“What’s in there?” Kaden asked every time they passed a door.
Max only ever said “Lab,” even when it saidCleaning Supplies. At the end of the corridor, Max scanned his pass and when a glass door slid open, Kaden slipped in after him. He half-listened to what Max was saying to a couple of people in there, until he registered they were talking about the TV show, Traitors.
“You can look around in here, but don’t touch anything,” Max said.
For Christ’s sake!It made Kaden want to touch everything.
He wandered over to a work bench and stared through a microscope. It looked like lumpy green slime on the slide and he stepped back.Ugh. Not touching that!All along a wide shelf on the wall facing him were glass receptacles, a bit like a display of fish tanks in a pet shop, but none of them contained water. Or fish.Ha!Kaden moved along peering into each of them. There wasn’t much to see. Just off-white blobs lying on some sort of pale brown matting. Presumably not microbes or he wouldn’t be able to see them. So maybe the microbes were in or on the blobs.
In the last tank were several pale blue blobs, most the size and shape of fifty pence pieces and one little one that was round like a marble. The larger blobs were very slowly undulating in the direction of the smaller one, which flattened out so it looked like them, then began to move up the glass.Trying to get away?Kaden frowned. That seemed odd. Even though they were moving slowly, he hadn’t expected to see anything travelling fast enough for him to notice. Nine against one.Hmm.Not fair.
Max came up at his back.
“What’s in this tank?” Kaden asked.
“Hosts.”
“What are they hosting?”
“What do you think? A cocktail party?” Max laughed loudly at his own feeble joke.
Dickhead.“Are they dangerous?”
Max mock-shuddered, then snorted. “Yeah, ‘cos that’s why they’re behind a single sheet of glass in here and not in a BSL 4 lab.”
“What does that mean?”
“Biosafety level 4.” Max rolled his eyes as if he shouldn’t have needed to explain.
“For things like Ebola and Lassa fever?”
“Yes. Diseases that are normally fatal. A level 4 lab requires multiple containment rooms, airflow systems, sealed containers, detailed protocols for all procedures, positive pressure suits and high security.”
Kaden recorded that.
“Is there a level 4 lab here?”
“No.”
That was disappointing.
“You wouldn’t be allowed in anyway. But I can show you something dangerous. Come on.”
Kaden was actually excited until they ended up in the canteen. Max almost choked laughing when he saw Kaden’s face.
“Don’t eat the muesli,” he whispered dramatically.
Kaden forced himself to chuckle. He swiped his ID to get an orange juice and a chocolate muffin while Max went for coffee and a croissant.
“Can I ask you about—”
“You sit here.” Max pulled out a chair at a table in the centre of the room. He muttered, “Take your time,” then went to sit with a young woman near the window.
It was irritating that Max couldn’t even be bothered to sit with him. Writing this article was doing them all a favour.
Kaden pinched out a chunk of muffin and put it in his mouth. At least it tasted nice.
No one else in the canteen was sitting on their own. Kaden hadn’t been one of the popular kids at school. That might not have been so bad if he’d had a friend to do stuff with. Though he wasn’t entirely sure whatstuffhe wanted to do because he wasn’t into football or girls, and having one special pal could have backfired if they’d objected to Kaden being gay. It was such a minefield that it had been easier to stay on his own, make himself comfortable in the closet and create his ownentertainment by writing funny stories. At some point, sitting in that closet, he’d decided he wanted to be a stand-up comedian. He’d thought that might make people like him. His mum had said that making people laugh was a great way to distract them from being cruel.
