink as he either began a new life, or ended this one.
Shane watched Prajuk, looking for some sense of reverence. But if the scientist felt the presence of a momentous act, he kept his awe well hidden. Cold distance, Shane realized, was the order of the lab.
And then, to his surprise, Prajuk took his malt liquor and drank it dry.
5.
”There are two ways we can do this,” Doctor Frank said carefully.
Caleb sat on the edge of a long metal table and glanced around the tiny clinic. The room carried the scent of cough drops; the walls held paintings of birds.
The old doctor lifted one of Caleb's battered feet. Caleb noticed him shake his head at this willful mangling of the human form.
”First way is, we put you to sleep. Other way”-he coughed-”is we don't.”
The old doctor had run this two-room clinic in Arvada for decades. He employed an overweight middle-aged nurse named Sue, who sometimes smelled of alcohol. He was the only doctor Mack trusted with procedures of this sort, which energy healing did not affect.
”How long until I can run?”
”Depends on how your body heals. It's usually three weeks.” He hesitated. ”With you guys, I'd say one.”
Caleb sighed.
”Are we doing all of them?”
”Please.”
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