She nodded and made a Hmmm sound. Then she rose from her chair and walked over to where he sat and stood behind him. For a few seconds she rested her hands on his shoulders. Then she seized one of his ears and twisted until the heated pain there was the only thing he knew. “I need you to hurry. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking. “I understand.”

“I am facing pressure from above and I am passing some of that pressure on to you. Do you understand?”

“I understand. I understand!”

“Good,” she said and released him. “I’m sorry to be such a B-word.”

“It’s okay.” He put a hand to his ear and touched it gently, making sure it was still attached to his head. He never complained, even when she drew blood or called him a weak pathetic piece of slime, which happened on occasion. They both enjoyed themselves in their own way.

She told him that he could go, and he scurried from his seat. But her voice chased after him, calling out, “Oh, one more thing.”

He bent his back as if bracing for another blow, but she said only, “Be a dear and leave the door open on your way out?”

“Of course, Director Ricketts,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

One day, a man entered the building and everyone went still in his presence. He did not look particularly formidable. Short and round and spectacled, he wore a tweedy three-piece suit. But as he surveyed the lab, walking up and down its rows with his hands clasped behind his back, people noticeably shrank from him.

He approached Isaac where he sat on a stool, half-studying a laptop screen while biting at the tip of a pen. “You’re Isaac Peaches?”

“I am.” Isaac stood from his stool and stuck out the hand with the pen still in it. “Oh, sorry,” he said and tossed the pen aside, but the small man ignored his offer to shake.

“I’m Dr. Gunn,” he said and raised his eyebrows. “I assume you know who I am.”

“Yes!” Isaac said. “Of course! Great to meet you, sir.” And then he babbled on for a moment, motioning to his laptop and hurriedly talking about some of his current work with fungal pathogenesis.

“That’s all fine and well,” Dr. Gunn said. “But you know why I’m here.”

“The symbio prototype?”

“Indeed.” Dr. Gunn removed his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief pulled from his breast pocket. “Why haven’t you tested it on humans?”

Isaac said, “Only mice and pigs and monkeys so far, but the results have been super-encouraging.”

“That wasn’t the question. The question was why not humans?”

“Because.” Isaac cleared his throat. “We’re not quite ready yet.”

“We need to be ready now.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Fetch it for me.”

“I’m sorry—what are you asking?”