Behind this page, there are the usual Gantt charts—the project manager’s tool of choice—stipulating deadlines for interim reports and clinical trials. The rest of the packet consists of the team’s CVs. Nothing new here, but I note Morgan’s curriculum vitae is only one page long, while the rest of ours span half a dozen sheets. I flip the pages back, square them, and adjust the paper clip before setting the white batch aside on the bathroom tile.

The gold packet is almost a duplicate of the one for my own team. Under the yellow cover page, the goals read:

Develop, test, and mass-produce Wernicke serum

More Gantt charts and five CVs, all documenting the publication histories and academic positions of various biologists and chemists I don’t know, are also in this set, along with Morgan’s credentials. So they’re doubling up, hedging their bets, it looks like. Hell. It’s typical government. Why have one team when you can pay for two?

The gold set goes on the pile next to me, and I move to the Red team’s packet, expecting another redundancy, but this one is different.

For one, its goal is singular:

Explore water solubility of Wernicke serum

The team members on the following pages—all six of them—are also scientists, all PhDs. Below each name is a military rank and branch. I squeeze my eyes shut to the harsh light above the bathroom’s sink and think back to this afternoon, to all the doors I passed as Poe led me down the fifth-floor corridor toward Morgan’s office.

One of the names—Winters—rings a faint, but clear, bell at the same time the clock in the living room chimes the hour. One o’clock.

Carefully, I assemble the packets as they were: white, gold, and red. Before sliding them back into the envelope, I check the Gantt chart in the white set. The timeline, a color-coded horizontal bar chart of tasks, goes back to the previous year, to November 8, the date our lab equipment was requisitioned.

So I was right. The Wernicke project wasn’t conceived yesterday. It was started seven months ago.

My legs don’t want to stand. They’re disobedient limbs, all cramped and prickly with pins and needles from sitting cross-legged on the floor for so long. I lean against the sink and stretch out my hamstrings.

“Jean?”

The voice on the other side of the bathroom door is muffled, but it’s unmistakably Patrick’s. He knocks once; then the doorknob turns.

I didn’t lock it. I didn’t think I needed to.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Quickly, I turn on the tap, letting the manila envelope slide into the narrow space between the vanity and the wall. When Patrick opens the door, I’m bathing my face in cold water.

“Holy Christ, babe,” he says. “You’re a mess.”