Morgan claps his hands together. “All right. Let me explain this in simple terms. We have an anti-Wernicke process. It works. We all saw Mrs. What’s Her Face make the leap from babbling idiot to bunny-rabbit enthusiast.”

“Mrs. Ray,” I say. “She has a name.”

“Whatever. Now we want the same thing, but different.”

Lorenzo rolls his eyes. “You want semantic opposites, Morgan?”

If this jab bothers our boss, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he doesn’t get the joke. Morgan never was a shining star in the linguistics universe. “I want the opposite of what you’ve already given me. I want a neuroprotein that induces Wernicke’s aphasia, and I want it by tomorrow. So get to work.”

Lorenzo speaks first. “What did they promise you, Morgan? A lifetime membership to Washington’s finest girlie club? I didn’t know you could get it up.”

“Just give me what I want.”

Every pair of eyes in the lab is now looking at us.

“No,” I say.

Morgan leans over until his nose almost touches mine. “Excuse me? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said, ‘No.’ It’s a negative, Morgan. A denial to your request. The opposite of agreement.”

For the first time since I’ve known him, Morgan laughs. It’s a titter of a laugh, breathy and hollow. “It isn’t a request, Jean.” He checks his watch, sighs as if this business is taking up more of his valuable time than he anticipated, and calls one of the patrolling soldiers over to our corner of the lab. “Corporal, take these two to Room One and show them what’s inside. When they’ve had a good look, bring them back here.”

Room 1 is on the other side of the lab, through a set of locked doors, which might hold anything. I try not to think of Orwellian possibilities like rats and snakes. In any case, they’re not my worst fears. My worst fears walk on two legs and have names like Sam and Leo and Sonia. My worst fears are my kids.

The corporal, dressed in camouflage and combat boots, leads us to the steel doors. With his left hand—he also wears a ring, I notice—he slides a card into the electronic reader and stands aside as the doors slide open, revealing a vestibule and an additional door that remains closed as we leave the lab behind us. Only when the entry slides closed do I realize this space is like a tomb.

I hate confined spaces, always have.

Lorenzo reaches over for my hand. His own skin is hot; the entire room is a furnace, and sweat trickles down my face in what has to be rivers of salt, burning me underneath the bandage on my cheek. But I don’t feel warm at all. I feel as if an ice sheet has wrapped itself around me as the corporal steps forward and unlocks the next door.