Terminal

Dr. Levy pushed a few wayward strands of her glistening black hair away from her forehead. “I appreciate your forthrightness,” she said after a brief pause. “Our relationship will depend on your performance. If you work hard, we’ll get along just fine.”

Just then, Mark Halpern entered Dr. Levy’s office. As they were introduced, Sean studied the man and guessed he was around thirty. He was a few inches taller than Sean and was meticulously dressed. Sporting a spotless white apron over his suit, he looked more like men Sean had seen around cosmetic counters in department stores than a tech in a scientific lab.

Over the next half hour, Mark set Sean up for work in the large empty fifth floor that Claire had shown him the day before. By the time Mark left, Sean was satisfied with the physical aspects of his work situation; he only wished he was working on something he was truly interested in.

Picking up the vial Dr. Levy had given him, Sean unscrewed the cap and looked in at the fine white powder. He sniffed it; it had no smell. Pulling his stool closer to the counter, he set to work. First he dissolved the powder in a variety of solvents to get an idea of its solubility. He also set up a gel electrophoresis to get some approximation of its molecular weight.

After about an hour of concentration, Sean was suddenly distracted by movement that he thought he’d seen out of the corner of his eye. When he looked in that direction, all he saw was empty lab space extending over to the door to the stairwell. Sean paused from what he was doing. The only detectable sound came from the hum of a refrigerator compressor and the whirring of a shaking platform Sean was using to help super-saturate a solution. He wondered if the unaccustomed solitude was making him hallucinate.

Sean was seated near the middle of the room. Putting down the utensils in his hands, he walked the length of the lab, glancing down each aisle. The more he looked the more uncertain he became that he’d seen something. Reaching the door to the stairwell, he yanked it open and took a step forward, intending to look up and down the stairs. He hadn’t really expected to find anything, and he involuntarily caught his breath when his sudden move put him face to face with someone who’d been lurking just beyond the door.

Recognition dawned swiftly as Sean realized that it was Hiroshi Gyuhama who stood before him, equally as startled. Sean remembered meeting the man the day before when Claire had introduced them.

“Very sorry,” Hiroshi said with a nervous smile. He bowed deeply.

“Quite all right,” Sean said, feeling an irresistible urge to bow back. “It was my fault. I should have looked through the window before opening the door.”

“No, no, my fault,” Hiroshi insisted.

“It truly was my fault,” Sean said. “But I suppose it is a silly argument.”

“My fault,” Hiroshi persisted.

“Were you coming in here?” Sean asked, pointing back into his lab.

“No, no,” Hiroshi said. His smile broadened. “I’m going back to work.” But he didn’t move.

“What are you working on?” Sean asked, just to make conversation.

“Lung cancer,” Hiroshi said. “Thank you very much.”

“And thank you,” Sean said by reflex. Then he wondered why he was thanking the man.

Hiroshi bowed several times before turning and climbing the stairs.

Sean shrugged and walked back to his lab bench. He wondered if the movement he’d seen originally had been Hiroshi, perhaps through the small window in the stairwell door. But that would mean Hiroshi had been there all along, which didn’t make sense to Sean.

As long as his concentration had been broken, Sean took the time to descend to the basement to seek out Roger Calvet. Once he found him, Sean felt uncomfortable talking to the man whose back deformity prevented him from looking at Sean when he spoke. Nonetheless, Mr. Calvet managed to isolate a group of appropriate mice so that Sean could begin injecting them with the glycoprotein in hopes of eliciting an antibody response. Sean didn’t expect success from this effort since others at the Forbes Center had undoubtedly tried it already, yet he knew he had to start from the beginning before he resorted to any of his “tricks.”

Back in the elevator Sean was about to press the button for the fifth floor when he changed his mind and pressed six. He wouldn’t have guessed it of himself, but he felt isolated and even a bit lonely. Working at Forbes was a distinctly uncomfortable experience, and not simply because of the bevy of unfriendly people. There weren’t enough people. The place was too empty, too clean, too ordered. Sean had always taken the academic collegiality of his previous work environments for granted. Now he found himself needing some human interaction. So he headed for the sixth floor.

The first person Sean encountered was David Lowenstein. He was an intense, thin fellow bent over his lab bench examining tissue culture tubes. Sean came up to his left side and said hello.

“I beg your pardon?” David said, glancing up from his work.