They were silent for a while, both frowning, deep in thought.
“How the hell did you pull this off?” Dimitrov finally asked.
“Trust me,” Myatlev replied, “you might not want to know.”
…21
Dr. Gary Davis sat in front of the idle mass spec, watching his colleagues engaged in a bitter debate. The weather had gotten hot, and the air in the lab was stuffy and hard to breathe. They were all sweating, and, in the absence of daily showers, that heat was becoming increasingly difficult to endure, making everyone irritable.
To make things worse, the Russians had put Adenauer, Dr. Arrogance himself, in charge of the team, and, for some reason, everyone obeyed that decision. Of course, one of the reasons they obeyed was that Adenauer instantly started behaving as project lead, taking his responsibilities seriously. Yet something was eating at Adenauer. He’d turned grim, more silent than his usual self. He loved hearing himself talk, and wouldn’t miss an opportunity to speak to save his life. Yet he sat silent, watching, just as Gary did, how the others argued about the ethics of building a chemical weapon for their enemy.
“You’re insane! All of you!” Dr. Mallory declared from the bottom of his lungs. “I respect everything I’ve heard here today, starting from one’s duty to survive, and ending with pure, unbridled fear of pain and death, but how does creating a dangerous chemical weapon and putting it in the hands of our enemies make it better? It just delays the issues, while magnifying it! You will suffer, and you will die, or be forced to see others suffer and die, and know that you’re to blame for it!”
“Didn’t we agree to release weak formulations?” Dr. Crawford intervened, in a pacifying tone.
“If we create this, no matter how diluted, their scientists will be able to run with it and finalize the research,” Dr. Mallory replied. “We can’t assume they won’t.”
“But we can’t stall any longer,” Dr. Fortuin intervened. “It’s been almost three days, and they’re growing impatient. We have to make something happen, to prove that we’re actually working.”
“Three days? Humph,” Dr. Mallory scoffed. “This type of research can take years!”
“Agreed,” Dr. Fortuin replied, “but they won’t hear it!”
Tension crackled among them in the loaded air, and Adenauer didn’t intervene. What’s eating him? Gary wondered. He approached the group slowly.
“We all want the same things,” he said gently. “We want to live, and we want to do so while maintaining our code of ethics and our humanity. Why don’t we focus on that, instead of going at one another’s throats? We’re not to blame for this, none of us are.” He stopped talking, searching their faces to see if his message made it across to them. They relaxed a little, imperceptibly almost, all except Adenauer. “Good. Then let’s build the most harmless chemical compound we can think of, something inherently useless and wrong, and give them something without giving them anything. How’s that for a challenge?”
“Huh… interesting,” Dr. Crawford chuckled. “I’d go with steroids. Everyone knows their effect, it depends largely on the subject’s body mass so it will be unpredictable in results, and it’s freely available at the world’s gyms anyway. We wouldn’t be telling them anything they don’t already know.”
“How about testosterone?” The feeble voice of Dr. Chevalier rolled the “r” and elongated the words, making her question sound almost musical. “It could work. Studies show that compounds that enhance the production of naturally occurring testosterone, like branch chain amino acids, taurine, or the direct intake testosterone supplements need to be monitored closely. Psychotic breaks and violence are listed as side effects.”
“A little too effective for my taste,” Dr. Mallory replied. “We need something more benign. Remember, we don’t want the compound to work.”
“What if we formulate a selective serotonin reuptake enhancer? An enhancer, not an inhibitor. Something like Tianeptine, for example, but without its antidepressant stabilization function. It will effectively and harmlessly deplete the serotonin levels in the synapses, temporarily.” Dr. Adenauer spoke, for the first time in more than an hour. “Balanced subjects will get depressed and mildly angry, and depressed subjects will have somewhat stronger symptoms, but they’re already used to self-managing those with food, medication, et cetera. Not really a solution they could ever use, but in tests it might work enough to buy us some time.”
No one replied, but they seemed encouraged by Adenauer’s suggestion.
“Sounds good,” Gary summarized. “Let’s get to work. While Dr. Adenauer will lead the actual research, I will stall by asking for some more equipment and supplies, and Dr. Bukowsky will attempt to hypnotize our lovely guard.”
As they fell silent in approval, a distant quarrel caught their attention.
“Get serious, Lila, is this because I cheated on you?” The pilot’s tone was patronizing, annoying.
“How dare you?” Lila yelled. “How dare you even ask me that? You bastard!” Lila pounced and hit him in the chest with her fists, but the pilot didn’t budge; he just chuckled.
“What’s going on here?” Gary asked, heading toward them fast, followed closely by the rest of the doctors.
“You wanna know why we’re here?” Lila asked, wiping tears off her face with her sleeve. “Ask him!”
“Lila—” the pilot started to say, but Gary interrupted. He never liked the pilot; there was something slimy about him.
“What is this about?” he asked.
The pilot didn’t answer. He sat there, in the same corner where he’d spent the past couple of days, staring at his boots.
“Tell them,” Lila snapped. “Where’s your courage now, you sick son of a bitch!”
Dr. Bukowsky came closer to Lila and gently grabbed her arm. “What’s going on, my dear? I’m sure we can help, if you just let us know what happened.”
Gary expected to hear about some lovers’ quarrel. Regardless of how stereotypical it sounded, pilots and flight attendants got involved romantically more times than not. Probably everyone else had the same expectations, more or less.
Then Lila spoke.
“He brought us here… he’s the one who sold us out. And he killed Captain Gibson. He shot him, right there, in his pilot seat, so he could take the plane to Russia.” She sniffled and wiped her tears again, then added, “There… now you know who he is.”
The pilot looked at her with mean eyes, almost squinting, grinding his teeth, and pursing his lips. “You fucking bitch,” he muttered.
“Is that true?” Dr. Adenauer asked, drilling his eyes into the pilot.
The pilot remained silent for a while, then spoke quietly, “Yes.”
“Why?” Dr. Adenauer asked quietly.
“This was not supposed to happen,” the pilot replied, talking fast in a pleading tone. “You have to believe me. Please.”
There was no sympathy for him anywhere in that room. Gary felt a wave of anger clenching his fists and tightening his chest. He could barely breathe.
“Talk,” Adenauer commanded.
“They paid me to change direction and land the plane here, that’s all. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
“What did you expect, you fucking moron?” Gary snapped, and immediately got stared at by Adenauer, who hated profanity. He didn’t care. “Did you expect to get your cash and fly out of here, free as a bird?”