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"Come on, then."
He set off down the stairs and into the warren of corridors they'd traversed last night, leaving her to follow. If she didn't match his pace, he'd probably drag her.
Evan stopped before one of the featureless white doors.
"This is Dr. Chen's lab. I'll come back for you this evening." He slid his keycard through the scanner. The scanner buzzed and the door clicked open. She stepped into a different lab from the one she'd been in yesterday.
"You came! I was afraid you'd changed your mind." Dr. Chen rushed over to greet her, his voice raised over the constant hum of fans.
He was the first person in this madhouse who seemed happy to see her, and she warmed to him despite her resentment. It wasn't his fault his boss was an autocratic jerk.
"I'm here. But what can I do?"
"I need a lab assistant to do all the tests as fast as Mr. Lacroix wants them, but all the assistants are already assigned to projects. I could preempt one, but then I'd have to explain why my research was more important. In detail."
He shook his head, obviously distressed at the thought of disclosing enough information for other researchers to capitalize on his work. It made sense that he got along well with Desmond. They were both paranoid about secrecy.
Dr. Chen held out a package from a vending machine, interrupting her thoughts. "Twinkie?"
"Uh, no thanks." His trash basket overflowed with empty Twinkie wrappers that fluttered in the constant breeze of the fans. No wonder he was so jumpy. He must be on a perpetual sugar high.
"Take one. Keep your blood sugar up. You'll need the energy."
She sighed. "Can't you use the blood samples you took yesterday?"
"No, no. They're busy replicating, okay?" He gestured at rows of petri dishes sitting inside a Plexiglas box, filled with yellow goo that gleamed beneath a heat lamp. "It'll be another day before there's enough to test. No, I need your help here."
She looked at the Plexiglas enclosed desk top he pointed at. A series of test tubes, their insides coated with a clear substance, stood beside a brightly colored machine reminiscent of a carnival thrill ride.
"What goes in those?"
"I need another blood sample, okay? I have something else I need to test. As long as you're here." He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves.
"But I don't want to— "
"Just a little. You'll hardly feel it. Okay?"
He advanced on her with a needle.
She swallowed and nodded. Needles weren't so bad. And if she didn't do it, she wouldn't get out.
He sat her in a chair and drew a vial of blood from her arm. It stung a bit, but didn't hurt. She pressed the cotton pad he gave her to her arm, and watched with interest as he carried the vial to the sealed area, opened an access hatch, and popped the vial inside the sterile area.
Peeling off his gloves, he sat down. He pushed his hands through a pair of gloves attached to openings in the Plexiglas, and poured the contents of the vial into one of the pretreated test tubes. Rebecca stood up and came over, observing over his shoulder. The process intrigued her.
He added a clear liquid to the tube and capped it, then dropped it into the machine. He switched the machine on, and it twisted and whirled the hapless vial. Just looking at it spinning about made her queasy. Dr. Chen grinned.
"Okay! It's going good now!"
"What are you doing?"
"Breaking up the blood." He turned off the machine and peered at the vial, adjusted something and turned it on again. It spun faster. "I'm only interested in the white blood cells. The T-cells, leukocytes and neukocytes."
Rebecca watched Dr. Chen, glad of something to help her avoid looking at the whirling blood.
Keeping her gaze fixed on him, she said, "T-cells are part of the immune system. I remember that from a story I did on AIDS. A
nd leukocytes are involved in Leukemia, although I forget if it's too many or not enough of them. But what are neukocytes?"
