Vox

by Christina Dalcher

  “Anything,” he says after a long gulp. “Absolutely anything.”

  “Anything” is a funny little word, overused and rarely literal. I’d do anything to get a date with her. I’ll pay anything to get front-row seats to the concert. Anything you want. I don’t need anything. “Anything” never covers the whole gamut of existence.

  I lean over the counter, close enough to smell the sweetness of scotch on his breath, until our noses are almost touching.

  “Would you kill?” I say.

  Patrick doesn’t blink. For a moment, I wonder if he’s still breathing. He’s that still.

  I have to remind myself of who and what Patrick is. The quiet guy. The one who doesn’t want to get involved, who would rather talk theory than practice. The man Jackie called a cerebral pussy all those years ago in our crappy Georgetown flat with the rat-eaten secondhand sofa and the Ikea furniture whose veneer fell off a year after we’d assembled it. Also, he’s a man who once swore to tread carefully in matters of life and death, who recited the promise I must not play God.

  When he speaks, he says one word:

  “Yes.”

  The kitchen, stuffy and still, turns cold.

  Then he says, “But you know we don’t have to.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  All we need to do is take away their voices.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  They say there’s no rest for the wicked, so neither of us sleeps tonight. Instead, I go back into the rec room and retrieve my folder, the one with the red X I hid from Morgan only two days ago, and take it to Patrick’s office.

  He’s waiting for me in the dark but flicks on his desk lamp when I come in.

  Page by page, Patrick goes through the data. He stops at the section containing formulas written in Lorenzo’s neat, continental hand. “You did this?”

  I shake my head, then realize he can’t see me. “No. Lorenzo.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?” I say, straining to read in the faint light.

  “It’s some kind of beautiful.”

  I understood, and still understand, little of Lorenzo’s work, but Patrick’s got the biochemistry background to process it. He reads every notation, every scribbled comment, his lips moving as he goes from page to page. When he reaches the bottom of the fourth sheet, he turns it, laying the paper flat on the others, facedown.

  I’m not quick enough.

  Patrick’s head moves a hair to the left, away from page five of Lorenzo’s notes, and his eyes settle on the back of the previous page.

  We work differently, Patrick and I. My desks have always been cluttered with non-necessities: a framed photograph, a pack of gum, hand cream, more pens and pencils than I need. As a consequence, I move through loose paperwork by taking the top sheet and putting it at the back of the stack. Patrick, with a desk as sterile as a hospital floor, lays the stack down and makes two piles, one read, one unread, turning each finished page over and placing it to his left.

  Which is why I’ve never seen what Lorenzo wrote on the back of page four.

  It looks like a poem, but not a very structured one. The verse is chopped here and there, one word on a line, then a break, then a phrase. The upside-down text is impossible to read from where I sit opposite Patrick, but I make out the title clearly enough.

  A Gianna.

  To Gianna.

  “Oh,” Patrick says. His Italian is on a par with his Swahili, so I know he won’t understand a thing. But there are certain words that will give it all away: amore, vita, my name. He takes off his reading glasses and looks across the desk at me. The light from the desk lamp shows every crease on his face. “He’s very much in love with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it mutual?”

  I hesitate, and I suppose that’s what gives me away, there in the dark, even though my own face must be nothing more than a vague outline.

  “All right,” he says. “All right.”

  As if it were.

  “How about you put some coffee on, babe?” he says.

  “Sure.” I know he needs a minute, maybe several of them. In the kitchen, I measure out five scoops of high-test, fill the reservoir with water, and watch the coffee maker as it drips black tears into the empty carafe. When it’s ready—when I’m ready—I load a tray with mugs and sugar and milk from a carton that is almost full, an awful reminder that Steven is gone. And I go back into the office.

  Whether Patrick cried or not, I can’t tell. He’s all business now, making notes and looking up forgotten stoichiometric symbols in a chemistry text he’s opened on the desk.

  “Well?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “It looks reversible, even easy, but I can’t do it. For one, I don’t have a lab. Second, it’s been twenty years since I’ve worked in one. What about your—” He pauses, correcting himself. “What about Lorenzo? It’s his brain baby anyway, right?”

  At the word “baby,” my coffee goes down the wrong way. “Right. What about the water-solubility problem?”

  Patrick actually beams. “That’s the brilliant part. It’s already water soluble, at least for our purposes. Assuming you don’t care about unwanted side effects.” He points to Lorenzo’s final work, the cognitive key that, when turned in the lock of cells in the superior temporal gyrus of the brain’s left hemisphere, will open the door to repair. Or, in the case of the anti-serum, create a room full of word chaos.

  I know what Patrick means, and I don’t care about whatever ancillary problems might result from systemic application of the drug, not when we’re talking about Reverend Carl Corbin’s system. Or the president’s.

  “Think he can get to it by Monday morning?” Patrick says.

  “That’s soon.”

  “That’s when the next all-staff meeting is scheduled for Project Wernicke. Your entire building will be at the White House.”

  “What about Reverend Carl?”

  Patrick nods. “Him too.”

  Okay, I think. Monday. The clock on Patrick’s desk glows six four one.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Wicked or not, I sleep, and for three sweet, dreamless hours I don’t think about the plan, or Patrick, or Lorenzo. I don’t think about where Steven might be, or whether Del the mailman turned spy is sitting in a locked room deciding whether to talk or watch his daughters beg while Thomas works them over. I don’t think about Olivia King’s burnt stump where her hand used to be, or whether Lin and Isabel have been caught and are now on their way to a prison.

  Sleep is a fantastic eraser, as long as it lasts.

  With nothing but coffee in my stomach, I leave for the lab, Patrick’s notes folded up inside the powder compact I keep in my purse.

  Lorenzo is in his office, making coffee.

  “Want some?” he says.

  “No way.” I can already feel one ulcer burning through my stomach lining. I take out the compact, open it, quickly palm the paper, and slide it across his desk. “I’ll go set things up for Mrs. Ray. Meet me downstairs when you’re ready.”

  My own office is empty and dark, exactly the way I left it yesterday. I know Lin hasn’t come back. Worse, I’m sure she’s not going to come back.

  So I have a plan. Hope, not so much.

  In the elevator, my reflection stares back at me from three sides. From the front, I don’t look so bad, a little puffy under the eyes, hair misbehaving as usual, face drawn somewhat from my recent diet of coffee and water. The side views show a different me than I’m accustomed to. I remind myself to straighten my shoulders and pick my chin up; there’s no sense in letting Mrs. Ray see me beaten down; she’d only worry. I try sucking in my belly, but it’s no use. The irregular bulge under my blouse reminds me I had to leave the top button of my jeans undone.

  Christ, I hope Patrick didn’t notice when he kissed me goodbye this morning.

>   Inside the lab, I say hello to the remaining rodents and rabbits, ignore the freezer where the dozen dead mice wait to be dissected, and prep one of the side rooms for Mrs. Ray. It’s sparse and sterile, not exactly what I had in mind for her first moments rejoining the land of language, but I can make it better.

  I head back into the room of cages and pick a snow-white rabbit from the top row, placing him in a plexiglass cube with airholes high on each side, adding a bed of wood chips, a water tube, and a scattering of food pellets from the storage container. I know they’re alfalfa, but they smell like crap.

  “There you go, Thumper,” I tell him. “Got a new friend for you to meet.”

  Morgan walks in.

  “What’s that, Jean?” he says. “I thought you were finished with the animal tests.”

  Again, my brain tells my body to stand up straight. “He’s for Mrs. Ray. I thought she might like to see something besides a white wall.”

  He shrugs, as if our first subject is nothing more than another lab animal. Which, I think, she is, in Morgan’s mind.

  “You coming down for the trial?” I say, carrying Thumper’s plastic house closer to the room where I’ll inject our first human subject.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  I open the refrigerated cabinet, the one Lorenzo stored the vials of our anti-aphasia serum in. He’s labeled the second group of vials—the ones that killed the mice—with a bright red X and segregated them on a different shelf. Where the six glass tubes should be, there’s only one.

  “Did you take these?” I ask Morgan.

  “What?” His eyes move up and to the left as he dodges the question.

  He turns to leave, and I have an idea.

  “Morgan, how plugged-in are you?”

  His eyes narrow and his face hardens, suspicious and fearful at the same time.

  “Oh,” I say, forcing a girlish smile, “I was just wondering if you’ve ever been inside—you know—the White House.”

  Like a game fish after a chum line, he takes the bait I’ve thrown out, and relaxes.

  Go on, little fishie, I think. Go on and grab it. Sink your teeth in.

  “As a matter of fact,” Morgan says and puffs himself up, once again trying to fill more space than he possibly can, “I’m an invited guest on Monday. All thanks to you, Jean. You’re a real team player.”

  The smile stays plastered on my face, but this time I don’t need to force it. “That’s just wonderful, Morgan. Really wonderful. Listen, we need to get ready, so—”

  He cuts me off. “Absolutely, Jean. Whatever you need. We’ll bring Mrs. Ray down when the—when she arrives.” He sticks his index finger into the rabbit’s cage, wiggling it. “Hi there, little bunny.”

  “Not a good idea, Morgan,” I say. “They’re territorial.”

  “Nah. Just a cute little bunny rabbit.” His hand shoots back as if he’s touched fire. “Fuck! He bit me!” It’s all I can do to stifle a laugh. “Fucking beast.”

  “Good for only one thing, right?” I say, watching the blood on Morgan’s finger bubble. “Hang on. You won’t die.”

  While I’m bandaging Morgan’s rabbit wound, Lorenzo walks in.

  “What happened?” he says.

  “Rabbit-inflicted wound,” I tell him, pouring more iodine than necessary over the puncture on Morgan’s finger.

  Lorenzo smiles. “Not the Sylvilagus floridanus, Dr. McClellan? Were they tested for rabies?” He leans over and inspects the wound, shaking his head. “Could be bad.”

  Morgan’s face moves through the spectrum, from pink to green to the sickly shade of wallpaper paste. He doesn’t see Lorenzo wink at me over his head.

  “You’ll be fine,” I say, finishing the bandaging job and ushering him out of the lab. “See you in an hour or so.” Then, turning to Lorenzo: “I wonder who’s bringing Mrs. Ray in.”

  It won’t be Del; I know that. Sharon is just as unlikely an escort—by now, she’ll be in custody along with her husband. I picture Poe and his gang of thugs in business suits and black SUVs and dark sunglasses driving up the dirt road to the Rays’ farm, tearing through barns and stables until they find Del’s workshop. It’s an ugly mental image.

  “So?” I say to Lorenzo.

  He nods. “Biochem lab.” Then, in Italian, he whispers, “I’ll need to work through the night, and all day tomorrow, but I can do it.”

  I put Thumper’s plexiglass house into the room where Mrs. Ray will be and consider filling Lorenzo in on my early-morning activities and conversations. The poem. The defeated, but somehow accepting, tiredness in Patrick’s eyes. Instead, as we cross the white tile of the main lab to the locked door at the other side, I switch gears.

  “Morgan’s going to the White House on Monday morning,” I say, putting the necessary awe into my voice. “Big meeting. Think we’ll ever see the inside of that place?” Then I add, “Patrick will be there.”

  Understanding lights up Lorenzo’s face, but he says nothing.

  I’ll tell him the rest once we get inside the biochem lab.

  Or not.

  He slides his key card into the slot, and this time, instead of the light turning green, instead of the soft ping and click of electronics and mechanics, there’s a sharp buzz and a flashing red light. I try mine, with the same result.

  We’re locked out.

  SIXTY

  I’m on the intercom to Morgan before Lorenzo can stop me.

  “We need access to the biochem lab,” I say. Then, hearing the fury in my own voice: “There must be a mistake, Morgan. Can you—”

  He cuts me off. “No, you don’t. And no, I can’t.”

  “What?” The word comes out as if I’ve just spit, which is exactly what I’d like to do, right in Morgan’s ratlike face.

  “Jean, Jean, Jean,” he says, and I prepare myself for his impatient-kindergarten-teacher lecture. “If the Ray woman’s trial is successful, you’re done here. You and Lorenzo have nothing more to work on.”

  Oh yes, we do, I think.

  “And Lin,” I say, fishing. “Or is Lin not on the team anymore?”

  “Of course. I meant you and Lorenzo and Lin. The whole team.”

  Lorenzo, who’s been listening in, his head so close to mine I can feel the bristle of unshaved cheek, interrupts. “Morgan, we need the lab for propagation. We’ve got a limited quantity of serum. You know that.”

  Silence, then: “That’s being dealt with. By another team. The propagation, I mean.”

  Right. And the reverse engineering. The Gold team must be as busy as a hive today.

  I nod to Lorenzo and point toward the storage refrigerator behind him, then wedge the intercom’s handset between my ear and shoulder, leaving my hands free. I hold up six fingers, then only one.

  “Nice,” Lorenzo says after opening the refrigerator and counting the vials. He mouths, “Morgan?”

  I shrug, as if to say, Who else?

  “Jean? Did you hear me? I said Mrs. Ray is here. We’re bringing her down in a few minutes.”

  “Yeah, Morgan. I heard you.” And I hang up.

  Last night, or this morning, I asked Patrick about the viability of reversing the serum, turning our cure into a weapon using only the product.

  “It’s doable without Lorenzo’s formulas,” he said in the darkness of his study. “If they have the right type of chemists on the Gold team.” He looked over the notes, this time using my method—top page to bottom—instead of turning the pages over and laying them to the side as he finished. Of course he didn’t want to see the poem again. Getting slapped in the face once was enough. “Definitely doable, but slower. See, they need to break down the product and—”

  Everything else Patrick said was a blur. I’m no chemist.

  “Lorenzo,” I say, taking the single vial of serum from the fridge and two packets
of sterile syringes from the cabinet next to it. I pretend to study them, and lower my voice to the barest of whispers. “The notes I have are the only copies, right?”

  He slaps the counter with the palm of his hand and sprints toward the rodent and rabbit room. I hear the main door of the lab hiss open and closed.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Lin, even absent, guides me through the setup. Her notes are pristine, as detailed as a set of blueprints. If she were here, I wouldn’t be handling the injection, and that injection wouldn’t deliver a concoction of proteins and stem cells into Mrs. Ray’s bloodstream. Lin would take care of that, through a strategically placed borehole in our subject’s skull—not an operation I was keen on trying myself.

  As if she anticipated her own sudden disappearance, Lin assembled two separate procedures. I put the instructions for direct-to-brain delivery aside, wincing at the photographs of skulls and immobilizing frames and boring instruments, wondering what sort of nutcase one had to be to try this on himself. Or herself, I think, remembering the woman who took an electric drill to her own head sometime in the 1970s. She said it opened up her mind.

  Right.

  What I’m about to do is easier, since Mrs. Ray will have already been prepped with a catheter before leaving the nursing home where she now spends her days. I suppose she’ll be returning there once the trial is over; she has no home to go to with Del out of the picture. Some favor I’m doing her, I think, and wonder if the old woman who planted my gardens might be better off in her current state. At least she won’t understand what’s going on when some bureaucrat in a suit informs her what’s happened to her son and daughter-in-law.

  And her grandchildren.

  Lorenzo’s offer is still on the table, but how can I even debate it with myself? What brand of monster would hop on a flight with a forged passport and leave four children behind? Then again, how fucked-up would I have to be to stay, knowing exactly what will become of this next baby?