The professor shoved Quinton to the floor. Quinton hit the tiles hard, then heard a buzz-ing sound that lasted a few seconds. Quickly he rose to his hands and knees. An acrid smell hung in the air.
Quinton looked around. Mark lay on his back; Timms stood over him holding a gun in his right hand. Quinton scrambled to his feet. “What happened?”
Timms didn’t answer. Quinton stepped over to Mark and got down on one knee for a closer look. In the dim light he could barely make out Mark’s eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling. Wisps of smoke escaped from his ears.
For once Timms seemed to be rattled. “Is he… is he dead?”
Quinton felt for a carotid pulse. Nothing. “Yes.” He noticed that the hunting knife remained snugly in its holder.
Quinton rose and faced Timms. For the first time it dawned on him that he was two inches taller than the professor. If someone had asked him earlier, Quinton would have said that he was shorter than Timms.
“What did you do?” asked Quinton. He gestured toward the gun. “What is that thing?”
Timms’s reverie broke suddenly. He stashed the weapon in his pocket and put a strong hand on Quinton’s back. “Things are spinning out of control. Let’s go to my office. We need to make plans.”
Quinton sat in Professor Timms’s expansive, well-lit office. Somehow the chairman had managed to commandeer sufficient power to keep the lamps shining. And to circulate the air, which did not smell stale, as it did in the rest of the building.
From behind his gigantic desk, Timms stared at Quinton. “What was the fight about?”
“We weren’t fighting. What makes you think we were?”
Timms frowned. “I know you two have been at each other’s throats since you came into my lab. Don’t try to snow me, Quinton. I’ve got a lot of people working for me, but not so many that I don’t know what’s going on. You two were my most competitive students.”
Quinton still couldn’t quite believe that Mark was gone. “What was that gun you fired? Was it a Taser?”
“Sort of. That’s not important. What’s important is—”
“Mark’s dead. I can’t say I liked him very much, but you killed him.”
“He lunged at you. He would have killed you. You saw the knife.”
“It was still sheathed.”
“His hand went to the handle. I had to act fast. The gun is just a prototype; it doesn’t have any kind of control. I didn’t think it would kill him.”
“Where did you get it?”
Timms waved a hand. “Research I did some years ago. For the military. Back when I was struggling to get funds. We all take on projects sometimes just for the grant money. The army wanted a weapon to overstimulate an enemy’s nervous system and incapacitate him. We developed a microwave emitter that set up seizure-inducing oscillations in the brain.”
“You weren’t supposed to keep a prototype, were you? You held it back.”
Timms expression hardened. “We’re all competitive to a certain extent. We’re all looking for an advantage. You never know when something like this weapon could be useful. Necessary, even.”
“You were sandbagging at the meeting, too, weren’t you?” A surge of emotion swept over Quinton. He couldn’t define what it was—a mixture of excitement and fear. “I think Rebbin suspected something. She told me that you knew more than she did.”
“You know how modest Sandra can be.”
Quinton kept staring at the professor. Timms had completely regained his composure. But you’re lying, thought Quinton.
“Okay,” said Timms. “Let’s stop playing mind games.” He rose and walked to a cabinet. Opening a door, he lifted a bottle and examined the label. “Pour you a drink? Good scotch.”
Quinton shook his head.
Timms set a shot glass on his desk and poured until it was half full. “Sure you don’t want any?”
“What are you holding back?”
Timms put away the bottle and returned to his chair. “I palmed a few pages of the printout when I was collecting them and folding the ones that had been torn.”
“What did they say?”
“Speculation, mostly. According to Chicago, DCC’s plan is to use dispersion agents. Like the rainmakers, I guess, who use condensation nuclei. They’ll drift with the wind, scattering the inactivation compounds.”
“What will it inactivate? How much time do we have?”
“We might have already run out of time. I’ve got to hand it to DCC, it knew what it was doing. The plan is to target certain brainstem neurons that are responsible for controlling respiration. Keeps them from making a certain protein, an ion pump, which maintains the electrical gradient. No gradient, no activity. The neurons slowly run down.”
“You quit breathing?”
Timms nodded. “You can keep yourself alive for a while by forcing air into your lungs. But you need these neurons to make breathing automatic. They monitor oxygen levels and adjust the rate accordingly. Respiration is usually not conscious—you don’t have to think about it. But without these neurons, you do have to think about it.”
“Which means,” said Quinton, “when you go to sleep…”
“You die. Victims will feel tired, get short of breath. They’ll probably lie down and rest. Then they’ll fall asleep. They won’t know they’re running out of oxygen because the neurons that monitor the oxygen levels are shutting down. Nobody will know what’s happening until the next morning—when about one out of every two people will have expired. It’s clever and painless.”
“Clever?”
Timms shrugged. “You’ve got to admit that it has a certain kind of brilliance.” He stared at Quinton. “The real question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“You withheld this information to prevent panic? Or for some other reason? To gain an advantage over the competition, perhaps.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” Timms sipped his drink. “Now is not the time for philosophy or psychology.”
Quinton thought about Mark. Saw the body in his mind’s eye. Then a flash of insight struck. He opened his mouth, ready to speak. But he held back.
“Yes?” said Timms. “Something you want to say?”
And I ought to say it, thought Quinton. But he wondered if the gun was still in Timms’s pocket.
Timms leaned forward. “You’ve got an idea, Quinton? Let’s hear it.”
“Mark didn’t steal my lab notebooks. You did.” A brief flush came over the professor’s face, telling Quinton he was right. “At first I was sure it was Mark, but now that I think about it, that doesn’t really make much sense. Mark had already been looking over my shoulder; he would have known that I write my notes in code. It’s not a simple one either. Vigenere cipher. Mark knew that stealing my notebooks wouldn’t have been useful, but you didn’t.” Quinton paused. He felt short of breath. “That means you murdered him when you realized I would find out Mark didn’t take them.”
The professor’s expression went cold and hard, but his poise quickly returned. “He really did lunge for you, Quinton. He didn’t reach for his knife, but I thought that’s what he was planning to do.”
Quinton watched him closely. The professor’s hand crept toward his pocket. “You can threaten me, but you can’t kill me,” said Quinton. “I know something you don’t.”
Timms smiled. Quinton was amazed that the professor’s smile seemed fluid and relaxed. “You have a point. But some of the other people in my lab are anxious to replicate and extend your discovery. You have made a discovery, haven’t you, Quinton?”
“I won’t tell you,” said Quinton.
“Why not? You want half of the people in this community to die?”
“You couldn’t save them. Even if you wanted to—which I doubt.”
Timms leaned back. “Not enough material? I figured there was a reason you didn’t say anything at the meeting. Well, maybe we can scrounge up some more somewhere.”