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Chapter 10

Nanigen Animal Facility

28 October, 9:00 p.m.

Vin Drake produced a clear plastic bag. With surprising gentleness, he picked up Peter Jansen and dropped him in the bag. Peter slid down the plastic surface, came to rest at the bottom. He got to his feet, and watched as Vin went around the room, picking up each of the graduate students in turn, dropping them in the bag. Last of all he picked up the Nanigen man from the control room. They heard the man call out, “Mr. Drake! What are you doing, sir?”

Drake didn’t seem to hear the man, and didn’t seem to care.

As each person tumbled down among the others in the bag, nobody got hurt. Apparently they now had too little mass to cause damage. “We’re almost weightless,” Amar commented. “We must weigh no more than a gram or so. Like a tiny feather.” Amar’s voice was cool, composed. But Peter thought he detected a tremor of fear.

“Well, I don’t care who knows it, I’m scared,” Rick Hutter blurted.

“We all are,” Karen King admitted.

“I think we’re in shock,” Jenny Linn said. “Look at our faces. Circum-oral pallor.” Blanched skin around the lips was a classic sign of fear.

The Nanigen man kept saying, “There’s been some mistake.” He couldn’t seem to believe what Drake had just done.

“Who are you?” someone asked him.

“My name is Jarel Kinsky. I’m an engineer. I operate the tensor generator. If Mr. Drake would just—just give me a chance to talk with him—”

“You’ve seen too much.” Rick Hutter cut him off sharply. “Whatever Drake does to us he’s going to do to you as well.”

“Let’s take an inventory,” Karen King snapped. “Quick—what weapons have we got?”

But they got no further; the bag was tossed around, throwing them into a tangle.

“Uh-oh,” Amar said, struggling to sit up. “What’s happening now?”

Alyson Bender pushed her face very close to the plastic bag; she was looking carefully at the individuals inside, apparently worried about them. Her eyelashes flicked against the plastic. The pores in the skin of her nose were alarmingly large, great pink pockmarks.

“Vin—I—don’t—want—them—harmed—Vin.”

That drew a smile from Vin Drake. Speaking slowly, he said, “I—wouldn’t—dream—of—harming—them.”

“You realize,” Karen King said, “that that man is a psychopath. He is capable of anything.”

“I realize it,” Peter said.

“That’s just not true about Mr. Drake,” Jarel Kinsky said. “There is a reason for this.”

Ignoring him, Karen said to Peter, “We should have no illusions about what Drake intends at this point. We’re witnesses to his confession, that he killed your brother. Now he’s going to kill us all.”

“Do you think so?” Danny Minot said plaintively. “We shouldn’t jump to—”

“Yes, Danny, I do think so. Maybe you’ll be first.”

“It’s just so hard to imagine—”

“Ask Peter’s brother about—”

At that moment, Vin picked up the plastic bag and walked quickly into the hallway. He was simultaneously arguing with Alyson Bender, but their words were too difficult to decipher; it just sounded like thunder rumbling.

They walked past several labs, and then Drake entered one. Even inside the plastic bag, they could immediately detect the difference in this lab.

A sharp, acrid odor.

Wood chips and feces.

Animals.

“This is an animal lab,” Amar said. And they could see, through the distortion of the plastic bag, that there were rats, hamsters, and lizards and other reptiles.

Vin Drake set the bag down on top of a glass tank. Now he was talking, apparently directing his remarks at them, but they could not understand what he was saying. They looked from one to another. “What’s he saying?” “I don’t understand.” “He’s crazy.” “I can’t make it out.”

Jenny Linn had turned her back on the group; she was entirely focused on Drake. She turned to Peter and said, “It’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s going to kill you first. Wait just a minute.”

“What… ?”

She unzipped her belt pack, revealing a dozen slender glass tubes, with rubber bumpers at each end. “My volatiles.” It was impossible to miss the devotion; these tubes represented years of work. She pulled one out. “I’m afraid it’s the best I can do.”

Peter shook his head, not understanding. She uncorked the tube and in a single quick motion, poured it over his head and down his body. There was a pungent odor; then nothing. He said, “What is it?”

Before she could answer, Vin Drake thrust his hand into the bag, and gripping Peter by the leg, lifted him out upside down. Peter yelled and waved his arms.

“It’s hexenol,” she said. “From wasps. Good luck.”

“Now—now—young—Master—Peter,” Drake said, his voice booming. “You’ve—caused—me—a—great—deal—of—trouble.” He held Peter close to his face, squinted at him. “Worried? Bet—you—are.”

Drake turned on his heel; the quick movement was dizzying for Peter; and then he slid the glass top of a tank open a fraction of an inch, and dropped Peter through the slot. He slid it shut, leaving the bag with the people in it on top of the tank.

Peter fell, landing in sawdust.

Alyson Bender said, “Vin, I didn’t agree to this, this wasn’t what we discussed—”

“The situation has changed, obviously—”

“But this is unconscionable.”

“Tell me about your conscience,” Drake said scornfully, “later.”

She had agreed to help him eliminate Eric, after Eric had threatened to destroy Nanigen. She had thought she loved Vin Drake and maybe she still did love him. Vin had been incredibly good to her, advanced her career, paid her unlimited amounts of money, while Eric had acted so badly toward Vin…Eric had betrayed Vin. But the others were only students…this situation was going out of control. Even so, she felt paralyzed. The situation had developed too fast. She didn’t know how to stop Drake.

“There is nothing cruel about a predator,” Drake said, standing before the snake tank. “It is extremely humane. That black-and-white striped creature on the other side of the glass is a banded krait from Malaysia. Its bite, for a creature Peter’s size, will be almost immediately fatal. He’ll hardly feel a thing. Slurred speech, difficulty swallowing, paralysis of the eyes, and then complete paralysis of the body in a matter of moments. He may possibly still be alive when the snake ingests him but, ah, he probably won’t care…”

Drake placed his index finger against his thumb, and flicked the plastic bag. It caused the micro-humans inside the bag to be flung around. Shouting and swearing with terror and confusion, they tumbled upon one another, while Drake peered at them. “They’re quite lively,” he commented to Alyson. “I assume the krait will accept them. If not, there’s also the cobra and the coral snake.”

She looked away.

“It’s essential, Alyson,” he said. “Their bodies have to be ingested. There can’t be any…evidence.”

“But that’s not all of it,” she said. “What about their car, their hotel rooms, plane tickets—”

“I’ve got a plan for all that.”

“Do you?”

“Trust me. I do.” He stared at her. “Alyson,” he said, after a long moment, “are you saying you don’t trust me?”

“No, of course not,” she said quickly.

“I hope not. Because without trust, we’re nothing. We are in this together, Alyson.”

“I know.”

“Yes, I know you do.” He patted her hand. “Ah, I see young Peter has dusted himself off, and here comes the krait, looking for his meal.” Slithering black and white stripes, partially hidden in the sawdust. Black tongue flicking in and out.

“Now watch closely,” Drake said to her. “It happens fast.”

Alyson had turned away. She couldn’t watch.

Peter got to his feet and brushed himself off. The fall hadn’t hurt him, but he still felt the effects of Drake’s punches and kicks, and his shirt was stuck to his chest with drying blood. He was waist-deep in sawdust, in a glass cage. The cage had a small branch with some leaves on it, otherwise it was empty.