How long had they been down here? Only a couple months, but time had lost all meaning. He remembered wanting to find the answers to his research, to help Tommy. Now he only wanted Tommy to survive.
And Jon would need to get results to guarantee it.
Mel approached him.
“Jon—”
“Tell the team to get another chimp ready,” said Jon. “We need to do another tonight.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t question me,” said Jon, his voice hard, and Mel averted her eyes and retreated. Jon felt a pang of guilt, but pushed it away. It was for the best. They needed results.
With the last chimp euthanized, and one of the biologists already working on an autopsy, they prepared for another procedure. It was clockwork now, with all the players knowing their roles, even if they tired of them, tired of killing animals for no real progress.
They moved, doing their pieces. Sedating the animal. Removing the arm. The nutrient bath. The new serum. Standing by with more nutrients.
Jon stared at it, studying each part, trying to parse where the failure lied. They had gotten more and more information with each chimp, but no closer to success. They had fine tuned the serum, accelerating and decelerating the regeneration, the absorption, the rate of change, the transfer of cell growth, but none of it had proven any more successful. It felt like a crap shoot, directionless, and Jon hated it. But the only way out was through.
“Injecting the serum,” said Steven, one of the biologists, and the chimp regrew the arm. They had slowed down the growth again with this mixture, hoping that the chimp’s healing wouldn’t outpace the absorption rate, that it would be slower but wouldn’t spur an extraneous rate of deformity.
Jon watched as the arm slowly regrew. He held his breath, waiting for success. They needed it now. They couldn’t afford any more time. He imagined Shaw watching through a camera, sitting behind his clean red desk, his metal prosthetic fingers noiselessly moving as he waited.
The bone re-knit, and the assistants poured more nutrients in, keeping the chimp awash in fuel. Its new skin absorbed the calories. They had transformed it into an engine, delivering cells to the wound site.
Jon held his breath. This was the moment. He felt it. Minutes passed, and the arm grew before his eyes. His heart had caught in his throat, unable to breathe, a wave of relief ready to break and wash through him. They would succeed, they would survive, Tommy would walk again—
No.
The arm started mutating again, and Jon couldn’t watch anymore, couldn’t stomach anymore failure, and he left, pushing hard through the theater doors, back into the main lab, throwing anything he could find.
“Goddamnit!” he yelled, turning over equipment carts, metal clanking against the ground, beakers shattering.
“Get a hold of yourself,” said Stone, coming up behind him.
Jon wheeled to face him. “Leave me alone.”
“Really?” asked Stone. “You push us toward another experiment, another failed experiment, and now you want to be left alone. Don’t give me that.”
“Fuck off, Stone,” said Jon, his temper flaring, words swallowed a hundred times now voiced.
“Very professional,” said Stone. The rest of the team stood on the edge of the doorway, looking in, watching as the two of them argued. “Do you think you’re the only one struggling?”
“I—”
“We’re all feeling the pressure,” said Stone. “But no one else is throwing things. No one else is swearing. You’re the one losing control, right when we need you the most.”
Jon felt another pang of guilt, but it was swallowed up by his anger.
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly well,” said Stone. “I know that for two weeks we’ve been grinding ourselves to the bone, doing things your way, and we’ve gotten nothing but failure. You meet with Shaw privately, say nothing about the meeting, and then cry when things don’t work out. Why are you even here?”
“What?” asked Jon. “Are you—”
“Why are you on the team, Jon?” asked Stone. “Do we need you at all? You’re dragging us all down. I told you we needed to push the chimps harder, and you dismissed the thought out of hand—”
“This is my research!” said Jon. “You’d still be in the medical pillar if it wasn’t for me!”
“Excuse me?” asked Stone. “Without my help, you and your boy would be out in the cold, where you belong!”
Jon leapt at Stone then, swinging with a fist and missing, Stone dodging the blow. Stone grabbed Jon with a thick arm and punched him with the other, smashing Jon in the nose and then eye, and stars sprang into Jon’s vision with bright sparks of pain. Jon swung once more and connected with a lucky strike, his knuckles opening up Stone’s eyebrow.
Then the rest of the team swarmed them, pulling them apart, both panting, red-faced, and angry. Blood trickled from Jon’s nose. Stone surged against the sea of bodies and arms holding him back, trying to get to Jon again, but they held firm, and he stopped, breathing hard.
“Jon,” said Mel, standing to the side, holding her phone. Jon stared at her, confused.
“Shaw wants you both in his office,” said Mel. “Now.”
Panic and fear surged into Jon’s heart, replacing his rage. He had been all instinct and anger, buried inside for months now, but it all vanished in an instant. He looked to Stone, who met his eyes with the same terror. Despite their argument, they both shared it.
The assistants gradually let go of both of them. Jon straightened his lab coat and grabbed a tissue to hold to his nose. Stone did the same for his eyebrow, and then they left the lab, walking to the elevator, one after the other.
They said nothing as the elevator sped them to Shaw’s office. Both still panted, trying to catch their breath.
Shaw waited for them in his office, standing, his back to them.
“Don’t sit,” said Shaw, without turning. “This won’t take long.”
The sudden fear and terror in Jon’s heart doubled then, tripled, his mind immediately rotating through the terrible things that awaited them, awaited Tommy. They had failed; they had embarrassed themselves, they would—
“Are you both children?” asked Shaw, turning back toward them. Despite the lateness of the hour, he looked no different that he ever did. Jon had always heard about his incredibly long hours, his routine nights of only four hours sleep. If he was tired, he didn’t show it.
Neither answered, not knowing what to say.
“Squabbling in front of your team?” asked Shaw. “Pointing fingers? Shameful. I bring you both down here, give you the world to work with. Give you both enough to realize your dreams, and you are letting it slip through your fingers!”
Jon realized he’d never heard Shaw yell, but now his staid face was curled in anger, spittle flying from his lips, onto his clean, red desk.
“You work, day after day, and come up with nothing but failure, and then, because that wasn’t enough, you fight amongst yourselves, like children, like idiots! We are the best and brightest in the entire world, and still, we resort to a fistfight like common thugs! It’s embarrassing, disappointing.”
Shaw panted now, out of breath after yelling.
“Do you think this is acceptable?” he asked, finally. He waited.
“No,” said Jon, with Stone echoing him a few seconds later.
“Good,” said Shaw. “You still have a modicum of sense, somewhere in those brains of yours. Because none of this is acceptable. I expect success. These endless failures will not stand. And this infighting will stop now. If this happens again, both of you are gone. Understood?”
“Yes,” said Jon and Stone, almost together.