Carmen hands him the SAAR pamphlet. Flipping through it he sees the disturbing images of vivisections, experimental animals mixed freely with scenes from factory farms. On the front of it is a lone rhesus macaque, the photo a dense grain of color showing that it has been scalped and one of its eyes has been sewed shut. The remaining open eye is a black stone, a dark planet far beyond the others tracing out a long elliptical orbit where it is always night.

Carmen’s head pops into Karen’s office.

“Carmen—what can I help you with?”

“I just wanted you to know that, um, despite the unfortunate event of Atif’s passing, Kierk and I are still going to be working on that project together.”

“Oh, the brain-to-brain communication in monkeys?”

“Yup! Just wanted to let you know that if we’re both gone that’s why. Like this afternoon we’re going to go down to the primate lab. But we’ll be around.”

Karen seems to be smiling subtly when she says—“Okay. Sounds good.”