I slide my white key card into the reader, wondering if Lorenzo realizes how like Pandora I feel as the doors swing open and we’re momentarily blinded by the fluorescent lights that come alive inside the lab. There can’t be any evil here, I think, only the hope that also hid inside Pandora’s ancient box.

Still, something about Poe’s slip of the tongue about our part of the team—if it was a slip of the tongue—makes me uneasy. For that matter, Poe himself makes me uneasy. He’s built like a refrigerator and silent as a grave. And he has the look of a man who’s killed for God or country. Or money.

Morgan beams as if the lab were his own firstborn son and motions us to follow him inside. Once again, Lorenzo waits for Lin and me to enter before walking through the double doors.

The squeaks of a few hundred mice fly out of the cages lining the left wall. On the right, there are rabbits, sniffing silently, their pink noses twitching at the intrusion into their space. We’ve never had rabbits before, and I know Lin will have to take care of the injections when we get around to the larger animals. No way I could plug an Easter bunny with anything unless I was damned sure.

But I am sure, and that’s the hell of it. If I want to draw out the project as long as possible, I’ll need to kill a few mice and bunnies.

Lab tables, ten of them, each with its own workstation, fill the empty area between the rows of cages. Like the offices and cubicles in our department of three, they’re unoccupied.

At the end of the room is another door, also with a key-card reader. This time, it’s Lin’s turn, and once again, Morgan walks past us, into the belly of the lab.

“Holy shit,” Lin says.

Morgan twitches at this. Good.

Lorenzo utters a single Italian word, as ubiquitous and productive as English’s “fuck.” “Cazzo.”

They’re both right. This space is like nothing I’ve ever seen.

On my right are three doors, marked with the sign PATIENT PREP ROOM: PLEASE KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING. Beyond these is an open area with a bank of computers and cabinetry to hold smaller equipment. PORTABLE ULTRASOUND, TMS, and TDCS are printed on neat labels below each cabinet.

“Nice,” Lorenzo says. “Transcranial magnetic stimulation and direct-current stimulation. How many units?”

“Five of each,” Morgan says, opening the cabinets one at a time. “And three portable ultrasound kits, all with various transducers.” He reads the labels. “Linear, sector, convex, neonatal, transvaginal.” There’s a pause before the last item, as if he’s put off by the mention of female anatomy, even though Morgan should know we need the transvaginal probes for our smaller subjects. I’ve said before, he’s a shitty scientist.