Micro

He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the greenhouse, saying, “They’re penurious students. No money. Always trying to save their pennies. They want to have a party, get wasted, but they don’t have any money. So where do poor science students go when they want to get wasted for free?”

“Where?”

“The lab, of course.” He unlocked the door, flicked on the lights. The bulbs came on in banks overhead, one after another, down the long expanse of the lab, revealing benches of exotic plants, potted orchids beneath hanging mist-makers; and in the corner, shelf after shelf of bottles and jugs full of reagents. He pulled out a plastic gallon jug labeled 98% ETHANOL.

“What’s that?” she said.

“Lab alcohol,” he said.

“Is that your idea?”

“Yes,” he said. “You buy vodka or tequila at a store, you get seventy, eighty, ninety proof. This stuff here is double that: it’s a hundred and ninety-six proof. It’s almost pure alcohol.”

“And?”

Vin was picking up plastic cups, handing them to her. “Alcohol causes car accidents. Especially among young people.”

She groaned. “Uhh, Vin…”

He was watching her carefully. “Okay, let’s call a spade a spade,” he said. “You don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Well, no-”

“And neither do I. That’s the truth.”

She blinked, confused. “You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. I can’t stand this, Alyson. I don’t want to go through with this,” he said. “I don’t want this on my conscience.”

“Then…What will we do?” she said.

He allowed a look of doubt, of uncertainty, to fill his face. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head mournfully. “Probably we never should have started this, and now…I just don’t know.” He hoped his expression of uncertainty was convincing. He knew he could be convincing. He paused, then reached down and took her hand, and held it up to the light; in her hand was the paper bag, rolled up. “They’re in there, aren’t they?”

“What do you want me to do?” Her hand was shaking.

“Go outside and wait for me,” he said. “I need a few minutes to think. We have to come up with a solution to this, Alyson. No more killing.”

Let Alyson kill them. Even if she doesn’t know she’s killing them.

She nodded silently.

“I need your help, Alyson.”

“I will,” she said. “I’ll help you. I will.”

“Thank you.” Heartfelt.

She went outside.

He entered the greenhouse and went to a storage cabinet, where he found a box of nitrile safety gloves. Tough lab gloves, stronger than rubber. He pulled out two gloves and stuffed them in his pocket. Then he hurried into a side office, and turned on the surveillance monitor overlooking the parking lot. It was a night-vision camera, flaring green and black. Of course everything was recorded. He watched as Alyson went outside and stood near the cars.

Looking at the bag and pacing.

He could almost see the idea forming in her mind.

“Do it,” Vin whispered.

The field teams had had horrendous problems. Four employees had died in Fern Gully alone. And they had been heavily armed…And there was the problem of the bends. These kids wouldn’t last an hour in this biological hell. After that, it would be a matter of getting Alyson on his side-temporarily.

She was walking away from the cars.

Yes.

Toward the forest.

Yes.

She went downhill, following the trail down into Fern Gully.

Good. Keep going.

On the monitor, her shape faded into the blackness. She was going downslope, down into the depths of the forest. He lost track of her.

Then a starlike point of light came on.

She had a flashlight; she’d turned it on. Now he watched the light as it went back and forth, getting fainter. She was zigzagging on a switchback trail.

The deeper into biological hell the better.

Suddenly, he heard a scream. Panicked shrieks coming from the darkness of the forest.

“Christ.”

He turned away from the monitor and ran outdoors.

Even though the moon was up, in the depths of the rain forest it was so dark it was hard to see her. He hurried down the trail, stumbling and slipping, heading toward her flashlight, and heard her saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” her voice soft in the gloom. She was shining the beam around.

“Alyson.” He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. “What don’t you know?”

“I don’t know what happened.”

She was a dark shape holding the bag out in front of her. As if it was an offering from a dark god. “I don’t know how they got away. Here: look.”

She shone the flashlight on the bag. He saw a jagged cut running along the bottom of the bag. It was a fine cut.

“One of them had a knife,” he said.

“I guess.”

“And they jumped. Or fell.”

“I guess, yes.”

“Where?”

“Right around here. I first noticed it here. I haven’t moved since. I didn’t want to step on them.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. They’re probably dead already.” He took her flashlight, crouched down, swung it along the tops of the ferns. He was looking for disturbances in the shimmering dew that coated the ferns. He saw nothing.

She started to cry.

“It’s not your fault, Alyson.”

“I know.” Sobbing. “I was going to let them go.”

“I figured.”

“I’m sorry, but I was going to do it.”