It takes a few seconds before I see the gold emblems on their lab coats and the small gold squares on the key cards that hang around all the men’s necks. Here, as in the cubicle-cramped room outside, everyone keeps his head down and soldiers patrol the aisles.

“Welcome to the Gold team,” Morgan says, sounding more like a game show host than a scientist. No surprise—the man can’t find a first aid kit when it’s staring him in the face. He leads us to four square feet of unoccupied lab top and pauses, waiting for us to sit.

“Okay, Morgan. I’ll bite,” I say. “What the hell is this?”

“This is your new team.” He stretches an arm out. And you can win all these prizes, I hear him say.

“I don’t get it.”

“You will.” Morgan nods to somewhere behind me.

A man with bifocals as thick as glass brick appears and sets two thick binders on the counter in front of us, each one labeled TOP SECRET in gold lettering. Inside them are most of the data I had on my laptop. Before the bifocal man leaves, I catch another glint of gold on his left fourth finger. Morgan turns to the soldier who shot the chimp—with no time to spare, I think—and issues instructions I can’t make out.

“Gianna,” Lorenzo says, nudging my elbow. He doesn’t look at me; his eyes are roaming the lab. Then he taps the ring finger on his left hand.

The stool I’m sitting on is one of those adjustable numbers with a lever below the seat. I reach down and raise it until I can see most of the lab. Men are scratching their heads, twirling mechanical pencils, rubbing tired eyes. Every left hand I can see has a gold wedding band on its fourth finger.

And every pair of eyes holds fear.

“They’re not volunteers, Enzo, are they?”

He shakes his head.

“Oh Christ.” Every single man inside this complex is married, maybe has children. “Some incentive,” I say.

Morgan, now finished lecturing the poor soldier, who looks like he’s seen his last paycheck, comes back to us. “I need a formula, people. By tonight. By tomorrow morning, I need a working serum.”

“We just gave you the working serum,” I say. “And you have the vials. All five of them.” I steel myself for the Jean, Jean, Jean routine that he does, and grip the edge of the counter with both hands. Better to keep them gripping anything, since what they want to do right now is close around Morgan’s neck. Tight.

He smiles. “You gave me a working serum, Jean. I want another one.”

I feign complete ignorance.