It made some soft whirring sounds, and thirty seconds later, it spit out a finished ID card, complete with picture and thumbprint. Dr Anderson examined it, pronounced it good, and decorated it with an MIT lanyard as she handed it over. ‘Wear it around your neck,’ she said. ‘No tying it on your belt, or backpack, or wearing it as a headband, and trust me, I’ve seen students try to do all those things. If it’s not in the right place, you’ll get a visit from security, and you really don’t want that. Where we’re going, security’s very, very serious.’ Dr Anderson, Claire saw, was already wearing her own ID. It looked identical, except for the photo. ‘If you cut your hair or dye it, or your physical profile changes at all, you get new ID. It has all kinds of data encoded in it. Sounds Orwellian, right? It is. Get used to it.’
Claire scrambled to follow as Dr Anderson shucked her lab coat, tossed it on a hook, and led the way out of the office and down the long hallway to a sealed door with an electronic pass reader on it. Anderson buzzed in, but when Claire started to follow her through, the other woman stopped her. ‘Use your card after me,’ she said. ‘If you come through without swiping, alarms will go off. Like I said. Secure.’
Claire nodded, and let the door shut before she ran her own badge and got a green light to enter. She slipped the lanyard back over her head and stepped through into a very different world.
This part of the building looked new, shiny, and sterile. It was bustling with activity – grad students, professors, people in suits who looked like official government types, or maybe private industry. It was often groups composed of all of those, huddled together, walking and talking. She caught snatches of conversations about genetics, about drug therapies, about nanotech, and that was all in only a two-minute brisk walk. Dr Anderson exchanged nods with most of them, but there was no small talk.
Dr Anderson’s lab was marked with a simple white card in the slot that said RESTRICTED. Nothing else on the card … but when Claire moved to the side a little to allow Anderson to swipe through, she saw that there
was
something else on the paper, after all. The Founder’s logo had been printed on it holographically, so it was only visible from certain angles.
The door made a soft sighing sound as it opened, and a puff of cool air that smelt like metal and chemicals washed over Claire. Dr Anderson shut it behind her, and Claire badged through. She didn’t need to be told twice about the security measures.
Inside it was … well, Myrnin’s lab, only sane, orderly, and clean. But she recognised a lot of what was going on at each of the worktables, though instead of using Dark Ages alchemical techniques, Dr Anderson had modern chemistry set-ups and state-of-the-art instruments and computers. It was like porn, but for science geeks. ‘Wow,’ Claire breathed, and ran her fingers tentatively over a brushed-steel worktable, not quite daring to get her fingerprints on any of the blindingly cool equipment yet. ‘You’re—’
‘Well funded? Yes. Amelie wanted to establish another, less chaotic method of research to validate and record Myrnin’s discoveries. You know him; he’s brilliant, and he’s the living embodiment of chaos theory. So my job is to find out
why
his discoveries work, document and make them easily reproducible with modern equipment and techniques. And now that’s your job, too.’
‘I was already doing that. Trying to, anyway. When he’d let me.’
Dr Anderson sent her a warm, knowing smile. ‘Yeah, I know how that goes. Working for Myrnin means being zookeeper, nanny and best friend. Trouble is, knowing when each of those things is necessary, because making a mistake means you become a Happy Meal. Badge of honour for you to have survived the experience, Claire. And for getting the hell out of Morganville. Bet you think the worst is over, right?’
Claire shuddered, thinking about the draug, and Bishop, about the thousand life-threatening moments she’d made it through since coming to town. ‘Hopefully,’ she said.
‘You’re wrong,’ Dr Anderson said. She sounded certain, and sober. ‘You live there, at that level, it’s like living inside a video game. Surviving is a high, an achievement. Then you come out here into the real world, and the PTSD starts to set in … because nobody cares what you went through, or that you survived it, and your body’s used to a constant adrenaline pump. It’s like coming off a drug. If it hasn’t hit you yet, it will … normal life takes a lot of getting used to, Claire. But if you need to talk to someone, well, I’ve been through it. What’s the biggest thing you’re missing so far?’
‘Shane,’ Claire said. Her throat got tight and raw, and for a moment she couldn’t go on. ‘My boyfriend.’
‘Ah,’ Anderson said. Nothing else. Her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t ask anything, and after she’d waited a moment she got the idea Claire wasn’t going to tell, either. ‘Let me give you the tour, then. I assume you’re familiar with Myrnin’s dimensional portals? Did he teach you how to operate them?’
From there, the hours passed fast, full of technical discussions and equations, lightning-fast chains of thought as each of them built on the other’s ideas and work. By noon, they had a working mathematical expression of how the portals worked, and Claire matched it up against the work she’d done with Myrnin on the same thing.
Dr Anderson’s final version was better, cleaner and covered more theoretical ground.
The afternoon was spent learning equipment, most of which Claire had never seen, though some of it she’d heard about. Most fascinating was a genetic sequencer hard at work cracking the code of vampire DNA. ‘It’s deceptively human,’ Dr Anderson said. ‘Tough to tell the difference, because there’s really very little to find. It’s almost as if the DNA was only part of the equation for how vampires change – it’s not just a physical process. And I don’t have any equipment that can capture something that only happens on the spiritual plane, at least, not yet.’
‘I might,’ Claire said. She felt tentative about it, and a little overwhelmed by what Dr Anderson was doing in this very sparkly lab; who was
she
to pretend to be an inventor? It didn’t feel nearly as weird when she was with Myrnin; everything seemed possible.
Here, she felt very … young. And inexperienced.
But she had Dr Anderson’s undivided attention. ‘Go on.’
‘I … I thought that since Myrnin had made machines that interacted with vampire powers, then it might be possible to make another machine to cancel them.’
There was a long, strange silence, and Claire felt herself growing hot and uncomfortable under Anderson’s steady stare. Then her professor said, very carefully, ‘Do you have such a device?’
‘Maybe? I mean, I know it can amplify vampire
emotions
. I think if I can use it in reverse, it could make them afraid instead of angry, cancel out their aggression and hunger … It’s all really just a guess right now.’
‘But you built it.’
‘I have a prototype.’
‘Where?’
Dr Anderson was taking this way more seriously than Claire had ever expected. Even Myrnin hadn’t seemed so impressed. ‘It’s packed, they’re delivering it with all my stuff this week.’
‘You
shipped it
?’
‘I thought it might be hard to get it through security at the airport.’
‘Ah. Excellent point. But you really thought it was safer to trust it to a moving company? Do the vampires know you have this device?’
‘Myrnin does.’
‘And has he told Amelie?’
‘I don’t know,’ Claire said. She felt more than a little off balance, as if she had done something bad but she wasn’t sure what exactly it was. ‘Shouldn’t he have?’
‘If he thinks you’re worth keeping alive, he won’t,’ Dr Anderson said. She had a remote, calculating look in her blue eyes, suddenly, and it was chilling. ‘The last thing Amelie would want is a device like that, capable of giving humans a way to control vampires. When is this device scheduled to arrive here?’
‘Um, tomorrow, I think. They’re just supposed to put the boxes in my bedroom if I’m out.’
‘Don’t be out,’ Anderson said. ‘Be home. Check the box you put it in before they leave, and then call me as soon as you’re alone and I will arrange for an escort. I want this device of yours put in the secured area as soon as possible, just in case it works as you say. Vampires don’t like us developing new weapons against them, Claire. I’ve seen others end up dead for simply talking about one, and you’ve actually
made
one. This is something that Amelie can’t, and won’t, ignore. I’m really surprised that Myrnin allowed this at all, and even more surprised that he hasn’t told Amelie about it.’
Claire thought, with a sudden burst of cold inside, about what had happened to Shane’s family when they’d left Morganville. Amelie had been dead set on keeping her secrets, and when Shane’s mother had begun remembering too much, talking too much, she’d ended up dead. It was pure luck that Shane and his father hadn’t died, too.
What she had done in developing this device – no, this
weapon
– was a whole lot worse than just blabbing about Morganville. It could be a real threat to them. To their very lives.
Dr Anderson was right. It was something the vampires wouldn’t ignore … and now that she was out of Morganville, accidents could happen. None of her friends would know the difference.
She was alone.
‘Hey,’ Dr Anderson said, and gave her a small, careful smile. ‘Easy. You look a little spooked.’
Claire nodded, unable to say much.
‘You got used to thinking of yourself as safe from them, didn’t you? That they were on your side. It’s easy to make that mistake. They will treat you as an asset, or even as a friend, right up until you cross the line and become a threat, Claire; you’ve already done that, even if they don’t know it yet. You’ve gone from Amelie’s subject to Amelie’s enemy, even though technically you’ve never turned against her … she won’t wait for the actual betrayal. Just the seeds of it are enough.’ Anderson’s eyes were still calculating, still cool. ‘Are you armed?’
‘No. It’s the real world. I didn’t think I needed to … there are laws against it, right?’
‘Would you rather be fined for carrying a concealed knife, or dead in an alley?’
‘Are those my only options?’
Dr Anderson’s smile warmed up, and the seriousness faded a bit. Just a bit. ‘Not necessarily, but I believe in planning for the worst case scenario.’
‘You’d really like my boyfriend Shane,’ Claire said. ‘Okay. I’m used to carrying a knife – silver, right?’
‘We have new processes that allow us to have just a silver layer on the edge. It’s more reliable and holds sharpness well.’ Dr Anderson walked to a locked cabinet and opened it with a palm print and complicated code punched into the keypad; she reached in and came out with a knife in a leather scabbard. It was dauntingly large, and when she handed it over, it felt heavier than Claire was used to carrying.
‘Do you have anything …’
‘Smaller? No. Sorry. It’ll fit in a backpack handily. If you want to carry it on your person, I’d advise you to take up the current trend of carrying gigantic handbags. Watch the edge. It’s sharp enough to slice anything but diamond. And for God’s sake,
carry
it
, Claire. You’re no good to me at all if you’re dead. Until you start working, I can’t even be sure you’re any good to me at all, but I’m willing to give you the chance.’ Anderson patted her on the shoulder in an impersonally kind sort of way. ‘What time is it? – Oh, damn, I have a class to teach in twenty minutes. Lab rules: you’ll be here bright and early every day. I arrive at six a.m.; I’ll expect you no later than seven. You don’t arrive before me, and you don’t stay after. If I decide that you’re reliable, I’ll start allowing you to remain in the lab while I’m teaching, but you’ll have a period of evaluation before that happens, and of course the lab’s sensors will monitor everything you do. That’s not meant as a threat, just clarity – I’d rather you aren’t surprised by the level of observation you have here.’
It was nothing but surprising, but Claire didn’t really mind; she accepted the need for security. She wasn’t sure how to read Dr Anderson, though, and she thought her new mentor felt the same about her.
Well, at least she gave me a knife
, Claire thought. That said something … but what, exactly, Claire wasn’t quite sure.
Dr Anderson had already dismissed her, clearly, because she was shuffling through a stack of papers and ignoring Claire’s tentative goodbye wave, so Claire headed back to the door. There was a second badge station, and she used it to unlock her way out into the hallway. Disorientation set in for a few seconds, because there were few signs and the clean white tile looked the same in any direction, but she finally figured out how they’d come in, and badged out for a second time before returning to normal college surroundings. It felt weird, coming from that high-tech world to one where people her age were laughing, throwing footballs on the lawn and flirting as if it was the most important skill in the world.
Maybe the normal world isn’t as normal as I expected.
That was a sobering thought.
She headed across the busy campus grounds, and the knife stuck in her backpack felt strange; she checked often to see if somehow the outline of it was visible, but of course it wasn’t. It was like a sliver of her old life sticking into her new one, and she didn’t know how to feel about it.
Turned out, she had reason to be happy.
Claire crossed Albany Street and headed for Chicago Pizza, because suddenly she was starving, and it was one place she’d tried before, so a little bit familiar … and as she got her pizza slice and soda and negotiated through the packed room for a little table at the wall, she saw someone standing on the other side of the window, looking in.
Someone she recognised.
Derrick
.
Liz’s stalker ex wasn’t just checking out the day’s pie offerings … he was staring right at her, boring his gaze in hard as a drill. The shock made Claire’s heart kick up hard, and she instinctively pushed back from the table and reached down for the pack leaning against her knee – survival instincts, even though Derrick wasn’t doing anything but looking at her.