by John Koloen
With one quick motion, Boyd threw the specimen into the aquarium where it landed hard against the glass.
For his part, Duncan struggled to remove the close-fitting glove. There was just enough gap between the inside of the glove and his arm for the bug to become stuck when Duncan used his free hand to pull the glove taught, immobilizing the insect against his forearm.
“Quick, get some scissors,” Duncan cried. “I think I’ve got him where he can’t do any damage.”
Duncan instructed Boyd to cut the glove along its length, opposite where the bug was trapped.
“I’ll keep the tension on the glove, you cut it and then you grab the top part and pull it off. Make sure it doesn’t wriggle out.”
The maneuver happened quickly as Boyd lifted the glove off, grabbed the insect and dropped it into the aquarium. Instantly, he closed the glass top. Duncan examined his forearm. The insect had left several scratches but hadn’t been able to pierce the flesh. The shoulder of his shirt was torn and small spots of blood bloomed on the fabric. Both men were breathing hard and trembling. It had happened so fast and unexpectedly that only now Duncan noticed that two of the insects lay motionless in the bottom of the aquarium. The one that had gotten into the glove had scurried into a corner and raised itself slightly on its hind limbs, as if challenging the two scientists.
“I can’t believe this,” Duncan said, sitting on a lab stool. “What the fuck?”
“How’d it happen? Whadya do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Duncan said indignantly, staring into the aquarium. “Fuck! Are they dead?”
“Shit,” Boyd said, staring at the specimens. “I can’t tell. I think one of them is moving. I don’t know about the other one. Look, there’s something dripping out of its head, it’s yellow.”
“Christ,” Duncan sighed. “What am I gonna do? What an idiot I am. I thought I could just reach in and grab one. What a stupid ass mistake. I can’t believe I did that.”
Boyd said nothing but he knew that had he been the one to trigger the near escape, he would never have heard the end of it. Had it been Chang or Winston, Duncan would have fired either on the spot.
“What’re we gonna do now?”
“We can’t tell anybody about this. Don’t let anyone else in here until we figure things out.”
“Don’t you have to give one to Dr. Thomas?”
“Yes, of course. Right now there’s only one that’s active. We should be able to capture it.”
“How?”
Duncan looked around the lab for resources.
“There’s a roll of gauze in that cabinet. We’ll cut a piece and drop it over the specimen. It’ll get caught up in it right away. And get me a specimen box. We’ll put it in there. Quick now, we gotta get this done before Thomas starts breathing down my neck.”
17
JASON GRUBER WASN’T certain why Nolan Thomas had called him into his office, but it was their first sit-down meeting since his boss had returned to the campus. Previously, they’d met briefly in the lab to discuss lab business.
Thomas was sitting at his desk, his head lowered, playing a game on his phone.
“Good morning, Dr. Thomas,” Gruber said.
“Thanks for coming, Jason,” Thomas said lisping, without taking his eyes off his phone. “I got into the habit of playing these silly card games while I was in so-called rehabilitation. They are time sucks. Go ahead, Jason, please sit down.”
Thomas gave his chief assistant a crooked smile as he looked up from his phone.
“So, how have you been, my boy?” Thomas said, carefully enunciating each word.
“I, ah, I’ve been fine.”
“I have a lisp now, but I have found that I can control it somewhat by speaking slowly and concentrating on each syllable. It isn’t perfect but it is better than it was. Speech therapy was one of the things I worked on. As you can see, my face is another matter.”
The mesh mask that Thomas had worn when they’d previously met had been removed. Parts of Thomas’s face looked as if had been welded together. His chin was a patchwork of skin grafts on one side. His left eye was covered with a black patch but around it was surrounded by surgical scars.
“It’s OK to look,” Thomas said resignedly. “I think you can understand why I prefer communicating by email.”
“Yes, sir, I can understand. But I’m really glad we could meet like this.”
“I want you to know that what happened to me hasn’t affected my commitment to my work. I had a lot of time to think about my life.”
Thomas paused, his hand self-consciously covering a portion of his chin, his elbow on the padded arm of his chair.
“I’d thought about not coming back.”
“Really?” Gruber said.
“Yes, I thought about a lot of things, different scenarios. Fortunately, this new project has energized me. The more I think about it, the more I want to pursue it. I hope I can count on you now and in the future as much as I have in the past. I don’t know these new assistants and, frankly, I don’t want to know them. As far as I’m concerned, you are my right hand man and I need you more than ever.”
Gruber was chagrined and astonished at what Thomas was telling him. He’d never confided in him like this. He wasn’t certain that he was comfortable with it, but he thought it was probably much better than being ignored. He owed a lot to Thomas, and told himself he wouldn’t let him down, no matter what.
“One more thing,” Thomas said as the meeting ending. “Please go to Dr. Duncan’s lab. He has a specimen for us. Make it quick. I want to get started on the genome procedure.”
18
DUNCAN AND BOYD had just freed the male blaberus from the gauze and gently deposited it into a plexiglass container when Duncan’s phone rang. It was Gruber.
“Gruber’s coming over right now to pick up the specimen,” Duncan said after ending the call.
“Really? I thought you were going to deliver it so you could talk to Dr. Thomas.”
“So did I. Christ. I was hoping he’d talk to me.”
“I guess he doesn’t want to.”
Duncan didn’t have time to continue the conversation as he returned to the habitat to examine the two males. The one that had struck the glass top when it leaped moved its limbs spasmodically while the one that had briefly escaped and tried to mutilate Duncan crouched under a pile of leaves and sticks, watching its injured comrade.
“Do you think it’ll survive?” Boyd asked.
“I hope so. I can’t afford to lose him. I don’t know how I’d explain it.”
“Well, couldn’t you just say what happened? You know, in a way, I’m surprised they haven’t been doing that all along, you know, jumping. They did a lot of that in the jungle.”
“I haven’t seen any mention of it in the daily reports, have you?” Duncan said, peering at the injured specimen. Several droplets of a yellow liquid spread out from its head on the glass bottom. Duncan shook his head.
“It doesn’t look good,” he sighed.
“What should we do?”
“For now, let’s just clean everything up. When’s Chang coming in? And the other guy?”
“Winston. His name’s Jake Winston. Not long, why?”
“Let’s stop the surveillance for awhile, at least until we see if this guy improves. I don’t want things to get more complicated than they are.”
“You know, I think it’s better to just tell them that the bug hit his head on the glass. I mean…”
“And what about the video footage? The camera was running, you know.”
“Shit, yeah. Fucking camera,” Boyd said. “Maybe it could have a malfunction or something, you know. It’s only a minute or two.”
“How you gonna manage that?” Duncan asked.
“Let me handle it, OK? If anyone asks, the camera malfunctioned. I’ll reformat the video card. Nobody but us will know.”
“You’re really devious,” Duncan said, admiringly.
Boyd smiled.
“I do what I can.”
19
HOWARD DUNCAN, WHO didn’t own a vehicle and didn’t drive often but had a driver’s license, would never have made it to the Hotel Contessa were it not for the GPS embedded in the company car. Even so, he made several wrong turns, took the wrong exit twice and turned a ninety-minute drive into two and a half hours. After Boyd provided the male specimen to Dr. Thomas’s lab, Gabriel Cox had no problem issuing the car, wishing him a safe trip. As far as he was concerned, the scientist had shown progress and deserved a weekend in the big city.
He and Maggie Cross spoke in the morning before he left the campus and she arranged to have a keycard for him at the front desk. She greeted him with hugs and light kisses.
“I am so happy to see you,” she gushed.
“Me, too,” Duncan said, returning the hug while scanning the attractively appointed suite.
“Nice place,” he said.
“You can thank George. He took care of the details.”
George Hamel was her live-in assistant. Duncan had mixed feelings about him, largely because of his comments on CNN about Duncan’s ill-fated foray into the rainforest that cost the life of a graduate student. The press had hounded Duncan as a result. But all that had gone the way of the news cycle.
“Nice view,” he said. “There’s a lot of people down there on the River Walk.”
“It’s a popular place. It’s changed a lot. Maybe we should’ve gotten a hotel in a quieter neighborhood.”
“Then we’d just drive down here. Looks like a nice place to take a stroll.”
“Why don’t you come sit next to me,” she said, patting a cushion on a tasteful, faux leather sofa. “I want to talk.”
Duncan shot her an ambiguous look before taking a seat.
“Oh, it’s nothing serious,” she chided gently. “I just want to set some ground rules for our weekend. That’s OK with you, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Good. The first thing, you turn off your cell phone and you forget about work for as long as we’re in San Antonio. And that counts even if we go for a drive.”
Duncan sighed. Boyd was supposed to send him updates. When he looked at his phone he saw that his assistant had sent him a text: Injured bug might be dead.
“That’s it,” Maggie said, taking the phone from Duncan. She set it to airplane mode and shut it off. “I’ll put it in your suitcase so you won’t forget it. But swear that you won’t try to use it behind my back.”
Duncan smiled. The text ended ominously. Even if the specimen had died, there was nothing he could do about it. She’s right, he thought. Relax.
“Really, you want me to swear to it?”
“I know you,” she said in mock accusation. “As soon as I turn my back you’ll sneak a look. What’s the point of a weekend getaway if you don’t get away? Make up your mind, it’s me or the phone.”
Duncan didn’t protest as she handed it back to him and watched as he slipped it into an exterior pocket of his roll-on.
“That’s better,” she cooed. “Now where were we?”
20
JASON GRUBER WAS in a talkative mood when he returned the blaberus specimen to Cody Boyd. Duncan had left for San Antonio and Boyd was looking forward to a quiet weekend. Because Duncan didn’t want anyone to know about Wednesday’s near disaster with the specimens, he gave the lab assistants, Jacob Winston and Malcolm Chang, Thursday and Friday off. The two immediately called their girlfriends and headed for Austin for a long weekend. Boyd had been prepared to lie to them, but neither asked questions.
Although Boyd remained on duty, he wasn’t going to push himself. He planned to be in and out of the lab through the weekend to check on the specimens, hoping to report to Duncan that the injured male had recovered. His only appointment was to receive the specimen from Gruber. Boyd was sitting in his boss’s office playing video poker when Gruber arrived.
“Hey, man, how’s it going?” Gruber said, setting the specimen case on Duncan’s desk. “Where is everybody?”
“Malcolm and Jake went to Austin and Howard’s in San Antonio with his girlfriend.”
“And they left you behind?”
“Somebody’s got to hold the fort,” Boyd said cheerily. “Besides, Wendy and I are going through a rough patch and I got no place to go.”
“What’s up with her, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t think we’re meant for each other,” Boyd said.
Gruber served himself coffee and grimaced after his first sip.
“Is this from last week?” he said, holding up the cup.
“From this morning. I made too much. I forgot Howard was going to S.A.”
Gruber pulled up a chair in front of the desk, facing Boyd, who closed his laptop.
“You’re in a good mood,” Boyd said. “You get a raise? How’s that ogre you work for?”
“C’mon, he’s not an ogre.”
“He is to my boss.”
“Not to me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we had a talk and I don’t think my relationship with him has ever been better.”
“So it’s just Duncan.”
“I don’t know. Could be everybody else. I just know that we’re getting along very well.”
Duncan’s office had only one solid wall. The others featured windows giving a clear view of the laboratory and the small entrance lobby. Gruber nodded toward the lab.
“So, how are the little monsters doing?”
“Well, they aren’t having babies yet,” Boyd said, his eyes drawn to the specimen on the desk. “So what did y’all need this bad boy for?”
Gruber frowned.
“I wish I could tell ya but, you know, I can’t, or I’d have to kill you. Confidentiality agreement and all.”
“OK. Anything else going on that you can talk about?”
“I could talk about World of Warcraft, but I know you don’t want to hear about it.”
“Anymore than you wanna hear about online poker.”
“You know, this is so, I don’t know, annoying, not being able to talk about the stuff we do all day. What else we got to talk about, the weather?”
“It’s a bitch,” Boyd agreed. “You got any plans for the weekend?”
“Actually, I do. Me and some guys from the lab are putting together a World of Warcraft marathon. We’re each putting twenty dollars into a pot and the last man standing gets to keep it. There’ll be beer and wine. You’re invited and you don’t hafta play.”
“So, I’ll sit around drinking while you guys are glued to your laptops?”
“Oh, no. There’ll be pizza and wings and we’ve invited a coupla girls who play the game. At least one of the guys has never played. You can make some new friends. And you can come and go anytime.”
“OK,” Boyd said, warming to the idea as he listened to Gruber.
“Great. It starts at ten and runs until it’s over,” Gruber said, rising and moving toward the door. “See you tomorrow.”
Pizza, wings, beer, and females appealed to Boyd more than video games, and since he had a light weekend schedule, he planned to attend, at least until the women left or they ran out of wings—whichever came first. Meanwhile, not wanting to repeat Duncan’s mistake, he took his time returning the specimen to its habitat, making certain that there would be no possibility of escape.
21
IN GALEN MAZUR’S mind, Thomas and Duncan were competing against each other, though neither knew it. It didn’t matter to him which lab won, only that at the end he would have a product that the company could sell or exploit. He didn’t care about Duncan’s interest in the minutiae of the insects’ behavior. Reproduction was all that concerned him, and so far Duncan had shown little, if any, progress. He was disappointed in his meeting with the scientist and his lack of urgency.
He was concerned that the specimens wouldn’t reproduce, which is why Thomas was sequencing the bug’s genome, w
hich would be followed by a cloning program using eggs from Duncan’s female or its offspring. He wasn’t confident that cloning would be more successful than breeding the insects, but he wanted to cover his bases, though he understood that both projects could fail.
Mazur liked everything about Reptilus blaberus, from its ferocity and tenacity to its ability to instill fear. If only he had people like that. He’d closely followed the two scientists’ expeditions and had a staffer maintain a database of the coverage available on the Internet. He knew that certain governmental agencies in various countries were looking for ways to incorporate animals into their surveillance and military efforts. He saw blaberus as being a far better subject than bees and other insects on projects that he had learned about. He couldn’t imagine that either Thomas or Duncan would do less than his best to achieve his goals. He was betting that one of them would succeed.
22
BOYD HAD LOW expectations for Gruber’s Warcraft marathon party. He wasn’t into video games and assumed it would be like a dorm party with fewer women. But it was better than his other weekend options and he might meet interesting people and extend his professional and social networks. Since the party could last through Sunday, he felt no hurry to arrive early. Following a breakfast of pancakes and coffee, he made his way to the lab to check the specimens. He was unprepared for what he found.
Two males were feasting on the injured bug. It lay on its back, its legs twitching wildly as its tormenters used their powerful forelimbs and jaws with tooth-like protrusions to tear chunks out of its abdomen. Droplets of yellow liquid dripped down its body as it struggled.
“This is fucked,” Boyd muttered, as he watched, transfixed.
Were they cannibalistic, hungry, or opportunistic? Perhaps all three. Had the camera caught the action? Replacing the camera’s flash card, he inserted it into his laptop, which he’d set on his boss’s desk, and started fast-forwarding. The camera operated at a low resolution to extend the amount of footage the card could record. Habitat lighting mimicked daytime and nighttime. Red LEDs were used at night, which provided enough illumination for the cameras without interfering with the insects’ habits. Under red light, the video was grainy and fuzzy but provided enough detail to show how the two healthy specimens attacked their injured victim.