Page 34 of Conspiracies and Chemistry

“I’m not going to Vegas,” I said. “I’m going to cancel when I get back to my desk.”

“Wait,” Sadie said. “You’re presenting your paper there. You have to go.”

“No, I don’t. This is more important.” I’d personally monitor each of the assays to ensure nothing went wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d slept in the lab. It’d be like the early days of Discovery, when it was only Simon and me and a handful of employees, surviving on pizza and coffee and the euphoria of success.

“Wait. What’s happening?” Tessa’s voice made the hairs stand up on my arm under my lab coat. When had she come in?

“Oliver says he’s not going to BMTC,” Sadie said.

She stepped to the other side of him and flicked her ponytail off the shoulder of her lab coat like it was distracting her. “What’s BMTC?”

I shrugged. “A biomedical conference. The big drugmakers go, and so do lots of hospital staff for the continuing medical education credits.”

“Oliver goes every year,” Sanjay said unhelpfully. “It’s great exposure for Discovery.”

“You’re telling me,” Tessa said, a warning in her voice, “you have the chance to speak at a conference where there are tons of potential customers for our test, to tell them about our work, to show how fuckingbrilliantyou are, and you’renot going?”

“You make it sound like a bad thing. I’m doing the right thing by staying here and focusing on the work.” I pointed at the screen.

“That’s Sanjay’s work,” she said. “Your work is promoting this company and our products.”

“It’s allourwork. Besides, we won’t have any products if we can’t successfully test them,” I growled. I didn’t add that we wouldn’t have a company either if this test failed. No one needed the added stress of knowing we could all be out of work in six months if we missed our deadline.

She faced Sanjay, who straightened under her scrutiny. “Are you going to do your work any faster if Oliver is here, breathing down your neck?”

“I wouldn’t—” I began.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.” He met my stare defiantly.

Tessa tossed her ponytail. “Then you’re going to?—”

“Uh-oh,” Sadie said. She’d gone to the window. “They’re back.”

“Who’s back?” I asked.

“PETA,” she said. “Wonder how they convinced a news crew to come this time.”

I rolled my eyes. “I knew we should’ve put a sign at the front door declaring we don’t have any lab animals on premises. I’ll go talk to them.”

“That’s weird.” Sadie leaned over the cluttered desk to stare through the window. “Is that a gun safe in that truck?”

My heart skipped a beat, then set off at a sprint. And so did I. I didn’t bother to take off my lab coat as I fled the lab to bar the invaders from the building.

Footsteps followed me, but my daily running regimen kept me in the lead. Planting one hand on the frame of the security gate, I hurdled it, setting off the alarm. “Lock the doors,” I shouted to the guard as I passed, “and call the police!” I rushed through the glass front door two seconds before it closed.

I stopped when I saw the protesters. They weren’t the usual scraggly-bearded, beanie-and-Birkenstocks-wearing animal lovers. Most of them were men, and quite a few of them were gray-haired. I was thankful they’d left their rifles in their camouflage-painted pickup truck. I hoped no one had a concealed handgun.

A white man with graying red hair that looked pinkish held up a sign that read, BIG PHARMA = BIG LIES. “Wait,” I said. “They’re not PETA.”

“No.” Tessa brushed past me. “They’re conspiracy theorists.”

16

Alien Abductions Are Real

From Barry Wright’s manifesto:

With the collusion of world governments, extraterrestrials abduct humans and implant mind-control devices in their brains. How do I know this? I’ve got friends who’ve described waking up outside with no memory of how they got there, their heads aching. My buddy Burt even remembers a flash of light and little green men looking down at him. When the aliens are ready, they’re gonna subdue Earth’s population with the press of a button.

---